Tally Grows of Viewers Moved to Violence by Beck鈥檚 Rants
Through countless diagrams and diatribes, chalk-wielding Fox News commentator Glenn Beck has made it his mission to inform his audience that left-wing progressives are purportedly on the brink of revolution. Many of Beck鈥檚 fans take him seriously. In the past two years, at least three have decided the best response to his warnings is violence.
Kenneth B. Kimbley Jr. of Spirit Lake, Idaho, is the latest to face prison time for interpreting Beck鈥檚 rants as a call to action.
of the Brotherhood of America Patriots, an extreme-right militia whose mission, he says, is to 鈥渞esist in the event the government started rounding up the patriots鈥� and to stand up in the face of foreign invasions or societal breakdowns. (Authorities believe Kimbley鈥檚 group was tiny.) At the time of his arrest in July, Kimbley had 20,000 rounds of ammunition, a stock of firearms, and materials he planned to use to construct grenades, according to court documents.
According to the Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash., Kimbley鈥檚 lawyer described her client as a man with strong political views who posed no real danger to society. 鈥淚n fact, everything said by Mr. Kimbley is no different than what his idol, TV commentator Glenn Beck, typically states on the air,鈥� public defender Kim Deater wrote in court papers.
and , also Beck fans, got a lot farther in their alleged antigovernment actions before being caught.
Williams, who likened Beck to a 鈥渟choolteacher,鈥� is charged with shooting and wounding two members of the California Highway Patrol during a July confrontation that occurred on his way to San Francisco, where he allegedly planned to start a revolution by assassinating leaders at the ACLU and the , both regular targets of Beck鈥檚 furious rants. (The Tides Foundation, in fact, would be barely known if not for at least 29 mentions made by Beck, including two in the week before the shootout, according to Media Matters.)
Poplawski, for his part, allegedly shot three police officers to death in April 2009 after his mother called them to the Pittsburgh home they shared.
鈥淩ich, like myself, loved Glenn Beck,鈥� Eddie Perkovic, Poplawski鈥檚 best friend told reporter , among others. Prior to the shooting, Poplawski reportedly was 鈥渙bsessed鈥� with two of Beck鈥檚 pet theories: that there is an and that paper money will soon be worthless. Like Kimbley and Williams, Poplawski worried that the government planned to intern dissidents in concentration camps.
Although Beck in the past has for the extreme actions of his viewers, it isn鈥檛 surprising his inflammatory expositions about what the government and its 鈥減rogressive鈥� allies are doing could push certain people over the edge and into violence.
Beck proclaimed in January that like the 鈥淚sraeli Nazi hunters 鈥� I鈥檓 going to expose what [progressives] have done and make sure that people understand.鈥� In June, he said 鈥渁narchists, Marxists, communists, revolutionaries, Maoists鈥� would need to 鈥渆liminate 10% of the population鈥� to 鈥済ain control.鈥� In July, he said that 鈥淸t]he army鈥� of the extreme left is gathering鈥� and that it believes that 鈥渃ops are bad, kill the cops, they鈥檙e the oppressors.鈥� In September, he warned, 鈥淰iolence will come. And violence will come from the left. Violence is part of the plan.鈥�
The connection between Kimbley鈥檚 beliefs and Beck鈥檚 provocative on-air statements seems clear, especially his fear that the government plans to round up and intern liberty-loving Americans, a fear that was also expressed by Poplawski and Byron.
One of Beck鈥檚 earliest public flirtations with the idea that government concentration camps might be real came in March 2009, exactly a month to the day before Poplawski allegedly opened fire on officers responding to a domestic dispute at his home. (, a far-right antigovernment conspiracy theorist and who Williams , also had trumpeted the theory for some time.) Beck has since claimed to debunk the idea of government camps, but the rest of his rhetoric is hardly even-handed. And though he tempers his endless alarms with reminders that 鈥渋t is not time to pick up guns鈥� or 鈥渂low anything up,鈥� his most volatile fans apparently take these admonitions with a grain of salt.
鈥淏eck is gonna deny everything about a violent approach and deny everything about conspiracies,鈥� Williams told John Hamilton of Media Matters. 鈥淏ut he鈥檒l give you every reason to believe it.鈥�
