Can Glenn Beck Make the Turn?

Beck played Biff Tannen, Marty McFly's nemesis in the Back to the Future Trilogy

This economic recovery will be bad for the pawn shop business but it will be even worse for the Depressionary-Industrial Complex.  Yes, you may want to let all those domain names you bought with the word Armageddon in them just expire.

Meanwhile, somebody forgot to tell Fox‘s “news analyst” and professional  Nostalgia-neer Glennnnn Beck that optimism is what’s up for 2011 and his tired doom-and-gloom schtick went out of style with those awful gladiator sandals from last summer.

The New York Times is reporting that he’s lost a million viewers since the nasty healthcare battles of last year, especially in the younger demo.  Fox is going to frame it as a “credibility” issue if they don’t re-up Beck’s deal but the reality is that if his ratings were climbing, he’d be just fine.

It turns out that you can’t be a raving lunatic AND a ratings loser at Fox News.

The irony of his waning popularity occurring precisely as his “gold trade” is actually panning out is rich to say the least.  But I don’t think Beck’s popularity correlates with gold – I think there’s a stronger correlation with unemployment.

Beck made a name for himself during the worst of times by feeding the idiots a message of culpability on the part of left and the browner, younger people who were tearing this country further and further away from the idealized 1950’s that his viewers wished we could return to.  Max unemployment meant max dissatisfaction – and Beck’s “back to the way things were” message really resonated.

Fast forward to March of 2011 and we’ve just seen the first official unemployment rate with an 8-handle since 2008.  We’re finally seeing weekly jobless claims stick below 400,000 and, with the stock market having actually doubled from the lows two years ago, there is even a sense of optimism.  What that means for Fox is that the viewers are too busy getting on with their lives to watch the bad guy from Back to the Future scratch away at that facacta chalkboard of his.

Good riddance if Beck goes, and he can take those phony tears streaming down his puffy cheeks with him.

Read More:

The Fading Power of Beck’s Alarms (NYT)