Back in November, Jon Stewart did an extraordinary imitation of Glenn Beck, and on last night's show he did it again, possibly topping himself. You probably saw it, but if not, watch the clips embedded below. It was one of the funniest and most politically astute things I've seen in a long time.
I love the bit, but it makes me sad. Why doesn't this kind of thing seem to make a difference? Why doesn't the fact that Glenn Beck is a half-mad, logic-deficient, fact-challenged demagogue diminish his ability, and the ability of Fox News and the rest of the right-wing media, to influence the debate one iota, even when Beck's absurdity is entertainingly exposed by a very popular TV host? Why aren't Stewart's attacks on Beck like Edward R. Murrow's attacks on Joe McCarthy -- game-changers? And why aren't Beck et al. simply hanging themselves with their grotesque extremism? Why is it possible for prominent right-wingers to attack an 11-year-old supporter of health care reform whose mother lost her health insurance, and then died, without inspiring mass revulsion across the country?
The problem is, no one's found a way to get, say, a 47-year-old forklift operator from Indiana to want to watch Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert -- or Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow. No one's found a way to get them to focus on the demagoguery and ugliness at all. Right-leaning heartlanders kick back with Fox or right-wing talk radio, which successfully sell attacks on Democrats and liberals as entertainment, but moderate and even moderately liberal heartlanders aren't watching MSNBC prime time, and they weren't listening to Air America. Some of their kids are watching Stewart and Colbert, but they aren't. We know what the audience is for all those broadcasts: well-educated young people (particularly for Stewart and Colbert), plus true progressives of all ages.
Nobody else is paying the slightest bit of attention to Beck and Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin and Michael Savage and Erick Erickson, except people who agree with them. The heartland isn't interested in what their critics have to say.
I think if we could find a way to get people in the middle to watch and listen to and read the ugly, crazy, deliberately false statements coming from the right, they might find it all offensive and over the top. We know that pollsters have found that even conservatives come in two varieties, and one of them thinks the other' howls of "Socialism!" are excessive.
But we don't have the natural advantage the right has: the right can get its audience angry at Obama and Pelosi and the rest by portraying what they're doing as a city slickers' cultural war against Middle America. How do we get that Indiana forklift operator -- who may well have voted for Obama in '08 -- to conclude that Glenn Beck is the enemy, not a non-elitist outsider shaking his fist at the powerful?
I'm just asking the question. I don't have answers. I wish I did.
Oh well -- in any case, this is brilliant:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Intro - Progressivism Is Cancer | ||||
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| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Conservative Libertarian | ||||
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(And no, I don't think the problem is "the corporate-owned media." Comedy Central and MSNBC are part of "the corporate-owned media." The corporate-owned media allowed Brack Obama to become president when it was widely assumed that his popularity would permit him to effortlessly push through serious health care reform, cap and trade, tax increases on the rich, and financial reform with teeth. Why didn't the corporate-owned media just double down on McCain worship all through 2008 and get Johnny Mac elected? Why didn't the corporate-owned media downplay Sarah Palin's gaffes to make that possible?)
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