Enough complaining…Let’s Do Something

During presidential election cycles in particular, conservatives and republicans complain loudly about the biases, ability and power of the mainstream media (MSM), academia and Hollywood to influence elections.  Seldom do the complainers (read whiners) suggest a course of action to offset the message and the volume of these combined bullhorns.  The bias, the indoctrination techniques, the alliances to project the righteousness of the liberal/progressive ideology, the use of factual omission and commission are combined to sell their candidates to America.    

The conservative grumblers seldom seem to understand or define the issue coherently and almost never voice solutions.  So let’s try to define the issue and suggest a few methodologies to counter the power of this triad of liberal trumpets.  Any counter strategy will not deliver an instantaneous result.  Yet a broad based strategy tested and then consistently implemented will bear fruit over time.   

The problem has been the inability of conservatives to affect the popular culture and therefore the public’s beliefs in an impactful way for decades.  Conservatives have almost completely ceded control of information to the liberals/progressives…to the ideologues of the far left in education, news media, film and television.  The consequence is that the message that bombards the populace is anti-free market, anti-nuclear family, anti-self-reliant, anti-privacy, anti-property and anti-conservative…and the message inevitably gets through and takes hold in the consciousness of many Americans (often young). 

If our country’s current economic and cultural situation is Exhibit no. 1, the liberal/progressive approach and message is clearly not working.  A majority of Americans still believe in individual responsibility, accountability, self-initiative, privacy, property rights, hard work, risk-reward and fairness but not redistribution.  We believe in life (in ever growing numbers), patriotism and American exceptionalism.  We are repelled by the liberal/progressive blame or “hate” America meme.  Exhibit no. 2 is Europe; where stagnation, dependency, economic morass and cultural declines are occurring.  The most serious manifestation of these illnesses is seen in Greece, Spain and Italy; all due to the failed liberal/progressive/socialistic policies that were enacted over the past fifty years.   

A majority of Americans self-describe themselves as conservative or right of center while only 20% define themselves as liberal.  Therefore millions of Americans are fertile ground for planting the seeds to support a transition from liberal/progressive dominance in the MSM, Hollywood and academia to a balanced or even a conservatively skewed makeup. 

The conservative goal should be to establish a meaningful foothold in each area of the liberal/progressive triad within ten years and a majority position within thirty years.  The primary goal should contain elements that define conservatism in understandable terms, how the tenets of the right fit the views of a majority of Americans and how these beliefs can be applied to life’s everyday problems.  Concrete examples must be used and repetitiously reinforced…hard fact must be provided wherever possible and every conceivable delivery system (and technology) exploited to drive the conservative message home.  Further, liberals/progressives are masters at creating dialogues where they control the content, slant of the discussion, and can go on the offensive. Conservatives and republicans must also be taught how to respond to liberal attacks and avoid defensive responses by pivoting to an offensive position…people read defensiveness as losing and thus tend to accept the liberal’s argument.  A myriad number of strategies can be posited to offset the insidious constructs of liberals in the media, academia and Hollywood; yet only a sampling will be presented here.      

Strategies to expand conservative influence in the mainstream media   

Conservatives currently maintain a growing toehold in the biased media.  This position is doing yeoman’s work responding to the constant liberal cacophony.  The toehold is composed of the likes of NewsBusters, the Media Research Center, Fox News, American Thinker, the internet, Commentary, The Weekly Standard and talk radio.  This position provides a solid base for the construction a more comprehensive position.  

Nevertheless to build on this foundation will require: (1) Finding more wealthy conservative champions like Rupert Murdoch to invest in MSM vehicles or expand existing holdings.  For example, a determined conservative patron could purchase The New York Times, Washington Post, ABC or CBS and establish a conservative political tone to both the news stories and societal narratives.  (2) Already successful conservative concepts could be repositioned to heighten visibility and reach (an Andrew Klavan idea)…Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld aired at 11:00pm would directly compete with the late night liberal comics.  The program would work both on Fox News and/or Fox entertainment.  (3) Develop and add more conservative shows with personalities like Ann Coulter, Alfonso, Steven Crowder and Jodi Miller.  In other words link an alternative cultural narrative to humor and position the delivery vehicles to reach a large audience.  (4) Launch a campaign to “sell” a broad group of conservative foundations to jointly fund efforts to introduce more balance into the MSM.  The initiative would require identifying the benefits and the risks of a successful result that would accrue to the philanthropic foundations.  

Strategies to penetrate academia and offset liberal indoctrination techniques    

Academia has become overwhelmingly a bastion of liberal/progressive thinking.  University level institutions exhibit extraordinary group think and procreate the condition by using a “gatekeeper” system to screen out and discourage conservative faculty and ideas.  This environment must be changed since education has evolved into a frightening tool of liberal indoctrination. The liberal cultural and political message begins in kindergarten and seems to both intensify and expand at each successive educational level.   

Methods must be employed to restrain the liberal endemic propaganda machine.  (1) Conservatives/republicans must be convinced that the quality and the election of candidates to school boards are critical; maybe more important than the local mayoral or board of finance elections.  School boards set and monitor compliance to standards and can halt political proselytizing by staff.  (2) Encourage conservatives to actively participate in the school’s PTO/PTA organizations.  (2) Support conservative foundations that fund professoriate chairs (e.g. journalism, political science) and other university activities (with strings attached) to insure educators with conservative political philosophies get the chairs.  Both the Koch Brothers and T. Boone Pickens Foundations have made colleges/universities a focus of numerous grants…more are needed.  (3) Parents and alumni should be made aware of faculty proclivities toward liberalism…and how to both speak out and even financially sanction institutions that blatantly allow its continuation.  More strategies are needed to offset the cultural damage that the educational establishment has done. 

Strategies to mitigate Hollywood’s appreciable left lean     

Conservatives are beginning to win with increasing frequency in filmdom’s ultra-liberal bastion.  Movies that bash or blame America are consistently failing at the box office while movies that are patriotic, pro-America, about self-reliance and even faith are scoring at the box office.  The public reviewed films with their pocketbooks and did not spend on Green Zone, Redacted, In the Valley of Elah etc.; each movie messaged liberal narratives that the war on terror was wrong and were somewhat anti-American.  The public did spend and did so heavily on The Blind Side, The Incredibles, Gran Torino and more…each with a conservative message based on widely held American ideals.  The few clearly conservative TV productions also did quite well …Blue Bloods and Justified.  So what strategies can be employed to heighten these successes?  (1) Establish internet sites that review and promote movies with appropriate conservative messaging.  (2) Hollywood loves self-promotion; thus develop awards and award shows that reward movies that feature conservative beliefs.  (3)  Insure that the words uttered by ultra-left actors/actresses get wide spread coverage when they demean America and American ideals.  The movie going public has withheld support for performers behaving in similar ways and will again.  

Some final thoughts…it’s time to establish awards that celebrate conservative excellence in science, economics, medicine, the arts, and culture similar to the Nobel Prize program designed to promote conservative philosophy and thought.  These awards might be labeled “The Reagan Prizes” and also carry a significant financial stipend.  In addition awards rivaling the Pulitzer Prizes should be considered by conservatives for conservatives.  Both the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes are sadly almost always awarded to people displaying liberal ideologies due to the bias of the committees that make the selections.      

Nevertheless, inroads are occurring in the media, in academia and in Hollywood, but without a well thought out and executed strategy the cultural damage wrought by liberals will not be easily contained nor reversed.  Simply declaiming the problem isn’t a strategy…it’s nothing more than whining.