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I think people listening to talk radio on long commutes was a major early driving factor. A pretty good doc about it; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brainwa

I think people listening to talk radio on long commutes was a major early driving factor. A pretty good doc about it; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brainwashing_of_My_Dad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brainwashing_of_My_Dad

tstrimple 6y ago
Exactly what I've experienced with my dad. He went from someone I idolized who could fix anything and solve any problem to the guy who rants about Muslims coming to kill us while building up a stock pile of guns.
- _qulr 6y ago
  How do you know your dad wasn't always that person? Children tend to be pretty naive about their own parents. Children very rarely have a sophisticated understanding of issues such as politics and race, so they wouldn't even notice problematic aspects of their parents until they become adults themselves.
  - tstrimple 6y ago
    I remember learning about Dyson spheres from him when I was much younger, but most recently he could only talk about god, guns and fighting against the liberal agenda. He legitimately devolved over the years to a shadow of what he used to be. I know memory is fickle and kids idolize their parents, but I got over that delusion before he went completely off the deep end. He has been a truck driver all my life. My experiences basically mirror those talked about in the documentary.
    - _qulr 6y ago
      There are other factors though that can't be discounted. It's indisputable that he's older now. It's quite natural that many people get "worse" when they get older, a phenomenon that has always existed. Also, people raising children at home have different priorities and interests than "empty nesters" whose children have grown and left home. It's unsurprising that your father's behavior around you would be very different now as an adult than when you were young. How exactly did he get into listening to that stuff? Were there no other choices? Not music? Not NPR?
    - hairofadog 6y ago
      I feel you; very much the same situation for me, and I can pinpoint it to exactly when my dad started listening to Rush Limbaugh as he drove around in the course of his work. This would have been when he was about the age I am now, so it doesn’t seem right to me that it was his age. He was curious, smart, kind, and optimistic, then came Rush Limbaugh. After that, he had no interest in anything other than talking about how big government was ruining his life and the world. My theory is pretty simple: anger (and especially anger with an object of blame) is like a drug, and he got addicted. I think it’s as simple as that.
      - _qulr 6y ago
        > He was curious, smart, kind, and optimistic, then came Rush Limbaugh. This is the story I never believe. My reaction to hearing Rush Limbaugh is the desire to shut it off ASAP. Don't you have to willingly invite him into your life? To listen and enjoy and want to listen more, to even "experiment" with the drug of anger with an object of blame, is not very indicative of kind and optimistic IMO. The thing is, people are complex. They can be very kind... to their own kind, if you know what I mean. Alternatively, some parents can be kind to everyone else's kids and be abusive toward their own. It's almost always nuanced. You may only see side one side of a person, even if you think you know them better than anyone else.
        hairofadog 6y ago
        I take your point but I feel like that’s not unlike saying “a good person would never abuse alcohol because they’d know it was a risk to their family’s happiness”. Dad definitely had a lot of frustrations - he was low income and a single parent, and I think the draw of AM talk radio was that it provided an explanation as to why his hardships weren’t his fault.
        _qulr 6y ago
        > that’s not unlike saying a good person would never abuse alcohol It's more like, I wouldn't say that the vodka distillery is the cause of alcoholism.
  - Frondo 6y ago
    For a lot of us it happened in adulthood, where we were definitely aware of our parents' beliefs and values before, as they changed, and after their radicalization.

tstrimple 6y ago

Exactly what I've experienced with my dad. He went from someone I idolized who could fix anything and solve any problem to the guy who rants about Muslims coming to kill us while building up a stock pile of guns.

_qulr 6y ago
How do you know your dad wasn't always that person? Children tend to be pretty naive about their own parents. Children very rarely have a sophisticated understanding of issues such as politics and race, so they wouldn't even notice problematic aspects of their parents until they become adults themselves.
- tstrimple 6y ago
  I remember learning about Dyson spheres from him when I was much younger, but most recently he could only talk about god, guns and fighting against the liberal agenda. He legitimately devolved over the years to a shadow of what he used to be. I know memory is fickle and kids idolize their parents, but I got over that delusion before he went completely off the deep end. He has been a truck driver all my life. My experiences basically mirror those talked about in the documentary.
  - _qulr 6y ago
    There are other factors though that can't be discounted. It's indisputable that he's older now. It's quite natural that many people get "worse" when they get older, a phenomenon that has always existed. Also, people raising children at home have different priorities and interests than "empty nesters" whose children have grown and left home. It's unsurprising that your father's behavior around you would be very different now as an adult than when you were young. How exactly did he get into listening to that stuff? Were there no other choices? Not music? Not NPR?
  - hairofadog 6y ago
    I feel you; very much the same situation for me, and I can pinpoint it to exactly when my dad started listening to Rush Limbaugh as he drove around in the course of his work. This would have been when he was about the age I am now, so it doesn’t seem right to me that it was his age. He was curious, smart, kind, and optimistic, then came Rush Limbaugh. After that, he had no interest in anything other than talking about how big government was ruining his life and the world. My theory is pretty simple: anger (and especially anger with an object of blame) is like a drug, and he got addicted. I think it’s as simple as that.
    - _qulr 6y ago
      > He was curious, smart, kind, and optimistic, then came Rush Limbaugh. This is the story I never believe. My reaction to hearing Rush Limbaugh is the desire to shut it off ASAP. Don't you have to willingly invite him into your life? To listen and enjoy and want to listen more, to even "experiment" with the drug of anger with an object of blame, is not very indicative of kind and optimistic IMO. The thing is, people are complex. They can be very kind... to their own kind, if you know what I mean. Alternatively, some parents can be kind to everyone else's kids and be abusive toward their own. It's almost always nuanced. You may only see side one side of a person, even if you think you know them better than anyone else.
      - hairofadog 6y ago
        I take your point but I feel like that’s not unlike saying “a good person would never abuse alcohol because they’d know it was a risk to their family’s happiness”. Dad definitely had a lot of frustrations - he was low income and a single parent, and I think the draw of AM talk radio was that it provided an explanation as to why his hardships weren’t his fault.
        _qulr 6y ago
        > that’s not unlike saying a good person would never abuse alcohol It's more like, I wouldn't say that the vodka distillery is the cause of alcoholism.
- Frondo 6y ago
  For a lot of us it happened in adulthood, where we were definitely aware of our parents' beliefs and values before, as they changed, and after their radicalization.