Creeping Out to Beck
Despite my criticism of Rush Limbaugh, I discern his strengths and understand his appeal. Sean Hannity bores the hell out of me, but I’m sure his audience includes a lot of intelligent, decent people.
What really troubles me is Glenn Beck. I know he’s attracted some ridicule on The Daily Show, certain blogs and even among other Fox News hosts, but somehow it seems insufficient. Every time I see a clip of his show I feel as though I’m watching a surrealist dystopian epic where the protagonist, prisoner in a world he no longer recognizes, gazes horror struck at the television. Forget the substance of what he is saying, or his rhetorical style. He could be agitating for The Graeme Wood Quarterly or demanding that his viewers fund my blog on California’s best burrito joints near surf spots and I’d still be freaked out by his schizophrenic, paranoid, Willy-Wonka-on-uppers affectations.
Or at least I assume he’s just pretending (about his demeanor if not his views). I understand why he might do that. Look at the ratings he gets. What I don’t get is… why that drives ratings. You’ll see conservative pundits and bloggers go to the mattresses for Rush, defend Hannity, and even on occasion defend Ann Coulter. I’ve yet to come across anyone who defends Beck… and yet astonishing numbers of people are tuning into his show every afternoon.
Just proves that all of these shows are about entertainment not about content.
— Adam S · May 15, 12:29 PM · #
I’ve never watched the show, but I’m pretty sure people just treat it as entertainment. I think it is generally ackowledged that he is pretty much totally bonkers.
— Bobar · May 15, 01:33 PM · #
Maybe it’s like how some people watch NASCAR for the crashes…
— Dave S. · May 15, 02:54 PM · #
Beck is actually a pretty intelligent guy — a lot smarter than Hannity, which is admittedly a low bar, but also much more perspicacious than most conservative columnists. For one thing, he actually understands the connection between immigration and the expansion of the welfare state, something many libertarians and corpo-publicans fail to grasp.
He’s basically one of the few conservatives with balls. He’s for abolishing racial preferences and controlling our border, against infinite debt, and highly critical of Obama. For example, this is one of the most biting satires of Obama out there:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l46t_nrySg4
That’s probably the highest production values of any Obama critical stuff out there. That is, we’ve probably seen 30 SNL hit pieces on Palin but nothing like that on Obama.
— ooga · May 15, 03:27 PM · #
<i> I’ve yet to come across anyone who defends Beck… and yet astonishing numbers of people are tuning into his show every afternoon. </i>
Conor, I liked Culture11. And you know that in many ways it was off the res with respect to the rest of the conservative movement — to the left of it in many cases.
Beck is also off the res — but well to the right of the neocons and apparatchiks at NR and the Weekly Standard. He’s not a Charles Krauthammer or David Brooks, invited to dine at Obama’s table. He’s not a Chris Buckley, out to traduce his father’s inheritance for a few pieces of silver from the Daily Beast. Instead he actually articulates the sentiments of the masses of Republicans, who are far less ready to roll over on issues like race and immigration than our self appointed spokesmen.
Let a thousand flowers bloom, say I. Why bash Beck when Obama is driving this country into debt slavery and second world status?
— ooga · May 15, 03:31 PM · #
Beck is just the newest member of the conservative insane clown posse , along with Violent Rush and Sean 2 Dope. My litmus test for conservative insanity is any soi disant conservative that doesn’t instinctively reguard Beck with horrified, incredulous loathing. Conor, you are not insane. ;)
Let a thousand flowers bloom.
ooga, this why someone needs to break out the Roundup on Beck.
As the conservative base dives to the right people like Beck become mainstream and people like Alex Jones become just a little off.
I think the conservative movement can’t afford Rush as branding, but they REALLY can’t afford Beck.
As usual, I prefer to rephrase the problem statement in my language of choice….mathematics.
My studied point being, from a risk analysis POV Beck is too costly for Fox to continue to promote. We are a little over a 100 days into Obama’s presidency. That leaves 3 and 2/3 years for some Info Warrior or Stormfront nutter (ie, a Cartwright or Poplawski) to attempt a Tim McVeigh and leave a trail of indelible electronic breadcrumbs right back to Beck. I would say the probability is relatively high, given the projected escalation of Beck’s rhetoric. The right dodged a bullet with Poplawski because Stormfront and Info Wars purged all his comments and links from the forums immediately…..think about if Poplawski’s Beck posting on SF had gone viral on youtube?
Max Blumenthal is watching now, and so are a lot of other ppl, including the DHS.
Irrevocable damage to the republican brand will result from Beck being linked as inspiration to a proto-assassin or attempted-bomber.
Conservatives (like NRO for example) seem to think that all ratings are good ratings. But sometimes the enemy of your enemy is still your enemy.
— matoko_chan · May 15, 04:06 PM · #
Also, Conor….I salute your bravery.
You right, the conservative intelligentsia and pundit class are rigorously ignoring Beck.
Except for Charles Johnson, who actually seems to be a principled equal opportunity hater of fascism everywhere.
But…you do know this is heresy, don’t you?
Aren’t you worried that the mad shamans at NRO are preparing an auto da fe for you, just like the one Taylor is roasting in now?
— matoko_chan · May 15, 04:17 PM · #
Sure, why not have people agitate for armed rebellion on national TV.
— Chet · May 15, 04:24 PM · #
Conor, its the loose horse in the barn model again. The horse is going to gorge itself on the delicious grain of Beck and Palin and Rush until it dies.
You can’t lead it away from the grain, you can’t beat it off the grain.
You simply have no way to convince the base that Beck and Palin and Rush are killing the conservative party in America.
— matoko_chan · May 15, 04:34 PM · #
And….the reason Beck and Rush and Palin will kill the GOP, is that you will NEVER win back your share of the youth demographic while those people represent the conservative movement. If you could win back the youth demographic, you would get some blacks, hispanics, asians, etc, because those demographics are represented in the youth. Research is showing people don’t change their political affiliation as they age.
But I don’t really think that is going to happen.
I think that horse is as good as dead.
— matoko_chan · May 15, 04:43 PM · #
I want to do a Batman-Begins-style reboot of Glenn Beck. As played by Christian Bale.
— Peter Suderman · May 15, 04:44 PM · #
Too late Suderman. The horse is already dead, it just doesn’t know it yet.
I loved this comment from the Plank thread.
williamyard—
“The other evening I happened to be in that part of town so I crossed the street and walked by one of my old haunts.
In its glory days it was a hell of a saloon. Pool table cracking, every seat taken along with most of the standing room—the juke-box roars out just like thunder. Great bartenders making terrific drinks, a diverse and interesting clientele. The ultimate bar.
Now? Well, the name’s the same; hell, the sign looks like it hasn’t been painted since I was paying the rent on the place. Nobody at the pool table—understandable, considering what looked from outside like a long rip in the felt. The sole barkeep was reading the paper and ignoring his customers. I would, too: they were a small, sorry lot, hunched on their stools, oblivious to their decrepitude, most likely.
That’s the thing about repeatedly ingesting something addictive—after awhile, most folks wise up and move on, but there will always be a few who won’t get it, who will cling to the vision of how everything was way back when it seemed like a good thing to do, and who will reject any argument to save themselves until they are too old, sick, broke, or dead to argue back.
As I walked slowly by the open front door, a couple of them looked out at me and frowned. I did us both a favor and kept walking.
May 14, 2009 4:15 PM”
— matoko_chan · May 15, 05:03 PM · #
Hmm…this may offer some insight on why you didn’t like my In-n-Out Burger t-shirt contest idea at Culture 11. I’ll make that exasperatingly female statement and leave it at that.
— Joules · May 16, 12:39 AM · #
Conor:
for one thing, Beck can be really funny. for another, why don’t you get that? And last of all, isn’t there some kind of spray for things like matako chan?
— jd · May 16, 01:28 AM · #
— jd · May 15, 09:28 PM · #
wow. jd finds Beck funnie. i guess that makes him a juggalo.
;)
— matoko_chan · May 16, 03:32 AM · #
I’ve seen two main arguments defending Beck:
1) It’s all satire, and he’s in on the joke.
2) When his critics aren’t looking, he’s actually quite lucid.
Both defenses are ridiculous, and hearing/reading either one makes me want to back away from the defender in a slow and non-threatening fashion. No sudden moves and such.
Incidentally, ooga, the Daily Show has been taking fairly regular whacks at Obama for a while now (when they aren’t gleefully sending up the media’s treatment of Obama, or doing their latest installment of Stupid Republican Tricks). But I suspect the idea of John Stewart being remotely even-handed in his treatment of politicians doesn’t fit the narrative.
That thing you posted, however, is only satire if you view is as directed at the tea party crowd who probably believe it’s literally true (“Obama wants to replace the Star Spangled Banner with some Russian thing! It’s true, I saw it on Beck!”).
— Erik Siegrist · May 16, 04:39 AM · #
Joules,
Huh?
— Conor Friedersdorf · May 16, 08:56 AM · #
Conor wrote:
“Every time I see a clip of his show I feel as though I’m watching a surrealist dystopian epic where the protagonist, prisoner in a world he no longer recognizes, gazes horror struck at the television.”
And I guess we’re supposed to be horrified that Conor is horrified that someone sees something horrible? Huh?
And then in a post above he thinks he should be paid $100,000 for gems like that.
— jd · May 16, 11:23 AM · #
The one question I’d ask jd, is— will Beck attract young voters?
That is simply your biggest problem.
At 23% of the electorate if conservatives can’t broaden their appeal to the youth demographic, they will go extinct.
The only young people that are attracted to Beck are Poplawskis and Cartwrights.
Trust meh, these are not the droids you seek.
You know the RNC effort underway to officially change the name of the Democratic Party to the Socialist Democratic Party? Why not just change the name of the Republican Party to the Whig Party?
Save time.
— matoko_chan · May 16, 11:44 AM · #
But who wouldn’t want to watch Willie Wonka on uppers?
— H.C. Johns · May 16, 05:40 PM · #
<i> the Daily Show has been taking fairly regular whacks at Obama </i>
From his left, though. For not setting enough terrorists free, for being like Bush, and so on.
<i> the idea of John Stewart being remotely even-handed </i>
Not even John Stewart has dared to claim that he’s “even handed”, so who knows where you get that from. The show is consistent, consistently to the left of the president.
— ooga · May 16, 05:59 PM · #
Remember when you started a group for Californians in Exile at Culture11? I sent you a message about sponsoring an In-n-Out Burger t-shirt contest. I was going to supply the shirts if you made up the contest. There was no response so I thought you didn’t like the idea.
— Joules · May 17, 04:23 AM · #
Joules, sorry about that — never got the message.
— Conor Friedersdorf · May 17, 05:43 AM · #
“From his left, though. For not setting enough terrorists free, for being like Bush, and so on.”
TDS made fun of Obama for using Bush-style rhetoric the day of his inauguration.
— Reality Man · May 17, 04:27 PM · #
Okay, that blows a lot of my amateur psychoanalysis of this post out of the water.
— Joules · May 17, 09:48 PM · #
All of a sudden comments 26 through 38 disappeared. I think this would be a great performance art post if you put them back.
— Joules · May 18, 04:08 AM · #
There’s something meaningful, I think, in the fact that two of the right’s leading media figures, Rush and Beck, both have notable incidents of butt ailments in their public histories: Rush’s cyst that got him out of going to ‘Nam, and Beck’s videotaped rant about his problems after surgery for piles.
— Jon H · May 19, 02:04 PM · #