The Glenn Beck Fans
Posted on September 1, 2010
Glenn Beck is crazy. His fans, on the other hand, are not.I have talked to several reporters about the Beck event on the mall over the weekend, and every one of them had nothing but complete disdain for Beck.
And yet, each one of them commented about how nice the crowd was.
The Beck fans were orderly. They didn’t carry wacky signs. They were very respectful of each other. As one reporter told me, “you would feel very comfortable with your kids running through this crowd.”
The Beck fans were immaculate. They cleaned up after themselves. In fact, the place looked cleaner after they were there then it did before they got there.
The problem the left has in attacking the Tea Party and in attacking Glenn Beck’s supporters is that they are attacking people who are actually very nice.
These folks are very concerned about what is happening to America. Yes, they are concerned about President Obama, but it isn’t his race that bothers them. It is his philosophy and his insouciance about America’s essential character.
Obama is clearly ambivalent about America’s place in the world. His attitudes were formed as a child in Indonesia, where he saw first hand from his perspective the evils of American imperialism. He was brought up spiritually in a Church on Chicago’s South Side that had a pastor that focused almost exclusively on white America’s racism.
Obama looks at America and can’t get over its flaws.
Let’s not kid ourselves. America isn’t perfect, but despite that, it is still the best hope for a peaceful and prosperous world.
Glenn Beck, an opportunist and a showman if there ever was one, doesn’t share Obama’s ambivalence about America, and he spends night after night tearing that ambivalence apart. That resonates with these Glenn Beck fans who don’t see President Obama passionately promoting the greatness of the good old U.S.A.
That Beck is flawed and makes fun of his flaws makes him more compelling to his fans. The one thing that these good folks understand is that nobody is perfect. Hey, we all fight our inner demons, we all have our own personal crises, we all struggle or know people who struggle with addiction.
Obama lacks all humility. He seems pretty convinced that he is pretty awesome. He finds flaws in America, but sees none in himself. That is not a winning message.
I have a lot of family members who love watching Glenn Beck. They find him entertaining, they like what he has to say, and they like that he stands up for American exceptionalism and against the policies of Barack Obama.
These folks are not crazy. They are patriots and they are good people. And they happen to like Glenn Beck. And they are going to come out this election and vote against President Obama and anybody who supports him.