Sep 15 2009
What Is It With Glenn Beck?
Clarification: As anyone can see in the comment sections those feathers are ruffled. The main point seems to be leave Beck alone, he exposes the demons on the left. Well, if all he did was expose foul play we would be OK. I was happy to leave him to his own devices (no matter how much I cringed) if the public was getting the full picture.
But Beck is transforming himself into a quasi-Messiah, full of melodrama and clear attempts to define ‘good America’ for all of us to be measured by. That is the line he crossed and needs to uncross ASAP. If he begins to try and shape America to fit HIS 912 parameters (and he is), then he is just another Obama from the right.
I send this warning flag up now so that all those people who are rightfully outraged by the liberal hubris and arrogance in DC are not simply getting another version of the same in turn. DC does this to people. Fame does this to people. Power does this to people. All of a sudden they think it is THEIR time to fix the world! Beck can get back into his role in exposing wrong doing. The question is will he. – end update.
I know this post is going to ruffle some feathers on the right, but I have to say Glenn Beck has become too painful to watch anymore. I was looking for some news around 5:45 PM Eastern and couldn’t stomach the Wolf & Cafferty duo and tried Beck. He was on one of his weird melodrama queen swings, talking about fixing the country with some patriotic imagery and syrupy music playing.
It was vomit inducing. The guy over does it when he gets into these bizarre moods where he wants to save America (one of these days the political industrial  complex – left and right - will realize we don’t need saving from ourselves). He lays it on so thick it is embarrassing to watch.
Beck just leaves me cold. He comes off condescending, in a warped paternal way, like he is trying to right a child’s bad behavior. I am not good with clowns trying to talk down to me.
I Â understand he has a lot of followers and I suspect each and every one of them could impress the hell out of me any day of the week all on their own. So this is not aimed at Beck fans. You just may see something in him I don’t. You may find him cute where I see him full of himself and putting on the concerned citizen schtick way too thick.
I think the risk here is conservatives backing someone to the hilt who is not universally admired. If the conservative movement is to knit together another governing coalition, it will need to span the views of center left to far right. It will need centrists, which means absolutist will absolutely not get their way on all things.
Beck’s 912 project is a classic example of mixing good ideas with serious overreaching into areas government/politics should not go. For some reason the fringes think it is their role in life to tell the rest of us how to live just like them. It is a recipe for political disaster.
Beck’s 912 project is all self promotion. I looked over the site and I can find rerun after rerun of his show – but no where the 9 principles and 12 values the project supposedly promotes. I had to go to another website to find out how The Great Beck has determined I should live my life. First the 12 sanctioned values:
The 12 values Glenn Beck is telling Americans they must embrace are:
- Honesty
- Reverence
- Hope
- Thrift
- Humility
- Charity
- Sincerity
- Moderation
- Hard Work
- Courage
- Personal Responsibility
- Gratitude
Reverence? For who or what? Gratitude? For who or what? Thrifty? Why – is this The Boy Scouts? Is he sure he is going to be promoting ‘moderation’ and ‘moderates’? Â I can do “hope”! I hope Beck gets off his God/Dad/Savior kick. It’s a nice list of a modern commandments, but do we need a political movement which demands we pay homage to these great words?
And now the ‘9 principles’:
1. America is good.
2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.
3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.
4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.
6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.
7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.
8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.
9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.
As for number 1, Duh! – and America is actually “Great”, “Kewl”, “Bitchin”, “Fearless”, etc. A ‘principle’ would be more like “America is, on net, a positive force in the world”. Number 2 is out of line and Ayatollah Beck has seriously crossed a line here. Thank God he included Number 8 so I can feel safe in challenging this as a premise for a political movement (or a PR project).
Number 9 is naive and silly. The government works for We The People, and We The People decide democratically what government will or will not do, and how it will do it. This “me” crap sounds like a petulant liberal wanting endless health care.
The rest are clearly American ‘values’, some a bit sappy [I will be ‘more honest’ today? – that tells me something about Beck; As for me, folks wish I would be ‘less honest’ or blunt, trust me]. But the fact is this so called 912 Project is a promotional gimmick, and a pretty boorish one at that. I can find positive words in the dictionary too.
America, there are much better role models and leaders in this country than Beck. I would take any one of the millions of brave Americans who fought in the World Wide War On Terror over Beck any day of the week. I am not afraid of Beck, but I do feel he is the kind of person that can make Pelosi, Reid and Obama look sane and thoughtful in comparison. And that is something this nation cannot afford right now. Beck can be one of many positive influences, he just is not ‘standard bearer’ material.
We have a Congress that needs a clean house sweep of all the dead wood. Don’t confuse that mission with establishing a nation according to Beck.
Redteam,
My beef with 912 is clearly stated in the post. If these are Beck’s value’s – then smashing!
If this is lecturing us poor saps – get lost.
If this is a litmus test to be a ‘true conservative’ then we will be in opposition and the Dems could win.
It’s pretty simple – no holier than thous and we are all good.
the 912 I was referring to was the demonstrations in DC. they wouldn’t have occurred without Beck’s publicity.
not lecturing
not a litmus test. Beck is far from conservative or liberal for that matter. somewhere in the middle. I get the opinion he is for America and it’s survival as we have known it. I think that’s a noble cause.
Rush is worried that Beck might be leading to a third party, ie Ross Perot, a third party would put Obama in office again. Per say, I don’t think Rush is against Beck. Beck is a Libertarian.
My impression of Beck is that he has always been over the top and emotional. But he seems to be trying something different lately and it isn’t so much about him. He is allowing his show to be a vehicle to get stories noticed or dug out by others to gain sunlight.
The ACORN “Big Government” expose’ for example (and there is to be another, even more shocking one from Southern California exposed today). Most of the stuff about Jones, for example, was sent to him by others. He simply gives it air time. Yesterday he said that he would provide protected exposure if there were people in various agencies that knew of wrongdoing who wanted to get their story out.
He seems to be on an anti-corruption rampage lately and isn’t so much spouting off as exposing the corrupt spouting off all by themselves.
Yeah, Beck is a primadonna but right now he has to be. His show has ZERO advertising revenue. He isn’t making a lot of money for Fox from sponsors (only Carbonite and Fox seem to advertise on his show) but he is drawing millions of viewers because his show is the only place you can keep up in things like the ACORN story. It is becoming a major issue and nobody else is covering it.
Good on Beck, even if he is a little odd.
CP,
Like I said, if he is exposing wrong doing great!
my guess, and I may be way off base here: Beck is *probably* going to be a big Romney supporter, thanks to the Mormon connection. (yes, Beck is Mormon too, if you didn’t know)
WWS, why do people think that you are going to support someone just because they are the same religion? I am Episcopal by upbringing (my Parish church was consecrated the day George Washington was born and at that time it was the Church of England). Yet I vote for people of all different religions.
I have little time for people who can not separate their religion from their politics. Who cares what religion they are? The only one’s I worry about are the ones who try to force their religion on other people and those tend to be the “Evangelical Christians” because they are all “evangelical” and stuff.
Getting back to Beck, this one is a gut shot to ACORN. ACORN rep admitting to killing her husband, communicating that she will threaten other reps with their lives, admits she has no problem killing people, it just gets worse.
Crosspatch – no insult meant here, really, but you don’t get it *because* you’re Episcopal. A good Episcopal would NEVER think that way, it would be an offense against class.
(old church joke – what do you call a Southern Baptist who inherits a million dollars? An Episcopal)
You’ve just stated the mainstream upper class Christian view. But you don’t know, if you haven’t been intimately involved with them, the worldview from the inside of the much-more insular churches that have traditionally appealed to the lower classes – the Nazaranes, the Pentecostals, the Church of Christ, and yes, the Mormons. (and there are many more who fit in here, but those are probably the biggest – ok, Primitive Baptists fit here too, and they are WAY way different than the Southern Baptists or other Baptists) I’ve known and been around them all my life (yes, and had relatives in all of those groups – I’ve got a big family) and I’ve attended services in every one of them, if just to see what they were like. Every one of those groups at some level nurtures a very strong “us against them” mentality. It’s a social response as well as a religious one, and we could spend a lot of time talking about how percieved social status plays into all of this. (not now) I can understand it, since I grew up in a church where it was considered almost sinful to do business with anyone who wasn’t a church member, and I certainly was taught not to associate with people outside the church for any reason unless I had no choice. Now I grew up and out of that, but it is a whole lot more common than you think. Talk to any non-mormon who’s lived in Salt Lake City – I have known several, and you’ll get an earful about how difficult that is to do. (That’s getting gradually better as the Mormons in general are slowly starting to slide into the mainstream.)
Now I am NOT anti-mormon and I don’t want to say anything about them that would seem to be derogatory, since as a whole they are very good allies. But I know enough about them (and frankly, you would be surprised at just how much I DO know) to say simply – don’t think that they think about anything the way you or I would. Mormonism is it’s own little world. It’s not a bad world, but it ain’t like yours or mine.
I think Beck is trying to do two things:
1. He is trying to expose the wrongdoing.
2. I think he is trying to reach across the aisle. Our side was decidedly in the minority this time around – and so to win, we need to convince some folks who went for Obama in 2008 to change their minds in 2012.
I note that the left is going after him very hard – yet they leave the likes of Hannity and Levin alone. They’re far more scared of Glenn Beck.
Is he a bit of a showman/entertainer? Yes, but so was Rush early on (remember the parodies?).
Beck may be the kind of asset we want. At the very least, he is someone who business can be done with. Levin and Hannity aren’t.
AJ,
Let’s not try to get too high and mighty — just like Glenn Beck. However you feel about his principles/delivery/arrogance, and I generally have misgivings about all of the above, you are coming off just as arrogant as he does. Reminds me of your denigrating rants about my views on illegal immigratin.
A Little friendly advice — Take a step back and listen to yourself.
Harold, that’s why I think the American Public is tuning to Glenn’s radio and TV shows…because he tells them the truth and it’s something he stands behind it. Lately he’s been trying to get people to get up from their couches to do something.
I agree that no matter his presentation, he may be what we need…to wake up and start doing something about it!
And he is accomplishing this.
He helped get the tea party movement going and now 9/12.
Seems that the American Public needed the right kind of direction.
So why is the American Public more willing to accept the direction from Glenn but not Obama?
Because the Americans are individuals and want to be independent and free.
wdk,
Many thanks for chiming in. Seriously.
But the difference is I present and post my views. I do not ask any of your to agree.
And like your comment, I do listen (but disagree). You do cause me to rethink and assess. But in the end I have never posted a litmus test as to what defines a good conservative.
In my mind Santorum, Bush, Charles Johnson, Fred Thompson and McCain are all great Americans.
If you disagree we have some challenges ahead.
WWS, you have every right to your religious views but our schools are for the Buddhists, Hindus, and Shinto, too. Religion is not science. Religious beliefs are, by definition, acts of faith. There is no room for logic when it comes to faith. Faith can and should survive any logical argument if you are a true believer. The place for giving your children that education is in your home or in your church. You have no right to expect that your religious values be forced upon people who do not share them.
Now we know that evolution and adaptation happen all the time. Polar Bears, for example, are a recent adaptation of a group of brown bears. Bacteria evolves antibiotic resistance. Populations of people develop resistance to endemic diseases. Separate populations of the same species may adapt in different ways if cut off from each other and unable to mate and conditions are different where the two populations live. Traits that give an advantage of only one additional offspring living to reproductive age per generation will eventually dominate and that same trait may give no advantage in a different location and so never be selected in.
We know this happens, it is documented and people need to understand it. That is not to say someone’s religious beliefs are wrong, it is to say that they are personal, they aren’t science.
How would you like it if a Hindu state governor decided that his religion would now be taught in the school as science? The problem is that when you open the school up to one religious belief, you must open it up to ALL of them and then you end up with little time to teach the three R’s you turn the school into nothing more than a Christian version of a madrassa. Teaching religion in the schools is the same kind of thing the Muslims would want to do. I don’t want kids given a religious indoctrination of any sort in the schools.
And I resent your implication that Episcopalians are somehow “rich” or something. The area I came from was one of the poorest counties in the state. It was a town of 300 people in a county of maybe 15,000. There were only two churches, the Methodist church and the Episcopal church. The Episcopal was the older one and still stands where it has stood for about 300 years.
You are quite welcome to your religious views. You just can’t teach them to my kids. Ok?
“You are quite welcome to your religious views. You just can’t teach them to my kids. Ok?”
And by that I mean that in return I will respect your religious views by not forcing mine on your kids either. If they ever teach creationism in the public school, my kids are out of there and we are probably moving to a different location.
AJ, Beck’s been around for a long time. I don’t think he is going to suddenly become a hero to anyone; nor suddenly repulse anyone. Beck is just Beck. He may not come in the package you find appealing; but he sure has been effective.
The Glenn Beck Effect
http://washingtonindependent.com/56965/the-glenn-beck-effect
If Beck preaches to only the “far right base”…..then, these town halls must be full of only the “far right base” judging from the questions and reactions from the video above. I think there is a wider appeal (maybe only due to the situation we find ourselves in, today).
Having an informed base and and getting them out to vote is probably the most important factor to winning elections. Of course you want to try to win over the Independents who may swing back and forth. However, did you read the column on Larry Sabato’s webpage on the myth of the Independent voter?
—————–
The Myth of the Independent Voter Revisited
http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/article.php?id=AIA2009082001
Conclusion
The large majority of independent identifiers lean toward one of the two major parties and these independent partisans are virtually indistinguishable from regular partisans in political outlook or behavior. It therefore makes no sense to view independents as a homogenous bloc of floating voters. Independents are sharply divided along party lines just like the rest of the American electorate.
————–
Independents who don’t like Beck aren’t watching him, anyway. So, I don’t see how Beck could have an effect on them one way or the other. And, if Beck were to repulse them somehow…..wouldn’t a good dose of Chris Matthews just balance out the repulsion and be a wash? LOL
I think you worry too much about this aspect.
wow – this thread is getting quite long. I suppose that’s a testimony to the drawing power of Beck’s name.
Crosspatch, I’m sorry that I gave you the wrong impression – I wasn’t trying to give you my *personal* opinions on this stuff, I was just relating some of the extensive experience I have as a means of giving you some reason to think that I’m not just making things up, and using that to point out that people inside the more insular churches (the mormons being among them) don’t think like you think. Personally, I agree with everything you’ve said! In your post you were, to coin a phrase, preachin’ to the choir.
I was just trying to give you an impression of what it’s like to come from there, and thus an idea of some of what’s going on in Beck’s head since this is the kind of tradition he come’s from. It’s the reason he is so insistent on point #2 in his 9 points, the one which irritates AJ so much.
God first, country second, yourself third. That’s taught from the very beginning in any tight knit church, and I’ve heard it dozens of times in the places I’ve been. And I’m not saying that’s how everyone should be, but that’s how just about anyone from what can be called evangelicals (and including mormons) thinks about these things. And by various counts that’s about 20% of the electorate these days.
One more thing, crosspatch – I wasn’t trying to insult you or the Episcopals. Probably in other parts of the country, the social connection isn’t quite so strong.
following is what I’ve picked up over about 4 decades of observations, because watching people fascinates me. I don’t really draw on any “authority” besides my own observations – but I think you’ll find anyone who’s lived where I have will confirm my observations.
What I was referring to was the surprisingly rigid white class structure that’s held sway in the southern portion of the USA since the very early 1800’s. It’s fading a bit now, finally, but still it’s very evident. The best way to define “south” is – draw a triangle with the points at Richmond, Atlanta, and Austin. Anything inside that triangle is culturally southern; parts of the states outside these lines mostly count. Florida does NOT count, neither does Maryland, neither does West Virginia, and Kentucky is pretty iffy. Even Oklahoma is a plains state, not a southern one, and because of that is way different culturally. Texas, where I am, has anywhere from 4 – 6 completely distinct cultural regions inside it, only one of which (East Texas) could reliably be called “southern”. (that’s the part inside the triangle I just described) For example, southern Texas is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, as is southern Louisiana, another area way different than the rest of the south. (Its kind of fascinating; northern Louisiana is traditionally southern, but southern Louisiana isn’t, in spite of all the old houses you see pictures of.)
Anyway, inside this culture, the church one goes to has for almost 200 years now been mostly determined by social status. Now the Roman Catholics are outside of this – they have *always* been very egalitarian, which is one of the reasons that I think that southern protestants have historically been so hostile towards them. Also, I’ve left the Lutherans out, because you only find Lutherans in places where the Germans and the Scandy’s moved to, and they never went South in any large numbers. But as for the rest, the Episcopals have always been on top of the pile – that’s where the landed families go, the business owners, the judges, the “respectable” politicians. The Episcopal church membership in any southern town is the epitome of “polite society” – that’s going to be your who’s who book if you want to know how things work in the area. These churches will be relatively small in numbers but will have a membership that is *extremely* influential locally. They will also generally have the grandest and oldest structure in town, usually within a block or two of the courthouse. Episcopal churches often have paid musicians and favor *very* classical choral music.
Next up is going to be a tie between the Presbyterians and the Methodists: this is going to be middle to upper middle class, mostly working professionals – doctors, lawyers, dentists, college professors (at least those who aren’t atheists) Since this part of the population is a bit more numerous, these churches are going to be bigger than the Episcopal churches, mostly. They’ve got a lot of very fine 100 year old or more buildings as well. The music programs here are usually very fine also.
Next in line is the church of choice for the southern working classes – the Southern Baptists. Since the working classes outnumber everyone else, these are always going to be the biggest churches in town in terms of membership. And, representing their working class roots, these churches are going to be a lot more raucus and emotional than the more sedate churches of the upper middle classes. Church of Christ and lately, the Mormons also fit into this niche – although before 30 years ago it would have been very rare to find a mormon *anywhere* in the region.
Baptists, btw, tear down their churches and build new ones every 30 years as a way to keep the congregation focused, so they’re always in pretty new structures. And “Classical music” in a Southern Baptist church is defined as a Tammy Wynette album.
Now down past this comes the churches of the dispossessed, those who are or were at one time on the outs with society in general – the Primitive Baptists, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Seventh day Adventists, and any other number of small groups who mostly exist on the outer edges of the southern social world. Synagogues have, quite unfairly, been mostly treated by southern society as though they belonged here.
Often no musical instruments are allowed in this group. Seriously. Things of the Devil, they are. Polite Society mostly pretends that these people don’t exist.
And somewhat separate from all of these are the Pentecostals, the Nazarenes, and some of what gets called “apostolic” churches – what makes these different is that you generally don’t find these people in the towns and the cities, but instead find them out in rural areas. Away from the towns these groups sometimes make up a majority! This kind of defines the split between “country folk” and “city folk” – city in this instance meaning any burg with street signs and a few paved roads. You’d be surprised at how many pure “country folk” there still are. That’s a big part of why these churches seem “weird” to people who aren’t familiar with them – “city people” have looked down on “country people” and their ways for millenia, and we still do. You can spot them once you know what you’re looking for – the women never wear make up, never cut their hair, and *always* wear long dresses, not pants. You don’t see them in any of the cities or towns very often, but when you do they stand out.
And completely outside of this milieu are the traditionally black churches – the A.M.E. and the C.O.G.I.C. (Church of God in Christ) Even today, it’s amazing how little the white churches and the black churches have to do with each other – separate but equal still seems to be the rule, even today.
So, that’s the social pecking order. Like I said, it’s been in place for close to 200 years now, and it drives attitudes and opinions much more than most people realize.
[…] Estrich pens an example of what I tried to say about Beck and others, about how they were more a negative than a positive. That these Pyrrhic victories were […]
WWS,
Where I grew up, the Episcopal churches are, for the most part, churches that were originally built as Church of England and were pretty much the only church around for the first couple hundred years. The area I grew up in was first settled in the late 1600’s. My town had a “chapel of ease” built in the early 1700’s that still stands today as my town church. The Parish church, about 10 miles away, was built a little later. The original church burned down but the original rectory is in use still.
The Methodists split from the Church of England in the mid 1700’s. A guy named Robert Strawbridge started the church in my town sometime shortly after the American Revolution. And that is about it. There was a Catholic church in another town some miles away but as far as I know, it was the only one in the county. Every town had an Episcopal church, most had a Methodist church, and there were a few (very few) Baptist churches here and there. The Baptists only began arriving after the 1960’s. We heard stories about those people who didn’t allow card playing and dancing and thought of them somewhat like we thought of the Amish … nice, but odd.
I would say that about 45% of the people were Episcopal, 45% Methodist, and 5% other.
And WWS, maybe there is something to be said about the gentry and the Episcopal church but it isn’t always about money, sometimes it is just about being “first”. By that I mean that my relations first arrived here in the 1600’s. What is now a pretty good part of the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC was, a couple of hundred years ago, nothing but a farm that belonged to my family. And so my family has ties to families that go back to before the revolution. I am from the Virginia Penn family (different from the Penns of Pennsylvania). Going back 7 generations, my grandfather signed the Declaration of Independence. This country means a lot to my family. And we aren’t rich, we were just farmers.