He might inadvertantly change the neoconservatives into paleoconservatives, no?
For nearly a century, the Anti-Defamation League has staredunflinchingly into the dark corners of America’s social psyche — theplaces where combustible tendencies such as hatred and paranoia pooland, sometimes, burst into flame.
As a Jewish organization, theADL’s first preoccupation naturally is anti-Semitism, but in the lastfew decades it has extended its scrutiny to the whole range of bigotedmalevolence — white supremacy, the militia movement, neo-nativism andconspiratorial fantasies in all of their improbable permutations. Thesedays, the organization’s research is characterized by the sense ofproportion and sobriety that long experience brings.
That makes its recent report on the extremist groups and propagandiststhat have emerged since President Obama’s election — “Rage Grows InAmerica: Anti-Government Conspiracies” — particularly notable. For thefirst time in living memory, the ADL is sounding the alarm about amainstream media personality: Fox News’ Glenn Beck, who also hosts apopular radio show.
The report notes that while “otherconservative media hosts, such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity,routinely attack Obama and his administration, typically on partisangrounds, they have usually dismissed or refused to give a platform tothe conspiracy theorists and anti-government extremists.” By contrast,”Beck and his guests have made a habit of demonizing President Obamaand promoting conspiracy theories about his administration. … Beckhas even gone so far as to make comparisons between Hitler and Obama.”
Whatgives all of this nonsense an ominous twist is Beck’s announcement thathe intends to use his TV and radio shows to promote a mass movementthat will involve voter registration drives, training in communityorganizing and a series of regional conventions that will produce a”100-year plan” for America to be read from the steps of the LincolnMemorial to a mass rally Aug. 28.
As Beck wrote on hiswebsite, “I know that the bipartisan corruption in Washington that hasbrought us to this brink and it will not be defeated easily. It willrequire unconventional thinking and a radical plan to restore ournation to the maximum freedoms we were supposed to have beenprotecting. … All of the above will culminate in The Plan, a bookthat will provide specific policies, principles and, most importantly,action steps that each of us can take to play a role in thisRefounding.”
Hard times predictably throw up their demagogues.Still, even allowing for the frenetic pace of our wired world’s 24-hournews cycle, it’s remarkable how quickly the arc of Beck’s career hascome to resemble that of the Great Depression’s uber-demagogue, FatherCharles Coughlin. In the months after the crash of ’29, Coughlin turnedwhat had been a conventionally religious weekly radio broadcast into aplatform for championing the downtrodden working man. He was an earlysupporter of the New Deal, coining the slogan “Roosevelt or Ruin,” butquickly turned on the president for a variety of complex ideologicaland personal reasons. Coughlin flirted with Huey Long, launched anunsuccessful political party, published a popular newspaper, SocialJustice, and even inspired and supported a kind of militia, theChristian Front, some of whose members were arrested by the FBI andcharged with plotting a fascist coup.
As the 1930s dragged on,Coughlin, a longtime admirer of Francisco Franco, became virulentlyanti-Semitic, isolationist and pro-German. He also was extraordinarilypopular. At their height, his weekly broadcasts attracted more than 40million listeners. Still, after he lashed out at German Jews in thewake of Kristallnacht, many major urban radio stations dropped hisprogram. Influential American prelates, the Vatican and prominentCatholic New Dealers had worked for some time to persuade Coughlin’ssuperior, the archbishop of Detroit, to silence him. Shortly before theU.S. entered World War II, a new bishop was installed, and Coughlin wasordered to cease broadcasting. He accepted the clerical discipline andretired into a long life of bitter silence.
It’s hard to imagineany contemporary cable system dropping Fox News simply because Beck isan offensively dangerous demagogue — not with his ratings at least.His new foray into politics, though, presents Rupert Murdoch’s networkwith a profound challenge. Is it willing to become the platform for anextremist political campaign, or will it draw a line as even theauthoritarian Catholic Church of the 1940s did? CNN recently partedways with its resident ranter, Lou Dobbs — who now confirms he’sweighing a presidential bid.
Does Fox see a similar problem with Beck — and, if not, why?