Abbey, New York
I bought this book for the catchy title that subliminally spoke to me because it sounded like something I would say about my dad. Little did I know that this was, in essence, the story of my childhood and maturation into adulthood.
I moved to New York after college when I got a job as a teacher and never looked back. My family grew up conservatives in the Bay Area in California and I had been indoctrinated by my father into the free market, the evil liberal media, and ultra conservative ideology. It wasn’t until I finally moved away that I realized just how wrong and toxic my fathers ideology was.
Every night we watched Fox News and every night my father insisted: “don’t believe what the liberal media tells you Abbey, think for yourself.” But it wasn’t until I really immersed myself in teaching American history and being free from Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity ever night that I finally realized what my father meant. “Don’t think for yourself. Think whatever Fox tells you. Otherwise, you’re a liberal.” It only worsened as he moved on to One America News and had his own versions of Limbaugh lunches while working on his fixer upper of a house.
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I finally got the courage to confront my father when I had come home from Christmas and he told a racist joke that was supposed to get a laugh from us all. Instead, my response was “could you explain the joke to me? I don’t understand what’s funny.” It was from that point on that the hostility between my dad and I became palpable and agonizing.
During forced trips home to see my mom and siblings, I would angrily have to sit in the living room while Tucker Carlson lied and manipulated my father in front of me, hearing his anger rise as Carlson’s did. And every time I tried to fight back, I was always brutally insulted in front of all around. “You really lost your sense of humor Abbey. You’re drinking the kool-aid with your commie teacher friends. I thought you were smarter than that (despite the fact I have a Masters degree in American politics and political theory; clearly I don’t understand according to my father).”
I can honestly say, almost every interaction discussed with your dad, I have experienced too. And the similarities of our experiences made me sob while I rode home on the Staten Island ferry (where I’m forced to live because it’s cheaper than the city because nobody my age WANTS to live in this extremist conservative hellhole).
Nothing has inspired me more than reading this and knowing you successfully deprogrammed your father. I know I likely won’t succeed in doing the same, but I’m content knowing I’ve at least emphatically encouraged my brother to read this book and finally read a story parallel to the one he sees whenever I come home and interact with our father. I may not save my dad, but I will do everything in my power to save the brother I love more than just about everyone.
I will fight back against this far right conspiracy and I thank you for so perfectly putting yours and my experience into words.