History Lessons ala Beck

The people Glenn Beck has in his thrall are thirsty for knowledge - they see things are going wrong in their lives but they can't quite accept that they've just been voting for the wrong people.  They need their favorite opinion makers to explain how they can let themselves off the hook, and find somebody to blame for their troubles.  Beck is really good at playing the "don't be naive" card.  "Wake up, America!" is something the guy says on his shows a lot.

He draws it out on his blackboard and always presents his doctrine as if he's just eager to share this new-found information with all of his friends.  The visuals and the presentation style are (I think) purposeful and well thought out - they're aimed at evoking a Sunday School feeling in the audience.  Here's good ol' Glenn; all he wants is to help regular people understand some things.

So now he's all about rewriting US History, but of course what the Beckies are actually learning is a Politically Branded version of history; instead of learning the facts or something as close to the facts as possible.

Read this from Will Bunch at CNN.

The revisionist message behind "Restoring Honor" is nothing new for the conservative shock jock. In the year and half since President Obama took office, Beck has led his loyal followers on a journey not just to "reclaim" civil rights but much more audaciously to rewrite the sweeping narrative arc of American history from the time of the Founding Fathers forward.

The backbone of the Tea Party is over-55s and especially retirees -- some planned, some forced -- with the most valuable asset of all, time.

They see studying U.S. history as a powerful reconnection with their youth. Waiting for Beck's "American Revival" show in Orlando, Florida, in March, 70-year-old fan Joseph Cerniglia told me he was way too busy for civics lessons when he was raising kids and working as a stockbroker and then cider-maker. "I have learned more from Glenn Beck -- learned more about American history and government, from Glenn Beck -- than in the previous 40 years of my life," the retiree told me.