By Kevin Foley
On the same day Glenn Beck announced he was phasing out of his Fox News program, the right wing’s favorite conspiracy theorist made some startling pronouncements:
- A summer of insurrection is coming tied to Israel’s May 15th independence day.
- The invisible hand of George Soros has replaced the markets.
- Union workers in Wisconsin will rig state supreme court ballots.
Beck has lately warned his viewers that communists, Islamic terrorists, white supremacists, Marxists, Nazis, progressives and President Obama are all colluding to bring down America. They’re led by the aforementioned financier George Soros, the “head of the snake,” according to Beck, with the Tides Foundation, AFSCME, environmentalists, ACLU, and healthcare reformers providing the cover.
It’s easy to brand Beck a lunatic when you review his body of work as categorized by MediaMatters for America, the liberal media watchdog group.
But I think Beck is crazy like a Fox.
Before he was discovered by Roger Ailes, Beck embarked on a path of self-discovery after drug and alcohol abuse derailed his personal and professional lives. He recovered and found success in Tampa as an afternoon radio talk show host. His program went national before CNN picked Beck up to host a show that took "an unconventional look at the news of the day featuring his often amusing perspective.”
In early 2009 Beck jumped to Fox News at the same moment America inaugurated its first African-American president. Within weeks, the Tea Party movement was created by conservative lobbyists as a faux grassroots organization, and Beck fertilized their lawn with mostly baseless attacks on Obama and his supporters. Each passing day since, Beck’s accusations have become more unhinged, more farfetched, and more convoluted.
A rational person might conclude that Beck’s TV career would quickly implode. Instead, Beck created a monster brand. Along with his daily radio show, public rallies, books and speaking engagements have generated tens of millions for the former failed shock jock.
“Glenn Beck has managed to monetize virtually everything that comes out of his mouth,” cooed Forbes last April.
In Obama haters, Beck found legions of conspiracy consumers ready to convict the new president on most any charge, no matter how wild or unfounded. As healthcare reform moved forward, for example, Beck saw an insidious Obama plot to enslave all Americans.
So it was Beck taught us about “death panels” and “Reichstag moments” and mysterious FEMA concentration camps on Long Island - sometimes all in one show.
His TV show’s principle prop is a blackboard on which Professor Beck (who has only a high school diploma) links brutal dictators of the past (Stalin) and present (Ahmadinejad) with the future (Harry Reid). Beck put on a puppet show recently to help demonstrate how Soros is pulling Obama’s strings just in case the audience was missing his point.
All of this silliness appears to have been too much for Beck’s advertisers. They started fleeing the program in droves after Beck called President Obama a “racist.” Meantime, Beck’s numbers have been falling steadily, perhaps because his audience has finally had its fill of his smarmy disingenuousness and kooky, unfulfilled prognostications.
Beck’s on to bigger and better things, anyway. Perhaps there will be Beck conspiracy specials on Fox or even a 24-hour Glenn Beck cable network a la Oprah Winfrey. In any event, the new enterprises, like the old, will perpetuate Beck’s true conviction.
“I could give a flying crap about the political process,” Beck told Forbes last year. “We’re an entertainment company.”
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Kevin
Foley is president of KEF
Media Associates, an Atlanta-based producer and distributor
of sponsored news content to television and radio media. |