The Brainwashing of My Dad: How the Rise of the Right-Wing Media Changed a Father and Divided Our Nation—and How We Can Fight Back

Filmmaker Senko debuts with an impassioned if uneven update to her 2016 documentary about her father’s transformation from a fun-loving, liberal Democrat to an angry devotee of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. Tracking the rightward drift of the Republican Party since the 1960s, Senko argues that the media has been “the most powerful tool the Extreme Right has used to accomplish their goals over the past forty years.” She alleges that media executives including Roger Ailes, who advised President Richard Nixon and founded Fox News, and political consultants like Frank Luntz, who led the Republican Party’s campaign against estate taxes by relabeling them as “death taxes,” have employed “propaganda-type tactics,” including language manipulation, “whataboutism,” and the incitement of fear and anger. She also delves into the spread of disinformation and conspiracy theories on social media platforms, and recommends ways to combat “the dangerously addictive world of right-wing media,” including asking business owners to turn off Fox News in public places and boycotting companies that advertise on such channels. Though the book’s choppy structure, which includes lengthy quotes from experts interviewed for the documentary, undermines the force of Senko’s arguments, her dismay at her father’s personality shift is affecting. Liberals will have their worst suspicions about the right-wing mediasphere confirmed. (Oct.)