Glenn Beck Quotes
What the media is doing is, again, just going after the Democrats and the Republicans and making it about politics instead of principles.
Beck, Glenn. The Glenn Beck Program. Premiere Networks, 2016.
Until the 20th century almost all American political media were shamelessly and overtly biased—left or right. Political Parties had their own de facto publications much like Fox News became for the Republicans in the 21st century. In the 20th century journalism developed into a profession that evolved standards of objectivity in reporting. That norm then prevailed for about 70 years. With the extreme polarization of the later years of the 29th Century the right wing began to accuse much of the media of a left wing bias, and the media tended to react as Krugman describes in this quotation. The model of having spokespersons for “each side” of an issue works for highly subjective political preferences with a two party system, but where it broke down is with scientific and technical issues. On these, there often really are not two scientific points of view, but there is a scientific consensus of the vast majority of scientists and almost all the prestigious and accomplished scientists are in accord. However, there may be some who have a cultural, religious and/or political concern for some science and its implications for society. They in turn find a scientist or two, often one who is unaccomplished and not recognized in the scientific field to argue a different point of view. The media have tended to equate the two and have a “debate” as if there were two sides to the science when there are not. These issues tend to cluster around scientific medical issues involving sex and birth control methods, environment and conservation, evolution, the age of the earth and the method of creation of the universe. The problem is particularly exacerbated by the general scientific illiteracy of the American population and the relatively few journalists who themselves are scientifically literate who can explain scientific issues well.
In the Early 21st Century, the vast majority of the entertainment industry were supporters of the Democratic party. This has generally been true throughout history where entertainers have been on the left politically except in left leaning dictatorships like China and the Soviet Union where those governments tend to see entertainers as reactionaries. In general entertainers talk, sing, and dramatize about and criticize the status quo.
In 2011 nd 2012 a right wing extremist group—the Tea Party-were able to intimidate the Republican Congressional leadership to take the extreme partisan view that why would allow no significant legislation to pass as it might strengthen Democrat president Obama’s chances of getting reelected. Therefore there was to be no cooperation or even negotiations with the Democrats in Congress. Lugar a highly respected Republican Statesman, and expert on Foreign Affairs, followed his usual pattern of trying to develop legislation that would benefit the country. The Tea Party and some of the more partisan regular republicans then ran a candidate in the state primary election sending huge amounts of money to defeat Lugar who was a sure winner in the general election as he was very popular with all groups in Indiana ecept the right wing extremists, racists and fascists. Lugar never had the chance to win the election. He was defeated in the primary for working with Democrats.
Glenn Lee Beck is an American conservative political commentator, conspiracy theorist, radio host, and television producer. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his television and radio network TheBlaze. He hosts the Glenn Beck Radio Program, a popular talk-radio show nationally syndicated on Premiere Radio Networks. Beck also hosts the Glenn Beck television program, which ran from January 2006 to October 2008 on HLN, from January 2009 to June 2011 on Fox News and currently airs on TheBlaze. Beck has authored six New York Times–bestselling books.