On the Lunatic Fringe with Glenn Beck

I first encountered Glenn Beck in 2005 or 2006.  The first show of his I remember, he was talking to one of his co-hosts - probably Pat - and kept asking if he sounded normal.  This led to a discussion about his attention deficit disorder and was now taking drugs to address it.  Hmm.  Despite that very odd introduction, I tuned in more often and then followed him to TV.  He had a show on CNN for a couple of years that I watched pretty frequently.  Then he moved to Fox News Channel.  I watched that a fair amount.  After that, he went independent and started his own network, Blaze TV.  I have watched virtually none of that.

What drew me to Glenn was that he said stuff that you weren't supposed to say.  I had been watching Bill O'Reilly back in those days, and Bill was considered a grenade thrower.  He had nothing on Glenn.  Where others were asking 'What have we done to deserve the enmity of Muslims?', Glenn was explaining the tenets of the Koran that called for jihad against the non-Muslim.  He would bring up topics that others would not.  Sure, sometimes those were in the vein of conspiracy theories but there was enough valid stuff to keep me watching.

Glenn is a doomsayer.  The world is on the brink of destruction and has been ever since I first tuned in.  He is always telling his listeners/viewers that they must take action or doom will fall.  In fact, doom is still going to fall but you need to be ready so you can help those who aren't ready.  And he was right!  The housing collapse came just a couple of years after I started following him.  I suspect that fueled his rise.  Eventually, his constant chicken little routine offered with more emotion than reason and rivers of tears drove me away.

 

On today's program, Beck and Brad Thor discussed a 'patriot' assassinating Trump if/when he becomes Hitler:

 

If Congress won’t remove him from office, what patriot will step up and do that if, if, he oversteps his mandate as president, his constitution-mandated authority as president, I should say.

 

I am no Trump fan but this is lunacy.  It is quite possible that this has been taken out of context but Beck has been massively anti-Trump.  Both he and Thor fear the Republican Congress will continue to be spineless but that only shows neither of them understand the current political atmosphere.  The Republican Congress is spineless because any opposition to a black president is prima facie evidence of racism.  A white heterosexual Republican male will benefit from none of that.  Moreover, the Democrats are going to tear into President Trump.  Most of the media, which has been cheerleading Obama, will pounce on Trump's every action in much the way they pounced on George W. Bush.  Trump will not be able to get away with even a fraction of the unconstitutional actions that Obama has.