"Stephen Colbert" rode off into the sunset this week after nine dedicated years of mercilessly witty satire of right wing blowhards. Like many people, we found ourselves asking: who will fill the Colbert-sized hole in our hearts? But that person was here all along, scrawling on chalkboards, warning of dystopian futures, and going on crying jags. After you watch the hysterically funny video below, just try to tell us Glenn Beck isn't some next-level performance artist just hitting his stride.
Right Wing Watch reports that Beck dedicated his program last night to an end-of-the-year recap in which a 90-year-old bearded Glenn Beck, apparently living in the bunker of one of his dystopian visions and looking a lot like Grand Maester Pycelle, "recorded a dire message from the future about how 2014 was the year in which the whole world fell apart." Beck doesn't just don a costume—he acts with his beard, people.
Living alone in an abandoned building with only a few tiny candles and a small fire for light and heat, future Beck somehow managed to scrounge up some batteries and video cameras with which to record his message. And even though the world in 2054 is apparently short on food and fuel and energy and everything else, future Beck still somehow managed to obtain stockpiles of footage from news programs that aired forty years earlier and even had the capacity to edit those clips into his dire message about how everything from Ebola, to ISIS, to the Federal Reserve all brought about the complete collapse of capitalism and society starting in 2014.
And what caused the world to fall apart? What was the inciting incident around which society collapsed and chaos reigned? Why, the Cliven Bundy ranch standoff. Neat.
But the joy is really in the telling of the tale, in Beck's dedication to character, setting, mood and histrionics. Humanity's greatest achievement is a soldier getting married to his sweetheart; its greatest tragedy is the missing Malaysian Airlines flight. Will Wilkinson transcribed his epic speech, which is worth reading word for word:
Forty years ago, 2014, your history books claim, that was the year of the dawn of progressivism! The dawn of a new beginning! The end of capitalism! I’ll tell you know that it was that. That this new era of equality, and diversity and tolerance … I beg to differ with your history book! Forget your books! I was there! I saw it! I remember 2014, I remember four words that came to me… There was a clash of the “evil” tea partiers. There was a clash on a ranch in the middle of the country. A man said he had a right to his own land. It was at that time that I heard, and I’ll never forget it in my prayers, four words: “And. So. It. Begins.” Over and over again I saw it, over and over again I heard it. I was like Nebuchadnezzar without Daniel… Sorry. You probably don’t even know what that means. Right. I’m not crazy. I was naive, but I was not crazy.
Aside from the fact that Beck uses clips of himself as evidence of this coming apocalypse, the best is the bit about Nebuchadnezzar. Beck clearly didn't have time to fit in just how godless America has become in this wasteland future, but he had to make sure he got this across. His agonized line reading literally made me giggle with glee. As Wilkinson put it:
The bewhiskered ghost of Glenn Beck future apologizes for his biblical reference because … why? Because the Bureau of Land Management was not brutally overthrown, and so the Bible has become illegal? Who knows! Who cares! This is art, people. Beck’s historical-reenactor-from-the-dystopian-future scenery-chewing raises the bar for avant garde thespians everywhere.
We look forward to the day Beck finally drops his act and reveals that he is a huge Bright Eyes fan that contributes to Planned Parenthood, so that we can give him the Nebuchadnezzar Lifetime Achievement Award In Acting.
