Elmer Gantry, ver. 64.2.10
If you’re Glenn Beck, the Lonesome Rhodes path to supremacy is blocked with a Limbaugh-sized… ego. That guy ain’t going away without a fight that would damage both contenders. On the other hand, there’s an opening for Heartland America™’s Most Conspicuous Jeebus Huckster—Franklin Graham just doesn’t have his old man’s charisma, and Rick Warren is tainted by his association with… you know… ‘poor people’, let’s call it. Pious Gated-Community Americans don’t pay tithes to Goldline.com to sit in an un-airconditioned pew next to someone who couldn’t get past their HOA!
Since he’s supposed to have attended a Jesuit school, I’m sure young Glenn flirted with the idea of joining the Fabulous Prado Shoes branch of the Catholic hierarchy, but getting even a decently comfortable monseigniorship can take decades of hard work (look at what all those years of dedicated syncophancy have done to Joseph Ratzinger). However, Joseph Smith, Jr. provided a golden template for an ambitious young American chuch-shopper with a bipolar talent for stagemanship. Hey, it’s not like Willard Romney was going to draw the rubes looking for a little upbeat entertainment with their hate-mongering! The Free Market (all praise be upon it) abhors a vacuum!
If the Reclaiming Our Victimhood trope takes off… well, try typing ‘Lonesome Rhodes’ into Wikipedia and read the prompts. They may have to re-direct to Sinclair Lewis’s character, “wrapped in the flag, and carrying a Bible”.
August 31, 2010 6:11 pm
Posted in: Assholes, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell, C.R.E.A.M., Green Balloons
41 Comments
41 Responses
HyperIon - August 31, 2010 | 6:26 pm · Link
Ya know, I’m sure you have a point.
But I think it’s too subtle for me.
toujoursdan - August 31, 2010 | 6:42 pm · Link
Glenn Beck et al, practises a type of Christianity most Christians wouldn’t recognize. Go to Europe and those still involved with the church tend to be left-of-centre. My own Anglican/Church of England/Episcopal Church has always had a large Christian soçialist contingent.
—-1 John 3:17-18
—-Romans 12
Origuy - August 31, 2010 | 6:49 pm · Link
If any movie cried out to be remade, it’s this one. I’m thinking George Clooney in the title role.
inkadu - August 31, 2010 | 6:53 pm · Link
I think blog writers are trying to register their disgust with Glenn Beck. Since we’ve already said he’s exploiting America’s facist, racist, jingoistic tendencies—which is terrifying enough— we need to move on to other ways to talk about Glenn Beck so we can still talk about him without boring ourselves to death.
Beck is a supremely simple subject, but unfortunately, it’s made itself into a rather prominent one.
Scott - August 31, 2010 | 6:55 pm · Link
If any movie cried out to be remade, it’s this one. I’m thinking George Clooney in the title role.
I bet you could get Beck himself to play the role dirt cheap.
geg6 - August 31, 2010 | 6:58 pm · Link
Anne Laurie, this post is a thing of beauty. And I have no doubt that Beck is using the Elmer Gantry playbook. My sister, a literature and communications professor, and I have been remarking on the resemblance for months now. He’s just the latest iteration of a true American stereotype that encompasses such characters from both fiction and real life. Coughlin, Lindburgh, William Jennings Bryant, all messianic nuts, wrapping themselves in the flag, cynically perverting their religions, and exploiting the hate and fear of their cowardly and hateful idiot America.
They are the absolute worst of America. But they are right about one thing: they ARE true Americans, of a type which has always been prominent among us. I just hope that the other type of true American, the exact opposite of these cretins, as embodied by the giants these assholes attempt to co-opt, still have the heart to make sure these fuckers never, in the end, win.
maya - August 31, 2010 | 7:03 pm · Link
Well, Martin Luther used to be a Catholic and look what happened there. Not surprising that he appropriated MLK, Jr’s speech and day. He’s starting his own new American made Reclaimation Church. His LDS tour is/was probably just for research. ” GoldenTemplate” fits like a glove.
This also explains his May Sermon on the Murdock extorting his following to flee their church if it has any reference to “social or economic justice’. His code for communism and nazism. Where would they flee to? Why to his Reclaimation Church. Could there be a Becktown, Guyana in the offing? One can only hope so.
arguingwithsignposts - August 31, 2010 | 7:21 pm · Link
That is a beautiful turn of phrase. {golf clap}
BobS - August 31, 2010 | 7:27 pm · Link
I’ve been wondering for awhile if the hoax Beck is pulling off might not be on us as well as the rubes we want to feel superior to. What really cemented that thought was Saturday’s ‘Miracle of the Canada Geese’.
I’ve read that one of his early inspirations was Orson Welles War of the Worlds broadcast, not to mention the possibility of his being influenced by popular parody and satire of the time (that coincided with his adolescence) like Fernwood/America 2 Night, the early drug-addled SNL, National Lampoon’s glory days, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Firesign Theatre, etc.
I’m hoping one of these days, when he’s bled his marks until they have nothing left to bleed, he opens his show with “You dumb fuckers….”
Erik - August 31, 2010 | 7:33 pm · Link
Besides the strangeness of the evangelical/mormon alignment, Mormonism was originally shaded, at least, with communitarianism/communism. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H....._communism
JITC - August 31, 2010 | 7:41 pm · Link
Beck and his cohorts (see: interview with Dr. Land on NPR’s “All Things Considered” yesterday) defended the rally by noting that all sorts of faiths were represented. Land said “We had rabbis praying. We had Catholic priests praying. We had Muslim imams praying and participating. We had Protestant Christians” as an example that they were inclusive.
I guess all faiths have validity (even Islam apparently) except for whatever they deem Obama to believe in.
But more importantly. It. Doesn’t. Matter. What. Any. President. Believes. In. Religion is not a requirement for any elected office because we are not a theocracy.
Hey teatards this is why we have separation of church and state people! So “Pres. Hussein Obama” can’t impose his “Islamic-liberation-theology” all over us.
morzer - August 31, 2010 | 7:46 pm · Link
I hate to be picky, but the PRADO is a rather good art museum and art gallery in Madrid. I believe that the Catholic church’s highflier cohort wears PRADA.
Mnemosyne - August 31, 2010 | 7:46 pm · Link
@Origuy:
Sadly, Clooney’s too old. But I could see Leonardo Di Caprio or Matt Damon kicking ass in the role.
oldswede - August 31, 2010 | 7:58 pm · Link
No doubt, Beck the huckster has had an epiphany. I believe that he realized that the true American road to riches and political power lies through religion. His new role models are not the fictional hypocrite Elmer Gantry, but the real-life success stories of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Praise the Lord, gimme that ol’ time religion and pass the collection plate.
oldswede
Linda Featheringill - August 31, 2010 | 8:02 pm · Link
@geg6:
I thought about Coughlin to compare to Beck but decided that Beck is too vague. Coughlin was seriously on point. Seriously.
And of course Lindburgh was much more magnetic. And more accomplished, I might add.
[Don’t really know about Billy Bryant.]
What we need is for the FSM to graciously deign to get involved and offer Beck a lot of money if he will go off on a tangent, somewhere out of our lives. Maybe he could even live overseas somewhere or something.
WereBear - August 31, 2010 | 8:15 pm · Link
Maybe Matt Damon.
Though there is still no one who combined the physicality and the cerebral qualities of Burt Lancaster. Elmer Gantry (the character) had to have that klieg light charisma for it to work on film.
But good on you Anne Laurie; Beck is simply following that template, and it really doesn’t matter what he says, as long as he has the hypnotic cadences and theatrical pauses.
These are people who fall for Palin’s word salad and Limbaugh’s deep voice and shallow ideas. I maintain that it is because their lives are so shallow, so bereft, so barren, that they are incredibly vulnerable to those who press the correct buttons.
It’s both sad and dangerous.
Violet - August 31, 2010 | 8:19 pm · Link
“A Face in the Crowd” is one of the best movies ever made. I had to watch it for a class and by the time it finished I was sitting there with my jaw hitting the floor. I had no idea this media stuff had been going on for as long as it had. It’s really tremendous and Andy Griffith is brilliant.
@Mnemosyne:
Not De Caprio. His voice isn’t good enough and the lead character has to have a good radio or TV voice. Matt Damon would be really good. If you have ever seen him in “The Talented Mr. Ripley” you know he can play the charming amoral character very well.
El Cid - August 31, 2010 | 8:23 pm · Link
At least Lonesome Rhodes was musically talented.
GeorgeSalt - August 31, 2010 | 8:23 pm · Link
Beck is opening a can of worms here. Quite a few evangelicals say that Mormons are not Christians.
El Cid - August 31, 2010 | 8:30 pm · Link
By the way, given as many times as John Cole has (appropriately) bitched about the role of credit ratings agencies in the financial
heistcollapse, this might ought be front page:Tim in Wisconsin - August 31, 2010 | 8:36 pm · Link
Clearly you know jack about the Jesuits, or else you’d know that the have as much love forthe Prada-wearing pontiff as you do.
geg6 - August 31, 2010 | 8:37 pm · Link
@Linda Featheringill:
Look into him. A huge force of populist fervor. Look up the Cross of Gold speech some time. A complicated character, with some good ideas and some bad. But a demagogue for sure and a racist to boot.
El Cid - August 31, 2010 | 8:38 pm · Link
@geg6: Another trend spun by the most important era of the US’ modern history and therefore completely ignored, Reconstruction to Redemption.
geg6 - August 31, 2010 | 8:40 pm · Link
@Tim in Wisconsin:
Interesting. Because none of the Jesuits I know think much of him.
Anne Laurie - August 31, 2010 | 8:46 pm · Link
@morzer: I’m gonna claim I was thinking of the ecclesiastical grandees in El Greco’s paintings. Beck would probably love his portrait to be done in that style, although I think Goya (“the sleep of reason produces monsters”) would be a more accurate portrayer.
WereBear - August 31, 2010 | 8:47 pm · Link
@Anne Laurie: In the end, it will be Salvador Dali.
geg6 - August 31, 2010 | 8:48 pm · Link
@El Cid:
Sad, what our education system has come to, isn’t it? Of course, we seem to be re-living the period, robber barons, demonized immigrants and “others,” demagogues, and anarchists. You have to wonder if the lack of teaching of that period of history might have been deliberate. Kinda like the Texas school book purge is.
Anne Laurie - August 31, 2010 | 8:56 pm · Link
@Tim in Wisconsin:
Well, I spent twelve years in Dominican parochial schools being told “Too bad you weren’t born a boy—you’d have made a great Jesuit.” So my perspective may be a bit skewed. But while the members of the Society of Jesus have always had a complicated relationship with the Custom-Tailored Vestments branch of Mother Church (as Jerry Brown, Garry Wills or Daniel Berrigan can attest), they’ve always been fervent recruiters of bright young lads with a knack for showmanship. I don’t think an adolescent with Beck’s “gifts” would have been overlooked. There are still plenty of men (by no means all of them gay) who enter the seminary because it offers a level of glamour and theatricality, and also power over others, that’s not otherwise accessible to them.
Bill - August 31, 2010 | 8:57 pm · Link
Too bad noone thought to suggest liberals turn out in large enough numbers to supply a laugh track.
master c - August 31, 2010 | 9:07 pm · Link
Prada. sorry.
ruemara - August 31, 2010 | 9:19 pm · Link
That is brilliant, I love Toles! And, as a pagan, wtf, why do we have to have this douche assigned to our team? Hate TOLES!
Chad N Freude - August 31, 2010 | 9:20 pm · Link
@morzer: I wasn’t able to get to this earlier, but my first thought when I saw the typo was how appropriate to juxtapose Beck with the museum that houses the dark, grotesque paintings of Goya. Fortuitous typo, that.
Chad N Freude - August 31, 2010 | 9:26 pm · Link
@morzer: “Rather good”. In the same way that Beck is rather stupid, or “Modern Family” is rather amusing, or Jane Lynch is a rather good actress. I would live in the Prado if they’d rent me a room. Or a gallery.
stickler - August 31, 2010 | 9:59 pm · Link
@geg6: Hey now, geg6, let’s be a little careful here.
William Jennings Bryan doesn’t belong in the same category as Coughlin, not by a long shot. He was, indeed, a convinced Evangelical, and yes his politics tended to be naive and yes he got his ass kicked by the GOP a few times. But he really, truly was on the side of the working man and the farmer. Read the “Cross of Gold” speech some time: it’s some pretty damned fine populist speechifying.
And if that isn’t enough to set him apart from hack demagoguery, remember too that he was principled enough to quit Wilson’s Administration (Sec. of State) when it became obvious that Wilson was turning a blind eye to British war crimes while going after the Germans.
stickler - August 31, 2010 | 10:02 pm · Link
And I’ll add: Bryan was right about the Gold Standard, and McKinley was wrong, or at least completely comfortable with the misery that tight money inflicted on workers, farmers, and the poor.
Delia - August 31, 2010 | 10:36 pm · Link
I am not now nor ever have been RC, but it’s my understanding that the Dominicans and the Jesuits have hated each other for centuries.
I was raised Mormon, though, so I follow any news involving the LDS, and I remember reading something in which the SLC Brethren were taking a very careful hands-off approach to Glenn. I think they sort of sense he could blow up in their faces.
morzer - September 1, 2010 | 1:52 am · Link
@Chad N Freude:
Understatement, son, understatement. It gets them every time.
geg6 - September 1, 2010 | 8:23 am · Link
@stickler:
That speech is demagoguery and completely over the top, other than it may have had a point. Bryan was NOT one of the good guys, IMHO. Like I said, he was a complicated guy, but I don’t EVER have any soft spots for evangelical demagogues, even if I sometimes agree with the policies they may advocate. Fuck that. I give no quarter to anyone who decides it’s the best thing ever to conflate religion and policy/politics. I am against that in every form.
DMD - September 1, 2010 | 11:49 am · Link
I see Beck as more of an L. Ron Hubbard type.
LarsThorwald - September 1, 2010 | 12:19 pm · Link
Well, since we are discussing the Prado and Glenn Beck in the same thread, I think it is appropos for me to say that when and if the Right takes power again in America (coming soon!), the bill we will have to pay will remind us all of Goya’s depiction of Saturn eating his son.
I went to the Prado in 1993, and I stared at that painting for a quarter-hour.
Draylon Hogg - September 1, 2010 | 1:55 pm · Link
Don’t Mormons still have have to pay ten per cent of their income to the church? You know, like good Muslims.