More Stories from Real People Who Have Lost Loved Ones to the Far-Right Media Machine
Anna, Arizona, 10/18/24
Coming home from the US army to changed parents and family
My name's Anna and I am from Arizona. I grew up in an Eastern European household and community which is known to be a very traditional and 'conservative' culture, but my family was very liberal in comparison to many other families around.
I never did fit in with the others within my community, having a more tomboyish personality rather than what is 'expected' for what is supposed to be my role as a female, and after struggling with depression throughout my teenage years I grew up and joined the Army on a whim. My time in the army had changed me, as anyone hopefully would seeing the world and meeting so many different people. I had a difficult time coping being away from home, but I did my time, fulfilled my contract, and after being discharged I returned home.
Except it was not the home I remembered.
There was various Trump and Trump-related paraphernalia all around the house, my parents would watch Fox News all day long off-work, scarcely watching anything else. It was a cult-like environment, with 'bible study' groups meeting up and talking about nothing but Trump and politics as well as conspiracy theories and propaganda. Unsurprisingly I was constantly insulted and ridiculed for my lack of support for their preferred candidate, despite my efforts to be impartial.
From insulting my intelligence to even insulting the US Army itself, any time they tried and failed to 'open my eyes' or 'make me see the error of my ways' they would always resort to insults to demean and degrade me. Sometimes I remember how proud my father looked when he saw me in my formal uniform, and I feel this searing spite within.
I remember a time when my mother used to embrace me and encourage me to do better when I was down. No longer is my dad a funny guy who told good stories, and no longer is my mother kind and sensitive. They have been stolen from me, killed by this propaganda machine, and I hate that I cannot do anything about it.
My time home is so far the most miserable I have ever been in my life, but least the people they were exist within my memories.
Robert, Mid-Atlantic, 9/10/24
My dad was brainwashed and angry with people who did not share his views
My dad was a great guy, coach and science teacher. After listening to Rush and Sitting in front of Fox News all day, he was no longer a nice guy, thought anyone other than a conservative was collectively working to destroy the country. He and others in his conservative circle bought six months of dried food when Obama was elected because it meant the end of the world was coming.
As a teacher of science, he suddenly did not trust scientists, or universities, and believed climate change was a hoax. He would get so mad, I had to be concerned he would come over a table after us if we questioned his beliefs or lack of facts...
READ MORE...Anonymous, Canada, 8/28/24
My dad has become an alt-right extremist
While growing up, I looked up to my dad very strongly. He always advocated for me and my sister to stand up for ourselves, helped teach me how to manage my chronic illness, and shielded us from our abusive mother. He taught us to be free willed, independent, strong women, and when my parents finally divorced in our 20s, it seemed like it was the best for everyone involved.
At that point, my siblings and I pursued therapy, and I did a lot of self work to recover from what had happened. As I grew older, I also went to university, and took multiple poli-sci classes and read numerous political-science and history books...
READ MORE...8/5/24
My childhood best friend, Steve
I grew up in Bayonne, NJ where at the age of 7, I met Steve A. He was my best friend at least until 16 when I left for Florida. I kept in touch with him throughout my life until very recently.
For a long time, I realized he was very conservative, very vocal/opinionated, and very persistent in expressing his belief system. I talked with him over the phone a long time joking about our time together.
As we grew older, he started becoming more political. I guess that makes sense since he majored in political science. I never really paid attention because I cared about him. However, since Trump's administration, he became more and more a zealot...
READ MORE...Lisa, Indiana, 8/5/24
The kindest woman I ever knew
My Mom and I butted heads like normal mother and daughter, but she was always the kindest, most loving person I knew. She never said a bad word about anyone and would tell me and my brother that loving thy neighbor was the most important of all God's rules.
I grew up wanting to have the compassion and empathy that she did. Then Trump happened. Now my mother, who was left by my father for his pregnant mistress by the way, supports someone who's done the same to every wife...
READ MORE...Anonymous, California, 7/6/24
A Hurting Son
My father has always been a family man. He grew up a Catholic, white man in the U.S., but has known hardship for most of his life, and still does. He had some of the racist tendencies you'd expect of a person of his upbringing. Mostly using confirmation bias to boost his opinions.
Nonetheless he had always been focused on his own little family he created. Doing his best to raise his children with his wife, despite his history of drug and alchohol abuse, and mental illness. Quitting for his children and being put on medication.
As life progressed after the main COVID era some might say, he was never the same...
READ MORE...Jake, 6/1/24
Duped by Trump's "Christian" values
Sadly, I've known my dad to be contemptuous of Democrats for most of my life. Most of his family are staunch working class conservatives who are closet racists. Although it's always been a toxic trait of his side, my dad's irritability and anger began to increase majorly after Obama was elected.
Fox News became his nightly "date" especially after he divorced my mom and became a single man once again. The hateful voices of Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingram, and other mean-spirited right-wing fearmongers rang through his lonely little house. When I visited, he would spew the talking points of his favorite talking heads, usually disparaging some minority or "all the lazy people on welfare".
Any questioning on my part of the trustworthiness of the reporting caused an immediate knee-jerk reaction, in which he'd rudely ask, "So are you a liberal/Democrat?" or "You think everything is bad now, you just wait!" I tolerated his wildly ridiculous and nasty comments like a true saint in retrospect, when I should have made my boundaries more clear...
READ MORE...Rob, Omaha Nebraska, 5/31/24
Lost Mom to Fox News
A long time ago, I used to watch Fox News and my mom got into it. I got out and I thought that she had too, but our neighbor convinced her to keep watching it.
Mom wanted to get close to the neighbor so kept on watching Fox News and now every time she gets a chance, she goes over to the neighbor's house to listen to him complain about things he hears on the station.
She joins in and refuses to listen to anything that I want to tell her about the news—because I don't get it from Fox News and I don't hate the democrats.
Will, California, 5/1/2024
He was a completely different person
My father had always been a bit of a chameleon. As a young man in late-1960s San Francisco, my mother said he strived to be the best hippie he could be. Or the most extreme, contracting Hepatitis C by sharing a needle while shooting heroin with another hipster. A choice that would have ill effects later in his life.
After my parents divorced, he moved to Tennessee and then Texas becoming a Reagan Republican as part of his new role as a cowboy/country music singer and songwriter. My father was a proud liberal as a young adult akin to my mother and her progressive family. When he got together with his third wife (he was never single for long), he became a staunch conservative as well as a Catholic, mirroring the new family he was soon to marry into.
READ MORE...Penny, 5/1/2024
Lost close male friend
I met a guy at work a few years ago, we quickly became very close. We had a ton in common and just clicked. My favourite parts about him was that he listened to me, he was open minded, calm, balanced, seemed to appreciate women's sports and female role models. So it seemed weird to me that he would occasionally "like" stuff online that seemed more right leaning, from the 'masculinity is under attack' Jordan Peterson type crowd. Seemed inconsistent with the rest of his opinions.
I didn't see this show up in his normal everyday behaviour, so we started a relationship.
Then one day he got very upset with me for supporting pride and having hobbies/interests that I guess weren't feminine enough for him (Star wars, comic books, ice hockey). He went from being someone who was very reciprocal in our relationship, to one where he said weirdly domineering things like, "I'm going to tell you things your family and friends should have told you"
I really miss the person he was.
READ MORE...Rich Logis, 1/6/2024
I'm an ex-MAGA activist, now working to persuade others to leave MAGA.
I first viewed “The Brainwashing of My Dad” in early 2022. At this point, though I had already begun questioning my MAGA allegiance, I was still MAGA—-but had ceased watching Fox in early 2021. This important, intimate and poignant documentary affirms that permanently tuning out Fox is the correct choice.
I was an early Trump supporter, and MAGA activist. I did pro bono work that would usually be paid, such as writing part of the call script for the Trump campaign. I was a frequent public speaker at MAGA and Trump events. I made volunteer phone calls. I helped voters find their polling places. I was a true believer in MAGA. During Trump's presidency, I was an in-demand pundit for conservative media tailored to MAGA; my works and writings appeared on sites and radio shows listened to, or read by, millions of Americans: Fox News, The Federalist, RealClealPolitics and elsewhere.
And I was wrong about all of it...
Lisa, Wisconsin, 12/15/23
Disowned by Dad, who became a Trump fanatic
Growing up my father and I were able to discuss things like politics and religion even when, after graduating college, my views shifted further to the left. He still listened to me and I to him, even after he divorced my mom and married a woman he’d been cheating with. A few years later he divorced her, moved to Florida and married another woman. Then he became a born-again Christian.
My Dad fell in love with Donald Trump and all that he stands for. His political emails to my sister and I became more frequent, and visits became sprinkled with divisive language, opinions and unsolicited advice. We politely asked him to discontinue the emails, all the while tactfully trying to interject our thoughts in a respectful and nice way. He is now anti-vax, anti-immigration, anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, and anti--anything that makes American look less and less like the 1950’s. He only watched Fox News, pro-“build the wall”, pro-fake news and pro-MAGA...
Pam Hemphill, Boise ID, 6/28/23
“January 6th—MAGAGranny.” (Leaving the Trump cult)
I received my nickname — "MAGAGranny" — from a news radio station in Boise, Idaho. I was on Fox News/Tucker Carlson three times. Every news station used me to make the government look bad.
I spent two years videotaping right-wing events—including political rallies. One day I saw a live video on Facebook, [which] turned out to be Ammon Bundy! He was inviting people to a meeting to discuss his new project called "People's Rights."
I went not knowing much about him, [but] his group's project seemed all American. I told him I would be interested, but I never break the law… He replied “neither do I”. From that day I attended the meetings and volunteered to videotape their protests.
It wasn’t until Trump announced that the election was stolen that I [came] to believe the government was trying to steal it. However, I wasn’t sure as no evidence had been found yet.
I decided mainly to attend the J6 protest in hopes of videotaping, for it [would] most likely be my only chance to hear Trump speak publicly.
Adam, Washington, 2/22/23
You think I’m crazy, but don’t stop calling your mother
Your film has kept my hope candle flicker alive, if still so very dim. My father used to have so much desire for learning and engagement, and over the years, the Fox News and evangelical right wing, accelerated by the YouTube algorithm, turned him into a shell of his former self.
Dad used to have control and anger issues without the aid of social media to him then up, of course, such as when “we” would frequent church & he would be dissatisfied that I wasn’t praying “sufficiently” (I believed once, but my views have since shifted), becoming aggressive at the dinner table. Still, the advent of Fox News in the mid-nineties turned the household into an echo chamber to reinforce his insecurities about others he saw as taking advantage due that we had emigrated from the UK, in his words, “the right way.”
9/11 didn’t help the echo either, with Loose Change, a film rife with scientific inaccuracies written as a larf & whose message has, I’ve come to recently find, been disowned by one half of the two-man group that forged its existence. Dad took to that as a pig to excrement, and no matter what I refuted with actual science (sourced, or using personal examples), nothing got through & no answer was ever good enough.
I suddenly realized that my father did not respect me as a human being with contributions and analysis, and he never really had. My father saw himself as a paragon of virtue, there to teach & teach alone, learning only what he cared to filter through his delusions of grandeur.
All of the, as a certain Fox News personality would call them, “pinheads” that would try to elicit logical understanding would be met with deaf ears. The Alex Joneses and Dylan Averys of the world, including most-pointedly Alex Jones himself, had won my father over, and given the past several years with Trump and the erosion of truth, though I occasionally see glimpses of my father in better times past, and each GOOD conversation I have being cherished for the banality that it may be, I know that I can never have the same level of communication I once had…at least until he is willing to let me—and logic—in, absent of, or with checked emotion.
Your film gave me a modicum of hope that this may be possible, and I will continue to cling to that as long as he remains living, with as many little nudges as I can bear to hopefully push him past all of this, especially now that I am a little older and hopefully wiser.
Again, thank you for making the film, and may your father rest peacefully.
David L., 1/30/23
I grew up in a Conservative Christian family, became left wing after being educated, and watched in horror as they fell off a cliff on Fox News radicalism.
I grew up in a very small conservative town in the PNW with a blue collar Republican Christian conservative family. I never felt comfortable in that community and could never figure out quite why which caused me lots of problems growing up (also having undiagnosed ADHD in the 90's meant being labeled a "bad kid"). It wasn't until I left and began educating myself culturally and intellectually that I realized the profound lack of empathy and reason in my family and community was the source of my discomfort.
In my 20's I landed pretty firmly left wing because frankly the available data did and still does reveal that left wing solutions to broad societal problems are simply better. At first I came to my family and attempted to be a bridge to this information, naively thinking that they simply didn't know.
It wasn't until after years of biting my tongue at family events and desperately trying to have nuanced conversations with those I thought receptive that I realized their views were purely ideological and religious in nature.
Even the suggestion that something they heard on Fox News was incorrect was enough to set them off and have them start accusing me of being brainwashed or worse. There was only a few people I even bothered to try with because I thought, again naively, that they might be receptive to SOMETHING, ANYTHING after enough time but no amount of calm fact driven conversations where I carefully avoided rhetorical partisan triggers like Neo from the Matrix could convince them of a single thing.
In fact as Fox News has gotten more radical in rhetoric they have followed or even exceeded Fox in radicalism, especially post-Trump. The fact that a decade of a family member trying calmly to reason with them had ZERO effect on their views but casual agit-prop from Fox they accept immediately has led me to give up. This is a CULT!
At this point it is not unreasonable to say that if you're left wing, lgbt, or in some communities simply non-white you should seriously consider your safety when being around these people because they're not only getting more violent and unhinged as time moves forward, but they're also acting on their violence and hate at a much greater rate.
My uncle assaulted me for literally NO REASON because his programming has led him to believing I'm not just wrong but EVIL, which made him interpret something I said in the most dramatically uncharitable interpretation possible. The right realizes the youth isn't as susceptible to the fear-mongering tactics used on previous generations so rather than adjust their platform to be more appealing, they're galvanizing their base (older people) against them.
This is the kind of thing that happened in Germany in the 30's or during Mao's revolution so be careful. Stochastic right wing terrorism is only going to get worse.
Dani, Brooklyn, NY, 6/26/22
Divorcing my Trumpist In-Laws
I married into a conservative family and after 20 years with my husband who I adore, I’ve finally decided to divorce his Trumpist family members. As a first-generation Latina, I always felt like I didn’t belong in my partner’s white Catholic Italian side of the family. I’ve witnessed their racist humor, their sexist remarks, their homophobic slurs, their fatphobic jests, and pretty much every ism/phobia in between.
If I dared to speak up, I “couldn’t take a joke”; I was too sensitive cause “they were just teasing” or I was told to ignore them cause “that’s how they are when they drink.” One uncle even told me to kill myself at my SIL’s baby shower and while many family members witnessed this, no one defended me. Except my husband, of course. When Obama got elected, their disgusting rhetoric spiked...
Eva, Canada (6/16/22)
My dad has become an extremist
I’m Eva, from Canada. My dad has always been conservative (that’s republican for Canada). I started noticing him changing around the time Trump was elected. I was 12-13 at the time. Suddenly everything was political. We couldn’t talk about ANYTHING without him turning it political. He became so angry when he realized I identify as a feminist that he started buying anti-feminist books just to leave them lying around the house.
He tried to turn my sister (a CHILD, she was only 8-9 at the time) against me. He fed her propaganda, made her watch “red pill” documentaries, pro-Trump documentaries, telling her that BLM and feminism would ruin our lives and our country. He kept her as far away from me as possible (keep in mind, I was also a child at the time and didn’t fully understand what was happening to him). Skip ahead to 2020, when COVID started. Again I saw a massive rise of political arguing from him. Talking about how wearing masks and getting the vaccine was just “the start” to turning us into communists. He started watching alt-right creators on YouTube and buying books that are everywhere around the house.
Now it’s impossible for him to sit in the same room as me without starting an argument about how “women have it easy” and “the liberals are turning us into commies” and saying other hateful things about whatever minority he can think of in that moment. I’ve asked my mother several times why she hasn’t left him. She says she hopes he’ll just relax and get over it.
I don’t think he’s ever going to “get over it”. He’s obsessed. He’s not even my father anymore, just an angry hateful brainwashed alt right machine. It makes me really sad. I’ll never have a real dad, at least not one who despises me for my political views and gender.
Claudine, New York (6/8/22)
Bob Grant
20 years ago, I had cancer surgery at a major New York Medical Center. At that time, there was a new program where you would listen to affirmations such as "you will have no pain" and "the surgery will be a success" on a Walkman during surgery.
As I slowly recovered from anesthesia, I realized that somehow the Walkman had been switched from cassette to radio, and I was listening to BOB GRANT! I was horrified, but it took what felt like forever to find my hand and the Walkman to turn it off. It felt like my ear/brain was being raped!
That remains one of the worst memories of a 5-month ordeal with 3 surgeries, chemo and radiation! Fox and right-wing radio are some of the worst things to happen to the USA.
Maria, Indiana (5/27/22)
Trump Changed My Father
Growing up I was incredibly close with my dad, I was his mini-me. I looked up to him and admired his confidence and loyalty. I was my fathers daughter. My dad had never been a political man, no one in my family was. Him and my mom were both registered Independent. He even voted for Obama in both elections.
The 2016 election is when things took a drastic turn. My father was obsessed with all things Trump. Every conversation was about Trump and “crooked Hillary”. He even took the time to read through every document in the email scandal pertaining to Clinton and the election. Fox news was always on the TV, he listen to Rush Limbaugh during lunch, and constantly read right winged news articles.
His aggressive and obsessive political views were not the only thing that changed. My father became much more irritable, argumentative, and down right mean. There was a complete shift in his demeanor. He would make incredibly racist remarks, would belittle me and my mother, and was easily angered and sometimes would become violent. My relationship with my father has gotten to a point of no recovery.
We cannot have a conversation without it becoming an argument. He had even threatened to kick me out several times, because I didn’t vote for trump in the 2020 election, told him he cannot say the N-word as a white man, and asked him to please stop threatening to go through my cell phone.
It has gotten to the point where as soon as I am able to fully become independent, I will no longer be in contact with him. He has mentally abused me and has clearly chosen his side. Trump won.
ML, Ohio (4/12/22)
I cried reading this book
I have become the black sheep in my family. In many ways it has been gradual but in many ways it has been accelerated like gas on a fire over the past six years. I grew up in an all white rural area, no minorities in the whole county. I was also raised in the church where my parents were very involved. I married an immigrant from a Buddhist culture.
My parents are now older and more isolated due to the pandemic and health issues. They have lost many friends and family members through death and illness. My mother has always thought of herself as sitting at God's right hand, meaning more so than anyone else. She knows it all when it comes to God's will for everyone. No discussion. Period. She started listening to Billy Graham in the sixties and then Moody Bible Radio.
After a cross country trip with a pastor friend who listened to right wing AM radio, I noticed a slight switch in combining religion and right wing propaganda. This included Build the Wall and anti-immigrant rants. It truly never occurred to her that this was offensive to the immigrant in her own family. Now it is full blown since Trump to the point where she has told me on several occasions that I am going to hell and are raised my children on the same path.
She has the right wing propaganda so intertwined with her religious beliefs that i don't think that is possible to separate. Her Facebook posts have all become either right wing talking points or aborted fetuses with some Franklin Graham thrown in. My dad is a Korean War vet. This has become more of his identity than it used to be.
After listening and watching right wing programs he sees patriotism and nationalism as one and the same. He is devoted to his wife and would not make waves, even to the point of losing me from their lives.
My sister has always been a Rush Limbaugh fan. The further down he went, the more anger I could see in her. I just ignored her anger at the libs. even though we both knew it was often a dig at me. My brother is an evangelical lay pastor. He has no formal training in this field. He bought into the anti-gay, anti-immigrant fox platforms. And anti-vac and anti-masks too.
My cousin believes almost every conspiracy theory out there. He has a travel job and spends hours in the car being indoctrinated. It is so extreme that he claimed Asian hate crimes were created the left to sow division. When I pointed out personal examples of Asian hate crimes in my life, he rebuffed them as not being valid and that I bought into the left's lies.
I am receiving therapy to know how to proceed with these relationships. I know I want to be there for my parents especially as they need more help but I cannot be abused any further. I just can't.
I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for this platform to share my story. I want to thank you for the film. It gave me so much hope. I also am finding your book very helpful on ways to combat this growing problem of brainwashed Americans. Mostly I am so grateful to not feel alone. Thank you Jen.
Julie, UK (3/23/22)
When my Dad got brainwashed (and un-brainwashed!)
I’ve always been close to my Dad. I’m in the UK and when Brexit happened, he became really arrogant towards me. We’d always been able to talk, and then suddenly he turned and was being hostile. My Dad is in his 70s and is vulnerable health wise. He has television on all day and will watch what’s recommended to him on YouTube.
One day, he was watching something on YouTube and all I could hear was ‘Immigration … blah blah… immigration…. Blah …. Immigration’ and I thought then - something’s not right. I went and asked him what he was watching, he told me it was something about Steve Bannon and that he’d bought the book.
Immigration had never been something that had previously been of any interest to him. Farage was on the TV and he said that he thought he deserved a medal. ‘Take our country back’ was the rhetoric . Even our next door neighbours were the same. All the while, he was condescending of any opinion I had. So I decided one day that I wanted my Dad back.
Griff, Illinois (10/11/21)
Watching my father-in-law fall into the hate
I have known my father-in-law for about 40 years. He is a retired English Teacher. He taught in a town that had an air base into the 1980's. He was a very accepting man and had never ever heard racist language from him. Because there was an air base near this small town he taught in he had students from many backgrounds. I found him very accepting of many people and it impressed me as I was from a small town myself.
My main concern for him has increased over the past 5 or 6 years as his eyesight has diminished and he is less less mobile. His current condition has caused him to become less active in the outdoors and because of that he spends more time watching Fox news and listening to Rush Limbaugh.
Just like the author of this website I have heard things come out of him that make me sad and angry. I see the anger in him and hear the hate in his words. It saddens me that this is how he is in his last years on earth. I wish I could do more for him. I am going to watch your movie and maybe buy your book for my mother-in-law.
Lisa, Connecticut (10/10/21)
Going from non political to only political
My name is Lisa, I am 49 years old and live with my husband and 10 year old daughter. Before Trump became President my husband never brought up political or political issues ever not once. He was a loving sweet man, doting father, fairly quiet never yelled or anything like that. After Trump was elected which I found out my husband voted for him, my husband started to become increasingly political.
What I mean by that is he replaced the comedy he used to watch, movies, documentaries, nature shows everything with politically motivating shows including Alex Jones, Jessie Lee Furgason, and anything involving talking about Trump. As time went on my husband became increasingly louder agitated, angry, started slamming doors yelling at me and my daughter about the smallest things. He began to look at me with disgust and hatred because I was an independent and told me that I should vote Red every single day.
If I said the sink is broken he would say then you should have voted Red, the sink would have been fixed if you voted Red. He started telling me daily that I was a Communist and I should move to Cuba. I realized that my husband had been radicalized and I was just sitting watching my husband spiral down a rabbit hole. The whole thing has been scary and surreal. I still have hope that my husband can be helped out of this hole, maybe cult, but if he doesn’t I have to leave for the good of my child.
Julia, DeKalb, IL (10/3/21) — (re: QAnon)
My Sister's Sad Transformation
As far back as I can remember my parents argued, even when we were doing something fun like going on a vacation. I can still FEEL the heart-crushing sadness caused by their incessant bickering. As the oldest daughter I was recruited into their madness, forced to listen and sympathize with whoever had me cornered, pretending he/she was the injured party. In time I came up with a far-fetched plan: like a psychiatrist I would cure them both so we could have fun and be happy like the families I saw on TV...
Monica Schmidt (9/20/21)
Lonely in California
Hello Ms. Senko,
I would like to express how moved I was after watching your documentry. It is very hard to express myself at the momment as my husband of 20yrs has recently become an agressive right-wing advocate. Its not so much the political views, but the angry person he has become. I am a librarian by vocation and it is hard to hear him speak without fact, only anger. I have two children and am considering divorce. All I can do right now is reach out for help and guidance by reading and researching.
Billi, California (9/7/21)
I don't know why I hold out hope they will change
I met an attorney during the 2010 financial crisis due to a lawsuit I had with Well Fargo Bank regrading my MBS loan. He was kind, compassionate, and a UC Berkeley Graduate. We became close during the process. He was passionate about helping people in the financial and corrupt crisis the United States was facing. Over the years we have kept in touch. Gradually I have found this beautiful man to become a different person...
Anon (8/09/21)
A true rift in the family, and I squarely blame Fox News.
This is a complicated story but I'll try to boil it down. I had a difficult childhood. My mother was depressed, extremely volatile, and suffering from IBS. My dad was addicted to television. She would rant and rave, then go hide in her room. And my father would go hide in the TV -- for at least 4 hours every night...
Catherine, South Carolina (7/21/21) — (re: QAnon)
I don't know why I hold out hope they will change.
Some of my earliest memories are of driving around rural South Carolina with my dad. Daycare cost money we did not have, so he would pick me up from kindergarten every afternoon, grab some snacks, and turn on the radio to Rush Limbaugh.
From that time on, I cannot remember an afternoon in the car without conservative talk radio. Life was school and hanging out with my dad until my my mom was ready to be picked up from work. We were poor, but my parents emphasized education and worked hard to provide educational opportunities. They wanted me to escape the cycle of poverty.
I took their emphasize on education to heart and worked hard in school. I listened when they preached values of community, hard work, equality, and caring for your community... and then I started to notice the contradictions in my teens...
Brian, Kentucky (6/4/21)
Lost him to Right-wing media/Trump
I was born and raised in eastern Kentucky. Smack in the middle of conservative territory and coal country. A small town of about 600, only 13,000 in the entire county. Where you either worked in or for the mines or you were working at a grocery store (only 2 of them) or in fast food (only one of those). I was the security manager for 3 of those sites.
Everyone there blames Obama for the loss of coal jobs even though the coal business was dying in the 1990's. There were a few massive layoffs in that decade. Years before that, when my dad turned 18 he registered as a Democrat,
When I turned 18, I can distinctly remember him looking at me and saying, "I know what your registered as because I raised you". He was correct, I registered as a Democrat. I thought (and still believe) it is the true party of the working people...
3/18/21
Never knew my family without Fox
My family has always watched Fox News and practically worships Tucker Carlson. Things were hunky-dory until I got older and things got more extreme. My Mother and Grandmother became more critical of Asian people and Mexicans. They don't support trans rights and openly opposes safe abortion.The most vivid memory I have is of my uncle walking up to me and asking me "If all black people disappeared but their achievements stayed who would be missed?" it was so jarring when he claimed I got the answer wrong like he was trying to convince me black lives didn't matter
The worst one was my aunt, who claimed masks were a conspiracy and that the vaccines contained microchips to track us with.
I can't handle this family anymore, I don't know how long I can last.
Kylie, Ohio (3/17/21)
All of My Parents Have Gone Insane
My parents divorced when I was a toddler and are both currently remarried. My mom and I moved in with my grandparents shortly after the divorce, and my grandma was pretty much the one who raised me. Growing up, I was shaped to believe in religious and mostly-Conservative views. My family never discussed or really understood politics; they just believed in being Republican because that's the party most commonly associated with religion. They believed that being gay was bad, because the bible. They used racist terms constantly because they were never taught that wasn't okay. But overall, they didn't get worked up over anything, and they were generally polite people. As for my dad, he was out of the picture a lot until I was about 15. He seemed like a fairly logical person, but holy sh*t — was I wrong...T, COLORADO (3/11/21)
Deep Down the Rabbit Hole
Growing up as a millennial from the 90s it's been a wild ride trying to figure out why my parents never accepted or even tried to make the effort to hear what is going on the other side of aisle. Being raised with the internet and by the internet is a double edged sword. You have access to all of the information in the world but for some reason the entire boomer generation decided to get stabbed by the sword instead.I came across this documentary because I was researching what could have possibly led to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and all these other outlets causing massive polarization into what is now the Trump Cult. It didn't make any sense until I watched this documentary...
K. (3/11/21)
I am grieving the loss of my mother, even though she is alive
My brother, sister and I were raised by my single mother. She was never interested in politics, but I remember asking her if she was a Democrat or a republican. When she told me she was a Democrat, I decided I was as well. That was 45 years ago.Today, my 83 year old mother owns a home on the opposite side of my state and provides a home to my brother and his partner. When the partner moved in, he would have Fox News on 24/7. You see, he is receiving disability but claims to be very wealthy, smart, and successful. But here he is in my mom's house with nowhere else to go and only contributing $200 per month while my 83 year old mother continues to work full time to support both of these men.
TRISH, OREGON (3/7/21)
A reflection of my Mom
I lost my Mom to "Trumpism."
I can't stand that word for what it means. My Mom was always a soft spoken, sweet, kind and funny woman. We come from a blended Family. My aunt is half black, my other aunt is half Vietnamese and I now have Hispanic/Vietnamese and Black/White cousins. It's always been a big old pot of love. 40+ people at every holiday, laughter and so many different types of food...good times.
Then, my Parents got divorced. My Dad met someone new and so did my Mom. At first, he didn't seem bad for her. He fell all over himself to please her. However, slowly but surely, he influenced her. My mom stopped getting her nails done, stopped wearing heels or any shoe beyond a "Romeo" boot. Camo print everywhere.
S.C. (3/5/21)
Family divided
I have always cherished my family and often times compared them to the Waltons. Growing up we worked hard and always stuck by each other. In fact I would have considered my family somewhat apolitical . Ever since FOX News became prevalent on cable tv, my family has almost viewed FOX news and Rush Limbaugh as entertainment. I never really thought much of this and shrugged it off. I have dismissed their right wing influenced ideas and have always maintained a deep love for my family.
Rhea, San Diego, CA (3/1/21)
I don't even know my parents anymore
Growing up I would say my parents were “fiscally conservative but socially liberal”. They loved Reagan’s economic policies, but were always accepting of my friends, which included a lot of LGBTQ people. They allowed my brother’s girlfriend to live with us when things were hard at her house, and even helped her get an abortion when she became pregnant as a teen. My dad was in the Navy and I remember his best friend when I was a kid was a big, black guy named Tiny. So I by no means would I say they were “right-wing wackos”.
Oh, how times have changed...
Johnathan (3/1/21)
As I'm reading these...
For the first time in my life, I'm truly afraid after reading all of these stories. My dad has become one of those lost to the abyss, but reading all of these posts echoes like those sad letters you see sometimes in the end of the world movies, where people are missing or they turned into zombies. Anyway, on to my own story, my dad...
John in Cali (2/23/21)
The radicalization of my family
My grandfather raised my mother and her brother as Nixon Republicans. He supported impeachment. But definitely was no fan of Jimmy Carter. As he aged he mellowed out and as a retired Carpenter went to work improving the community by working for Habitat for Humanity in his spare time when he wasn't fixing the church he attended. It wasn't until he started carrying a transistor radio around with Rush Limbaugh constantly blaring that he changed.
2/16/2021
Lost My Parents to the Right
Growing up my parents were always liberal. They had no problem with LGBTQ or immigrants or the government helping out when needed. About 5 years ago they retired and moved to Texas. I started to notice a change in attitude, especially from my mom. She would start talking about sending immigrants back, that they are taking our jobs. She loved the fact that Trump was building a wall. Then in the same breath would say we couldn't afford to kept cutting checks to those affected by Covid.
One time I said that Trump had divided this country and she adamantly denied it. She has been brainwashed into believing the immigrants that are here are under a visa program. Then she would start telling me what was going on in Mexico. The politics going on there and how they are sending Mexicans over the border. I don't care about Mexico. She also started sending me negative articles about Beto O'Rouke and Hillary Clinton and on and on. It's gotten to the point I don't want to talk to her, I don't recognize who she is anymore.
What this and all of these other postings tell me is that these people are easily swayed and don't have a mind of their own. They don't have the courage of their convictions and are happy to eat up anything spoon fed to them. I haven't visited my parents in several years and now I can't even stomach the thought of visiting. I don't know who they are and don't want to be in contact unless necessary.
Carrie from Ohio
Losing my mother to paranoia and far right conspiracy theories
My mother was always caring and put her children first especially since my sister was born with a serious health problem. Things started to change with Trump’s election. She started to consume excessive amounts of cable news. Things got worse with the pandemic. My father told me she would spend 7 hours a day watching Fox and Newsmax. She would send me articles at 2 am in the morning about suspicious Covid 19 cures. Even after hydroxychloroquine was debunked at a Covid 19 treatment she stated that doctors that spoke the “truth” were being silenced by the government and that I was being brainwashed by doubting her . She then stated vaccine companies were covering up cures for Covid 19 for profits. It is heartbreaking to see your loved one go down a rabbit hole of conspiracy and falsehoods. I don’t know if she will ever climb out.
Tasha, UK — (re: QAnon)
My Dad
I am British, living in Germany with my husband and children. My dad has always been a bit contrary. Has always had a significant inferiority complex which led him to need to find ways to be above other people. Be it arguing the moon landings were faked, that Britain should leave the EU or that certain tv shows were so stupid as to be beneath him and therefore should be beneath everyone else too.
He has never been an easy man by any means , so I can’t say that all this has turned him from a wonderful dad to an awful dad. But, deep deep down he was always a good person. And Probably still is... He also has always had one foot largely in reality..... but not anymore.
He was abused by a catholic priest and only started talking about it over the last 30 years but has never been able to find peace with it.
He is Scottish but has been living in England for most of his 73 years now. Which makes it all The more surprising that the political environment currently in the USA has opened him wide up to, frankly, insane ideas.
He has cut off his brothers and sister and has been struggling with his relationship between myself and my 3 brothers and our mum.
He shares the most vile things on Facebook. He’s turning into a vile hate filled man. I have tried to tell him that it all goes to antisemitism... but he will not hear me. I have screamed and shouted at him how vile it is to post such hateful things and that I live in a country that still has to deal with the consequences of the Nazi rule. That their hate caused millions of Jews to be murdered. I have no idea if it moved him at all.
I have such a hatred for the architects of QAnon, because their lies have broken my family.
Paul, Texas (2/07/21)
My Dad: From Moderate Conservative to Far-Right Radical
My dad has always had a conservative leaning in his views. Growing up, I remember car rides as a little kid where he would have on a local conservative talk radio station owned at the time by CBS News. But when we got home, he preferred to watch Larry King Live on CNN, or HLN primetime. For as long as I can remember, we always made a point to watch the network evening news as a family, either with Tom Brokaw on NBC or Peter Jennings on ABC. Clearly, my dad was what would be considered today as a moderate conservative. But somewhere down the road, my dad became more and more radical in his views.
Around 2008, he started listening to the Michael Savage show — which was incredibly ahead of its time in terms of the insane and bonkers and entirely untrue things I would hear on that show. Then, he stopped watching CNN and HLN in favor of Fox News around the late 00s. And then, he dropped our local ABC station (which he loyally watched for almost 20 years) and ABC News in general in 2020 and has become a total Fox News fanatic.
These days, it’s Fox News all day, all night at home with him at home. Whereas our primetime was once spent watching TV shows like The Middle, Roseanne, American Idol, and The Voice, his primetime is spent watching Fox News, Fox News, and more Fox News.
My dad honestly behaves like a drug addict in terms of his need for Fox News, which is consistent with what the neuroscientists in the documentary had to say about Fox News. He gets defensive whenever I call him out over his newfound pathological obsession with Fox News. He has made shockingly racist comments, which I have called him out on. He loves to make any and all conversations political, even if it has to do with something as non-political as food. He loves falsely stereotyping me as someone who only gets his news from CNN — when in reality, I get my news from a vast array of sources, including Fox News. He’s as miserable as a person can be — and seems to neurochemically thrive off of hate radio, hate podcasts, and hate news. It’s like he loves getting himself all pissed off over nothing.
On Inauguration Day, I wrote to President Biden about the need for a modern-day Fairness Doctrine — and I told the President how disinformation has torn families and people apart. I encourage everyone with family members like mine to write to the President as well.
Eric T (1/26/21)
A sharp descent into conspiracy theories
My parents have always been conservative, lifelong Republicans as far as I know. Sadly as they got older, they continued to get deeper into evangelical beliefs which ties extremely closely with the far-right. With Trump's rise, something switched in them, where the leaders they followed started to get more and more aggressive warning against the "radical left". Many of the same traits that seem to lead people deep into religion were played to a tee by Trump.
By the 2020 election cycle, the transformation was complete, they turned into hardcore Trump supporters, putting a political yard sign for Trump, the first time they'd ever put any political signage in their yard. They started subscribing to a far-right newspaper, started consuming far-right sites as their only news source. I've disagreed with them politically for a long time now, but their beliefs have been taken advantage of and weaponized. Now they have doubts about the covid vaccine, fully believe that the election was stolen, and routinely consume sites that don't even attempt to present as reputable. Sites that they think are news but call Joe Biden a dementia patient and use bold font and aggressive language in all their articles.
The rise of Trump turned millions of Americans into cult followers. It is sad thinking of my parents as being closely tied with the Capitol rioters and their cause. It is also hard to accept that right wing media tapped into racist, xenophobic, homophobic, sexist ideas that they already had. I try to still keep it cordial with them, but it has become harder and harder to get anything out of spending time with them. Now almost any topic sends them into a conspiracy theory rant. What used to be excitement for family trips and visits is turning into dread.
Carly, MD (1/20/21)
My Father Loves Trump More Than His Wife and Children
When Trump first started running I thought it was a joke. I never thought myself to be one to understand the stupidity of mankind, but the events of the past five years proved me wrong. My father is an intelligent man, a retired rocket scientist with his degree from Stanford. He has been conservative leaning for most of my life, but because he was an educated “normal” person I thought he would see right through the alt right. I was sorely mistaken.
Teri (1/21/21)
Can we trust Government to do the right thing?
I recently retired from a civil service career in a large West coast city. Most of our politicians are Democrats, but many civil service workers live in the suburbs, where they are less liberal. Though most City employees have good union-paying jobs, many have become critical of anything they view as Communist, such as unions that help poor in-home service workers. They used to talk in whispers on the job, about their personal politics. Then you would see MAGA hats.
Even people who used to help poor people through City programs began to deride them, talking about how many of them should just go back to their own countries, that they were just working the system. I watched one co-worker who was a caring Catholic become a staunch Trump supporter. She would work on designing programs for their poor and would insert their own personal bias, require documentation of paperwork based on the premise that poor brown and black people all game the system.
Mel, Texas (1/21/21)
Lost my parents to the right-wing media and Trumpism
I had once shared my political views with my parents, but looking back, I believe it was because it was expected of me. I had never "bucked" the system, never challenged their beliefs or political stance. We were able to talk politics, and at times, my parents didn't vote straight party line. My mom had been a Rush Limbaugh listener from the early 90's. She was in sales and would listen to Rush all throughout her travels.
A. H. (1/20/21)
Thank you
I’m 5 minutes into your film and you’ve already said every single buzz word I’ve been saying about my dad for years. Cult. Brainwashed. Mentally ill. Well that last one is mine. I’m sure you’ll get to it, I am only 5 minutes in after all. My dads mushy brain has been implanted with bugs for years from Rush and Fox News, at least since 2005. It’s upsetting and sad. I truly believe he is ill. I also truly believe that sadly, there isn’t any hope for him, he’s too far in. I don’t really want to talk to him, can barely look him in the eyes. You understand.
Thank you for making this film. It’ll be upsetting to watch, but I now must hit play and finish hearing your story.
Alison, Canada (1/19/21)
Even in Canada, one can fall victim
It's been really nice seeing everyone talk about an experience that I thought I was alone in, but it's also a little disheartening. I would like to still share my story of my dad though (it might be long so I'm sorry). I'm from Canada, close to Toronto actually, so this may be shocking to hear this. My dad is a conservative (probably be Republican if we were in America) and always has been as well as a Christian. I looked up to my dad a lot as a kid and always saw him as being right about everything. He's an intelligent man but in the last couple of years, he's fallen down the right-wing pipeline.
Nicki, Indiana (1/19/21)
I don’t know where my dad went
I’ve always known my parents were Republicans. My dad talked about his favorite president Ronald Reagan when I was little. My middle school had a mock election in 2008 and he made me promise to vote for John McCain. Other than these few instances, politics was not a part of our family conversations.
That was the case until 2018 when my technologically challenged Dad asked me to set up a Facebook account for him. I wish I hadn’t, as I soon saw a gradual decline in his mental state. He was once a passionate man who loved his job and his hobbies. Now he started to come home from work angry ever day only to sit on his phone for hours scrolling through Facebook until bedtime.
Then the restrictions started. He banned us from watching certain TV channels to prevent us from being “counted” for their “agenda.” We’re no longer allowed to watch certain movies if the main actor is a “socialist,” we cannot buy from companies that support social movements like Black Lives Matter or MeToo. He’s replaced any discussion about his hobbies and interests with discussions about the latest conspiracies and the “deep state.”
Now he’s started fighting with friends and family through social media, further ostracizing us from the people we love the most. All I wish for is to have my dad back. The loving, kindhearted, passionate father I once knew is long gone, and I wish I knew how to find him again.
Sad, in Virginia (1/17/21)
Dashed Hopes
Well, I am of the mind now, that my efforts have been futile ones. After two years of trying to help her, I (71 years) am giving up, and it is with sadness that I leave my sister (75 years) to her wallowing in anger, paranoia, and destructive attitude. We were raised, only siblings, by the same parents, same principals. But she is now the child of Fox News, Newsmaxx, Breitbart, et al. When Fox angered their followers after the recent presidential election, instead of turning to other 'middle of the road' sources, she sought out whoever would foster her anger and Trumpism. I had a glimmer of hope there, but it faded quickly.
I guess this is a type of therapy for me, as I asked her to go to therapy with me over this many months ago. She laughed. I thought it would help our sisterhood. Our day long texting sessions, back and forth, all the Geo Soros, Hillary, Obama, BLM smashing on her part (Fox), and my showing her that all of her strange accusations and talking points could be fact checked and proven false..she said the fact checkers were lying liberals. I asked that we not discuss politics, and she was offended that 'she couldn't talk to her only sister' about these things. She becomes very angry if I have shown any proof of facts and reality when she rants, and then says,"I don't want to talk about it anymore".
Now she says that she wants to move away because "there's nothing for me here anymore". She lives alone, a widow, thus my trying so hard to keep a civil relationship, and bring her out of her angry, paranoid slump. Well, I love her, but I'm tired. Done. I tried for so many years. I wish I could offer hope to others, and maybe you will have success where I have failed, each individual is different. But, unless she comes to the SELF realization that her dark place has been of her own creation because of her choice of input, and her driving those 'not of like mind' away, my hope is dashed.
She is drowning in an echo chamber.
Cindi Morgan, rural central Wisconsin (1/14/21)
Brainwashing of Mom
When Trump first ran, my mother would see a Trump sign in a friend's yard and say, "I can't believe this. I don't think I'll be able to talk with them!" She also went to her priest and said that, for the first time in her life, she hated someone: Donald J. Trump.
My Mom had dementia, and my arch-conservative brother has been calling her once or twice a day. While his devotion to her is certainly admirable, his daily indoctrination that Trump "has done everything he promised" completely reversed her position. She also expressed her opinion that Biden wasn't smart enough to be president. She could never supply any reasons, though, to support her argument. Meanwhile, despite my own work with the county Democratic party, I dutifully brought her absentee ballot to the nursing home. I delivered the completed form to the local town hall, knowing that it would completely reverse my own vote.
It's hard to be civil to my brother knowing that he transformed a loving Christian woman into a supporter of a racist, anti-immigrant, misogynist, hate-filled candidate. I only thank God that President-Elect Biden and Vice-president Kamala Harris were legitimately elected to defeat Trump in the last election.
Dave — Austin, Texas
You all have no idea how happy I am to discover this site and the people that are sharing their stories.
As of this post, 1/6/21 writing, we’ve officially hit a “parental loss” human tragedy here in the United States that is only beginning to be discussed and will surely be studied and dissected for decades to come. The sad fact is that nearly 60% of generation X’ers have lost their white fathers to extreme right trumpism seemingly out of nowhere!!! 1/6/21 was not a wake up call from them, and has made them even more psychologically delusional.
Tori, Philadelphia (1/09/21)
I lost most of my family to Fox News and Trump
My family was always a little more on the conservative side when it came to things like money. My dad wanted to know where his money was going, and wanted to make sure that he saved whatever he could. But he had always taught me to be good to everyone. I was raised to treat others with kindness. I was never stopped or shamed into not being me. And my dad would tell me that he was glad I didn't take shit from anyone and stood up for myself.
As the years went by, I noticed that my dad seemed still pretty on the level, even though I found my beliefs differed. I started to disagree with him more about some political stuff, but my dad never seemed to care all that much about some of the social conservative agenda. He would shrug and say that that was their business, not anyone elses. Then something changed. It started with little jibes and off color jokes. Stupid, somewhat offensive things that you expect from a guy in his 50s that grew up when off color humor was just the norm, thinking of movies like Animal House and the like. Stuff that their kids would eye roll at and that wouldn't really fly today. He wasn't serious, right?
Well.... Looking back, who knows now? He started to watch more Fox News. I would tease him about it, and he would call some of the far right commentators looney. Everything seemed to be okay, albeit, I hated that he was watching Fox. But as long as he was watching our local news, too, then everything should have been ok. But then.... He stopped watching the local news. "Too liberal" he once quipped to me. And that's when I started to watch him slip, fast. He started watching more and more of the people he not so long ago called looney. He went from making fun of Trump attempting to join in Republican debates to suddenly believing that he was "perfect". He started to say more things that made me angry.
I will never forget that the man who once told me that gay folks getting married was fine....and now all of a sudden he thinks gay people are terrible. I screamed at him for that hypocrisy. He stopped saying things in front of me about politics. For a while, anyway. But I hear all about it from my brother, who stands with me, shocked and saddened.
But my father isn't the only one. We watched, one by one, as family members started to tell us conspiracy theories in hushed tones because who knows who is listening, and now suddenly societies ills were because of minorites. I watched my grandmother start whining about how black people always won on the game shows she watched. The sweetest woman I knew was just.... Saying and believing horrible things. All of a sudden, people they never seemed to have a problem with, now were the enemy. It broke my heart. Had most of my family been this selfish, hateful, and horrible all along? Had they fooled me, my brother, my sister, and other family members so easily? How had we been spared the same brainwashing?
I weep because I don't know what to say. How to confront them. How to undo what damage has been done.... Or if there's anything that can be done...
Breanne, California (1/09/21)
My already rocky relationship with conservative dad has only gotten worse from Trump's rhetoric.
My dad was always Republican as I grew up and my mom was independent but over time she has grown more and more republican. Now she is almost as bad as my dad. They have both been radicalized by the rhetoric of Trump and Fox News and they watch people such as Ben Shapiro. It’s steadily gotten worse and worse. We can’t discuss politics peacefully anymore. I’m independent and have progressive views, I really lean left.
They think I am brainwashed by “fake news”. My dad tries to bait me into arguing with him by loudly saying things like “I wish I knew a Democrat so I could punch them in the face”. Two days ago after trump incited a mob to attack the capital, my dad was threatening to kick me out. They blame that attack on Antifa even though it was Trump supporters and they also repeatedly say how antifa and BLM should be labeled as terrorist groups. I am so ashamed. Unemployment is high right now and I do not live in a safe city. I have nowhere else to go right now.
I just want peace but my dad is provoking fights, calling me a “baby killer” and a socialist. When I have asked my parents for sources backing what they are claiming, they get indignant and tell me I am being disrespectful and that I think I am smarter than them. There is so much anger and fear in them but nothing I can say can bring them back. Most of my extended family is also hardcore Trump supporters so I feel really alone. It’s a little reassuring to see I’m not alone but also so disappointing Trump’s rhetoric did this to so many other families.
Caroline, Tennessee (1/07/21) — (re: QAnon)
My father’s slip into right wing reality
I found this site by simply googling “Trump is brainwashing my dad”. I knew I couldn’t have been the only one experiencing this, as many middle aged Americans have expressed this *out of touch with reality* mindset through their social media (primarily Facebook) openly. I joke sometimes with my friends about the crazy conspiracies my dad will share sometimes, but lately it’s not so funny anymore.
Not too long ago I called my dad to express my excitement for getting into my Master’s program, and for a minute he was his normal self, a proud and congratulatory father. As the conversation progressed however, he started to inform me about how the college system being “so liberal” is going to brainwash me, and how the Biden administration is going to make it harder for me to succeed post graduation. Normal political stuff at first, until he sprinkles in talks of aliens, reptilian world leaders, and talks of China poisoning our canned goods.
My father is convinced that Michelle Obama is a man (?) and sends photographs that anyone could see are photoshopped of the “effects” of the COVID-19 vaccine. He is terrified of modern medicine, and takes only liquid silver sold and promoted by Alex Jones. My father has amazing insurance through his employer and could treat any medical condition for very little cost, however, he refuses to go to a doctor for check ups and gets angry at my sister or myself if he sees that we have been to the doctor (we are on his insurance still).
My dad is a truck driver, and has been for 33 years. He works nights, and all he listens to on his 8 to 9 hour drives across the country are right winged podcasts like Alex Jones, and conspiracy theory videos centered around Donald Trump, QAnon, and the new world order. He has no friends anymore, just his girlfriend who feeds into his rhetoric. Most recently they attended a Trump rally where my father, aunt, uncle, and cousins got tear gassed. I fear for his mental and physical well-being every day, and I worry he will never come back to reality.
Anonymous, Virginia (1/07/21)
Dad couldn’t condemn the invasion of the Capitol because Trump didn’t.
My father has always been conservative but loving. I’ve never thought he was racist or bigoted, just the normal amount from growing up in a mostly white and Indian mountain town in the West. He was in the military for 25 years and got out, but he started changing pretty quick around that time. He worked as a government contractor and there was always a Fox News blasting somewhere in his office.
Around the 2012 election he starting listening to talk radio and Fox News and vilifying Obama. I don’t think it was because Obama’s black, because my dad has never really been racist. But soon he was calling President Obama an American-hater, and evil, and evil Muslim, and he wasn't an American citizen, and that he hated white people and all sorts of shitty things. Once he was elected president, my dad would always feel like we were on the verge of a civil war and that Obama hated America and was trying to destroy it.
We have always owned guns for sport and self defense, but my dad started hoarding ammo and buying more handguns at this time. He even started hoarding food and water in the crawl space of his house. He became obsessed with being self-sufficient for the coming collapse, but was secretive about it as if we didn’t see him buying a generator, batteries, ammo, and food. None of it made any sense. He lived in a large suburban household with enough land for a vegetable garden and maybe 10 trees. did he really think he would be constructing fortifications holding the line against chaos from this house?? He got kind of out of shape, which certainly would be more limiting than not having 3 months of MREs.. but kept hoarding. He would stay up late listening to talk radio and wake up early to watch it. He was like a teenage boy who had just discovered porn, always sneaking off to consume his secret media. His neighbors don’t talk to him anymore, some of our family have stoped talking to him too.
It all came to a head for me yesterday when the right wing Trump rioters breached the Capitol building. When Trump issued his weak response which didn’t condemn the rioters actions, my dad couldn’t see what was wrong. I mean, it seems almost every politician of both parties and foreign politicians knew that our Capitol building being seized by an armed group for the first time since 1812 was a huge shameful deal except for Trump, and my dad followed Trump. It’s like Trump can do no wrong.
He has started saying racist things to me and sexist things, and will listen to his talk show with earbuds even while I try to have a conversation with him. I just want my dad back, and I want him to understand that he’s being lied to.
Morgan, Georgia (1/07/21)
I’d always known, but now it's so obvious
In the wake of Trump supporters desecrating the Capitol, I eavesdrop on my parent's conversation. I want to think they are good people, maybe just a little misguided, but after listening to a conversation that would never be spoken in public, I can no longer, with confidence, say that they are good people. A few days ago, I was in the car with my mom. We have had heated conversations before, but after a short trip to Trader Joe's, her disgust for individuals waving Raphael Warnock signs was apparent. She said, in her most southern voice, that she'll pray for them, and that they are dumb. She hates to say it, but that's what they are. She knows I voted for both left-leaning candidates. She knows I voted against Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, and yet she sits behind the steering wheel, calling, by extension, her own daughter dumb and brainwashed.
Fast forward to a few days later, overhearing her on the phone. I was not even trying this time to hear what she was saying, but yet her voice carried itself into my room. She says, "Vice President Mike Pence knows the election was rigged and he's doing something about it, I heard it on NewsMax." NewsMax. My parents no longer watch Fox News because it was infiltrated by the liberals, as they say. This is where my ears perk up, I stay quiet, knowing that a fight never ends well because of my evidence, fact, and logic fall on deaf ears.
Today, the day after terrorists attacked the Capital of the United States after their leader told them to fight. I stand in my room close to the door. I am eavesdropping, however disrespectful it may be, I still have my head pressed to the crack in the door, hearing what my father is saying.
My dad and I used to get along so well, he was a hero to me. In the past years, 4 years to be exact, the image of a kind-hearted, ever-concerned man is replaced by an angry, hateful man with a facade of care. He says that the terrorists were right, he touts off falsities as facts, and as I stand by the door in my room I think to myself, how did it get here.
How can my parents confidently say that they love their neighbor but condemn BLM protests, but cannot and will not condemn terrorist in the US Capital building? How can, after being provided mounds of evidence, still insist that there was election fraud? Then I think, I think to the many times I have been told to be careful around those different than me. To make sure that I stand by what I believe in. That the United States of America is the best country in the world and if I don't like even one thing about it, instead of speaking about my dislike I should just leave. That everything Trump says is fact and truth, but others who speak out against him are traitors to America. That they won't even watch Fox News because they are brainwashed into thinking that it is somehow the new liberal media.
It's sad that I can't even try to find common ground with these people I love dearly. My mother being the true victim of compliance. It is with exhaustion and true, deep sadness that I know my parents are lost causes and victims of the right-wing extreme media. It's truly heartbreaking to hear the hate spewed from them. It is heartbreaking to know that if I was not their daughter that they would see me as an enemy, even being their daughter, they do quietly see me as one. I hope one day this cult-like mindset will dissolve and the ever-present, in the past 4-years, the brainwashing of those close to me will end, but with no end in sight, I am heartbroken and sadden to see that my parents have ultimately become the victims.
Megan, Miami, Florida (1/07/21)
Parents Lost
I️ am a 90's baby with gen-x parents who are children to baby boomers. I️ was raised in a working class (but middle class) conservative republican household. I️ was raised in the church and maybe it went over my young head, but I️ never felt like I️ was in a super-polarized home. My dad was a Reagan republican because he came to power as my dad was in his critical developmental years and my dad was a business owner. Then there was an incident when I️ was in elementary school. It was during the Al Gore election mess, in which my dad got into such an ugly fight with my friends dad, that I️ was not permitted to see her again. I️ was heartbroken.
In hindsight, this was the turning point. I️ had never heard racism from my parents growing up. I️ had many black friends and never heard anything unusual in their direction. Truth be told, I️ did not know racism existed. I️ had been so sheltered from that in my 70% white town. Then I️ turned 16 and I️ fell in love with a black boy on the football team. Mind you, this was the year Obama was running for president. I️ came home excited to tell my family and my father exploded. He then left the house for hours. Upon arriving home he threatened to divorce my mom and locked me in my room. Once he cooled down, he explained to me why he felt the way he did and banned the relationship. Obama era was a turning point too. Rush Limbaugh and Fox News is the only sources of information he inhaled. They accused him of being an illegal immigrant, of being the anti-christ. My dad screamed this all 8 years. He felt oppressed. He became increasingly intolerant to anyone who did not see things his way, using racial or classist slurs.
Then Donald Trump came along. And the rest is history. My parents are entirely delusional. They lap up every right wing conspiracy theory Trump and the right wing media put out. I️ saw this darkness in my parents and jumped ship as soon as I left for college. My brother, 7 years behind me, was not so lucky. Upon seeing my left leaning views, my dad ensured to brainwash my brother; who by the way, has developed right in the middle of the Trump era.
I️ am writing this the day after right-wing extremists sieged the Capitol in an attempted coup. My parents excused this behavior, actually saying BLM is worse. They really believe that. When I combatted this, my dad threatened to cut me off and write me out of their will. I am writing this from a sad and lonely place. It is so hard to see them entirely out of touch with reality. My reality and their reality is no longer the same. I️ cannot help them. They are so far down the rabbit hole, I️ am sure they will never get out. I️ can see the gradual brainwashing of my parents, creating willfully ignorant humans who actually believe they are in the right. It makes me sad. Deeply, deeply, sad. And although you cannot excuse human error, I️ do know they have been preyed on by the right wing media. Preyed on, strategized against, and maintained by fear.
Shaun, Philadelphia (1/08/21)
Different Dad
Grew up in Florida. My father was one of the most accepting peopleI knew in diverse South Florida. He had a line, "I don't care who I live next to as long as they mow their grass." Now with work years being in the rear view, I'm starting to see a different man. This was a man that had not voted in 50 years. Now things have changed. I asked why, the answer was I have my time to look into these things now. I hear the start of hatred in my father now, voting for a man also years before he would have seen as a fool and pawn. Sad to see and hear how twisted in just a short time, a year or so.
I miss my Dad, the caring guy that loved all.
Daniel, Spain (11/3/20):
IT’S HAPPENING HERE IN SPAIN, TOO
I'm in Spain. We have a very similar problem with extremists here (and it has taken a turn for the worst with the Steve Bannon-financed party "Vox", along with its right-wing extremist media). My father is actually falling in this brainwashing.
Please, consider as a future project to broaden the viewpoint to, at least, the EU. Also, please, consider having it translated and purchased outside the US (I can volunteer to do the translating part, even).
Jennifer, Florida 10/30/20 — (re: QAnon)
Thank you for helping me make sense of my father's behavior
I stumbled across your movie on Amazon. In the past 20 years my father has become increasingly unhinged. As a kid (I’m 48 now) my parents never really spoke about politics other than we are catholic therefore we must be republican. If my parents had any prejudice, they never showed it. Although I do remember a conversation with my mother when I was 16/17. She said now that you are old enough to date, please do not bring home a black man, your father would be very upset.
There were little signs here and there that my father (who worked and went to night school to get his masters) felt like the forgotten man. He was in the army reserve, was involved with the Knights of Columbus, however, when he was laid off in 1990 he completely changed. With the internet just becoming a household staple, he would stay up late at night listening to some really crazy stuff...like about UFO, past life regression, tarot cards—things that are taboo in the Catholic religion. We changed it up to my dad just killing time.
It was around Y2K where he started to get paranoid. Stock piling food, batteries, water, guns. He was convinced that we would be fighting people off for these things. And as we all know, y2k was nothing.
When his end of the world scenario didn't play out, he felt let down again. He said I’m white, I have my masters’, served my country, yet I'm still forgotten. He stays up late listening to Rush and Alex Jones. He got increasingly more paranoid about the internet, the government tracking him.. but somehow it always seemed he was just joking.
Since 2016 his behavior has become downright scary...he has called me a communist, a baby killer. He has no trust in doctors (he is my mother's caregiver, she is dealing with Parkinson's and Alzheimer’s) he sends emails every week either about preparing for civil war, he sends QAnon conspiracy articles, he is convinced Covid is a scam. He thinks he is in some secret militia. I've asked him several times to please stop, but he doesn't. I've never once talked to him, or even had a conversation about my political believes. He tells me since I do not support Trump im a traitor, I support child trafficking, I’m a Fascist and an anti-fascist.
This past weekend was the most concerning. He sent an email (with a video of catholic priest preaching why Biden is evil), he wrote...that my family will be rounded up and put in a FEMA detention center for being Democrat and went on to give the address of one nearest to our home.
I'm having a very hard time coming to grips with all of this. In ways it felt like his behavior changed overnight but watching your movie and putting together clues of his behavior over the last 20/30 years it makes sense.
Jennifer, Kentucky 10/22/20
Losing Family as I Find Them
I was adopted at a very young as and was always on a quest to find biological family members. Fast forward about 35 years and I finally found them!! I had a wonderful reunion with a sister I didn't know I had, as well as talking on the phone and social media with other various family members. My sister and I hit off really well, visiting each other's houses and families in our respective states! Then came the election and Trump. Now we don't talk, she posts asinine theories and racist rhetoric, as does the rest of my bio family. She won't listen to reason, doesn't appear to have compassion, and posts vile and horrible things. I'm so heartbroken, my quest has all ended up a mess and I feel like just letting her go so I can keep my sanity.
My mother became a Republican to piss off her liberal sister and mother
My very un-political mother left to spend a summer with my liberal aunt and grandmother in Arizona and, while she was there, just to be argumentative, she decided she was a Republican and she went all in. That was about 20 years ago and now she's a huge Trump supporter. Political discussions are absolutely off limits when she is around me or my sister, but our husbands will sometimes argue with her and it's clear she has no real ideology other than "liberals are bad." She talks about Bill and Hillary Clinton like they're America's most dangerous criminals, conveniently ignoring anything within the current administration. It's depressing, since this isn't the mother who raised me.
family bonds have been strained and, in some cases, broken because of brainwashing
My dad has always been staunchly conservative, but after he got re-married he and my step-mother still were not rabidly right-wing. Political discussion at that time in our family was superfluous, the focus being on enjoying a warm, loving, cohesive family. They got their news from The McNeil / Lehrer Report and Firing Line at that time. That all changed with Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. Suddenly every issue became black and white to them: Anita Hill, homosexuality, the plight of poor Americans, education, affirmative action, feminism, the Clintons, and every liberal policy decision since the 30s- you name it.
When Obama became president they bought that book "Duped," and my step-mom brought it to a family gathering to emphasize her point to we Democrats in the family. We became unable to discuss any current issue without acrimony. My middle brother, who had been steeped in the Austin hippie culture of the early 70's, quickly changed his politics and personality after he started to climb the corporate ladder and watching Fox, and his once close relationship with our nieces began to fade and they now are completely estranged. My older brother, also once an Austin hippie musician, held out longer until he became a realtor in the early 2000s. Both brothers got their conceal carry permits. My older brother and his wife started drifting as he became more angry and bitter about liberals and all liberal positions, claiming all of the usual stuff like Bill Clinton is a rapist and murderer, Obama will take his guns away etc.
Fast-forward to Trump and Q-anon. Both of my brothers are completely eaten up by these cults, and they have recruited our step-mom into Q as well and maybe my dad as well, though I wouldn't know because he absolutely will not engage in political discourse with me. Q-anon has turned my brothers into more extreme absolutists / raving lunatics, and I suspect that they think I am part of an axis of evil or something, even though I have done nothing in my life to warrant that but vote Democrat. They believed that Covid is all a hoax, and that the virus was unleashed on purpose to bring down the world economy and hurt Trump. Where we used to catch up on the phone, that has all but ceased. I honestly don't know who they are anymore, and I don't think I would want to know their core beliefs anyway. My older brother and his wife are now separated and he is estranged from his daughters.
i miss my family
My parents used to be reasonable, they used to point out the faults of both sides. Everything changed when Trump became the nominee. I saw my father slowly become racist and a strange hatred for anyone different from him. My father hated Trump in the past but suddenly his mind changed overnight. He started hating anyone that was against Trump even candidates he once supported, only to hate them because Trump told him to.
My brother and I tried to prevent the situation by making jokes around my father just to show the entire thing was silly, but it kept getting worse. I feel like I don’t know who my father is anymore. My father has called me a socialist several times because I disagree with Trump.
It’s so frustrating to see someone you love to become racist and quickly to dismiss anything they see as different. America is truly split; the far right has managed to split families.
My father WORSHIPS TRUMP LIKE A GOD AND threatened to kill me
Your documentary and the stories that have been shared really spoke to me. My parents were life long liberals and always disavowed racism and xenophobia. My mother was Mexican and had been the victim of racist attacks in the past. My parents believed in equality and social justice. My mother passed away and her death broke my father. He became hateful and powdered by rage. He began obsessing about politics and Trump.
He watches Fox news all day, often screaming and yelling at the television. He has become completely radicalized and often spouts white nationalist talking points. He says terrible things about Mexicans and immigrants. He has betrayed everything that he and my mother once stood for. He constantly talks about politics even though my sister and I are progressives. He belittles our opinions and worldview. I tried to set boundaries and told him I don't want to discuss politics with him but he persisted. He would always bring up Trump and find a way to throw in a few personal insults. Everything Trump says is gospel. Any dissenting information is dismissed as fake news.
In our last conversation, he told me I represented everything he hates. He called me brain washed and a cunt. He followed up his barrage of obscenities by saying he never wanted to speak to me again because I don't support Trump or respect his beliefs. He threatened violence against me, my dad actually threatened to have me killed. Then he topped off the abuse by saying I was a mistake and I am no daughter of his. I haven't spoken to him since that argument. I don't recognize him anymore. I lost my dad to the cult of Fox news and Trump.
My Evangelical Parents
Thank you so much for creating this film! My relationship with my parents is extremely strained. They LOVE Rush, Fox News, and Savage. I have countless examples of how horrible they act including:
-Most recently sending me an "informational" packet about how evil Muslim people are
-Telling me that if I date an African American, then I'll be 80% more likely to get pregnant before marriage (I'm half black)
-Stating that they do not want to give their credit card number to the casino buffet because they don't trust, "the Indians"
-Telling me to watch out for the one world government that will come out from COVID (which they believe it is a hoax)
A dear friend from our punk rock days now introduces me to new acquaintances as "my friend, the liberal
The hard part about growing older is losing friends to illness and old age. Not seeing nieces, nephews, and the children of friends for the same reason. I grew up with a Republican father and an apolitical mother. My earliest memories of politics were the assassination of JFK, the desegregation wars of the American South, and the funeral of Sir Winston Churchill. Watching the film of Nikita Kruschev pounding his shoe on the table, duck & cover drills, radioactive snow was informing me by the time I was 7 years old.
I feared the creeping threat of communism. As I got older those worries were tempered because hey! The Beatles. Elvis. And my father's Christianity led him to salvage school books at the white school. I rode with him to take those books to the "Negro School."
My parents fretted over the influence of rock music, but they were Southern enough to relate to early rock'n'roll. Just avoid the blues! Jokes about black nannies who took a nightgown and a razor in their purse on their night off lessened as the sixties went by. But I don't think the opinions changed, they just stopped being told as much.
My friends and I embraced the music and attitudes of late sixties caring, sharing, open-minded hippie culture. Accepting Jim Hendrix and those blues guys was easing me into understanding that skin color was not an issue. The summer we lost Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King was a heartbreak for all of us. And my friends, we objected to the war, to Nixon, to all of corruption even as our men friends enlisted or got drafted to serve in Vietnam.
My father voted Republican and so did some of my friends. But it never became a hot topic, voting was just something citizens DID. My friends didn't especially hate the military and most of us identified with John Lennon's message much more than Sweet Home Alabama.
Now, in 15 or so years since Fox took off the gloves, and ceded the liberal cable position to MSNBC, the change inot my friends is shocking. A high school reunion is marred by old friends who sneer and call me out because I vote Democrat. I point put that they have a pension thanks to their lifelong membership in a union and they call me a commie. Men my age who dodged the draft religiously in the sixties and never volunteered for service now say any disagreement about American military strategy is an attack on the "fine men" in the military. There is no pleasant sharing a beer and conversation. Social events are minefields, as if the cheerful optimistic nature of our youth has been drained out of them.
A dear friend from the punk rock days now introduces me to new acquaintances as "my friend, the liberal," with a tone that implies she has to hold her nose to tolerate me. It is bizarre.
The common thread in this shift from laid back tolerance is talk radio and Fox News. The seismic shift seems to have been Iran Contra hearings, when some of us saw Fawn Hall and Oliver North as sneaky, lying, seditious right-wing creeps. But others saw them as loyal to Reagan, Kissinger, and Haig. Cable News and Fox especially. The folks who listened to Rush Limbaugh for laughs, like me, turn out to have friends that bought his entertainment shtick. Now the divide is so wide, social events require warnings, quick whispers to watch out for the moment they get drunk enough to start in on the evil Clintons or whatever.
It's a lonely world for a Midwestern older liberal.
Rafi from Denver
MY FATHER DISOWNED ME BECAUSE i’m not not like he is
My father has always been a racist liberal-hater, since I was a kid in the 60s - he took me to John Birch society meetings when I was 6 years old, and he's been a hardcore Dittohead since Rush first erupted. Needless to say Fox was like manna from heaven for him, and he adores tRump.
Christmas eve, 2014, I made the mistake of visiting him, and within 5 minutes of walking in the door he unloaded on me, telling me he hated me, and had always hated me, because I stood for everything he hated. I took the opportunity to confront him about his decades of alcoholic violent abuse of me and my mother [RIP], and to tell him that he was a pig-ignorant bigot and that the feeling was mutual.
It was a great feeling to re-open all those old wounds and let the truth come out. I have since retired and moved to Thailand, and probably won't go back. The USA is broken, and we can thank the fossil fuel / pharmaceutical corporations for doing it. It's heartbreaking, to watch the whole thing, to see the planet being destroyed before our eyes and humanity being degraded, but I've lived with it all my life, so I'm used to it. I have a little garden and my piano, and soon it will all be over. Thanks, Fox! Apologies for not ending on a happier note....
Michael C., Fort Worth, TX
A NEIGHBOR ASKED THEM TO LEAVE THEIR PROPERTY AND NEVER COME BACK
I was positive that once Hillary Clinton won and became President in November of 2016 that the madness that I had seen descend on my fellow Republicans and fellow Conservatives would finally be lifted. The 2016 election cycle had strained many relationships that my wife and I had built up over the years. I was shocked that we were in the minority of the people we went to church with and our neighbors. How could people be accepting this as the new normal?
When I ran for office, first for Congress and then for Justice of the Peace I expected that the vast majority of my friends, neighbors and church members would put away their politics to help a friend. I was thinking that people I would need to help block walk, phone bank and write postcards would come from friendships I had built over the years. None of them did. A few of them even campaigned for my opponent even though they would have loved to vote for me if I were still a Republican.
There were a few Republicans who had personally been sued by my opponent and had vowed to vote for and even campaign for me if he won the primary. When he won, they changed their mind because, and I quote “voting red is more important than what happened to me personally”. It was at this point that I realized that there is a lot more than ideology at work with these people. It is like they have joined a cult.
Since the election of Donald Trump this cult-like mindset has even gotten worse. We had a neighbor of ours who we have known for years ask us to leave their property and never come back because of our political/religious views. Just to give you some context, when the wife went into labor early it was my wife who delivered their baby.
Over the course of two years, my wife and I have lost many connections we thought were unbreakable. The good news is we have made so many newer ones and have been so blessed my run for office as Democrat when I had only been one for two days. The irrationality, the anger and the tribalism that is so actively promoted by the right-wing media has done tremendous damage to this country. I am hopeful that we are able to reverse it.
Kelly from Florida
WHEN SHE SAID SHE LIKED AOC SHE RECEIVED DEATH THREATS AND INSULTS
I managed 15 community Associations in Florida. The Trump supporters started really misbehaving. I had to buy a gavel just to keep control of the board meetings. I ended up in the hospital with high blood pressure and chest pains. I had to have blood pressure meds increased. I have a lot of funny stories. They were stressful at the time though.
Then, online I just made a statement that I liked Alexandria Ocasio/Cortez, and received a lot of threats including death threats and many other insults. I made copies and screen shots of all it.
For a while I would deliberately antagonize them just to see what they would say. I got quite a few to apologize.
HERE’S ONE:
”Oh, you mean all those economist’s with their bought
and paid for fake Harvard, Yale, Oxford phd’s that
never saw it coming, yeah everything will be just fine”
OR THIS LOVELY ONE:
“Me V you are just another comic pinko fagot traitor who
deserves to be put on your knees and executed for treason!
I’ll give you the best advice you ever got: take your liberal
socialist nonsense to church and beg God that you
never run into me! You’ll get a real close look at the
barrel of my 45. etc.” (I can’t put it all here but he ends with:)
“MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
Anonymous from Washington State
HER PARENTS WERE HIPPIES. NOW it’s like someone body snatched them
I feel the same way about my parents. They raised me to be accepting of all people. We were raised in the Bay Area and they had very liberal beliefs and were both hippies in the 60's. In the 80s that all changed. I know those were hard times and especially in that area. The crime wave of that time scared them and they moved us to Alaska to be near to relatives. Ever since then, they became Christians and everything changed.
Now, they are increasingly closed off, closed minded, and say stuff that shocks me about other people. They live in a constant state of fear that the apocalypse is coming. They've started to stockpile. It is deeply saddening and scary. I don't know what to do. Every time I try to talk to them about it they get angry and start to yell. So, now we just avoid all political conversations just to keep the peace but it is there simmering. It really is like someone body snatched them. I know some of my friends feel the same way about their parents too. You are not alone!
Alison, FL
HER BROTHER, A Ph.D, IS BRAINWASHED
My brother and I are estranged. We have been for many years. I’ve often thought that if I were to legally “divorce” him, I’d name Fox News as co-respondent and perhaps add right wing talk radio and Rush Limbaugh. We grew up in a Republican household, but when JFK became president and I began my career as a public school teacher, my political views shifted and I registered as a Democrat. That didn’t cause any ripples in my relationship with my parents or my brother. Sometimes we’d engage in playful banter, but never anything unpleasant. That changed with the dawn of the 21st century. My brother turned into an angry old man. Our political discussions grew heated and when I’d post a well thought out and carefully researched political articles on my Facebook page, he’d leave caustic comments. We eventually agreed to “unfriend” one another and avoid talking politics.
During the last presidential campaign and in more recent emails he called Trump an asshole and a twitter jerk, so I assumed he didn’t think much of Donald J. Trump. After Trump had been in office for 6 months, my daughter came for dinner and our conversation turned to my brother, her uncle. I said I thought, considering his comments about Trump, that he wasn’t one of the president’s loyal base. “You obviously don’t see his Facebook page,” she said. "On Facebook he’s a 100% behind Trump.” The next afternoon my curiosity got the best of me and using my husband’s laptop I snuck in the backdoor of my brother’s Facebook page. There I saw an image that’s burned into my brain and haunts me still—one those placards you can lift from political sites. There was Donald Trump in his military school uniform looking all polished and proper juxtaposed with a photo of young Barack Obama clowning around wearing a jaunty hat at a careless angle and smoking a cigarette looking degenerate and a bit dangerous. I don’t know what the words on it said because I clicked out of there before I could read it.
My brother’s an intelligent man—an all but dissertation Ph.D. physicist—yet he’d posted something so illogical, so obviously propaganda. I thought ‘he can’t know why Donald Trump’s wearing that uniform. He can’t know Donald Trump’s father shipped him off to military school because as a teenager he’d become incorrigible. He can’t know that for years before that young Donald had been in trouble in his neighborhood for bullying and harassing other kids. He certainly can’t know he misbehaved early on hitting one of his primary school teachers.
Posting that placard insinuating that Trump was the straight arrow kid and Obama the feckless fuck-up seemed beyond irony. Then it dawned on me. Of course he doesn’t know about Trump’s past. He watches Fox News. He thinks the NY Times and the Washington Post are liberal rags and NPR is left wing propaganda. Fox tells him so. That’s how “alternative truths” take hold—people just don’t know and are easily misled when they dwell in the fog of Fox. In the process, families like mine are torn apart and so is our nation. In this case, one of Trump’s overused expressions fits. Sad.
Melissa, PA
DISABLED COUPLE ON ASSISTANCE HURT OVER FOX WATCHER DAD'S ANGER AT THOSE PROGRAMS
I love my dad but he LOVES and sadly believes Fox "News". Thing is, my family only survives with the help of assistance programs. As you can guess, Fox news viewers kinda hate said programs. While he agrees we deserve and need the help, he still talks in general about them and it’s hard to not take it personally. Plus, if they cut those programs we will be hurt.
I hate having this big wedge between my dad and I. My parents divorced when I was super young, and I was always really close with my mom. She was my best friend until the day she died. After I lost her, I realized how much I wanted to have the same kind of relationship with my dad. And I got that. I don't want this to drive us apart again, and honestly, it might.!
Whitney from St. Louis, MO
HER THERAPIST GOT LOST TO THE RIGHT-WING CULT
I have lost so many good people in my life to this phenomenon you depicted. I had a therapist for years that suddenly became a right wing advocate. I noticed anti-Muslim rhetoric on her Facebook page (yes I was snooping) and she keeps saying I'm being lied to by the liberal media, that Hillary has a kill list, etc. I have heard so many others like her repeat similar phrases and sentiments. It is heartbreaking and scary. Especially with our current political climate. A friend at work gave me your documentary. Thank you for bringing light to this terrifying cult like madness going on. I'm grateful for the sane voices out there right now!
Anonymous from Maryland
A SHOCKING CHANGE TO A BELOVED COUSIN
Dear Jen,
I am writing to thank you for your wonderful film, I am sorry to learn of your fathers passing, but you have shared him with all of us, and made him a hero to everyone who has lost someone to this rabies of the airwaves.
I hope you don't mind if I take the opportunity to tell you a story. My cousin grew up in a Quaker family that sees political involvement as a matter of course. She grew up in the extraordinarily liberal enclave of Tacoma Park, a place that lovingly embraces it's nickname, The People's Republic of Takoma Park, and where you can buy olive drab T-shirts emblazoned with a red star reading the same. Her father is from an upwardly mobile African-American family of pioneering surgeons, pilots, and chemical engineers. He attended art school and had friends in the Black Panthers. Her mother is the kind of Quaker who is a little suspicious of political movements and really makes skepticism into a kind of art. She is a bit of Elizabeth Warren and a bit Cherry Jones. (I assure you all this is important for context.)
Four years my cousin was normal, she watched John Stewart, adored Bill Maher and hated George Bush. But as you have said in your film, something changed. Maybe it had something to do with Obama, or maybe it was her interest in NASCAR. Before you know it she was picking fights with people because they didn't want to hear about Alex Jones, she had InfoWars stickers on her car, and the mention of Hillary Clinton would send her into a rage. Most of her family is exhausted, for some reason I can sometimes challenge her rants without escalating them. Perhaps my familiarity with Jones' conspiracies gave me credibility or had a soothing effect. Perhaps it was my assertion that there could be a deeper conspiracy, one in which Alex Jones is the agent rather than the passive reporter. (Did I mention that it all got worse after my cousin got a new job as a driver?)
I just wanted to share with you that there is an African-American woman from a radical Quaker family in Takoma Park Maryland who has gone just as crazy due to prolonged exposure to these people. It puts the lie to the long held notion that a lost (white, male) privilege, rather than cynical exploitation, explains the rise of these treacherous demagogues. And your film, and your father's story, gives us all hope for our loved ones.
C. from NJ
HER DAD BECAME A STRANGER TO HER, THREATENING TO KILL HER
Dear Jen Senko,
I just wanted to thank you for your documentary. I'm sure you get your fair share of fan mail, and I have no doubt it rivals some of the hate mail in your inbox. Please know this is being written in gratitude.
Had I known this film was being made, I would have loved to have been a participant. Prior to seeing this film, I had felt all alone, having witnessed the very same metamorphosis in my own family, in particular, my dad.
He and I always had a bit of a strained relationship, but he drastically changed when he quit drinking and moved away from the hippy persona he once possessed, finding comfort in the arms of the born-again, evangelical Christian community. Slowly but surely, the car radio helped incite his fear, then the TV incited his hatred, before I knew, I stopped knowing him, the guitar playing, rock music loving jokester.
He's gone now. Two and a half years. But about three months before his death, he actually did kick me out of his car in a fit of rage I had never known simply because I mentioned Sweden paying their citizens to go to college. I felt like you and I shared a dad when in the first few moments of your movie, you discussed your dad threatening to kick you out of his car. My dad became a racist bigot who cursed me and disowned me even though I was the only person driving him to his cancer treatment appointments. He often cursed me and threatened me on the way to those appointments. He kicked me out of his house for reading a book on meditation.
Since his death, I've become more of an activist who now works with several organizations that fight for the Separation of Church and State and Womens Rights. I do this with my father in mind and know if he were still alive, he would hate me more than anyone in the world.
I felt like I told my story while hearing everyone else's. Abuse from my dad, threats from the man who I once loved and admired, a man who had become a stranger over time, threatening to kill me, to kill us both while driving like an enraged lunatic screaming inaudible conspiracy theories. I was brought back to it all while watching your film.
Unfortunately, I see it happening to many of my family members now. But every person who can see this, maybe, hopefully it will help.
Thank you again for your work. Though it reopened some wounds, it reminds me why I fight. I'm so grateful that you've shown me that I'm not alone.
DEMOCRATS ARE EVIL TO HER HUSBAND
Hello Jen,
I just heard about your documentary. Someone shared an interview you did about it on FB. My husband has been taken over by first, Rush, and then Fox News. He is convinced they are the only fair and balanced news, that everything they say is the gospel, and that anything sounding remotely different is the “liberal media” brainwashing us. He is a farmer, uneducated, older white guy…just Fox’s prey. While he has always been conservative, he was not spending every spare minute listening to Fox or Rush. I am not conservative and have a Master’s degree in sociology (history, political science undergraduate degree) so I am well educated on propaganda, fallacy, racism, sexism, and the effects of SES in influencing our point of view. My husband was so convinced that Mitt Romney was going to win the last election that he became VERY angry and wouldn’t speak to me. He left the house at 4:00am and was just so blown over by it that he couldn’t cope for a while. Fox News had him.
No matter how much information I bring him regarding the slant of Fox News, he waves it off as liberal agenda and all lies. To him Republicans are “good” and Democrats are “evil”.
He was always a little racist and sexist. Now, he is a full-blown racist and agrees with Trump on nearly everything he says.
So, we often watch TV in separate rooms and fight over the radio station when traveling. It is really horrible what is happening in our society because of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.
Father cut daughter out of will for being a liberal.
My dad died two years ago at age 92. His only companions were his dog (whom he neglected), the neighbor across the street, and FOX News.
I was left out, as I was "the other". That means I'm an atheist, Democrat, anti-American, and dangerous person in his mind. I tried to look after him if only for the sake of my deceased mother. Instead of recognizing my contributions, my father verbally abused me, sometimes belligerently. I knew better than to discuss politics.
However, I was serenaded by my father repeating eagerly the last thing he heard Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity say. And he had a man crush on Newt Gingrich. The volume of the TV was at 10; it couldn't go any higher. The walls rocked with FOX News. There was no escaping it. It was torture to be in the same house with my father.
I said nothing as I recognized that my father had died spiritually while his body remained in the green Lazy Boy chair from the time he got up to when he retired. And I said nothing as my sister warned me that he would change his Will out of spite. So I was quiet.
Like I told you, he died almost two years ago.
And you know what?
The idiot neighbor across the street inherited $35,000 from Dad.
I inherited a Life Estate in the house. I don't own it. I have to pay for the municipal taxes, upkeep, and repairs. When it is sold, I will not get a penny from the proceeds; that money goes to four charities. I didn't inherit a dime from my father.
I'll always wonder whether my father was independently cruel and malicious or whether he just picked up some bad attitudes from all that RW BS he accumulated for 15 years.
Government agencies have Fox News on their TVs
My father, yes. He's obviously brainwashed, along with my father-in-law who lives with us.
But I was brainwashed too. It all started on 9/11 when I was living within walking distance to the Pentagon. I was always a channel-flipper, but now it was just FOX News.
A decade later I was living in Tucson, Arizona and decided to get rid of Cable TV. I was always outside and just wanted to save a few bucks.
No Cable TV = No FOX News
A few months later, Gabby Giffords was shot. She was being treated for her injuries at a hospital just across the street from where I lived and the news vans were beginning to pile up. So I found a TV and flipped on FOX News...
I was expecting to be drawn in again. I swear, turning on FOX News again had me feeling as if I was lighting up a cigarette while trying to quit.
Instantly, it was like the ghost of 'FOX News Past' reminded me of how many years I wasted watching Fox News.
I have 20 years with the Federal Government, and you would be shocked to know the high percentage of TVs within these buildings constantly tuned to FOX News. So you might as well start your next documentary, because it's just the start of the brainwashing.
His Dad was always Republican but didn’t become radical until he started watching Fox News
Dear Jen:
I am so sorry I did not know about your documentary work when you were interviewing people who have suffered the same dad brainwashing affliction caused directly by Fox News, right wing radio, etc. Sadly, my father was one of those transformed men who just never came back. We were hardly on speaking terms when he passed suddenly in 2013.
But here's the bizarre part for me. He was a brilliant, highly educated New York City orthopedic surgeon (and pretty famous in his orbit), and I am an attorney who, for most of my life into adulthood, loved and adored my father. Had him be my best man at my wedding, even though I had and have several very close male friends who could have been.
Yes, our politics were always contrary. He was a Republican, more Rockefeller New York moderate than conservative (as best that label can be understood today), and I have been a mostly left leaning progressive. BUT WE ALWAYS COMMUNICATED AND DEBATED IN FRIENDLY AND LOVING WAYS, UNTIL FOX NEWS CAME ALONG.
And then it all changed. He had it on all day and night. He was constantly angry; he lost his ability to argue rationally. Facts as a doctor and scientist seemed to all but disappear. It was really something to behold.
And then we stopped talking for the most part. And then he was gone...