Commentary

Glenn Beck, Samantha Bee Join Forces To Fight Trump

“Our future is going to require a broad coalition of nonpartisan decency. It’s not just individual people against Donald Trump; it’s all of us against Trumpism.”

That is how Samantha Bee, the host of "Full Frontal" on TBS, explained the reasoning behind the appearance of conservative firebrand Glenn Beck on her show, a bipartisan push to oppose the new president.

Trump has done much to divide the country, but he has also brought together the most unlikely of TV personalities. We are truly in a bizarro world.

Glenn Beck had been a vocal opponent of Donald Trump throughout his campaign. Having endorsed Ted Cruz in the primaries, Beck said of Trump that he wasn’t a real conservative, and that a “Donald Trump presidency is not in God’s plan.”

Beck has called Trump “dangerously unhinged.”

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While progressives may have used similar language to describe Beck back in the day, they now share the same goal: keeping Trumpism in check and defeating him in four years.

While Monday’s "Full Frontal" show had strong comedic overtones, Beck made somewhat of an apology for his past actions. “As a guy who has done damage, I don’t want to do any more damage,” he explained.

“I know what I did. I helped divide. I’m willing to take that. My message to you is: Please don’t make the mistakes I made. And I think all of us are doing it. We’re doing it on Facebook, we’re doing it on Twitter. We tear each other apart, and we don’t see the human on the other side.”

Such self-reflection from both sides of the political spectrum could usher in a new era of more thoughtful bipartisan discourse. We have seen glimpses of this in the past, when Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly challenged each other on their respective shows and organized a highly publicized debate around the 2012 presidential election.

The Trump presidency will kindle needed discourse in the political realm. For too long, we have reinforced our own world-views rather than explore how political rivals can find common ground.

1 comment about "Glenn Beck, Samantha Bee Join Forces To Fight Trump".
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  1. Neil Mahoney from Mahoney/Marketing, December 22, 2016 at 4:44 p.m.

    This is why Beck I losing listeners.  He's a jerk.

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