Jan
18
Glen Beck
Filed Under American Politics
Shockwaver linked to this Wall Street Journal article about Glenn Beck and I thought it worthy of discussion.
the passage that Shockwaver notes in particular is one in which Beck responds to criticism from the Conservative intellectual Charles Murray:
This fall, Mr. Beck drew friendly fire on an American Enterprise Institute blog from Charles Murray, a social scientist with strong libertarian political leanings, who conceded that “Beck is spectacularly right (translation: I agree with him) on about 95 percent of the substantive issues he talks about.” But Mr. Murray does not care for Mr. Beck’s manner: “Our job is to engage in a debate on great issues and make converts to our point of view. The key word is converts—referring to people who didn’t start out agreeing with us. We shouldn’t be civil and reasonable just because we want to be nice guys. It is the only option we’ve got if we want to succeed instead of just posture. The Glenn Becks of the world posture, and make our work harder.”
I referred to Charles Murray’s original comments back in September in this post. I concluded:
Whilst I agree with Murray on the timeline of conservative success, I do disagree with him on one point. Conservatism does need the shock and awe value of the rabble rousers; intellectuals aren’t likely to be rousing any rabbles, but it needs to be tempered by an understanding of the nature of conservatism. Resentment at progressive change, blanket obedience to pre-determined dogma and cliched observance of ritualistic America does not cut it. We need to be sold on why conservatism is the right path, and for that, we need a conservative intellectual renaissance that can be filtered through the pundits and politicians to the people.
Beck, Limbaugh et al have a role to play. they keep the base excited and they draw the attention of the public towards issues that the main stream media refuse to cover (Van Jones for example). Would health care be the divisive issue it is, and such a drag on the Democratic ticket, if the right wing cable and talk show hosts hadn’t made ‘freedom’ such an issue? Somehow I doubt it. But the Beck-ian rhetoric is hindered in that it only speaks to a limited base. On it’s own it can’t be a recipe for electoral success. One only needs to look at the (possibly) two big Republican successes of the past year; Scott Brown in Massachusetts and Bob McDonnell in Virginia. Neither can be said to have run on a Beck/Limbaugh platform. But what they have been able to do successfully is blend the more dogmatic version of conservatism with a positive appeal to independents, moderates and even some Democrats.
Beck and Limbaugh can be the firebrands, but it needs politicians to sell the substance and their messaging needs to be very different than that which Beck et al provide.
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Hear, hear!