For much of the latter part of 2016, Glenn Beck seemed to be turning over a new leaf. He was one of the charter members of the “Never Trump” club, and actually went as far as to praise a speech by Michelle Obama. He was also one of the few prominent conservatives to openly call out the alt-right, and has been harshly critical of that movement’s eminence grise, incoming White House senior adviser and former Breitbart boss Steve Bannon.
But through it all, we’ve had to keep reminding ourselves that Beck is the definition of a stopped clock. Just in case anyone forgot, Beck himself has reminded us in the last 48 hours that when he wants to be, he is still a full-on wingnut. He claims that Black Lives Matter is at least partially responsible for a vicious beating in Chicago that was streamed live on the Internet.
On Wednesday, four black youths bound and gagged a white special-needs man in a Chicago apartment before beating and torturing him for half an hour. One of the assailants streamed the whole thing on Facebook Live. At least one attacker was heard yelling, “F*ck Donald Trump!” and “F*ck white people!” The four have since been arraigned on charges of hate crime, kidnapping, unlawful restraint, and assault with a deadly women.
The racially-charged comments heard on the video apparently led to claims that Black Lives Matter was somehow responsible for the attack. Within 24 hours, the hashtag “#BLMKidnapping” was mentioned 480,000 times on Twitter. As of Thursday night, it is one of the top five Twitter trends in the nation. However, Chicago police were quick to knock down any link between Black Lives Matter and this horrible crime. A number of prominent BLM leaders have also loudly condemned the attack, such as Deray McKesson.
It goes without saying that the actions being branded by the far-right as the "BLM Kidnapping" have nothing to do w/ the movement.
— deray (@deray) January 5, 2017
But as we know by now, such little things as facts never get in the way of a campaign of hate. Even as BLM and its supporters loudly condemned this attack, Beck was joining in on the claims that it was indeed responsible. On Wednesday night, he fired off this tweet in response to a user calling out Trump for his campaign of hate.
You are right. Stand up with me and demand justice in Chicago for the beating of a disabled trump supporter by BLM https://t.co/aP79pKnHA1
— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) January 5, 2017
Beck doubled down on his show a few hours later, which saw a full return to the Beck we’ve grown to loathe over the years. People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch got a clip.
Beck claimed he was merely asking if the attackers were BLM activists, saying that he “didn’t want to spread false news.” Apparently he was convinced they were, judging by his tweet. But if he has any evidence, he never showed it on Twitter, and didn’t do so on his show.
Despite the lack of said evidence, Beck claimed that BLM bears a measure of responsibility. How? Well, Beck said, if he and other tea partiers get blamed “for every coarse word” said about Obama, then “we have to assign some blame to the leadership of Black Lives Matter” for yelling things like “death to whitey.” Never mind that Chicago police laid more stress on the fact that the bottom-feeders attacked a special-needs man, not that he was white.
Later, Beck claimed that he’d fired off his tweet after seeing an article linking the Chicago attack to BLM. But he didn’t provide a link to said article on either Facebook or Twitter. As I write this on Thursday night, he still has yet to do so. The obvious conclusion–that article only exists in Beck’s mind.
I actually applauded Beck for not being afraid to call out the alt-right. Indeed, I’ve been waiting for him to chalkboard the links between the alt-right and the European far right–something I never thought I’d do. Well, this screed serves as a reminder that Beck is back to his old self–assuming he even tried to turn over a new leaf at all.
(featured image courtesy Gage Skidmore, available under a Creative Commons BY-SA license)
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