Dylan Hales

September 16, 2009

As the other member of the TakiMag South Carolina contingent I suppose I should say a few words about Glenn Beck and where I stand as an “anti-anti-Glenn Beck” blogger.

Is Glenn Beck perfect?  No.  Is Glenn Beck on “our side?”  Probably not.  Is Glenn Beck better than the vast majority of “conservative” talking heads?  On this point I agree with Jack and say absolutely.

But from where I stand little of this is relevant.  Glenn Beck’s opinions on the issues matter to me very little.  I don’t listen to him on the radio and I don’t watch him on television (at least not with any degree of regularity).  I don’t read his books and I rarely even bother to watch any youtube video featuring one of his rants. 

Still I believe Beck does have value because of the many people who do listen to what he has to say.  Richard is right to criticize Beck’s bizarre support of the financial bailout and I’m very skeptical about the motivations of the so called 9/12 movement.  Nonetheless Beck is the only corporate media figure that has had multiple TakiMag contributors on his show.  He’s the only talk radio blowhard who talks about monetary policy.  He is also the only professional motormouth who has openly apologized for many of his previous stances.

Talk radio – and to a lesser extent cable news – are mediums that are geared toward a captive audience of identity obsessed party line voters.  Most of them are incapable or unwilling to think outside of the traditional Republican vs. Democrat narrative.  While Beck is not a member of the Alt Right, he is certainly not a shameless GOP shill or an easily compartmentalized movement conservative.  The millions of Beck devotees are guaranteed to learn more about forbidden subjects listening to Beck than they will learn from listening to Hannity or reading the Wall Street Journal editorial page.  This doesn’t make him an ally, but it makes him useful – or if Richard prefers a useful idiot.