Glenn Beck is sorry. He really is. He swears.

He’s sort of like Miss Otis in Cole Porter’s oft-recorded 1934 Miss Otis Regrets (I’ll take Bette Midler’s version). She “woke up and found that her dream of love was gone, madam.” And, them, “from under her velvet gown, she drew a gun and shot her lover down, madam.”

In this case, he’s pissed at Donald Trump. In The Atlantic’s “Glenn Beck’s Regrets,” he takes blame: “His (Beck’s) paranoid style paved the road for Trumpism. Now he fears what’s been unleashed.” (The Atlantic)

Peter Beinart, who teaches journalism and political science at the City University of New York, notes how Beck was an exception among prominent conservative talk hosts in adamantly opposing Trump. “He compared him to Hitler. He warned that Trump was a possible ‘extinction-level event’ for American democracy and capitalism.”

He originally campaigned for Ted Cruz. When Cruz dropped out and backed Trump, he wound up voting (he says) for independent Evan McMullin. The irony is rife with Beck, who’s tied for third place with Mark Levin in the race for top right-wing pundit (Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have bigger radio audiences than both).

“The same doomsday sensibility that helps him appreciate the menace posed by Trump led him to massively exaggerate the menace posed by Obama — and thus to breed the hateful paranoia on which Trump now feeds. Beck, in fact, pioneered some of Trump’s most disturbing themes.”

With Trump’s win, Beck tells Beinart, he discerns “the seeds of what happened in Germany in 1933.” Does he actually feel somehow responsible? Was he really that much of a force? “I’ll not only take my share of blame, I’ll take extra,” he says. “If you want to blame me for him, that’s fine; I don’t believe it’s true, but it’s fine with me. Please just listen to the warnings now so we don’t continue to do this.”

Beck was once venomous toward Barack Obama. He called him an anti-White racist. His former Fox News Channel show was very loose in using terms like “fascist,” “Hitler” and “Nazis.” Now that Trump will be president, he convinces Beinart that he’s sincere in wanting to be a conciliator.

“But for years and years, he called sheep wolves. Now that the wolf is here, it may be too late.”

Come to think of it, the mob dragged Miss Otis out of her jail and strung her up. She was remorseful, too.

The coming digital “bloodbath”

Vice founder Shane Smith is a hot commodity these days, building a young-skewing, idiosyncratic media enterprise that’s luring hefty investments (Disney is betting $400 million on him, for one). In a chat, he tells me:

“What you’re seeing is for a lot of reasons — the death of display advertising, ad blocking — this bloodbath in online media, with online trying to make bridges from new to old.” (Poynter)

Financial necessity will accelerate consolidation. The pending AT&T-Time Warner deal is part and parcel of what’s up the road very soon. Big-name brand the URLs that can’t make those bridges will virtually die, with some snapped up “for pennies on the dollar.”

Mainstream media will be bought up by mobile carriers and others. “The death of the 30-second spot and display advertising will cause chaos,” he said. “Some will come out stronger and more international. Others will be sucked up and eaten up. You see it with AT&T and Time Warner, with Verizon buying AOL. That will continue apace.”