Glenn Beck

Beck at a political convention in Phoenix, Arizona, 2023.

Parroting squawkbox Pundits

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“”Only in America can you make that much money crying… Glenn Beck is not aligned with any party. He is aligned with cynicism and there has always been a market for cynics.

—Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, 01 October 2009

"Dr." Glenn Beck (1964–) is an American right-wing "commentator", "rodeo clown", former Fox News clown, artist, and high school graduate who got lucky. He presented his eponymous Glenn Beck Show on the Fox News cartoon channel until it was dropped in 2011 due to low ratings.

He currently has his own radio show and originally appeared on CNN's Headline News until viewers couldn't take it anymore (rumors that they were also mad as hell are slightly exaggerated). Beck now owns the subscription-based internet network The Blaze (formerly GBTV), which his Fox show was transferred to in September 2011. The network somehow made it onto Dish Network; however, it has not been picked up by the many cable providers Beck thought it would have, despite his aggressive campaign to get it on every cable plan in America.

Beck was inspired by and promoted two books by John Birch Society (JBS) author and spokesman W. Cleon Skousen, The Naked Communist and The Five Thousand Year Leap. Beck also interviewed another JBS spokesman and open antisemite G. Edward Griffin.

Anyone called "Satan's mentally challenged younger brother" by Stephen King has got to be bad.

Selected opinions and views

Godwin's Law: What used to be every weeknight at 5pm on Faux News, now all the time at GBTV TheBlazeTV.

Like others on Fox and Clear Channel, Beck was, and remained until 2014, a strong supporter of the war in Iraq and presented "evidence" that we'd win any day now. (In 2014, he finally admitted he was wrong. His response to this was to label George W. Bush a "progressive" for doing it.) Unlike other conservative commentators, such as Neal Boortz, Beck bigged-up deficit hysteria, one of the many times that Beck promoted Tea Party talking points. However, he has occasionally said sensible things, being no fan of withholding Miranda rights from the Times Square bomber.

Beck, a former alcoholic and current Mormon (though arguably he's still a Catholic since he's not known to have been excommunicated), admits that he used to be imperfect until he discovered that all the world's woes are the fault of liberals, leftists, centrists, progressives, fake Republicans, or real Democrats. He is now perfect and able to bestow his wisdom upon us. His fans habitually ask others to prove when he has lied and then ignore the resulting proof. Also, annoying overuse of the word "progressive". He has also apparently gained the ability to elect himself Pope temporarily; witness his attack on Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi for supposedly being less Catholic than Beck is willing to find acceptable.

Glenn Beck's favorite book is The Five Thousand Year Leap by fellow-Mormon author W. Cleon Skousen, who is also the author of a series of tomes purporting to be a comprehensive history of the world through the lens of Mormon theology: The First Two Thousand Years, The Third Thousand Years, and The Fourth Thousand Years (essentially a Mormon version of Young Earth creationism). The theme of The Five Thousand Year Leap is that more human progress occurred at once because of the Founding Fathers of the United States and their God-fearing worldview (never mind the deism) than in the previous 4000 years. Beck also put out several books of his own, trying to style himself as a modern Thomas Paine (the insane version) in Common Sense, providing a handy guide for his conversational partners (Arguing with Idiots), and addressing his audience's problems with the written word (An Inconvenient Book, The Christmas Sweater: A Picture Book). Raking in yet more cash, he has frequently taken his one-man freak show on tours of the countryside and made a high-profile appearance at CPAC in 2010, showing off his unique take at a facepalm.

Glenn Beck started stirring up controversy when he stated that John McCain would do more harm to the country than Barack Obama, going so far as to say he would have rather voted for Hillary Clinton. This isn't the first time he endorsed Clinton, although his support for Clinton in 2016 was more motivated by hatred of her opponent Donald Trump (see below).

He's also gone on record as believing (in the context of the debate on US intervention in Syria) that neocons are liberals since they're "for big, oppressive government that wants to change the whole world through military action".

Global warming: due to Beck's hot air, not CO₂

It is part of the Beck credo that global warming is a conspiracy and a figment of Al Gore's imagination and liberals' greedy desire to step in and save the world from Bushism. Beck dedicated an hour show to 'proving' that global warming does not exist. He also insisted that evolution is another evil plot promulgated upon the world by scientists. One of his favorite movies is Ben Stein's Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, which he has previously promoted. Fortunately, he has stopped short of complete wingnuttery by devoting part of one episode of his show to debunking the FEMA concentration camp conspiracy theory.

Scary shit

• Glenn Beck surrounds you with the help of Chuck Norris. Nobody knows exactly what We Surround Them means, but it sounds creepily like the spiritual warfare crowd's use of the phrase "stand in the gap" (which comes from Ezekiel 22:30, not urban rail transit).

• Tears flow easily from Beck's face, and he is known for his emotional breakdowns, more-often-than-not live on air. There are several explanations for this:

1. He genuinely does love his country and fears for it in the most passionate of ways
2. He is cynically exploiting the people who love the Republican version of the United States more than their own children.
3. He is copying a televangelist shtick.
4. He is emotionally unstable.
5. His brains have liquified and are leaking out of his eye sockets.

Place your bets now, please.

• • A video from a photoshoot has since demonstrated that Beck is not above Vicks VapoRub® applied under his eyes to induce his waterworks, although this is probably just faking things for a publicity shoot (and faking things like that isn't unique to Beck by a long shot), rather than how his infamous crying-on-air routine happened.

• Beck also has a bizarrely short temper. While discussing healthcare on his radio show with a caller, he lost it completely and had what can be best described as a hissy fit, ending the conversation by repeatedly shrieking, "Get off my phone!" (see exact quote below). Beck and the other presenter then blamed the caller for being wrong. Nice.

• For all intents and purposes, Glenn Beck appears to be increasingly delusional as his viewer base increases. In one of his clips, he identifies several pieces of "communist art" hiding in plain sight in NYC (although, this being New York, he very well could have spotted actual communist art that he thinks is cunningly hidden).

• Days after a rival DJ's wife had a miscarriage, Beck phoned her and mocked her miscarriage on air:

"We hear you had a miscarriage," remembers Brad Miller, a former Y95 DJ and Clear Channel programmer. "When Terry said, 'Yes,' Beck proceeded to joke about how Bruce [Kelly] apparently can't do anything right — about he can't even have a baby."

• Beck has also mocked Obama's then-11-year-old daughter, despite two days earlier saying:

"You don't go after Chelsea Clinton. You don't talk about Bush kids… You leave the families alone. We haven't done anything but protect the families… Leave the families alone." He did 'apologize' later, but his apology consisted of saying he had lowered himself to the level of liberals.

• Beck has taken a controversial approach to dealing with the United States' history of racial relations. In one episode of his show, he argued that Black activists such as Frederick Douglass were "Founding Fathers" who did not see the U.S. as a racist country. Beck followed that with an announcement that he would give a speech at the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

• Beck, who did not even go to college for more than one semester, was given an honorary doctorate by Liberty University.

• Beck compared murdered and surviving members of the social democratic Norwegian Workers' Youth League, massacred by a right-wing terrorist at their summer camp in 2011, to the Hitler Youth with this statement, "There was a shooting at a political camp which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever, you know what I mean. Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing." In Norway, leading senior political commentator Frank Aarebrot labeled Beck, "a vulgar propagandist" and a "fascist" only exceeded by Joseph Goebbels.

• Beck compared Barack Obama to Newt Gingrich, saying Gingrich was a progressive. He said a person who opposes Obama and would support Gingrich is racist.

• Beck ratcheted up the level of crazy on the subject of Obama's re-election when he asserted that the US deserved to be destroyed since such a move would "drive the righteous from among them" and all the usual End Times crap that one would expect.

• In contrast, Beck is convinced that Mitt Romney (not coincidentally a fellow Mormon) is the modern-day equivalent of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. No shit.

• Beck has apparently decided (in incredibly tardy fashion) that the TV show Glee, of all things, constitutes a threat to teenage US precious bodily fluids and that the apparent cure is some strange conservative alternative to the show that will hopefully remain safely on the drawing board and not in someone's actual production studio.

• Beck also had no real problem with trying to smear George Soros with a three-part special on his old Fox News show with what might be termed some very suspect analogies. So suspect, in fact, that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued a complaint about it. During the third part, Beck claimed that Soros had confiscated the property of Jews, when in fact, Soros assisted his guardian in taking inventory of property that was already seized on one occasion. To falsely claim that one collaborated with Nazis while a minor and in hiding from the Nazis as Soros was, is a form of blaming the victim and of Holocaust denial.

• Speaking of Judaism, Beck had a problem with the Reform variety, comparing it to "Radicalized Islam" for some odd reason. Needless to say, the ADL took issue with him on that as well.

• Beck also apparently knows where to draw the line on conspiracy theories, unlike Alex Jones — namely, right over Jones' face. He simultaneously threw Jones under the bus on a gun-grabber conspiracy theory and then turned around and came up with one himself.

• He's under the impression that an investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics of his fellow space cadet Michele Bachmann for campaign fund shenanigans is actually a plot by the Muslim Brotherhood because all of that previous hue and cry she made about Huma Abedin had so much of a basis in reality.

• Beck was apparently so incensed that the jury in the Kermit Gosnell trial was actually deliberating instead of instantly finding him guilty that he asserted that God "has got to destroy us; we are becoming an affront to him in every step of the way. We are denying his existence. We are denying his power. We are slapping him in the face. We are killing his children", etc. This was followed by a predictable crying jag in which Beck begged God for forgiveness.

• He compared a peaceful demonstration outside Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach's house by immigration reform advocates to actions by the Ku Klux Klan during the civil rights era, a view that Kobach was too eager to lend support to on a later show.

• He voiced the opinion that the Obama administration was planting the seeds of a race war, largely based on sources he seemed more than a bit vague about: doctors who were "some of the leading experts from around the world on race relations and racists". However, he also stated that he didn't know "which doctors they were", even though he still felt quite comfortable citing them as unimpeachable sources.

Paranoia

See the main article on this topic: Paranoia

Glenn Beck with a literal conspiracy chart in 2009.

“”Glenn, the Nazis are everywhere. And you're not safe! So here's what you do and take it from me, my people have been through this before: First, you've gotta find an attic. Then hide there for the next three years, and whatever you do, don't make a sound. We'll let you know when it's safe to come out.

—Lewis Black

Big Brother is watching Beck

In most of Beck's time on Fox News, he frequently showed himself as paranoid. Examples of this include: claiming that the Obama administration was "building something" using taxpayer money (though Beck did not elaborate on what they were building), ranting about the New World Order, and railing against the Obama administration for their "socialism," quoting George Orwell many times to show how they were turning into Big Brother. Hint: Orwell supported socialism, so the irony is very delicious here.

Your churches are run by Nazis and communists!

Beck's paranoia led to him commanding his listeners to leave their churches if they heard or saw any mention of social justice. What most people saw as attempts to help the less fortunate members of society, Beck saw as an attempt to introduce Nazism and communism, even though Nazis and communists hate each other quite literally, just as white supremacists and black supremacists do. Unsurprisingly, some Christians were rather miffed by Beck's edict.

10% of all Muslims are terrorists

Glenn Beck has repeatedly expressed that he believes that 10% of all Muslims are terrorists. In 2003, he expressed his figure in his book The Real America. He re-presented it on December 6, 2010, when he stated on his radio talk show, "What is the number of Islamic terrorists? One percent? I think it's closer to ten percent but the rest of the PC world will tell you, 'oh no, it's minuscule.'" If what he states were true, then there would be roughly 141,000,000 to 157,000,000 Muslim terrorists worldwide.

Boston Marathon bombing conspiracy mongering

See the main article on this topic: Boston Marathon bombing

Never one to shy away from making a complete ass of himself in the wake of a real tragedy, Beck insinuated that there was a conspiracy to deport a Saudi national right after the Boston Marathon bombing of April 2013 due to his connection to the incident. This theory seems to have originated in his own camp and nowhere else. He later posted one of his occasional cryptic s00per sekr1t messages to the government that threatened to reveal all sorts of fun stuff about Anonymous Saudi #1 and which also included all of the usual Beck conspiracy tactics.

Since the Federal government has seen fit to ignore Beck's watery proof for his "deported Saudi national" conspiracy (or just decided that he wasn't even close to being relevant, which is far more likely), he has since stated through his website The Blaze that Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi is a person of interest in the case, and an active al-Qaeda operative despite mainstream media reports to the contrary. Apparently, this is all being done to benefit the Saudis, although the usual veiled references to Satan and demons were also made for the usual tinfoil-hat reasons. Beck, of course, took the usual conspiracy theorist's way out of this mess and put the onus on the Feds to prove him wrong and not the other way around (i.e., never mind that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence). Further on, Beck continued to beat the drum loudly on this particular conspiracy theory, even going so far as to claim that he had access to secret information which had been scrubbed clean of certain information on Alharbi. The problem with this is how Beck actually came by this information, since merely having access to it (much less broadcasting it on a talk show) would put him in jeopardy of violating several national security laws, including the Patriot Act, as he is anything but an intelligence agent or law enforcement officer. He also went on to challenge real journalists to pick up the story, but that trying to discredit him was strictly a no-no since that would only lead to their discrediting themselves.^{ego, much?}

To confirm his theory about the deportation order, he interviewed retired Immigration and Naturalization Service Special Agent Bob Trent. As you might guess, the end result wasn't much of a confirmation since Trent stated that the 2123B designation is placed on an individual trying to enter the United States, not leave it.

Later, Beck attempted to have it both ways with a confused screed chock full of cognitive dissonance where he both supported and denounced conspiracy theories concerning the Marathon bombings. This could be seen as Beck trying to come off as being more truthful on the issue than competing conspiracy peddlers like Alex Jones; on the other hand, it could be seen as Beck being typically incoherent.

So far, Beck has succeeded in finding a patsy supporter in Pamela Geller. Not the most ringing of endorsements, to say the least.

One might have hoped that the Saudi conspiracy theory would have been the end of the road for Beck, who was sued for defamation by Alharbi. The court issued a summary judgement of guilt against Beck (Theblaze), and the litigants made a confidential settlement.

An odd assumption about a bad movie

Beck made a claim (related to the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi) that Obama had personal material on his Blackberry that could prove that he was the source of the movie Innocence of Muslims. As you might guess, the charge seems vague and full of bullshit.

All your military interventions are belong to US

In August 2013, he opined that possible military intervention in Syria is a plot by progressives to weaken the US and bring about One world government. How? By pushing the US toward a military confrontation with Russia and China, which would allow the UN to step in, avert world war, and bring about Yet Another New World Order instead.

Insuring Americans threatens our freedom

In April 2014, Salon reported that Beck described President Barack Obama as a "sociopathic dictator who is trying to keep Glenn Beck from pursuing happiness." Apparently, the press is entirely in on some conspiracy theory to unskew enrollment numbers. Beck finished with this gem: "I'm not going to waste. My. Life. I'm going to do what I was born to do! All men were created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among these are life, liberty AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS! I have a right to pursue my happiness! I have a right to do what I was born to do, not what they tell me what to do. That's what that phrase means!"

On the other hand, Beck did compliment the president's fashion sense and costuming skills, saying that "nobody else could design a uniform like he could".

ISIS fearmongering

Beck has also spent much of his time scaring his viewers about ISIS, saying they have a camp on Mexico's border with Texas and implying they were planning an invasion and terrorist attacks inside the United States. He also had to throw in a quip about the gub'mint using this as an excuse to take away our freedoms. He also suggested that Americans "should prepare for all-out war", saying that ISIS was going to be "in multiple cities". Put bluntly, this is just Beck trying to get his listeners to buy a bunch of rifles and ammunition. In reality, there is no ISIS camp on the Mexican border, and they don't want to launch a ground invasion of the continental United States, though they have called for lone-wolf attacks, which inspired the Garland shooters. They were then primarily concerned about securing their (rapidly shrinking) territory in Iraq and Syria rather than launching infiltration attacks on the US of the kind conducted from a base on the Mexican border, knowing that doing so would increase the likelihood of a US ground invasion of their territory and their subsequent pwnage by US soldiers. In any case, Beck is wrong about ISIS actively plotting to conquer America. What conspiracy theory is next, Boko Haram invading Connecticut?

Consumerism

Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!

"Now should I wear red, or should I wear gold green?"

Goldline International, a company that sells investment gold at substantially higher than market value, is a major advertiser on Beck's radio and cable television programs. During his program, Beck regularly encourages listeners and viewers to buy gold. And while he doesn't advertise for Goldline directly during his scare tactic rants about how the economy is going to collapse and gold will be the only thing with value after the liberal apocalypse, we are fortunate enough that once we're scared shitless and desperate to buy gold, we get a convenient commercial by Glenn Beck himself, telling us that Goldline conveniently has gold for sale. He walks a thin tightrope of "avoiding" a conflict of interest. In 2011, Goldline was indicted for theft by false pretenses, false advertising, and conspiracy.

Beck's radio show is still supported by Goldline, and he does a spoken advertisement for them every day — complete with the usual fearmongering about central banks and printing presses.

More consumerism

In 2012, Beck launched his line of patriotic denim jeans, retailing at $129.99. This came a year after he announced a personal boycott of Levi's for devaluing the "quintessential American piece of clothing" in a commercial showing sympathetic footage of protestors clashing with police.

Glenn Beck quotes

• "I stopped wearing my What-Would-Jesus-Do band, and I've lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, "Yeah, I'd kill Michael Moore," and then I'd see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I'd realize, "Oh, you wouldn't kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn't choke him to death." And you know, well, I'm not sure."

May 17, 2005, The Glenn Beck Program, Premiere Radio Networks.

• "Finally — well, he wasn't the president. He was the chancellor, Hitler, decided that it was the only empathetic thing to do, is to put this child down and put him out of his suffering. It was the beginning of the T4, which led to genocide everywhere. It was the beginning of it. Empathy leads you to very bad decisions many times."

May 26, 2009, on President Obama's statement that he would consider empathy in choosing a Supreme Court nominee.

• The most used phrase in my administration if I were to be President would be 'What the hell do you mean we're out of missiles?'

The Glenn Beck Program, Premiere Radio Networks, 12 January 2009

• Isn't Expelled like the greatest movie ever? The New York Times hates it, so it must be good.

Glenn Beck, Glenn Beck Show

• I'm not a journalist. I am a recovering alcoholic with A.D.D.

The New York Times, 4 December 2006

• I'm just a rodeo clown.

The New York Times, 09 March 2009

• If you take what I say as gospel, you're an idiot.

'The New York Times, 09 March 2009

• I either believe what I say, or I'm a fraud.

Glenn Beck Show (24 September 2009)

• I'm turning into a frickin' televangelist.

Glenn Beck Show, 13 Mar 2009

• Kathy, get off my phone! Get off my phone you little pinhead! I don't care! You people don't care about the trillions! Get off my phone! I'm going to lose my mind today!

Glenn Beck Radio Show, 15 July 2009, trying desperately to construct an anti-healthcare argument against a caller named Kathy

• America, I'm gonna' shoot straight with you. I think I've wasted your time.

Glenn Beck signing off, 9 March 2010

• The only Katrina victims we're seeing on television are the scumbags.

The Glenn Beck Program, Premiere Radio Networks

• This is a book — and I'm a getting a ton of these — from people who were doing what we're doing now.

Glenn Beck, praising a pro-Hitler, anti-Semitic author and invoking Godwin's Law on himself for a change, 4 June 2010

• If there is one guy out there that is the next George Washington, the only guy that I could think of is Rick Santorum. I would ask that you would take a look at him.

The Glenn Beck Program, 16 November 2011

"First they came for…"

See the main article on this topic: Nazi analogies

Beck is fond of comparing his political opponents to the Nazis, which at least means he still acknowledges that Nazis are evil. Sometimes, when Beck's persecution complex kicks into overdrive, he recites one of his various renditions of "First they came for the Jews. Then they came for me." But remember, when Beck states, "they came for me," he is not referring to German theologian Martin Niemöller, author of the source poem first recited as early as 1946. Instead, Beck is clearly referring to the one person he considers the most important person in the world — himself.

Of course, Beck would never — could never — accurately recite the many early versions of the poem because of all the other victims of the Nazis that Niemöller referenced. And — in what would no doubt be an earth-shattering surprise to Beck's followers — in Niemöller's many versions of this poem, the Nazis came first for the communists. Here is one version of the poem which lists as many of the Nazis' targeted groups as possible, all listed in the order that Niemöller typically used:

They came first for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Lacking all sense of irony and a well-functioning brain, Beck invoked the poem moments after attacking unionists and (alleged) communists!

While frequently comparing his political opponents to Nazis, Beck recommended an anti-communist conspiracy book written by Elizabeth Kirkpatrick Dilling, a Nazi sympathizer who was put on trial by the United States government for sedition during World War II. Dilling was a virulent anti-Semitic demagogue and joined ranks among Henry Ford, Charles Coughlin, and Gerald L. K. Smith in branding the New Deal as "the Jew Deal."

Not understanding the Constitution

Recently, Mr. Beck decided to go and read his beloved United States Constitution and found this line in Section 1 Article 9:

"The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person."

He believed it referred to a tax on immigration and said so on his show. The quoted article from the Constitution refers to the transportation of slaves into the states — as anyone with the reading comprehension skills of a goat would know.

He went on to say the Constitution is not the end-all and be-all of America:

"The Constitution is not a suicide pact."

Whatever that means.

Tax problems

Beck ridiculed the Obama administration several times for its cabinet's share of issues with proper tax filings.

“”Their tax issues are just one indicator of "a culture of corruption among some of the left," Beck declared just last month in a segment on his hugely popular Fox News television show, in which he branded Geithner, Killefer, Solis and a handful of other Obama nominees "tax cheats," whom he wouldn't trust "with my children, let alone my children's future." … Mocking the excuses offered by the nominees, Beck sarcastically intoned: "Oh, the tax thing, it was an accident. It was my husband's fault. I didn't do it, he did it. I didn't mean to do it. I was just working hard for the people."

Glenn Beck and his wife run Mercury Radio Arts to help promote and control his rights in radio, publication, and television. From 2007-2010, Mercury has fallen behind on its business taxes in New York and was cited for filing errors in Texas and with New York worker's compensation.

“”"Mercury immediately resolved these very common accounting issues," said the source, who did not want to be identified discussing Mercury's finances. Dean Zerbe, national managing director for a company called alliantgroup that provides specialty tax services to accounting firms, said Beck's situation "has the look and feel of somebody who is confronting an extraordinarily complicated tax situation — or at least the people he's hired to do these things are — and is trying to comply but isn't doing everything perfectly."

9/12 project

In 2009, Beck launched the 9/12 project, which aimed to recover America's Christian founding values, closely allied with the Tea Party Movement. On September 12, 2009 (9/12), a massive Taxpayer March on Washington was accomplished, with 1-2 million attendees, and was roundly censored by the liberal media (according to the organizers and far-right pundits such as Michelle Malkin) — more neutral sources put the number at around 80,000.

The project's 9 principles and 12 values

The 9 principles:

1. America Is Good.
2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.
3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.
4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.
5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.
6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.
7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.
8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.
9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.

The 12 values: Honesty, Reverence, Hope, Thrift, Humility, Charity, Sincerity, Moderation, Hard Work, Courage, Personal Responsibility, Gratitude

Fox News show canceled

Fox News dropped The Glenn Beck Show in 2011 due to the dropping in ratings and the loss of over 300 sponsors during the show's run — though he still may end up appearing as a guest on other commentators' shows. Roger Ailes apparently wasn't very sorry to see him go. As for Beck, when he announced his departure on the air, in keeping with his delusions of grandeur, he likened himself to Paul Revere riding off into the sunset.

Chances are he won't be back, as people now actually pay to watch TheBlazeTV on the Internet. That hasn't stopped at least one very dumb person from publicly advocating such a profoundly irritating event.

Other cunning stunts

Rallies

Beck's latest foray into terminal strangeness is another high-profile public rally called Restoring Love, held on July 28, 2012, in Texas Stadium. Given that the participants include hate-mongers John Hagee, Tony Perkins, Rick Scarborough, and a nutter Pentecostal bishop named Harry Jackson (who believes that Washington, DC is secretly controlled by a demon called the Queen of Heaven who supports marriage equality and the like), one has to wonder if the "love" being restored is one you can experience without the prior ingestion of 'shrooms.

In May 2013, Beck announced a three-day event that he claims will "change the way we celebrate [the] Fourth of July" (US Independence Day). Included is an event called "The Man In The Moon", which he said will "engrave these things [i.e., Beck's agenda] on to your child's heart so they never forget". As of yet, there's no word on whether this "engraving" involves scary clowns, demonic hand puppets, hallucinogens, or — even worse — other seemingly deranged talk show hosts.

Re-education by our Idiot Friend

Beck and former (equally batshit) show contributor David Barton recently floated the idea of establishing two-week-long "education" camps (!) to head off any funny ideas that students might get from college (including, it seems, challenging Beck and Barton's singularly bizarre alternative version of history). And you thought he was kidding when he dressed in an uncomfortably familiar-looking uniform on the cover of Arguing with Idiots, whom he calls within the book "our Idiot Friend". In addition, Beck's vanity press-cum-publishing arm Mercury Ink has apparently picked up the rights to Barton's The Jefferson Lies (after it was rejected by original publisher Thomas Nelson) to cement the collaboration of two people who apparently aren't capable of knowing when to stop soiling themselves in public.

In the wake of (what else?) Obama's re-election, Beck decided to support a goofy Randroid "initiative" called The American Dream Labs. He's under the continued impression that people outside his hardcore nutzoid fan base care about anything he does these days.

In January 2013, Beck announced his desire to found a model-town-cum-themepark-cum-indoctrination center called Independence, USA. If he gets the 2 billion dollars to have it built, it'll include a theme park and its very own 'Media Center' where it will produce all its own movies, news, and information, away from the evil socialist propaganda that poisons the rest of the country. Russian Propaganda channel compared it to Going Galt.

Political endorsements

Before the November 2012 election, he predicted that Romney would win the 2012 Presidential ballot by more than 100 electoral votes, resulting in a Foot in Mouth Disease case similar to James Inhofe's. As you might guess, he reacted to Obama's re-election in the usual fashion: with a crying jag accompanied by the usual ranting and raving. Unsurprisingly, one decade later, Beck's Gulch still remains a fantasy.

He enlisted the help of fellow weirdo Rick Santorum in battling the threat to national sovereignty that is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Disabled. Predictably, he saw the political legacy of some crazy failed artist from Austria coming to fruition if that treaty were to get passed.

For the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Beck endorsed Ted Cruz until Cruz dropped out, and he then endorsed fellow Mormon Evan McMullin — who had no chance of winning. Beck criticized Trump's behavior back, and then Trump insulted him personally, as Trump often does. He called The Blaze a failed newspaper with no future or something like that in a tweet. Then Beck got super-pissy because Trump told the truth for once, and then got a hate-on for Trump. Being Beck, though, in December 2015 his dislike appears to have stemmed from a conspiratorial belief that Trump was either a crypto-progressive or a Clinton plant to guarantee Hillary Clinton's electoral victory, probably both. By March 2016, Beck was under Secret Service investigation because he threatened to stab Trump on-air ("If I was close enough and I had a knife. Really. I mean the stabbing just wouldn't stop…"), and comparing Trump to Hitler. Honestly, Beck's Hitler analogies were getting tiresome at this point, but at least he was getting closer to the mark. To perhaps no one's surprise, Beck endorsed Hitler-cum-Trump for President in 2020.

The Edward R. Murrow of our time

In early June 2013, he decided to have a conversation with himself (wearing a Boston Bruins cap on the one hand and a bad wig and fake mustache on the other) as both an IRS agent and White House official in a typically tone-deaf effort at combining humor and political commentary.

And after all else fails, Beck's a pretentious git; not only have his trademark blackboards gotten bigger and crazier, but he has costly tastes in microphones; on Fox News, he used two chrome-dipped Blue Kiwi microphones, and he now uses an apparently-vintage RCA ribbon mic, presumably to invoke such trusted voices of the radio past as, say, Charles Coughlin.

On Monday, June 10, 2013, Beck announced that he'd lost his voice due to his golden voice being forever stilled "vocal chords^[sic] paralyzed." He did this by holding up a series of cue cards while dramatic music played in the background. Unfortunately, he seems to have been talking just fine ever since.

"Mysterious illness" that "made me look crazy"

In late 2014, Glenn Beck admitted on The Blaze to having a neurological illness that's "made [him] look crazy" "for years". Apparently, it is so mysterious as to have left his physicians "baffled". "He has had pain and numbness, vocal paralysis, sleep disorders and, occasionally, seizures so intense he curled into a fetal position. He said he’s cured now" — after such medically approved therapies as "an intense regimen of spiritual work and fervent prayer", as well as "electric stimulation to weird gyroscope tests like the astronauts use where they’re flipping you around". Whether or not the Sandra Bullock method, as seen in the overrated film Gravity, is effective in making him look less crazy remains to be seen. At least admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, right? Also, not everyone bought it, as Beck's "doctor" is a "chiropractic neurologist", Ted Carrick, which is basically quackery.

I'm not a sensitive artist

Despite creating paintings showing technical proficiency, and having an art gallery display his work, Beck has claimed that he is not an artist ("I don’t consider myself an artist."). So since Beck makes art but is not an artist, does that mean that though Beck wrote a book, he is not an author? Is Beck an artist the same way that Jeff Koons is an artist, who has employed up to 120 assistants to make his artwork? If that's true, does that mean that Beck uses a ghostwriter(s)? It might explain things. On his art web page, Beck relented and called himself an artist.

The art ranges from the bizarre to the offensive. For the bizarre, in the painting "Birth of a Champion", German Max Schmeling (who was not a Nazi) defeating African American boxer Joe Louis during the Nazi era: the focus of the painting is entirely on the referee squatting above the prone Louis, apparently laying the final blow. For the offensive:

• Beck depicted Jesus as a Jewish detainee at a Nazi concentration camp ("Jesus As A German Jew 1944"); in defense of this painting, Beck gave the friend argument ("I have a lot of Jewish friends") — no word on whether all Beck's Jewish friends are messianic Jewish or not.
• Perhaps more bizarre than offensive was Beck's "Chinese Jesus" which was lifted from a 1966 photograph of Chinese Provincial Party Secretary Wang Yilun being criticized by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. In Beck's version the Chinese Jesus is holding up a signboard that says "神之子" ("Son of God"); in the original photograph, Wang is holding a signboard that says, "反革命修正主义分子 / 王一伦" (counterrevolutionary revisionist element / Wang Yilun).

Not to be outdone in chutzpah, Beck has also fashioned himself as an art critic (or not), in 2006, he went on a paranoid rant tying a bunch of things he hates (Obama, communism, NBC, the Soviet Union, Mussolini, Standard Oil, syphilis, fascism, the UN) with public art and architecture in New York City: specifically, The Rockefeller Center and The Statue of Liberty. — it's the kind of thought process that led to the Nazi Degenerate Art Exhibition in Nazi Germany. Later in 2012, he specifically criticized the artwork of Peter Paul Rubens, Pablo Picasso, Lucien Freud and Jackson Pollock.

Stopped clock

In 2010, Christian conspiracy theorist Mark Dice mailed some of his garbage to Beck after taking offense to some remarks Beck made about the 9/11 Truth movement. To some surprise, Beck has never endorsed 9/11 conspiracy theories, which has resulted in minimal conflict with other cranks.

He also walked out of God's Not Dead 2, commenting, "It might feel good to have a movie come out where we get to slap people across the face, but that's not helpful."

On August 12, 2016, giving a speech, Beck came out supporting Black Lives Matter using a familiar metaphor (albeit with a strange highlight on pie). In an interview the next day, he expressed the need for Americans "to start listening to each other and getting out of our own little labeled bubbles."

Beck appears to have had an epiphany inspired by a speech by Michelle Obama in October 2016 about Donald Trump's misogynistic comments. He revised his views on Barack Obama's presidency and a lot of other things:

“”I'm at a Dadaist time in my life. So much of what I used to believe was either always a sham or has been made into a sham. There's nothing deep.

This didn't last long, and he quickly returned to the fold after Trump's 2016 presidential victory, expressing support and respect for Trump.

One of his most surprising stopped-clock moments was when he came to the defense of a boy bullied by his classmates for liking My Little Pony. Beck spoke against the bullying, offered the kid his support, and invited the boy's family to a meal. This is probably one of the least assholish — and possible even most sincere — things he's ever done.

He's never issued a single denial

WIPO Headquarters, where the case was adjudicated: monument to out-Becking Beck

As if he wasn't bad enough, he also raped and murdered a young girl in 1990 demonstrated just how powerful the Streisand effect can be.

Do you remember that meme, "Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990"? Beck took the owner of glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com to court and lost. See Beck v. Eiland-Hall If he didn't rape and murder a young girl in 1990, why hasn't he denied it yet? Instead, he attempts to muzzle discussion of it? Sounds pretty suspicious to me…

See also

For those of you in the mood, RationalWiki has a fun article about Glenn Beck.

• Agenda 21
• The Blaze: Beck's news aggregator
• We Surround Them

Other stunning c…ountry music fans

• David Barton
• Sean Hannity
• Rush Limbaugh
• Chuck Norris
• Sarah Palin
• Pat Robertson
• Paul Ryan
• W. Cleon Skousen

External links

• Make sure to get a doctor's note
• The Glenn Beck Conspiracy Theory Generator, complete with chalkboard
• www.glennbeckunhinged.com More outrageous quotes
• Confounding Fathers by Sean Wilentz
• Glenn Beck's Greatest Hits (and Misses) (according to PolitiFact)
• Handy chart of Glenn Beck's brain