Who Is Stupider: Glenn Beck Or His Viewers?

Today’s episode of the Glenn Beck program on Fox News was one of the best examples of the celebration of ignorance that defines his show and his appeal. It is downright mind-boggling how anyone can take this garbage seriously.


From the very beginning he reaches for the most egregious numbskullery. He begins the program by calling Delaware senate candidate Chris Coons a Marxist. He doesn’t bother to explain the genesis of that insult, but I happen to have heard his explanation previously. It concerns an article Coons wrote twenty years ago in college that described his return to the U.S. from a humanitarian trip to Africa. Here is what Coons wrote:

“I spent the spring of my junior year in Africa on the St. Lawrence Kenya Study Program. Going to Kenya was one of the few real decisions I have made; my friends, family, and professors all advised against it, but I went anyway. My friends now joke that something about Kenya, maybe the strange diet, or the tropical sun, changed my personality; Africa to them seems a catalytic converter that takes in clean-shaven, clear-thinking Americans and sends back bearded Marxists.”

Every rightist media outlet, including Fox News, jumped on the last few words of that excerpt to twist it into what they called an “admission” from Coons that he was a Marxist. Of course, it would require someone with the comprehension skills of a fern to arrive at that conclusion. Coons clearly stated that it was his friends who were joking about his change of heart and ultimate reemergence as a Democrat. Neither he nor his friends regarded him as a Marxist. Nevertheless, that’s the demonstrably false accusation with which Beck opened his show.

The next imbecility Beck alighted upon concerned his assertion that someone (progressives, Obama’s czars, Raelians) was orchestrating a global redistribution of wealth that was focused on the international oil trade. At the peak of this incoherent rambling Beck pointed to the fact that we in America get our oil from Saudi Arabia and they get our money. Then he actually asked why that is. His answer, surprisingly, was not the obvious reality that Saudi Arabia and the Middle East is where most of the world’s oil is located, and if we want some we have to buy it from them. No, his answer had something to do with a cabal designed to “redistribute” our wealth to the Saudis. That’s a conspiracy theory that doesn’t even measure up to bad episode of the X-Files. And if he’s so disturbed by American dollars ending up in Saudi wallets, then why is he so hostile to developing alternative sources of energy that can be produced domestically? In the very same rant he alleged that that was also a conspiracy.

But the overwhelmingly idiotic premise espoused by Beck today was a frighteningly dumb mischaracterization of the role of unions. He defined their purpose as having something to do with providing equal benefits and security. He said it was about evening out the differences between strong workers and weak ones. The truth, of course, is that unions are there to even out the differences between strong companies and the labor force that would be far weaker were it not for collective bargaining.

Beck’s version of unions is to protect workers from themselves. Reality’s version is to protect workers from greedy employers. But Beck continued his clueless analysis by castigating former union leader Andy Stern for recognizing that the struggle for worker’s rights is now a global struggle. This is an argument that Beck has tried to make many times before. He simply doesn’t understand that by improving labor conditions in South America or China, it benefits American workers by making them more competitive and raising their wage scales. If Chinese workers make only $1.50 a day they will always be a threat to American jobs.

The sad part of all this isn’t that Beck is an ignoramus. After all, he’s made a fortune on his asininity. It’s his viewers for whom I sympathize. The poor slobs actually believe everything he spews. They will repeat it to their friends. They will thump their chests with pride as they disgorge his factless bromides, never realizing that they are making asses of themselves.

In the end, the question in the headline of this article isn’t really important. What matters is who is hurt most by this festival of feeble-mindedness? The answer is that the cumulative effect of this mass dispersion of nonsense is ultimately harmful to the country, to the practice of democracy, and to the very people who suffer from the greatest exposure to it – his viewers.

Advertisement:

11 thoughts on “Who Is Stupider: Glenn Beck Or His Viewers?

  1. I often ask myself the same questions, only to immediately arrive at the same answer as always: the viewers. America getting dumber is Beck’s bread and butter. From what I can tell, Beck’s real persona is that of your average, run-of-the-mill, Randroid libertarian asshole. He’s Alan Greenspan with a talent for lunatic, racist fronts. Of course this all makes him much, much worse than if he were actually as shithouse dumb as he is on TV, but I guess that’s my point.

  2. Come on Mark – Unions don’t make their workers more competitive – it’s the opposite. If firing you is very difficult and you know it, do you honestly believe you will be the best you can be? Unfortunately not, unless you have a good work ethic to start. Unions are bad for people and bad for employers and this country for these reasons – They promote mediocre work because you will get paid the same regardless of if you are a super worker or a crappy worker – so why work harder or be better if you don’t see a benefit? The worker has his pay dictated to him by his union representation – his performance doesn’t factor into his compensation. The worker depends on someone else for his retirement and his pay rate – of course we see how that’s turned out many times – BAD if the company goes out of business. Unions are bad for our economy because they do not match market based pay rates – many times they are higher (seems good on the surface), but if you are competing with other companies, that will come back to bite you in the end and not in a good way. People don’t want to pay more for things, they gravitate to the less expensive unless your talking about a higher quality item.

    • Where do you get your info about about unions? There is nothing that says workers pay cannot be based on performance. But the bigger picture is that without unions we wouldn’t have minimum wage, child labor laws, workplace safety regulations, or a middle class that afford to buy the products our nation produces.

      That said, I really don’t want to get into a debate about unions. That isn’t what this article is about. It’s about the things Beck says that are not true and the tendency for his viewers to believe it without question. Do you think Coons “admitted” he was a marxist?” Or was that a blatant lie?

      • Sorry, you’re right the article wasnt’ about unions…I dont’ know what to believe about this Coons person. I dont’ just accept media evaluations of these candidates – any of them. I don’t live or vote in Del, so it really isn’t for me to decide. I guess if I were to ever run for an office, I would need to defend everthing I write from whenever I wrote it. kind of silly and unrealistic, kind of like the witch lady issue – if i had to defend my college decisions, much less my high school comments – I would be very frustrated and would think it’s a bit wrong and unrelated to my beliefs today as an adult. No wonder good candidates are hard to find, who would want to go through this????

        • This is pretty simple. Beck is saying that Coons admitted he was a Marxist based on the excerpt above. Do you see any such admission? I don’t. I see him saying that his friends joked with him about his new, liberal views. I see Beck LYING about Coons.

          • Based on that information only – which I’ve heard about only but haven’t paid much attention to – no I wouldn’t assume he’s a marxist. I would need more information to make that leap. Not sure where he stands on issues, so I dont’ have an opinion on him.

          • I’m not seeing it as GB lying – he may be making an unfair assertion that this guy is a marxist based on something he wrote I don’t know when. It’s up to the voter to know what is right and/or wrong. Has this Chris coons guy come out to defend himself? he should if he is being portrayed as something he’s not – because being considered a marxist or socialist today isn’t good.

            • Well, you’re being awfully generous to Beck. What Coons wrote is absolutely NOT an admission of Marxism. Anyone with fair reading comprehension skills can see that. Therefore, Beck is being deliberately dishonest. Especially when he doesn’t even show what Coons actually said. I really don’t know how you can defend this.

              Coons has no obligation to respond to a known liar on a propaganda network. He probably doesn’t want to draw more attention to Beck’s lies.

            • Mr. Coons may not have any obligation to respond, but the accusation may stick if he chooses to ignore them – How many times has that happened in the political arena – ie allowing others to define you. If he wants to be the next senator from Delaware, he should be more into defining himself for the voters – taking a stand – for whatever it is he believes.

          • Deliberately dishonest – that’s a reach in my opinion. If I’m not mistaken – the Glenn Beck show isn’t a news reporting show, but more like an opinion show. therefore, he is pushing his opinions – some people are going to accept them as facts and some will research more. If it’s an opinion show, lying isn’t a proper way to describe it. Sorry, you can seriously dislike his opinions, which you clearly do, but lying is something else altogether. I generally do see Preident Obama in a similar light, but that’s based on whay I’ve seen with respect to policy, not because GB says it’s so.

            • Sorry, but it is a LIE to say that Coons admitted to being a Marxist. That is not my opinion. Coons never said any such thing. Therefore, to say that he did is just as much a lie as if I said that you admitted to being a fascist when you never did so. So if I published something that said you are a self-avowed fascist, wouldn’t that be a lie?

              I do have disagreements with Beck’s opinions, but this is not an example of that. He out-and-out LIED.

Comments are closed.