Lively debate continues about just how many people showed up to attend Glenn Beck’s rally at the Lincoln Memorial, but there has been less interest in exactly why they showed up.

To many hostile observers, the event was simply the latest installment in the ongoing antics of the Tea Party. But the keynote of the occasion, “Restoring Honor,” along with its celebration of “traditional American values,” suggests a decided movement, if not away from, then at least beyond the Tea Party. Far from being directed exclusively at Tea Partiers, Beck’s rally addressed those millions of ordinary Americans who are deeply resentful at what they perceive as a massive and well-coordinated attack on traditions they hold sacred. From this perspective, Beck’s rally signals a potentially major shift in the dynamics of today’s populist discontent. A political movement that can galvanize those who are united in defending “traditional American values” can have far more clout and influence than the Tea Party movement by itself can ever hope to have.

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