General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forumshow did the older posters here avoid being radicalized by Faux and AM hate radio?
unlike many of their fellow old persons?
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chillfactor
(7,694 posts)and I resent being called a geezer! Where do you get off using that kind of terminology?
LiberalArkie
(19,488 posts)get old.. I have always been Liberal. To the left of Jimmy and way to the left of the Clintons.
Fla Dem
(27,490 posts)FOX news was not on the scene until 1996, 27 years ago. By then I was already a diehard Democrat. Mostly got that from my parents and grandparents who were Democrats.
Also growing up in a Boston suburb, the only radio was the one in the kitchen, or in the car. It really wasn't on a lot. Mostly in the morning it was tuned to the Jess Cain show on WHDH. AM radio stations didn't spew the hate and divisiveness it does now or at least in my Eastern Mass region. There were a few evenings talk show that may have been politically aligned, but no one I knew listened to them.
Two Major newspapers the "Boston Globe" and the "Boston Hearld". The Globe was more middle of the road probably leaning left, while the Hearld was definitely "Right" leaning.
In my town, it was kind of taken for granted if you were Catholic, or of Irish or Italian heritage, you were probably a Democrat. If you were more from the Anglo-Saxon heritage and Protestant you were probably a Republican.
So not exposed to the continual hate and degradation that is in our politics now.
LiberalArkie
(19,488 posts)Anyone disagreeing with the viewpoints had equal time. The local stations had to present a certain amount of news about the area that the station was licensed to. When I grew up, the network had symphony concerts on one night each week. NBC had "White Paper" documentaries on such unheard of things as Migrant labor, School, integration. Major shows that did indeed change history.
But that was when NEWS was not a profit center. The rest of the networks income paid for the news services.
A lot of difference in now and then.
albacore
(2,747 posts)No man-bun. No thumbs injured by constantly texting. Voracious reader... whole, actual books. Able to communicate with whole sentences... with correct spelling and grammar. Higher-level cognitive skills..weighing all sides. Able to understand a concept or event longer than a Tik-Tok video. Avoid emojis and acronyms.
So .... Geezer. 80 year old Geezer.
GenThePerservering
(3,164 posts)it's not intelligent.
albacore
(2,747 posts)You must be hyperbole-deprived.
Kaleva
(40,284 posts)That causes us to outright reject what Fox and RW radio put out.
True Blue American
(18,579 posts)Long before I grew into mature status. Democrats choose facts over fantasy. Not hard to do.
Polly Hennessey
(8,689 posts)were decided by me when I was young. They are the foundation I build on. I had the misfortune of living in Montgomery, Alabama while my dad attended War College (he was in the Air Force). I remember if you had a copy of Time Magazine in the house you were deemed a communist. This is where I first encountered separate water fountains and separate movie seating. Didn’t take a genius to figure out that that was fundamentally wrong.
My core beliefs never aligned with what hate radio and Fox were peddling.
Rhiannon12866
(252,265 posts)I don't even know what channel it's on. 
True Blue American
(18,579 posts)Channel hopping from MSNBC to CNN.
amusing at times. That is how I happened to see Howie Kurtz explain to Cavuto the Dominion suit was settled. It was about an hour after the other stations. Howie was the one complaining Fox would not allow him to discuss the suit. I liked him on CNN.
To see Cavuto try not to react was priceless! On the other hand watching Jake Tapper try not to laugh when he read the Fox statement was funny as heck!
Rhiannon12866
(252,265 posts)I see more than I need of it in the clips on MSNBC or the late night shows. At this minute Alex Wagner is showing Mike Lindell - and I've seen his commercials in my travels. So the news in general these days upsets me enough. I know that folks here like to laugh at it, but the fact that it's still on, after it's been proven to be lies and propaganda is infuriating enough, even if the "hosts" are currently struggling. 
True Blue American
(18,579 posts)Was instructed to pay a $5 million dollar bet? That was funny.
I had become a little disgusted with Jake and his 2 sides, but he is certainly enjoying this. Ari Melber is showing up all over. He is really enthusiastic. I almost gave up on cable news but the last few days have been hilarious.
Rhiannon12866
(252,265 posts)And, these days, I'm usually interested in the legal discussions so I post both Ari Melber and Glenn Kirschner when they're available - and Lawrence O'Donnell is another favorite with his knowledge of history and Congress.
Back in the day, the closest I had to a grandfather always followed politics, but when he turned on shows like Washington Week, I used to fall asleep. Bill Clinton was his candidate. However, now I mostly watch news, myself - and I wish I could talk about it with him now, but I've often thought he'd be heartbroken with what's happening in this country, he worked for peace and civil rights back in his day.
True Blue American
(18,579 posts)Your Grandfather would still be a proud Democrat.
LiberalFighter
(53,544 posts)BlackSkimmer
(51,308 posts)I can't for the life of me figure out why.
LAS14
(15,474 posts)brush
(61,033 posts)so why insult fellow DUers? We wouldn't be here if we were dumb enough to fall for FOX, republican, right wing extreme propaganda.
Why would you even ask something so clueless?
maxsolomon
(38,393 posts)It's really not that terrible of an insult.
brush
(61,033 posts)
allegorical oracle
(6,324 posts)original post never used that word--checked to see if the post was edited. So why do folks on here presume the term was used? And even it were used, why is it regarded as derogatory? I was told by doctors when I was 12 that I wouldn't live to be 21. But here I am...in my 70s. And proud to have arrived, no matter what I'm called.
brush
(61,033 posts)talking about it? It's derogatory a description. The poster changed it because he/she got push back from the early responders.
allegorical oracle
(6,324 posts)the question.
brush
(61,033 posts)I and several other posters responded to it as we did.
DLevine
(1,791 posts)yaesu
(9,128 posts)
Celerity
(54,006 posts)my add: This is pre MAGAt (just before, so the newest possible documentary on Fox and the RW media I know of before Trump) so shows the rot did not start with Trump. It was first shown at the Traverse City Film Festival on July 29, 2015, a month and half after Trump's infamous escalator ride/campaign kick-off in Trump Tower on June 16, 2015, so perfect timing as a harbinger of what doom was to come. The full release was on March 18, 2016.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brainwashing_of_My_Dad
Synopsis
As Jen Senko tries to understand the transformation of her father from a nonpolitical Democrat to an angry Republican fanatic, she uncovers the forces behind the media that changed him completely: a plan by Roger Ailes under President Richard Nixon for a media takeover by the Republicans, the 1971 Powell Memo urging business leaders to influence institutions of public opinion (especially the media, universities, and courts), the 1987 dismantling of the Fairness Doctrine under President Ronald Reagan, and the signing of the 1996 Telecommunications Act under President Bill Clinton. The documentary aims to show how the media and the nation changed, which leads to questions about who owns the airwaves, what rights listeners and watchers have, and what responsibility the government has to keep the airwaves fair, accurate, and accountable.
Content
Senko's father, Frank, was originally a "nonpolitical Kennedy Democrat" who began changing into a far-right Republican in the 1980s, she said. On her father's lengthy commute to his place of employment, he listened to conservative talk radio, which Senko believes started the change in her father's personality. In particular, he listened to Rush Limbaugh and watched Fox News. Towards the end of his life, Frank's views mostly changed back to being somewhere in the middle due to his wife exposing him to less biased media. He died in January 2016 at the age of 93.
snip
The Brainwashing of My Dad (2015) - Full Movie
betsuni
(28,893 posts)Republicans on TV shows and listening to them on radio doesn't automatically radicalize everyone. What even IS that idea? That old people are all wealthy gullible conservatives and everyone's an idiot?
Just like anything else, there has to be a rabbit in a magician's hat before the magician can pull a rabbit out of the hat.
This is a forum for Democrats, not idiots.
Mister Ed
(6,873 posts)Last edited Fri Apr 21, 2023, 04:13 AM - Edit history (3)
When Fox first started up, they presented themselves as a legitimate news network. But there was just something about them that didn't smell right to me.
I was younger, and somewhat disinterested in politics. Considered myself an independent. But there was just something vaguely creepy about Fox that made me shy away from them and select a different news channel.
It was the same feeling that I had for Donald Trump in those years. That guy has creeped me out for as long as he's been in the public spotlight. It had nothing to do with politics. He wasn't a politician back then. He was just creepy, and vaguely disgusting to me. When his stupid "reality" show came on years later, I would always quickly switch the channel away from it. Couldn't stomach a minute of it.
It was the same with right-wing radio. I was once hired to do some interior painting for an old lady, who asked me, "Have you heard this new Rush Limbaugh fellow on the radio? He is wonderful!" She played his program while I worked, and I sort of half-listened. His conservative political stance itself didn't offend me, but I found that listening to him made me feel a little ill. He just seemed like some sort of a sleazy, weasley snake-oil salesman, twisting and distorting everything to suck his listeners in.
In the years since, I've concluded that there are just some people who are naturally susceptible to this sort of propaganda and mass hypnosis, and that I'm not one of them. I don't think that makes me any better than them. It's just that I don't seem to be wired quite the same way they are.
Cosmocat
(15,374 posts)was at a gym when I was just out of college.
Usually they had the good classic rock to work out to, but depending on who was working they were piping in this Rush guy babbling about Limoeseun liberals and all this other contrived nonsense.
Me, I want Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Pert Rush when I am working out, not this disingenuous douchebag babbling his bs while working working out.
I mean, I was not very traveled in life, but I had never come across this vile "liberal" he was going on about all the time.
The thing that struck me, though was when I looked around, I saw a lot of the people there were tuned into it. This guy I really looked up to a well built, really smart guy who was taking the time to show me some things, this pretty girl who I crossed paths with later in life through work and am still friends with now, but who is a "conservative."
This is how the Nazis did it in Germany in the late 20s / early 30s, except replace liberal with jew. I don't know why it doesn't stick with people us, and SO many otherwise decent and good people get sucked into like a bug into the flames.
Brother Buzz
(39,712 posts)
Boomerproud
(9,219 posts)amongst almost everything else I saw on that channel. AM lost me in the 80s with talk radio.
TexasTowelie
(126,284 posts)
Captain Zero
(8,812 posts)After some time it seemed something about him was off... I may have read some things about him...and also he was so.loud and brash and just seemed like he enjoyed hearing himself talk too much. Haha. Oh and at first he seemed like he down hard on George Bush the first. Which he was but I think I came to realize he was attacking Bush from FARTHER RIGHT. MAYBE some Dems who listened to him never realized that?
betsuni
(28,893 posts)What are you talking about?
inthewind21
(4,616 posts)Was in it for the $$$. Just like all the others are. If it had suddenly become profitable to be hard liberal, they would ALL switch so fast it would make your head spin. See washed up Ann Coulter now!
There was a time when I watched the O'Riley Factor fairly regularly. Back BEFORE he went all right wing crazy. I'm almost certain not many of the hard right pundits actually believe much of what they say. But, they have found their pot of gold in their sheep viewers and they stick with it because it pays well.
FuzzyRabbit
(2,203 posts)When Fox "news" first started I realized that "fair and balanced" was a lie, and that they were in business to spread right wing propaganda.
It might have helped me that as a kid I read Mad Magazine and learned from them how to spot bullshit. and when in college I studied government and law.
allegorical oracle
(6,324 posts)positive, forward-thinking positions. Hate dissention and unfairness, especially when it turns to outright cruelty. Immediately dropped acquaintances who displayed those tendencies. Stayed aware of Limbaugh's right-wing tantrums and made efforts to work against his ilk through petitions, protests and never once missing a vote.
Crowman2009
(3,447 posts)Greybnk48
(10,697 posts)when it was still out of Madison.
BlueLucy
(1,609 posts)I would on occasion flip to see what they were talking about but every time I could not stomach more than a couple of minutes. No way!
scarletlib
(3,563 posts)Last edited Fri Apr 21, 2023, 07:03 AM - Edit history (1)
That and I am a born skeptic. My first impulse is to step back and think about what I am hearing.
Lasher
(29,476 posts)no_hypocrisy
(54,576 posts)Reagan/Bush, Bush/Quayle, Gingrich, DeLay, and other chuckleheads.
Of COURSE, I couldn't be radicalized by Fox and AM hate radio. (The first three minutes of Rush was the canary in the coal mine.)
csziggy
(34,189 posts)There was no way I could be affected by Faux Noise. AM hate radio just makes my skin crawl and always has.
It also helps that although my father was very right wing I still grew up in a household where science and facts mattered. That overrode any political opinions my father had.
no_hypocrisy
(54,576 posts)I think he was rooting for Joe McCarthy in the Army Hearings. And he loved Nixon despite his antisemitism. And he would’ve endorsed The Big Lie.
csziggy
(34,189 posts)I couldn't believe Dad was so dense. He got even more conservative as he got older, too - if you can imagine that.
What was really annoying is that he was always registered Democratic. Of course for many years, Florida didn't have Republican primaries, so if you were not registered Democratic, you missed out on voting for a lot of local races since they were decided at the primary level.
Dad died in 2013 before Trump came along, thank goodness. He would have loved TFG. He watched the local Faux Noise channel, though Mom hated it - she said all they covered was bad news.
On the other hand, in 2016 my sister put the race to Mom : "Who do you want to vote for, the business man who has never held a public office and declared bankruptcy multiple times, or the woman who has always worked for the people's good?" Mom voted for Hillary Clinton - she was always a woman's rights person, having four daughters.
Meowmee
(9,212 posts)Unless you one, have some base inclination for those beliefs and two, you are a wishy washy type to start who needs to be led and to be told what to believe. The age doesn’t matter.
We recently watched a program about a us cult which had a mass suicide… I have forgotten the name now.
Someone they interviewed said all these people were totally normal and intelligent until they were bamboozled. But when you saw all of them interviewed, and saw pictures of them, their eyes were glazed over and they looked and acted like zombies… this was before they got into the cult, and certainly during. I think drugs played somewhat of a role also. So they were already crazy and not very bright to start.
inthewind21
(4,616 posts)People fall into what they are ALREADY leaning towards. When all the hoopla about music lyrics and video games being the cause for all these mild mannered "normal" adolescents suddenly becoming criminals and drug addicts my first response was, if a video game caused your kids to become a criminal, there's was an issue with the kid, or whoever already! You'll NEVER get me to believe playing Grand Theft Auto or listening to Rap will suddenly make anyone an out of control criminal all on it's own.
wendyb-NC
(4,630 posts)Reagan, the Bushes, the that revolting fg, the republicons consider themselves and wealthy industrialist elite, financiers/ donors, the ones who call the shots, and are more worthy than the rest of us to part take in life, liberty and pursuits of a good life.
There is a nauseating self righteous, pseudo religious tone to the way the seem to regard the majority of the populace. That we the people just aren't working hard enough.
multigraincracker
(37,193 posts)CNN and MTV 24 hrs a day. Never watch either now. That was 40 years ago.
royable
(1,426 posts)Also, simply hardly watching any TV and not listening to AM radio talk shows or most anything else on radio except for NPR helped.
In my family and extended family, of those who turned far right, there were people with drive and people with no drive, there were people deeply religiously indoctrinated and people eschewing religion, there were poor people and slightly less poor people. But there was a commonality that they didn't want someone else to get something that they didn't think they deserved. There wasn't a sense of shared sacrifice, but rather an everyone-for-themselves mentality. And I think that at the root of it was fear.
Both my parents became indoctrinated by the fundamentalist xtians in their later years, turning from what I'd thought were strong independent thinkers who'd taught me to be a strong independent thinker myself, into angry, paranoid, and brainwashed sheep. It was very, very sad, how miserable they were in their later years. Nothing could bring them joy, except, perhaps on brief occasions, an experience of being out in the pureness of nature, away from people.
A good question. It made me think, and I"ll keep thinking about it.
ananda
(34,601 posts)...
eShirl
(20,138 posts)
OneGrassRoot
(23,936 posts)LAS14
(15,474 posts)John Ludi
(596 posts)of what constitutes "older", but in my case it would seem that my critical thinking skills have survived living in this insane dystopia largely intact. I just forget where I put my cellphone and/or keys more often.
Back when I was a cute lead singer in a post-punk band, my guitarist drunkenly said to me after a gig "never buy the package". A very simple phrase that hit my core and has stuck with me for all this time. Pretty much everyone has some agenda or another...whether that agenda is a positive one that serves the world or a negative one that serves only themselves at the expense of the world, it's still an agenda pushing a "package". It's important to learn to discern what is raw data and what is pure speculation driven by intent...and it's also important to learn to live with a certain level of uncertainty and ambiguity and be able to not have a solid belief on a matter when you have large gaps in your understanding of said matter. Sadly, that seems to be beyond most people in our opinion-driven/post-fact culture.
the demographic Faux does best with
John Ludi
(596 posts)twodogsbarking
(17,974 posts)They were doing the work of FOX back in the 60s but were subtle.
The coverage of African Americans and civil rights was biased.
MLK was considered a trouble maker.
Commercials disparaged minorities. I knew better.
Speaking up was discouraged and you got in trouble for it.
Things eventually changed some but not always for the best.
Never give up.
Response to pstokely (Original post)
twodogsbarking This message was self-deleted by its author.
OneGrassRoot
(23,936 posts)the racism and bigotry that was seeped into all of the whining and moaning and bloviating. It disgusted me. It equally disgusted me that others chose not to deny it. They weren't stupid people but they chose to latch onto the right-wing BS giving them someone to blame for their grievances.
The Other.
ETA: It was primarily men, obviously white men. Rarely did I encounter women who listened. It was only when Fox came onto the scene that I saw women being directly radicalized, versus being radicalized through the influence of the men in their lives.
blueinredohio
(6,797 posts)voted democrat and I was a proud union member.
we can do it
(13,014 posts)
NewHendoLib
(61,699 posts)I'm a lifelong liberal, Democrat, cynic, skeptic, and smart and empathetic. Also not a follower/joiner type.
Goodheart
(5,760 posts)and think for myself. I don't automatically swallow stuff because it has mass appeal.
Having said all that, Fox "News" didn't really become a force until after Rush Limbaugh hit the scene... guess they were about the same time.... and I was well into adulthood at that point, so I had become quite accustomed to the fact that the world is full of bullshitters wanting power.
LuckyCharms
(22,188 posts)1) My dad died when I was 11 years old. However, he managed to cram in a lot of teaching and guidance to me at a young age before he passed. He was a die hard Democrat. He encouraged me to learn about politics. He stretched and attached a huge peace of fabric over a large bedroom wall for me, to which I attached my collection of a few thousand campaign buttons, which dated back to Woodrow Wilson.
2) My parents instilling in me that Democrats are for the working people, and Republicans are for monied interests.
3) An ingrained ability to recognize bullshit from a mile away.
4) A recognition that when someone tries too hard to shove "information" up your ass, they are doing so because they have an agenda, not necessarily because it is the truth.
Emile
(41,425 posts)I don't know why, but I was curious how the opposite political side thought. At first I was listening to the pig man almost everyday. I remember laughing and shaking my head a lot. I was raised by strong union Democratic father who taught me right from wrong and no matter how much right wing propaganda I heard, I had my feet firmly planted with the democratic party. I believe we must take the time to raise our children to be democrats.
Funtatlaguy
(11,872 posts)Murphyb849
(612 posts)
FSogol
(47,543 posts)
piddyprints
(15,084 posts)I was just flipping channels and landed on Fox. I was pretty mad at Clinton for his behavior, which I thought damaged the country and the Democratic party. Yeah, yeah, none of our business what he does in his personal life. But anyone else in the country would have been fired for doing that at work. And then he lied about it. I was mad at him for putting us in that position.
I had no idea before I landed on the channel that it was even there, and I was fascinated by it. They certainly sounded different from the others. It was sort of nice that someone else was outraged by his behavior. It felt completely one-sided, which I was in the mood for at the time.
Ok, none of this was rational. It was completely emotional. That's how they hook the viewers and how they control them. I didn't watch for long (hours, not days or weeks) because something about it made me feel like I was losing brain cells every minute. It felt dirty and sort of cultish after a bit. I think I recognized that it wasn't healthy and I never watched that channel again.
What's the difference between me and the millions of current Fox viewers? How did I see the trap and they didn't? I really don't know.
Kaleva
(40,284 posts)People don't like their views challenged.
Paladin
(32,354 posts)A. I grew up in a Democratic household.
B. In college, I took an active part in the anti-Vietnam war movement.
C. I followed the whole Watergate thing---came out of it thinking Nixon was the worst president this country would ever have.
(Hey, we all make mistakes).
D. By the time Limbaugh came along, I noticed that all my business co-workers who worshipped him were dipshits.
Short answer to your question: It was easy.
Tom Rinaldo
(23,181 posts)
Irish_Dem
(80,426 posts)BlackSkimmer
(51,308 posts)I've occasionally been subjected to Fox at the gym or in a doctor's office, but they can rant all day and it won't change my mind a single bit.
Back in the day, I'd occasionally put Rush Limbaugh on the radio when I had a long drive. I was certainly in no danger of his "converting" me in any way lol.
Oddly, it was Rush where I first heard of DU. He must have been ranting about it one day, so I went looking for it!
dlk
(13,189 posts)Who in their right mind wants to waste their time?
Vinca
(53,569 posts)as it is now and the hate-for-profit model was just getting started. As an example, I remember I used to always watch Lou Dobbs on CNN, but back then Lou was sane. Maybe sanity is the answer to the question. Some of us recognize what's off-the-wall and some of us don't.
snowybirdie
(6,610 posts)Because we're as savvy and bright as you think you are? And we've had more time on earth to perfect our talents.
GoCubsGo
(34,751 posts)Can't get radicalized by AM hate radio if you only listen to FM stations. The only time I ventured onto the AM dial was on a clear night, when I hoped to be able to pick up WGN to try to listen to a hockey game. It's amazing how far their signal could carry when conditions were right. If I was in the car, it was NPR, a rock station, or cassettes/CDs.
As for TV, CNN was the gold standard for cable news for decades, so that's what I watched. By the time I was aware of Fox's existence, they had already gained a reputation for being a right-wing propaganda network, so I blocked them.
brooklynite
(96,882 posts)It tells conservatives that what they think about the world is correct.
betsuni
(28,893 posts)So stupid. What IS that?
inthewind21
(4,616 posts)It's a way to rationalize away the WHY while allowing the individual to escape responsibility. It's done ALL THE TIME. School shooting, it was bullying or mental health. 84 year old shoots a kid for knocking on the wrong door, he watched FOX all the time. Trump elected, HE CHEATED, Hillary got more votes. Even know total vote count is NOT how we elect presidents and never has been. It's a way to blame any and everything BUT the individual(s).
We can all scream at top volume all day long about the insanity that is the state of the U.S. right now. But the reality is, there is a rather large portion of the voting population who are, by choice, gullible, lazy and easily led where politicians want them to go. We can blame FOX, Republicans, Cheating, Gerrymandering, the Russians whatever we want. But it doesn't change the fact that we are all (meaning the US voters) responsible for our choices. And until the masses (including the easily led, those who vote 3rd party and those who don't vote at all) decide things need to change. Things will not change and most likely will get worse.
Fox stays on air, because viewers keep it there. Government is what it is, because the people voted, voted 3rd party or didn't vote at all. The federal courts are what they are because people voted in the congress and POTUS that selects those judges. Russian interference in the election worked, because people bought into it. Too many guns, well elect different people and you MIGHT have different results. It's shocking to see just how many don't really know HOW the government works from the POTUS all the way down to local school board and how they are ALL intertwined. How many times have you heard "Vote them ALL out"? And how many times have you actually seen it happen?
yardwork
(69,096 posts)I keep hoping it's some kind of brainwashing but I fear you're right. A lot of us are just mean, hateful, fearful people. How embarrassing.
betsuni
(28,893 posts)Last edited Fri Apr 21, 2023, 11:04 PM - Edit history (1)
My mother was brainwashed by right-wing radio after living alone, but was always gullible, not very bright, only listened to men, and always voted Republican because her Daddy did (Iowa farmer with a grudge against FDR). So not surprising.
What did surprise me were the number of people I knew who were liberal, educated, followed international current events and politics, but began believing the pro-Russia anti-America (America meaning the Obama administration and Democrats) stuff and by 2016 were repeating all the ridiculous conspiracy theories and insults about Democrats flooding the internet. I still can't understand how it happened. Educated, smart people manipulated by emotion into being not only just as stubbornly wrong as right-wingers, but even bigger assholes. I lost touch with all of them so don't know if that wore off or what.
Maybe Americans are more likely to be mean, hateful, fearful people. Something in the culture, I don't know. I'm reading David Sedaris' diary "Theft by Finding" and when he lived in Chicago in the late seventies, it was depressing, he says living in his neighborhood made him think "people are basically stupid, cruel, and violent."
Maybe it's a matter of having some sort of common sense immunity or not.
yardwork
(69,096 posts)I think racism and misogyny are at the root of a lot of it.
BlackSkimmer
(51,308 posts)Baitball Blogger
(51,902 posts)He was very clever. There were eight of us (including abuelita) who lived in very small Army quarters, and we shared 1 1/2 bathroom facilities. So he built a two shelf bookcase above the hamper, which was just outside the bathroom with the shower and bath. While we waited our turn to get in, (and you really had to wait in order not to miss a turn), I would pluck a book from the shelf and begin to read to pass the time. By the time the bathroom was available, I was well into the first chapter and usually finished it in the following days. My father was sure to pack that shelf with classics. It is what today would be called, the banned books on the bookcase.
One day he caught me reading The Godfather. He said it was okay if I read it, but I needed to find balance in my reading material. So he gave me a copy of The Catcher in the Rye.
That need to find balance was helpful when FoxNews came along. Their motto was Fair and Balanced. But I immediately recognized it as propaganda.
Oh, and I never listened to talk radio as an adult.
Now that you mention it, on Facebook I unfriended several people who are nuclear conservatives who think that FoxNews is the Truth. The latest one, this a.m.
Hekate
(100,133 posts)…of a growing child.
samnsara
(18,740 posts)thru the radio channels looking for anything that would take my mind off my drive when i first heard Rush Limbaugh. Ok..i thought.. Im tired of music so i listened...for about a minute! Thats how long it took for Rush to insult me..that very first FEMANAZI rant did it for me. I tuned back to Godsmack and when i got home i ranted to hubby about this really AWFUL guy on the radio.
so..... I think those of us on DU didnt get radicalized by 'them' because our senses were immediately insulted by what we heard, read, or saw.
Those i know who did drift to 'that side' were always very religious or born agains. Ive been atheist since i was 18. Dont know if that made a difference.
Voltaire2
(15,377 posts)At some point you have to decide to believe the hate spew.
retread
(3,897 posts)hate radio??
I must have missed all those old people chanting "Hang Mike Pence".
marybourg
(13,598 posts)(Which seems to have been sanitized lately to "you will not replace us"in the msm.
leftyladyfrommo
(19,965 posts)Paladin
(32,354 posts)
Miguelito Loveless
(5,536 posts)Limbaugh was a daily staple in my office for 8 years.
AnnaLee
(1,362 posts)If I could survive a working-class white upbringing in the Mississippi Delta without giving into its politics, religion and entitlement, I doubt that I could be influenced by anything stupid and vile.
Butterflylady
(4,584 posts)
Autumn
(48,869 posts)is religious, goes to church and are career military is a conservative. The ones who are liberal have nothing to do with religion.
msfiddlestix
(8,170 posts)And the inane clips posted here of these lunatics broadcasting their daily garbage is also ignored. by me.
I'll be 73 in the fall. I think qualifies.
roamer65
(37,852 posts)Education widens your world and when you see other perspectives, you have the “epiphany”.
niyad
(130,530 posts)Biddy? Hag? CRONE??? I wear that last title proudly, by the way.
To answer your question, I was born with a functioning, questioning brain. Lifelong radical feminist, activist, secular humanist, Democrat. . .shall I go on?
I am guessing that, questionable as your original phrasing was, the question was serious. How did we all not succumb to the mighty propaganda machine. A worthy question and study.
Tree Lady
(13,111 posts)and few years before I came here in 2004, I watched Greta because she was the best at talking about Scott Peterson case. We lived for a year in Modesto when it happened and people at work talked about it all the time.
I read that was her first year at Fox, I know she became more like the rest of them later.
I didn't watch any of their other stuff and back then they weren't as crazy. I think they started out just being sensational then got crazier and crazier.
haele
(15,204 posts)I don't tune into channels that spend their time trying to sell me something without providing a modicum of either news or entertainment. Opinion shows without objective research or respect for the subject are straight up propaganda, and to be avoided.
I got upset when CNN. Headline news started carrying opinion shows, too, instead of straight up need and entertainment news blocks.
Haele
Marthe48
(22,871 posts)Didn't listen to spew from liars
Maybe my other thoughts have an impact. People who have had an easy ride don't emphasize with people who have faced adversity, loss, bad luck. If you don't live through bad times, it is easier to blame people for choices they made, or lack of ambition. Blame the victim. I think most of the r fascists not only have skated in life, but take a sadistic delight in kicking people who are down. The people who support them are down, getting kicked, but if they can kick someone else, they get a lift.
Show me any r who has suffered in their personal life. When kasuck was 35, he lost his parents in a car accident, but I don't see that he gained empathy. Maybe he was too old and set for that kind of loss to penetrate the r facade. dewine lost a daughter in an accident, but again, it didn't change his outlook.
People like President Biden, Rep. Raskin, who suffered devastating losses, and the courageous female representatives who talk about their rape, their decisions to terminate a pregancy, and other details of their private lives, indicate that even though they suffered, they really did learn to live with their losses, and use the experience to be better, kinder people. You can be a leader and have strength and compassion.
Anyway, I think all r's suck. I didn't used to think like that, but from relatives, personal friends, and public figures, they show the same unpleasant personalty traits, and I don't want to be around them.
MineralMan
(150,888 posts)Really, I think you're overestimating the numbers on this. I was too busy with civil rights and anti-war stuff to have time to listen to right wing bullshit.
Maybe you should meet more old folks.
MineralMan
(150,888 posts)to the thread to respond to the reaction to the original post. I think that pretty much says it all.
Aristus
(71,896 posts)I've never needed anyone or anything to do my thinking for me. End of story.
Roisin Ni Fiachra
(2,574 posts)
usonian
(24,149 posts)
LAS14
(15,474 posts)The big mystery is how did others get radicalized.
FakeNoose
(40,761 posts)I gave him a listen just to see what my boss and co-workers were raving about. After maybe 3 days of Limbaugh's blatherings - constant ridicule of Hillary and Bill Clinton for no apparent reason, constantly belittling all Dems, universal praise for all Repukes whether they deserved it or not - I just turned him off for good.
This was before Faux Noise even existed. It's very easy to spot "hate" radio now, but it was a brand-new thing in the early 90's. A lot of people got taken by Rush Limbaugh and their brains went to mush after that.
Response to pstokely (Original post)
Name removed Message auto-removed
hamsterjill
(17,197 posts)I know bullshit when I see/hear bullshit and that has nothing to do with my age.
Just because some of the idiots in my age bracket fell for the stupidity spouted by right wing mega horns, that doesn’t make me more inclined to believe the bullshit that is Faux News or any other right wing rag.
Liberals are just smarter - regardless of their age.
Jokerman
(3,557 posts)Fox came along at a point when I was already disgusted by the lack of professionalism and objectivity in the mainstream media. There was no way they would win me over with blatant, right-wing propaganda.
shrike3
(5,370 posts)If I heard voices, I switched to another station.
Proud to be Woke
(59 posts)Not all of my relatives were or are left leaning, sad to say, but a comfortable majority is.
My dad took me to a George Wallace rally when Wallace was running for president of the US in '68. He said nothing about race but at my tender age I was pretty disgusted already with this candidate. I knew enough about him to know he was running on a pro segregation ticket. To this day I wonder why he never mentioned race relations or segregation during this rally. I was way too young to vote for Wallace or anyone, but all the stuff I saw and heard on an almost weekly basis from all sorts of people helped me form my value system.
I also was interested in the greater world around me, in other countries and in other cultures. My dad actually helped me in that respect since he had been a world traveler when in the military.
Mostly because of him I understood there was more to the world than the people in my neighborhood or in my school, and more than one religion than the one some of my family members had. Heck, he helped me understand about the different religions too and how and why science and religion often clashed.
I had a good civics class in high school and we learned what propaganda was and how to recognize it. So, FOX News would not be able to influence me even if I agreed with its politics, and I don't.
I learned in college uncomfortable facts about our country's treatment of Japanese Americans during WW II, just to name a few facts, and I concluded that the history of the US taught in my schools was woefully incomplete and I wondered if it was deliberately planned that way. I realized history books were written by the conquerors. I did not major in history but remained interested in it because of family members who loved it.
None of this was forgotten, nor did I grow fearful of the "other". As I became more and more interested in the arts, particularly film, I met plenty of homosexuals and it did not take me long to figure out they are people. Just people. Some of them very fun and creative people. I have made many gay friends. I am straight but fully support them in their pursuits of rights.
i even helped a person who was conservative become more liberal in his thinking. He was always a reasonable fellow. He now votes Democratic.
This thread brings me to a thought I had when said friend and I were watching a documentary on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on YouTube. I thought of how so many people in my generation used to like the hippie fashions, progressive music and so on, when quite young, but as they entered their thirties they became more and more conservative. Had they just been following fads. or had they really believed more as the hippies had and they changed?
I certainly hope and pray that the current young people who are out there protesting gun violence and inaction on climate change don't become conservative, that they remain committed, as I and many others have, to a realistic view of life.
mn9driver
(4,835 posts)We had lessons in how to distinguish between fact and opinion, and in how to distinguish between supported and unsupported claims.
This was in 1963 in Cleveland. There are probably a lot of school districts where this sort of teaching isn’t allowed now.
area51
(12,590 posts)
Scottie Mom
(5,837 posts)It’s really hard to make a 60s VN protestor who lost friends in that POS war into a RWNJ.
The big eye opener for me, however, was the Warren Report. Read every bit of it and KNEW and accepted that the US govt LIES!!!
Haven’t trusted those in power and never will after taking a very long, hard look at the Warren Report. Too many hidden agendas.
Locutusofborg
(576 posts)In the 1990s I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh every day on my drive to work. I remember Rush used to sometimes call his show the Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies and that's exactly the way I took it. No one was better at teaching me how to counter conservatism than Limbaugh. It was quite an education but I never once was "won over" to that way of thinking. But I DO understand why conservatives think the way they do.
Hekate
(100,133 posts)Midnight Writer
(25,209 posts)The contradictions (sometimes in the same sentence), the hypocrisy (it's OK if you're a Republican), the arrogant shouting (I am yelling at you because I am alpha and you must listen to me), the lack of qualifiers and nuance (it's all black or white, good or evil), the personal attacks against those they disagree with (pull the bone out of your nose and call me back), the sophomoric "kick-down" humor.
I am an avid reader and a footnote junkie. If you look up their stories on other sources for confirmation, it is quickly apparent they are either lying or misrepresenting nearly everything.
The goal of RW media is to manipulate through outrage, not to inform or educate. When you realize that, you become immune.
I don't like being lied to or manipulated.
peggysue2
(12,445 posts)I thought of her this week while reading about the 80-something gun owner who twice shot the teenager for . . . nothing but turning up at the wrong address. Like the shooter, my mother was in her 80s, living alone and steeped in Ditto-head conspiracy. So much so, we couldn't have a conversation about current events without a huge argument. This from a woman who had been raised and shaped in a Democratic household, who accompanied my grandfather to union and political meetings throughout her childhood. She idolized my grandfather, and yet at the end of her life turned into a lonely, embittered, old woman who believed everything she heard on right-wing radio.
However, unlike the 80-something shooter, my mother did not own a gun.
Thank God, for that! Or I probably would've been left bleeding on my mother's kitchen floor.
The problem is THE GUNS mixed with grievance, hate, fear and nonstop propaganda.
The propaganda is insidious and has poisoned millions of American minds. You add firearms to that?
A catastrophe in the making.
Cha
(317,750 posts)I can imagine how hard that must have been.
It's a cult of Gaslighting and Hate against Reality.. I heard via my kids that my ex husband became a "fox truther".. they think everything is true reported on there so they don't live in reality.
So disappointing. And yeah, Look what they've done to our Country and Planet.
Shine the Light on Reality.
peggysue2
(12,445 posts)Until I started to skirt any and all political or social topics. Just wasn't worth the constant brouhaha.
I have a cousin I grew up with who has also taken the right-wing bait. We've never discussed it but my husband periodically brings her FB page up and it's the expected Fox/right-wing slant on all things, grievance in high-gear, the Golden Days myth of how perfect life was back-in-the-day and religiosity in your face. Weird thing is I do not recall my aunt or uncle being particularly religious. Church-goers, yes, but not all the over-the-top, my way or the highway piety.
Sad indeed!
sakabatou
(45,938 posts)
Raftergirl
(1,814 posts)how the policies of liberal Democratic Party aligned with the things important to them and taight us why those policies/social issues were important for us. My parents recognized the systemic racism and inequality against POC. They were also vehemently against the war in Vietnam.
We are also Jewish so being a minority my parents always felt that policies used against other minorities could well be used against Jewish people someday.
I come from a very wealthy family but trying to limit taxes was completely unimportant to them. If I heard that taxes are the price one pays for a civilized society, I heard it 1000 times.
My mom will be 94 in June and is still a liberal Democrat. She worked for Obama twice, Hillary and began working for Joe until Covid shut everything down. Had volunteers living in her house, walked the beaches registering people and worked phone banks for months on end. This was all in Florida.
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(133,949 posts)Cha
(317,750 posts)from living in Hawaii for 6 years without a TV in 1997.. and then when I got one in NY I was surprised by the glitz of the Faux station.
Things had changed in 6 years.. I watched for 2 weeks and then cancelled them Forever. I could see they were full of Shit Biased Against Dems.
Then in Nov 2002 I Cancelled all MSM.. that's the year I joined DU and from what I've read m$m has only gotten exponentially Worse.. and fux sewer Got Busted by Dominion & the Smartmatic Lawsuit is UP Next. 
PatSeg
(52,581 posts)and I never watched Fox News, at least not intentionally. I may have tuned-in on 9/11 and immediately after when I was switching between news stations, trying to keep up. Eventually I settled on MSNBC. Fox to me was rather like the Jerry Springer of news, not exactly my cup of tea.
Meanwhile, I read Al Franken's book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" when it first came out, though it is highly unlikely that I would have bought into Fox's crap regardless. Franken just confirmed my initial impressions.
Cha
(317,750 posts)a strong BS Detector too.. I know it when I see it!
Aloha 
PatSeg
(52,581 posts)Apparently my sister didn't get that gene however (Fox News watcher).
Of course, we all fall for some bullshit now and then, though mine usually had to do with relationships. When the "heart" is involved, my BS detector is prone to malfunctioning. 
shanti
(21,788 posts)and other more important things to really pay attention to any kind of news. That changed in 2000 with *ush. It was a bridge too far. #demforlife
Generic Brad
(14,374 posts)Rush was entertaining at first, but once he built up his audience he pivoted to nonstop Clinton hate. He did constant veiled accusations that they had killed Vince Foster and was trying to make Whitewater, a land deal the Clinton's lost money on, sound like the crime of the century. It was so absurd, hateful, and void of evidence that I tuned him out completely. Fox news was growing around the same time and their big star Bill O'Riley was obviously a sensatioanlist liar.
It was all repulsive from the very beginning and has just gotten more hyperbolic, bullshitty and shrill since. Who needs that crap?
Peacetrain
(24,286 posts)sheesh we do not vote the same, think the same, etc etc..
pwb
(12,552 posts)Never went back to AM. I tried Fox and found their tone of voice to be scratchy and the lies obvious.
Captain Stern
(2,251 posts)I'm the rule...not the exception.
Most folks my age are NOT radicalized foxnews addicts or former dittoheads.
You should ask the minority of us older folks that did fall for that bullshit, why they fell for it.
TheProle
(3,941 posts)diva77
(7,880 posts)necessarily believe all of the tripe - their highest priority is their anti-abortion stance. They also go along with the movement because their families and social life are all tied in with the wingnut churches. It's hard to break it off and suffer the consequences of being a pariah. When phone-banking for the 2020 election, I ran across this type of person in Iowa.
Kingofalldems
(40,093 posts)Plus knowing the code words used by people like Limbaugh.
WarGamer
(18,338 posts)I do my own research and avoid ingesting "catnip" from the Left or Right.
DemocraticPatriot
(5,410 posts)I HATE those motherfuckers, and I wish them DEAD!
(may they rest in peace)
GenThePerservering
(3,164 posts)I feel like most Boomers are like being around my parents - we don't think very much alike. Regardless, I grew up in a series of redneck towns - nothing they did made sense to me. I also was in the Catholic church - the ritual was nice and I love liturgical music, but the rest never made sense to me, either. Being a bigot never made sense. Limbaugh had feral cunning but he was definitely a low-brain. I'm no genius so I have a feeling commonsense saved me.
Straw Man
(6,936 posts)... I'm not a fucking idiot.
Response to pstokely (Original post)
electric_blue68 This message was self-deleted by its author.
electric_blue68
(26,445 posts)parents. 2) We lived (I still I've in) NYC as many know a more liberal city of than not. 3) We were mostly middle middle class (though for my first 4 yrs, and my sister's first we might have been closer to upper middle class, maybe).
My mom as a 1st Gen Greek-American hated cruelty bc one of her favorite younger cousins was abused by her mother. My mom sort of took her under her wing. She also learned History in school.
She also was quite anti-racist. She had a black acquaintance in school - a "fellow" sportswoman like herself. I believe they both played on their HS basketball team. Her acquaintance was also a runner. My mom was a tennis player.
I think the experiences of her cousin, the commraderie of her acquaintance, the history she did learn about slavery in the South, sensitized her as she also experienced other white people's racism. She probably interacted with some Black people as workers, shoppers, etc, and with a more opened mind had a range of nuetral to positive interactions which reenforced her POV regarding good experiences of, with Black people. (And why shouldn't she)
She heard as she got to her late 20's about the Civil Rights Movement, the awful things that happened on the news. I was just a bit too young to be watching the 6 O'clock news just yet (the horrific church bombing, Bull Connor, the 3 voter registration activists etc). She'd occasionally point out racism in people she knew to me.
My dad didn't say much about it but I got the sense he was also offended by it, disturbed by what he also heard on TV, radio. He like my mom welcomed my Afro-Carribean, Afro-American friends into our home, and had no problems letting me go to theirs, as well.
This lead me to always be learning more about past, and current situations of the Black community in NYC, and around our country. It also made me usually comfortable around Black people as fellow NYC'rs, USA'rs, teachers, co-workers, bosses etc..
Similar levels of comfort around Asian-Americans (one of my earliest friends was white and Japanese American at least 4 grades before meeting my first Black fellow students). One of my early friends after I moved into a new school was Cuban-American. My neighborhood was 2/3 rds Jewish - cultural through to Orthodox. My parents had no problems with different religions.
All this has served me very well living in the Multiplicity that is NYC.
My dad may have wanted a son (idk). He didn't get one, but he got me his (their) first born who loved fashion, jewelry, but also especially back then "boy" things:
building things, wooden toy trains, and tracks, Science, and sports.
So in that sense he was liberal, too, in letting me learn the things that interested me whether gender "indicated", or not. My mom having worked as a head draftswoman during WW2 for Hughes Aircraft in California, then back in NYC for a different engineering firm re the war Effort, too - also wasn't always your typical woman back then. She never hindered my various Interests either.
(My mom also loved sports so they enjoyed that together. My mom was pretty smart, too, so she enjoyed learning sciency stuff as well.)
My dad had a good sense of design which I'm sure helped him as a eventually a Lighting salesman (graduated as an Electrical Engineer): in presenting the best lighting situations to clients. So I think he enjoyed a certain amount of Art. My mom loved art, and crafting.
They both supported my Artist inclinations.
Since my experiences with various people as mentioned
here were usually positive, it reenforced my POV.
While my folks had their problems which affected me (and my sister) - in these major areas I lucked out!
Looking forward to reading everyone's posts - later (!), it's 4:25+ AM, and I need to go to sleep! 😄
SKKY
(12,782 posts)...because I think it's important to see what the other side is saying about a particular issue. I don't know. I guess I've just never picked up what they were putting down. And I have never seen or heard something from them (Or for that matter OANN) that made me question my progressive leanings. They just seem like angry white people trying to scare other angry white people. But, again, I'm only 52, so perhaps I'm not in their target demographic.
canetoad
(20,410 posts)With avoiding radicalisation or anything like that.
I'd suggest that some - most of us, from the very start, didn't like what we were hearing and seeing on right wing media and excercised our option to turn it off or never give it any attention in the first place.
The above coupled with a reasonable amount of critical thinking skills is our RWBS filter.
DFW
(59,880 posts)"Monday" was the weekly publication of the RNC, and already I was disgusted by what I perceived to be the radical far right tone of it (little did I know). As a member of the press, my dad received it in the mail at his office in Washington. I sometimes used to help him out during summer vacation, and so saw these things when they showed up in the mail.
During the Nixon years, Ailes was already promoting the idea of a government media to counter the anti-Nixon he perceived in the media. Shows like Laugh-In and the Smothers Brothers had huge audiences, and they ridiculed Nixon and the Republicans mercilessly. It took 25 years for Murdoch to come to America and grant Ailes his wish of his own right wing media, but when he got it, he went in with both barrels blazing. In an early interview after the establishment of Fox "News," Ailes was asked if it was his intention to produce a straight news outlet. His answer was uncharacteristically straightforward: "We have an agenda." They did, indeed--now more than ever.
Having a dad who was a member of the Washington print press since 1950--before I was even born--almost guaranteed I would never become a Republican. The ones I did know in the 1960s were either nice guys who were entertaining or sensible (Dirksen, Javits, Gooddell, Rockefeller, e.g.) but that's because they were the ones my dad chose to hang around with when "off duty," which a DC journalist really never is. But he was also on a first name friends basis with guys like Bobby Kennedy, Sr., so i tended in that direction early as well. His main paper was in Upstate New York, so it was natural that most of the Republicans I got to know were from that state.
After meeting my wife-to-be in 1974, I started to spend as much time as I could in Europe. She is German, and I spoke her language better than she spoke English. When I was recruited for my job, to spend as much time with her as I could, I convinced my superiors to let me work there, and they said OK, if I could make myself useful there. Well, that was in 1975, and I'm still trying to make myself useful over there.
Though Germany has freedom of speech laws, they also have, for obvious reasons, laws forbidding Nazi propaganda or anything closely resembling it, and they also have a government agency charged with keeping an eye on that. Anything resembling National Hate Radio like there is in the USA has no chance there. Fox tried, early on, to apply for a license for a German language channel, and was denied. The only German language propaganda electronic media allowed was what the socialists were beaming over from the East while they were in power. They couldn't stop what local stations in West Berlin were beaming over, and the west never even bothered to try to jam what the East was beaming over. They had their own imitations of western crime shows, but with all the political correctness to make their censors happy. It was kinda weird to see a homicide division calling their chief "comrade commissioner," an using antiquated equipment, but you got used to it. Their news and political indoctrination shows, right down to the children's shows, were predictable socialist propaganda, and while visiting East Berlin, it was obvious that most of the people there didn't swallow any of it. You had to be careful, because it was illegal for more than four people to sit together at a café or restaurant without "official" permission and presence (can't have ideas spreading around like that, after all).
I met my wife in West Berlin in the days when there was such an entity. The wall didn't fall until 15 years later, by which time we had established Düsseldorf, at the other end of Germany, near the Dutch border, as our home base. Somehow, the looser attitudes of the Rheinländer suited our nature better than the stodgy, Prussian attitude of the Berliner. Our daughters, both American citizens born in Germany, both followed our political leanings. One lives in the USA, and one lives in Germany. The one in the USA has two full time jobs (her work job and being a mom to two baby boys) and doesn't get much time for any kind of media. Her younger sister in the Frankfurt area also has two children, and has still managed to be wildly successful at her job, and joined the 1% long ago. Already at age 2, one of my wife's friends dubber her "Madame 10,000 volts." She remains a solid Democrat, and vote absentee accordingly in the USA. They both know about Fox Noise, but never see it. One, because she has no interest, and the other because she lives in a country where it doesn't exist.
dembotoz
(16,922 posts)Folks i grew up with who were bigots still probably are pretty much bigots
I think we over estimated the success of dr king and the civil rights movement.
Bigotry became uncool and so it was repressed. It did not go away.
Now it is cool again
would not want to call it a genetic predisposition but it does seem that way at times
the right is sick of hiding their ideology
they want to assert themselves and make the lefties go into hiding for a generation or two
karynnj
(60,831 posts)I think this might well be true for most of the older people here.
I think the main attraction for many people to Rush Limbaugh etc was that he validated their ideas, which was something people in real life around them didn't. I listened - almost like watching a car wreck - and quickly saw that after he spewed his preprogrammed lies - that were then echoed on Fox and by other talk radio, he opened the lines and people proposed really stupid solutions. His response was always something validating the idea and praising the caller for his (occasionally her) unusual perceptions.
The people he seemed to elevate were non college educated, angry, white men. Even if my education had not made me see his views as intentionally misleading propaganda, I would have had a hard time becoming a follower as I was a college educated, STEM woman in a job that a generation earlier would have gone to a white guy - one of the stereotypes he attacked.
A quick summary - I was validated for who I was in real life and implicitly attacked by RL - thus, even if he were not totally obnoxious, I would not feel "part of that bubble". (My bubbles were places like my friends and family, my work group at ATT or Bell Labs, my synagogue, and later the John Kerry group at DU. )
Many of the RL listeners were not successful in real life as good paying jobs available for non college educated men were less available. (Oddly RL attacked unions which had created and were preserving some of those jobs that had a middle class or at least lower middle class salary.) They were, however, RL validated blaming others - women, blacks, immigrants, Democrats etc - as the cause for their lack of success.
NotVeryImportant
(578 posts)And it never ceases to amaze me how many Democrats and/or liberals are so closely aligned to "conservatism" and/or "conservative" ideas.
Racism is always just under the surface behind all this if not outright, white America lost their minds during the Obama years, even many of the ones who voted for him.