Milbank: Beck is “dangerous,” gives “fringe conspiracy theories” a large audience
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
From the October 3 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources:
KURTZ: Beck says a lot of inflammatory things. That's part of his style. You see him as peddling conspiracy theories and talking about Nazis a lot.
MILBANK: Yes. I think over his first 18 months, “Nazis” came up in his show 200 times, “fascists” another 200 times. Poor Goebbels only got two dozen mentions.
But that's a constant them, but it's also the floating of the fringe conspiracies. Even Bill O'Reilly has said he believes that Beck is successful because he's willing to take it about five steps further than O'Reilly is. And that is by going on “Fox & Friends” and saying, “I can't debunk the idea that our federal government, through FEMA, is operating concentration camps in Wyoming.”
KURTZ: But he didn't endorse that, but you're saying he raised it.
MILBANK: He said, “I can't disprove it.” Then a month later, he gets on the show and said, oh, actually, it turns out those were doctored photos from a North Korean prison.
KURTZ: So he corrected.
MILBANK: He corrected it a month later, after a rather violent incident related to that.
KURTZ: OK. Well, you talk about going too far, and maybe this is related to this.
There was a 2009 murder in Pittsburgh, and allegedly committed by a guy who believes that the New World Order and government are plotting against our citizens. You say in the book, “It goes a bit too far to blame Glenn Beck for this, but Beck's words are inspiring the fringe.”
Now, isn't that guilt by association?
MILBANK: Well, except that the people who are committing these acts often mentioned Glenn Beck themselves. We had another case of a guy shooting at the cops out in San Francisco, attempted to blow up the Tides Foundation, which was mentioned on Beck's show.
KURTZ: But what if somebody committed a violent act and said, you know, I read Dana Milbank's columns and I really think -- I'm --
(CROSSTALK)
MILBANK: That's why I say it goes too far to hold him responsible for that. But when you have a guy who's taking, as the Anti-Defamation League says, these fringe conspiracy theories and giving them an audience of, I don't know, 10 million people a week on the radio, nearly three million a night on Fox News, you're elevating something that has always been on the fringe in American politics and putting it front and center. So while you can't be blamed for any individual act, it is evidence that he is disseminating a very dangerous doctrine.
KURTZ: You think he's dangerous?
MILBANK: Well, I think it's been manifestly true that he's dangerous, but he's very powerful as well.
KURTZ: You haven't proven that he's dangerous. You've proven that -- you've argued that he says a lot of things that you don't like.
MILBANK: Well, and when a man is frequently talking about Hitler and Nazis, and then you see the Tea Party rally with the same quotations of Tea Parties and Nazis, the one-world government, the United Nations taking over civilization, posters of Dachau, you have to say, where does all this come from and why is it suddenly out in the open?
So, yes, that's why I think it's dangerous.
KURTZ: So you mentioned his big audience. I mean, he gets a huge number in the afternoon on Fox, radio audience. So what makes him so popular? What do you make of the people who tune in for inspiration?
MILBANK: I think it is just that. I mean, in a country of 310 million people, two million watching him is not a huge number. But it's a huge number -- a small number of very passionate followers.
Now, I mean, I think some of this is he very cleverly speaks to -- he's a Mormon, very cleverly speaks in terms of Mormon prophesy and conspiracy theories. I think that generates some of his audience. And some of it is also out of fear.
He talks about the world is ending. People advertise for vegetable seeds on his show so you can keep it in a locked box, and when the apocalypse comes, you can plant it and grow vegetables in your back yard. He's pushing gold coins. So, his audience is very frightened people who really think the end is coming.
KURTZ: All right. I'll tune in to see whether he talks about Dana Milbank on his show this week.
Previously:
Beck doth protest too much, methinks
Beck continues long history of invoking Nazis by comparing Fox to the Jews during the Holocaust