Glenn Beck Just Wants to be Six Years Old Again

Once again, the crew at The Daily Show has performed a valuable public service. Responding to the tiresome, gleefully nonsensical refrain from conservative talk show hosts that the values they “grew up with,” and the America they “grew up in,” are being horribly corrupted by a radical liberal agenda, the amazing John Oliver diagnosed this epidemic of selective memory as what it really is: misplaced nostalgia.

Glenn Beck, for one, “has mythologized his childhood so much, he’s completely lost touch with reality,” Oliver notes with mock awe, having shown a clip of Beck choking up as he rants, “If a politician told you right now that he could make that happen again, that you could go back to those simpler times, when people were together, you’d do it in a heartbeat, wouldn’t you? But the truth is, no politician can take you there, they can only take you farther from there.” To illustrate the values of this supposedly golden age, Beck plays a Coke commercial from the 1970’s (yes, a time we all know was characterized by the values Beck holds dear).

Even knowing what Beck, Limbaugh and Hannity are capable of (and I’m really amazed every time I see a clip), it’s sort of jaw-dropping to watch the lengths they go to twist the past so that it suits their purposes. What’s amazing is that no one seems to call them out on it, much less identify the embarrassing, telling reasoning behind their longing for these imaginary glory days.

Except The Daily Show, of course. Near the end of the segment, after interviewing people who lived through the 1940’s,  50′s, 60′s, and 70’s — and acting all horrified when each one tells him that none of these times was really so great — Oliver is struck by a revelation. The years Beck, Limbaugh and Hannity miss so much? “They were all fucking children!” Oliver shouts. “It was a better, simpler time because they were all six years old.”

It’s a basic, overlooked point. For all their yelling about how great things were back when they were kids, all theses guys are really saying is that they had happy childhoods — that life was good back when they didn’t know anything about the world, and had no responsibilities. That’s what childhood (if we’re lucky) is. The world was certainly no less complicated or frightening, and there were no fewer causes for those looking for a fight. Kids, practically by definition, are just too young to understand, or even really pay attention. Everyone accepts that childhood is a source of nostalgia, most just know enough not to use their early innocence as the basis for a political argument.

With all this emphasis on the early years of their lives, though — those wonderful years before their pure sense of the world was ruined — you’d think Beck et al would have retained some elementary lessons about sharing, playing fair, and cleaning up their own messes. But I guess memory loss is a part of their strategy, too.