Beck Biographer: He is Motivated by Money and Fame

David Weigel interviews Alexander Zaitchik, the author of a new biography about Glenn Beck. His biography does not paint a flattering portrait:

This is the question I hear liberals most often ask about Beck: Is he doing this for money, or does he believe this stuff? You seem to come down in the middle, and argue that he's a huckster, but he's also dim enough to believe that, say, ACORN is at the root of all evil.

His main motivations are, and have always been, money and fame. If Beck has a true religion, it’s not Patriotism. It’s not Mormonism. It’s cross-platform self-marketing.

The one constant in his life has been enormous ambition. His business and brand will never be big or successful enough—hence the new projects never stop coming. But I don’t think Beck’s self-image as a businessman is at odds with his beliefs about religion and politics. He doesn’t know enough about the world to understand why his grand-unified theory of a 100-year progressive plot is a laughingstock outside of his own TV and radio studios. I think he actually believes God wants him to make all this money and fight dirty for right wing causes. Does he really believe God is speaking to and through him? I don’t know. But in one of his books, he describes Heaven as a place where everybody “can make as much money as they want,” and he does believe that God basically wrote the Constitution in 1787.

The mistake Beck’s critics often make is to say, “Okay, so if his main self-identity is as a media and entertainment mogul, then everything else is just an act.” There’s no need to choose just one door. On his worldview’s own terms, there’s no contradiction between his enormous success, his entertainment toolbox, and his bat-in-the-bell tower politics. What’s shocking to me is how completely his fans swallow the “selfless patriot” act. It’s like they’re deaf and blind to the way his tearful civic-activist shtick feeds directly into the business, indeed is the business. What’s happening, I think, is that Beck thinks God approves of his manipulations, and his fans are willing to suspend their disbelief and give him a pass because, they too, think Beck is ultimately doing God’s work. The whole thing is arguably the most elaborate Kabuki theater on view on the right today.

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