Alex, Welcome to the Lake.

Sara, Thank you for Hosting today’s Book Salon.

Hi, Alex and Bev — and everybody!

Thanks very much for having me. It’s an honor.

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Great to be back. And great to chat with Alex again — I interviewed him for Alternet and ourfuture. org when the book first launched last month (review is here; http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010052023/glenn-becks-common-nonsense-interview-alex-zaitchik).

Glenn’s stepped out a little farther since then, with this new nonsense about how “we created civil rights.”

Alex, what’s the response been to this amazing assertion?

Yes, I’m still trying to find the history books that describe how rightwing Mormons led the Civil Rights movement. I guess I’ve been looking in the wrong library.

In fact, having grown up in a Mormon town in the ’60, my recollection is that they were, erm, less than supportive of the whole idea….

Well, he’s gotten a lot of heavy fire for it. And rightly so. There was talk of a counter protest on August 28, but that ended pretty quickly. I think at this point people are finding it hard to be shocked by anything that comes out of Beck’s mouth.

In fact, the refusal to grant the Mormon priesthood to African-Americans is considered a mark of historical embarassment and considerable shame by most Mormons of the current generations.

Why no counter-protest? After all, the steps of the Lincoln Memorial are still free….

Christian Right pseudo-historian David Barton, whose inane work has circulated amongst right-wing evangelicals for decades (for a good debunking of some of Barton’s work see here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-rodda) , has been a guest on Beck’s radio and TV show several times in the past year, and now is a featured speaker at many of Beck’s live events. How did Barton come to Beck’s attention?

Which do you think are the most effective responses so far?

Good afternoon Alexander and Sara and welcome to FDL this 4th of July.

Alexander, I have not had an opportunity to read your book but have to congratulate you on your willingness to actually watch Beck and his mindlessness.

Do you need to de-contaminate after you watch or are there support tools and substances that make it possible for you to do so?

The Mormons that Beck most reveres, guys like Ezra Taft Benson and Cleon Skousen, were some of the most virulently anti-civil rights voices in the country. This is a book that Benson, who Beck often plays from beyond the grave on his show, wrote the forward for: http://www.affirmation.org/images/covers/the_black_hammer.gif

Pretty much tells you everything you need to know.

Is Glenn Beck just right wing politics answer to Howard Stern? A good amount of Stern’s popularity was in making his listeners feel part of a community and in on the joke (i.e. One of the cool kids). Howard could get into an argument with some celebrity and suddenly have his listeners take up the banner and show up at events where this celebrity appeared and start mocking them incessantly. Do Becks listeners/viewers have the same dynamic?

It’s hard to miss Barton — he’s the father of right-wing historical revisionism. (Poor Chris Rodda took, IIRC, four volumes of “Liars for Jesus” to refute all the various claims Barton makes — these books are a terrific resource for anybody trying to deal with Barton.) It would be amazing if Beck hadn’t come across him. It’s a small world out there.

The Barton thing is outrageous. The only analogue I can think of is if Rachel Maddow were to have a Holocaust denialist like David Irving on her show and demand everybody read his books. And then if those books started to dominate the bestseller lists.

Interesting question. We’re off to a solid start here, people.

I think it’s also worth noting that his touting of Barton shows how little interest he has in actual history. As far as I know, he has never once name dropped the greatest popular historians of the 18th and 19th century America. He’s never mentioned Gordon Wood, Joe Ellis, Jackson Lears — just the freaks and geeks.

Beck seems to be like a sponge, he just soaks up whatever is around him without thinking about it very critically, and like a sponge, the end product is murky brown water.

Glenn Beck is no more important than the amount of attention given to him. He’s a performer and nothing more.

There is definitely a strong community aspect of the Beck phenomenon. But they don’t see it as a big joke, a la Stern, unfortunately. But yes, when the 9.12′ers get together and fly their own banners at events, they find each other and say hello, exchange numbers, share a sense of being in the same club.

Apple, I think Beck is more insidious than that. Stern was an entertainer — it was all about ratings. There was no political or culturally transformative intent; it was just about inciting mobs.

Glenn Beck did a lot of that, too (according to Alex), back when he was a Top 40 deejay. But this is that same thing taken to the next level — the level where you take control of consensus reality, and drive the whole country off in another direction. That’s the level that fascists take things to (yes, I use the F-word very advisedly). It’s a step on beyond, and considerably more sinister.

Is there a quote from Beck where he says the Mormons were the civil rights activists. Or is it just we?

I think by “we” he actually meant “conservatives.” He’s been arguing that King’s logic and morality were those of conservatism, and that’s where the intellectual basis of civil rights came from.

That’s probably the level at which we need to confront his argument, when it comes down to it.

With regard to the community question, it’s worth noting that the 9.12 Project is as social as it is political. They have BBQ’s, boat races, raffles, picnics. They go to movies together, set up events, shootings at gun ranges. I spend much of the last year undercover in the Tampa 9.12 Project, and often it felt like a social club more than anything else. Beck’s rallying cry, remember, was “You Are Not Alone.”

I just wonder how much of it is an act. I’ve worked in radio for 20 years and counting and have seen more than one seemingly genuine view on the air be exposed behind the scenes as a contrived bit of theater. Has Beck just tapped into yet another way to make money?

Alex, is there something progressives could learn from the way this movement is organized?

Yes, he means conservatives. But the fact is, had he been around at the time, he would have been aligned with the far-right Mormons, not the liberal clergy who linked arms at Selma.

I actually agree with Apple, though in a different way. I think Stern (who has no discernible political outlook other than an infantile form of libertarianism) opened the door to a lot of the crudeness on radio that rules the airwaves today. I think Stern made it easier for people like Rush and later Hannity and Beck to justify the nasty things they say on the radio. They can always turn around and say, “Hey, I’m an entertainer, so it’s okay!” Beck also comes from the general meliu of shock jocks, though he was never as extreme.

Apple, I asked Alex that question when I interviewed him, too. How much of this is really about change; and how much is a cynical ploy for ratings? The guy seems sociopathic enough, but it’s hard to tell.

Right. But I’m arguing that Rush and Glenn have gone the next level beyond where Stern went. Those mobs now have a purpose, a focus, a national movement, and their own culture and history. That’s a far step in the wrong direction — toward the realm where dictators and ethnic cleansing are incited over the airwaves.

It’s very hard to disentangle the two with Beck — ratings and politics. I think the answer has changed over the last 10 and even 5 years. When he started out, he was about money and ratings. But there has been a shift in the last few years especially, where he has become much more convincingly religious, apocalyptic, and it seems his success has given him delusions of grandeur. It’s very possible that he actually thinks God is speaking to and through him. The fact that this also feeds into his media brand strategy doesn’t make it less possible.

Right. Both things going on at once. It’s always striking how often God tells those who hear him to do outrageous things that happen to be in their own best interest. Nothing new there, I’m afraid.

That’s a good point. There is a huge difference between Howard Stern fondling fake boobs and Beck selling millions of copies of books that describe progressives and cockroaches and vermin who “don’t think the same way we do.”

I think God wants me to have those new Marc Jacobs pumps.

While I think it is of course useful to understand the source of the madness — in this case, Beck — I always want to cut to the chase and ask, “what do we do? How do we combat this?”

Suggestions?

Let’s just say that I’ve seen more than a few people who have gone through 12 Step programs that think God is speaking to them.

I meant “progressives AS cockroaches.”

Exactly. Stern was never overtly eliminationist, especially not to the point of tarring vast groups of people as deserving of death.

That’s Tutsi/Hutu territory. And Mauimom asks a good question: How do we respond?

Well I do believe Beck has visions of a greater grandeur. Megalomania.

Maybe “what we do” could start with understanding the appeal…He is really ridiculous, as I recall.

Which also brings us back around to my original theme: How much should we worry? (And is worry even the right response?)

I think it’s important that groups like Media Matters document the daily idiocies and refute the lies. But the people he is talking to are in their own world and are ultimately unreachable to a large degree. So it’s not an easy question to answer. Anyone who has spent any time at a Tea Party trying to argue with hardcore Beck fans knows that they are connecting at a level that is sub-rational.

Then there’s the fact that the Tea Party really does seem to be running out of steam. His fate is closely bound up with theirs; and their biggest rally ever only drew about 360K people nationwide. It’ll be interesting to see how many folks actually show up on August 28.

Perhaps the best strategy in dealing with an unreachable minority is to strengthen the hand of your own more powerful majority.

He is ridiculous, but the more we say that, the more they rally behind him. He has set up a very tight and effective spiral of persecution/matryrdom with his fans. He constantly talks about how the liberals want to kill him for speaking the truth, and his fans eat it up. They really believe that he has sacrificed everything to bring them the truth. Beck’s fans are strangely protective of him in a way you don’t see with any other media figure on the right. The closest thing is Palin.

Good question, where is Beck’s ego taking him?

One of the things that distinguishes Beck from his other conservative counterparts like Rush Limbaugh and Hannity (though they have dabbled in it themselves, Rush with Vince Fosters death and Hannity with Gennifer Flowers claiming Bill Clinton had people murder) is his constant conspiracism, ie his belief that powerful “progressive” forces are secretly propelling America toward some kind of despotic, socialist nightmare. How did Beck develop these ideas?

Have to take off to dinner, be back in half an hour.

Off the cliff? No, seriously, what Alex said about the overprotectiveness may actually in time be the movement’s greatest weakness. Anybody that unhinged is bound to do or say something that finally just goes too far — and when Beck does (that’s when, not if), his fans will discredit themselves when they continue to protect him.

McCarthy, who attracted a similarly rabid following, would be a cautionary tale here.

Beck is a natural paranoid. After he became a dry drunk, but before he had a fully formed conservative worldview, he had an affinity for conspiracies and thought the world was out to get him. I think the key moment in terms of what we now see on his blackboard flow charts was his discovery of Cleon Skousen, who offered a number of theories of leftist perfidy and power for Beck to adopt and play with on his own.

I read where a lot of Mormons are in the CIA..Goes back to Howard Hughes..Mormons were the only ones he trusted.

Maybe Beck is an operative, like one of the other shock jocks,of whom it was revealed not long ago. s/

Alex, tell us more about Skousen? Because most Americans have no idea who he is — even though Beck has made him one of Amazon’s top-selling authors.

That’s an interesting point. But the McCarthy thing raises a question — Is there still any power to the question, “Have you no shame?” If Beck suffered the equivalent to the Army hearings that brought Joe Mac down, would they have the same effect? Beck could lose his FNC show tomorrow and still have a massive following who would go down with him in the bunker if he asked them to.

Well, they usually pick off Mormons early, when they return from missionary work. But maybe.

The CIA would have absolutely nothing to do with Beck. Trust me on this.

Actually, it was the FBI under Hoover that recruited Mormons in a big way. They were sober, straight, unblackmailable, well-traveled (due to their missionary years), and knew how to keep secrets. That’s been less true in the post-Hoover years. Some other agencies followed suit; others didn’t. The CIA’s cultural values are slightly different, and they didn’t dip into that well quite as deeply.

But I digress, and gently remind myself to get back on topic.

Thank you for the input. And I did not intend to digress.

Sorry.

Right. It’s hard to know where to beging with SKousen. I have a long chapter in the book which charts his life and impact on Beck, which was enormous. Basically Skousen was something like the Beck of his day, a natural showman who made a fortune selling wild conspiracies, first about the Red Menace, and later about the New World Order. Before he died, he focused mostly on Christian Constitutionalism, pioneering the kind of work David Barton does. The key text of that phase of his career is the 5,000 Year Leap, which the Bible of the 9.12 Project.

Alex, you’re right: being shamed off the national stage is a very different thing these days. But it’s still doable. Sexual pecadilloes are, of course, the canonical way this happens. (Although it hasn’t hurt Rush as much as it should have.) No question, it’s going to have to be big — something Tiger Woodsy, or involving someone’s untimely demise — in a way that the National Enquirer can make hay out of.

What was the 5,000 year leap?

He writes, produces and performs in real time a soap opera based on lies, all the while weaving distortions of history and ads for his gold company, God and country, acting like a true sincere American all the while committing treason and fomenting sedition. Nothing he does can withstand even the slightest scrutiny or intellectual curiosity, yet he has millions of followers who really don’t want to question the truthfulness of his utterances because they conform with their own distorted view of this country. I know a lot of them. He has to be held up for the fraud he is over and over again until, just like the lies he utters, he is seen for what he is.

I wouldn’t hold our breathes waiting for the Beck sex scandal. Like many Mormons, he is extremely weird about sex, uptight like you wouldn’t believe. If he does get nabbed in a sex scandal, it’s going to be a very very weird one. But I doubt that’ll happen.

The problem is that his followers don’t care about fraud. They’ll only peel off if he shames them in a way that feels like a personal betrayal. That’s how it is with authoritarian followers.

I am going from faulty memory here, but didn’t even the Mormons disown or excommunicate Skousen,ultimately?

5,000 Year Leap basically argued that God wrote the Constitution, through the Founders, and because of that, it should not be touched. He thinks the Supreme Court wrongfully kicked the Church out of the State and in the book attempts to make a case for prayer in public schools, etc.

It’s also very Mormon in a lot of unspoken ways. It’s basically a Mormon Theocratic text. Though many evangelicals who are buying it don’t realize that. And Beck is smart not to talk about it.

It’s that “very weird one” that we might hope for. As you say: low probability, very high impact if it happens.

What seems far more likely is that someone commits an act of domestic terrorism and makes it clear that Beck up him up to it. Neiwert and Amato’s new book points out that the right-wing talkers were absolutely panicked when we started pointing out that their overheated rhetoric was driving guys like Adkisson (the Unitarian church shooting), Roeder (Tiller’s murderer), and von Brunn (the Holocaust shooter). They denied it up one side and down the other, but they also started dialing it back.

If the connection between Beck and such a crime were clear enough, that might start a reconsideration.

The Church instructed priests not to mention Skousen in official settings. And one BYU professor who was familiar with and involved in Mormon debates in the 1970s told me he was briefly on track to being excommunicated at one point.

How does Skousen reconcile a strict constructionst reading of the Constitution with his claim that there is no Wall of Separation?

How is the Church dealing with Beck’s resurrection of someone they clearly regard as something of an embarrassment?

Yes, it’s worth emphasizing exactly how terrified they are of this. Beck’s book Common Sense has 5 pleas to readers not to kill anyone. It’s on the first page! Funny how, say, Van Jones, didn’t feel the need to say this to his readers in Green Collar Economy. Who’s the radical again?

Since Beck is a Mormon, how does that play with many evangelicals? I was kind of surprised that Beck was invited to speak at the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University for its commencement, though Mitt Romney spoke there a few years ago.

How has Rush managed to skate all these years, in spite of drugs, Feminazi, etc… Talk about teflon.

[Mod Note: As "interesting" as Limbaugh is, please stay on the topic of Glenn Beck]

The current Church is in many ways the product of the Skousen/Taft axis. It’s farther to the right, and more in line with Beck’s views. There are huge billboards of Beck’s shows on highways in Utah, where Beck is very popular. That said, liberal Mormons are aghast that he’s now the most famous Mormon. I have done a lot of radio in Utah and Idaho, and many callers are like, “I wish he could have found God somewhere else.”

Money,honey,ummh huh huh!

Money honey, if you wanna get along with me hee….

The Liberty thing makes sense. Falwell Sr. was tight with Skousen, and together they cemented the Mormon/evangelical alliance in the 70s. Both were active in the Council on National Policy, both were tight and active with Rev. Moon, they worked together to defeat the ERA, and most recently they worked on Prop 8 together. So there is a 30 year history of elite Mormon/evangelical partnership, but the evangelical base isn’t so sure. Something like half still view Mormonism as a cult, even though the doctrinal differences have narrowed in recent decades.

Yeah. And the sex tourism to the Dominican Republic, which was pretty successfully scuttled as a story.

His followers love him for this stuff. All right-wingers love redemption narratives, and Beck tells a good one. What’s unique about Rush is that he’s not overtly Christian, and doesn’t sell that “I once was lost, but now am found” bs. His cred comes from something else — perhaps the overweening sense of total Randian control he projects. And his ability to shuck off potential scandals without having to do the redemption ritual is one sign of that control.

What else do you hear from the Mormon side on this? It’s interesting stuff — especially since Beck only converted 11 years ago, and isn’t born Mormon like so many in Utah are.

One interesting thing I have heard from many Mormon academics, and it led to a chapter in the book, is how Beck’s crying is a very Mormon messaging technique, heavily influenced by the ritual known as “bearing testimony.”

One of the most frustrating things for progressives has been the way the mainstream media treats Beck. They seem to view as a theatrical curiosity who occasionally says outrageous things, but don’t take the impact of his conspiracy theories and inflammatory rhetoric on millions of Americans who are becoming politically mobilized very seriously. It is very frustrating, do you have any ideas for what can be done about this?

And, in a completely different direction: What is Beck’s demographic? My sense is that it skews older, rural, and working-class. But that may be a stereotype — as it proved to be for the Tea Party, which is 40-something, white, male, and fairly well-educated and well-off.

I thought your chapter on “bearing testimony” was one of the most interesting parts of the book, having actually been to Mormon testimony meetings. I thought you nailed it. Talk more about this?

(Yes, I know I’m lobbing questions at you quickly. Ignore the ones you don’t want to answer — there’s just so much to this subject…)

I wouldn’t underestimate the power of Stewart/Colbert mockery. But you’re right, this is also serious business, and it needs to be tackled. The problem is, it’s like trying to wrestle jello. It’s so formless and insane that finding a point of entry to engage with it rationally is very difficult. Mockery may be the most effect way. Even Media Matters is finding it increasingly hard to keep a straight voice in their Beck coverage.

Well, Harry Reid wasn’t born Mormon ,either.

But he sure has become Mormoney .

Beck’s audience is generally the average Tea Party member: middle age, middle class, white. But he has always been good at getting a younger demo than his peers. This is part of what enabled his rise — he was seen as appealing to a new generation. But he’s not exactly filling university stadiums, either. There’s a reason he launched “The Plan” at a retirement community last November.

What you say maybe true, but Stewart and Colbert play to their liberal base, and I doubt that they have much influence outside of it. I think that the Left stopped trying to engage the people who are in Beck’s audience a long time ago, and the Tea Party movement is in part a result of that disengagement.

Glenn Beck was right. Without racists like him there never would have been a civil rights movement, or an anti-slavery movement either.

Sure — but where do you engage it so it has impact? His fans read Drudge, NewsMax, watch Fox, read Beck’s books — they aren’t really interested in seriously considering a thoughtful 6,000-word Harper’s story (or a 90,000 word book) about why their hero is out of his f**king mind.

To ratify this: there was a time, back in the 40s through 70s, when the people who ran the media saw their job as a public trust. Part of this trust was to keep the focus on real issues and credible people, and not let sensationalizers and demogogues run off with the cultural narratives.

In that climate, it was very hard for extremists to get much traction. George Wallace, the Birchers, McCarthy — they got a cold shoulder from the mainstream media, and the grandees who ran the joint did so because they were deliberately protecting the information ecology of the country.

There’s now a new conversation afoot within media circles about the possibility of restoring this role. Beck and Rush and the rest of them are forcing this reconsideration. Stewart and Colbert are out front of that, but it could be the beginning of a fairly healthy trend.

Or, it should be added, how he is manipulating them.

the tea parties are full of women. Not just males.

I submit that Rush, Beck and the other RW talkers all share a Get Out Of Jail Free card issued to them by the modern mainstream corporate media. In fact, the MSMers fawn at their feet.

Would Walter Cronkite have ever boasted of being Father Coughlin’s buddy? Hell, no. But Brian Williams and Howard Kurtz talk up how wuuvvvly Rush is all the time.

I’m not sure how we’d restore the old gatekeeper system. The days of three networks and two papers and three weeklies are gone forever.

Alex, you’ve actually had some useful things to day about what a distraction Beck has become. It’s a rough time, and we’ve got a lot of critical issues on our plate — yet we’re having to give bandwidth to this?

I think not mocking people as “Tea Baggers” is a start. The type of engagement I am talking here would probably be a decades long process and would require a ton of work, time and money. Only a loon would expect to convert Tea Partiers to the Left, but maybe something can be done to blunt the edges of the right-wing populism that emerges ever so often in America.

Walter Cronkite for six of Brian Williams and five of Kurtz would be a good trade.

Dude, don’t look now, but…

We are the gatekeepers. Or at least, a lot of the people we hang with are.

And there’s still a mainstream media out there, which is rapidly losing its remaining credibility and is frantic to know what to do about that. The charge to reclaim their gatekeeping role in the name of the public trust is one nostrum they may be willing to take to heart.

Wasn’t there someone in American letters who posited that “it can’t happen here?” And who then pointed out that, indeed, it can?

That’s the conundrum for me: given a severe double-dip recession and blame-seeking all around, how attractive will Glenn Beck’s message be to the dispossessed, the home-poor, the undereducated? This near-serf uneducated class has been a long time in the stewing, since the Reagan cuts to and disrespect for learning.

Thanks for taking time out of your Independence Day to spend time chatting about this book, Alexander and Sara. It’s a dangerous topic we shouldn’t ignore: radio clowns have risen to the top of the mob before, and another may again.

The problem is of course that the Southern Strategy isn’t just upheld by racists. Corporate America likes it because it cons working-class whites into voting down taxes on the rich or any sort of social spending on the fear that blacks will benefit from it. I can’t see them readily giving that up any more than I can see oil companies readily switching to renewables — Lord John Browne tried that when he was CEO of BP, and was ousted as a result; Hayward kept the pretty logos but promptly ditched the solar-panel plants.

Yes, I’ll never understand Mitt Romney’s assertion that he pulled off to the side of the road and wept when The Prophet’s announcement came that African-Americans were entitled to full membership but not the powers of the priesthood within LDS. I’d like Mitt to explain why, exactly, he wept.

There actually has been some useful research done on how to talk populism to this group — and there are messages that resonate. That’s another chat for another time, but it does show that to some degree, this populism can be harnessed to other causes.

One of my favorites is framing the immigration problem this way: “We must force people to come out of the shadows, get themselves on the books, and become legal.” What we’re talking about here is creating a path to citizenship, of course; but conservatives will sign onto anything if it involves “forcing” people to do something.

Seriously. This wording was focus-tested and polled out, and it worked.

I do think there is a point where we have to ask ourselves if we’re giving too much time and energy to dissecting every single crazy thing to come out of a Malkin/Palin/Beck. There is an opportunity cost to spending half of our time mocking the patently absurd. We need to find a way to be aware of it, and keep the big picture in mind, without succumbing to the temptation to pile on every comment. If one site or two are doing it, that should be enough. Sometimes it seems as if it’s all we’re talking about. I feel like in many progressive media circles Beck got more attention for unveiling his new Beck University than Tony Judt got for his brilliant and moving deathbed defense of social democracy. This is backward.

Another question on the media: despite your book being very well written and research, and the fact that you are an experience journalist, and on top of the fact that you are writing about a hot topic like Glenn Beck, the media (even the Left-wing one) have largely ignored your book, unfairly in my opinion. Why do you think that is?

Is “You Are Not Alone” the same as being “Surrounded?” I seem to remember something in early Beck-ness about being Surrounded.

In case you missed this from earlier, here is a book that a future Church president wrote the forward to. No one capable of weeping at that moment should have been capable of staying in the Church as long as they did: http://www.affirmation.org/images/covers/the_black_hammer.gif

Yes, it was Beck’s people, The Real Americans, “You”, who Surrounded us, the godless liberals out to destroy the country, also known as “Them”.

Thanks for the kind word. Don’t really know the answer. One producer told me the fact that it was so heavy on biography made them nervous.

If you don’t mind me asking, why did it make them nervous? Would it invite inspection of their own life stories?

Right. They don’t want people on competing shows talking about what they were doing in their 20s.

Such is the fallout from the “politics of personal destruction”…

I think it’s because broadcasting is a club and a small one at that. People who violate the rules of the club by talking about its inner workings tend to find themselves out for good.

Of course, if anyone at my job ever connects my Lone Apple name to me then I better be able to defend all the things I say about my industry.

There’s the coming schism: the Romney presidential candidacy, Mormon to its core, is very unattractive to the fundies, who don’t see Mo-mo as Xtianist AT ALL. How will Beck play in 2012, when the likely GOP candidate shares his faith? Have there been Glenn/Willard interactions yet? Will Beck bring the fundie 9/12 Truthers/Birthers along for Mitt?

There is also a clubbiness to the world, sure. It’s worth noting, though, that Beck is famous for violating the rules of the club. He has said things about Olbermann’s private life of the air that are waaaay beyond the pale. He’s always played dirty. I have numerous examples from his career in the book.

“ON the air”

One of the things I studied extensively in grad school for futures was apocalypticism. And one of the biggest epiphanies I had about that is this: if someone tells you that the world is coming to an end — believe them. Because what they’re telling you is that for them, it probably is.

Apocalyptic tales only take root in cultures that are under deep existential threat — which is to say, their cognitive structures (and hence their entire ability to make meaning out of the world) are collapsing. This feels like cultural annihilation — and those who survive it (like the remnant of many Native American tribes whose worlds also collapsed this way) may very well experience as worse than being dead.

That’s what I hear in Beck’s desperate end-times panic. For him and his listeners, whatever utopian vision of America they once had — the one that never existed except in 50s sitcoms and Reagan’s decaying imagination — is dying. And a lot of the actual economic truths they grew up with — the ones attached to the American dream of houses and cars and suburbs and worldwide dominance — are also dying, in very real terms.

Unlike us city liberals, who know how to work with ambiguity and change, this is hitting people who have no clue what the future holds. The world as they knew it is ending. That’s the real apocalypse that Beck is giving voice to.

There’s no mystery to it, and we should have compassion for it. But, as Frank Schaeffer said: “A village cannot revise village life to suit the village idiot.” We need to find a way to calm them down and assuage the panic, and offer the a better vision of the future. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen while Glenn’s got the majority franchise on their mindshare.

FWIW, this is the most incisive comment yet.

Thank you for this.

I am flummoxed at the inordinate fascination with these most UNextraordinary personalities such as Palin and Beck..

Are these the modern counterparts to the comic book characters of yesteryear?

Sinclair Lewis, published in 1935.

I would like to be able to get basic cable without paying any money to the network that supports Glen. I want the choice to choose what cable channels I buy.
I don’t see why I should pay any money to support Glen if I never watch him.

Sadly, I didn’t read your book in time for this chat but I definitely want to because he is a fascinating character. Beck attacks in a personal way because he sees everything as extremely personal. He is quite petulant.

And Heinlein, 20 years later, in If This Goes On…

Ah, the ‘youthful indiscretions’ concern.

Great point. There is a huge element of nostalgia in the fearful apocalyptic rhetoric. What’s so ironic, of course, is that the nostalgia usually centers on the middle of the last century, when we have the highest incomes taxes and a consensus on a strong welfare state. That world was made possible by policies that compressed income distribution. And it was all done, sorry Beck, by the very people who actually defeated Nazism, liberated the camps, and actually knew something about Hitler and Stalin.

I meant “wealth distribution”

I used to listen to Glen Beck on insomnia radio. Most of what he said was bull shit but the show itself was good radio. I never would have guessed that Beck would have a national audience. The book sounds like a good read.

But I wouldn’t worry about Glen. If he wasn’t playing to that audience somebody else would. The liars that really worry me are the likes of Rove and Obama.

He’s also a sadist. More than one former colleague told me he’s the kind of person who enjoys ripping wings off flies. Don’t pity the country; save it for his wife.

He certainly understands the medium of radio, much better than television. He’s always been a serious student of radio, and by all accounts was a natural even as a teenager.

What does the future hold for Glenn Beck? Are his fortunes in the broadcasting world totally tied to the Tea Party movement?

And ironically: the GIs were so keen on economic equality, educational achievement, and social justice precisely because they believed that these things would be a bulwark against fascism, both here and in Europe. They knew that a liberal state has a natural immunity to all kinds of extremisms, and were anxious to inoculate the world. Both parties were on board with that agenda all through the Cold War – it was at the core of the American Consensus of the time.

Of course, history is a constant battle against forgetting — and we’ve forgotten what our grandparents learned the hardest way possible about the evils of inequality and ignorance. And so we get to learn it all again, the hard way, with Glenn Beck as our national professor on the subject.

The TP has been the solid fuel for the last stage of his growth, no question. But I think whatever ultimately happens with this movement, Beck will retain a lot of loyalty. If the far-right ground shifts to say, anti-immigrant activism, Beck is perfectly positioned to change gears and return to beating that drum, which he used to do very hard. He keeps his finger on the pulse very carefully and will pivot before most people even realize what’s happening.

Yes, I read in the Forbes profile of Beck that he has daily meetings with his inner circle and looks extensive at market research so that he stays relevant with his shows’ topics and formats.

I think this is the most worrying aspect of Beck’s rise, the forgetting and cheapening of the nature and lessons of the last century. If the Holocaust is just a FNC ratings chit and a way to bludgeon Dems over healthcare, than nothing means anything anymore. Denialism used to be the scourge; now it’s what you might call Trivialism.

Good point. As Perlstein pointed out recently in the NYT, these people have always been with us — the same cohort, without much variation — for many decades. They were McCarthyites, Birchers, Wallace voters, anti-bussing activists, Moral Majority members, Perot voters — and now they’re out there in tea-bag-trimmed tricorn hats. Same folks, different decade.

And there will always be Glenn Becks to cater to them. Even if Beck loses his grip on their pulse (and I’m with Alex; watch him, because he’s really good at detecting even subtle shifts), there will be others. Like Palin, for instance. America has proven to be an endless font of them.

Here’s one serious question we haven’t gotten to (and probably don’t have time for now): Most of those historical right-wing demagogues went down when they got on the bad side of someone powerful. For Glenn, that’s most likely to be Murdoch, who holds his leash.

And I’m surprised that, a year after the Color of Change campaign that robbed him of most of his paying sponsors (and still is), Murdoch’s still willing to eat the loss. (The FOX argument that “the advertisers just moved to other shows” is totally disingenous: air time is extremely finite — there are only 24 hours in a day — and Glenn eats at least one of FOX’s most lucrative hours every day. There is no way to make that money back.) I’m rather surprised at Mr. Murdoch’s persistence and patience with this. It’s clearly not just about the money for him.

Sara Robinson said that the media used to take their responsibility seriously about preserving “public trust”. Others asked how can we address or contain the Beck’s of the nation. STOP COMCAST CABLE PURCHASE OF NBC. The case is now before the FCC. As progressives, it is time for us to raise our voices and collective will to combat this consolidation of media into the hands of a few. WE CAN begin with this effort and then move on. Murdock is a mogul who has lots of dollars. He wants to preserve his empire and he is using the power of the PRESS to stifle american progress. Any other ideas on how to combat this constant harangue by pathetic egomaniacs like Beck???

Though I dislike Glenn Beck’s programs’ immensely, one of the things that I have to admire is the way that he tries to tell some kind of narrative or over arching story about politics in his programs about the way the world is. The narrative may not make a lot of sense and is hideous in my opinion, but it is there. I don’t see that in other liberal programs, which mostly seem to focus on snark and how stupid their political opponents (and perceived inferiors) are. Is this part of Beck’s appeal?

As we come to the end of this great Book Salon,

Alex, Thank you for stopping by the Lake and spending the afternoon with us discussing your new book and Glenn Beck.

Sara, Thank you very much for Hosting this great Book Salon.

Everyone, if you would like more information, here is Alex’s website.

Thanks all.

Happy July 4th!!

Without access to FNC books, it’s impossible to say whether the Weekly Standard and Americans for Prosperity are paying normal ad rates; one source told me they are. But clearly Beck is worth more to Fox and the right’s agenda than an hour of cola and car ads. He’s a master distraction. The fact that we’re talking about him now testifies to his value.

The Council for National policy that you mention re Skousen and Falwell was a Reagan gift. In 1980, Skousen was appointed to the newly founded Council for National Policy, Reagan’s think tank of religious conservatives that was the Reagan “brain trust” that indeed was an early proponent of privatizing Social Security and that is where he came across my radar.

I did not mind Skousen lining up with the GOP or getting evangelical church leaders and the LDS church to join him.

But the attack on Social Security was annoying.

Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.

Owww…my ears. Please don’t yell.

But you’re right, of course: media consolidation isn’t helping, for a lot of reasons.

Came late to the Salon, but thanks Sara and Alexander for the interesting discussion. Beck seems to me like a demogogue, for the kind Andy Griffith portrayed in the 1950s movie, A Face in the Crowd. Who knows how dangerous such figures can be? I’d say he certainly bears watching. He’s not just an “entertainer.”

Thanks so much, Alex. This was great fun.

And to all our participants, too. I’m always impressed by what a smart, thoughtful group this is, and how great the questions are — it’s what makes it a pleasure to host these things.

Thanks to Bev for her excellent support, as always, in setting this up; and to Jane for providing this venue.

Thank you for such an illuminating discussion. Although I haven’t read the book yet, I will now go and download it for my iPad.

Fascinating chat.

Thanks for moderating, Sara.

And I think that does it for this afternoon.

Enjoy the fireworks! None here in Vancouver, BC, of course (Canada Day was July 1); but my eldest turns 20 today, and we’re off to nice family dinner out to celebrate.

The right had a $50 million a year loss on Rush for years – until he became gold. I think thy are hoping for the same result with Beck.

As an aside, Today the court case that claimed the $50 million a year loss was an illegal $50 million corporate contribution to the GOP would not get off the ground post the GOP 5 on the Supreme Courts Citizens United decision making corporate contributions to the GOP uncontrollable.

Thanks Alexander and Sara!

and Bev :)

And then Joe Conason wrote a “follow up” titled It Can Happen Here — couple of years ago.

Thank you so much for writing this book. It is shocking that such a mercenary opportunists should have such an enormous influence on the most poorly educated, most resentful, most racist and most potentially violent members of our society. While those of us with a modicum of education and rational thought can laugh at his asinine antics…it’s seriously time for us to also recognize the danger. It is seriously time for us to hold the network and its sponsor accountable for promoting this blatant propaganda with its inherent violence and rabid hatred.

Jeff, Once again the element of synchronicity ,rears it’s hydra head.

I started to post about the movie,”A Face in the Crowd”-but got sidetracked with other issues.

Most folks think of Andy Griffith when it comes to Mayberry, but I saw this film as a child, and have NEVER forgotten the image or the impact.

SUPERB film…and more relevant now than ever,imho.

It is not merely by chance that I have seen, in passing, Glenn Beck referred to as “Lonesome Rhodes” Beck.

Lonesome Rhodes,btw, was the central character played by Griffith in the film, “A Face in the Crowd”.

emptywheel is upstairs!
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