Spoilers!
…I had the exact same problem with my Grampa. It made me so sad, because he was one of the people who encouraged me to travel and be curious and to NOT be racist. Then he got old and spent all his time in front of Angry And Unbalanced News and forwarding eye-assaulting e-newsletters full of animated .gifs of weeping eagles and many fonts…
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I do not know, so I ask…
Was he pro “stand ground” before the shooting, or did he become pro “stand ground” after it?
If the family meant something to you once, then do not forget that memory unless the betrayal means too much.
Don’t forget family.
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I agree about it not being some trap ensnaring all who wander into it; it wouldn’t resonate with new viewers if it wasn’t appealing to attitudes that were already there.
My paternal grandfather passed just before the 2016 election when he was in his late 90s, but was an old-school Roosevelt Democrat pretty much to the end. He hated Romney and his ilk, and was pretty empathetic for someone his age about race and immigration. That probably had a lot to do with him having grown up a poor Polish immigrant kid during the Depression. He never went to high school, had to share a bed with his siblings, and got harassed by WASP senior officers in the Army because he was a olive-skinned Catholic Pole.
Some of his kids (my aunts and uncles), Boomers who grew up postwar with affordable college and cheap housing, are the heavy Fox News watchers.
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Mainstream, I think. Maddow, CNN, etc. Other names and letter combinations I don’t recognize/recall.
In spite of how much I despise Trump, the current crop of “Republicans”, Alt-Right fuckwaffles, etc., and how much I get involved in political discussions around here, I really try to keep as much distance from politics and politicians as I can; kinda like minimizing exposure to the sun… too much and you’ll end up with cancer in your soul. So I avoid paying attention to exactly what she’s watching. I just know it’s not Fox. And she and my MIL don’t get along.
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Influences like Fox News don’t turn reasonable people into monsters but they can turn a centrist into someone who leans right, a person who leans right into a committed conservative, a committed conservative into a far-right ideologue and a far-right ideologue into a dangerous extremist.
When someone is already on the edge sometimes they just need a nudge to go from “person with strong political opinions” to “violent terrorist.”
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White privilege is precisely the ability to think that your racist grandparents didn’t used to be racist before they started watching Fox News. My fellow white people should understand that we have the luxury of ignoring what for others cannot be ignored.
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Most of the people I know who have become more vocally right-wing in recent years have always had those beliefs. They just feel more comfortable now talking about them with people who they know are more liberal. I don’t think Fox News is making people monsters. I think it’s revealing them as such.
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It’s easier to recruit more people over to Team Racism when openly discussing racist ideas is no longer socially taboo. Just as it was easier to get more people to support rights for LGBT people when openly discussing sexual orientation was no longer socially taboo.
The conversations we allow to dominate our public discourse matter.
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someone existentially disillusioned?
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It is very sad. My wife and I used to vacation with my in-laws, before they fell down the Fox News rabbit hole.
We stopped. And then we stopped leaving the kids with them. And then they moved away, to find more like them. So now it’s a weekend every other year.
Thanks, Rupert.
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I believe the full equation is:
David Brooks + Racism + Misogyny + Fear + Greed - Empathy - Science = Conservative
You are correct, but this also points out the exact reason the right is so bound and determined to undermine education, especially critical thinking skills. If they can return to a " memorize, repeat" style of education maybe they stop losing the younger demographic.
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It must be awful to be trapped in 2008 and not realize you banned Alex Jones and replaced him and the tea party months ago.
But he has all three.
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FTR, breadtube refers to Philosophy Tube, HBomberGuy, ContraPoints, etc. on YouTube: https://www.reddit.com/r/BreadTube/comments/8ihgvq/why_is_this_a_bread_themed_subreddit_you_ask/
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Being an “older” person I see two sides to this issue. Firstly I agree that the “good old times” are illusory, but we tend to remember the good things.
Through those “good old times” we had just as many challenges, although not the necessarily the same ones, but we were able to deal with them with young and agile brains. As we age we may gain wisdom, but often at the expense of agile thinking. For the aged, there are numerous things at play, the loss of critical thinking, loneliness, a desire to relive their lives, etc.
I think I’ve expressed that somewhat clumsily, but I hope it makes some sense.
I have a friend (77 yo) whose political stance is completely right wing biased. He gets quite hostile if I dare suggest a different point of view. It drives me to distraction at times, so I have stopped responding to his constant political commentary and he eventually tires of talking to himself.
This gentleman is a practicing lawyer.
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Just because they’re born before you were, doesn’t make them monsters. You fall into the same Us vs. Them trap that FoxNews perpetuates when you lump masses of people into the dreaded Other category.
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