I recently spent a paid evening watching Greg Gutfeld on tour in my area, as well as the crowd in attendance. It was a revelatory experience, not unlike attending a megachurch with a very engaging, successful pastor. If you didn’t know, Gutfeld is an extremely popular host on the Fox News network, with his own show as well as a prime spot on the hugely popular show, The Five. As readers might imagine, he is popular because he says many provocative things about those on the Left, which others are too restrained or judicious to say.
I try to keep an open mind about political matters, and often rail against the absence of other parties to choose from when it comes to elections. I’m not registered as a Republican or Democrat, though I tend to lean Left on many issues. That said, I also find the Left focuses too much on extreme solutions to many issues, from border control, to policing, to prison reform. I undoubtedly piss off people from both sides when I occasionally open up about my actual beliefs. Accepting the historic back-and-forth of political sensibilities over the course of civilization, I think the best solution is for those on both sides to compromise with regard to their “principles” (AKA opinions), and coalesce around shared values such as those expressed in the U.S. Constitution. I hold some fairly Conservative beliefs, but I find Trump to be a shallow, greedy narcissist who has done irreparable damage to America.
This Gutfeld rally involved a segment of time for VIP “meet & greet”, a warm up period in which 2 comedians went thru their routines, followed by a talk by Gutfeld and his Ed McMahon-style sidekick, whose name I forget.
I caught the tail end of the meet & greet, during which Gutfeld spoke informally in front of his biggest fans. Some had traveled from halfway across the Country to see him. The personal details he disclosed to them were undoubtedly endearing to those in attendance (health problems, dealing with his young child, etc.) but the criticism about the former President were extremely mean spirited. At one point, he complained that former President Biden spoke too often about the death of his son & used the occasion to evade answers on important questions posed by the media. I detected zero sympathy for a father grieving for his child, which foretold an evening of absolute refusal to acknowledge the concerns of anyone allied with the Left on issues of the day.
The main show included two comedians – one who very much pushed the envelope of acceptable comments on a variety of issues, and the other who catered to the nostalgic impulses of the crowd and who, later, served as Gutfeld’s sidekick. The controversial comedian (Jeff Dye) had a lot to say about transgender athletes, the proper role of women, and crazy liberals, often evoking howls of laughter from the crowd. A joke about how Jews owned everything (ha ha) was particularly offensive, though the crowd seemed to enjoy it. The second comedian had much more to say about former President Joe Biden’s mental and physical state, as well as a lot of nostalgic recollections about “the good old days” when Americans could offend minorities with complete impunity, as well as tolerate abuse, “and we turned out just fine.” He seemed to be even more in the camp of right-wing values that the first comedian, railing at one point against the “indoctrination” of public schools, and the need to home school his kids after his child came home from school singing a song with Native American lyrics and calls to take care of “Mother Earth”.
Oh, boy. Then came the talk by Gutfeld, which involved long discourses from an easy chair, with occasional interjections from his sidekick. There were a lot of videos included, which were mostly small, extremely selective snippets of embarrassing interviews/speeches of Biden or VP Harris, or else very mean spirited memes involving Biden. There was also an almost nauseating amount of “fanboy” observations regarding President Trump. Much was made of the so-called “cover-up” as regards Biden’s mental state, as well as the complicity of “the media”. Many conspiracy theories, from those involving the Covid pandemic, to the “deep state”, to “pro-Hamas” universities, etc., were mentioned in passing, as if their veracity was well established. The talk really was a “greatest hits” of right wing ideology, and Gutfeld controlled the narrative in an admittedly masterful way. His immersion in right wing politics has been quite long, from an early, worshipful meeting with President Reagan, after which he ate the man’s half-eaten, leftover chicken, to a recent worshipful viewing of President Trump’s ear following the attempted assassination. To say he and the crowd possessed a cult-like devotion to Trump is not an exaggeration. The ability for those in attendance to focus on the incompetence and corruption of the past Administration, while totally ignoring that of the current, is amazing. The deep hatred of Democrats and of left wing causes is also palpable. Surprisingly, Gutfeld saved his greatest ire for “never-Trump” Republicans, who he claimed only opposed his leader out of hard feelings and grievances toward the man. Through something like a conversion experience, he counseled such people to put aside their pride and anger and accept that all Trump wants is a return to “common sense” and “love of this Country.”
The talk was well attended, as it took place in a “red state” and a reliably Conservative area. It was a rally or even a “revival”, in the sense I’m fairly certain most attendees left feeling supported in their devotion to “the cause”. Suffice to say, Trump fans are not going anywhere – it would seem they will follow the man wherever he chooses to go, until the bitter end.
RandomAnt 