Being brainwashed isn't just for elderly Fox News viewers anymore.
After two decades of successfully transforming portions of the Greatest Generation into robotic Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity fans, the right-wing media are now winning over younger converts via social media, and specifically by radicalizing viewers on YouTube. Thanks in part to YouTube's algorithm, which helps lock young, alienated viewers into a torrent of conspiratorial far-right voices, the conservative movement is now riding a potent wave of media-based radicalization that spans generations. The disturbing brainwashing phenomenon is upending American politics and ripping families apart.
Five years ago, when Caleb Cain was an unemployed 21-year-old liberal college graduate, he "had gotten sucked into a vortex of far-right politics on YouTube," The New York Times recently reported. During the election year of 2016, Cain watched a staggering 4,000 YouTube videos, most of them from far-right political sources. By then his transformation from empathetic liberal to radical conservative who feared a Muslim invasion in America was complete. “I just kept falling deeper and deeper into this, and it appealed to me because it made me feel a sense of belonging,” he recalled. “I was brainwashed.” Noted a high school friend, "It was kind of sad. I was just, like: ‘Wow, what happened? How did you get this way?'" Cain eventually broke free from the grip of right-wing YouTube.
Conservatives hated the Times expose and the suggestion that young YouTube viewers are being recruited and brainwashed with racist messages of hate and paranoia. But the trend is rampant, especially among young, alienated white men. "Critics and independent researchers say YouTube has inadvertently created a dangerous on-ramp to extremism by combining two things: a business model that rewards provocative videos with exposure and advertising dollars, and an algorithm that guides users down personalized paths meant to keep them glued to their screens," the Times reported.
Just recently, in an attempt to clean up extremism and hate speech, YouTube announced plans to remove videos and channels that advocate neo-Nazism, white supremacy, and other far-right bigoted ideologies. But also this month, YouTube completely bungled the controversy surrounding racist conservative host Steven Crowder, who has used his online video platform to harass a gay liberal writer for Vox, Carlos Maza. YouTube's weird and unsure handling of the controversy only highlighted how social media giants live in fear of a conservative backlash with its bogus claims of liberal media bias. The right wing senses that fear and is taking advantage of the political opening to overrun platforms such as YouTube with an avalanche of hate programming, the kind that radicalizes viewers.
That's what's happening among younger viewers, and it coincides with Fox News’ brainwashing of older viewers. We often think about Rupert Murdoch's GOP outlet in terms of its political implications and how it shapes debate in this country while fostering fear and divisiveness. Less often, though, do we ponder the deep cultural and social implications and what it means for right-wing media outlets to be brainwashing Americans, and what it means for families to be torn apart after a member falls under the ugly spell of right-wing propaganda. There's a hidden civil war that's broken out in this country, and it's being played out mostly behind closed doors as families struggle to make sense of the wholesale brainwashing one of their own has undergone.
"It’s truly become a war against civility that has poisoned families and divided our country in a way that it has not been divided since the Civil War, and it’s because of the concerted effort by right-wing media over the last 30 years to mislead and divide people," wrote Jen Senko, who lost her once-thoughtful father to Fox News and made the 2015 documentary, The Brainwashing of My Dad. "It’s an insidious poison that’s seeping in through radios and TV sets, and it’s poisoning families. You have people fighting with their families."
Back in April I asked on Twitter how many people had "lost" family members to Fox News. The responses included sisters, brothers, and parents; “The whole family, you mean. Husband's side"; "My father-in-law has disowned my wife because of his radicalizing"; "Parents and at least one uncle"; and "Both my parents. They are Fox News cult members. I have a superficial relationship with my mother and a non-existent one with my father. They are hateful and bitter people that I can’t stand to be around."
Writer Luke O'Neil collected heartbreaking tales from family members who had lost loved ones to right-wing media. "I’ve been on eggshells with my dad for half my life now. It really hurts having a father who is kind and smart but has Fox News brain worms,” one person wrote. “I can only talk to my dad about the weather. Anything else will set him off, even football." "When I found my dad dead in his armchair, fucking Fox News was on the TV,” another told O'Neil. “It’s likely the last thing he saw. I hate what that channel and conservative talk radio did to my funny, compassionate dad. He spent the last years of his life increasingly angry, bigoted, and paranoid."
Yes, it’s usually parents and grandparents who are the most effected, since the cable news channel caters to an audience that trends heavily toward 60- and 70- and 80-years olds. And that why their offspring are sometimes known as "Fox News orphans": They've lost their parents to right-wing media. "They chose Fox News over their family, people told me," O'Neil wrote. One Fox News orphan told him, "The worst is when my children go to spend time with their grandparents and come home with Fox News talking points coming out of their mouths. I have to decontaminate them every time."
Brainwashing is not usually considered a normal part of mainstream American politics. But as the conservative movement becomes increasingly radicalized, using the media to brainwash its followers has become a key part of the calculation, and the political implications are enormous.