Speaker 1: Oh boy, it's nine eleven, but a day after it's
Speaker 1: you will be listening to this on nine twelve, after
Speaker 1: you have um finished whatever it is that you do
Speaker 1: on nine eleven either either be sad or uh tell
Speaker 1: jokes or nothing at all. Um, it's all fine. There's
Speaker 1: no wrong thing to do when you're thinking about a
Speaker 1: day where a really fucked up thing happened. But that's
Speaker 1: actually untrue. There is one wrong thing to do, and
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the wrong thing today because
Speaker 1: most people, I think, think back to the day after
Speaker 1: nine eleven as oh, everybody was like out of their
Speaker 1: minds with like grief and fear and saying some really
Speaker 1: fucked up shit and generating a kind of fury that
Speaker 1: acted as propulsion and justification for a lot of very
Speaker 1: very bad things. Um. And it's not in general a
Speaker 1: time that we should look back on with particular pride
Speaker 1: or or certainly what's the word I'm looking for here, um, nostalgia?
Speaker 1: Everyone that is except for Glenn Beck. Um. Now, James,
Speaker 1: we've got James stout here. Chris, Hey, Chris, what do
Speaker 1: you what do y'all know about Glenn Beck? Because James,
Speaker 1: you are this is controversial to say, but I think
Speaker 1: we should rip a vand aid off British. Um and Chris,
Speaker 1: you're very young, so I'm wondering how much do you
Speaker 1: know about Mr. Beck? He was like the my memory
Speaker 1: of him, he was kind of like the well, I
Speaker 1: don't know or is not quite the right word, but
Speaker 1: he was like he he was like like the guy
Speaker 1: in sort of like right wing ship head like punditry
Speaker 1: for a while. My memory of him he was like
Speaker 1: he was like a slightly more put together Alex Jones,
Speaker 1: Like he had like the weird pinboards and ship and like,
Speaker 1: is is this the right guy? Yeah, he's Alex Jones
Speaker 1: with a budget in terms of end of the space
Speaker 1: he fills. Um, James, did you know did you catch
Speaker 1: much of him? No? So my engagement with Glenn Beck
Speaker 1: is mostly through like teaching American history classes and trying
Speaker 1: to explain like the explosion in lies and bullshit and
Speaker 1: hate that immediately follows nine eleven. Yeah, and so they
Speaker 1: know they've never really heard his stuff. Yeah, Glenn Beck,
Speaker 1: he's he's doing radio, ship and stuff before nine eleven.
Speaker 1: By the time he actually comes on the scene, it's
Speaker 1: a few years after nine eleven and he gets a
Speaker 1: show on Fox News. UM and Glenn Is. You know,
Speaker 1: I watched him every night. My parents always watched him.
Speaker 1: My dad considered him to be like a really good historian, Um,
Speaker 1: which is bleak um a lot, but he was. He
Speaker 1: was He was a unique sounding figure. So when Glenn
Speaker 1: Beck comes onto the stage, right, the biggest dude in
Speaker 1: right wing media is still Rush Limbaugh. But rush Is
Speaker 1: has kind of taken a back seat in the last
Speaker 1: couple of years, especially right after nine eleven. Two guys
Speaker 1: like Um, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Riley, you know, and
Speaker 1: those are kind they are kind of like they are
Speaker 1: powerhouses and right wing media. And then you've got, well
Speaker 1: those guys are on TV. You've got this cast of
Speaker 1: people who are like bargain basement discount Rush Limbaughs on
Speaker 1: the radio that are all kind of waiting in the
Speaker 1: wings for their chance to be the next big TV hero. UM.
Speaker 1: And those guys include people like Um, Um, like Glenn Beck,
Speaker 1: and also folks like Michael Savage. Um, there's a couple
Speaker 1: of a lot of maniacs that you probably have not
Speaker 1: heard of that we don't need to dredge up. But
Speaker 1: Glenn Beck kind of sales out of the fever swamps
Speaker 1: of the right wing media UM and gets a fucking
Speaker 1: TV show on Fox News, and in very short order
Speaker 1: he is the biggest fucking thing on the network. Fox
Speaker 1: News is the most popular network in the country, and
Speaker 1: Glenn Beck is their number one host. In two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: he's pulling in something like three million viewers a night.
Speaker 1: And yeah, he's he's he's very very influential. UM. And
Speaker 1: this is the point in time and two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: by the way, the other thing that's happened that's big
Speaker 1: in right wing media circles is Barack Obama has been
Speaker 1: elected president. Now, yeah, you've got birtherism happening, but in general,
Speaker 1: I think one good way to think about it is
Speaker 1: that nine eleven super charges the right, but in a
Speaker 1: very like populist way in a because there's this expectation,
Speaker 1: like we talked about in the last episode, this expectation
Speaker 1: that people are coming back to God because there's been
Speaker 1: a big disaster, We're going to war, and war always
Speaker 1: benefits you know, the conservatives in the in the you know,
Speaker 1: the party, like, we're gonna win this war, and that's
Speaker 1: going to be huge for US. UM. And you also
Speaker 1: have like just this this sense because Bush becomes the
Speaker 1: most popular president anyone can remember having that the type
Speaker 1: of history is with conservatism, you know, in the immediate
Speaker 1: wake of nine eleven, and then that all goes to
Speaker 1: ship because conservatives have terrible ideas for everything, um, and
Speaker 1: they launched two disastrous wars, and by two thousand and nine,
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of people who are gonna like
Speaker 1: admit in public, no, I think we both those wars
Speaker 1: were good ideas that were handled well. Right. Even the
Speaker 1: people who were who were real bullish about that stuff
Speaker 1: are like, well, you know, they didn't do this right
Speaker 1: or that right, or it's impossible to win in that
Speaker 1: part of the world. And you know, it was that's
Speaker 1: the I heard different versions of that from from different
Speaker 1: family members and stuff. But there's this this real sense
Speaker 1: of aggrievement and in the wake of Bush, like it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of taken for granted because about how disastrous
Speaker 1: his his presidency had been. That um, he was not
Speaker 1: you know, it's not going to be a Republican who
Speaker 1: won that election. Um. But the fact that it is
Speaker 1: Barack Obama, a black guy, they lose their goddamn minds.
Speaker 1: I think they've been ready for I think even they
Speaker 1: would have been fine with Hillary Clinton. Obviously they would
Speaker 1: have liked gone nuts on her like they did on Bill,
Speaker 1: but like I think they would have, I don't think
Speaker 1: that would have caused them to go crazy a way
Speaker 1: that Obama did. Um. It is it is not wrong
Speaker 1: to compare the impact to nine eleven in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, because it's this massive shock that shakes the
Speaker 1: center of their world that they view as an attack,
Speaker 1: as an assault on like white middle class Americans, and
Speaker 1: the shock waves of that. I mean, we're still dealing
Speaker 1: with them. But one of the things that's that's happening
Speaker 1: here is that after nine eleven they had this sense
Speaker 1: that history is with us, momentum is with us. And
Speaker 1: after Obama gets elected, you see the conservative movement get
Speaker 1: much more insular and much more conspiratorial and much more
Speaker 1: focused on like grievance and anger and revenge um because
Speaker 1: they know they're nothing's going to bring back the people,
Speaker 1: so there's there's kind of nothing but but vengeance UM,
Speaker 1: and Beck is the guy who's going to tap most
Speaker 1: effectively into this feeling, this feeling of fear and this
Speaker 1: need to feel like you're like you were right after
Speaker 1: nine eleven, when it like everything was surging forward in
Speaker 1: the rights direction. And so in two thousand nine he
Speaker 1: launches what he calls the We Surround Them campaign. Now,
Speaker 1: the we in this I think is supposed to be
Speaker 1: conservatives and them is the government. But I think you
Speaker 1: can assume other you know, if you think about the
Speaker 1: urban rural divide in this country, there's another meaning to
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Um. Now, this, this is a
Speaker 1: series of segments and specials on beck show that grew
Speaker 1: very popular. It's so popular, in fact, that a lot
Speaker 1: of local right wing organizations start hosting viewing parties. And
Speaker 1: this becomes like the earliest stirrings of the Tea party movement. Right,
Speaker 1: all of these right wing radio stations and stuff, these
Speaker 1: local talk radio stations and other organizations are holding viewing
Speaker 1: parties for to watch Glenn Beck talk about you know,
Speaker 1: his do his We Surround Them act. And I'm gonna
Speaker 1: play a clip for you now from one of these
Speaker 1: viewing parties. We're gonna play a couple of eclips. This
Speaker 1: is from one filmed by a talk radio station in
Speaker 1: Fort Wayne, Georgia. UM and Uh, yeah, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: something else, all right, So I want to, um, I
Speaker 1: want to play this for you. I think it's a
Speaker 1: fascinating artifact. And how the radio host chooses to introduce
Speaker 1: the event is noteworthy, as is the man's appearance was
Speaker 1: six hundred six freaks watching Glenn Beck on Fox News
Speaker 1: for Project It's amazing. So well, what it's interesting to me,
Speaker 1: I think it's it's kind of worth going over a
Speaker 1: couple of things there because that's that doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: a lot. But the fact that he he describes the
Speaker 1: guy the people in there is sick freaks and and
Speaker 1: and then like we're sick freaks, but like kind of
Speaker 1: taking pride and that that's what he assumes liberals would
Speaker 1: call them for watching Glenn Beck. You can see a
Speaker 1: shade in this of a lot of liberals because they're dumb.
Speaker 1: We're taken by surprise when like Hillary Clinton called Trump
Speaker 1: supporters a basket of deplorables and they immediately adopted that
Speaker 1: name for themselves. Again, you see the stirrings of it here,
Speaker 1: right like, this is this is what the movement's turned into. Um,
Speaker 1: you're taking pride in the fact that you're outnumbered and despised.
Speaker 1: Also the project, I'm intrigued. Oh yes, that's that is
Speaker 1: that is coming. We're we're building to that. Um. So anyway,
Speaker 1: we get some rock and guitar licks, just just some
Speaker 1: some of the best preloaded writes, free guitar music I've
Speaker 1: ever heard. And then we pan into this very full
Speaker 1: conference room. There's like six people in this thing and
Speaker 1: they are, as far as I can tell, all white. Um.
Speaker 1: It is certain that the only people they talk to
Speaker 1: when they do like because you know, the camera goes
Speaker 1: around to get people's statements on the event, the only
Speaker 1: people who are featured on camera are white, like a
Speaker 1: hundred percent of them. And I'm gonna play a clip
Speaker 1: from that now boring. I'm glad you're doing this. I'd
Speaker 1: like to get our constitutions back. I love you, you're
Speaker 1: doing it. We're all behind your thanks. We are Jackie
Speaker 1: and Bill Sesker. We're from Angle, Indianas and we would
Speaker 1: like to thank you that you are helping us we
Speaker 1: the ball to take back our America things. You're the
Speaker 1: man glam. What you're doing is great for America here
Speaker 1: and encouragement that all of us were fed up with
Speaker 1: the federal government. Now they are like, it's impossible. I know,
Speaker 1: I have not seen since I was James, James might die. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are a couple of extinct kinds of white guy
Speaker 1: in that video. The very last of them died to
Speaker 1: COVID when they cut a hole in the middle of
Speaker 1: their mask and went to a Luby's. It's missed. Now
Speaker 1: here's the thing I want to acknowledge, something that is
Speaker 1: impossible to deny, which is that the fact that we
Speaker 1: are laughing at them in this way is part of
Speaker 1: why they got so angry and put Trump in office right,
Speaker 1: part of why liberal tears is a thing, part of
Speaker 1: why there's so much focus on this desire of hurting
Speaker 1: the enemy. Um. But also they just all look like
Speaker 1: impossibly American, like like like these people I used to
Speaker 1: see in Barcelona. From a hundred yards away, people would
Speaker 1: be like, how do you know in American? And like
Speaker 1: my friends would be like, first of all, you've come
Speaker 1: dressed as a fucking tree yourself and this book. These
Speaker 1: are some of the people who raised me, are are not?
Speaker 1: You know? I grew up around these people. I grew
Speaker 1: up with these people. I am I am of these people. Um,
Speaker 1: I think I wear better shirts. But but but it
Speaker 1: is like you you see in this these people who
Speaker 1: feel like and that's kind of the thing they're communicating.
Speaker 1: Something has gone wrong with the country. And the thing
Speaker 1: that's gone wrong is they are looking out and people
Speaker 1: don't look like them, and in fact, people are looking
Speaker 1: at them like they look weird, and people are making
Speaker 1: fun of their ways and their customs, and this has
Speaker 1: taken them, I surprise, and they're extremely angry about it,
Speaker 1: and seeing a black man as president, which is the
Speaker 1: least anyone could look like them, right, Barack Obama many
Speaker 1: flaws two thousand nine. There was not many cooler looking
Speaker 1: dudes than Barack who Obama like And that you have
Speaker 1: to understand, like the bar is so low here that
Speaker 1: like a reasonably well dressed person is like dropping a
Speaker 1: nuclear weapon on like six cavemen. It is yeah, yeah, OK.
Speaker 1: So the show ends with Beck because they're watching Glenn
Speaker 1: Beck on a fucking projector, and it ends with him
Speaker 1: near tears. He would cry on his show constantly telling
Speaker 1: everybody there that they were all going to meet back
Speaker 1: together in six months to find some ways in which
Speaker 1: they've managed to to to add some nine twelve energy
Speaker 1: to their lives, and we'll get to this more. But
Speaker 1: the thing he's saying is that the day after nine eleven,
Speaker 1: we were the best version of ourselves as a country.
Speaker 1: Everyone was so godly and so loving and so united.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing that we need to get to
Speaker 1: deal with the horror of Barack Obama being the president. Um,
Speaker 1: and obviously the other thing happening. I shouldn't. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be unfair here. It's not just that they're
Speaker 1: scared about Barack Obama. This is two thousand nine. The
Speaker 1: economy has just completely shadow fucking brick. The housing market
Speaker 1: is through the goddamn floor. Some actually scary things are
Speaker 1: happening to It's just that they're kind of grafting all
Speaker 1: of them onto the specter that is Obama, you know.
Speaker 1: Um anyway, Uh yeah, So after this we pan out
Speaker 1: to widespread applause in this very full room, and then
Speaker 1: we cut two interviews. This time. I know everyone's going
Speaker 1: to be really excited. Here there's a baby. It's pretty cute.
Speaker 1: It's pretty it's a pretty cute baby. The young fans
Speaker 1: at that child has my reaction to this, it's so funny.
Speaker 1: It's so funny. Look at this. Let's get this baby's statement.
Speaker 1: Just shine it blinded with a light until it weeps.
Speaker 1: That's that's the good stuff. Okay, So this this video
Speaker 1: has paused on a freeze frame of a guy in
Speaker 1: a suit that when they talked to this guy they
Speaker 1: call him the best dress I'll just play it. I will,
Speaker 1: I will just play I wasn't planning to play this,
Speaker 1: but I will play it. Stry the best dress up
Speaker 1: guy here? Did we have a good time tonight? Think
Speaker 1: of the presidentation? I thought it was nice and it's
Speaker 1: nice to get together with great turnout. I know that
Speaker 1: so many people still care. You know that guy? Okay
Speaker 1: that that that exact kind of person was like the
Speaker 1: political class of like the town I grew up in.
Speaker 1: Like these are the people who were like like this
Speaker 1: is the guy? Yeah yeah, like the thing the things
Speaker 1: they get up to were like like there was a
Speaker 1: guy who was taking money from the sheriff's department to
Speaker 1: try to abolish the police so that he could install
Speaker 1: the Sheriff's department as the only law enforcement like division
Speaker 1: in this town while he tried to sell like oh god,
Speaker 1: that that is a kind of person night Like he has.
Speaker 1: He has some wrong strong Republican city comptroller energy for
Speaker 1: like a town for like a town of thirteen thousand people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's dressed much like Ricky Gervais dressed in the original office. Yeah. Dump.
Speaker 1: He is literally the guy Ricky Gervais is making fun of. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: he is so beck pared his message of government accountability
Speaker 1: as he framed it with, and this is what we're
Speaker 1: talking about, the nine twelve project, which what follows. We
Speaker 1: surround them with nine principles and twelve values, which, if followed,
Speaker 1: would help bring your heart back to the mythical nine twelve.
Speaker 1: This moment in which America was was beautiful. This this
Speaker 1: we've gone from the fifties, like there's this, there's this
Speaker 1: twenty twenty year Golden Era to like we have one
Speaker 1: great day and if we could just get back to that,
Speaker 1: everything will be fine. Um. So here's here's the nine
Speaker 1: value or nine principles. Sorry, it's nine principles and twelve values.
Speaker 1: I want you to hold me accountable if I fucked
Speaker 1: this up in the future. The nine principles are number one,
Speaker 1: America is good. Number two. I believe in God and
Speaker 1: he is the center of my life. Number three, I
Speaker 1: must always try to be a more honest person than
Speaker 1: I was yesterday. Number four. The family is sacred. My
Speaker 1: spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.
Speaker 1: And I say this a lot, but in the Roman Empire,
Speaker 1: the father of the family used to be able to
Speaker 1: execute his wife and children. And you're a fool if
Speaker 1: you think that's not what these people want things to
Speaker 1: be like. Um. Well, and their slaves too. That's also
Speaker 1: in a variable, and the slaves are a critical aspect
Speaker 1: of this. Yes. Uh. Number five. If you break the law,
Speaker 1: you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one
Speaker 1: is above it. This is, by the way, confusingly a
Speaker 1: reference to all the people who lost their home in
Speaker 1: the housing crash. Um. That's what he's talking about. That
Speaker 1: they didn't. They didn't. You know, you can't like bail
Speaker 1: people out um. Number six. I have a right to life,
Speaker 1: liberty in the pursuit of happiness, but there is no
Speaker 1: guarantee of equal results. Number seven. I work hard for
Speaker 1: what I have and I will share it with who
Speaker 1: I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.
Speaker 1: Number eight. It is not un American for me to
Speaker 1: disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion. And
Speaker 1: number nine, the government works for me. I do not
Speaker 1: answer to them. They answer to me. Now that's fun.
Speaker 1: There's there's some interesting things they're including the government can't
Speaker 1: force me to be charitable, you know I will, which
Speaker 1: like the side of that, that is something that actually
Speaker 1: happened on nine twelve is a bunch of people showed
Speaker 1: up and volunteered to, like at great personal cost because
Speaker 1: many of them got sick and died, to help pull
Speaker 1: bodies out of the rubble and try to save people. Right,
Speaker 1: and that the government literally did not need to tell
Speaker 1: people to do that because a bunch of cops actually
Speaker 1: refused to go do anything at all, ground and and
Speaker 1: the like the government the government knew about like like
Speaker 1: that the when when the government did do something, it
Speaker 1: was they they put a bunch of firefighters like inside
Speaker 1: of the range it was the dusk was toxic and
Speaker 1: then just fucking got them killed, which and then spent
Speaker 1: the next we had to have John fucking Stewart fight
Speaker 1: for them to get some kind of recompense from the
Speaker 1: federal government, which credit where it's due is a legitimately
Speaker 1: cool thing that he helped do. But like why did
Speaker 1: it fall upon the Daily Show guy to do it?
Speaker 1: Share that the guy who's doing trensch phobic bits at
Speaker 1: the same time. Yeah, yeah, Like it's kind of didn't
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz vote against healthcare benefits for these people? Yeah? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: Which again it's very funny that like the government can't
Speaker 1: force me to to to be charitable. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: what that actually ends with is people actually volunteering and
Speaker 1: risking their lives and then the government, the conservatives in
Speaker 1: the government callously voting to let them die in agony
Speaker 1: because like, well, why should I have to Oh, you
Speaker 1: do was rescue people during our country's darkst hour? Why
Speaker 1: should I have to pay? Like it's this it's amazing shit. Um,
Speaker 1: now that I'm sure you're curious about those twelve values,
Speaker 1: they're really boring. Like it's boy, it's like boy scout ship.
Speaker 1: It's like honesty, reverence, thrift, courage, Like it's not worth
Speaker 1: focusing on the thing this entire time. Think I've been
Speaker 1: thinking about this is the exact naming scheme that like,
Speaker 1: like if you just walked up to someone on the
Speaker 1: street and like asked, what what what are what are
Speaker 1: the nine principles and twelve values like this. This sounds
Speaker 1: exactly like like that. This sounds exactly like what like
Speaker 1: a like a a a mid level like a mid
Speaker 1: level Chinese bureaucrat would name their campaign to like make
Speaker 1: sure the water restoration is done properly, Like it is
Speaker 1: the exact naming scheme of like like campaign style stuff
Speaker 1: and like fucking like post post vours China. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean well, and yeah, there's a lot to say about
Speaker 1: that and about Glenn Beck, but um, you know, so
Speaker 1: I got that list of twelve principles from Glenn Beck
Speaker 1: dot com. What I find interesting is that the principles
Speaker 1: as are up on his website right now, because this
Speaker 1: is a thing he still gets into every now and again,
Speaker 1: are somewhat different from the ones that he debuted on
Speaker 1: the episode of his show in which he introduced the
Speaker 1: nine twelve project. And I found the way he worded
Speaker 1: point eight point eight is it's not un American for
Speaker 1: me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.
Speaker 1: I found the way he actually worded that in the
Speaker 1: show very interesting, And I want to play that for
Speaker 1: you now because it's it's quite a bit different. Do
Speaker 1: you agree with this? It's not Unamerican for anyone to
Speaker 1: disagree with my opinion. But my opinion or others opinions
Speaker 1: maybe anti American. Anti American rhetoric would be anything that's
Speaker 1: destructive to the Constitution and our country as the founders
Speaker 1: understood it, unless you want to change that. There it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there we go, There we go. That's the real good grievance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I respect You're right to say anything in less you're
Speaker 1: disrespecting the founders, of course, which which case, Yeah, like
Speaker 1: swat teams will commence immediately, etcetera, etcetera. We were we
Speaker 1: are reading the wrench mobs. Now, after introducing those principles,
Speaker 1: he asks his audience to mail him personal photographs so
Speaker 1: he can put them together into a big we surround
Speaker 1: them graphic, which you can find if you really want
Speaker 1: to um, it's yeah, it's if you want to get
Speaker 1: an idea of like the people who are listening to
Speaker 1: Glenn Beck, that will give it to you. Now here's
Speaker 1: what happens. Immediately after he gives the email address for
Speaker 1: people to send this to calm all right, the climate
Speaker 1: change people are pulling a page from nazis, what are
Speaker 1: your kids learning at school? Perfect moment in American television. Yeah, it's,
Speaker 1: it's it's really incredible, right, it's. It's also it's also
Speaker 1: things like you couldn't do this anymore, not because you
Speaker 1: not not not actually because you can't say that about
Speaker 1: climate change, but because if you tried to say that
Speaker 1: about the Hitler youth people will get mad at you.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, yeah, you'll you'll get in trouble. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the hate the youth defenders will be a day with
Speaker 1: very very pro environment. I can hear Tucker Carlsson saying that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's. I just want to share with everyone that
Speaker 1: manned by number five by Bob the Builder hit the
Speaker 1: UK number one spot on September twelve, two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: You know what, you know what James never forget And
Speaker 1: the Queen was still alive, then she must have loved
Speaker 1: Mambo number five. I bet there was a little bit
Speaker 1: of Monica by her side, a little bit above the
Speaker 1: Builder in the Queen. A little bit of Rita's all
Speaker 1: she needed, um get It died very sad. So the
Speaker 1: nine twelve project, as it kind of grew out of
Speaker 1: the wee s around Them campaign, if you kind of
Speaker 1: I don't know I found it written online. I can't
Speaker 1: exactly confirm this, but it seems like it kind of
Speaker 1: started um when Beck took a call on his talk
Speaker 1: radio show and this is a little bitter a couple
Speaker 1: of years earlier from a guy named Ed in New Haven,
Speaker 1: Connecticut who expressed feeling out numbered as a conservative on
Speaker 1: the American political stage. Right. And that's that's really like
Speaker 1: what the all of this kind of grew out of.
Speaker 1: It's this response to the feeling like out numbered. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think that's an important thing to understand if
Speaker 1: you're trying to get to like the thing that the
Speaker 1: thing that they want to go back to when they
Speaker 1: talk about wanting to go back to nine isn't anything
Speaker 1: to do with the actual terrorist attack. It's the fact
Speaker 1: that everyone was so frightened that they unthinking lye uh,
Speaker 1: that they unthinking lee submitted to the right wing that
Speaker 1: was in power at the time, right like like that
Speaker 1: it was that's what nine twelve is to them, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like it it was. It was the last time conservatives
Speaker 1: were able to like effectively cancel like mask cold like
Speaker 1: they like the only time cancel sulture has ever been
Speaker 1: real was like the Dixie Chicks and they could just
Speaker 1: do that, like if if you, if you didn't start
Speaker 1: all of your concerts, like if it's like Myri Miley
Speaker 1: Cyrus didn't go on stage and like say something about
Speaker 1: the troops at the beginning of a concert, like they
Speaker 1: would just destroy you and you would never be heard
Speaker 1: from again. Yeah, it was. It was literally like legitimately
Speaker 1: scary to not be unthinkingly pro America and like wildly so.
Speaker 1: And and that's what they want to get back to, right,
Speaker 1: is that the fear of actually questioning conservative hegemony. Um So,
Speaker 1: I want to play a clip from the episode in
Speaker 1: which Glenn Beck first introduces his nine twelve project to
Speaker 1: his audience of millions on March fifteen, two thousand nine.
Speaker 1: Here's how here's how this introduction goes America. They're waiting.
Speaker 1: I'm backstage right now at thoughts. I'm getting ready to
Speaker 1: show you that you are not alone this uh, this
Speaker 1: is your country. You're still in control. But it seems
Speaker 1: today like nobody gets it. Now that is a fascinating,
Speaker 1: lee blatant statement of white conservative supremacy. Right you, you're
Speaker 1: in charge, but nobody gets it. They don't understand that
Speaker 1: you're supposed to be running things right. Um, it's it's
Speaker 1: incredible how blatant it is. But it also like you
Speaker 1: do have to understand he's speaking to this real frustration.
Speaker 1: This is like where we get Trump is these millions
Speaker 1: of people are like, why don't they understand that we're
Speaker 1: supposed to be in charge? Um, there's there's an incredibly
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're going to get to this,
Speaker 1: like later there's the next video on the fucking YouTube
Speaker 1: thing is from Vices. Glenn Beck is a conservative and exile.
Speaker 1: After Trump sat a little bit about that at the end,
Speaker 1: I'll do a whole Glenn Beck episode behind the Bastards.
Speaker 1: But I really I want to keep digging into this,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna I'm gonna press play again here. You know,
Speaker 1: you've lived your while life in a responsible way. You
Speaker 1: didn't take out a loan that didn't require any kind
Speaker 1: of per proof of income, yet now you're being forced
Speaker 1: to bail those people out. You've been concerned about this
Speaker 1: country through the last administration and this administration. If you're
Speaker 1: like most people both administrations, it's not about politics. You
Speaker 1: actually believe in something and you thought for a while
Speaker 1: they're your politicians did as well, and now you kind
Speaker 1: of realize, well, maybe maybe they don't. When you come
Speaker 1: home after a hard day at work, all you want
Speaker 1: to do is put your feet up. All you want
Speaker 1: to do is just relax and just watch a little
Speaker 1: television catch up with what's happening in the world. But
Speaker 1: every time you turn that television on, it just seems
Speaker 1: like the whole world is spinning out of control. The war,
Speaker 1: Islamic extremism, Europe on the bring, even pirates now closer
Speaker 1: to home. Mexico isn't safe for vacations or kids anymore.
Speaker 1: Six thousand were killed or beheaded on our border just
Speaker 1: last year, and Phoenix now has the second highest rate
Speaker 1: of kidnapping in the world. So there's a lot going
Speaker 1: on there. But I think the thing that is most
Speaker 1: fascinating to me is that, like the way he just
Speaker 1: blatantly is like cartel violence. It's a problem because it's
Speaker 1: not safe for our kids to vacation in me to
Speaker 1: go anymore. Mexico only exists for spring break. That all
Speaker 1: problems are at their root about Americans, right, Like, that's
Speaker 1: that's what's going on here. Well, the thing that's interesting
Speaker 1: to me is like that he throws into like Europe
Speaker 1: under siege thing, which was like like one of like
Speaker 1: the big like fascist things in like that period, like
Speaker 1: word for word Europe under siege, like fortress Europe ship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is when Andy andy No started his like no
Speaker 1: ghost zone, Yeah exactly things. So right around here, maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit late. Members of my family who are
Speaker 1: extremely Caucasian living in some of those dog zones, like
Speaker 1: I lived in Europe in this period. It's it's just
Speaker 1: so ridiculous. Yeah, and it's it's incoherent, like if you
Speaker 1: look at the specifics of everything. Because he's yelling about
Speaker 1: the financial crash because he has to be angry with
Speaker 1: it because half of his market is terrified and losing
Speaker 1: money or has have lost jobs and stuff as a
Speaker 1: result of the crash. Um, but you can't. You can't
Speaker 1: portray it as a problem of corporations rapaciously destroying and
Speaker 1: hollowing out the middle class. So instead the problem is
Speaker 1: that like foreign there's a line in there about how
Speaker 1: like foreign corporations are just treating Americans like a market,
Speaker 1: which is like, well, how do Americans treat everything like
Speaker 1: of course they treat them like it's capitalism. Um, it's
Speaker 1: not very coherent. But like, what is coherent is this
Speaker 1: sense of grievance, right that we have been we as
Speaker 1: Americans have been specifically wronged. Um, we're not and and
Speaker 1: we as When he says Americans, obviously he's only referring
Speaker 1: to a specific kind of American. Um. But yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna press play again here the forgotten man?
Speaker 1: Is you the voice that no one seems to hear,
Speaker 1: just quietly saying, enforce the law, take responsibility for yourself.
Speaker 1: You can't have it all. And anybody who promised you
Speaker 1: that was a liar. Cren economic downturn, worst economic crisis,
Speaker 1: worst month of job loss. Like something is happening in America.
Speaker 1: Paradigm is about to change. Your friends and neighbors, Republicans, Democrats, Independence,
Speaker 1: They're all beginning to wake up and wonder how did
Speaker 1: this happen to us? M hmmm. So yeah, the words
Speaker 1: September two thousand and one just hit the screen as
Speaker 1: soon as he finishes that. But I mean, what you're
Speaker 1: seeing in that is like the stirrings of what becomes
Speaker 1: Trump is Um, you know, it's it's very m hmm.
Speaker 1: And there's just like photos of white people up on
Speaker 1: the left and right. Yeah, one of the most hideous,
Speaker 1: like two columns I've ever seen in a video. It's
Speaker 1: one and a half of each kid. Yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not done well. Their graphic design was science had just
Speaker 1: simply had simply not advanced to that level yet, like
Speaker 1: A need people to understand this. There are supposed to
Speaker 1: be three lines of pictures going across the screen. The
Speaker 1: middle cut Yeah, the middle line is cut in half.
Speaker 1: There was half of one person's face on each side
Speaker 1: of the screen. Yea. And what they're what's being done here?
Speaker 1: What Beca is doing here is he's trying to take
Speaker 1: the anger and like that. People still felt about nine
Speaker 1: eleven and turn it kind of towards in a different direction, right,
Speaker 1: because what it actually happened on nine eleven was that
Speaker 1: a group of terrorists had attacked the literal center of
Speaker 1: American capitalism UM and of the American military industrial complex. Right.
Speaker 1: Those targets were picked specifically because of what they were UM.
Speaker 1: The Twin Towers contained one tenth of all office space
Speaker 1: in Manhattan. Their largest tenant was Morgan Stanley, which lost
Speaker 1: over eight of its market value in the two thousand
Speaker 1: eight crash. Worst yet in beck size, the victims of
Speaker 1: the attacks are all New Yorkers. Now, I don't know,
Speaker 1: if you're not in the conservative media bubble, you may
Speaker 1: not get it, but like New Yorkers. That was like
Speaker 1: a slur, like literally like a slur to call somebody
Speaker 1: a New Yorker, right exactly. So Beck can't focus on
Speaker 1: the actual victims of nine eleven because they are people
Speaker 1: that it is in his best interest to train his
Speaker 1: audience to to despise. So instead he focuses on how
Speaker 1: nine eleven was basically an act of disrespect against the
Speaker 1: this forgotten man, right, who's now kind of surging up
Speaker 1: like that's what he's doing here, right, That's what you
Speaker 1: have to do if you're Glenn Beck, because again, you
Speaker 1: can't actually focus on the real victims of this, which
Speaker 1: is why it's not incoherent ideologically for conservatives to talk
Speaker 1: the way they do about nine twelve and then vote
Speaker 1: not to help people who were first responders and had
Speaker 1: their fucking lungs filled with poison. Um, Yeah, it's good stuff.
Speaker 1: So obviously, because Beck has to thread this needle, he
Speaker 1: focuses instead on how the attack hit American prestige and confidence.
Speaker 1: I remember how picture perfect the day was. I wasn't
Speaker 1: a cloud in the sky, and America seemed invincible, and
Speaker 1: yet in the blink of an eye, that airplane appeared
Speaker 1: to hit a little bit down the bill holding around
Speaker 1: the fifty floor. Again, it's struck flush. The skies were
Speaker 1: filled with black clouds, and our hearts were full of
Speaker 1: terror and fear. Disaster. We realized for the first time
Speaker 1: how fragile we really were. Then something happened. So now
Speaker 1: it's September twelve, and the first image we see after
Speaker 1: disaster and destruction is a group of firefighters holding a
Speaker 1: gigantic American flag with roughly the footprint of a school bus. Right,
Speaker 1: and this is this is good, right, this is and
Speaker 1: also it's a it's interesting that this is what he
Speaker 1: chooses as like the image of America, like rebounding from
Speaker 1: this great defeat, as opposed to like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: firefighters pulling people out of the rubble and say having
Speaker 1: their lives, like, no, they got a big flag and say,
Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna be okay. It makes sense though, right,
Speaker 1: like like the actual lives are unimportant. The thing that's
Speaker 1: important to save is the image of America. The flag. Yeah,
Speaker 1: on the region. So yeah, well look yeah about us.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna continue here. And we promised ourselves that we
Speaker 1: would never forget on September twelfth, and for a short
Speaker 1: time after that, we really promised ourselves that we would
Speaker 1: focus on the things that were important, our family, our friends,
Speaker 1: the eternal principles that allowed America to become the world's
Speaker 1: beacon of freedom. I can are you out the arrest
Speaker 1: of the war and that people are not the hawn.
Speaker 1: Well here all of us now. I want to point
Speaker 1: out here the choice of that clip. It's both because
Speaker 1: that was a very famous speech that Bush gave that
Speaker 1: really made his presidency in or at least the early
Speaker 1: part of it. In a lot of ways, you could
Speaker 1: argue that a significant amount of the the kind of
Speaker 1: the political capital that he expended invading Iraq came from
Speaker 1: this particular speech and generally how he handled the days
Speaker 1: after the attacks. But it's interesting that they picked this
Speaker 1: because it really is it's very much in line with
Speaker 1: this this feeling and talking about the forgotten man, talking
Speaker 1: about they're not listening to us, they don't know that
Speaker 1: we're in trouble. What Bush is saying here is literal
Speaker 1: words are, um, I hear you, and the people who
Speaker 1: knocked these towers down are going to hear you. Right you,
Speaker 1: Your your anger will have a reaction in the world. Right,
Speaker 1: it will be met with fire and fury. Right, Like
Speaker 1: that is that is the promise being made. And it's
Speaker 1: this this undercurrent and everything Beck's doing here of the
Speaker 1: thing that he is working with the clay that he
Speaker 1: is molding is the fact that these people don't feel
Speaker 1: listened to and like and that they deserve to be
Speaker 1: listened to, and that the when they're angry at something,
Speaker 1: it should be hurt. Right, Like that's that's the under
Speaker 1: curtis talking about family and togetherness, but like that's what
Speaker 1: he's actually promising people. I'm really interested in this, Like,
Speaker 1: like I don't this is probably like nine twelve or
Speaker 1: wheneveryone he's getting this speech. I think I always come back.
Speaker 1: It's weird given where conserpatism has gone, right, and like
Speaker 1: he's taken this in very much a clash of civilizations direction.
Speaker 1: But like Bush was giving like Islam is the fabric
Speaker 1: of America speeches that week he was speaking in mosques
Speaker 1: and two Muslims and being like that, like this is
Speaker 1: not a clash of civilizations. Obviously, fucking he even went
Speaker 1: and fucking killed millions of Muslims, right, most of them
Speaker 1: innocent Sybilians who had nothing to do with nearly all
Speaker 1: of them. Right. But yeah, it's just interesting that like
Speaker 1: his Bush who was giving this like, this isn't a
Speaker 1: clash of civilization thing, and to become a clash of
Speaker 1: civilizations thing like eight years later. Yeah, yeah, and it's become,
Speaker 1: but in a very different way, right, because one of
Speaker 1: the things that I think is happening here is the
Speaker 1: problems that Americans, regular Americans are facing in two thousand
Speaker 1: nine are this massive economic strife caused by predatory lending,
Speaker 1: outright fraudulent business practices by major banks, the fact that
Speaker 1: the legal system had been changed in order to allow
Speaker 1: this massive con to go on, um, and then it
Speaker 1: had been followed by this massive chrony capitalist bailout that
Speaker 1: ignored regular working people. Glynn doesn't want his viewers to
Speaker 1: focus on all of that, right, because those are his backers, right.
Speaker 1: But what so, instead, what he's doing is he's taking
Speaker 1: they feel disrespected and vulnerable because they have been Right now,
Speaker 1: there's unreasonable aspects to that, but they have been disrespected
Speaker 1: by the people who are stealing like all of the
Speaker 1: money in the country and sucking them over too, and
Speaker 1: leaving their homes hollowed out pil adicted waste lands. Um.
Speaker 1: But you can't focus on that. The cure is the
Speaker 1: that Beck offers them is not materially improving anyone's conditions.
Speaker 1: It's not altering the systems that people cannot prey upon
Speaker 1: others that way. It's by striking someone else. It's by
Speaker 1: striking back at that sense of agrievement. Right, it's by
Speaker 1: this is what's going to turn into owning the Libs, right,
Speaker 1: just hurting the left. Conservatism now is purely about harming
Speaker 1: groups of people they view as opposed to them. Um.
Speaker 1: That's part of why trans people are so focused on
Speaker 1: by the right right now, is that it's the symbol
Speaker 1: of liberalism to them and they want to hurt that symbol. Right.
Speaker 1: This is this is the answer Beck is offering, and
Speaker 1: it's going to be adopted by the thought leaders of conservatism.
Speaker 1: We don't need to focus on doing anything. Nothing can
Speaker 1: be done right, Nothing can be done. The grift is
Speaker 1: running out, collapses coming. All that we can do is
Speaker 1: redirect the anger they feel it being fucked by us
Speaker 1: towards hurting other people. That's that's the magic that Beck
Speaker 1: is pulling off here. It's pretty cool. It's interesting too,
Speaker 1: pretty well, Like it's interesting to compare this, I think,
Speaker 1: to like both Reagan and um like Reagan and Nixon,
Speaker 1: because this is very very similar to Nixon talking about
Speaker 1: like the silent majority and the stuff re doing. But
Speaker 1: it's like those people have an actual political project, like
Speaker 1: like Reagan, Reagan is to trying to completely annihilate the
Speaker 1: welfare state and like, you know, dude, like they have
Speaker 1: stuff they're trying to do, but like post Bush was
Speaker 1: like but but Bush was the time they tried to
Speaker 1: like do stuff. And it's like like Bush is so
Speaker 1: hated by this point that like like even Glenn Beck
Speaker 1: at the beginning of this is being like, well, we
Speaker 1: had concerns about the last administration too, and I was like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: because he's like just by by every conceivable metric, just
Speaker 1: completely like annihilated the United States. But yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: it's it's this interesting thing that like, yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: this is the first time they've talked like this, but
Speaker 1: the level of nihilism is just like so much like
Speaker 1: the politics has been emptied of content to like such
Speaker 1: a greater extent. And I think I think part of
Speaker 1: it to also what's happening here is that like there's
Speaker 1: like the like the the only thing left like for
Speaker 1: sort of like the capitalist who are backing back, like
Speaker 1: the only thing left for them that they could possibly
Speaker 1: win is getting rid of Social Security and they kind
Speaker 1: of like Obama gave him the chance to do it,
Speaker 1: and they kind of like blew it. But like they
Speaker 1: don't like this is like the agies they they actually have,
Speaker 1: like they're there's like there's there's tax racilis, like there's
Speaker 1: not actually anything for them really to do, but they
Speaker 1: still have to sort of like maintain this constant vigilance
Speaker 1: against anyone even remotely trying to make the world better
Speaker 1: by taking away some of their power. And I think
Speaker 1: that's like another angle of why all of this is
Speaker 1: just sort of like this like incredibly empty nihilism, because
Speaker 1: that's like that that's the only politics you can have
Speaker 1: to defending group people who have won. Yep. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: that's a good note to end on. Um. I hope
Speaker 1: you have all enjoyed getting to meet Glenn Beck in
Speaker 1: the nine and twelve project. I know I have enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: Uh goodbye. It Could Happen Here as a production of
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: visit our website cool zone media dot com or check
Speaker 1: us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources
Speaker 1: for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone
Speaker 1: Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.