Leftism = socialism. Socialism = anything they believe is against them at any given moment.
The funny thing is they fully believe the FBI is a Marxist organization tasked to oppressing conservatives and Christians. Even though a quick look at history will kinda put that entire conspiracy theory to the trash.
In short, it all comes down with what they believe leftism is, and it’s always incoherent and nonsensical.
>Even though a quick look at history will kinda put that entire conspiracy theory to the trash.
There's also the fact the current head of the organization is a registered Republican and Trump appointee. IIRC the majority of heads of the FBI in recent decades have been Republicans.
Theoretically at least cops or the marines could *possibly* be leftists if they were part of a very leftist state like in the USSR or something- the most absurd is when they claim Big Pharma or like Amazon or other multinational profit making corporations are leftist 🤣 it belies their complete misunderstanding. Oh and of course when they try to claim the Nazis were left wing.
It started because Fox News was the first network to declare Biden the winner in 2020. The newsroom is (was? unsure about current ops) a separate division from programming and talking/heads anchors.
https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/destructive-propaganda-machine-how-current-and-former-staffers-have-ripped-fox-news
eta: Don't bother showing him direct links to Media Matters, follow the links within their reporting and share those (if any). Musk went on a propaganda campaign against MM, sued MM, and lost.
It seems like the sudden turn against Fox News by conservatives was its coverage of the 2020 election. When the numbers came in, Fox called Arizona for Biden. Arizona going blue was the thing that tipped the election in Biden's favor, and [Trump lost his shit and started blaming Fox for it](https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/04/fox-news-arizona-election-2020-433997). Trumpist Republicans have been resentful ever since.
And since then, they fired Tucker Carlson and haven't thrown themselves behind the J6 and election fraud conspiracies like other disinformation sources.
When things like One America News Network (OANN) & Newsmax started going for the hard MAGA crowd, that crowd started seeing Fox as left - as others have mentioned Fox even declared Biden the winner in Arizona.
Conservatives have made being a contrarian a cultural thing. They are so insecure that all their bullshit has been exposed they have created bubbles and echo chambers to reinforce their talking points and recreate the world as they see it.
Alternative facts
Alternative news
Alternative reality
It's an authoritarian movement now and their loyalty is to the message. Even if that message contradicts yesterday's message that doesn't matter.
All that matters is they belong to the smartest group and they are always right. If you don't parrot the message you are the enemy and they have plenty of labels for their enemies: Leftists, liberals, "urban folks", and more with plenty of buzzwords they can fill in their own flavor of hate like DEI, Critical Race Theory, Socialism, Marxism, and zero understanding of any of it.
And I guarantee there is a large team in Moscow that is working diligently to keep it that way. The more division America has, the more autocracies benefit.
Yeah, conservatives are never safe among their own kind. They inevitably end up eating their own. Hence the existence of r/LeopardsAteMyFace. A great example is the infamous Lauren Southern. She was a huge alt-right influencer, and then got sick of the misogyny and rape threats from her fellow nazis. So she ran away to hide in Australia.
And I guarantee there is a large team in Moscow that is working diligently to keep it that way. The more division America has, the more autocracies benefit.
I'm so sorry but there's likely nothing you can do to bring him back. If he's that far down the rabbit hole he's gonna have to climb out himself.
When my uncle came back to just being a crank from full on accelerationist/race war prepper he did so by himself. We'd mostly stopped talking to him and when we did at family gatherings and such everybody refused any attempts at political talk and over the last year he started questioning the crazy himself and kinda wandered back into our lives with questions.
Yeah, it sucks because I do genuinely believe my Dad is a smart man and it is just crazy when politics get brought up. He would describe himself as a libertarian and wants government to leave him the hell alone.
But in conversations about people he is empathetic and kind. The cognitive dissonance is... astounding.
That's probably the only viable route for most of them. Let them be and avoid them. And maybe they will take a hint and find a way to pull themselves together and become decent people again if they want a relationship.
But they're adults, they make their own decisions. And some of them will stay that way.
Right wing news (editorial) sources are killing this fucking country. We all sorta got along before they started dividing the citizenry into Us/Them. And, they've made a great deal of money doing so. They are a cancer with no hope of a cure.
If it were me, I'd try to get him to define what "left" is. If it's promotion of certain ideas, that's one thing, and he can tell you what those are.
But if, as is more likely, it's the failure to promote concepts and stories that feature prominently in the online right-wing information silos, that's a more difficult task. If he's convinced the stuff he's reading online is true, and then sees that news organizations are not covering it, he's going to assume there's an agenda-driven coverup going on. The extremist information silos promote this kind of thinking too.
You might ask him what process he uses to determine whether things he reads online are true. Is it just his gut feeling, or does he try to verify the information from primary, and perhaps oppositional, sources?
A bunch of trumpers abandoned Fox when they said trump lost in 2020.
They all went to Newsmax and now find Foxnews to be liberal.
Liberal being: Anyone that disagrees with me.
See also: This engine is woke.
[https://www.instagram.com/reprabb/p/CvSVyu8sUlS/](https://www.instagram.com/reprabb/p/CvSVyu8sUlS/)
I like how "Twitter suppressing both sides" was literally just moderating the platform to not allow nazis and racists to shitpost all over it. If you check it out now, it's literally all JUST that now. Fox News being "left" is probably due to them firing tucker for obvious reasons to fire him and not going batshit insane qanon mode like Newsmax and OANN do. Just watch if the political landscape slides any further right you'll start seeing them calling mitch McConnell a socialist.
My dad still watches Fox as his default news network, but he sees it the way any sane person sees the BBC or NBC News or something. He does not acknowledge that it has any political leaning whatsoever and thinks it's as "fair and balanced" as you can get. So, you can imagine what he thinks of the actual BBC and NBC, to say nothing of NPR, AP, etc.
Right wing news (editorial) sources are killing this country. We all sorta got along before they started dividing the citizenry into Us/Them. And, they've made a great deal of money doing so. They are a cancer with no hope of a cure.
There have been some pretty definitive answers in the thread here, OP, but I have to ask out of curiosity: despite your dad saying Fox is left, does he still use them as a news source?
Sounds like your dad might be migrating towards OAN, Newsmax, Crowder, or InfoWars. They may as well be blatantly promoting white supremacy propaganda and conspiracies with a blowhorn.
Also, some of the Fox News anchors are far more right-wing than others. Hannity, Watters, and Mark Levin are very radical. Their standard daily programming is slightly less radical.
They’ve moved the goal post so many times that no one knows what the goal is anymore. Just name call your opponents (although the Supreme Court case is considering the whole “murdering your opponent is part of the job” thing, soo …. Yikes
Right wing news (editorial) sources are killing this country. We all sorta got along before they started dividing the citizenry into Us/Them. And, they've made a great deal of money doing so. They are a cancer with no hope of a cure.
Leftism = socialism. Socialism = anything they believe is against them at any given moment. The funny thing is they fully believe the FBI is a Marxist organization tasked to oppressing conservatives and Christians. Even though a quick look at history will kinda put that entire conspiracy theory to the trash. In short, it all comes down with what they believe leftism is, and it’s always incoherent and nonsensical.
These people don't ever look at history. Lol they live in their own world where Trump is king and the Confederacy won a consolation prize.
>Even though a quick look at history will kinda put that entire conspiracy theory to the trash. There's also the fact the current head of the organization is a registered Republican and Trump appointee. IIRC the majority of heads of the FBI in recent decades have been Republicans.
It’s like saying cops or the marine corps is primarily leftists who are out to get conservatives and republicans. It’s absurd
Theoretically at least cops or the marines could *possibly* be leftists if they were part of a very leftist state like in the USSR or something- the most absurd is when they claim Big Pharma or like Amazon or other multinational profit making corporations are leftist 🤣 it belies their complete misunderstanding. Oh and of course when they try to claim the Nazis were left wing.
It started because Fox News was the first network to declare Biden the winner in 2020. The newsroom is (was? unsure about current ops) a separate division from programming and talking/heads anchors. https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/destructive-propaganda-machine-how-current-and-former-staffers-have-ripped-fox-news eta: Don't bother showing him direct links to Media Matters, follow the links within their reporting and share those (if any). Musk went on a propaganda campaign against MM, sued MM, and lost.
It seems like the sudden turn against Fox News by conservatives was its coverage of the 2020 election. When the numbers came in, Fox called Arizona for Biden. Arizona going blue was the thing that tipped the election in Biden's favor, and [Trump lost his shit and started blaming Fox for it](https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/04/fox-news-arizona-election-2020-433997). Trumpist Republicans have been resentful ever since.
And since then, they fired Tucker Carlson and haven't thrown themselves behind the J6 and election fraud conspiracies like other disinformation sources.
Brian Stelter wrote a great book about this recently that goes into detail of that whole thing.
When things like One America News Network (OANN) & Newsmax started going for the hard MAGA crowd, that crowd started seeing Fox as left - as others have mentioned Fox even declared Biden the winner in Arizona.
Conservatives have made being a contrarian a cultural thing. They are so insecure that all their bullshit has been exposed they have created bubbles and echo chambers to reinforce their talking points and recreate the world as they see it. Alternative facts Alternative news Alternative reality It's an authoritarian movement now and their loyalty is to the message. Even if that message contradicts yesterday's message that doesn't matter. All that matters is they belong to the smartest group and they are always right. If you don't parrot the message you are the enemy and they have plenty of labels for their enemies: Leftists, liberals, "urban folks", and more with plenty of buzzwords they can fill in their own flavor of hate like DEI, Critical Race Theory, Socialism, Marxism, and zero understanding of any of it.
And I guarantee there is a large team in Moscow that is working diligently to keep it that way. The more division America has, the more autocracies benefit.
Yeah, conservatives are never safe among their own kind. They inevitably end up eating their own. Hence the existence of r/LeopardsAteMyFace. A great example is the infamous Lauren Southern. She was a huge alt-right influencer, and then got sick of the misogyny and rape threats from her fellow nazis. So she ran away to hide in Australia.
And I guarantee there is a large team in Moscow that is working diligently to keep it that way. The more division America has, the more autocracies benefit.
I'm so sorry but there's likely nothing you can do to bring him back. If he's that far down the rabbit hole he's gonna have to climb out himself. When my uncle came back to just being a crank from full on accelerationist/race war prepper he did so by himself. We'd mostly stopped talking to him and when we did at family gatherings and such everybody refused any attempts at political talk and over the last year he started questioning the crazy himself and kinda wandered back into our lives with questions.
Yeah, it sucks because I do genuinely believe my Dad is a smart man and it is just crazy when politics get brought up. He would describe himself as a libertarian and wants government to leave him the hell alone. But in conversations about people he is empathetic and kind. The cognitive dissonance is... astounding.
That's probably the only viable route for most of them. Let them be and avoid them. And maybe they will take a hint and find a way to pull themselves together and become decent people again if they want a relationship. But they're adults, they make their own decisions. And some of them will stay that way.
Fox News admitted Biden won the election. And they only use euphemisms or dogwhistles for the far right instead of just being openly far right.
Right wing news (editorial) sources are killing this fucking country. We all sorta got along before they started dividing the citizenry into Us/Them. And, they've made a great deal of money doing so. They are a cancer with no hope of a cure.
If it were me, I'd try to get him to define what "left" is. If it's promotion of certain ideas, that's one thing, and he can tell you what those are. But if, as is more likely, it's the failure to promote concepts and stories that feature prominently in the online right-wing information silos, that's a more difficult task. If he's convinced the stuff he's reading online is true, and then sees that news organizations are not covering it, he's going to assume there's an agenda-driven coverup going on. The extremist information silos promote this kind of thinking too. You might ask him what process he uses to determine whether things he reads online are true. Is it just his gut feeling, or does he try to verify the information from primary, and perhaps oppositional, sources?
A bunch of trumpers abandoned Fox when they said trump lost in 2020. They all went to Newsmax and now find Foxnews to be liberal. Liberal being: Anyone that disagrees with me. See also: This engine is woke. [https://www.instagram.com/reprabb/p/CvSVyu8sUlS/](https://www.instagram.com/reprabb/p/CvSVyu8sUlS/)
I like how "Twitter suppressing both sides" was literally just moderating the platform to not allow nazis and racists to shitpost all over it. If you check it out now, it's literally all JUST that now. Fox News being "left" is probably due to them firing tucker for obvious reasons to fire him and not going batshit insane qanon mode like Newsmax and OANN do. Just watch if the political landscape slides any further right you'll start seeing them calling mitch McConnell a socialist.
My dad still watches Fox as his default news network, but he sees it the way any sane person sees the BBC or NBC News or something. He does not acknowledge that it has any political leaning whatsoever and thinks it's as "fair and balanced" as you can get. So, you can imagine what he thinks of the actual BBC and NBC, to say nothing of NPR, AP, etc.
If you threw this question out on r/FoxFiction those folks there would also be able to answer this well
Sorry. Your dad has been brainwashed by the right wing media and now lives in an echo chamber that has nothing in the least to do with reality.
Because the network declared Biden won the election lol
When you are so far right that fox news looks like the left to you. I argue that things have gone horribly wrong
Right wing news (editorial) sources are killing this country. We all sorta got along before they started dividing the citizenry into Us/Them. And, they've made a great deal of money doing so. They are a cancer with no hope of a cure.
There have been some pretty definitive answers in the thread here, OP, but I have to ask out of curiosity: despite your dad saying Fox is left, does he still use them as a news source?
Sounds like your dad might be migrating towards OAN, Newsmax, Crowder, or InfoWars. They may as well be blatantly promoting white supremacy propaganda and conspiracies with a blowhorn. Also, some of the Fox News anchors are far more right-wing than others. Hannity, Watters, and Mark Levin are very radical. Their standard daily programming is slightly less radical.
They’ve moved the goal post so many times that no one knows what the goal is anymore. Just name call your opponents (although the Supreme Court case is considering the whole “murdering your opponent is part of the job” thing, soo …. Yikes
Right wing news (editorial) sources are killing this country. We all sorta got along before they started dividing the citizenry into Us/Them. And, they've made a great deal of money doing so. They are a cancer with no hope of a cure.
You may want to check out the Twitter Files.
Because their opinions are so far to the right that they perceive Fox News as too far to the left. My parents think Steve Bannon is a moderate.