I lost my dad to Fox News: How a generation was captured by thrashing hysteria

[hue]

http://www.salon.com/2014/02/27/i_lost_my_dad_to_fox_news_how_a_generation_was_captured_by_thrashing_hysteria/

Old white people are drowning in despair and rage. Here's how my father lost his mind -- thanks to his cable diet

Old, white, wrinkled and angry, they are slipping from polite society in alarming numbers. We’re losing much of a generation. They often sport hats or other clothing, some marking their status as veterans, Tea Partyers or “patriots” of some kind or another. They have yellow flags, bumper stickers and an unquenchable rage. They used to be the brave men and women who took on America’s challenges, tackling the ’60s, the Cold War and the Reagan years — but now many are terrified by the idea of slightly more affordable healthcare and a very moderate Democrat in the White House.

We’re losing people like my father to the despair of Fox News, and it’s all by design.

My dad is 67 years old, a full year younger than the average Fox viewer, who is 68, according to an analysis in New York magazine by columnist Frank Rich. I’ve read accounts of people my age — 40 or so — losing parents to cancer or Alzheimer’s, but just as big a tragedy are the crops of grandmothers and grandfathers debilitated by Fox News-induced hysteria.

I enjoyed Fox News for many years, as a libertarian and frequent Republican voter. I used to share many, though not all, of my father’s values, but something happened over the past few years. As I drifted left, the white, Republican right veered into incalculable levels of conservative rage, arriving at their inevitable destination with the creation of the Tea Party movement.

When I finally pulled the handle for Obama in 2012, my father could not believe how far I’d fallen. I have avoided talking politics with him as much as possible ever since. Last week, I invited him to my house for dinner with the express purpose of talking about politics and most especially his Fox News addiction. Since he retired, he only watches Fox. As we started chatting up politics, I repeated one mantra over and over: “Please, please, consume another source of information.” I repeated my plea a dozen times. He defended with stridency his choices, citing his favorites, like Stuart Varney, “The Five” and the great Charles Krauthammer. When it came to any other source of information he was emphatic.

[GeorgeGist]

1. My condolences.

For many boomers, I'm afraid, Fox is the only alternative to self loathing; they fell for Reagan's bullshit.

[Ilsa]

2. So sad. The father will

probably die younger because he listened to so much hate-speech.

[Arkansas Granny]

3. Being in that age group myself, I don't understand it.

The people I know who watch Fox news don't get info from any other source, never fact check and get really upset when their "truth" is challenged or proven wrong. You just can't have a discussion with them. If you don't agree with them they either try to shout you down or they belittle and ignore you. They live in blissful ignorance.

[arcane1]

27. Anger, fear, and scapegoats can be addictive, and Fox manufactures all three.

My parents get waaay too much of it. Especially my mom, who has swerved further right now that they are both retired and she's spending more time watching Fox.

It makes me nervous whenever I go back and visit. While I would never try to argue with them, I don't want to see or hear that crap either, and I hate to see them fooled

[abelenkpe]

4. I lost both parents, an uncle, brother and sister

To FOX. They back up their hate fueled FOX news with stories from sites like WND and Free Republic. It's impossible to talk to any of them for more than twn minutes without having them parrot some right wing pundit and belittle me and my husband for not drinking the same koolaid. They take their right wing rhetoric so seriously my parents have refused to visit my kids because we are the liberal enemy. My dad has never met my daughter who will be eight this summer. Thanks FOX news! For poisoning my parents brains to such an degree.


BTW, my mom was a lifelong democrat. My father a huge fan of RFK. Something happens when one is elderly and shut inside with nothing but FOX droning on 24/7. It's a disease....

[3catwoman3]

8. That is so ...

...very sad. Your parents should be ashamed of themselves for being willing to miss out on what should be one of the most joyous relationships of their lives - that of a grandparent and grandchild.

My soon-to-be 92 yr old mom was a lifelong republican who saw the light in the past few election cycles. She and her 87 yr old sister are huge supporters of President Obama. She bought herself an iPad after my dad died in 2011, and regularly forwards me liberally oriented articles . She loves Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow. It can work the other way - I hope your parents can soften their hearts.

[abelenkpe]

11. Me too

It gets increasingly difficult to explain to my kids. Your mom's story gives me hope!

[Redfairen]

5. This is my mom but w/o the ranting. She stays silent which is more disturbing.

I remember when I first saw mom watching Glenn Beck. It soon became apparent that she was watching him all the time. It alarmed me because she had always been a self-proclaimed centrist. Beck is gone from Fox but she stayed loyal to the network. I never bring any of this up with her myself because I don't want to start in. That said, her occasional off-handed remarks make it clear she's not the woman she was before. She never goes on the attack. It's her indirect asides, her occasional allusions, which reveal the change.

I feel like I've lost something irretrievable. She's 78 and I have no intention of trying to change her. It's not worth a harangue. We're now almost 100% silent to each other on matters of politics. It's a quiet mourning.

I love you, mom.

[Dustlawyer]

6. I believe that Fox hired Psychologists to help them craft a method, or formula to make

their viewers believe that minorities and the poor are the ones taking from them. This formula is designed to make their viewers intolerant, angry, and under attack. The result is a blind following of people who vote against their interests! Pure manipulation!

[delete_bush]

10. Fox has been in the propaganda business

since the early '30s, when they helped introduce Hitler to the German public.

[Jackpine Radical]

28. That's reasonably correct.

The scientific manipulation of public opinion goes back to the era between the Wars, when Bernays (a nephew of Freud) started applying depth psychology to public relations & advertising. John Broadus Watson, the founder of American behaviorism, went straight to Madison Avenue when he lost his academic position at Johns Hopkins as a result of his affair with his grad student & co-author, Karen Rainer. The trade is plied by many these days, and none of them are subject to any sort of ethical constraints.

[Doctor_J]

7. Same thing happened here. My dad was a JFK/LBJ/RFK/McGovern Dem when I was a kid

He was a thoughtful, kind-hearted soul, the son of a union plumber. He died last year a mean, bitter old racist, due entirely to Fox. It is not an exaggeration to say that Fox has destroyed most of what made this country great.

[johnlucas]

13. Are you serious?! MCGOVERN?!?! How did this happen!

Brainwashing by broadcast.
Older people can be more susceptible to con jobs.
Something deteriorates in the brain—the part that governs judgment.
It's how elders are known to be hooked in by scamming telemarketers, false emails, & crooked preachers.

Combine this with a growing loneliness as lifelong friends & others of your generation begin to pass away & it's a recipe for catastrophe.
If retired & not mixing with diverse circles of people like they may have done in their working days, it can make them easier to cocoon in front of a stable constant din like Fox News provides.
Also, any lingering angers & prejudices held in their younger years as the world changed before their eyes come out.
The bitterness & vitriol comes from a sense of growing powerlessness.
Aging sucks! Your body breaks down & you don't have the ability you had when you were 20-something.
Fighting back with your views is a way to feel powerful again.

And since we are taught to look up to elders for wisdom or at the very least be respectful if an elder is wrong, they don't get checked on their foolishness as much allowing it to fester & grow.
And really how DO you confront an elder & not look like a villain?
They may have health issues & you don't want to upset them into an early grave.

All of this is how this Fox News propaganda seeps in.

And here's the catch.
NOBODY is immune from this type of brainwashing.
You can say you'll never be like that when you're 65 & up, but you're only saying that at age 20, 30, 40.
The same saying as I hope I never grow up like my mother/like my father/like my parents...
...and when you get to the age they were when you said that, you find out that you're just like them.

Once you start talking dismissively of the younger generation or even pointing that there IS a younger generation, you're already on that road.
I think this stuff starts in your 30s once little kids you knew suddenly becomes teenagers & young adults.
The things they're into are different than what you were into.
They don't remember or remember as accurately the stuff you grew up with & you begin to resent them for not knowing or not even wanting to know.
You'll start putting down their music & their many ways of expressing themselves forgetting that you had music & expressions generations before you didn't like.

I told myself back as a teenager to stay alert of this fact & fight that tendency.
I have to KEEP alert & watch for those tendencies in my 30s. I will do the same in my 40s & 50s.
I will age, can't stop that, but I don't have to be an old fogey.
You can get old physically but don't get old mentally.

Staying young-at-heart offsets a lot of this.
That little kid in me will never die.
I don't believe in age-appropriate clothing.
I go to work & bring my backpack adorned with a 1UP Mushroom from Super Mario.
I still love cartoons. I still like acting silly just because.
And even with all of this I STILL have to watch out.

What happened to your dad, Doctor_J, can still happen to me.
It can happen to anyone. Even you.
Be aware & fight those tendencies.
John Lucas

[Jackpine Radical]

29. OK, I'll take the challenge.

I'm pretty sure I won't devolve into a ditto head when I'm 65.

The major reason for my confidence in this is that I turned 70 last October.

[KT2000]

33. good post!

It is what FOX gives the viewers - that is why they get hooked.
Adrenaline of hate - that in itself is addicting
Adrenaline of fear
Feeling "in the know"
Superiority over others - poor, minorities, immigrants, etc.
Immediate bonding with other FOX believers
Poor health - high blood pressure, cardiac issues,

We always have to remain vigilant of how we regard others - and dealing with elders is especially difficult. I was taught to respect but that just does not hold up when some are espousing racism and hate.

[no_hypocrisy]

9. I too lost my father.

90 years old. Watches FOX 24/7. Is unduly agitated by what they tell him. Hates, HATES, HATES Obama. (Refers to him as Emperor Jones, a 1930's film with Paul Robeson). My father cannot entertain other facts that will contradict anything that Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Megyn Fox, etc. tell him what to think.

And consequently my father is a very unpleasant person to be with. I mean in other ways that FOX. He now has an explosive anger personality disorder where he explodes and shakes in anger over meaningless things like when I try to take away his recyclables, when he wants me to move my car from the driveway so he can get out. Stuff that is an exaggeration for a response to the situation at hand. I totally blame FOX. He was quirky even a decade ago.

It's not dementia or Alzheimer's.

I just don't know my father anymore.

[Iris]

36. It could be depression.

Explosive anger is a sign of depression.

[no_hypocrisy]

38. Thanks Iris. You may be quite correct.

About six weeks after I wrote the post last year, Dad died.

We found his handwritten entries in a notebook where he did in fact confess that he was depressed.

He wasn't thinking straight. And we have a clusterfuck of estate administration to prove it.

Thanks for the comforting words.

[Iris]

39. I'm not sure how I landed on this page from 2014.

I'm sorry to hear about your Dad. It's sad that you didn't know what was going on at the time, but at least you know something from the journals. He was just not himself at the end. But I know you still loved him.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. I read once that the "grumpy old men" phenomenon is a real phenomenon

Many men do get grumpy with age as they realize that the end of their life is drawing nearer and they've never accomplished what they had dreamed about in their youth.

Some of them can't accept that sometimes your dreams were unlikely to come true anyway or you made the wrong choices or that societal forces bigger than yourself thwarted your plans. Take the guy who wanted to be a pro athlete and never made it past junior varsity in college. The guy who wanted to start a business empire and ended up managing a dinky little clothing store. The guy who married the wrong woman but doesn't believe in divorce. You all know the stories.

So they're angry. But they can't blame themselves, because that would damage their precious little male egos. They can't blame the American system, because they are very conventional and that would make them unpatriotic. They can't analyze their situation, because book learning is for nerds. So they are prime receptacles for anyone who tells them that it's the fault of The Other.

[Thor_MN]

14. Wow, hate men much?

That is one of the more sexist rants I've seen in awhile.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. No, just the grumpy ones :-)

and I DID read that men tend to get grumpier as they age, and I have observed the phenomenon many times. And it explains the demographic of Fox News' audience.

There are grumpy old women, too, but far fewer, since the older women always just assumed that they'd get married.

[Thor_MN]

16. Did what you read include "precious little male egos"?

Or are those your words?

BTW, my grandmother became a grumpy old fox news watching woman, so I am well aware that the "Grumpy Old" phenomenon isn't sexist, but your post was.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

17. Because the whole time I was growing up, I was told to honor and pamper the male ego

That's what young girls were told in the 1950s and 1960s.

"The male ego" was used to justify all kinds of bad behavior and as a reason that women weren't supposed to criticize.

Fortunately, that excuse isn't much used anymore. But it was when those guys were growing up.

[Thor_MN]

18. Ah, so you blame your sexism on your upbringing.

Understood.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. No, it's not "sexisim." It's the way everyone was raised in those days

and some people have outgrown it. The Fox News types have not.

I have seen the effects in my own extended family. The macho-macho men are all Fox News buffs, and they weren't terribly enlightened to begin with.

[Thor_MN]

20. Your post was sexist and there is nothing that can change that.

Apparently you don't see it, or feel that it is justified in light of the far more prevalent sexism used against women. However you justify in your mind, feel free to double down again with more terms like macho men, I'm moving on.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. You really have a bee in your bonnet about this

It's a FACT that the Fox News audience is largely male and middle-aged or older. The ones I've met tend to be angry at the world in general.

That's my explanation for it. If you have a better one, let's hear it.

Until then, I'm done.

[Thor_MN]

22. I haven't been talking about the OP. YOUR post was sexist.

No, I don't have a bee in my bonnet, I just don't happen to care for sexism and hypocrisy. You can deny and deflect all you want, your post was sexist. In the past, I've agreed with much of what you have posted, I was quite surprised at the tone of the post I initially responded to.

The topic of the OP has little to do with your choice of words. I agree with your "Grumpy Old" concept, but you decided to couch it in derisive terms and apply it only to males. I've heard racists attempt to explain use of the "N-word" similarly to how you tried to justify "precious little male egos" - neither seem very valid to me. Hopefully, you may be able to outgrow your upbringing, it's the only way we can effect change faster than letting "isms" die out with the generations.

[butterfly77]

23. K&R..

[Bill USA]

24. this seems to be both a psychiatric and social problem which really deserve study. Else Democracy

is in trouble. Of course, FOX News isn't much different than the Hearst Papers of early 20th century which pandered to ignorance and was hostile to any attempts at rational resolution of issues.

[Arugula Latte]

25. I'm curious as to what DUers think will happen in the future ...

Will this grumpy rightwing entitled selfish mindset dwindle as the current Fox News generation dies out (let's say Eisenhower people, born largely in the 30s) or will people just continue keep aging into this mindset of idiocy and susceptibility to moronic hard right propaganda in a never-ending stream?

I don't hold much hope for my generation (old Gen X). We were the Reagan Youth and a lot my peers have been conservative ever since.

[Rod Beauvex]

30. -

There are far, far more younger Republicans than many people here seem to think.

[Skittles]

26. if you can stomach Fox News long enough to monitor their latest outrages

you can predict the opinions of every Fox-fan asshole - that station does their so-called thinking for them

[Thinkingabout]

31. It isn't that old men get so grumpy as they age, they were probably grumpy all of their life.

When you are indoctrinated with talk shows 24/7 it is probably depressing. I work with seniors, they are active and happy, they participate in community activities. One problem with getting older sometimes the decision to stop driving really limits their activity. As advice to those approaching retirement age is to create interest in reading and hobbies one may be interested in doing before retiring. If the person has only worked and no other interest retirement is going to be difficult and this is when addiction to FOX and talk shows will become a problem.

[peace13]

32. My mom has been gone for many years....she's still alive....

...but fell to Fox during the Cheney administration. She says she has a right as an American conservative to be informed! Um..OK but you will have to do that elsewhere. Not in my home thank you very kindly!

[pansypoo53219]

34. starts w/ am hate radio. tho my paternal unit always swung rite. ditto heads morph into fux gnewz.

[grasswire]

35. my older sister

a teabagger now, although she was always bigoted and authoritarian.

[Teamster Jeff]

37. K&R - Sadly, propaganda works