Glenn Beck is a popular right-wing TV show host on America’s Fox News Network. Geert Wilders is an increasingly popular right-wing Dutch politician who’s been making waves in the UK recently. Beck should be praising Wilders, right? Wrong! Here’s what Beck said on his show the other day:
Also, you have far right Dutch M.P. Geert Wilders. Last year, he was banned from the U.K. They said his presence could threaten community harmony and therefore public safety. Last week, not only was he allowed into England, he was at the House of Lords, where he screened a film on the Quran.
The right and left are growing again in Europe. The left — listen carefully — the left in Europe is communism. The right is fascism, in Europe.
What’s particularly strange about Beck attacking Wilders is that the controversy Beck is referring to has caused the Dutch M.P to become, in his eyes at least, a cause celebre for freedom of speech. And since part of Beck’s whole schtick is standing up for American freedom – government is bad etc – he should be all about free speech.
It would be easy to dismiss this as Beck being, well, Beck. This is after all a guy who boiled a frog alive on TV. But there’s a deeper point here, which is that American right-wing pundits like Beck really have a problem nailing down their belief system. Basially their dilemma is this: they hate government, and so like to compare any government action to socialism. To make socialism even scarier it gets slandered with comparisons to the Nazis (National Socialism and all that). But the Nazis were also fascists. So, in Beck’s addled mind, any European who’s been labelled with the “fascist” title has to be criticised in order to support the whole “we don’t want America to become all scary socialist like Europe” theme.
Ideological incoherence at its very, very worst.
