by:
Mark Karlin, Truthout | Interview
Mark Karlin: In "Pity the Billionaire," on page 71, you note
that "market populism" shifted over the years from being "almost
exclusively a faith of the wealthy" to being "the fighting faith of the
millions." You definitely single out Glenn Beck as being a shill for
this "faith" among the "disgruntled" masses. Was his role that
important?
Thomas Frank: Glenn Beck had a huge role in the rise
of the Tea Party and the broader shift of the nation to the right.
Remember, during the period we're talking about, Beck was on the cover
of Time as well as the New York Times Magazine; he was the subject of
two separate biographies. Whether we like it or not, he was the face of
that political moment, the voice that caught the public imagination. In
fact, it is hard to make any sense at all of the Tea Party movement
absent Glenn Beck's strange views of history and his dread of the Obama
Administration. Go back and look at footage of Tea Party events or
interviews with Tea Party participants, and you will find that they
often echo, sometimes word for word, the idiosyncratic lessons taught by
Professor Beck.
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