Kids are also just ridiculously vulnerable to radical ideologies. It’s entirely possible this guy thought Trump wasn’t extreme enough.
I’ve always said that if the wrong person love bombed me at exactly the right moment in my life I could have easily been part of a cult. 20 year old me needed a fucking hug and would have worshipped Marmaduke or whatever to get one. Even in my 30s at exactly the wrong moment I could have gotten sucked into some fucked up shit because my life had several extremely negative things happen all at once.
That’s me right now, in my early 30s and the last 14 months has just been a non stop onslaught of bad. I have to rebuild my social circle from the ground up. Doing my best not to get into anything I’ll regret later
Keep your chin up. You’re absolutely not alone. By the sounds of it part of what you are going through is part of what I went through.
I’ll say it ain’t easy, but after I did come out of it (only one largeish regret!) things ended up better than ever. It took a lot of effort and more luck than I’m willing to admit but it was so worth it.