Is there any self-awareness? None? From either side?
If you are on the left and in the press, stop pretending you are so outraged because it hurts the credibility of the press when someone accuses you of being nothing more than “fake news.” Any chance you remember “faux news?” Remember how funny you all thought that was back in the day? Harmful? Of course not, because you knew that your side was right and they were wrong.
Also, I am having a tough time with your newfound outrage that “the president would target the press.” Maybe you should speak to James Rosen or Sharyl Attkisson. I tried to get you to join me or anyone else in protecting freedom of the press. You didn’t seem to have any outrage back then.
If you are on the right—stop with the fake outrage that the press won’t leave a sexual scandal alone, or perhaps you should recall what made Matt Drudge “Matt Drudge.” Does no one remember the early days of Fox or talk radio on Lewinsky? Oh, really, lefties, now? Really? Now, you feel it is your duty to warn about how much of a predator Trump is, when it was an open secret about Harvey Weinstein and none of you even warned Michelle or Barak not to send their daughter to intern with him? Or did the Secret Service already tell them, and everyone knew “she would be safe”—after all, she is the president’s daughter. Where were the predator warnings for everyone else? Wow, with friends like you, who needs Woody Allen?
Can you imagine if anyone dared call DJT “The third black president”? I mean, he would have to be the third, as we all know Bill Clinton was dubbed the first. May I ask, because I am still a little fuzzy on the rules: Doesn’t that fall into cultural appropriation? Or is that one legitimately just racist?
I find myself sometimes now being outraged by the lack of outrage. There are so many things to be outraged by that sometimes we miss a few really outrageous outrages.
Can someone draw me a road map, because this cis male author is so lost I feel like I need to stop to ask for directions. I would make a joke here about my wife telling me to stop and ask and I just never will do it, but that would be sexist, and I might get in trouble with a feminist.
Now, preachers, I wish I could send your younger self “back to the future” to knock some sense into you. Forgiveness requires repentance. You should never sell out the fundamentals of the teachings of the one YOU call Christ for access to the Oval. It is okay that Trump sins; we all do. But like everything, when he sins, he sins BIG. You can still respect him as the president, but please don’t tell people that an unrepentant man is “okeydokey and in line with the teachings of Christ.” That ain’t in the Bible. That isn’t even in Jeremiah Wright’s Bible, and there seems to be a lot of extra crazy stuff in his.
Give the American people—and, frankly, God—a little more credit than not seeing through that butt kiss.
Left: Stop with the fake outrage that Trump is cozy with Russia or may have secret deals with Russians.
Right: For those who were apoplectic about Clinton’s dealings with Gazprom, check your outrage at the media trying to hype Russian relationships.
For those who thought presidential powers were fine to hand out like candy under Obama, does your current and justified outrage about the same powers being used by Trump signal that you now get it, or that you will be fine with it once it is your turn again?
The Tenth Amendment—still racist or now a good idea? Californians who talk about leaving the Union, crazy like Texans were under Obama or totally fine and justified?
If you were fine with the president doing the Iran deal without oversight, why should this president have to have oversight with North Korea?
While I appreciate the outrage, sincerely, about children being slaughtered in the safety of their classroom, it might seem more sincere if you had been a tad upset about Planned Parenthood harvesting dead children for organs.
Stop being outraged that cities won’t enforce UNCONSTITUTIONAL gun laws while you run sanctuary cities, and perhaps the right can stop faking outrage over the spending habits of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and the Democratic Congress while they rack up another trillion in debt and at record speed.
Do you ever get the feeling that all this outrage is fake? That those in positions of real power or influence are not really that outraged? Has anyone thought, gee, maybe they are just using this outrage to get us to fight against each other to help them raise money or gain more power or use it as misdirection? Nah. They would never do that because that would be an outrage!
We seem to be outraged ALL THE TIME.
Those are just the party players! What about the university professors, or those on campus without a safe zone, or the teacher who called the police because her autistic eight-year-old student was “brandishing” an “imaginary rifle” and there she stood, armed but still unwilling to draw and use her “class-two look-alike weapon” (formerly known as a “finger gun”—batteries not included).
Yep, America, as it turns out, it seems a few people here and there in our communities are a little “ticked” themselves on a few things. Can we all admit that we have a problem?
PSST, WANT TO BUY SOME OUTRAGE?
Politics has practically become a blood sport. The system has been set up to divide us. It has been designed to ratchet up our emotions until we’re practically living in attack mode, ready to respond angrily at the slightest provocation. We have been polarized by design. Both political parties not only encourage that, they depend on it to build loyalty—to get you to donate and get you to vote. It’s no longer enough just to be right; you have to grind your opponent into the cyberdirt. The anonymity of the Internet allows people to release all their pent-up hostility without any consequences. Whatever is happening in your life—your spouse is giving you a hard time, the boss is treating you like an idiot, your kids won’t stop whining, the dog pooped on the floor, whatever else is making your life terrible—you can get it all out on the Internet. At work you may feel disrespected, some of your coworkers barely notice you, but online you’re SuperBadMama1024 or ToughPatriot11. And it feels good. Good? It feels great! It’s fun. People who disagree with you aren’t just wrong, they’re idiots. They’re dumb, they’re trolls, they’re racists and bigots, they’re the enemy or whatever clever name you want to call them. It doesn’t take long before your adrenaline starts flowing. Energy just surges through your whole body. If they respond, you double down on the name-calling. It gets as personal as two strangers using made-up names can get. It isn’t intellectual, it’s physiological. Trump figured that out, which is why anyone who opposes him isn’t wrong, he or she is a crook or “little” or crazy or talentless. That was the point of his “search” for Obama’s birth certificate. The evidence didn’t make any difference; it didn’t matter if it was true or completely made-up; it reached people emotionally.
We’ve become like mice in a Pavlovian test lab: hit the pedal, get the cheese, hit the pedal, get the cheese. We have literally become chemically addicted to the social rewards we receive online, through digital thumbs and text-message acronyms and emoticons. Virtue-signaling our friends and trolling our foes have replaced actual virtue and spirited debate with our peers.
When I was getting famous for saying outrageous things on Fox, the Internet and especially the social web were fairly young. People fed their addiction by tuning in to my show and watching me feed my own addiction. But today it’s everywhere, across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, text messages, and memes.
The Russians also figured it out and have become masters at using it to divide us. I have no idea if they actually wanted Trump to be elected in 2016 (Putin doesn’t confer with me), but I do know that what they really wanted to do was rip the country apart. They wanted to solidify the growing hatred in this country. Their bot and troll campaign was incredibly successful at creating dissent. It was a highly sophisticated program meant to ignite arguments and inflame passions. It was designed to trigger moral outrage. It wasn’t just Democrats against Republicans, it was Democrats against Democrats. The divide
between Clinton supporters and Sanders backers was as bitter as that between the two parties, and Republican campaign fights among Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Trump were just as bitter.
As a result, people have made such deep emotional investments in whichever side or candidate we support that we won’t easily give that up. We have been personally empowered, our voice matters, people are finally paying attention to us, each of us is part of a great movement, and together we are changing the world! We belong, and we are right!
Oh my goodness! Can you hear those trumpets blaring triumphantly? Do you see how many shares my meme got? Did you see the likes my picture of Trump with devil horns got? Ha, I’m awesome, people like me! I know that feeling. It’s euphoric! It’s amazingly powerful. Once you experience it, it’s very difficult to give it up. You’ve become addicted to it. You want more of that feeling. In fact, you don’t just want it, you need it.
Hit the pedal, get the cheese. Hit the pedal, get the cheese.
And then someone like me comes along and tells you listen, you’ve got to give it up. It isn’t good for the country. Well, the response to that is obvious: What is wrong with you, Beck?
People on the right think I’m betraying them, that I’ve gone crazy and joined the enemy, while those on the left already know I’m crazy and this is just an obvious, devious attempt to make them lower their guard.
I guess the good news is that I’ve finally found something on which both sides can finally agree.
I know what they are feeling. Believe me, there are many days when I have completely different monologues planned for the show, but instead, I see something in the news that I just “have to mention this first,” I think to myself. They next thing I know, it is forty minutes in and I have been ranting the entire time, and it feels good. But here is the rub: I also know what it means to be an addict.
Probably the very first thing an addict knows for sure is that he or she isn’t an addict. The substance isn’t controlling me, I’m controlling it. There’s nothing wrong with it, and it makes me feel good. I can live without it. I can stop anytime I want to. It’s my life; as long as I’m not hurting anyone else, what difference does it make? Stopping is easy, but I’ll do it slowly. I’ll do it at my own pace; I just have a little, then just a little more.
For me, this book begins at the end: My name is Glenn, and I am an addict currently recovering from social-media-driven moral outrage. Years ago, I was certain that my side was right and the left was wrong. I didn’t have any doubts about that. They couldn’t be more wrong, in fact, which made them dangerous to me and the country that I love so much. It turned out that I was the dangerous guy; dangerous because I was so certain about that. I knew that if we were given the reins of government we would curtail the power of the presidency, we would restore the traditional constitutional barriers, we would deliver real and affordable health care to the sick and elderly without the fat cats getting richer. I knew we would have a sensible foreign policy that defended American interests. I began every conversation with one of “them” knowing that they were so wrong, so misinformed and naïve, that I didn’t need to waste my time listening. I knew that they had nothing to teach me, and it was useless for me to try to explain reality to them because they just wouldn’t listen to reason. I was absolutely certain about that; that’s what I said on my broadcasts, and as a result my popularity continued to rise.
Big oops.
I was certain about Obama and isolated millions of good Americans. In 2016, I was certain about Donald Trump and alienated millions of good Americans who felt no one was listening to them.
Well, we all make mistakes. Unfortunately for me, they tend to be huge and very public. So perhaps I should begin this book with the only thing I am now certain of: I shouldn’t be certain of anything—except that I’m tired of this meaningless fight that is keeping us apart.
Look, the more I learn, the less sure I am that I know very much. About a lot of things. But this is a topic I do have experience in. I’ve lived this.
Understanding how we’ve gotten to this point and accepting what the dangers are to ourselves, our children, and our country if we don’t change, all of us, will make a difference for all of us. Right now, both sides know for certain there is nothing to be learned from the other side, and knowing that, as I did, makes it easy to ridicule and dismiss “them.” And as each side draws sharper lines, it becomes easier and easier to ratchet up the rhetoric and dehumanize the other side. That eventually grows into hatred for “them” and the belief that all of our problems are caused by “them” and helps to justify physical violence against “them.” As Yoda taught us, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” The left is quick to point out anytime Trump uses language they claim dehumanizes immigrants, but in the same breath they have no problem referring to his supporters as “callous,” “racist,” “deplorable,” or “subhuman.” And we wonder why adults feel justified in physically assaulting teenagers wearing MAGA hats in public.
We can do this. We just need to learn to accept and love ourselves and each other for the very real, very human people we all are.
The stop starts now.
9
* * *
Sorry, Not Sorry
This is not an apology book. Mine or yours.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t admit when I’ve been wrong. In fact, I’m delighted to do so.
Let’s have an adult conversation about President Donald Trump. It seems to be the only conversation people want to have these days anyway. It’s important to be able to have nuanced, balanced, and forthright dialogue, even about a demagogue we don’t necessarily like for whatever reason. We need to be able to call balls and strikes without having George Brett come flying out of the dugout throwing haymakers every time he disagrees with a call.
Trump doesn’t need defending, not by me or by anybody. He is single-handedly crushing the media—or single-thumbedly, since he’s mostly using Twitter to do it. I don’t like it, but I also don’t like the response from the media.
Both sides are trying so hard to get us involved in their fight. I say we just sit back and let the Titans fight it out. Personally, I’m putting my money on the Kraken.
Let me make it very clear: It appears that on many of his policies that I thought he would never implement, he has come through. In recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and in his Supreme Court and appeals court appointments, he has shown the bravery shown by Truman and the consistency in constitutional adherence conservatives have been hoping for my whole lifetime.
He quickly and cleanly defeated ISIS, while reversing the Iranian expansion in the Middle East. With his unwavering commitment to the stability of Israel and the effortless defeat of ISIS, which he followed with his standing against almost the entire world to withdraw the United States from the disastrous Obama/Iranian Nuclear Agreement, as well as his quiet diplomacy bringing stability to Saudi Arabia while destroying OPEC in the same move, he may in the end be responsible for a realignment of regional power that greatly diminishes the influence of the mullahs and the psychopathic religious butchers. This alone, if successful, could save the lives of millions and become the greatest achievement in the Middle East by any president in the last seventy-five years.
While his tax cuts, to me, left a lot to be desired, that is an issue with Congress, not the administration. It was much better for the people and the economy. Once coupled with the massive reduction of regulations (cutting regs and the budget of the EPA by one-third) he has given employees, companies, and entrepreneurs a chance to be competitive once again on the world stage. At the time of this writing, America is experiencing the lowest unemployment rate since 1969. In June the Fed announced “Wage Inflation,” which simply means your wages are going up. Because fewer people are looking for work, which means more competition for those companies that are looking to hire. Think of it this way: Inflation is caused by too ma
ny dollars chasing too few products.
Just replace the word “products” with “workers” and presto, “wage inflation.” Most Americans have not seen a pay increase greater than inflation for close to three decades. The last administration felt that the only way companies would pay more is if the government dictated things like a mincome or a fifteen-dollar minimum wage. The wage inflation and low unemployment numbers have happened because the president understood that the free market works.
On these issues I am thrilled to tell you, as during the election I promised I would: I was wrong. Very wrong.
With that said, his tariffs could undo all that he has accomplished. I am hoping that it is all nothing more than a short-term negotiating tactic, but with every passing day, I grow more and more concerned. I am also sad to say that my biggest concerns about POTUS, his character flaws as a man, continue to disappoint me. But he is the president, and we all must be honest enough to point out the good and not just the bad. Likewise, Trump supporters must be willing to point out the bad, not just the good.
I am, however, more concerned by our character flaws at this point, as we know who he is and we have already “baked those issues into the price.”
What is crazy is that we are so under assault from all directions that we have lost all ability to differentiate between friends and foes. We now require 100 percent acceptance of every policy, statement, and haircut a politician has ever had. We now consider people “traitors” if they are not in total lockstep. When did this happen? I love Baskin-Robbins and Cold Stone Creamery, but not every flavor. It is why they give you the little plastic spoons. Even then, there is stuff, I know, even without the pink spoon test, that I just will not like. If it were the rum, I would be out. But it isn’t. It isn’t 5 Baskin-Robbins’s flavors that mean I hate the whole store. They have 31. Perhaps I don’t like 20 of them, I hate 3 of them and I am out-and-out hostile toward all sherbets because you and I both know they are a mockery of ice cream and healthy food. It just pretends to be healthy. I hate it. But I am not a traitor to Baskin-Robbins for not liking sherbet, even if I am suspicious of the sherbet. As if this section of the counter is where I think either Mr. Baskin or fathead Robbins is going to take the company after the other one dies. I am pretty sure that I am still welcome in all 7,800 worldwide locations, and while that Baskin bastard may be a little hostile to me himself, it is only because he knows that I know his deadly sherbet scheme, which involves killing Robbins with an otter pop, as once it melts there will be no murder weapon. I promise everyone else behind the counter doesn’t require me to accept, like, or sing the praises of everything Baskin-Robbins does. Why isn’t it the same with President Trump or Hillary Clinton?