The wingnut psychopathology of Glenn Beck and many other hyper-conservatives doesn’t prevent them from being lionized in the media, turned into millionaires by media corporations, and having their own media (“The Blaze”) taken seriously on television. Meanwhile, we ordinary everyday liberals are considered by the corporate media to be too controversial to put on the air.
One of the more profound contradictions in wing-nuttery is an absolute idolatry of Israel’s Likud government combined with a lightly veiled contempt for American Jews and their liberal values. Back in the 1990s the Conservative code word for Jews was the “Hollywood elite”, seen as promoting sex outside traditional marriage, gay rights, gun control, workers’ rights, etc. Go back and look at Dan Quayle’s attack on the sitcom Murphy Brown with Candace Bergen, the real target of which was the imaginary “Hollywood elite.” (Hollywood is actually a diverse enterprise.). Most American Jews vote Democratic.
At the same time, the right wing developed a fascination with muscular Zionism in Israel. They configured Israel as the Alamo of White People, surrounded by barbarian hordes and terrorists. Glenn Beck developed ties to the Israeli Likud Party and was praised by PM Binyamin Netanyahu even though 8 of his “9 most dangerous men” are Jews. He has said slanderous things about George Soros. He characterized the young Israeli protesters for social justice in summer, 2011, as a leftist Islamic Nazi plot. He compared Reform Judaism to al-Qaeda.
Now Beck has compared Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s stances on controlling hand guns and his public health campaign against huge doses of sugary soda to a Nazi salute.
The true friends of Israel are the ones working against the occupation of the Palestinian territories captured in 1967, an Occupation that is deeply harming Israeli interests. For Beck, Israelis are merely Gurkhas for American Empire, and when they decline to serve far rightwing US interests, he is happy to smear them as Nazis.
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