I attended the Glenn Beck rally on August 28th with about 300,000 of my closest friends. I went more or less as an observer – I am not a hard-core Beck devotee, although I often watch his Fox News program when the 5-6 pm hour is free.
While I think there is a good deal of kookiness about Beck, I also think he’s rendered an invaluable service by openly discussing the historical and philosophical roots of the Progressive movement and how it is diametrically opposed to the vision of our founders. My only quarrel with the service is that he’s trying simultaneously to learn and teach. The quality is somewhat uneven.
As to the rally itself, I came away puzzled – and I suspect I wasn’t the only one. In chatting with members of the crowd before the rally, it was clear that people were fired up politically and they viewed themselves as members of a vanguard ready to storm the ramparts. The talk was not introspective but rather a “November is Coming” passion – a purging of the temple, if you will.
As the rally went on, however, I sensed a puzzlement. Thematically, the event had all the internal consistency of a pot luck supper but what we got in the end was not politics but a good, old fashioned revival meeting – heavily Christian in emphasis but fairly generic in outlook nevertheless.
Most of the speakers – Beck included – preached sermons emphasizing personal renewal as a foundation for national repentance and revival. While there were people around me who swayed and raised their hands to the prayers and music, most were subdued. I don’t think it’s what they were expecting. As the crowd slowly dispersed, there was not much animation and little chatter – due, probably, to heat and fatigue. The sun was very hot and most people had stood for over three hours.
In short, I sensed disappointment. But Beck is certainly not the first guy to fail to meet expectations – and he won’t be the last. Our own history is full of examples – Lincoln’s last public address on April 11, 1865, is one such instance. The crowd expected Lincoln to beat the drum of victory and what they got instead was a puzzling talk on the generous policy he intended to pursue toward the South.
This is not to say that the Beck rally was a failure – only that it failed to comply with the crowd’s expectations. There are also abundant instances where a speech or event was labeled a “failure” and it is only later that we understand its true meaning in context. Again, Lincoln’s story is apt: his Gettysburg Address was widely derided at the time and Lincoln himself thought it a failure, remarking to his friend Ward Lamon that the speech “won’t scour . . . It is a flat failure and the people are disappointed”. Yet, the speech endures in the national psyche.
In the end, I think the message of the event was the event itself. There were far more than 300,000 people at the rally and for each person present, there were 20 more who didn’t attend. These people are sober and serious. And that’s what’s terrifying the country’s ruling class.
I thought Reason TV’s Nick Gillespie provided a good summary and many of his observations parallel my own. He’s more skeptical about the religious aspects of the event than I am, however.
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