My Dad's Right-Wing Bubble Was Popped

Those who consume right-wing media like it's oxygen have a hard time dealing with what you and I might call objective reality.

You see, when one spends every waking moment listening to the toxic sludge of conservative radio and ingesting the never-ending string of lies and half truths on right-wing cable news, one operates from a place of fear – total fear, bowel-shaking fear, the kind of fear that produces paranoia and alienates family members and friends who don't experience the world through the storytelling of right-wing ghouls and grifters.

I saw this in stunning clarity last week at my son's elementary school promotion (the zoomers don't say "graduation" anymore unless the students are receiving degrees; I've never felt older in my life). Just before the ceremony began, a student approached the microphone and said, "If you are able, we will now stand for the pledge of allegiance."

My dad, sitting next to me, gasped. "Wow," he muttered.

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I asked him, after the so-called promotion – which included a song that may or may not have made this BFT writer tear up – I asked my dad about his visceral reaction to the pledge of allegiance being played before the ceremony.

"I didn't think they allowed the pledge in a liberal school district like this," he said, referring to the Montgomery County public school system, one of the largest and most diverse in the nation.

I stayed calm and collected because I wanted to know more. "What do you mean by 'not allowed?'" I asked.

"I thought blue states had banned the pledge of allegiance," he said. "Because they hate the country."

This wasn't a bit. It wasn't some playacted exaggeration to try to trigger me. This is what my dad truly believed: That Montgomery County school officials, steeped in Marxism and feminism and wokeism and other isms that scare baby boomers, had actively stopped students from learning and reciting the pledge of allegiance. He thought this because this is the messaging in right-wing media: Liberals states and cities and school districts despise the United States and are therefore enemies of the country.

I was reminded that last October, after I took my son to a haunted house in Baltimore, my dad scolded me – in tones I hadn't heard since my teenage years – for entering Baltimore's city limits. He said I had endangered my life and my kid's life because Baltimore had been deemed a "no-go zone" by some law enforcement official he had seen on right-wing cable news, either Fox or OANN, I can't remember which. This cop had told the cable news audience that Baltimore was more dangerous than Kabul. And I guess Kabul is dangerous? I don't spend much time thinking about the crime rate in Kabul. But I guess my dad does.

While I had seen online that tough-guy MAGA types were pissing their pants about entering any major American city, I had never seen it play out in person. It was pathetic or funny – maybe it was both. My dad really, truly believed I was more likely than not to be shot to death as soon as I entered Baltimore, a city we used to visit frequently in the 90s and early 2000s for Orioles and Ravens games. In September 1995, he took me and my brother to Cal Ripken's 2,131 game (in which he broke the consecutive games played record). I don't think he would do that today, for fear of being summarily executed by roving gangs of criminals in a major American city, a veritable "no-go zone." Back then, thankfully, my dad was apolitical, someone who would say he doesn't really like Bill Clinton, but at least the economy was humming.

I told my dad that students at my kids' school raise the American flag every day, the way they did in the 1980s and 1950s and whatever other time boomers considered to be good. I told my dad they recited the pledge every day before school began, and that the students were encouraged to stand up and place their hands over their hearts. Because, you see, these children are Americans who have no strong feelings toward the country. I'd dare say many (most?) of the kids would say they "love" the United States – whatever it means to love a nation.

This stunned my dad. I thought he might fall out of his New Balances in shock. I could see his right-wing media bubble being popped in real time as he had the sludge wiped from his eyes and, for once, saw reality for what it was. There it was: Children in a multicultural school district, in a county that votes 90 percent Democrat, saying the pledge. No one turned their back on the flag. No one stormed the stage and doused the flag with gasoline and lit the stars and stripes on fire.

Reeling, my dad got into his car in the school parking lot, turned on the radio, and began the arduous task of re-inflating the bubble.

Follow Denny Carter on BlueSky at @cdcarter13.bsky.social and on Threads and X at @CDCarter13.