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The Brainwashing of My Dad

How the Rise of the Right-Wing Media Changed a Father and Divided Our Nation—And How We Can Fight Back

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

After her beloved dad got addicted to right-wing talk radio and Fox News, Jen Senko feared he would never be the same again...

Frank Senko had always known how to have a good time. Despite growing up in a poverty-stricken family during the Depression and having to fight his way to middle-class status as an adult, he tended to look on the bright side. But after a job change forced Frank to begin a long car commute every day, his daughter Jen noticed changes in his personality and beliefs. Long hours on the road listening to talk radio commentators like Rush Limbaugh sucked her father into a suspicion-laden worldview dominated by conspiracy theories, fake news, and rants about the "coastal elite" and "libtards" trying to destroy America.

Over the course of a few years, Jen's dad went from a nonpolitical, open-minded Democrat to a radical, angry, and intolerant right-wing devotee who became a stranger to those closest to him. As politics began to take precedence over everything else in her father's life, Jen was mystified. What happened to her dad? Was there anything she could do to help? And, most importantly, would he ever be his lovable self again? Jen began the search for answers, and found them... as well stories from countless other families like her own.

Based on the award-winning documentary, The Brainwashing of My Dad uncovers the alarming right-wing strategy to wield the media as a weapon against our very democracy. Jen's story shows us how Fox News and other ultra-conservative media outlets are reshaping the way millions of Americans view the world, and encourages us to fight back.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 23, 2021
      Filmmaker Senko debuts with an impassioned if uneven update to her 2016 documentary about her father’s transformation from a fun-loving, liberal Democrat to an angry devotee of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. Tracking the rightward drift of the Republican Party since the 1960s, Senko argues that the media has been “the most powerful tool the Extreme Right has used to accomplish their goals over the past forty years.” She alleges that media executives including Roger Ailes, who advised President Richard Nixon and founded Fox News, and political consultants like Frank Luntz, who led the Republican Party’s campaign against estate taxes by relabeling them as “death taxes,” have employed “propaganda-type tactics,” including language manipulation, “whataboutism,” and the incitement of fear and anger. She also delves into the spread of disinformation and conspiracy theories on social media platforms, and recommends ways to combat “the dangerously addictive world of right-wing media,” including asking business owners to turn off Fox News in public places and boycotting companies that advertise on such channels. Though the book’s choppy structure, which includes lengthy quotes from experts interviewed for the documentary, undermines the force of Senko’s arguments, her dismay at her father’s personality shift is affecting. Liberals will have their worst suspicions about the right-wing mediasphere confirmed.

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  • English

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