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I Watch Fox News More Than Any Other Station
… and yet I’m still liberal despite being immersed in right-wing propaganda.
My hometown, Hazleton, Pennsylvania, is a smallish, economically depressed mining town that makes international headlines for its racism and xenophobia. I’m certainly not bragging about this, nor out to shame the city, but see for yourself: NYT (here and here), BBC, and — especially — this memorable profile in National Geographic’s “Race Issue.”
It’s a place where a department store clerk once gave me the stink-eye over the fact that I dared to complain about graffiti in the ladies’ room that used slurs like “sp*cs” and “anchor babies.” It’s a place that fascinated my immigration-scholar professors and colleagues when I was in grad school, for the infamy of its unconstitutional, anti-immigrant ordinance from 2006. And while not everyone here is racist or xenophobic… it’s a place where, naturally, people love Fox.
When covid-19 broke out, I got unofficially stuck here, despite the fact that I normally live in Berlin. I’m not upset about this; quarantining with people (and a cat) who love you has beautiful perks. However, quarantining in a small, single-story home with staunch conservatives also has a major anti-perk: an endless onslaught of conservative propaganda.
