“The Rebirth of ‘My Dad’

Right-wing Extremism

 

In the film The Brain Washing of my Dad, in the end the father of the producer Jen Senko had his brain deprogrammed. Things changed. He moved into a senior’s place with his wife and in the process his radio broke. No more talk radio. They bought a new TV and his wife programmed it. She eliminated Fox News from the cycle without telling her husband. She also unsubscribed him from some of the more extreme emails and posts. Instead, she subscribed him to more liberal and democratic posts. Surprisingly, he started reading some of them. He didn’t realize what was happening. Gradually, he quit listening to Rush Limbaugh and quit watching Fox News. Then he started to describe himself as “half-way between a Democrat and a Republican.” Wow! These were big changes.

 

Now some will say, his wife was brain-washing him too. She certainly was deceitful and tricky. He now accepts that gay men can marry each other. Why not?

 

Mr. Senko’s niece said a kindness had returned to his voice. He saw Obama on TV and said, “you know I kind of like him.” Jen says he is no longer argumentative. He is fun and they get along great.

 

Jen thought her father was reborn. A nice guy again. Is that possible?

Sometimes life is strange.

We can do better.

Doubt Free Zones

Critical thinking, reason, Right-wing Extremism, Skeptical Philosophy

 

Dr. Bryant Welch in his book State of Confusion said, “The sound and visual effects of Fox News are almost carnival-like, with multiple crawlers and a seemingly constant state of news crises created by ‘Fox News Alerts.”  I am aware that CNN bombards its viewers with “Breaking News,” but frankly they are much less effective. On Fox the graphics and images are vivid if not overwhelming. Americans obviously, love them. The colors are stunning. Viewers are stunned. The brain is stunned.

 

Moving images and beautiful women enlarge the distraction and confusion, but commentators, like Sean Hannity are there to give strong opinions that eliminate confusion. They make it very clear what viewers should think. Viewers know what they should think. There are no doubts on Fox. It is a doubt free zone. Nuance is an anathema on Fox. Their listeners want certainty, not doubt.

Such news shows are stimulating. Regular media looks dull in comparison. If you habitually watch Fox, every other news show seems boring. One unnamed critic said, in the film The Brain Washing of My Dad said this:

 

“This creates a mood that mesmerizes an audience and holds it captive. Then when they are captive and overwhelmed and a bit confused they have someone like Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity with their passion, and confidence and certitude tell the audience who they should blame for their confusion and uncertainty.”

 

That is a very effective strategy basically to excite and then calm the nerves.  The film really suggested it was the tool for brain washing.

 

Where there is no room for doubt there is no room for thinking.

 

Bullying and Shaming

Right-wing Extremism

 

I have repeatedly said fascism is the philosophy of the bully.  Nobody understands this better than Fox News.  They not only know it; they live it. They practice it. They are bullies. And they can be left wing or right wing,. It doesn’t matter.

 

As Jen Senko analyzed it in her film The Brainwashing of My Dad,

 

“The effect of bullying is simple. It works on two levels:

 

  1. It shuts the guest up, if they’re making a point that the bully doesn’t want to hear.

  2. Fake outrage makes the bully look justified as they try to shame their frustrated guest into silence.”

 

Rush Limbaugh on the radio was one of the best bullies.Tucker Carlson was an expert at this, so was Sean Hannity, but probably all Fox hosts use this tactic, because their viewer like to see.  People hanker to see bullies beat up (metaphorically at least) on their foes. Senko’s father used to be “a nice guy,” but he got to like the Fox hosts attack a guest or someone they were just talking about. Then he wasn’t such a nice guy any more.

 

Bullies enjoy presenting themselves “in your face.”  They like to look strong.  They love to shame others. They use verbal overkill. They are not wishy-washy or namby-pamby like other TV shows. Liberals are much too circumspect for them.

 

The primary media outlet for the right in America is Fox News. Fox News is ubiquitous. And their viewers are loyal. Loyalty on steroids. Those listeners love the outrage. And they love to see liberals squirm on camera. It gives them a. high. And Fox knows how to deliver.

 

This is unlike Liberals in America who view an array of sources. As Pew Research found in 2024, 15% watch CNN, 12% watch MSNBC,13% NPR, and 10% read the NYT. 47% of “consistent conservatives” watch Fox News.

 

97% of American talk radio is conservative and 3% progressive according to Streaming Guidelines.

 

Rush Limbaugh was showed on military bases. Is it surprising so many of the military men are strongly right-wing? They are paid to be bullies and find the position of the bully very congenial.

 

Fear and Rage on Fox

guns, Right-wing Extremism

 

In the film The Brainwashing of My Dad, there was a lot to be said about Fox News, because it played a big role in his brainwashing, according to Jen Senko.

 

Fox News is built on fear and rage. Much of it generated by Fox to amplify engagement and make more money. As Dr. Cynthia Boaz pointed out in the film, “the idea is to terrify and terrorize the audience during every waking moment…when people are afraid, they don’t think rationally. And when they can’t think rationally, they’ll believe anything.”

 

I don’t claim to be a reliable watcher of Fox News. I try my best to watch it to get the ‘other side of the story.’  I must admit that in the case of Fox I just can’t watch much of it. I have asked friends for suggestions about more sane conservative view point but have not got many suggestions.

 

Eric Boehlert said, “Fox News is built on this formula of just getting people to get really angry. It’s phony outrage…They really are acting about how outraged they are.”  For example when Sean Hannity shouts at his readers, “Obama attacks America.”  Or another example, when Judge Jeanine Pirro Judy says to her listeners, “I told you that you need to be afraid, because they are coming for you,” and points her finger at you watching on the screen. Or when David Michael Lynch says, “ISIS is coming in to America. I would bet my life on the fact. They are already here. I’ve caught these people before and I’ve seen Qur’ans, prayer rugs, you name it.”  And we should always remember this basic principle: Phony outrage=Lies.

 

As a result of all of this one young man from Cedar Rapids Iowa spoke in the film about how his father, a Fox News regular viewer was convinced that Obama would deliberately trigger a civil war. As a result, he went to the local store to fill up on ammo before the government took it all.

 

That is a common reaction in the United States to many problems.  I remember when I lived in Arizona for 3 months for about 10 years and they had problems on the news. Almost any kind of problems.  The first thing people id was to head to store to buy ammunition.

There is no monopoly on shenanigans

American Fascism, Critical thinking, Fascism, Freedom, Right-wing Extremism

Language is never neutral. Or at least it is very difficult to be neutral. In 1994 Newt Gingrich on behalf of Tea Party, the radical right wing of the Republican party at the time, hired Frank Luntz, considered by many to be a genius of a wordsmith. For example, he persuaded Republicans to refer to estate tax as death tax. It sounded more ominous.  One thing is clear, Frank Luntz is sharp. Luntz professionalized framing language to get a desired message across.

 

Thanks to work like Luntz’s, and others with his skills, conservatives talked about “energy exploration” rather than “drilling for oil.” Instead of talking about poor people they talk about “the takers.” Or even “parasites.” Or “enhanced interrogation techniques” instead of “torture.” Instead of “rich people” say “the job creators.”

 

Words are important. So is spin. And of course, both the left and the right do this. There is no monopoly on shenanigans.

 

George Orwell, that brilliant political thinker and writer said, in his book 1984, “It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.”  I think he was being ironical, for who would say that? Another brilliant and more modern writer, Robert Macfarlane said that words are critically important to our ability to understand the world. No words, no thinking. Macfarlane feared that if we no longer knew the exact words for plants or animals we would not be able to find spaces for them in our imaginations. As Carol Off recounted in her wonderful book At a Loss for Words, he told her in an interview that “to name something is to know it a little more clearly. And maybe to care for it a little more.”

 

As a life long seeker for truth about things in the natural world, particularly wild flowers and wild birds, I must say I disagree entirely.  Therefore, I don’t really like spin doctors like Luntz. Political operatives like him, whether of the left or the right, are trying to mesmerize us in order to manipulate us into supporting those who are paying him for that manipulation.

 

Off said in politics “we keep the word, but the idea it represents is lost.” I think the best current example of that is the word “freedom.”  I think people like truckers in the Convoy movement of Canada have lost the meaning of the word completely.  They mean the freedom of themselves to do anything they want, no matter what effect that has on others. That means freedom all right, for them, and misery for the rest of us. Freedom for wolves; not so much for sheep.

 

As Orwell might have said, abuse of language is the beginning of fascism.

 

Brand and Label

Death of Truth, Right-wing Extremism

 

Jen Senko in the film the Brainwashing of My Dad, described another technique used by conservatives to promulgate their propaganda. She called it “Brand and Label.” As she explained,

 

 “Branding is about creating an image that will stick in the mind. Whether that image is accurate or not doesn’t matter. Democrats, liberals, and progressives are branded as big government spenders, dishonest American hating elitists, who are all atheists who hate Christmas and are soft on crime and weak on defence.”     

 

More modern propaganda adds that those nasty liberals love “they/them and hate you” and are allowing America to be overrun by rapists and criminals at the southern border.  This is not to deny that liberals don’t sell stereotypes either but of late have been much less effective at it.

 

Another catch phrase that is commonly used on the right is the expression “liberal media.”  Or even the “lying liberal media.” According to Jeff Cohen a professor journalism, who spoke in the film  said,

 

“If you analyze news coverage, as Fair (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) has done, you will find that media tilts a little to the right. It’s sort of centre right. Republicans usually outnumber democrats it’s just pure math. And then people say why do so many people believe the liberal media myth? If you keep handing opinion shaping power to right-wingers who don’t have evidence to yell about all the liberals, the liberals, the liberals, it’s going to have some traction.”

 

Now Cohen who was interviewed for the documentary almost 10 years ago and I don’t know if the data would as clearly support that claim today. I just don’t know. I realize there is a lot of so-called left-wing media.  I would like to point out that much of this so-called left-wing media if it was in Canada would be called right-wing media or at least centrist media. However, the fact is that most American conservatives don’t get their news or opinions from media anyway, except with the one very large exception of Fox News, most of them get their information or disinformation online from social media which seems to me to be largely right-wing. So I think Cohen’s point still holds.

 

Many people—such as Senkow’s father, believe that Fox News supplies he stories the liberal media don’t want to show. Other like me say, perhaps, but at least the liberal media does not make stuff up like Fox News has admittedly done. They admitted this is what they did after the 2020 presidential election which Donald Trump lost because they were scared of losing viewers to more firmly Trump media. They admitted this by agreeing to settle lawsuits against them by election workers and others that added up to hundreds of millions of dollars.

 

Fox News does more than make mistakes. Fox News lies.

 

Tactics of Brain-washing

Right-wing Extremism

 

Jen Senko, the director and producer and narrator of the film The Brain Washing of my Dad, which I have been blogging about, some might say, interminably,  told the story of her father who had been led from being “a good guy” to a fanatic right-winger filled with many hatreds, largely on the basis of Fox News.  She found some scientists and doctors who identified some of the tactics of the right-wing  that could result in profound changes in people.

 

One tactic she called “Lie and Skew.” This is based on an insight of the German Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels who said, “If you tell a lie big enough, and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it” this is what Timothy Snyder called “The Big Lie.”  Hitler also adopted such lies. So did Donald Trump. It seems counter intuitive but the bigger the lie the better it worked.  Well, her father, that good guy believed those lies and got angry as a result.  He hate the people who he believed had cheated.

 

Another example was the claim by George W. Bush and his cronies that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when they invaded in 2003. Such weapons were never found no matter how many years they occupied Iraq. Many conservatives so strongly believed this lie that many years later they still believed, entirely without evidence of course, that Saddam Hussein just kept moving the weapons to keep them out of sight of the occupying American army. George W. Bush, to his credit eventually admitted that they never found them. Though he didn’t admit they lied about it.

 

More recently, Donald Trump has claimed the 2020 presidential election in the US was stolen fraudulently by the Democrats. He has never stopped spreading this lie because it is useful to him. He can use this to discredit the electoral system in case he is not elected. He has never provided evidence to support that claim, but always claims to be looking for it. He just repeats it over and over again as if that is enough.  And many Republicans believe it even though they don’t have any credible evidence for it either.

 

In the film The Brain Washing of my Dad, Jonathan Schroeder professor of Communications at Rochester Institute of Technology, pointed out that often news media will claim a statistic that they cite out of thin air without saying who said it or where it came from. You have to know these things so you can tell if the statistic  is independent, created by recognized experts in the field, and has been peer reviewed. If you don’t know the source you should not trust the claim.

 

Fairleigh Dickenson University’s Public Minds survey asked 1,185 people nation wide what their news services were and then asked them about events in the US and abroad. Those news services were then evaluated on the basis of how many of the viewers of various sources got the right answer. The result were incredibly interesting: Here is the order of news sources  from good to bad of those news services’ viewers:

 

“NPR

CBS Sunday Morning News Show,

The Daily Show,

CNN,

MSNBC,

No News,

Fox News”

 

You got it. Fox News viewers came last even behind viewers who watched no news at all!

 

I more or less would rank the news services in the same order though Comedy News is a comedy show.

 

Of course, to many on the right in America the only source they trust is Fox News and, of course, their own independent “research” on the Internet. I have watched it too, but find their opinions usually far-fetched. But I admit I don’t watch it often. I am referring particularly to  be a fair judge. Fox News that includes their pundits like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. Trump seems to believe everything he hears there and has in fact appointed a number of their pundits to his Cabinet or advisors.

 

I know that others disagree, but Fox News, in my opinion, based admittedly on very limited experience,  is addicted to the Big lie because it sells. It gets people angry. That’s why they had to pay nearly a billion dollars win damages when they were sued for slander. And anger is the basis of their widespread support among the American right-wing. They like anger. They get off on it.

 

For what it’s worth that is my opinion.

 

Blame and Divide

Polarization, Right-wing Extremism

 

As Jen Senko the producer of the film The Brainwashing of my Dad, said in that film:

 

“The goal is to get people so mad at each other that, (a) they don’t notice who is really causing their problem and (b) they won’t join together to oust the truly guilty parties and (c) they are then capable of feeling nothing towards the group that’s blamed.”

 

Much earlier, back in the sixties Bob Haldeman, Chief of Staff to Richard Nixon went on the Today Show and said, “all politics is the politics of division.”  That may be an overstatement but it sure has a strong dash of truth to it. Haldeman was shrewd.

 

It is a brilliant strategy and American companies with their professional advisors, including, media firms, lawyers, public relations firms, and others have proved adept at using this strategy over and over again. It has been astoundingly successful. Many liberals in America were unable to understand how Americans could vote for Trump who seemed to manifestly unqualified for the job of the presidency.  The liberals failed to understand how the strategy of blame and divide worked.

 

Rick Perlstein summed it up well: “The team that manages to divide the country and ends up with the bigger side wins.”

 

Senko’s father who was originally a liberal, and a “nice guy”, soaked up right wing propaganda for many years and concluded that American people, particularly of course, black Americans, were getting so much on the dole and social assistance that they were no longer interested in working. It didn’t matter that this was simply not true. It didn’t even matter that this was absurd. It could rile their side and divide them from their foes.

 

Manitoba learned this in the 1970s with their experiments with a guaranteed basic income in Dauphin under the Schreyer government. That study found that most people kept working except people like single moms who took the opportunity to improve their circumstances and get better job. Not no jobs as Conservatives constantly and wrongly allege.

 

As Bill O’Reilly said on Fox, “one side, president Obama and the Democratic Party want America to become an entitlement state versus a self-reliant one.” That of course is a convenient point of view for American business interests who don’t want to pay taxes for government programs to help needy people.  Because of the divide and blame tactics practiced so well by American conservatives, people who are poor, such as Senko’s dad, uncritically accept such claims as that made by O’Reilly and his cronies.

 

Please note I do not say liberals never use such tactics.  I just say the right proved very adept at using them.

 

John Williams, a professor of Sociology said this is in the film: “With African Americans the assumption is that we’re all on welfare and that we can’t get there without taking from somebody else, and that’s simply not true.” So white American working men and women are taught to hate African American workers. This strategy of painting African Americans as lazy people who don’t really want to work and prefer being on welfare has been very effective at convincing Americans that they are out to game the system. The strategy has been so effective that people like Senko’s father won’t vote for Democrats who would bring in Obama care, even if it would greatly benefit themselves, because they just don’t want black welfare queens to get the benefits too.

 

Instead of looking at the facts, Americans prefer to believe lies on Fox News such as that of Bill O’Reilly and Stuart Varney from Fox News who tells them that “welfare is very, very, generous.” Or Bill Reilly again who said, “you are not motivated to succeed because you are getting free stuff from the government. You are surrounded by goodies that are put onto you.”

 

Senkow’s father bought this line—hook, line and sinker. This is what he told her,

 

“As long as the government is supplying him the money that he needs to live on, he’s not interested in getting a job so he’ll go on year after year on the government dole and not bother getting a job.”

 

This ignores the fact that in America, as in Canada, people’s self-esteemed is based on their jobs, not on the dole they receive. I don’t believe people would take the dole and lose their self-esteem. They take the dole because they need it.

 

Blame and Divide Works! That’s why politicians do it.