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Hitchens on Beck

I would like to know what Beck's rally did to help the Tea Party or Republicans in general.
 
The Rude Pundit sums Beck up best for me, "Fox 'news' host and Jim-Jones-without-the-guts Glenn Beck..."

Daredelvis
 
A lot of the anger in the Tea Party has nothing to do with specific policies. There are plenty of people out there who don't like A huge federal Government and don't like Obama's policies, but they don't go to the extremes that the Beck followers do.
I really do think that fear that the demographics of America are chaging, and that by 2020 at the latest people of White European Descent will be in the minority are driving a lot of the Tea Party fury.
And this is why it will ulitimately fail. In the end, the GOP will realize they made a bad bargain embracing the Tea Party for temporary political gain, and that is has hurt them badly with various ethnic groups, whose support they will have to have to be a viable party. Look, after a couple of years, for the GOP to drop the Beck faction like a Hot potato.
 
AaronMHatch said:
I would like to know what Beck's rally did to help the Tea Party or Republicans in general.
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Glenn Beck's rally wasn't intended to help the Tea Party, and it definitely wasn't intended to help Republicans. While there's definitely overlap in the audiences, his purpose was different. I don't know yet what the actual effect will be, but if you want to know what the intended effect was, I'd suggest reading this:
I Think I See What Glenn Beck is Doing (Beck himself said this analysis got it right)
 
Undesired Walrus said:
Glenn Beck's rally was large, vague, moist, and undirected—the Waterworld of white self-pity.

Always wanted to see Hitch take on Beck. He sees the tea party as being linked to white fear of the loss of its majority.
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This really wasn't one of Hitch's better works. Notice that he doesn't quote a single statement from any of the speakers at the rally. The only statements he quotes are cherry-picked protest signs from a different event, and a quote from an apparently random rally attendant. From such thin gruel, he first caricatures and then simply dismisses the actual content of the rally, with no real examination of what actually happened. The argument that they can't really be upset about such and such, so it must really be closet racism, is lazy and threadbare, and Hitchens can usually deliver better than that. I often like reading Hitchens, but he phoned this one in.
 
dudalb said:
Just confirms my opinion that Beck open insertion of religion into the political process is not good news.
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Maybe not, but the rally wasn't really about political process, it was about culture. That may eventually have indirect spillover effects if the aims of the rally are successful, but politics itself was pretty much absent from the rally. So saying that he inserted religion into the political process seems to be overstating the case.
 
I have a hard time believing that a failed stand-up comic/zoo crew DJ is going to work earnestly 'restore honor' to American culture.
 
The Charnel Expanse said:
I have a hard time believing that a failed stand-up comic/zoo crew DJ is going to work earnestly 'restore honor' to American culture.
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Of course you do. You like the motive game, because it's easy: just assume that your opponents are acting in bad faith, and you don't even have to pay attention. And you can always win when you play the motive game.
 
Ziggurat said:
Of course you do. You like the motive game, because it's easy: just assume that your opponents are acting in bad faith, and you don't even have to pay attention. And you can always win when you play the motive game.
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It also relieves you of the hassles of having an idea.

That is why the GOP just stands there and shrieks about communisim, taxes and the Islamisation of America.

Hitchens and Beck going at each other is an amusing side show, both of them having long since put most of their more rational brain circuits out of order with a bottle years ago.

Okay, let Hitch keep the babbling righties occupied while the Democrats look for ways to fix the mess we're in.
 
Ziggurat said:
Of course you do. You like the motive game, because it's easy: just assume that your opponents are acting in bad faith, and you don't even have to pay attention. And you can always win when you play the motive game.
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Hell, a lot of Conservatives are questioning Beck's motives.
 
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