Glenn Beck, Nazi re-enactment apologist

By Michael J.W. Stickings

You know that whole thing about Ohio Republican House candidate Rich Iott dressing up as a Nazi for some silly (and on some level rather nefarious) WWII re-enactment? (The Atlantic's Joshua Green weighed in on it here and here, our own Mustang Bobby here.)

Well, it seems that Glenn Beck, who's more than happy to equate progressivism with fascism, is a-okay with it:

On his radio show [earlier this week], Glenn Beck addressed the recent controversy around House Republican candidate Rich Iott, who reportedly dresses up in Nazi clothing for World War II re-enactments...

Beck was incredulous that this could be a campaign issue, arguing that Iott's dressing up as a Nazi was comparable to dressing up like Darth Vader or playing cowboys and Indians. Really?

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Beck's defense is even more nonsensical when you consider his history of seeing Nazis and socialists everywhere on the left. He sees these fictional connections -- can you imagine how much hay Beck would make of a progressive who chose to play dress up in this fashion? For goodness sake he spun an entire story out of an ornament that had Mao on it that the White House was unaware of.

Darth Vader is fictional, as is much of the romanticism around "cowboys and Indians." The Nazis were very real, like the unit that Iott and his group apparently play as. Nobody is arguing about Iott's right to engage in this activity, but as a candidate for public office the decision to portray one of the worst forces the world has ever faced - for recreation - is going to arouse scrutiny no matter how Beck tries to dismiss it.

It's hardly surprising that Beck is a hypocrite on this, or that he's essentially an apologist for dressing up as a Nazi and getting the history totally wrong.

After all, for all that he talks up freedom -- "freedom" for him and those like him -- it seems he'd be far more comfortable with Nazism than with liberal democracy, given his opposition to progressivism and his view that America would be better off if only the clock could be rolled back to some utopian past of authoritarian bliss.