Glenn Hearts Barack - A Love Story

If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then Glenn Beck has a huge man-crush on a figure he regularly tears apart on his show: President Barack Obama.

In addition to “taking back” the civil rights movement, Beck also appears to be “taking back” Obama’s Change movement.  Take, for example, the images that Beck uses on his show (and on his merchandise) to promote his values:

They are religious, conservative variations of the Shepard Fairey-designed Obama logos used in the 2008 Presidential campaign.  Instead of Obama, they feature past presidents and the values Beck cites as the essential teaching of Jesus: Faith, Hope, and Charity.  The Obama icons, instead, promoted Change, Progress and Hope, the one value they share.

Some commentators have noticed a parallel between Beck’s current speeches and Obama’s campaign speeches.  In 2008, Obama told crowds that “One voice can change a room, and if one voice can change a room, then it can change a city, and if it can change a city, it can change a state, and if it change a state, it can change a nation, and if it can change a nation, it can change the world. Your voice can change the world.”  Beck, at his “Rally to Restore Honor,” said “One man can change the world…That man or woman is you. You make the difference.”

Both try to mobilize their audiences by appealing to the American ideal of individual participation as a means of improving society.  For example, which of these two quotes was Glenn Beck, and which was Barack Obama?  

We have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world; duties that we do not grudgingly accept, but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task.  This is the price and the promise of citizenship.  This is the source of our confidence — the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

vs.  

We as individuals must be good so America can be great!  America is at a crossroads…Do we do what every great generation has done in America in times of trouble: look ahead, dream about what we are going to become, not what we are?  Look forward, look West, look to the heavens, look to God, and make your choice.

Hard to tell, right?  The first was Obama’s inauguration speech, the second was Beck at his Rally.

Obama notably invoked the image of Lincoln in his campaign, taking the same train ride from Illinois to Washington for his inauguration and being sworn in on Lincoln’s bible.  Beck, standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, went as far as to reread the Gettysburg Address, noting its continuing resonance.

But why in the world would Glenn Beck, the demagogue of the religious right, follow in the footsteps of Barack Obama?  The reason is that he is playing to an audience motivated by similar emotions as the electorate in 2008.  The Tea Party movement, despite vastly different politics, is really a mirror image of Obama’s Change movement. 

Obama was vaulted to power on the momentum of a populace disillusioned with a dysfunctional government, seeking change from the misadventurous George W. Bush administration that led to two wars and an economic crisis.  In the Tea Party, the political doppelganger of the Change movement, Beck sees the same features: idealistic activists who believe that the country is on the wrong track politically and desperately want things to change.  

All that Tea Party anger the media is so fond of citing is built on a desire for different politics, albeit from a conservative perspective, seeking to restore fonder, simpler times.  Guy Miconi, an Italian immigrant and Glenn Beck supporter from New Jersey longs for such a restoration to America’s glory days. “This was the Mecca. People wanted to come.  People spoke so highly of the United States.  Go to America, and you work hard, and you’ll earn anything you want to do.  But guess what, you can’t do that anymore.”

Even with a copycat political strategy, Beck will continue to use his unique brand of fear mongering, religion, and apocalyptic rhetoric to motivate his followers. Don’t be too surprised if his next book is called “The Hope of Audacity.”

-Niv Elis

A Mad Tea Party

When is a Tea Party not a Tea Party?  When is a political event not a political event?

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” the Mad Hatter would reply.  

The Hatter of this event, of course, would be Glenn Beck, the Fox News rhetorician who has built his career on controversy.  On Saturday, August 28th, he descended upon the Nation’s capital with an estimated 87,000 of his supporters in tow, spearheading an event called “The Rally to Restore Honor.”  

Despite claiming to be an apolitical event and lacking official affiliation with any Tea Party movements, the rally was unmistakably targeted at mobilizing and energizing Tea Party constituencies politically.

On the one hand, many facets of the rally were as expected.  The crowd was a mostly-white, largely rural population, representing the finest of Sarah Palin’s “Real America.”  But surprises abounded around every corner as well, adding an unexpected madness to the Tea Party.

Most striking about the rally participants was the marked difference between their reputation and their demeanor.  The rally felt more like a giant Fourth of July picnic, complete with lawn chairs and wistful Americana, than a gathering storm of political revolution.

The much vaunted anger that supposedly fueled Tea Party activists had either been checked at the door, ebbed, or was not their primary driver to begin with.  A pair of participants from North Carolina (who refused to give their names) insisted that their motivation was “not anger,” but rather “love for our country.”  Karen Freeman, a 26-year old activist from Philadelphia (and one of the few African Americans in the crowd) insisted that the media, which gets a better story from highlighting the angriest and most offensive people, was to blame for such misconceptions.  “You’ll always have those hateful people in there.  Just like any group.  You’ll always have the bad egg to spoil the batch.”  But Freeman, who has traveled with the Tea Party from California to the District selling merchandise, believed that “the policy itself is good.” 

However, the inflammatory rhetoric of Mr. Beck and other Tea Party pundits and politicians was not so easily brushed aside by all.  Among the crowd, armed with her trusty signs, stood Lori Thomas, the teacher from Rochester who spent July Schooling the White House on education.  This time, she came to urge people in both the Glenn Beck rally and the Al Sharpton “Reclaim The Dream” counter-rally across the way to converse constructively.  “We have in this country one of the greatest constitutions in the world and that constitution guarantees us freedom of speech, and we have to respect that in one another.  Everyone has the right to come out and say how they feel.  But not in hate,” said Thomas, eliciting approving nods from nearby ralliers. 

Interestingly, Thomas found herself in agreement with some of the Tea Party’s principles as well.  “The message of the Tea Party is a good one.  We do have to change our government, we have to find people of integrity to lead our nation.  We can’t keep going status quo.  But you don’t put people in who are just as bad as the people who are in.”  

Finally, the political diversity of the rallying hoards was, within conservative limits, fairly broad.  Throughout the crowd, political organizations of remarkably different stripes sought an audience.  Members of DCVote, a group advocating full voting rights for residents of the District of Columbia, attempted to capitalize on the Tea Party imagery.  Their slogan, “No Taxation Without Representation,” is borrowed from the original Boston Tea Party, and drew mixed responses from the passersby, eliciting everything from smiling approval to contempt.  Another organization, called GOOOH (pronounced “go”), sought to gather support for a new political system, free of special interests.  An ultra-conservative group claiming to defend “Tradition, Family, and Property” distributed pamphlets outlining 10 reasons to reject socialism.  A libertarian from New Jersey lamented the struggle for the Tea Party’s soul, represented by the socially conservative Sarah Palin and the traditional “small government”  views of Ron Paul.  “We’re not republican, we’re not democrats, we’re constitutionalists.  That’s all we care about,” affirmed Michaelina and Guy Miconi, Italian immigrants who moved to New Jersey in the 1950’s.

While people clearly took issue with President Obama and his policies, few pointed to him or his administration as the cause of the “lost honor” the rally claimed to restore.  “It started during Bush, maybe even before that, some of Clinton,” the anonymous North Carolinians said of the country’s downward trajectory.  The Miconi couple saw the problems extending even further back.  “We have veered off incrementally from the Roosevelt Era,” said Michaelina.  “We’re trying to restore our country back to what it was: constitutional government, fiscal responsibility, and we the people rule.”

Appropriately, this Mad Tea party recalls another scene from Alice in Wonderland.  Standing at a crossroads, Alice asks the Cheshire Cat for directions, but admits she is not sure where she wants to arrive.  “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” replies the Cat. 

Given that the movement is based upon vague and lofty principals that do not easily translate into one particular policy or another, the attendant political diversity makes sense.  But the only clear thing about which path the Tea Party will end up choosing is that it will lead Rightward.

(Special Thanks to Thomas Sanchez for the first and fourth photos)

-Niv Elis