Glenn Beck: People Over 50 Should Get Back to Work

One day after Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick suggested seniors like himself should be OK with dying to save the US economy during the coronavirus outbreak, Glenn Beck appears willing to take him up on his offer. Per the Daily Beast, the conservative radio host told his listeners Tuesday that a "frank conversation" was needed on the subject of President Trump possibly lifting social-distancing restrictions. Beck first admitted that if that happened, he himself would be in peril. "I mean, I'm in the danger zone. I'm right at the edge, I'm 56," he said. "In Italy they're saying if you're sick and you're 60, don't even come in. So I'm in the danger zone." Then Beck laid out how he was OK with taking one for the team to get everything up and running again. "I would rather have my children stay home and all of us who are over 50 go in and keep this economy going and working," he noted.

"Even if we all get sick, I'd rather die than kill the country," he added. "'Cause it's not the economy that's dying—it's the country." Like Patrick, Beck was instantly criticized online, with many noting Beck works alone in a home studio, per the Week. "When he says 'I' he means of course 'you,'" political commentator David Frum tweeted. Meanwhile, at Texas Monthly, Christopher Hooks calls the concept of choosing between the virus or the economy a "false binary," as "the only way to get the economy going again is to contain the virus." The Daily Beast notes that, in 2009, Beck blasted the concept of "death panels," a myth put forward by Sarah Palin that Democrats were trying to institute government oversight to see if the elderly and disabled were worthy of health care. "We care about the elderly," Beck said then. "We value life in this country, and when you start devaluing life, then you're in trouble." (More Glenn Beck stories.)