Poll: Glenn Beck is sorry. How will Trump's base react?

I think it's mostly shctick for his show. He's feigning humility and sorrow as a means for him to ultimately toot--or have his lackeys toot--his own horn.

Also, his opposition to Trump was, I think, built around his desire to differentiate himself from Limbaugh, Hannity, and others.

It's not that I don't think Beck actually believes things, has an actual ideology, it's that I think he--like so many other talking head types--willingly bends or ignores those things in order to manage his persona. And fundamentally, Beck is really not much different than Trump: he's a grifter, too. He's actually very much like the Steve Martin character from Leap of Faith (great flick), except with a healthy amount of pure goofiness.

But his game has peaked already, I think. He milked it for all it was worth and doesn't have a hook anymore. Readeth thou this: www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/03/why-glenn-beck-s-media-empire-is-burning-down.html

As to Beck paving the way for Trump, that's a bunch of nonsense, imo. Ditto for him having a real hand in the rise of the tea party. He latched on to the latter when he saw an angle to increase his fame and bank account.

I say all of this as someone who was/is a talk radio junkie. I listened to Beck on and off for years. I still listen on occasion, though not for very long. Once upon a time, he was entertaining imo. He became progressively less so as he started to find more ways to make a buck (off of his audience). Now, he's screwed himself out of a good chunk of his fan base. He's reaching to find a way back in to them.

My brother was a big Beck fan and an enthusiastic Trump supporter. He reconciled his views in exactly the way I noted in my post: he stopped listening to Beck. I suspect that's what many have done; hence my post.

on the left-wing slant issue:

I must note: there is a big difference between having an editorial board and editorial page that leans in one direction, and reporting fake news. Yuuuuge difference.

Pretty much every paper's staff and editorials have a lean in one direction; it is a matter of which direction. Certainly, the editoral and opinion page of the NYT leans left.  But the front page, I submit, is reasonably neutral (as much so as any source is, humans being humans).

And please -- Fox is not equal to the New York Times. The Wall Street Journal is more like it. I'd say the WSJ leans right in its staff, editorials and opinions to about the same degree the NYT leans left. BUT -- the actual news and facts reported in the WSJ and NYT can, as a rule, be relied on and at least make an effort to be neutral. (For years, I had paper subscriptions to both.) Yeah, there's a bit of slant, because journalists are humans, too, but both are quality publications that I trust for facts.  I may or may not subscribe to all of the opinions on their respective opinion pages (though I generally find them more nuanced and fact-based than those from many other sources). But their news?  Yeah, I trust them both.

Fox -- yeah, they're all slant. MSNBC -- ditto. Not that there aren't facts in there, but both really blur the hell out of the line between journalism and opinion-propagation. Don't get me started on Breitbart and Daily Kos.

I really do think people increasingly mix up the difference between the opinion pages and news pages. Opinions might contain some facts, but they aren't news.  Glenn Beck isn't a newscaster.  Rachel Maddow isn't a newscaster.  They're commentators.  They don't even pretend to be neutral.  (Until that ridiculous story she did on the stinking two pages of Trump's 2005 tax return, I gave Rachel a fair bit of credit for doing her homework and backing up her opinions-- more so than most commentators.  Right now,  though, I'm pissed at her. But in any case, I don't think she tries to hide her agenda or pretend she's non-partisan.)

 
Too often when people scream about mainstream media bias, they point to opinion pages and commentators. Yeah, of course they are biased -- they are opinions. 

But take a look at the front page of the New York Times vs the WSJ.  They have more in common with each other than either has with the New York Post (whose news pages, while they do contain some news, have a laughably obvious slant).

Similarly, Fox News and MSNBC's news coverage has a very obvious bias. And yeah, some facts in there, too.

I'd also say there's a big difference between an opinion and a lie.  "Obama's economic policies sucked" -- that's an opinion. One can agree or disagree. But it is an opinion -- it is not news; hence it cannot be fake news (unless of course it propagates fake information in the course of giving an opinion).

But "Obama is not an American born citizen" is a fucking lie. And "Obama wiretapped Trump Tower"? A fucking random assertion out of nowhere based on zero actual support -- hence equivalent to a lie. 

 Much of the shrieking about "fake news" and "bias!" I'm hearing from the right is actually complaining about opinions, IMO. Unfortunately, many seem to no longer understand the difference between opinions and news. That applies on the left, too.  And sadly, since many like it that way, actual news, unmixed with opinion, is getting scarcer on the ground.

ETA:

Personally, I rarely watch news opinion shows or listen to talk radio any more.  I read my news and opinions, which sometimes directs me to clips I'll watch or listen to. 

ETA:

As far as "here is your liberal audience" as being an admission of bias in reporting -- yeah, I don't think so.  New York City, home of the NY Times, is overwhelmingly Democrat.  Obviously its readership is going to include a buttload of liberals.  Pretty much everyone I know in NYC gets the Times -- it is our hometown paper (or at least, the best one).  My conservative friends like the editorial pages less than my liberal friends, but that's not the news.