Americans demand satirical response to Glenn Beck

Someone on Reddit had a brilliant idea today for a D.C. rally in response to the one Glenn Beck held this last weekend. Here it is:

I’ve had a vision and I can’t shake it: Colbert needs to hold a satirical rally in DC.

I was woken in the middle of the night by this (along with the sound of my cat getting ready to pee on the rug).

Think about it. It’ll be just like Colbert’s mockery of GW Bush at the 2006 White House Correspondent’s Dinner, but 500,000 people will be able to participate with him. We’ll all stay totally in character as teabaggers. The kid with the microphone that interviews all the idiots at these things can come by and we’ll ramble into his microphone.

This would be the high water mark of American satire. Half a million people pretending to suspend all rational thought in unison. Perfect harmony. It’ll feel like San Francisco in the late 60s, only we won’t be able to get any acid.

I know you’re out there somewhere, Stephen, watching LOLcat gifs alongside us. We need you. There’s no way to have a logical public discussion with the teabaggers. The best we can do is to mimic them. Show them a mirror and hopefully some will realize how ridiculous they actually are… Or maybe they won’t even realize that they’re being mocked, which could be even more awesome.

And it’s not just me that likes the idea. There’s already a Facebook page with over 2,250 fans, a budding wiki presence and a logo (pictured to the right). And people are, at this very moment, furiously writing letters to the producer of the Colbert Report. As someone pointed out on the wiki, “If America needs anything it’s a 500,000 person mirror with Colbert holding it!” And I couldn’t agree more. I don’t know what I can do from here in Michigan to help, but, at the very least, I’m thinking that I can charter the first bus to D.C. and set out to fill it with fellow fauxbaggers.

We’ve tried logic. It doesn’t work. Why not give satire a chance? What have we got to lose? If nothing else, it might give Democrats a little psychological boost going into the November elections. And, all that aside, it would just be great to show Beck what a 500,000 person rally really looks like.

I wonder, though, if something like this could possibly come together in a few month’s time. I suspect it’s not an uncomplicated thing to reserve the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and the Mall.

For those of you who don’t see a need to respond to Beck, I’d encourage you to watch the following interview footage, which was shot at his “Restoring Honor” event on Saturday.

And Beck’s misinformation campaign isn’t showing any signs of slowing. Today, on his radio show, he announced the launch of a new news portal called The Blaze. The site, he said, in addition to providing him yet another venue from which to
push dubious gold investments, would serve as a fair and balanced response to the lies being spread by the Huffington Post. (He didn’t really mention the gold ads, but the website is full of them.)

While we’re on the subject of Beck, I’d also like to suggest you check out the article in today’s Washington Post on his transformation into a spiritual leader. Here’s a clip:

A few weeks before organizing a massive rally on the Mall that had the feel of a religious revival, Glenn Beck sought the blessing of some of the country’s most prominent conservative Christian leaders.

The Fox talk show host wanted their support as he shifted from political commentary to a more spiritual message, he told the group of about 20.

This is where God is leading me, Beck declared, according to Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, who was there, along with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson.

Land said most in the group found Beck’s faith genuine and heartfelt, although not everyone agreed to embrace him publicly.

“We walked back to the hotel after and said, ‘That was extraordinary,’ ” Land said of his conversation with Dobson after the dinner in Manhattan. “I’ve never heard a cultural figure of that popularity talking that overtly about his faith. He sounded like Billy Graham.”

Two days after Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally drew a crowd that stretched from the Lincoln Memorial to the World War II Memorial, many Americans were still trying to figure out if the commentator had just seized the mantle of the religious right.

Conservative Christian talk radio was crackling with debate about Beck’s Mormonism. Religious progressives were assailing his attacks on President Obama’s Christianity. Scholars of religion and politics were analyzing Beck’s evangelical-like talk of being saved from drug and alcohol addiction. Some pastor-bloggers were bemoaning what they consider the conflation of celebrity, politics and spirituality.

“Politically, everyone is with it, but theologically, when he says the country should turn back to God, the question is: Which God?” said Tom Tradup, vice president for news and talk at Salem Radio Network,which serves more than 2,000 stations, most of them Christian. “How much of this is turning to God? How much is religious revival and how much is a snake oil medicine show?”…

Hopefully Colbert can do it even better.