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 Old, white, wrinkled and angry, they are
slipping from polite society in alarming numbers. We’re losing
much of a generation. They often sport hats or other clothing,
some marking their status as veterans, Tea Partyers or
“patriots” of some kind or another. They have yellow flags,
bumper stickers and an unquenchable rage. They used to be the
brave men and women who took on America’s challenges, tackling
the ’60s, the Cold War and the Reagan years — but now many are
terrified by the idea of slightly more affordable healthcare and
a very moderate Democrat in the White House.
We’re losing people like my father to the despair of Fox News,
and it’s all by design.
My dad is 67 years old, a full year younger than the average Fox
viewer, who is 68, according to an analysis in New York magazine
by columnist Frank Rich. I’ve read accounts of people my age —
40 or so — losing parents to cancer or Alzheimer’s, but just as
big a tragedy are the crops of grandmothers and grandfathers
debilitated by Fox News-induced hysteria.
I enjoyed Fox News for many years, as a libertarian and frequent
Republican voter. I used to share many, though not all, of my
father’s values, but something happened over the past few years.
As I drifted left, the white, Republican right veered into
incalculable levels of conservative rage, arriving at their
inevitable destination with the creation of the Tea Party
movement.
When I finally pulled the handle for Obama in 2012, my father
could not believe how far I’d fallen. I have avoided talking
politics with him as much as possible ever since. Last week, I
invited him to my house for dinner with the express purpose of
talking about politics and most especially his Fox News
addiction. Since he retired, he only watches Fox. As we started
chatting up politics, I repeated one mantra over and over:
“Please, please, consume another source of information.” I
repeated my plea a dozen times. He defended with stridency his
choices, citing his favorites, like Stuart Varney, “The Five”
and the great Charles Krauthammer. When it came to any other
source of information he was emphatic.
“I don’t care to see any more of that liberal bullshit,” he said
in one form or another all night.
We rehashed some issues, starting with his absolute skepticism
about global warming and evolution. “Science and religion are
the same thing,” he said. And, “We didn’t come from a fucking
monkey,” he added like he always does.
In real life Archie Bunker isn’t that cute. If he’s Archie, that
makes me either Meat Head or Sallie Struthers (the very
definition of lose-lose).
I’m overeducated in the humanities, so I’m an imperfect
ambassador for science. I respect scholarship, peer review and
the scientific method. When I tell my dad he should believe the
experts in climate science, he gets really mad.
“Global warming is your religion,” he says. Because I’m an
atheist, calling me religious is the worst insult he can summon,
so he uses it often.
My father sincerely believes that science is a political plot,
Christians are America’s most persecuted minority and Barack
Obama is a full-blown communist. He supports the use of force
without question, as long as it’s aimed at foreigners. He thinks
liberals are all stupid, ignorant fucks who hate America.
I don’t recall my father being so hostile when I was growing up.
He was conservative, to be sure, but conventionally and
thoughtfully so. He is a kind and generous man and a good
father, but over the past five or 10 years, he’s become so
conservative that I can’t even find a label for it.
What has changed? He consumes a daily diet of nothing except Fox
News. He has for a decade or more. He has no email account and
doesn’t watch sports. He refuses to so much as touch a keyboard
and has never been on the Internet, ever. He thinks higher
education destroys people, not only because of Fox News, but
also because I drifted left during and after graduate school.
I do not blame or condemn my father for his opinions. If you
consumed a daily diet of right-wing fury, erroneously labeled
“news,” you could very likely end up in the same place. Again,
this is all by design. Let’s call it the Fox News effect. Take
sweet, kindly senior citizens and feed them a steady stream of
demagoguery and repetition, all wrapped in the laughable slogan
of “fair and balanced.” Even watching the commercials on Fox,
one is treated to sales pitches for gold and emergency food
rations, the product cornerstones of the paranoid. To some
people the idea of retirees yelling at the television all day
may seem funny, but this isn’t a joke. We’re losing the nation’s
grandparents, and it’s an American tragedy.
People talk about the imminent “death” of Fox News itself,
because of an ever-aging demographic. Again, Frank Rich makes
this case, but I think his argument is dubious. Certainly the
audience is graying to oblivion, but it’s a cold comfort to
those of us who watch our parents or grandparents drown in an
incessant downpour of outrage. We will only see the “End of Fox
News” when my father and his contemporaries die. I do not want
to watch my father and his entire generation spend their
remaining years enraged at utter nonsense.
My cohort, Generation X, is stuck between two generations of
suffering Americans. The millennial generation is losing job
opportunities and income as the nation stagnates. They put off
marriage and buying homes. While white, Fox News-addicted baby
boomers have lost their sense of hope. They’ve been passed over
by shifting attitudes about gay marriage, the role of government
and a host of issues. They still think of themselves as the
“silent majority,” when in reality they are a wounded and
thrashing legacy of white hegemony. My parents’ generation is
becoming fragile antiques, relics by choice, reassured by Fox
News that they are still the only voice that matters.
I, and people like me, have managed to break the cycle of
conservative red-and race-baiting. I’ve noticed similar attitude
shifts among some of my close friends, who have likewise drifted
from the televised rage of our fathers. I only wish I could do
something to ease the anxiety of those I love, an emotion that
is a cash cow for exploitative right-wing commentators. But I
have no real solution, other than to turn off the television.
Sadly, for some of the nation’s elderly, they seem to have no
desire whatsoever to rethink the politics of fear and Fox News.
It’s a criminal waste of retirement. |
