Glenn Beck's 9/12 Project

Robert sits down with James and Mia to talk about Glenn Beck's plan to lock America into a permanent state of reaction to 9/11.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Oh boy, it's nine eleven, but a day after it's
you will be listening to this on nine twelve, after
you have um finished whatever it is that you do
on nine eleven either either be sad or uh tell
jokes or nothing at all. Um, it's all fine. There's
no wrong thing to do when you're thinking about a

(00:27):
day where a really fucked up thing happened. But that's
actually untrue. There is one wrong thing to do, and
we're going to talk about the wrong thing today because
most people, I think, think back to the day after
nine eleven as oh, everybody was like out of their
minds with like grief and fear and saying some really
fucked up shit and generating a kind of fury that

(00:50):
acted as propulsion and justification for a lot of very
very bad things. Um. And it's not in general a
time that we should look back on with particular pride
or or certainly what's the word I'm looking for here, um, nostalgia?
Everyone that is except for Glenn Beck. Um. Now, James,

(01:12):
we've got James stout here. Chris, Hey, Chris, what do
you what do y'all know about Glenn Beck? Because James,
you are this is controversial to say, but I think
we should rip a vand aid off British. Um and Chris,
you're very young, so I'm wondering how much do you
know about Mr. Beck? He was like the my memory

(01:33):
of him, he was kind of like the well, I
don't know or is not quite the right word, but
he was like he he was like like the guy
in sort of like right wing ship head like punditry
for a while. My memory of him he was like
he was like a slightly more put together Alex Jones,
Like he had like the weird pinboards and ship and like,

(01:56):
is is this the right guy? Yeah, he's Alex Jones
with a budget in terms of end of the space
he fills. Um, James, did you know did you catch
much of him? No? So my engagement with Glenn Beck
is mostly through like teaching American history classes and trying
to explain like the explosion in lies and bullshit and

(02:17):
hate that immediately follows nine eleven. Yeah, and so they
know they've never really heard his stuff. Yeah, Glenn Beck,
he's he's doing radio, ship and stuff before nine eleven.
By the time he actually comes on the scene, it's
a few years after nine eleven and he gets a
show on Fox News. UM and Glenn Is. You know,

(02:38):
I watched him every night. My parents always watched him.
My dad considered him to be like a really good historian, Um,
which is bleak um a lot, but he was. He
was He was a unique sounding figure. So when Glenn
Beck comes onto the stage, right, the biggest dude in
right wing media is still Rush Limbaugh. But rush Is
has kind of taken a back seat in the last

(03:01):
couple of years, especially right after nine eleven. Two guys
like Um, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Riley, you know, and
those are kind they are kind of like they are
powerhouses and right wing media. And then you've got, well
those guys are on TV. You've got this cast of
people who are like bargain basement discount Rush Limbaughs on
the radio that are all kind of waiting in the

(03:21):
wings for their chance to be the next big TV hero. UM.
And those guys include people like Um, Um, like Glenn Beck,
and also folks like Michael Savage. Um, there's a couple
of a lot of maniacs that you probably have not
heard of that we don't need to dredge up. But
Glenn Beck kind of sales out of the fever swamps
of the right wing media UM and gets a fucking

(03:43):
TV show on Fox News, and in very short order
he is the biggest fucking thing on the network. Fox
News is the most popular network in the country, and
Glenn Beck is their number one host. In two thousand nine,
he's pulling in something like three million viewers a night.
And yeah, he's he's he's very very influential. UM. And

(04:05):
this is the point in time and two thousand nine,
by the way, the other thing that's happened that's big
in right wing media circles is Barack Obama has been
elected president. Now, yeah, you've got birtherism happening, but in general,
I think one good way to think about it is
that nine eleven super charges the right, but in a

(04:26):
very like populist way in a because there's this expectation,
like we talked about in the last episode, this expectation
that people are coming back to God because there's been
a big disaster, We're going to war, and war always
benefits you know, the conservatives in the in the you know,
the party, like, we're gonna win this war, and that's
going to be huge for US. UM. And you also
have like just this this sense because Bush becomes the

(04:48):
most popular president anyone can remember having that the type
of history is with conservatism, you know, in the immediate
wake of nine eleven, and then that all goes to
ship because conservatives have terrible ideas for everything, um, and
they launched two disastrous wars, and by two thousand and nine,
there's not a lot of people who are gonna like
admit in public, no, I think we both those wars
were good ideas that were handled well. Right. Even the

(05:12):
people who were who were real bullish about that stuff
are like, well, you know, they didn't do this right
or that right, or it's impossible to win in that
part of the world. And you know, it was that's
the I heard different versions of that from from different
family members and stuff. But there's this this real sense
of aggrievement and in the wake of Bush, like it's

(05:32):
it's kind of taken for granted because about how disastrous
his his presidency had been. That um, he was not
you know, it's not going to be a Republican who
won that election. Um. But the fact that it is
Barack Obama, a black guy, they lose their goddamn minds.
I think they've been ready for I think even they
would have been fine with Hillary Clinton. Obviously they would

(05:53):
have liked gone nuts on her like they did on Bill,
but like I think they would have, I don't think
that would have caused them to go crazy a way
that Obama did. Um. It is it is not wrong
to compare the impact to nine eleven in a lot
of ways, because it's this massive shock that shakes the
center of their world that they view as an attack,
as an assault on like white middle class Americans, and

(06:18):
the shock waves of that. I mean, we're still dealing
with them. But one of the things that's that's happening
here is that after nine eleven they had this sense
that history is with us, momentum is with us. And
after Obama gets elected, you see the conservative movement get
much more insular and much more conspiratorial and much more
focused on like grievance and anger and revenge um because

(06:41):
they know they're nothing's going to bring back the people,
so there's there's kind of nothing but but vengeance UM,
and Beck is the guy who's going to tap most
effectively into this feeling, this feeling of fear and this
need to feel like you're like you were right after
nine eleven, when it like everything was surging forward in

(07:01):
the rights direction. And so in two thousand nine he
launches what he calls the We Surround Them campaign. Now,
the we in this I think is supposed to be
conservatives and them is the government. But I think you
can assume other you know, if you think about the
urban rural divide in this country, there's another meaning to
that sort of thing. Um. Now, this, this is a

(07:23):
series of segments and specials on beck show that grew
very popular. It's so popular, in fact, that a lot
of local right wing organizations start hosting viewing parties. And
this becomes like the earliest stirrings of the Tea party movement. Right,
all of these right wing radio stations and stuff, these
local talk radio stations and other organizations are holding viewing
parties for to watch Glenn Beck talk about you know,

(07:45):
his do his We Surround Them act. And I'm gonna
play a clip for you now from one of these
viewing parties. We're gonna play a couple of eclips. This
is from one filmed by a talk radio station in
Fort Wayne, Georgia. UM and Uh, yeah, it's it's it's
something else, all right, So I want to, um, I
want to play this for you. I think it's a
fascinating artifact. And how the radio host chooses to introduce

(08:07):
the event is noteworthy, as is the man's appearance was
six hundred six freaks watching Glenn Beck on Fox News
for Project It's amazing. So well, what it's interesting to me,
I think it's it's kind of worth going over a
couple of things there because that's that doesn't seem like

(08:28):
a lot. But the fact that he he describes the
guy the people in there is sick freaks and and
and then like we're sick freaks, but like kind of
taking pride and that that's what he assumes liberals would
call them for watching Glenn Beck. You can see a
shade in this of a lot of liberals because they're dumb.
We're taken by surprise when like Hillary Clinton called Trump
supporters a basket of deplorables and they immediately adopted that

(08:50):
name for themselves. Again, you see the stirrings of it here,
right like, this is this is what the movement's turned into. Um,
you're taking pride in the fact that you're outnumbered and despised.
Also the project, I'm intrigued. Oh yes, that's that is
that is coming. We're we're building to that. Um. So anyway,

(09:10):
we get some rock and guitar licks, just just some
some of the best preloaded writes, free guitar music I've
ever heard. And then we pan into this very full
conference room. There's like six people in this thing and
they are, as far as I can tell, all white. Um.
It is certain that the only people they talk to
when they do like because you know, the camera goes
around to get people's statements on the event, the only

(09:33):
people who are featured on camera are white, like a
hundred percent of them. And I'm gonna play a clip
from that now boring. I'm glad you're doing this. I'd
like to get our constitutions back. I love you, you're
doing it. We're all behind your thanks. We are Jackie
and Bill Sesker. We're from Angle, Indianas and we would

(09:55):
like to thank you that you are helping us we
the ball to take back our America things. You're the
man glam. What you're doing is great for America here
and encouragement that all of us were fed up with
the federal government. Now they are like, it's impossible. I know,

(10:17):
I have not seen since I was James, James might die. Yeah,
there are a couple of extinct kinds of white guy
in that video. The very last of them died to
COVID when they cut a hole in the middle of
their mask and went to a Luby's. It's missed. Now

(10:41):
here's the thing I want to acknowledge, something that is
impossible to deny, which is that the fact that we
are laughing at them in this way is part of
why they got so angry and put Trump in office right,
part of why liberal tears is a thing, part of
why there's so much focus on this desire of hurting
the enemy. Um. But also they just all look like

(11:02):
impossibly American, like like like these people I used to
see in Barcelona. From a hundred yards away, people would
be like, how do you know in American? And like
my friends would be like, first of all, you've come
dressed as a fucking tree yourself and this book. These

(11:23):
are some of the people who raised me, are are not?
You know? I grew up around these people. I grew
up with these people. I am I am of these people. Um,
I think I wear better shirts. But but but it
is like you you see in this these people who
feel like and that's kind of the thing they're communicating.

(11:46):
Something has gone wrong with the country. And the thing
that's gone wrong is they are looking out and people
don't look like them, and in fact, people are looking
at them like they look weird, and people are making
fun of their ways and their customs, and this has
taken them, I surprise, and they're extremely angry about it,
and seeing a black man as president, which is the
least anyone could look like them, right, Barack Obama many

(12:08):
flaws two thousand nine. There was not many cooler looking
dudes than Barack who Obama like And that you have
to understand, like the bar is so low here that
like a reasonably well dressed person is like dropping a
nuclear weapon on like six cavemen. It is yeah, yeah, OK.

(12:29):
So the show ends with Beck because they're watching Glenn
Beck on a fucking projector, and it ends with him
near tears. He would cry on his show constantly telling
everybody there that they were all going to meet back
together in six months to find some ways in which
they've managed to to to add some nine twelve energy
to their lives, and we'll get to this more. But
the thing he's saying is that the day after nine eleven,

(12:51):
we were the best version of ourselves as a country.
Everyone was so godly and so loving and so united.
And that's the thing that we need to get to
deal with the horror of Barack Obama being the president. Um,
and obviously the other thing happening. I shouldn't. I don't
want to be unfair here. It's not just that they're
scared about Barack Obama. This is two thousand nine. The
economy has just completely shadow fucking brick. The housing market

(13:11):
is through the goddamn floor. Some actually scary things are
happening to It's just that they're kind of grafting all
of them onto the specter that is Obama, you know.
Um anyway, Uh yeah, So after this we pan out
to widespread applause in this very full room, and then
we cut two interviews. This time. I know everyone's going
to be really excited. Here there's a baby. It's pretty cute.

(13:35):
It's pretty it's a pretty cute baby. The young fans
at that child has my reaction to this, it's so funny.
It's so funny. Look at this. Let's get this baby's statement.
Just shine it blinded with a light until it weeps.

(13:57):
That's that's the good stuff. Okay, So this this video
has paused on a freeze frame of a guy in
a suit that when they talked to this guy they
call him the best dress I'll just play it. I will,
I will just play I wasn't planning to play this,
but I will play it. Stry the best dress up

(14:18):
guy here? Did we have a good time tonight? Think
of the presidentation? I thought it was nice and it's
nice to get together with great turnout. I know that
so many people still care. You know that guy? Okay
that that that exact kind of person was like the
political class of like the town I grew up in.
Like these are the people who were like like this

(14:40):
is the guy? Yeah yeah, like the thing the things
they get up to were like like there was a
guy who was taking money from the sheriff's department to
try to abolish the police so that he could install
the Sheriff's department as the only law enforcement like division
in this town while he tried to sell like oh god,
that that is a kind of person night Like he has.
He has some wrong strong Republican city comptroller energy for

(15:04):
like a town for like a town of thirteen thousand people. Yeah,
he's dressed much like Ricky Gervais dressed in the original office. Yeah. Dump.
He is literally the guy Ricky Gervais is making fun of. Yes, yeah,
he is so beck pared his message of government accountability

(15:38):
as he framed it with, and this is what we're
talking about, the nine twelve project, which what follows. We
surround them with nine principles and twelve values, which, if followed,
would help bring your heart back to the mythical nine twelve.
This moment in which America was was beautiful. This this
we've gone from the fifties, like there's this, there's this
twenty twenty year Golden Era to like we have one

(16:00):
great day and if we could just get back to that,
everything will be fine. Um. So here's here's the nine
value or nine principles. Sorry, it's nine principles and twelve values.
I want you to hold me accountable if I fucked
this up in the future. The nine principles are number one,
America is good. Number two. I believe in God and
he is the center of my life. Number three, I

(16:22):
must always try to be a more honest person than
I was yesterday. Number four. The family is sacred. My
spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.
And I say this a lot, but in the Roman Empire,
the father of the family used to be able to
execute his wife and children. And you're a fool if
you think that's not what these people want things to

(16:42):
be like. Um. Well, and their slaves too. That's also
in a variable, and the slaves are a critical aspect
of this. Yes. Uh. Number five. If you break the law,
you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one
is above it. This is, by the way, confusingly a
reference to all the people who lost their home in
the housing crash. Um. That's what he's talking about. That

(17:03):
they didn't. They didn't. You know, you can't like bail
people out um. Number six. I have a right to life,
liberty in the pursuit of happiness, but there is no
guarantee of equal results. Number seven. I work hard for
what I have and I will share it with who
I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.
Number eight. It is not un American for me to
disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion. And

(17:25):
number nine, the government works for me. I do not
answer to them. They answer to me. Now that's fun.
There's there's some interesting things they're including the government can't
force me to be charitable, you know I will, which
like the side of that, that is something that actually
happened on nine twelve is a bunch of people showed
up and volunteered to, like at great personal cost because

(17:48):
many of them got sick and died, to help pull
bodies out of the rubble and try to save people. Right,
and that the government literally did not need to tell
people to do that because a bunch of cops actually
refused to go do anything at all, ground and and
the like the government the government knew about like like
that the when when the government did do something, it
was they they put a bunch of firefighters like inside

(18:08):
of the range it was the dusk was toxic and
then just fucking got them killed, which and then spent
the next we had to have John fucking Stewart fight
for them to get some kind of recompense from the
federal government, which credit where it's due is a legitimately
cool thing that he helped do. But like why did
it fall upon the Daily Show guy to do it?

(18:30):
Share that the guy who's doing trensch phobic bits at
the same time. Yeah, yeah, Like it's kind of didn't
Ted Cruz vote against healthcare benefits for these people? Yeah? Absolutely,
Which again it's very funny that like the government can't
force me to to to be charitable. It's like, well,
what that actually ends with is people actually volunteering and

(18:51):
risking their lives and then the government, the conservatives in
the government callously voting to let them die in agony
because like, well, why should I have to Oh, you
do was rescue people during our country's darkst hour? Why
should I have to pay? Like it's this it's amazing shit. Um,
now that I'm sure you're curious about those twelve values,
they're really boring. Like it's boy, it's like boy scout ship.

(19:12):
It's like honesty, reverence, thrift, courage, Like it's not worth
focusing on the thing this entire time. Think I've been
thinking about this is the exact naming scheme that like,
like if you just walked up to someone on the
street and like asked, what what what are what are
the nine principles and twelve values like this. This sounds
exactly like like that. This sounds exactly like what like

(19:36):
a like a a a mid level like a mid
level Chinese bureaucrat would name their campaign to like make
sure the water restoration is done properly, Like it is
the exact naming scheme of like like campaign style stuff
and like fucking like post post vours China. Yeah, I
mean well, and yeah, there's a lot to say about

(20:00):
that and about Glenn Beck, but um, you know, so
I got that list of twelve principles from Glenn Beck
dot com. What I find interesting is that the principles
as are up on his website right now, because this
is a thing he still gets into every now and again,
are somewhat different from the ones that he debuted on
the episode of his show in which he introduced the
nine twelve project. And I found the way he worded

(20:21):
point eight point eight is it's not un American for
me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.
I found the way he actually worded that in the
show very interesting, And I want to play that for
you now because it's it's quite a bit different. Do
you agree with this? It's not Unamerican for anyone to
disagree with my opinion. But my opinion or others opinions
maybe anti American. Anti American rhetoric would be anything that's

(20:44):
destructive to the Constitution and our country as the founders
understood it, unless you want to change that. There it is. Yeah,
there we go, There we go. That's the real good grievance. Yeah,
I respect You're right to say anything in less you're
disrespecting the founders, of course, which which case, Yeah, like

(21:05):
swat teams will commence immediately, etcetera, etcetera. We were we
are reading the wrench mobs. Now, after introducing those principles,
he asks his audience to mail him personal photographs so
he can put them together into a big we surround
them graphic, which you can find if you really want
to um, it's yeah, it's if you want to get
an idea of like the people who are listening to

(21:26):
Glenn Beck, that will give it to you. Now here's
what happens. Immediately after he gives the email address for
people to send this to calm all right, the climate
change people are pulling a page from nazis, what are
your kids learning at school? Perfect moment in American television. Yeah, it's,

(21:52):
it's it's really incredible, right, it's. It's also it's also
things like you couldn't do this anymore, not because you
not not not actually because you can't say that about
climate change, but because if you tried to say that
about the Hitler youth people will get mad at you.
Oh yeah, no, yeah, you'll you'll get in trouble. Oh yeah, yeah,
the hate the youth defenders will be a day with
very very pro environment. I can hear Tucker Carlsson saying that, Yeah,

(22:15):
it's it's. I just want to share with everyone that
manned by number five by Bob the Builder hit the
UK number one spot on September twelve, two thousand and one.
You know what, you know what James never forget And
the Queen was still alive, then she must have loved
Mambo number five. I bet there was a little bit

(22:36):
of Monica by her side, a little bit above the
Builder in the Queen. A little bit of Rita's all
she needed, um get It died very sad. So the
nine twelve project, as it kind of grew out of
the wee s around Them campaign, if you kind of
I don't know I found it written online. I can't
exactly confirm this, but it seems like it kind of

(22:58):
started um when Beck took a call on his talk
radio show and this is a little bitter a couple
of years earlier from a guy named Ed in New Haven,
Connecticut who expressed feeling out numbered as a conservative on
the American political stage. Right. And that's that's really like
what the all of this kind of grew out of.
It's this response to the feeling like out numbered. Um.

(23:21):
And I think that's an important thing to understand if
you're trying to get to like the thing that the
thing that they want to go back to when they
talk about wanting to go back to nine isn't anything
to do with the actual terrorist attack. It's the fact
that everyone was so frightened that they unthinking lye uh,
that they unthinking lee submitted to the right wing that
was in power at the time, right like like that

(23:43):
it was that's what nine twelve is to them, Yeah,
like it it was. It was the last time conservatives
were able to like effectively cancel like mask cold like
they like the only time cancel sulture has ever been
real was like the Dixie Chicks and they could just
do that, like if if you, if you didn't start
all of your concerts, like if it's like Myri Miley
Cyrus didn't go on stage and like say something about

(24:05):
the troops at the beginning of a concert, like they
would just destroy you and you would never be heard
from again. Yeah, it was. It was literally like legitimately
scary to not be unthinkingly pro America and like wildly so.
And and that's what they want to get back to, right,
is that the fear of actually questioning conservative hegemony. Um So,

(24:27):
I want to play a clip from the episode in
which Glenn Beck first introduces his nine twelve project to
his audience of millions on March fifteen, two thousand nine.
Here's how here's how this introduction goes America. They're waiting.
I'm backstage right now at thoughts. I'm getting ready to

(24:50):
show you that you are not alone this uh, this
is your country. You're still in control. But it seems
today like nobody gets it. Now that is a fascinating,
lee blatant statement of white conservative supremacy. Right you, you're
in charge, but nobody gets it. They don't understand that
you're supposed to be running things right. Um, it's it's

(25:11):
incredible how blatant it is. But it also like you
do have to understand he's speaking to this real frustration.
This is like where we get Trump is these millions
of people are like, why don't they understand that we're
supposed to be in charge? Um, there's there's an incredibly
I don't know if you're going to get to this,
like later there's the next video on the fucking YouTube
thing is from Vices. Glenn Beck is a conservative and exile.

(25:33):
After Trump sat a little bit about that at the end,
I'll do a whole Glenn Beck episode behind the Bastards.
But I really I want to keep digging into this,
so I'm gonna I'm gonna press play again here. You know,
you've lived your while life in a responsible way. You
didn't take out a loan that didn't require any kind
of per proof of income, yet now you're being forced

(25:55):
to bail those people out. You've been concerned about this
country through the last administration and this administration. If you're
like most people both administrations, it's not about politics. You
actually believe in something and you thought for a while
they're your politicians did as well, and now you kind
of realize, well, maybe maybe they don't. When you come
home after a hard day at work, all you want

(26:15):
to do is put your feet up. All you want
to do is just relax and just watch a little
television catch up with what's happening in the world. But
every time you turn that television on, it just seems
like the whole world is spinning out of control. The war,
Islamic extremism, Europe on the bring, even pirates now closer

(26:37):
to home. Mexico isn't safe for vacations or kids anymore.
Six thousand were killed or beheaded on our border just
last year, and Phoenix now has the second highest rate
of kidnapping in the world. So there's a lot going
on there. But I think the thing that is most
fascinating to me is that, like the way he just
blatantly is like cartel violence. It's a problem because it's

(26:58):
not safe for our kids to vacation in me to
go anymore. Mexico only exists for spring break. That all
problems are at their root about Americans, right, Like, that's
that's what's going on here. Well, the thing that's interesting
to me is like that he throws into like Europe
under siege thing, which was like like one of like
the big like fascist things in like that period, like

(27:21):
word for word Europe under siege, like fortress Europe ship. Yeah,
this is when Andy andy No started his like no
ghost zone, Yeah exactly things. So right around here, maybe
a little bit late. Members of my family who are
extremely Caucasian living in some of those dog zones, like
I lived in Europe in this period. It's it's just
so ridiculous. Yeah, and it's it's incoherent, like if you

(27:44):
look at the specifics of everything. Because he's yelling about
the financial crash because he has to be angry with
it because half of his market is terrified and losing
money or has have lost jobs and stuff as a
result of the crash. Um, but you can't. You can't
portray it as a problem of corporations rapaciously destroying and
hollowing out the middle class. So instead the problem is

(28:05):
that like foreign there's a line in there about how
like foreign corporations are just treating Americans like a market,
which is like, well, how do Americans treat everything like
of course they treat them like it's capitalism. Um, it's
not very coherent. But like, what is coherent is this
sense of grievance, right that we have been we as
Americans have been specifically wronged. Um, we're not and and

(28:27):
we as When he says Americans, obviously he's only referring
to a specific kind of American. Um. But yeah, I'm
gonna I'm gonna press play again here the forgotten man?
Is you the voice that no one seems to hear,
just quietly saying, enforce the law, take responsibility for yourself.
You can't have it all. And anybody who promised you

(28:49):
that was a liar. Cren economic downturn, worst economic crisis,
worst month of job loss. Like something is happening in America.
Paradigm is about to change. Your friends and neighbors, Republicans, Democrats, Independence,
They're all beginning to wake up and wonder how did
this happen to us? M hmmm. So yeah, the words

(29:13):
September two thousand and one just hit the screen as
soon as he finishes that. But I mean, what you're
seeing in that is like the stirrings of what becomes
Trump is Um, you know, it's it's very m hmm.
And there's just like photos of white people up on
the left and right. Yeah, one of the most hideous,
like two columns I've ever seen in a video. It's

(29:35):
one and a half of each kid. Yeah, yeah, it's
not done well. Their graphic design was science had just
simply had simply not advanced to that level yet, like
A need people to understand this. There are supposed to
be three lines of pictures going across the screen. The
middle cut Yeah, the middle line is cut in half.
There was half of one person's face on each side

(29:59):
of the screen. Yea. And what they're what's being done here?
What Beca is doing here is he's trying to take
the anger and like that. People still felt about nine
eleven and turn it kind of towards in a different direction, right,
because what it actually happened on nine eleven was that

(30:19):
a group of terrorists had attacked the literal center of
American capitalism UM and of the American military industrial complex. Right.
Those targets were picked specifically because of what they were UM.
The Twin Towers contained one tenth of all office space
in Manhattan. Their largest tenant was Morgan Stanley, which lost
over eight of its market value in the two thousand

(30:40):
eight crash. Worst yet in beck size, the victims of
the attacks are all New Yorkers. Now, I don't know,
if you're not in the conservative media bubble, you may
not get it, but like New Yorkers. That was like
a slur, like literally like a slur to call somebody
a New Yorker, right exactly. So Beck can't focus on
the actual victims of nine eleven because they are people

(31:02):
that it is in his best interest to train his
audience to to despise. So instead he focuses on how
nine eleven was basically an act of disrespect against the
this forgotten man, right, who's now kind of surging up
like that's what he's doing here, right, That's what you
have to do if you're Glenn Beck, because again, you
can't actually focus on the real victims of this, which

(31:23):
is why it's not incoherent ideologically for conservatives to talk
the way they do about nine twelve and then vote
not to help people who were first responders and had
their fucking lungs filled with poison. Um, Yeah, it's good stuff.
So obviously, because Beck has to thread this needle, he
focuses instead on how the attack hit American prestige and confidence.

(31:46):
I remember how picture perfect the day was. I wasn't
a cloud in the sky, and America seemed invincible, and
yet in the blink of an eye, that airplane appeared
to hit a little bit down the bill holding around
the fifty floor. Again, it's struck flush. The skies were
filled with black clouds, and our hearts were full of

(32:07):
terror and fear. Disaster. We realized for the first time
how fragile we really were. Then something happened. So now

(32:37):
it's September twelve, and the first image we see after
disaster and destruction is a group of firefighters holding a
gigantic American flag with roughly the footprint of a school bus. Right,
and this is this is good, right, this is and
also it's a it's interesting that this is what he
chooses as like the image of America, like rebounding from
this great defeat, as opposed to like, I don't know,

(32:58):
firefighters pulling people out of the rubble and say having
their lives, like, no, they got a big flag and say,
you know, we're gonna be okay. It makes sense though, right,
like like the actual lives are unimportant. The thing that's
important to save is the image of America. The flag. Yeah,
on the region. So yeah, well look yeah about us.

(33:21):
I'm gonna continue here. And we promised ourselves that we
would never forget on September twelfth, and for a short
time after that, we really promised ourselves that we would
focus on the things that were important, our family, our friends,
the eternal principles that allowed America to become the world's

(33:44):
beacon of freedom. I can are you out the arrest
of the war and that people are not the hawn.
Well here all of us now. I want to point
out here the choice of that clip. It's both because

(34:05):
that was a very famous speech that Bush gave that
really made his presidency in or at least the early
part of it. In a lot of ways, you could
argue that a significant amount of the the kind of
the political capital that he expended invading Iraq came from
this particular speech and generally how he handled the days
after the attacks. But it's interesting that they picked this

(34:26):
because it really is it's very much in line with
this this feeling and talking about the forgotten man, talking
about they're not listening to us, they don't know that
we're in trouble. What Bush is saying here is literal
words are, um, I hear you, and the people who
knocked these towers down are going to hear you. Right you,
Your your anger will have a reaction in the world. Right,
it will be met with fire and fury. Right, Like

(34:47):
that is that is the promise being made. And it's
this this undercurrent and everything Beck's doing here of the
thing that he is working with the clay that he
is molding is the fact that these people don't feel
listened to and like and that they deserve to be
listened to, and that the when they're angry at something,
it should be hurt. Right, Like that's that's the under

(35:09):
curtis talking about family and togetherness, but like that's what
he's actually promising people. I'm really interested in this, Like,
like I don't this is probably like nine twelve or
wheneveryone he's getting this speech. I think I always come back.
It's weird given where conserpatism has gone, right, and like
he's taken this in very much a clash of civilizations direction.

(35:30):
But like Bush was giving like Islam is the fabric
of America speeches that week he was speaking in mosques
and two Muslims and being like that, like this is
not a clash of civilizations. Obviously, fucking he even went
and fucking killed millions of Muslims, right, most of them
innocent Sybilians who had nothing to do with nearly all

(35:52):
of them. Right. But yeah, it's just interesting that like
his Bush who was giving this like, this isn't a
clash of civilization thing, and to become a clash of
civilizations thing like eight years later. Yeah, yeah, and it's become,
but in a very different way, right, because one of
the things that I think is happening here is the
problems that Americans, regular Americans are facing in two thousand

(36:13):
nine are this massive economic strife caused by predatory lending,
outright fraudulent business practices by major banks, the fact that
the legal system had been changed in order to allow
this massive con to go on, um, and then it
had been followed by this massive chrony capitalist bailout that
ignored regular working people. Glynn doesn't want his viewers to
focus on all of that, right, because those are his backers, right.

(36:35):
But what so, instead, what he's doing is he's taking
they feel disrespected and vulnerable because they have been Right now,
there's unreasonable aspects to that, but they have been disrespected
by the people who are stealing like all of the
money in the country and sucking them over too, and
leaving their homes hollowed out pil adicted waste lands. Um.
But you can't focus on that. The cure is the

(37:00):
that Beck offers them is not materially improving anyone's conditions.
It's not altering the systems that people cannot prey upon
others that way. It's by striking someone else. It's by
striking back at that sense of agrievement. Right, it's by
this is what's going to turn into owning the Libs, right,
just hurting the left. Conservatism now is purely about harming

(37:20):
groups of people they view as opposed to them. Um.
That's part of why trans people are so focused on
by the right right now, is that it's the symbol
of liberalism to them and they want to hurt that symbol. Right.
This is this is the answer Beck is offering, and
it's going to be adopted by the thought leaders of conservatism.
We don't need to focus on doing anything. Nothing can
be done right, Nothing can be done. The grift is

(37:42):
running out, collapses coming. All that we can do is
redirect the anger they feel it being fucked by us
towards hurting other people. That's that's the magic that Beck
is pulling off here. It's pretty cool. It's interesting too,
pretty well, Like it's interesting to compare this, I think,
to like both Reagan and um like Reagan and Nixon,

(38:04):
because this is very very similar to Nixon talking about
like the silent majority and the stuff re doing. But
it's like those people have an actual political project, like
like Reagan, Reagan is to trying to completely annihilate the
welfare state and like, you know, dude, like they have
stuff they're trying to do, but like post Bush was

(38:25):
like but but Bush was the time they tried to
like do stuff. And it's like like Bush is so
hated by this point that like like even Glenn Beck
at the beginning of this is being like, well, we
had concerns about the last administration too, and I was like, well, yeah,
because he's like just by by every conceivable metric, just
completely like annihilated the United States. But yeah, it's like

(38:47):
it's it's this interesting thing that like, yeah, it's like
this is the first time they've talked like this, but
the level of nihilism is just like so much like
the politics has been emptied of content to like such
a greater extent. And I think I think part of
it to also what's happening here is that like there's
like the like the the only thing left like for

(39:08):
sort of like the capitalist who are backing back, like
the only thing left for them that they could possibly
win is getting rid of Social Security and they kind
of like Obama gave him the chance to do it,
and they kind of like blew it. But like they
don't like this is like the agies they they actually have,
like they're there's like there's there's tax racilis, like there's
not actually anything for them really to do, but they

(39:29):
still have to sort of like maintain this constant vigilance
against anyone even remotely trying to make the world better
by taking away some of their power. And I think
that's like another angle of why all of this is
just sort of like this like incredibly empty nihilism, because
that's like that that's the only politics you can have
to defending group people who have won. Yep. Yeah, well

(39:52):
that's a good note to end on. Um. I hope
you have all enjoyed getting to meet Glenn Beck in
the nine and twelve project. I know I have enjoyed it.
Uh goodbye. It Could Happen Here as a production of

(40:18):
cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
visit our website cool zone media dot com or check
us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources
for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone
Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.