One could spend a lifetime attempting to fathom the achy Weltschmerz which seemingly runs amok within the tragic-comedic personality of Glenn Beck; to unlock the door to the innermost workings of someone for whom physical reality doesn't quite satiate the mind's demands; and to comprehend the seemingly epic struggle taking place between his id and super-ego with a depth of clarity that wards off any possibility of shock or surprise at the darker aspects of his behavior. But it takes little more than a quick glance back in history, and it can all be deciphered within a far shorter period of time. Indeed, Beck's no original. American culture has spawned well beyond her share of Fr. Coughlins; Huey Longs; Rev. Jim Bakkers; and other populist charlatans. In the course of this, she has offered a series of uniquely red-white-and blue anecdotes in support of the axiom about economic hard times bringing out a society's criminals, con-artists, and charlatans.
Certainly Beck is of this unprincipled mold; or perhaps, more specifically, of the mold of Marjoe Gortner, an evangelical whose Wikipedia entry reads in part as follows: Gortner rose to fame in the late 1940s as a child preacher, but he had simply been trained to do this by his parents and he had no personal faith. He was able to perform "miracles" and received large amounts of money in donations. After suffering a crisis of conscience, he invited a film crew to accompany him on a final preaching tour. The resulting film, "Marjoe," mixes footage of revival meetings with Gortner's explanations of how evangelists manipulate their audiences. It won the 1972 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, but was never screened in the southern United States due to fears that it would cause outrage in the Bible Belt.
I'd venture to guess that both financially-motivated "professional" conservatives as well as the movement's legitimate establishment figures now concerned about the potential for long-term damage to their brand would welcome a similar "crisis of conscience" by Beck. They'd love for Beck to disown -- for the good of the cause --the extreme aspects of his strident pursuit of exaltation at any cost. But at least for now, that hope would seem scarcely more than a rapidly evaporating pipe dream.
Already, there are early signs of politically fratricidal behavior within a Republican Party now under the near complete control of the fringe element of its base. Over the past several months a cluster of establishment Republican conservatives have either been purged from, or voted out of the GOP and replaced by far-right candidates backed by local tea party groups. To mainstream conservatives, this should amount to a troubling indication of how deeply the far-right has penetrated this country's overall conservative base in large part, due to the success of Limbaugh, Palin, and perhaps most of all, Beck.
The 1st century poet Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) once wrote: "Time will bring to light whatever is hidden; it will cover and conceal what is now shining in splendor." Whether the collapse of the conservative movement comes to pass as a consequence of its current moth-like attraction to the perceived "shining splendor" of the Glenn Beck doctrine is something that only time will tell. However, based upon the precariousness of human nature, this possibility, if not already a foregone conclusion, should be considered too strong to ignore. If so, those with a tangible stake in the matter -- America's currency-chasing professional conservatives and the movement's true keepers of the flame -- need to step to the defense of mainstream conservatism and regain control of its image; an image that each day seems to move further toward what Zaitchik calls Beck's "common nonsense."
"I know that many in this country think that I'm a fear monger," Beck has stated. "It is not a label that I think applies. I do talk about frightening things. But I don't think the man who saw the iceberg as the Titanic was about to hit it and said, "It's an iceberg,' was a fear monger. He was warning people on the ship."
Ironically, to the conservative movement, it is Beck himself who may well turn out to be the embodiment of that iceberg.
One thing that is for sure is that time will tell. As Zaitchik pointed out in a piece in The New Republic: "There was one message that the (Restoring America rally's) emotional emcee managed to get across with unmistakable clarity: Glenn Beck is still a major force to be reckoned with, and has every intention of staying one."
Which is great news to all of those who've gained benefit from the more fear-inducing manifestations of Glenn Beck's fraud complex -- especially the fraud himself.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
