One and Only Observer

Drinking alcohol, coffee, or water.

Breathing air, burning tobacco, or THC-laden smoke.

Watching Fox News or MSNBC 24/7.

Reading books.

Scrolling through TikTok or Facebook for several hours each day.

Listening to far-right talk radio, progressive podcasts, or music all day while at work or while commuting.

Walking outside in nature with no devices.

Exercising.

Meditating.

When I was a child, a teenager, and a twenty-year-old, I thought everyone saw the agreed-upon reality that I did. Once in a while, I’d encounter someone really “out there” and shake my head. Now, everyone seems crazy when I hear them voice what they think.

Who’s right?

I just watched a 2015 documentary, “The Brainwashing of My Dad.” The man featured in the film had been a young person during the great depression. During long commutes to work, he began to listen to right-wing radio talk show host, Rush Limbaugh. More and more, he became immersed in the three-hour daily shows. When Fox News came along, he became an avid watcher. He also received emails from right-wing think tanks and advocacy groups like the Heritage Foundation, which he forwarded or printed to mail to family members.

The man’s daughter, who made the documentary, described a nice man’s transformation into a bitter, angry, xenophobic, misogynistic, intolerant asshole. She had video footage of him before, during, and after. She featured testimonials of other people like herself, who had close family members who had become radicalized and unrecognizable.

Long after he retired, when the radio the old man listened to broke, he quit listening to Rush Limbaugh and spent more time talking with his wife during meals. When his old TV broke, his wife programmed the remote for the new one and they watched other channels besides Fox News. His permanent scowl began to fade. The steady stream of emails from online right-wing advocacy groups changed when his wife unsubscribed him from those groups and subscribed him to objective news and progressive information sites. He still read his daily emails, but they were different.  

When his diet changed, so did he. He became the happier, loving family man that he had been before starting to nod along with Rush Limbaugh. He died in 2016.

What is the lesson? I am affected by my media diet. I am not so dissimilar to the dad in the documentary. The old man’s story is a cautionary tale. To me, or to anyone.

Was the stuff that he believed when he was angry and outraged right? What does it matter? If you’re hating your fellow Americans, you’re not likely to agree to work with them to accomplish anything.

Is Donald Trump a cult leader? He quacks, looks, and walks like a duck. He’s quacking incessantly into a megaphone with wires stretching to TV, radio, cable, and internet stations and websites pumping out propaganda. Millions of neighbors, co-workers, fathers, uncles, and brothers are consuming a steady, multiple-hours-a-day, diet of high-octane outrage.

Propaganda engages our anger. Someone is profiting, and it’s not us. Propaganda doesn’t inspire us to work with others to solve problems. A united couple works together to face life. A divided couple gets divorced. We can accomplish anything—together. Divided… not so much.

Look up Project 2025. I hope you vote accordingly in November.