The Brainwashing Of Crazy Uncle Liberty -- And How To Counter It
Jen Senko's dad was a working-class content man once. And then he got a job with a commute, and with the commute came 3 hours a day of right-wing talk radio.
From talk radio, he graduated to Fox News. From Fox News, he graduated to right-wing internet propaganda -- email, websites like Drudge, and more.
It changed her father in profound ways. He went from being happy to being mean and angry all the time. Angry about everything, and angry at everyone. In an effort to try and understand it, Jen decided to make a documentary about it.
When she turned to Kickstarter to fund her film, she was flooded with stories of other people with the exact same story. You know that story too. All of us have a friend, a neighbor or a relative who has been sucked into the vortex of right-wing propaganda. Now we tiptoe around them at family gatherings, avoid any controversial subjects, and sigh silently, knowing that the venom spewed by media outlets like Fox News and right wing talk radio has altered them acutely.
Senko takes a deep dive into how this happened, not only from a structural standpoint. What Fox News does and how they do it is a central part of the story but certainly not all of it. She turned to an expert on brainwashing at Oxford University to explain the actual brainwashing techniques they use, and she also took a look at the history underneath the rise of right-wing propaganda outlets.