Blaze TV pro-Trump echo chamber is now anti-free speech
Having embraced its role as a pro-Trump echo chamber, Blaze TV has boldly gone where no “conservative” media outlet has gone before by expanding its mission to include open attacks on the First Amendment and free speech.
When the merger between Mark Levin’s Conservative Review TV (CRTV) and Glenn Beck’s The Blaze took place in 2018, the claim by the two “conservatives” was that the newly created Blaze Media would become the home of non-biased news and journalism where people who believed in liberty would have a home:
“Tens of millions of Americans have had it with the biased ideologically driven mainstream media outlets that sanctimoniously advance their own agendas under the guise of ‘news’ and ‘journalism,’” Mark Levin said when making the announcement. “I’m very excited about the merger of TheBlaze and CRTV. The timing is perfect.”
Glenn Beck was equally jazzed over the merger. “Conservatives, libertarians, constitutionalists, and more have a home at Blaze Media,” said Beck. “Our hosts will have differences, but we share a common belief in free expression, honest discourse, and a society founded on the principles of the Bill of Rights. I’m beyond thrilled about this merger.” (Emphasis mine)
News of the merger excited other members of the media who fly the banner of conservatism, including Brent Bozell, Chris Barron, Buck Sexton, and Ben Shapiro. However, I was skeptical about the merger at the time because many in the so-called conservative media had already abandoned their responsibility to protect conservatism — becoming, in essence, Ministers of Pro-Trump Propaganda.
Beck promised at the time of the merger that the new partnership would not be another pro-Trump echo chamber where critics of the president are unwelcome. Unfortunately, as I wrote mere months following the merger, BlazeTV exposed itself as the thing it promised it would never become — a pro-Trump echo chamber and home of faux conservatives.
While MAGA dismissed my take on Blaze TV’s sellout to Trumpism, Beck confirmed my suspicions in an interview with Trump’s defacto press secretary, Sean Hannity, where he revealed his true heart in the matter:
“If the Republicans don’t win this next election, I think we are officially at the end of the country as we know it. We may not survive even if we win, but we definitely don’t if the Republicans lose with Donald Trump.”
Fun fact: Beck once criticized Hannity for supporting the “unprincipled” Trump.
No longer content with their role as a pro-Trump echo chamber, Levin and Beck — along with Steve Deace — have adopted Trump’s “win at any cost” approach to politics, even if it means adopting a position they used to oppose when they were “conservative.”
For example, Mark Levin recently went on a rant calling for tech companies to deplatform “lowlifes” (i.e. people who dare to speak ill of Trump (via Real Clear Politics):
Mark Levin said the First Amendment does not apply to private social media moderation and supported deplatforming “lowlifes” who spread harmful content. On his new podcast “Liberty’s Voice,” the host said the amendment limits government censorship while private companies can set their own standards for harmful content.
“I don’t have any problem with de-platforming them. What does that mean, de-platforming them? Government law?
“No. It means that X or Twitter or Facebook or Amazon with Twitch and so forth says, you know what, you’re a low life. We’re not paying, you know, get off our platform.
“What’s wrong with that? It’s called private enterprise. I got no problem with that.”
Let me first say that I agree that social media companies have the right to police their platforms. But if Leven really believes this, why did he — and a host of other “conservatives” — complain when X (formerly Twitter) censored Donald Trump after the January 6 insurrection?
Or how about when Facebook restricted Levin’s account for repeatedly “sharing of false news” during the 2020 election? (via Forbes):
Facebook has restricted the distribution of the page belonging to conservative talk show host Mark Levin for “repeated sharing of false news,” according to a notice from the social media giant Levin shared on his account on Parler.
Levin, a staunch defender of President Donald Trump and a fierce critic of the mainstream media, denies that he’s misled anyone and accused Facebook of “censorship” and “pushing a left-wing agenda.”
“Every link I post is from a legitimate source,” Levin wrote on Parler, a social media site favored by conservatives. “But because so many people are seeing what I’m posting and we’re within weeks of the election, it’s clear that Facebook is trying to influence the election’s outcome.” (Emphasis mine)
Maybe it’s just me, but it appears that Levin and other faux conservatives are OK with silencing someone if that person opposes Trump, but not OK if they support him.
Unfortunately, sacrificing isn’t unique to Levin and Beck; many of the talking heads who work for him are also in the “win at any cost” camp. Case in point: Steve Deace, the “conservative who suggested last summer that voiding the Constitution to help Trump succeed with his agenda would be a great idea.
BlazeTV has made itself the face of a growing multitude willing to elevate Trump above the Constitution, as we witnessed shortly after his second inauguration when a majority of Republican voters said in a Pew Research Center poll that they were willing to reject the limitations placed on the presidency by the Constitution to give Donald Trump more power to do as he sees fit.
The disturbing history of so-called conservatives who are willing to void the Constitution in the name of “winning” confirms what I’ve been saying ever since the dictator wannabe rode down the escalator in 2015: the Republican party has morphed into a Party of, for, and by Donald Trump. Equally disturbing is how Trump has destroyed conservatism to such an extent that we now have media outlets like BlazeTV openly advocating for the destruction of liberty and the Constitution in the name of “winning.”
As I document in my book, The New Axis of Evil: Exposing the Bipartisan War on Liberty, politicians in Washington, talking heads in “conservative” media, and the Evangelical leaders running America’s churches have become willing allies in a coordinated attack against our God-given, constitutionally protected rights — and it looks like Mark Levin, Glenn Beck, Steve Deace, and pretty much the rest of BlazeTV are willing soldiers in that war.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties. He is the author of The New Axis of Evil: Exposing the Bipartisan War on Liberty.
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