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

by Jen Senko

Cult Republicans share many of the characteristics of people in a religious cult—they subscribe unquestioningly to all the beliefs held by their media choices and their leaders, oblivious as to whether those leaders have their best interests in mind or not (mostly not).

Samantha Power, who later served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said, “Killers often carried a machete in one hand and a transistor radio in the other.”13

If the conservative movement taught us anything, it is that there’s really a valuable role to be played for people whose job it is to articulate a common philosophy, a common brand, if you like. If the Left wanted to learn from that, it would be that the people who are involved in different issues that we would label progressive see themselves not only as just environmentalists or reproductive rights activists, et cetera, but see themselves as a part of something larger.

Children need to be taught to read and write in the new dominant medium of technology. They need to learn not only how to navigate various media sources but also how to construct and deconstruct media they encounter. As an example, they can be taught media tactics—they could learn to understand media manipulation and strategies to influence an audience. Simply by understanding how media is made, they are then taught not to passively consume it.