1 Boring Old Man

Fox News Polls Glenn Beck’s Fear That ‘The Whole U.S. Economic System Could Break Down’
ThinkProgress
March 01, 2010

On the November 23, 2009, the New York Times published an article warning about the “wave of debt payments facing the U.S. government.” Later that day, on his Fox News show, Glenn Beck used the article as a jumping off point to discuss “the three scenarios that we could be facing: recession, depression, or collapse.” In the case of potential “collapse,” Beck recommended his audience follow “the 3G system” of “God, gold and guns.” Watch it:

The “3G” show was hardly the only time Beck warned of total breakdown of the U.S. economy. On June 5, 2009 Beck declared that “if we don’t come to some common sense, we’re facing the destruction of our country.” Weeks later, he predicted that “we’re all going to be living under a bridge soon, fending off bums with a beer bottle.”

Now, it appears that Beck’s employer is taking his fearmongering seriously. On Friday, Fox News released a poll in which it asked respondents if they’ve taken particular actions “out of concern the whole U.S. economic system could breakdown.” The public, it seems, has largely ignored Beck’s advice:

Unfortunately, the Fox poll did not ask whether the gold and gun-buying respondents watch Beck’s show. As ThinkProgress has previously noted, though Beck’s shows often combines economic fearmongering with gold advocacy, he rarely mentions that he receives financial support from gold companies.

I still don’t get it. I mean I get why Glenn Beck is hawking gold. That’s how he makes his living. Can’t blame the guy for making a buck here and there. But his warnings of financial collapse don’t lead to God, Gold, and Guns.

It seems like this is a repeat of whatever Y2K was supposed to be about. People were buying generators, bags of rice, canned foods, Guns, and I think Gold and God were in there too. But I genuinely don’t get this particular line of thought. It has something to do with the likes of the tea-baggers, the militias, the left-over Y2Kers, the Aryan Nation, creationists, the NRA, survivalists, some fundamentalists, some right-to-lifers, and other sorts – but I still don’t get what it’s about, what the point is. Whatever it’s about, Glenn Beck is to these people as Jimmy Bakker and Pat Robertson were to the fringy christians that watched them on television. Maybe it gives structure to the emptiness, or substance to their fears. I wonder if Glenn Beck is planning to open a time-share theme park like Jimmy Bakker did [He could probably get Heritage USA for a song]…