Donald Duck Explains the Tea Party Movement Better Than I Will Ever Be Able To0

By Edward Kelly

The Night House was not a place we had a name for. I started calling it The Night House about 30 seconds ago when I decided the place I’m about to describe needs a name, otherwise I’m going to keep calling it “the house” or “that place.” The Night House was, quite obviously, a house – technically. As a kid, I lived in a small community, a relatively idyllic suburb in upstate New York. Most of the houses in my neighborhood were less than five years old. I think the term for it is “tract housing” but that might be wrong. What it meant is that they were constantly building new houses at the end of our estate so new families could move in. And without fail we, that is my friends and I, always had a Night House — a house at the end of the estate that looked like a skeleton home, all angular wood jutting out at weird places, made even creepier at night with its ghoulish pockets of utter darkness, window holes cut out but not yet illuminated by the warm incandescence of electricity.

We assumed The Night House(s) were haunted because we were 8-years old, so anything weird or different we imbued with a vast mythology that somehow involved the occult and/or aliens. But they never were. They were just houses. Eventually they got built, endowed with electricity and carpets and mailboxes and cheery doorknockers and pun-riddled welcome mats. But the stories never went a way — they just wafted over to the next house that was being built. In our overactive imaginations, The Night House was the place where a triple homicide had gone down as part of some Satanic cult’s ritual offering to the Beast. The bodies were naturally buried under the quickly drying cement of the basement foundation.

Yeah, The Night House would always be around, because, as countless Nightmare on Elm Street movies have taught us: fear never dies. It just gets transferred. A lot of people know this – like Glenn Beck.

I suppose I should to admit my own bias in this early paragraph: I’m a liberal. I’m unapologetic about that fact. I support gay marriage, I think a woman’s body is her business, and that health care should be available for everyone. I believe in free speech of any variety (yes, even the really, really disgustingly awful stuff), I think hybrid cars are awesome, and I once tried to play hacky-sack (don’t worry — I failed miserably and never did it again). So, clearly I am not Glenn Beck’s target audience.

But while my red-tinted rage toward the nationally syndicated radio host and Fox News pundit is still alive and well, I realized recently that I was guilty of one thing he has been guilty of time and time again: intolerance. I never bothered to stop and try to understand where he’s coming from. I’d like to. I’d like to know what drives him. I might even consider buying one of his books to see what made this guy who he is. It might take time, but I’d like to find out about the man behind the creepy mask of fake caring, and ultra-close-up tears.

So that’s something that might happen. But if I can’t understand him right away, the least I can do is understand his fans. And for that, I get to thank the Internet and Donald Duck.

Recently, a YouTube user with the handle “rebelliouspixels” uploaded an ingenious short film. By splicing together dozens of cartoon sequences and adding in key clips from Beck’s radio show, “Right Wing Radio Duck” tells the story of Disney’s favorite anthropomorphic duck, who, in this tale, loses his job as a window-washer while a literal fat cat blows smoke in his face. Distraught and facing impending foreclosure, Donald finds solace in Beck’s radio show. Of course, Beck isn’t offering any advice — he just tells Donald who is to blame for his lot in life. The usual suspects are rifled through: communists, Nazis, the government, Mexicans, etc. Throughout, the uploader runs through Beck’s laundry list of paranoid and alarming key words, and Donald eventually starts reacting to the invisible boogey-men that surround him. Finally, still seeking answers, the duck gives in and pays $50 to hear more exclusive Beck content. When it arrives, Donald is treated to a condescending Beck informing Mr. Duck that he is in such dire straights because he is nothing but a lazy bum who needs to go out and get a job.

It’s a brilliant satire — the painstaking work of someone who knows the rhythms of classic Disney cartoons and uses it to enact a slow burn against conservatives. But the thing I love most about it is that it accurately captures the melodrama and fear mongering that Beck and company stir up every single day. They know they’re not preaching to people they can actually relate to. Most of the listeners are probably working class men and women who could do with a health care safety net, and cleaner air and water. No, he can’t relate so he scares them. He whips them up into a frenzy until they are so angry that eventually they receive some backing from a few corporations and bam! The Tea Party is born.

There’s a lot of fear in this country and some of it is legitimate. There’s a lot of uncertainty and a lot of complications. But Glenn Beck isn’t interested in helping anybody other than Glenn Beck. And, fair play, he found an act and it works. He kicked his drinking problem and worked his way up in radio and now he’s a bona fide media presence.

But everything he says is laden with hyperbole, untruth, and flat out lies. He wants you to be scared and when there’s nothing left to be scared of, he’ll find something else that will terrify his listeners.

So even though I don’t believe in it anymore, maybe The Night House never went away – now it’s at the end of everyone’s street.