August 25, 2010 10:00 AM
New Tea Party study: Glenn Beck is an "educator" and the most highly regarded individual. Seriously.
By John Amato
LINK to the study:
http://www.democracycorps.com/strategy/2010/07/special-report-on-the-tea-party-movement/?section=AnalysisFox News ranks as the leading agitator of this newly formed group, and one of their primary methods of whipping up their base is to use the the divisive tactic of race-baiting. They are reaching into the darkest corners of right-wing hatred which target the poor and non-whites in our society. It's a familiar strategy to anyone who knows history, and now we know that it never really died out, as many of us think it did. This country has taken decades to repair the damage inflicted by this kind of politics -- and now it's returning.
The very type of racist resentment Tony Snow famously proclaimed was dead is alive and well, and Fox has been injecting race into the public discourse as a wedge issue. It's ugly and vile, but it's touched a nerve with Republicans and it's the primary source of information for Tea Partiers:
The only news source that participants said they could trust was Fox.
If that's the case, then how does Glenn Beck rate with the Tea Partiers?
Glenn Beck is the most highly regarded individual among Tea Party supporters of the people we tested. He scores an extraordinarily high 75 percent warm rating, 57 percent very warm.
This affinity for Beck came through very clearly in the focus groups. The only news source that participants said they could trust was Fox. Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity were cited as people who “are not afraid to tell it like it is” and support their arguments with solid facts. Beck was undoubtedly the hero in these groups. Participants consider him an “educator” (in contrast to the popular Rush Limbaugh who is an “entertainer”) who teaches people history and puts himself at risk because he exposes the truth. In the words of a woman in Ft. Lauderdale, “I would trust my life in his hands.”
Other comments are just as laudatory:
I like the way he’s trying to get back to the basics of the Constitution of the United States because I think that’s where our government is losing focus. They’re trying to change the Constitution or somehow twist it…
He brings out facts… And he actually shows the people saying the things. It’s not like just sound bites. It’s not chopped and really edited. And he is scary because every time I watch the show, which is pretty much every day, my heart feels…and I feel like I want to do something.
I’m frightened for him… Because of the things that he says. I think that he is stepping on some big toes.
He really does his research and he really lays it out to you well; a good professor.
That's right. The people in the focus groups actually believe that when Glenn Beck whips out his chalk and blackboards and gives them lessons about the history of America---they buy it hook, line and sinker.
http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/new-study-shows-tea-parties-are-exten-0