For years now I've been able to laugh off my grandparents, FOX News and brainwashed Republicans in general.
But my roommate's interaction with her parents changed things for me.
Her parents told her that they were scared. They were scared because something serious was underway in America, that a revolution was happening that threatened to destroy the entire country and that it was serious. They told her that Marxists were on the brink of pulling Biden to the Left, and that they were legitimately danger.
I usually laugh this off, but something struck me: they weren't angry, or grumpy, or bone-headed, like I usually imagine Republicans. They were legitimately afraid, and perceived themselves to truly be descending into a national emergency, one that FOX News has completely manufactured.
I used to laugh off people that said FOX is paving the way to Fascism, or Drumpf = Hitler. But I've come to comprehend that fear, not anger, was the driving motivator in Nazi Germany, and now understand that FOX is pumping sheer terror into the American public at levels only possible in modern society.
I don't really think FOX is a laughing matter anymore, because I begin to understand how an American public this afraid could condone Nazi Germany level atrocities under the impression that they were saving themselves.
Fox News has been in the process of 'othering' the left in the minds of their viewers for years, perfectly paving the way for Donald Trump to incite violence as a means of gaining support. His DHS tactics wouldn't be an effective political tool if his people had any feelings of commonality or empathy with the protesters. But Fox, and the right-wing media apparatus that takes its cues from them, have deliberately changed their viewers' perception of the protesters from people with a justifiable cause into violent rioting aliens, and they don't feel bad seeing aliens get hurt, because aliens aren't human.
By dehumanizing protestors and the left, you create a mental back door to committing violence without guilt. And frankly, you shouldn't care if libs are correctly diagnosing what Fox News is doing, because it doesn't change the fact that Fox News is literally putting your life in danger.