With the recent Limbaugh news, has anyone seen "The Brainwashing of my Dad"?

[bearsfootball516]

It’s an excellent documentary on YouTube that details the impact Rush Limbaugh has had on the Boomer generation. It’s filmed by a daughter watching her dad change as a person the more he listens to Limbaugh and watch Fox News, then how he changes back into the loving father he used to be once they cut Fox and Rush out of his life.

I’d highly recommend it if you haven’t seen it.

[aquamarina]

1. I did and was horrified.

I, too, highly recommend it for anyone who's dealing with a Fox/Rush/Glenn Beck brainwashed loved one.

[Rorey]

2. I remember that

It gave me hope that my then-husband could be saved. I downgraded our cable so we wouldn't get FauxNews, and also, to be fair, we wouldn't get MSNBC or CNN.

The first morning after the downgrade took effect I came home from running an early morning errand and he was sitting in his chair just glaring. He was absolutely livid. I explained to him that I also wasn't going to get to watch "my" channels and was hoping it would improve things between us if we each didn't have those influences. What I did was to basically take a break from being a news junkie. What he did was to get in his truck and listen to right-wing radio.

Last February our divorce was final. I'm happy. He's still the miserable old cuss that he had become during his downfall, which I believe was greatly perpetuated by right wing fake news sources.

[maxsolomon]

5. My take on the film was that

the only reason the filmmaker and her Mom were able to de-program the Dad was that he was basically too senile to object to the changes they instituted. And then he died.

Unfortunately, your Ex could object.

It wasn't an uplifting message, but the analysis of what the Right Wing Noise Machine does to the brain was spot-on. Particularly the parts about the graphics zooming around the bottom of the screen.

[Rorey]

14. I still thought he could summon up some logic at the time

He had been a life long Democrat and was active in his union and had close friends in local politics. We had walked precincts together and marched on the state capitol for causes we were passionate about.

Then he started going on fishing trips with my right-wing brother. The drive was long and I can only imagine the garbage my jerk brother was spewing to my husband. Soon he was listening to right-wing radio for hours every day, and I'd come home and catch him watching FauxNews.

I tried rationalizing with him. Friends tried rationalizing with him. Nothing could get through to him. Things got very vicious prior to the 2016 election, and we truly became enemies. I still held out hope, "knowing" that -45 would do things that even my brain-washed husband would see for what they were. But he continued to be bolstered by my jerk brother, and re-connected with some right-wing buddies in eastern Colorado. He actually started having an affair with a woman who he knew in high school (eastern Colorado). I found out and that's when I gave up all hope of him turning back into the person that I thought he once was. And, seriously, good riddance to him.....and to my jerk brother too.

[maxsolomon]

15. Wow, that's tragic.

Hope the future is more fun than that!

[Rorey]

18. It is for me!

I saw him about a week ago because we had to sign some business papers. He seemed to be absolutely miserable. I honestly don't care much anymore, and I care less with each passing day. I do wish he'd move back to his home town. Then he could be in the company of all of the other right wing nuts.

[SWBTATTReg]

3. I hear of these brainedwashed people and I wonder to myself, OMG, you know that this ...

country has always prided itself on the concept of self worth, self determination, 'it takes a village', 'all for Country', etc., and then when you see people go nuts or idiot after watching/listening to their daily dose of faux and/or Limbaugh, I wonder why or how are people triggered that easily by these self dealing people (faux and Limbaugh) who are simply goosing up the conversation to drum up the ratings? Funny these people are the same ones that the Russians would go after.

I had to laugh too, being that rump hates the media, and rush l. is one big media guy. go figure the disconnect there...

[Siwsan]

4. I watched it happen to my mother, and she was born in 1928

Between Limbaugh, Lucianne Goldberg and Fox "news", it became nearly impossible to discuss anything but some (definitely not all) family issues and, maybe, the weather.

[PatSeg]

6. Yes

It is a movie everyone should see. Fortunately, it did have a hopeful ending, but for many people, it is only getting worse.

[CrispyQ]

7. I lived it with my mother.

It was a nightmare. The transformation took about 18 months to go from a fairly open-minded democrat to a right wing nut job who hated teachers. She got a job where they listened to Limbaugh's show every afternoon. This was back in the early 90s. I think his show was 3 hours long.

Our side has stupidly ignored hate radio for decades and we still do. Why don't our billionaire dems buy up a few AM radio stations, hire some top notch writing talent, and challenge the message of hate that blankets rural America?

We've totally dropped the ball on messaging. It's like dem leadership doesn't believe in marketing. How come all the memes that come to mind are right wing? No child left behind. Clean skies, healthy forests. Cadillac queens. Tax and spend democrats. And the granddaddy of them all, trickle down economics.

[genxlib]

9. I don't think it is dropping the ball

I think it is inherent that certain types of people like to listen to such stuff and other types don't.

Republicans like it because it activates some endorphin producing part of their lizard brain. I don't think Progressives get the same charge out of their version.

I tried to listen to the progressive station on Sirius XM but it just left me agitated. I agreed with it but it left me all kinds of irritable. I couldn't take it for long.

I agree with your overall premise that we are getting killed at it. I am just not sure there is a market for balancing it. Sure, Billionaires could finance it without regard for economic viability. But that doesn't necessarily translate to listeners or impact.

[CrispyQ]

11. Maybe they need better writers.

I agree there's a certain mentality that won't listen to anything that contradicts their worldview, but I still think we dropped the ball on framing the issues. George Lakoff nailed the problem in his book, "Moral Politics," that the dems assume people vote based on facts and intellect, and the repubs know that a lot of people vote based on emotion, or the lizard brain, like you said. We need to appeal to both, but instead, we think it's good enough to say, "Go to our platform page and read what we stand for," while the repubs plaster the media with catchy phrases that frequently are the exact opposite of what their policies actually do, but people swallow it.

In the end, people need to sharpen up. There's a reason why the repubs started filling positions on Boards of Education across the land back in the 1980s.

"As people do better, they start voting like Republicans - unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing."
~Karl Rove

[genxlib]

19. Perhaps

But radio is hardly ever scripted. It is usually some form of stream of consciousness interspersed with callers.

To your point, liberals kick ass in scripted entertainment. There is nothing like the Daily Show, Samantha Bee, John Oliver, SNL, Colbert or anything on the right. I am just not sure it has the same transformative impact due to the same reasons I cited above

[JudyM]

12. ++++++++ most important party enhancement we need is neuromessaging/marketing.

[The Genealogist]

8. I need to watch it, as my dad was all intomthe whatever that is RW radio

I'll start by saying that my father was always a conservative. His whole family was. But Rush and his ilk just slammed it into high gear. Instead of just having conservative values, Dad became far more spiteful and mean sprited about politics. RW radio is the pits.

[JudyM]

13. Mine too. Limbaugh twisted conservatism into abject hatred of Dems. Demonization and derision.

[Crunchy Frog]

10. Yes. That's the reason I don't agree with posters

who claim that R voters aren't really voting against their own interests, they just have different values and priorities.

That's true for some of them, but many are outright brainwashed, and have literally been turned into different people via propaganda.

Propaganda works, which is why so many powerful interests indulge in it.

[2naSalit]

16. Especially when

subliminal messages are included in the broadcasts. Brainwashing at its best, right there on fixed spews.

[kimbutgar]

17. I was telling my sister in law who is married to a member of the cult that she needs to see it

Her husband was brainwashed after 9-11 to hate The Democratic party and told us while visiting them on Super Bowl Sunday that my husband and I were communists because we did not support mf45. We always make a point to not bring up politics but this time for the first time he went after us with vengeance it was so shocking it made me cry. We are visiting from SF to Phoenix where my husband’s family lives. He thinks we are idiots . The dude is a major loser who struggles to keep jobs. He recently got a job as a postman and in a union job with protections at age 59. While we both work, members of unions, own a home in SF, save money and can afford to go on trips when we get time off. Yeah we’re losers.