Files
Abstract
Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck, in addition to their role as pre-eminent conservative pundits, have each authored or co-authored numerous works of popular history. These histories, many of which have become best sellers, provide millions of readers with an easy to digest version of the past. The histories created by these pundits fuse entertainment, politics, and history into an ideologically potent and financially successful whole. Each work of popular history represents an important site over the contestation of knowledge while contributing towards the larger epistemological challenge to (liberal) truth and expertise. These popular histories are an important part of the broader political economy of right-wing media, but they are also crucially interrelated with the broader evangelical conservative movement’s utilization of political theater and political entertainment. These conservative popular histories help contribute to the fusion of an increasingly extreme and politicized evangelicalism with the most nationalist and exclusionary elements of civil religious discourse. As such, the popular histories of O’Reilly, Limbaugh, and Beck can be understood as important contributors to the transformation of the Republican Party into a platform for right-wing populists like Donald Trump to ascend to the highest reaches of political power.