It was tough to change. Tough? That doesn’t begin to describe it. There was a lot of pressure on me to continue giving people what they wanted. But I couldn’t do that to myself or to that audience. It was a really strange situation; if I hadn’t respected my audience as much as I did, I easily could have given them the Glenn Beck they knew and wanted. But having given up on politicians and the political parties, about the only thing I had left was my belief in the decency of the average American.
Admittedly, my audience didn’t understand it at first—what’s going on with Glenn?—and a lot of them didn’t like it. And when I spoke out against Donald Trump, a lot of them thought, Glenn’s gone crazy and sold us out! My change had affected their lives, and they didn’t like it. There were some nasty responses and a lot of name-calling, which I returned. It was a low point, as I failed to listen to my own audience. I thought they had sold out, and they thought I had done the same. Neither was true. We were just talking past one another, each of us convinced that the other was wrong. To show how far I’d gone, I made the enemies list of two totally different presidents: Obama, who used the IRS as a weapon against the Tea Party, and Trump, who called me “a sad and pathetic loser.”
There was a real cost to change for me. But it was something I had to do if I really believed what I was saying. It’s important to point out that I didn’t change my basic belief system; I didn’t suddenly start to believe in Government Nanny. I’m a proud constitutional conservative. I am pro-life. I am pro–First Amendment, big pro–Second Amendment. Pro–individual Americans. I have never wavered in my support for all of those things; what I have changed is my approach. I resolved that I was no longer going to get mired in the belief that if my side doesn’t defeat the other side, it’s all over; that my side winning was the only acceptable result. I wasn’t going to get caught in the back-and-forth bitterness.
I found myself in agreement with Yale sociologist Nicholas A. Christakis, one of Time magazine’s one hundred most influential people in the world, who has been studying group behavior. “Why must it be the case that we love our own and hate the other?” he wondered. His research confirmed, “In order to band together, we need a common enemy.” But then he added that he had also found that it doesn’t have to be that way: “It’s possible to treat the out-group with mild dislike or even grudging respect. Cultivating in-group distinctiveness does not require that the other side must be killed.”
Getting to that point was tough. It’s no secret that I earned my reputation as an extremely partisan bomb-thrower. I saw the political divide as the battle for the soul of America. While I was still at Fox, trying to figure out how serious I was about these thoughts, we got some pretty damning information about someone who was attacking me. It probably would have destroyed this person’s career. Our evidence was strong enough to go with, but the story was a little cheap, a little smeary; I didn’t like it because it was personal. There was a lot of pressure to release it, though, because this person was doing an effective job coming after me. In the past I wouldn’t have hesitated; I would have gone after this person and never looked back. Truthfully, every part of my body was just aching to get even. I loved the feeling that I got when I let loose on one of “them.” Of just allowing my outrage to take control. But I was trying to change. This was a test. This was the glass of whiskey on the bar, the rolled joint. It was incredibly hard to resist; my mind was telling me it was okay, I would start changing tomorrow. Just this one last time. Of course, that’s addiction talk.
I prayed for guidance, and as I did a phrase came to mind: They’re not enemies of yours, they’re enemies of the truth. Do not treat them as enemies.
I got the guidance I needed. Among the historical items in my collection is a surveyor’s compass owned by George Washington. He got it when he was fourteen and carried it with him through the rest of his life, on every campaign, every battlefield; he used it for every map he drew. On the morning I had to make a decision whether or not to run with this story, I put Washington’s compass in my pocket. For a lot of the day I held on to it, and as I rubbed my thumb against it I found it had been worn down near its top. I realized that Washington must have done the same thing, rubbing it distractedly with his thumb. It was the imprint of the man. I felt a connection with him, and with his values: Stay true to who you are. Do the right thing, not the easy thing, not the thing you want to do; do the right thing.
I never said a word. I didn’t fight back; I just ignored that person. As a result, the accusations against me faded out of the media pretty quickly. If there was a single event that marked the beginning of change for me, this was it. I had proven that I could resist the pull to satisfy my emotional need by snapping back quickly and tougher.
Pay attention to that—it’s a big point. Because if I could change, if I could stop shouting at the other side over every issue and start listening to what they were saying—listening, and often not agreeing—you can, too. It was a gradual process, and as with any addiction there were times I slipped up, but eventually I was able to do it.
Okay, I hear you: Really, Glenn? Then why haven’t more people changed? I have some theories about that, and actually I might be wrong. First, I think, as I’ve learned in AA, that people are far more afraid of the unknown than concerned with their current pain. We tend to normalize even destructive behavior patterns; we incorporate them into our lives, make the necessary adjustments, and figure out how to deal with them. I continued drinking well past my good-to-go point because I had learned how to hide it from other people; I knew when and where to drink so it didn’t affect personal relationships or my career. I was able to relentlessly attack Democrats without any penalties because my audience was Republican and conservative. We figure out how to live with our problems, even if they cause pain, because we’re terrified of what might happen if we change that behavior.
We tell whatever lies we need to convince ourselves we’re actually telling ourselves the truth: If I stop drinking, I won’t be the same outspoken person who has been so successful. If I stop being so angry at Democrats, I’ll lose my audience, and I won’t be able to pay the bills, and just like before I’ll lose everything I have and my family. No thanks; it’s easier to live with this pain.
Second, we have created our own definitions of truth. Many Americans are far more comfortable having the opinion they already hold reinforced—and it doesn’t seem to matter if it’s true or not—than having it challenged by a bunch of so-called facts. This is where fake news proves to be so important. Too many people refuse to research, investigate, or even question their beliefs because they may find out they aren’t true. If you uncover an uncomfortable truth and you still don’t change, then you have to deal with the reality that you’re a fraud. That’s hard to do. Nobody wants to face that void. Dealing with it might require you to do things that you don’t want to do; in my case it meant shutting my big fat mouth, losing my ratings and my status, losing friends, and even having to change employment.
Or live as a happy fraud!
Several years ago, I remember, I started reading a book entitled Blacklisted by History by M. Stanton Evans. It was a reevaluation of Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose name has come to mean a wild witch hunt and the use of unproven claims to defame people. I always considered him a pretty bad guy. But when I got about thirty pages into it, I put it down. The author was presenting a more flattering portrait than I had expected. The theme seemed to be that Tail Gunner Joe wasn’t quite the raving maniac that I thought, but actually was a guy who had uncovered at least a little evidence of Communists infiltrating the government. I decided I wasn’t going to read any more until I found out more about the author; I wanted to make sure he wasn’t some wild conspiracy freak. Even then, even if I convinced myself that he was a legitimate researcher, I still wasn’t sure I wanted to continue reading, because there was at least the possibility that this book might challenge my opinion on what our government is, how it operates, and even whether it is f
air. And I was kind of happy with my view of things.
I don’t know how many people do things like this, but I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. I was concerned that if I continued reading that book and found truth in it, I was going to end up at a crossroads. I was going to have to make a decision: I could either reject Evans’s research and continue believing as I always had or admit I was wrong, admit I had new information, and then be brave enough to reset my course based on those new coordinates. There are a lot of people who’d rather not have to make that decision. I get it.
But that says something about those people. I kept reading; I wanted to add to my knowledge. If you consider yourself someone with an open mind, it’s fair to ask what you’ve read lately. What have you learned or reexamined? What have you done, discussed, or listened to that challenged what you think you know? When was the last time you thought, “Wow, I didn’t know that” or “I never looked at it that way” or, finally, “Wait; if that’s true, then maybe I’m wrong about this”? Getting your information from the usual sources is safe, I guarantee that; it does nothing but confirm what you already believe.
There are people who are afraid of change. Fear has become part of our culture. We’re so afraid of falling that we don’t stand up; we are so afraid of failing that we don’t take a chance. Instead we go to our so-called safe places. It’s easier to stay in your chair than take a risk, but that chair is a comfortable trap. It isn’t moving forward; it’s just there. New York Times (I warned you) editorial page editor James Bennet described it perfectly: “We exist in an incredibly hyperpartisan environment where the media is increasingly niche-ified and increasingly partisan and picking a side and shooting back and forth at each other between media organizations. And also because Donald Trump is president of the United States, and that makes a lot of people feel really, really vulnerable and afraid. And I get that. It makes it harder for people to hear an opposing point of view or a challenging point of view with the same sense of security.”
Personally, I consider myself risk-averse about things I can’t control but confident about those things within my control. I’ve been to Las Vegas once in my life. I walked into Caesars Palace and put five dollars down on the blackjack table. I got my cards and said, “Hit me.” I was done. The dealer took my money. I looked at him and said, “That was not five dollars’ worth of fun.” That was the last time I put cash down on the table.
But I got out of Fox to start a web television station. Nobody had done it before. We had to create the technology. Everyone said it would fail. But within two years, Google’s Eric Schmidt was being interviewed in my lobby, calling TheBlaze groundbreaking. I’m not saying overcoming that fear is easy; the truth is, you’re going to win some, but probably not all. Risk big, win big—do whatever homework is necessary, but don’t let your fear prevent you from rolling the dice!
There are a lot of people who believe giving up an addiction means admitting you’ve been wrong, and they can’t do that. They are so deeply invested in being right that it is impossible for them to admit they’re wrong. It would be the emotional version of poking a hole in the dike, and once the ocean started dribbling in, the whole structure might collapse. Well, in some instances at least, they’re wrong about being wrong; in this case it doesn’t require that at all. Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert pointed out, “Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.” Circumstances change; sometimes people get new or additional information, and people who refuse to adapt to changing situations are stubborn but not necessarily wrong. I wasn’t wrong about my beliefs; they were based in knowledge, and I have been pretty consistent. What I have tried to change is the way I express myself, and the way I respond when people who disagree with me express their opinions.
For the most part, I’ve discovered, people don’t wake up in the morning and decide to change. They’re not like Kafka’s Gregor Samsa, who awoke one morning and “found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.” Generally, people change when their behavior affects their own life in a negative way, when the person they love leaves because they can’t deal with the problems anymore. When they can no longer afford to feed the beast. When just getting up and facing the day seems like an ordeal. Most people won’t commit to change until the pain they have to deal with is greater than their fear of the unknown.
Taking the first step, admitting to yourself that you may be on the wrong track, really is super-hard to do. Especially after you’ve made a real emotional investment. In 2000 I was doing talk radio in Tampa, Florida, trying to rebuild my career. I struggled for the first six months. I remember complaining to my wife that no matter what I was talking about, some so-called expert would call in to tell me I was wrong. At times I was ready to quit and go back to culinary arts and learn how to be a chef. Then the Terry Schiavo right-to-die case surfaced.
In 1990, twenty-six-year-old Terry Schiavo suffered massive brain damage when she went into cardiac arrest. To save her life, she was put on artificial life support and fed through a tube. Seven years later, after she had shown no improvement, her husband petitioned the court to have that tube removed. He claimed she would have not wanted to “live” this way. Her parents fought that application. It became a major issue.
In my mind I knew I would not want to survive in an unconscious state, dependent on a feeding tube, and I took that position. I became a loud advocate for pulling the plug. And I was right. I was sure of that. It was so clear to me that I couldn’t understand how any sane person could disagree with me. Then on a Friday afternoon, about five minutes before I finished the show and went home for the weekend, a caller challenged me. He asked, “Do you consider food extraordinary medical assistance?”
I spent the weekend thinking about that. It seemed pretty obvious to me: Feeding someone wasn’t an extraordinary measure. We feed people, we don’t starve them to death. Okay, I had changed my mind. The question was, what should I do about it? I had invested a lot of my credibility in my opinion, and the prospect of admitting I had been wrong was not very appealing. My listeners liked certainty.
At our Monday-morning meeting I told my staff, “I have to reverse myself on Terry Schiavo.” The room went completely silent. A talk show host admitting he was wrong? That was practically radio heresy. “I’ve been thinking about it all weekend, and I’m wrong. It’s not like extraordinary measures are being taken. It’s food, and her parents will take her and feed her.”
After I’d finished my announcement, a producer suggested that I not talk about it, that we just move on. But I’d been pretty outspoken about my opinion. I felt I had a moral obligation to admit that I had changed. I went on the air and explained what I was thinking. I feel like I’ve done real damage, I said, and I need to make up for it. While at least some of my listeners didn’t agree with me, they respected my honesty.
It’s much better when you’re wrong, or when you change your mind, to admit it. I’ve always believed that, unlike newspapers that bury their corrections, I should make them the lede. I know that it’s difficult to do that at times, but it ensures credibility.
I understand that a lot of people, maybe even a majority of people, just can’t do this. Their anger at the other side, the side that everyone can agree has caused all of our problems (which is true no matter which side you are on!) is too strong. And these people know what the real truth is: The people on the other side have to change for the good of the country! And they are happy to tell them that.
Not everybody is capable of change. I accept that. My grandfather, for example, was old-school. He was a man with strong values. He never said very much, but he had this odd quirk: At times he would just blurt things out of the blue. We were driving along one afternoon in his old pickup when he suddenly said, “I want you to listen to me. No matter what anyone says about coloreds, they are just like you and me.” This was a huge leap for a person of his generation. He was trying to reach out from his place and make sure that I
knew the men with dogs and fire hoses were wrong. He may not have known how to express it, but he tried. To me it is still a powerful message on never getting “stuck”—saying what others will not, and being a man who sees people for who they are, not what they look like.
Remember that this was still the late 1960s or very early ’70s. But even then, his language may have been out of tune. I could have explained to him why many people would find the word “coloreds” offensive, but at six or seven, I doubt I knew. Today, however, simply using the word that was okay until last week will get you fired. Can we not look into one another’s heart and see how hard we are trying? We are all new at this, and if all we ever get is bitten, we will stop reaching our hand out.
Even when people aren’t riled up, it’s hard to convince another person to change. That willingness has to come from inside. All I’m trying to do is show why you should be open to the possibility that there is another way of getting what we all claim we want: a stronger America that recognizes and protects individual freedoms. AA didn’t convince me to stop drinking; I made that decision myself. But after I had made that decision, the tools I found in AA helped me reach my goal. The political equivalent of that was replacing certainty with perspective. Instead of being so sure I was right and diligently lecturing Democrats—which turned out to be kind of a fruitless effort, as they aren’t listening any more than Republicans—I allowed myself to be open to change.
When somebody proposed something to me that might make sense, I thought, Okay, let’s run it through a test. If it makes sense, I’ll pay attention. Obamacare, for example. I was against it, but I wasn’t against universal health care. My belief hasn’t changed: I have always been against creating another giant government bureaucracy that we will never escape; I still am, and always will be. But if individual states want to create programs and show me good results, I’ll pay attention to them. If a concept works, why wouldn’t we do that? But only as individual states. The Constitution must remain supreme.