The era of Reagan is over.
No, I don’t say that in the same way that RINO’s say it in an attempt to move towards the center and line their Brooks Brothers’ pockets. I say it in that the political landscape today has changed drastically and we need to do more than look to one transcendent figure as the leader of the conservative movement. Future generations will be won on the cultural front, and never through “politics.” Politicians are boring, plus they smell funny.
Say what you want about leftists; Sure they act a little crazy, wear pointy shoes and spit when they talk, but they are incredibly effective with planting cultural seeds. Avatar, plants a seed. Family Guy, plants a seed. SNL plants a seed. All of Comedy Central plants seeds. On the flip side, the sad fact of the matter is that conservatives have planted little to nothing in the cultural landscape.
Listen, you will never win the young masses through politics or a politician. The only way to win them over is through taking an active role in the culture. This is displayed by the fact that anytime a conservative steps foot into that arena leftists go insane (a kind of “Paula Abdul’s not taking her meds again” insane). One needs look no further than CPAC. The heavy-hitters weren’t the GOP politicians, but people like Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter and Andrew Breitbart. Notice how agitated the mainstream media has become. Lefties are hoping that we’ve given up on Hollywood and mass media as a whole.
See when it comes to the fight for American culture, leftists aren’t looking for a knockout punch (not with their limp wrists). They want to Larry Holmes this thing and flick the jab non-stop so that over time there is a serious cumulative effect and the masses become punch-drunk.
See, conservatives don’t flick the jab, which is why in the 15th round (election time) we find ourselves down on the scorecard and try to crank out a haymaker by finding some supernatural Reagan-like savior in a Sarah Palin or Scott Brown. The problem is that conservatives are fighting like Max Baer when we should be fighting like Cassius Clay.
Ronald Reagan worked in a generation brought up with traditional principles able to observe conservatism at work. Having also observed liberalism at work first-hand, and through critical thinking they decided to overwhelmingly revert back to conservatism.
The problem is that not only has this generation never seen TRUE conservatism at work, but they’ve been raised in a world of situational ethics. When you’ve been weaned on the teat of subjective morality, logic begins to play a smaller and smaller role as facts become subjective. Since we haven’t been planting the necessary cultural seeds with a younger generation, we can’t expect them to follow the logical path of conservatism.
Folks don’t expect politicians to ever step up to this plate either. The D.C. crowd often considers it “beneath them” to address mass media because in doing so they acknowledge that they watch it. After all, we all know that they don’t partake in such indulgences.
Case in Point; Barack Obama. Barack Obama the politician was never elected. Barack Obama the celebrity, on the other hand, was ushered in successfully by the Hollywood elite. It was never the Washington machine that made Obama merchandise the “it” fashion item of the season, but people like The Black-Eyed Peas, Scarlett Johanssen, P. Diddy, GreenDay, Steven Spielberg, Tina Fey, Seth McFarlane… Well I think you get the point.
My question to you is: if offered the power of Hollywood/the entertainment industry or Washington D.C. which would you choose?
I think that if you choose Washington you should seriously consider a CAT scan.
Should you decide to get one, I hear Sean Penn knows a guy.
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