On March 8, 2013, I wrote the following by way of introduction to a 13-week series on Andrew Breitbart’s Pragmatic Primer:
The first rule Andrew had written in his Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries is to not be afraid to go into enemy territory, saying the following:
1.) Don’t be afraid to go into enemy territory: This is the most important rule you’ll read in this book, and the one most likely to be ignored by the Republican Party and the Old Guard in the conservative movement. They would say I shouldn’t have appeared on Maher, because it was an audience stacked against me. But that’s the same mentality that led toe right to abandon Hollywood, academia, and the media – and the effects have been disastrous. The right figures that talk radio, Fox News, and some independent Internet sites will allow us to distribute our ideas to the masses. There’s one problem: those outlets are exponentially outnumbered and outgunned by the Complex. They’re Alinsky-ed by the activist left, which is insists Fox News is Faux News and talk radio is hate radio. Obama is leading the charge, targeting specific hosts and specific outlets. Remember Rush Limbaugh? Or their insistence that Fox News isn’t a real news outlet like CNN or MSNBC?
The problem is that it works with the vast majority of apolitical voters in America. In my neighborhood, our strategy of disengagement isn’t working too well. People who don’t watch Fox News or listen to Rush have strong, defiant, negative opinions about those outlets, just like I did when I was a liberal. I’d never listened to Rush in my life, but I knew – I knew! – that Rush was the epitome of evil. I knew, just as the Complex wanted me to know, that Rush was a racist, sexist, homophobic bigot that only KKKers listened to while driving their broken down pickups and drinking moonshine.
The army of the emboldened and gleefully ill-informed is growing. Groupthink happens, and we have to take it head-on. We can’t win the political war until we win the cultural war. The Frankfurt School knew that – that’s why they won the cultural war and then, on it’s back, the political war. We can do the same, but we have to be willing to enter the arena. By neglecting The View or, worse, by ignoring Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Maher, and David Letterman – we allow them to distort and demean us as they romanticize and elevate themselves. It’s harder to attack people to their faces than behind their backs. and we have to confront them face-to-face. Young people suckle at the teat of pop culture – but by refusing to fight for their attention, we lose by default.
Our most articulate voices, likable faces, and best idea-makers need to go into hostile territory and plant the seeds of doubt in our ideological enemy and the apolitical masses who simply go with the media flow. Our babysitter has an Obama bumper sticker on her car, but admits she knows nothing about politics. How did that happen? It’s what the complex tells her to do to be cool. We have to use their media control against them by walking into the lion’s den, heads held high, proud of who we are and what we stand for.
There’s no time to continue backing away. If we’re standing still we’re moving backward. Get in the game. Get in the fight.
During the 2012 presidential campaign, I had seen posts on Facebook and Twitter bemoaning the fact that New Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, and other Republicans and conservatives had given interviews on CNN, MSNBC, CBS News, ABC News, and other liberal stations and talk show hosts. Rather than bemoaning them, we should have celebrated them for doing so. As I had mentioned last week, the liberals won the cultural war and then the political war. We need to take back the cultural war, and we cannot do that if we remain in our small sphere and not engage the liberals on their battlefield.
Back in 1994 or so I had read a book by InterVarsity Press (a part of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship) entitled Out of the Saltshaker & into the World by Rebecca Manley Pippert. The book deals with evangelism. However, after reading Andrew’s Pragmatic Primer Rule 1, I also thought of this because just as Get out of the Saltshaker dealt with getting out of the church and into the world, what Andrew is saying is our best and brightest conservative minds need to get off of Fox News and conservative talk shows and go on shows like Piers Morgan, Hardball, Meet the Press with David Gregory, The Daily Show with John Stewart, Real Time with Bill Maher, The View, and others to get our word out there. While most of us are not of the caliber to go on those shows, there is one way we can do it. We need to actually go and engage the culture in the malls, the parks, anywhere we can.
When I was involved in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship back in 1993 and 1994, one person would always point to the door before he left the meeting and say “The mission field is right out that door there.” His basis for that was from the Bible where in Isaiah 6:8 God asked “Whom will I send, and who will go for us?” and Isaiah said “Here am I. Send me.” I am here to say that the battlefield for the hearts and minds of Americans, nay, the WORLD, is the Internet as well as right in our own backyards. The question is will you stand on the sidelines and retreat to the safety of Fox News and conservative talk shows, or will you get out there and join in the fight?
Ever since I had written those words, I had noticed more conservatives and Republicans going on liberal news and talk show programs to try to counter the false premises that had been posited by the hosts and other guests. Some have had success, while others had not. While this is good in some regards, there are still others who prefer to stay on “safe shows” and preach to the choir. My friends, this will not do.
When Andrew Breitbart was alive, he made a habit of going on opposing or hostile talk shows to control the story. I will get more in detail on how we can best control the story when I get to Pragmatic Primer Rule 5. However, what I will say to this regard is that we need to not be afraid to do the same thing. If we listen to opposing talk shows and realize that something is said which is untrue, we need to confront the person (whether in email, letter, or call in to the show if they allow calls) and correct the false premise carefully and respectfully. Allow me to reiterate what Andrew said at the end of Rule #1:
“There’s no time to continue backing away. If we’re standing still we’re moving backward. Get in the game. Get in the fight.”
While a majority of us are not of the caliber to go on the popular talk shows like The View, Rachel Maddow, Cooper 360, or other shows, we do have the power to reach the same people. Granted, the power we have might only consist of a smaller platform (like 400 followers on YouTube, DLive, Twitch, Rumble, or some other “pokey internet backwater venue” as Justin Kendall — my good friend and former producer of Red, Right, and Blue — was fond of saying), but whether the platform is small or large, the key is we need to not be afraid to use it to our advantage. Thus, the question I asked in 2013 is just as relevant today as it was back then:
Will you stand on the sidelines and retreat to the safety of Fox News and conservative talk shows, or will you get out there and join in the fight?
Next week, I will explain how we have the power to expose the left for who (and what) they are — in their own words.