Personally, I rarely listen to Glenn Beck anymore. I’m tired of the old school revival feel. I tune into political programs for politics and some fun, not for religious preaching and weepiness. And, half the time the show seems to be at commercial, either regular ones or the minute long product endorsements directly from Glenn, using show time, and the several minutes of discussion that leads up to that product placement. He got in a fight with Sarah Palin last week (not that I’m a supporter of Palin anymore, but, there was no call for what Beck did), and no
(Breitbart) On Tuesday, talk radio host Glenn Beck accused the Tea Party supporters of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump of being racists.
While he questioned whether Trump’s supporters are genuine Tea Partiers, Beck said of them, “If you were a Tea Party person, then you were lying. You were lying. It was about Barack Obama being black. It was about him being a Democrat.†Although he later identified fellow talk show host Sean Hannity as a Tea Party supporter who thinks Trump is “a great guy,†Beck said that he simply disagrees with Hannity about Trump.
Beck’s comments came as part of a discussion of Trump’s rally in Texas yesterday before a sold-out crowd of 20,000. Beck stated, “The media’s making this look like [Trump’s supporters are] Tea Party people. I don’t think these are Tea Party people who are following him. Some of them may be, but I think these — I mean, you can’t — if you were a Tea Party person, then you were lying. You were lying. It was about Barack Obama being black. It was about him being a Democrat, because this guy is offering you many of the same things, as shallow as the same way. If you said to me that it bothered you about his past, you said to me, ‘Hey, what about his relationship with Jeremiah Wright? What about what he’s done here, here, and here?’ You’re not bothered by this guy, and it’s exactly the same thing.â€
Of course we didn’t support in Obama in 2012 because he’s a Democrat, but no one cared that he was Black. We cared because his policies were terrible. Apparently, though, no Conservative is allowed to express even the most minor of support for Trump. We apparently cannot say we like a bit of what Trump says. Would Beck call me a Progressive if he heard that little ole’ me supports many of Obama’s actions in fighting Islamists, such as his drone strikes and use of special forces to whack Islamist jihadis?
Beck also stated, “Well, we can’t figure out, there’s a lot of people that we know, that we just cannot figure out. They say they were for the Tea Party, I mean, you know, I’ve had an open conversation with Sean Hannity. He is — he swears he’s a great guy, and everything else. I just disagree with him, on that. Sarah Palin is another one, who had him on the show, and just fell all over him, and just loves him. I don’t understand that.â€
Look, we know Beck is a big Trump hater, and he has reason to be leery of Trump, but, this is completely over the line. There’s no reason for this insanity, and he’ll be losing a lot of listeners after this rant.
Let’s wonder, though, who are the real supporters of Trump? While many Conservatives/Tea Party folks enjoy some of what Trump is saying and doing, it seems like the big support is coming from your plain old Republicans. There is a difference. These tend to be the folks who do not get all that involved in much of the political debate, they are often bystanders and couldn’t necessarily describe what it means to be an American Conservative. They can get a bit squishy on policy. They can, at times, switch to voting Democrat or a third party. They want things simple: these are the bread and butter voters, those who think about their own pocket-books when voting. They think of themselves as Republican voters, not conservative voters. These seem to be the folks who are supporting Trump, rather than Tea Party folks.
Add in many Democrats who are simply Dems, not liberals or Progressives. People who can switch their vote.
Trump is taking on a big subject, illegal immigration, and saying what people want to hear. Is he legit? I have my doubts. Does he hold some Leftish positions? You bet. Is he perfect? No. Should Beck be calling those who find parts of Trump’s talking points exciting racists? No. Many people want something different from what we’ve seen from politicians, and they want someone who has a different experience. Trump has a populist message against the business as usual Washington politics.
Beck has lost it. He went on to double down by citing Rick Wilson, a big time Republican Establishment guy who has denigrated Trump supporters, who also pushed the raaaaacism meme. Thanks for the memories of a previously good show, Glenn. Can we get Neal Boortz out of retirement to take over the 9-12 time slot?
I’m not a Donald Trump supporter, either, but Mr Beck paints with too broad a brush. Are some of Mr Trump’s supporters racists? Of course some are; there are racists in all walks of life. Some of Barack Obama’s supporters are racists as well, supporting him solely because he is (half) black, as though that should somehow trump — pun very much intended — actual ability. There are sexists as well who support Hillary Clinton because they think we should have a woman as President with no regard to ability or accomplishment.
My problems with Mr Trump are two-fold:
1 – He is a clown, a charlatan, an entertainer; and
2 – He wouldn’t be able to do what he says he will do on his number one issue, illegal immigration, in the first place.
Let’s face the facts: we are not going to apprehend every single illegal immigrant and deport him, we just won’t. Because everyone under our jurisdiction is guaranteed both due process of law and is innocent until proven guilty, we could never do that. Every single case would take months and months to work its way through the judicial system; it could never work.
There actually is a simple solution, but left and right would both hate it: a required national identity card. If we had such a system, and banned employers from hiring anyone without said identity card, we could end the employment of illegal immigrants, leading to self-deportation. But welfare reform would have to be coupled with it: not only would those without a national identity card have to be ineligible for any forms of pubic assistance, we would also have to make it impossible for able-bodied Americans to survive without working. It would also have the pleasant result of imposing voter identification, since every American citizen and legal immigrant would have to have the necessary identification.
Isn’t a national identity card BIG GOVERNMENT ?
How much would fake cards cost on the dark web ?
Our honored host asked:
The answer is pretty simple: Mr Trump is drawing his support primarily from white working class Americans.
The white working class have deserted the Democrats, for the simple reason that the Democrats cannot be both the party of the working man, as they have long claimed, and the party of the non-working man, as they have clearly become; the interests of people who work for a living and people who suckle on the welfare teat are diametrically opposed. Their votes are going to Republicans, because the GOP are the only alternative. They aren’t loyal Republicans by any means, but people who vote their own interests and own culture.
I’ve noted this before: so many of the liberals’ plans depend on just a few dollars more from everyone, but the left just cannot understand that the working class, people who are usually living from paycheck to paycheck, really can’t stand to
keep givinghave more in taxes seized from them., and as long as the left’s plans are to spend more and more, they can count on losing more and more working Americans as supporters.I kind of see what he means though. Both Trump and Obama are pro-big government, pro-government controlled health care, pro-tax increase, and truthfully, even pro-abortion. Although Trump is trying to hide that last part.
So if you like one and not the other, why? What’s the difference? The only difference I can see is illegal immigration.
No longer a supporter of Sarah Palin?
Teach just how many years did it take you to reach that conclusion?
If the only difference is illegal immigration, that’s still a hellofa difference.
And there is one more difference between Obama and Trump. Obama hates this country and the people who make it work.
Trump seems to love the US and wants to make it work.
John, a national identity card really is “big government,” and I said that neither the left nor the right would like it. They’d have to be made counterfeit proof, with biometric data and electronic codes, but, sadly enough, I can’t see any other way around them.
Republicans have noted that virtually everyone has some form of ID anyway, normally a driver’s license, and we are required to have current photo IDs to open bank accounts and all sorts of other things. What a national ID would do is to limit voting to actual citizens, and provide the IDs that the left claim so many American citizens don’t have, to meet the left’s objections. A national ID card would enable the government to enforce employment laws concerning citizenship or legal residency, and a national ID card would work to keep health insurance claims legitimate.
We are all already required to have a Social Security number, and children get them virtually at birth. I don’t like the idea, but it seems to me that modern society has made it necessary.
Dana,
We already require ID’s to hire people. Employers are required to check with the national database to ensure a person is eligible for hire.
I cannot see how a “national ID card” will solve the issue of illegal immigration or any other problem.
It is another layer of government destined to fail.
Ok, the differences are that Trump is:
Pro-America
Anti-illegal immigrant
Those are two great things. I concede the argument. Beck is wrong.
Still, I wouldn’t vote for him. The person I’m for will remove damaging regulations, smash unions and decrease government spending in real $. Those are my #1&2&3 issues. The closest person to that is still Walker, boring as he is. Cruz might try to do those things too. Not sure.
In case you missed it, John, or were just too stoned, I gave up on Palin back in late 2011.
The middle class is not suffering because of taxes but from wages that are not keeping up with productivity. Corporations are making record profits for their shareholders. Why has compensation for workers not kept up? No one knows the whole story, but certainly the union busting right, the Fed suppressing even a hint of inflation at the expense of workers, and so-called trade deals putting US workers in direct competition with lower paid foreign workers are part of the problem.
When unemployment is kept high, the bargaining power and compensation for workers is reduced.
“The union busting right…” Allowing people the freedom to choose is “busting”? Try again, J.
j,
Union busting is union busting.
Our labor laws all favor unionization, yet unionization continues to fall everywhere except in the public sector, where the government is insulated against the market discipline which the private sector has to face. If unions are such great things, why don’t more workers unionize?
Here in northeastern Pennsylvania, people remember the great union contracts at Bethlehem Steel . . . and how Bethlehem Steel went out of business.
Agreed, Dana. It’s because unions are not designed to help the worker anymore. They’re designed to keep the union bosses in power and in money. It’s been that way since at least the 1940s.
There is one group that unions are still helpful to. The unproductive worker. They make it difficult to fire such an employee. For the productive, enthusiastic or energetic worker, unions are a severe drain on income because they lose some of their income to the lazy guy who can’t be fired.
Unions are kind of like communism that way. Once you realize you don’t have to work hard to get paid, many people choose not to work hard. If it weren’t for that one fact of life, I’d be a communist. And a hippie! But, the rare type of hippie that takes showers on a regular basis.