Glenn Beck’s New Year Off To A Rousing Flop

Glenn Beck's Happy New Fears DayFirst the good news: Glenn Beck dropped by New York’s WOR radio station over poor ratings. The largest commercial market in the country is ditching Glenn Beck. That’s gotta hurt. Especially since Beck’s Philadelphia affiliate previously announced that they were dumping him as well. Is this the beginning of a trend?

Now the bad news: Glenn Beck has returned from his holiday … er … Christmas vacation and is launching his 2011 campaign for a “fundamental transformation of this country.” In the opening words of his radio program he declares that…

“It is a new year. It is a new attitude. Get out of the way. You are either part of the problem or you’re part of the solution. America is at a crossroads.”

Something about that message sounds oddly familiar. What could it be? I wonder if Google might stir my memory. {Googling} OH MY GOD! Look at what I found:

“What we’re saying today is that you’re either part of the solution or you’re part of the problem.” ~ Eldridge Cleaver

Glenn Beck is now quoting Eldridge Cleaver, the Minister of Information for the radical 1960’s Black Panther Party. And since Beck believes that any time someone quotes a historical figure they are implicitly endorsing everything that person stood for (see Beck’s assault on Anita Dunn for having quoted Mao), Beck must be embracing the revolutionary socialist agenda that Cleaver was pursuing when he uttered the words above.

This isn’t the only sign that Beck’s philosophy may have turned a frightening corner. His New Year’s message went on to say…

“After spending years, personally and collectively, thousands of man-hours in research, reflection, and prayer, my team and I have come to realize that a fundamental transformation of this country is required. […] we are being told on every level from our classrooms to our newsrooms that America is not good and she was never great. That is a lie. It is a lie that has diseased this body so thoroughly that we cannot as a nation survive much longer.”

Throughout most of 2010, Beck drilled into the heads of his disciples that fundamental transformation was an evil undertaking of President Obama and his cadre of czars. He insisted that a fundamental transformation of America was not necessary because the country was fundamentally perfect, it just needed some tweaking by divinely inspired pundits/prophets like himself. But now he admits that the nation is so far gone that it cannot survive.

[Aside to Glenn: Where are all these classrooms and newsrooms that are telling us that America is not good and was never great? There must be thousands of them if they are capable of threatening the survival of the nation.]

Having embraced Cleaver and accepted the doctrine of fundamental transformation, Beck challenges his listeners to examine for themselves what course to take for the bleak journey that faces them ahead. He asks, “Do we return to the ideas of the past,” and then asserts his own response, “I will no longer look to others for leadership or answers.”

Is Beck abandoning his heroes of faith (Sam Adams), hope (George Washington), and charity (Ben Franklin)? They are clearly icons of the past that Beck now seems to want to cast aside. And they are leaders whom he apparently has no further interest in following. It is now officially all about Beck. He is his only source of inspiration, and he surely hopes that you will be as committed to his divinity as he is himself.

It’s difficult to predict what a person like Beck will do. He began 2010 by saying that “A week from today this program is going to change, (1/4/10).” And he ended the year the same way asserting that “This show is going to change next year, (11/12/10).” Despite the frequent proclamations, his program has remained stiflingly stagnant. His core objective of smearing the President and seeding wild conspiracy theories about liberals and other “progressive vermin” is as tenacious a constant as ever. He also promised at his August “Restoring Honor” rally that it is time to “concentrate on the good.” That didn’t last long (see Beck’s three-day smear of George Soros).

So where will Beck go in 2011? Who knows. It is no more possible to predict Beck’s future than it is to predict the course of a popped balloon. Perhaps his zealous desire for change is the result of his radio network chipping away. Perhaps it’s due to his dwindling ratings or his crumbling advertiser support. Or perhaps it’s just that God has spoken to him again and set his footing on yet another new path (God is so indecisive). Whatever the reason, we can only hope that we won’t have listen to Beck’s tortured explanation for why his program will change again in 2012. But we will be there to watch him become ever more unhinged.


Advertisement:

3 thoughts on “Glenn Beck’s New Year Off To A Rousing Flop

  1. Mark, talk about the GOP fundraising abuses. There are six republican presidential candidates using Political Action Committees to circumvent the law on political contributions. They are Haley Barbour, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Tim Pawlently, and Mitt Romney, who I aptly name “The Insidious Six”.

    • Are you implying that Republicans would do something illegal or unethical???? 😉

      I think the practice you describe is pretty widespread. I would like to read more about it. But my site is mainly for media issues, so unless there is a media connection I probably won’t write about. Sometimes I make exceptions though, so we’ll see.

      • Did you see Keith Olbermann’s Worst Person in the World on Glenn Beck?

        He talked about Glenn Beck’s ranting over government official’s wages, stating that no government official should make more than the average American. He elucidated the fact that Lenin delivered a speech on the exact same topic with the exact same statement.

        Oh nooes! Glenn is a communist in disguise! XD

Comments are closed.