I Lost My Dad to Fox News

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/i-lost-my-dad-fox-news




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.

[Ex Lurker]

1. My mom has Fox news as her background noise to her daily activities

My dad less so. It's hard to tell how much of it sinks in, because we're not ones to talk much about politics in our family. Two things I've noticed: The obvious scare tactics, and the content is really dumbed down. I think they aim at about an 8th grade level of education.

[kelliekat44]

4. Switch the channel when she goes to the bathroom and then leave the house...Ed Show is perfect. nt

[riderinthestorm]

2. Yup. In my case its my 80 year old mom. nt

[HughBeaumont]

3. ALL DAY LONG.

Retirees don't even seem to get that it was good common-sense progressive work policies and benefits (which X'er/Millennial workers won't get and the loonbars on Faux think no one but wealthy white men should have) that allowed them to retire in the first place.

They should be thanking the social contract and shutting off that evil fucking channel.

[Laelth]

8. +1. n/t

-Laelth

[beachbum bob]

5. the tactics and strategies are working

to keep america divided, otherwise the top 1% would have some real problems.

foxnews is the propaganda outlet that fuels the divisions, human nature does the rest..

[MFM008]

6. we ran into this problem

my dads family lives in Pittsburgh, my dad trended democrat.. one of his brothers ( he had 7 and 2 sisters) gop, it caused a family rift when he and my mom (ardent democrat) got into it over Obama and fox news 8 years after my dad passed. They never spoke again.. he died last month without talking to any of us. Before this we had been prepared to go visit them in Pittsburgh..we live in WA. Sad isnt it. Especially because he looked most like my dad. Ill lift a glass to him anyway.

[liberal N proud]

7. 67 - 68 is that sweet spot where they grew up with Walter, Chet and David and Edward at 6:30

Every evening these gentlemen would come into their living rooms and "report" the happenings of the day as they happened, no commentary, no spin, just the facts.

That makes this age group easy prey for the FOX degenerates, because they grew up trusting the news and they knew they could get it from one source supplemented by the morning paper which are almost all gone now. So they continue to trust the news and they have all day now to sit and soak up the propaganda sold to them as news.

The older crowd either doesn't care anymore or they have wised up to the fact that you can't trust that box in the living room. Younger than 65 and you get into the generation that many didn't and don't trust anything that comes from the corporation.

[RKP5637]

31. Well said! That's what I was trying to get to in my post #30. I had that problem with

my mother, now deceased. She believed George Bush and Fox News. I finally got her switched around to MSNBC. She was way too trusting, thinking news outfits were factual and had at that time not gotten that outfits like Fox News are propaganda mouth pieces.

And, it was difficult getting her to collect her social security. They had convinced her she was a welfare recipient and cheating the US government. Finally, she wised up. That crap she had gotten from the AM radio hate jocks.

Many older people are just too trusting, and exactly as you said, "67 - 68 is that sweet spot where they grew up with Walter, Chet and David and Edward at 6:30."

Times have changed sooo much.

[Historic NY]

9. Block the channel using the child lockout if he has a box...

then tell him they went out of business.. I just delete the channel from my line up.

[meanit]

10. This will not stop

until some safeguards and rules are placed on the radio & cable news industry. Cable has replaced broadcast stations as the main source of tv reception, and the radio airwaves are simply being abused.

Sadly, many still scream free speech as the pure propaganda continues to do it's job.

Free speech and the truth are now the opinions of the highest bidders.

[Laelth]

14. Our 1st Amendment, as always, is both a blessing and a curse. n/t

-Laelth

[meanit]

19. Before media de-regulation

and the destruction of the Fairness Doctrine, our 1st Amendment was actually stronger. If people really wanted, most could be heard across the media without being totally ignored, shut down, made fools of or ganged up on by the opposition. It wasn't perfect, but it did level the playing field a bit. The Conservatives "message" wasn't rejected because they were not given equal time, it was rejected because their message could not stand up when questioned or scrutinized.
Now that they have destroyed the tools that helped keep the media somewhat fair, Limbaugh and the rest of the AM radio clan can scream their propaganda hate at Democrats, unchallenged, 24/7. FOX news blares their anti-Obama / anti-anything Democrat agenda 24/7, mostly unchallenged, except for the occasional "liberal" they allow on, that they then promptly gang up on and make a complete ass out of. The conservatives had to remove the rules and then purchase the messengers in order to give their "message" any legitimacy at all.

What the right wing has done and is still doing has nothing to do with America's 1st Amendment rights.

[Laelth]

21. It's OK to lie in the US. Always has been, probably always will be.

Canada banned Fox News because they lie. Our 1st Amendment is precisely what allows Fox News to lie without consequences.

I agree with you on several fronts. Corporate (conservative) control of the media has a net negative effect on our entire society. It's a bad thing. With that, I agree, but unless we want to abolish the 1st Amendment (or severely curtail it), we're stuck with lies parading around as "news." I highly value the 1st Amendment. It's a unique, American creation. We are vastly more tolerant of divergent thought and speech here than any other country on Earth. That said, there's a downside. We have to tolerate lies.



-Laelth

[meanit]

22. I just don't see

how reigning in the deliberate feeding of lies passed off as factual news is against the 1st Amendment.
If I give a false report to a police officer, I will be arrested. If I heckle and disrupt an organized meeting, I will be removed and possibly charged with disorderly conduct. If I walk up and down the street with a bull horn speaking my political opinions, I will most likely be charged with a noise infraction. If I yell fire in a crowded movie theater, I will most likely be arrested for inciting a riot.
There are some places and instances where the freedom to say and do anything can have serious consequences. Lying about news to the American public in what is perceived and expected to be in an official capacity is one of them.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and the free speech to say what they think. But the news is not an opinion and opinions are not the news.

There should be consequences for the deceptions that FOX and the other offenders pull.

[Baitball Blogger]

11. I'm glad someone finally admitted it.

[enough]

12. My parents went from active left-wing democrats into Fox News right-wingers

in their late 70's. This went along with an absolutely horrifying descent into racism. It also coincided with a descent into actual dementia for both of them. They died in their late 80's.

[Laelth]

13. Interesting. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[tridim]

15. Both of my parents are lost to Faux.

They are now living with constant paranoia at a time in their lives when they should be relaxing and enjoying themselves (they have plenty of retirement $$$ saved). Faux doesn't let them. Instead, my father bought guns to protect himself against all the fake bad guys Faux warns him about daily.

[Proud Public Servant]

16. Whereas my 80-year-old mother

doesn't have cable, and is still the same old-school Roosevelt-Humphrey liberal she's always been. So there may be something to this.

Mom

[Dawgs]

17. OTOH, My 71 year old white Mom has cable, watches MSNBC all day, and loves Obama.

[Proud Public Servant]

18. Good for her too!

True Blue moms

[Proud Public Servant]

20. Actually, let me give Dad equal time

(My post about mom is above.) My father passed away over 25 years ago, at the age of 55. He'd grown up in a Democratic household in Chicago; his father was a precinct captain for the first Mayor Daley as well as an immigrant and lifelong civil servant and a photo of JKF praying was prominently displayed in their home. As far as I know, he was a registered Dem his whole life who voted the party line, as was his wife, and they raised two kids who were the same.

My dad died before the advent of Fox news, or even cable tv. But in 1984, when AT&T broke up, the subsidiary he worked for shut down and he was forced into early retirement (he was 53). With no plan, no real interests or dreams to pursue, the kids out of the house and the house itself paid for, he simply went out to the garage every morning and stayed there all day, puttering, drinking, and listening to am talk radio. He was dead in 2-1/2 years, but in that time transformed from a moderate Dem into the kind of hateful, racist crank that now dominates the GOP. In fact, with the '88 Iowa caucuses only 9 months away, one of our last conversations was about which Republican candidates he liked best. I never thought I'd see the day...

Conservative media is poisonous to the soul. You'll never convince me otherwise.

[seabeyond]

23. i did for shy of a decade. he shook himself loose though. nt

[Populist_Prole]

24. To all too large a degree, I have too

While he was always preachy, always has to be right etc by nature, and right of center ( as was myself 12-15 years ago ) he wasn't political and we got along really good. Since fox news and RW talk radio he has become very political. He started politicizing everything to the point it took a great amount of skill conversing with him to word the conversation just so he couldn't politicize it. His preachy nature on top of that made, for a while, being with him absolutely insufferable. He also hung with a small crowd ( as he does now ) that caters to him, thus emboldening him and making him believe the bubble is a microcosm of the USA.

But the thing that I really noticed, as others have up-thread have noted with their own, was how constantly ANGRY he was all the damned time, and how he seemingly hated every thing and everybody except outside his bubble. I too thought of how sad it was/is: He's retired, reasonably healthy, fit for money just fine; should be adopting a live and let live bliss retirement and enjoying what's left of life. Now he keeps guns all over the house, so paranoid is he....and this in an affluent area so sterile, it may as well be a gated county.

At least lately he's toning it down somewhat. He's begun to realize that it's poisoning relations with family, and more importantly, that it's making him all fired up when he should be in better spirits. He's said so. I think he is still very right-wing, but that he's mellowing out more to resignation than a change in ideology.

[nilesobek]

25. Rec. Great comments. Basic human themes.

At 50 I wonder how disconnected I was with my parents. Way before Faux News, they acted like people who watched it 24-7.

[upaloopa]

26. I am 68 and would never watch FOX news

I get most my news right here at DU.
It bothers me that DU has so many stereotypes that the younger posters adhere to. My guess the conservative old white men were never hippies or 60's radicals. They were just as right wing then as they are now only we didn't couch everything in right vs left back then.
There were those who accepted the status quo and those who challenged it. Most of us who challenged authority back then still do despite the DU myth that the older we got the more conservative we got. We still want a progressive country and we want that for our kids and grand kids.
I guess I'll just have to live with the DU myths because they aren't likely to change.

[RKP5637]

30. Many often fail to realize there are also many younger people who do the same. I recall well

in the 60's thinking the old farts back then would eventually be gone, well, they're here now, and 50 years from now, the youth of today will still be dealing with them.

And, I'm not different than I was in the 60's protesting, and the people I know are still all the same. It is a definite misnomer for anyone to think all older people are suddenly conservative.

I think what does happen, is outfits like Fox News corral the older RW together, so, they are suddenly visible. Hence, many think IMO old = RW conservative.

That said, I do think some older people get suckered in. They want to be trusting and do what they think is right, but not getting they are getting suckered in by trash like Fox News. Fox News and the like are similar to being on habit forming destructive drugs.

[llmart]

33. I'm 65 and agree with you 100%.

The people I knew when I was a young person who were bucking the system then, still do and are mostly still Democrats. The ones who now listen to Fox News or Rush were always "old" even when they were young

[RKP5637]

27. Brainwashing for profit! Fox News hit on the recipe combining hatred and fear with patriotism

and religion, and casting progressives as the villains. It is a clever scheme for profit, but is a cancer eating away this country.

Fox News does not give a fuck, they only care for profit. As time marches on, Fox News will slide farther and farther into the gutter of humanity as an obsolete voice, written off in the future as a plague.

Many older people IMO, not all, do not get the changing landscape of politics in the US, that they are being played for suckers. And, one also has the choice of hate ridden perverse hate jocks on radio and the net. They are cut from the same diabolical cloth.

[reformist2]

28. Their narrative requires them to amp up the hysteria with every Dem victory.

[Ed Suspicious]

29. Usually driving busted minivans with nobama and obummer stickers on the bumper.

[Viking12]

32. worse than Alzheimer's

[noiretextatique]

34. my mom just turned 80, but she is black

She watches Faux just to argue with the TV. Mom!

[hrmjustin]

35. Foxnews is the work of satan.

[awoke_in_2003]

36. My dad is 67...

and still a liberal, thankfully.

[ScreamingMeemie]

37. My father will turn 70 in July.

As the years pass, he becomes more and more liberal. I have watched him cry over the death of his brother when AIDS was new and we didn't know what we knew now. I watched him wonder why his brother couldn't tell him he was gay. I watched him slowly turn from an anti-Union white-collar brewery exec to a union supporting LTTE writer. I watched him sit in disbelief when so many of his generation told Obama to take his hands off their Medicare to pay for "socialized medicine." I've seen him quietly argue his points in bars. I've seen him ask bartenders here in Houston to please change the channel off of Fox. I've watched. I've seen. And I'm so proud and glad to call him my father.

[Bigmack]

38. Beware of the "getting older means getting more conservative" meme....

I'm 70, and I don't think I've ever been as far left as I am now.

Maybe the same thing is happening to me that you describe happening to your dad.... only the other way. The shit I hear just drives me nuts. Much more than during Vietnam, Nixon, and even Raygun.

[HeiressofBickworth]

39. My mother discovered Fox

and thereafter watched constantly. She died in 2006. When challenged why she watched Fox, she said because they are fair and balanced -- I told her it it wasn't so just because they said so.

Later I figured she liked Fox because it gave voice to the hate and bitterness that was always just beneath the surface with her. She gave way to it the older she got. I broke contact with her in 2003 -- no love lost on either side.

I wonder if that is the case with people who take up Fox -- it taps into something they had been suppressing all their lives.

[spinbaby]

40. What's really horrifying...

...is that some of the Fox zombies are in congress. And others are in positions of power. Remember how Romney watched Fox and was convinced he was going to win?