Why Glenn Beck lost it

[Peacetrain]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2...story.html

"Beck, in losing his mass-media perch, is repeating the history of Father Charles Coughlin, the radio priest of the Great Depression. Economic hardship gave him an audience even greater than Beck’s, but as his calls to drive “the money changers from the temple” became more vitriolic, his broadcast sponsors dropped him. He gradually faded from relevance as his angry themes lost their hold on Americans and his anti-Semitism became more pronounced.

It is a sign of the nation’s health and resilience that Beck, after 27 months at Fox, is meeting a similar end."

[janedrake]

It is a sign of the nation’s health and resilience that Beck, after 27 months at Fox, is meeting a similar end."

Would that indeed it were so. If CNN doesn't hire Beck, no doubt he'll turn up in another national venue, more virulently ignorant than ever.

[RoyGBiv]

(04-10-2011 11:20 AM)Lucy in the Sky Wrote:  It is a sign of the nation’s health and resilience that Beck, after 27 months at Fox, is meeting a similar end."

The main thing I have learned from studying history is not to make pronouncements like this until well after the fact.

I'd certainly like to think this statement is true, but I suspect that it isn't. I've often compared Beck to Coughlin, but it's a shallow comparison that focuses primarily on their rhetoric and similar degrees of paranoia. There are many differences between them, however, some of which make Beck far worse than Coughlin ever could have been. High among them is that Coughlin was a "True Believer." He wasn't trying to entertain anyone, and he wasn't particularly after the money. Beck is driven by money and his own fame. He'll say whatever he has to say and do whatever he has to do to remain relevant. He may believe some of the crap he spouts, but then again he may not. No one really knows.

Remember, Beck was a failed shock jock who wanted little more than to achieve Howard Stern's level of success. He's not fading away the way Coughlin did anytime soon, I expect.

It's also important to note that Coughlin lost his influence along with increasing awareness of depravity of European anti-Semitic regimes -- including Nazi Germany, but not just them. He had the power of the Catholic Church turning against him and FDR himself using whatever means were available to him to lessen his influence. If Obama tried anything like what FDR did, the howling would be fierce from both right and left.

[Cha]

(04-10-2011 03:45 PM)RoyGBiv Wrote:  

(04-10-2011 11:20 AM)Lucy in the Sky Wrote:  It is a sign of the nation’s health and resilience that Beck, after 27 months at Fox, is meeting a similar end."

The main thing I have learned from studying history is not to make pronouncements like this until well after the fact.

I'd certainly like to think this statement is true, but I suspect that it isn't. I've often compared Beck to Coughlin, but it's a shallow comparison that focuses primarily on their rhetoric and similar degrees of paranoia. There are many differences between them, however, some of which make Beck far worse than Coughlin ever could have been. High among them is that Coughlin was a "True Believer." He wasn't trying to entertain anyone, and he wasn't particularly after the money. Beck is driven by money and his own fame. He'll say whatever he has to say and do whatever he has to do to remain relevant. He may believe some of the crap he spouts, but then again he may not. No one really knows.

Remember, Beck was a failed shock jock who wanted little more than to achieve Howard Stern's level of success. He's not fading away the way Coughlin did anytime soon, I expect.

It's also important to note that Coughlin lost his influence along with increasing awareness of depravity of European anti-Semitic regimes -- including Nazi Germany, but not just them. He had the power of the Catholic Church turning against him and FDR himself using whatever means were available to him to lessen his influence. If Obama tried anything like what FDR did, the howling would be fierce from both right and left.

Thanks for that bit of history on Father Coughlin, RoyG.

The only reason fox dropped him cause he was losing money not cause he's a blithering racist bigot. a$$holes.

[Born_A_Truman]

And he still has his radio show doesn't he? When the sponsors desert him there then I'll be happy. And without sponsors he won't have air time.

[RoyGBiv]

(04-10-2011 04:59 PM)Born_A_Truman Wrote:  And he still has his radio show doesn't he? When the sponsors desert him there then I'll be happy. And without sponsors he won't have air time.

Yes, and that's where he's made his money and built his following.

Fox put him where they did because of the radio show, hoping to profit from the even more lunatic fringe. It worked for awhile. Now it doesn't. Fox lost more than Beck has.

Limbaugh didn't work on television for long either, but he's still massively influential.

[jaxx]

(04-10-2011 04:59 PM)Born_A_Truman Wrote:  And he still has his radio show doesn't he? When the sponsors desert him there then I'll be happy. And without sponsors he won't have air time.

Fox actually bought out the local radio station a year ago and brought Beck to the teabaggers daily. His radio program (I listen to it on the way home from work...a whole 10 mins) so I will know what he's up to) and it's worse than the tv show. He's like a bully, making nasty fun of PBO and all Dems. And his sidekick eggs him on. It's disgusting.

[Cha]

I guess I'll have to give Dana Millbank credit for exposing glen beck so diligently even though he didn't mention why the economy was in such dire straights since the country hadn't seen since the '30s.

And, isn't beck a racist bigot as well as an anti-semite? I haven't read Millbank's book on beck but I would think he would bring that to light as well as the anti-semitism.

So beck had "tens of thousands" at his freakshow of a rally at Lincoln Memorial? Call me cynical but I've never seen mainstream journalists descirbe Progessive protests in such glowing numbers.

Just think if beck had a brain and hadn't doubled down on his lying-ass hysteria and just told run of the mill lies(the sponsors wouldn't have dropped him) he maybe could still be jerking around on the propaganda machine for the teabaggers, fox screws.