how did the older posters here avoid being radicalized by Faux

[dutch508]

Star Member pstokely (10,353 posts)
https://democraticunderground.com/100217846657

how did the older posters here avoid being radicalized by Faux and AM hate radio?

unlike many of their fellow old persons?

 

Star Member Kaleva (34,382 posts)

2. Because we have a solid core of beliefs

That causes us to outright reject what Fox and RW radio put out.

Star Member True Blue American (16,920 posts)

4. I learned to think for myself

Long before I grew into mature status. Democrats choose facts over fantasy. Not hard to do.

 

yaesu (7,863 posts)

7. Fox lobotomies are irreversible so I never chanced watching Fox. nt

Star Member Mister Ed (5,248 posts)

9. It filled me with a vague feeling of disgust, even though I had no strong political leanings.

Last edited Fri Apr 21, 2023, 05:13 AM - Edit history (3)

When Fox first started up, they presented themselves as a legitimate news network. But there was just something about them that didn't smell right to me.

I was younger, and somewhat disinterested in politics. Considered myself an independent. But there was just something vaguely creepy about Fox that made me shy away from them and select a different news channel.

It was the same feeling that I had for Donald Trump in those years.

That guy has creeped me out for as long as he's been in the public spotlight. It had nothing to do with politics. He wasn't a politician back then. He was just creepy, and vaguely disgusting to me. When his stupid "reality" show came on years later, I would always quickly switch the channel away from it. Couldn't stomach a minute of it.

It was the same with right-wing radio. I was once hired to do some interior painting for an old lady, who asked me, "Have you heard this new Rush Limbaugh fellow on the radio? He is wonderful!" She played his program while I worked, and I sort of half-listened. His conservative political stance itself didn't offend me, but I found that listening to him made me feel a little ill. He just seemed like some sort of a sleazy, weasley snake-oil salesman, twisting and distorting everything to suck his listeners in.

In the years since, I've concluded that there are just some people who are naturally susceptible to this sort of propaganda and mass hypnosis, and that I'm not one of them. I don't think that makes me any better than them. It's just that I don't seem to be wired quite the same way they are.

 

Star Member FuzzyRabbit (1,829 posts)

16. I was educated in the 1950s and 1960s.

When Fox "news" first started I realized that "fair and balanced" was a lie, and that they were in business to spread right wing propaganda.

It might have helped me that as a kid I read Mad Magazine and learned from them how to spot bullshit. and when in college I studied government and law.

 

Star Member no_hypocrisy (42,371 posts)

21. I lived through Nixon/Agnew,

Reagan/Bush, Bush/Quayle, Gingrich, DeLay, and other chuckleheads.

Of COURSE, I couldn't be radicalized by Fox and AM hate radio. (The first three minutes of Rush was the canary in the coal mine.)

Star Member ananda (27,656 posts)

26. One word: education.

Star Member OneGrassRoot (22,701 posts)

33. I instantly noted the Othering...

the racism and bigotry that was seeped into all of the whining and moaning and bloviating. It disgusted me. It equally disgusted me that others chose not to deny it. They weren't stupid people but they chose to latch onto the right-wing BS giving them someone to blame for their grievances.

The Other.

ETA: It was primarily men, obviously white men. Rarely did I encounter women who listened. It was only when Fox came onto the scene that I saw women being directly radicalized, versus being radicalized through the influence of the men in their lives.

Star Member piddyprints (14,364 posts)

45. I started watching during the Clinton impeachment.

I was just flipping channels and landed on Fox. I was pretty mad at Clinton for his behavior, which I thought damaged the country and the Democratic party. Yeah, yeah, none of our business what he does in his personal life. But anyone else in the country would have been fired for doing that at work. And then he lied about it. I was mad at him for putting us in that position.

I had no idea before I landed on the channel that it was even there, and I was fascinated by it. They certainly sounded different from the others. It was sort of nice that someone else was outraged by his behavior. It felt completely one-sided, which I was in the mood for at the time.

Ok, none of this was rational. It was completely emotional. That's how they hook the viewers and how they control them. I didn't watch for long (hours, not days or weeks) because something about it made me feel like I was losing brain cells every minute. It felt dirty and sort of cultish after a bit. I think I recognized that it wasn't healthy and I never watched that channel again.

What's the difference between me and the millions of current Fox viewers? How did I see the trap and they didn't? I really don't know.

 

Star Member Paladin (26,758 posts)

47. Well, let me pull on my memory a little...

A. I grew up in a Democratic household.

B. In college, I took an active part in the anti-Vietnam war movement.

C. I followed the whole Watergate thing---came out of it thinking Nixon was the worst president this country would ever have.
(Hey, we all make mistakes).

D. By the time Limbaugh came along, I noticed that all my business co-workers who worshipped him were dipshits.


Short answer to your question: It was easy.

Voltaire2 (10,787 posts)

63. Obvious Nazi bullshit was obvious.

At some point you have to decide to believe the hate spew.

 

[Ralph Wiggum]

Star Member ananda (27,656 posts)

26. One word: education.

Not to toot my own horn but I'm certainly plenty conservative, Fox News never changed me into one as I already had a thinking and analytical brain. And I have a 4 year degree and an MBA, along with passing the CPA exam. Additionally, I actually learned civics, language, and how the government was designed to work back in high school and beyond. Didn't need any indoctrination, unlike the purple haired zombies being turned out at Universities all across the country these days. You know, the ones who think there are more than two biological genders and couldn't define fascism other than what their indoctrination centers have taught them.

[USA4ME]

And yet I’m more intelligent than every primitive on the island. Funny how they come to their beliefs.

.

[SVPete]

"10,353 posts" and still trolling for DUmp Cred? Pathetic.

In my real world, my political views were largely formed well before the first time I heard Rush Limbaugh or Fox News started broadcasting. I didn't need Libs like Teddy the Snorkel to tell me that things like theft, fraud, murder, assault, destruction of property, and racism are wrong. Dudes like Moses, Jesus, and Paul covered those matters long ago.

E.G., if theft is wrong, that means that private property is moral, and Socialism is theft. Further, vandalism is simply a form of theft, which is forbidden.

[SVPete]

One of DU-folks' conceits is that they cannot accept that decent intelligent people could come to believe differently from them. In their -addled minds we must be moronic robots programmed by "Hate Radio" (insert Err America joke here; EA truly was hate radio) and Fox News (which I've never watched, FWIW).

[CollectivismMustDie]

A 4 word question that destroys that entire narrative:

What is a woman?


DUmbasses.

[ABC-2]

A 4 word question that destroys that entire narrative:

What is a woman?


DUmbasses.

Indeed, indeed CMD.  That question should "bust their chops" in the meanest way possible!  Fools!

~ ABC 

[FlaGator]

One of DU-folks' conceits is that they cannot accept that decent intelligent people could come to believe differently from them. In their -addled minds we must be moronic robots programmed by "Hate Radio" (insert Err America joke here; EA truly was hate radio) and Fox News (which I've never watched, FWIW).

Seems to be some primitive form of ancestor worship.

[FiddyBeowulf]

Star Member True Blue American (16,920 posts)

4. I learned to think for myself

Long before I grew into mature status. Democrats choose facts over fantasy. Not hard to do.

DUmmies believe a woman can have a penis and a man can have a period.

[jukin]

They didn't. To think other than that is DUlusional.

[ADsOutburst]

Long before I grew into mature status. Democrats choose facts over fantasy. Not hard to do.

I beg to differ.

Democrats believe Americans have easy access to "military grade" weapons. Democrats grossly overestimate the COVID hospitalization rate. Democrats believe Republican ideas are unpopular. Democrats believe the corporate media doesn't have a left-wing slant. Democrats say they're for the little guy and want the money out of politics. And so on.

Democrats definitely seem to believe wholeheartedly that reality is what they see on TV.

It might have helped me that as a kid I read Mad Magazine and learned from them how to spot bullshit. and when in college I studied government and law.

26. One word: education.

I wonder if these people who claim they know how to spot BS, or think their education somehow insulates them against propaganda, could actually articulate how to spot BS. I have my own ideas about being media-literate, but none of it is from my schooling.