Liars, by Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck is a lightning rod conservative commentator.  He is pilloried as being a conspiracy theorist.  The Left despises him.  But you can't argue with the fact that he is that he is informed, informative, insightful, and interesting.  For all of his talk-radio bombast, Beck's Liars: How Progressives Exploit Our Fears for Power and Control is a good introduction to the idea of progressivism in American politics and a well-written look at the people and ideas behind progressivism.

Progressivism is, above all, driven by fear.  Progressives "construct elaborate enemies that they say will kill us: overpopulation, global warming, gun violence, pornography, public health epidemics, bullying, SUVs, recreational drug use, or even masculinity itself. . . . Then, having convinced us that we should be afraid of the predator in the brush . . . they offer us the 'solution' that will allegedly kill the beast before it can kill us."  The solution, of course, is always more goverment.

Most of Beck's audience are conservatives, and he would call himself conservative.  So he reserves plenty of ire for politicians who run as conservatives yet end up espousing progressive values, up to and including Donald Trump.  Trump "has used fear and anger to transfix legions of otherwise good and faithful conservatives. . . . [His] goal is not to shrink government back to a more constitutionally appropriate size; he would much prefer to preside over a massive government. . . . He doesn't want to reduce government, he just wants to run it more efficiently."

Don't get me wrong, most of the villains of Liars are Democrats who, as individuals and as a party, espouse and embrace progressivism to a greater degree than Republicans.  But Beck's overall point is to demonstrate how far from the values of the Founders our country has strayed.  He is strong on the historical perspective, as well as pointing out the lies of progressivism, but not as strong on the solutions.  The key is not fear, but hope, and trust in individuals to do the right thing, as opposed to centralized control.  I know it's hard for many to look past the caricature of Beck that the mainstream media and his liberal opponents have painted, but if you can do so, consider the arguments of Liars on their merits and open your mind to see the destructiveness of the progressive agenda.