It's Still The Culture, Stupid!

Winning the pop culture war? Good luck. (0.00 / 0)

It takes too much effort TAO.  It can't be done.

Molon Labe

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by: Republican Ram Rod Radio @ Mon Nov 26, 2012 at 18:00:50 PM UTC

Never Say Never (0.00 / 0)

No doubt taking on popular culture will be a challenge, RRRR. But if our side continues to cede this influential territory to the Democrats/liberals, then the GOP/conservatives will become a permanent political minority.

In the future, people on our side will offer the same excuses on avoiding further political engagement that you've articulated in avoiding any engagement with pop culture: "It takes too much effort. It can't be done."

Such fatalism breeds the kind of determinism that can & will be exploited by our ideological rivals.

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by: The Angelic One @ Mon Nov 26, 2012 at 22:00:04 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

RRRR 32? (4.00 / 1)

I was driving the highways on Thanksgiving and saw a license plate "RRRR 32"...yes, I thought of you...any relation?  

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by: Simple J. Malarkey @ Tue Nov 27, 2012 at 00:46:31 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

LOL! That's awesome! (0.00 / 0)

It's not me but maaaaaaaaaan that sounds cool!

I'd love to pull up to an RMG picnic in a mustang with a front license plate that reads "RRRR 1"

Molon Labe

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by: Republican Ram Rod Radio @ Tue Nov 27, 2012 at 14:41:57 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Totally! (0.00 / 0)

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by: John Howard @ Wed Nov 28, 2012 at 04:34:56 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

"It's The Culture We're Up Against" (0.00 / 0)

AlphonZo Rachel offers a humorous yet insightful observation (even though I disagree on his take on Herman Cain) on why the GOP will continue to fail politically until the party comes to grips with its deficiency in cultural cachet.  

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by: The Angelic One @ Mon Nov 26, 2012 at 22:10:12 PM UTC

Whittle longs for the days of Reagan... (0.00 / 1)

...and Republicans were "steely eyed missile men" with the "power to vaporize any building in the world at our leisure."  He longs for a real leader who will scare the living daylights out of any country (that would be you Iran) because we will blow up their country.

Oh, how we long for the good old days of Ronald Reagan, who taught the terrorist of the world that Republicans cut and run when they killed 800 marines with a car bomb or showed a real backbone standing up to Iran by selling them weapons.  

D'oh...those damn facts always getting in the way of fantasies.  Please, I beg you all, do everything Whittle suggests (no doubt he's a big believer in Dick Cheney...because a guy like Cheney would lead the Reps to victory).  He is clearly part of the "we weren't conservative enough"...in his speech, he acknowledge Michelle Bachman as someone he admired...can you imagine how badly the Republicans would have lost if Bachman or Santorum or Perry or Gringrich was the nominee???

On a different note, Angel, you gave me a false expectation that the video would be about how culture impacts politics and elections.  Instead I got superficial sound bites about popular culture.

Culture indeed has a lot to do with out political landscape (more like EVERYTHING).  But I'm referring to deep rooted cultural realities that go back centuries and are gradually chipped away and reformed over generations of change--not that sitcom I watched last night.  I'm referring to religious traditions that, at the very least, go back to the Reformation and far earlier.  Ethnic traditions carried down from the "old country" and live as part of us today.  Regional conditions that shape peoples outlook and values.  Over time (time that is tracked in generations) these cultural traditions intermingle and develop hybrids of values that define the competing coalitions of contemporary politics.  At best, pop culture is part on aspect of this web of values and frankly are more fleeting and, therefore, has less impact than the more traditional barometers mentioned above.  In that context, Whiitle's (and your embrace of his point) is superficial.

Understanding the impact of cultural is key to understanding voting patterns.  But pop culture is like the tip of the iceberg that is above the water, compared to the mass of the iceberg that exists under the water.  

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by: Simple J. Malarkey @ Wed Nov 28, 2012 at 01:22:15 AM UTC

"Never Underestimate The Potency Of Cheap Music" (0.00 / 0)

While you're absolutely correct about the importance of high culture (culture with a capital "C"), "never underestimate the potency of cheap music," to quote the ever-quotable Noel Coward. Or dime novels, movies, TV shows, et al. You may dismiss any influence the sitcom you watched last night having any influence on you but the same can't be said of those whose critical faculties aren't as attenuated as yours. A variety of studies on media consumption bear this out.

You may dismiss as "superficial" Whittle's concerns about pop culture's impact on the public but such a dismissal on your part betrays either a lack of understanding on how effective pop culture as a propaganda tool has been in slowly molding the ambience of our culture or a disingenuousness that springs from whatever ideological conceit you embrace.

And pop culture - not high culture - was the primary aspect of my post so your expectations shouldn't have been THAT high. I don't have the time I used to have to tangent off into other interrelated areas of interest (such as high culture in this case or CULTURE in general). Nor do I think the interest is here at RMG to even bother. But I'm not surprised; conversations with my liberal friends are always more interesting because they - like me - have an active interest in all aspects of culture (both high & low). With the exception of a few individuals, most conservatives I know have little to no interest in those kinds of conversations - & their deficiency in political power reflects their lack of cultural cachet.

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by: The Angelic One @ Wed Nov 28, 2012 at 06:55:18 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I will pass on the easy lob you gave me... (0.00 / 0)

...about your GOP brethren not understanding the importance of real cultural issues that drive our politics.

Instead I will rebut your (and the widely held conservative) view that popular culture is somehow controlled by a vast liberal conspiracy.

The term "popular" can easily be substituted with the word "market" as in Market Culture, as in the entertainment business is just that , a business whose aim is to make money.  Nothing wrong with that right?  Unfortunately, what sells the most is lowest common denominator things like sex and violence,  combined with low cost production costs found in reality TV shows.  

Popular culture is popular because market forces are the biggest determinator in making it successful.  Not some helmeted, tin-foiled belief that this crap must be the result of your idealogical liberal foe.  

If you don't think that market forces are the determining factors in what makes up popular culture, then your overall faith in market forces is undermined.  

I remember a few years ago, someone produced a news comedy show with a conservative bent--the Daily Show for the right.  You may remember it.  I watched it a little.  It was canceled, because it was widely panned as a bad product.  I can mock Rush and rightwing radio all I want.  But Air America was a sucky product and the market spoke.  If the crazy conservative theory were correct and the liberals control pop culture, why didn't they kill off conservative radio and replace it with Air America?  Because the market spoke.  

Hope I made sense.  It's late and I'm tired.

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by: Simple J. Malarkey @ Thu Nov 29, 2012 at 04:53:04 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Don't Hate Me Because I'm "Right" (0.00 / 0)

You passing on "the easy lob" is due to the fact that to do otherwise would result in you being bored to death from interacting with the (very) few right-of-center folks who'd bother to debate you on the finer points of pop culture.

And while certain elements of the GOP's right wing fit your unflattering photoshopped comments as paranoid rubes who think "popular culture is somehow controlled by a vast liberal conspiracy," you choose to ignore (or downplay) the reality that liberals do, in fact, dominate pop culture. Who says that liberals and "market forces" are like oil & water? Norman Lear certainly had no problem creating successful TV shows like "All In The Family" that deftly blended a left-of-center point of view within the "lowest common denominator" aspects of commercialism embraced by a mass audience. Bruce Springsteen's liberalism has been successfully codified not only in his music but in his "brand" & that hasn't prevented him from enjoying success in the marketplace. The same can be said for folks like Steven Spielberg.

If liberals dominate the marketplace of pop culture - & they do - then good for them insofar as they have successfully provided products/services for a section of the marketplace that wants said products/services. The founders/creators of Ben & Jerry Ice Cream may be liberal but they put out a damn good product that I'm not ashamed to buy (nor will I boycott said businesses over political differences as some liberals have done against establishments like Chick-Fil-A whose founders/creators are conservative). The point of my post is that most right-of-center folks have essentially ceded to the liberals pop culture in particular (& culture in general). If said folks want to influence the culture that (in turn) influences elections, then they MUST learn to take culture seriously & compete in the pop marketplace of ideas.

The biggest challenge facing today's conservative/Republican activists in Massachusetts is that the state's culture has been liberal since its key role as an instigator of the American Revolution. Massachusetts poets/writers such as Alcott, Emerson, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Melville, Poe, Thoreau, et al had a huge impact on fashioning not only the state's identity but also that of the nation as America was defining itself apart from England & many aspects of English culture.

Massachusetts residents are proud of that fact. Democrats understand this & have made it a point to be seen as the chief supporters of culture (high & low) in contrast to the image of the GOP as a party that is either uncultured or clueless on matters of culture. Now while that negative image of the Republicans is at times nurtured & propagated by the Democrats, the GOP (with some exceptions) sometimes unconsciously play into that meme. Republicans need to remind themselves that they are the conservative liberals (in the classical sense of the term) while Democrats (notably the party's leadership) have devolved into radical liberals more enthralled with the unhinged ideology of the New Left than they are with the reality-based ideological liberalism of America's Founding Fathers. If the state GOP's leaders understand this insight & act on it, the party may have a future yet in this bluest of Blue states.

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by: The Angelic One @ Fri Nov 30, 2012 at 16:30:45 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Living In A Filtered Bubble (0.00 / 0)

Why do left-of-center folks question (like Plato) the nature of "reality" more so than right-of-center folks?

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by: The Angelic One @ Wed Nov 28, 2012 at 03:25:26 AM UTC

You talking to me? (0.00 / 0)

Because I have no idea what you re talking about.  Even if your posting this randomly, you question can be best be answered by the adage of "Question Authority", which I abbreviated into a more simple point of just "Question".

Why do right of center folks just accept what they are told?

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by: Simple J. Malarkey @ Wed Nov 28, 2012 at 05:22:21 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Random Post It Is (0.00 / 0)

And if you accessed the link I provided, you would've known what I was getting at. The TED speaker raises an important point about the need for people all across the ideological spectrum to question the narratives they receive (& not live in a "filtered bubble" provided to them by third parties like Facebook, Google, Yahoo, et al).

"Why do right of center folks just accept what they are told?"

You'll have to ask them. Obviously most of the folks here at RMG have little or no interest in the topic of this post. Conversely, many liberals do. If right-of-center folks persist in remaining indifferent (or even hostile) to culture - high or low - then they should feel equally indifferent to remaining a permanent political minority for the foreseeable future.

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by: The Angelic One @ Wed Nov 28, 2012 at 06:10:29 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Whittle is an unsual man with some good advice (5.00 / 1)

So, in this video, Whittle says that the culture is the problem, and gives the example of criticizing wealthy people who made their money. (I assume he wouldn't give such a robust defense for JK III and those who inherit it.) I think he's absolutely right. We must re-learn how to defend capitalism and those who succeed in it.

He also gives a too-aggressive view of foreign policy. (But I agree that we have lost the ability to separate the good guys from bad buys. Amen to that, and to hell with the U.N.)

But he stops there. Why?

* We need to talk about how almost all corporations help America instead of hurt it
* We need to talk about the benefits of immigration and the need to reform the system (Democrats appear to want this, but the unions will stop them at the end)
* We need to move the conversation from health insurance (where we lose) to health (where we will win)
* We need to stand up for our charities that do the work that government is so bad at.
* We need to refocus environmentalism on serving the needs of human beings instead of returning the planet to pre-historic times.
* We need to re-focus education on being able to make a living, not on grooming future United Nations interns.
* We need to change our foreign policy conversation to one where we separate the good guys from bad, and how the goodness of the world's sole superpower is why we should play the leading role in international affairs.
* We need to step back from the media's confused coverage of the world and re-teach the people about Western Civilization, and how starting with those values make it easy to understand what most of the conflicts in the world are about.
* Speaking of Western Civilization, it is time to return the study of history to a contest of ideas where the West has won, not a long march to a collectivist, statist future.
* We have to discard the evangelical-inspired culture war (which the media has pummeled us on) and adopt a new one that is actually aimed at the things most people agree is wrong with our culture (debt, instant gratification, overconsumption of everything, a declining work ethic, lack of respect for women, etc)
* We need to remind people that we can be both religiously-tolerant and yet promote the role of all religions in the public square. We don't have to adopt the strong secularism of President Obama and the Harvard faculty.
* We must remind people of all the benefits of individual risk taking and freedom. We have forgotten. The nation needs to realize that a culture that worships "octomom" and the Kardashians is not going to succeed in the way that America did by honoring characters like Horatio Alger and Daniel Boone.

The way to do all this is not primarily fighting big media. (Don't get me wrong, my children are going to watch "Veggie Tales" and not movies and cartoons created by liberals.) We have to train Republicans to talk about these issues. It won't be hard. We already believe this stuff. We just don't know how to talk about it and the mainstream culture means people won't figure it out on their own. If enough of us talk about it, we will slowly alter the culture.

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by: edfactor @ Wed Nov 28, 2012 at 11:16:50 AM UTC

Now You're Talking! (0.00 / 0)

Most of your bullet points can be turned into plot points in the service of any story aimed at either a broad audience or a narrow one. But it's not enough for our side to "train Republicans to talk about these issues" in the hopes that said talk will alter the culture. That approach can only go so far. Fellow RMG blogger TLCWeld has a great post on the necessity of our movement supporting storytellers who share our point of view - & he beat me (damnit!) in citing the National Review article that perfectly distills the right-of-center's problem with pop culture:

Plato understood the power of storytellers. It's why he wanted to ban them in his dream society. Wisely, the Left understands the importance of storytelling and dominates almost every aspect of it in the culture, from content creation to distribution. Regrettably, too few conservatives think storytelling matters.

We've invested billions in our great think tanks but little in the task of translating that work into stories the average American will care about. Yes, we have Fox News and political talk radio - important outlets, but outlets that narrowcast to the conservative base and are driven by politics and opinion, not storytelling.

What we don't have is an alternative to NPR. Or The Daily Show. Or 60 Minutes. Or The Charlie Rose Show. Or Frontline. Or Ken Burns. Content that doesn't scream its politics at the audience but that lures America in with great storylines, not lectures.

Conservatives have a profound storytelling deficit, yet all we do is whine and complain about it. It's part of our DNA, our whining about the culture, as if we're incapable of reverse-engineering the Left's success.

The same article cogently elucidates what our side needs to do to turn things around:

60 Minutes is just as crafty. Don Hewitt, the man who created the hit show, was asked why it was so successful. "Tell me a story," he said - preferably, one with a beginning, middle, and end. That show has been top-ranked on Sundays since the beginning of time. At least it feels that way.

Hewitt knew well what we don't. Storytelling matters. Stories have characters, conflict, and resolution. In the liberal universe, the bad guys are greedy corporate types, Christian extremists, Israel, the U.S. military, millionaires, and billionaires.

The good guys are journalists, trial lawyers, union leaders, Palestinians, and government agencies, all there to protect the little guy from the big guys, the bad guys: us.

We need not be depressed by this state of affairs. The gatekeepers don't have a grip on cultural platforms the way they used to, and we are highly capable of competing on mass-media platforms, including radio and TV.

We need bold conservative capitalists to invest in our storytellers and in our storytelling platforms. In our Don Hewitt. Our NPR, Daily Show, Ellen DeGeneres Show, 60 Minutes, Frontline, Oliver Stone, and Charlie Rose. We need them to invest in storytellers who look and sound like America and who share our values.

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by: The Angelic One @ Wed Nov 28, 2012 at 21:20:38 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Thanks for the bullet points... (0.00 / 0)

As I mentioned over at TLCWeld's post Angel refers to--it is all in the eyes of the beholder;

* We need to talk about how almost all corporations help America instead of hurt it

Just this month a Massachusetts compound Pharmacy company killed 30 people.  Major retailers manufacture their products in a factory that killed 112 people when a fire sweep thru their sweat shop factory.  A judge is ordering 3 cigarette companies to buy ads telling the American public they have been lying to them for 50 years.  Have fun talking about that.

* We need to talk about the benefits of immigration and the need to reform the system (Democrats appear to want this, but the unions will stop them at the end)

I agree.  But to do so, you'll need to saw off one limb of the GOP that contains diehard nativists.      

* We need to move the conversation from health insurance (where we lose) to health (where we will win)

I'd love to have that conversation.  I'm interested to see where you'd go with that, given that the food industry is the driving force behind bad health.  

* We need to refocus environmentalism on serving the needs of human beings instead of returning the planet to pre-historic times.

How can the GOP refocus on the environment when there are so many global warming science deniers?  

I could go on, but I need to talk culture with Angel, it's late.

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by: Simple J. Malarkey @ Thu Nov 29, 2012 at 04:28:43 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Some agreement (0.00 / 0)

Yes, the GOP needs to say goodbye to its nativist wing. We have started that process. This is a rare issue where the demographic changes and electoral results are so severe, that no party leader is resisting the reality. This isn't our biggest problem.

I am a strong environmentalist who has even donated a lot to what used to be called MassPIRG. I know many Republicans who are pro-environment. There is a reasonable, achieveable environmental agenda on the right. Yes, there are blind spots. The biggest one of all is climate change. I think Republicans think this is the latest scheme to tell them how to live from the same people who have been bothering them for many years. But while activists are dead-set against accepting climatology, many ordinary Republicans believe in it. This is like the immigration issue: the regular Republicans have to fight the base. (Don't laugh too hard - you guys are going to have to do the same thing on entitlement and school reform.)

As for health, that's a big subject. The food industry is only one big piece of the puzzle. (For instance, on its current path, alzheimer's disease will bankrupt American in 40 years if we don't cure it.) But sure, it is time to take on Big Agriculture and for our government to stop enabling them to ruin our lives. Of course, some of this is cultural, and we are now consuming too much of everything and we have mostly stopped exercising as part of our daily routines.

Lastly, of the millions of corporations in America, there are a large absolute number of bad actors. I have no problem defending the 99% that are helping our country and strongly criticizing the awful ones out there and demanding criminal prosecutions. (So I am the rare Republican who thinks we should have prosecuted a whole lot more bankers after the crash. Most Republicans place all the blame on the government, which is ridiculous. They only deserve a big piece of it.)  

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by: edfactor @ Thu Nov 29, 2012 at 11:03:20 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Man there you go again Ed ... kicking people out of the party (0.00 / 0)

Who died and made you boss?  

Molon Labe

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by: Republican Ram Rod Radio @ Thu Nov 29, 2012 at 19:34:32 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

:-) (0.00 / 0)

The party is dead. Everyone is his own boss now.  

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by: edfactor @ Thu Nov 29, 2012 at 23:09:43 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

So what groups do you want to keep in the GOP... (0.00 / 0)

...I know you are a denier of climate change science, so you'll want to keep that dead ender position.  Are you also part of the nativist fence building / self deporting wing of the party also?  

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by: Simple J. Malarkey @ Fri Nov 30, 2012 at 00:25:25 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I'm not the gate keeper Festus ... telling people to stay or go is Ed's job (0.00 / 0)

Molon Labe

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by: Republican Ram Rod Radio @ Tue Dec 04, 2012 at 15:25:15 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

ed, your comments put you on the wrong side again... (0.00 / 0)

...in that I generally agree with everything you wrote.

If you haven't read this book, I think you will enjoy it.  I have a feeling you read Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam and while I fundamentally disagreed with some of their basic premises, I found it very interesting.  I assume it did not get a lot of notice in conservative circles is that, while advocating "conservative" approaches to various issues, many of their solutions involved government intervention and spending (albeit from a very different approach from traditional Democratic dogma.)  

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by: Simple J. Malarkey @ Fri Nov 30, 2012 at 00:22:14 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

The Culture, Stupid? (0.00 / 0)

Sits back scratches head, somehow this fits my most recent post Individualism vs. Collectivism, I think? but you have some of it wrong...
http://www.redstate.com/1stric...  

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by: 1stRichard @ Fri Dec 07, 2012 at 03:26:57 AM UTC

This Topic Deserves Its Own Post (0.00 / 0)

I tend to agree with your analysis of Individualism vs. Collectivism, 1stRichard. In fact, I've made the same arguments in the past. But that's NOT the subject of this post. This post focuses on the necessity of conservatives/Republicans taking pop culture more seriously. The subject you raise deserves its own post & I hope you do, in fact, create one.  

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by: The Angelic One @ Sun Dec 09, 2012 at 14:45:14 PM UTC

[ Parent ]