"Glenn Beck Tries Out Decency"

[tropaka]

Quote

One recent morning, after the release of Donald Trump’s Tic Tac tape and his subsequent mansplanation about locker-room talk, Glenn Beck clicked on a video of Michelle Obama campaigning for Hillary Clinton in a New Hampshire gymnasium. The First Lady ripped into Trump’s comments, calling them “disgraceful” and “intolerable,” and adding, “It doesn’t matter what party you belong to—Democrat, Republican, Independent—no woman deserves to be treated this way.” Beck was mesmerized. On his radio program that day, he heralded Obama’s remarks as “the most effective political speech I have heard since Ronald Reagan.”

“Those words hit me where I live,” Beck said the other day. He was speedwalking up Eighth Avenue with his wife, son, and daughter, all in from Toronto. “If you’re a decent human being, those words were dead on.”

Decency is a fresh palette for Beck, who, at Fox, used to scribble on a chalkboard while launching into conspiratorial rants about looming Weimar-esque hyperinflation, Barack Obama’s ties to radicals with population-cleansing schemes, and a Marxist-Islamist cabal itching to take over America. He once described Clinton as “a stereotypical bitch” and accused Obama of being a racist with a “deep-seated hatred for white people.”

That was the old Beck, he insists: “I did a lot of freaking out about Barack Obama.” But, he said, “Obama made me a better man.” He regrets calling the President a racist and counts himself a Black Lives Matter supporter. “There are things unique to the African-American experience that I cannot relate to,” he said. “I had to listen to them.”

Beck’s interactions with Donald Trump helped, too. He told a story of Trump summoning him to a guest room at Mar-a-Lago; Trump then telephoned him from an adjacent room. “We had this weird, almost Howard Hughes-like conversation,” Beck said. He left convinced that Trump was nuts. “This guy is dangerously unhinged,” he said. “And, for all the things people have said about me over the years, I should be able to spot Dangerously Unhinged.”

Beck went on, “What’s most tragic about this is us. We have, as a culture, embraced the bad guys. I love Tony Soprano. But, when a Tony Soprano shows up in your life, you don’t love him so much.

“We’ve made everything into a game show,” he said, “and now we’re reaping the consequences of it.” Some of this may be Beck’s own doing. Trump’s conspiracy-peddling and doomsaying? That’s vintage Beck, who said that the Fourth of July used to move him to tears. But now, he said, our politicians and bankers have become crooks, our wars meaningless, and our values lost. “I’m at a Dadaist time in my life,” he said. “So much of what I used to believe was either always a sham or has been made into a sham. There’s nothing deep.”

Beck, who was wearing a cardigan, a cream-colored scarf, and green pants, was flanked by two bodyguards. The alt-right sees him as a turncoat. He receives death threats. “These people scare the hell out of me,” he said. Some of them are his former followers, perhaps angry at him for disowning their beliefs while continuing to cash in on their insecurities. (Beck’s Web site still runs ads for goods favored by survivalists—gold ingots, concealed-gun harnesses, and food kits called My Patriot Supply.)

At Fifty-fourth Street, he came upon the Hilton, where, in 1979, his idol, Ronald Reagan, announced his Presidential bid. (The Gipper was unimpressed by the “pigeon-crap-encrusted metropolis.”) “Reagan didn’t believe in the government,” Beck said. “He didn’t believe in the party. He believed in the people.”

It was this brand of populism that he thought Michelle Obama invoked so well. “She didn’t say, ‘The government should do X, Y, or Z.’ She said, ‘We,’ ‘Us’—without a political party. ‘We are better.’ ‘We need to stop this,’ ” he said. “It had to do with ‘Who are you as a human being?’ ‘How do you view women?’ Brilliant speech,” he said. “That was a moment that transcended all political thought.”

He didn’t know who wrote the speech. “I don’t want to know,” he said. “But that felt real. And if it wasn’t? We’re in big trouble.”

 

oops link http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/14/glenn-beck-tries-out-decency

[dramallama]

15 minutes ago, tropaka said:

 

oops link http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/14/glenn-beck-tries-out-decency

Well hot damn.  If there's hope for Glenn Beck, there's got to be some hope left for all of us.

[karen77]

12 minutes ago, dramallama said:

Well hot damn.  If there's hope for Glenn Beck, there's got to be some hope left for all of us.

I hope so....

he did grow up in a hot bed of hippism where  I live now

[VelociRapture]

... I don't know how to feel about this. I really hope he's being sincere and that he has changed. I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt - and I'm trying to - but it's tough considering all the hate he promoted over the years.

[Howl]

2 hours ago, tropaka said:

“I’m at a Dadaist time in my life,” he said. “So much of what I used to believe was either always a sham or has been made into a sham. There’s nothing deep.”

Who thought Beck of all people would go existential on us? He's the last person I'd expect this from.  Can't quite wrap my head around it.  Hope he survives the alt-right. Plus, he's wearing green pants? I'm OK with green pants, but the author thought it noteworthy, so maybe they are really green, I mean REALLY GREEN. 

And to be turned by Michelle Obama? Holy Guacamole!  Are pigs flying?  Has hell frozen over? Did someone slip LSD in my tea?  Did someone slip LSD in HIS tea? 

Then I'm wondering, is this a spoof or satire piece, so I went to Glenn Beck's web site, where he is being excoriated by his betrayed and wounded leg humpers.  As someone pointed out, though, he may be more of an "anybody but Trump" kinda guy, but if he now likes Black Lives Matter and Michelle....well, weirder things have happened, but I can't remember when. 

Beck's media empire is imploding, or at least it was in Aug and early Sept.  

[Lillybee]

My niece worked for cnn, she was a producer for Nancy Grace, Joy Behar and Glenn Beck. She thought that NG was a horrible woman but that Glenn Beck was a good decent man. She is a Dem. by the way. He had her do a bit of research for one of his books and he acknowledged her in his forward and even gave her a cut of the  royalities. He didn't need to do that.

[nausicaa]

13 minutes ago, Lillybee said:

My niece worked for cnn, she was a producer for Nancy Grace, Joy Behar and Glenn Beck. She thought that NG was a horrible woman but that Glenn Beck was a good decent man. She is a Dem. by the way. He had her do a bit of research for one of his books and he acknowledged her in his forward and even gave her a cut of the  royalities. He didn't need to do that.

Beck's original show, around 2005 or 2006, before he was on Fox News was actually very moderate and rational. He used to have Erin Burnett on a lot, I seem to remember? Anyway at the time he didn't even have a political allegiance, and he definitely wasn't touting conspiracy theories.

I wonder how much of his recent persona was an act for Fox?

[Lillybee]

Didn't Fox fire him for going off the rail too many times, even for Fox.

[AmazonGrace]

Eh, his temporary insanity didn't last long, now that Trump is hiring, here he is sucking up on Trump. 

http://www.glennbeck.com/2016/11/10/110652/?platform=hootsuite

[Howl]

Well, to start with, I don't think Trump personally extended an olive branch to anyone and I don't think he'll ever forget anyone who criticized/opposed him.  Trump's projected image is being managed, and managed carefully.  Soon after he tweeted negatively about the protesters on the west coast, a tweet came out about how he admired their passion.  Very easy to separate the Trump voice and the image-impression-management-team voice. 

Nice tweets?  Impression management

Asshole tweets? Trump

There's just too much at stake and too many peoples' political fortunes tied to his coattails to let him continue to run loose.  There's a lot of speculation that he won't last for four years and will be impeached.  The impeachment would be his opportunity to resign.  Then we're stuck with Mike. Fucking. Pence. the man who has never laughed. 

But back to the original topic.  Seeing how Beck tacks in the future will be fun, and @nausicaa, thanks for sharing those fascinating insights from your niece.    I'm sure she has a treasure trove of amazing stories about those personalities.  Now I need to go back and do some researching of early Glenn Beck. I'm pretty sure he started out as a radio show personality.  

[VelociRapture]

4 minutes ago, Howl said:

Well, to start with, I don't think Trump personally extended an olive branch to anyone and I don't think he'll ever forget anyone who criticized/opposed him.  Trump's projected image is being managed, and managed carefully.  Soon after he tweeted negatively about the protesters on the west coast, a tweet came out about how he admired their passion.  Very easy to separate the Trump voice and the image-impression-management-team voice. 

Nice tweets?  Impression management

Asshole tweets? Trump

There's just too much at stake and too many peoples' political fortunes too let him continue to run loose.  There's a lot of speculation that he won't last for four years and will be impeached.  The impeachment would be his opportunity to resign.  Then we're stuck with Mike. Fucking. Pence. the man who has never laughed. 

Bill Maher made a joke about Kaine and Pence on his show a while back. He said something like:

After an orgasm, Tim Kaine says, "Gee golly!"

After an orgasm, Mike Pence says, "Whooooorrrrrrrreeeee!"

It was way funnier when he actually said it. I feel like it really sums up the differences between the two VP picks this year though. I'm really sad America's Stepdad won't have the chance to be VP now. 

[Howl]

2 minutes ago, VelociRapture said:

VP picks this year though. I'm really sad America's Stepdad won't have the chance to be VP now. 

I know, right?  That man could've rocked a cardigan by the fire like nobody's business.  

[AmazonGrace]

I want to know what Glenn Beck is smoking these days because he makes sense: 

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/radio-host-glenn-beck-dubs-stephen-bannon-terrifying-man-article-1.2873221?cid=bitly

Conservative radio host Glenn Beck had these words to say about the President-elect's Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon: "He is a terrifying man."

Beck also called the former Breitbart News executive "a nightmare," in a Right Wing Watch clip.

He added that instead of calling Donald Trump a "racist," people should take another look at Bannon, because he "has a clear tie to white nationalists."

 

[AmazonGrace]

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/15/politics/glenn-beck-bannon-appointment-white-nationalists-anderson-cooper/index.html?sr=twCNN111516glenn-beck-bannon-appointment-white-nationalists-anderson-cooper1115PMVODtop