It’s time for us conservatives to focus in on the individual grassroots contributors to our cause and begin to provide support and recognition for those women and men who are cutting through the thick twisted undergrowth of our Left-wing dominated culture.
To that end, let me introduce Jami from Conservative Fiction. In her blog post entitled Political Lessons from Writing: People First, she offers a literary lesson on the presidential election that every Republican and conservative should take to heart.
Both sides were telling a story. In Obama’s story, the hero was Everyman, the ordinary folks of the special interest groups: the woman who could not get birth control, the young illegal immigrant who’d been brought here as a baby and could not get citizenship, the college student who just needed a chance.
In Romney’s story, the hero was, er, fiscal responsibility? Sometimes Romney? It was hard to tell. For the most part Romney was telling a plot-driven story, and those kinds of stories often do not invite sequels.
In other words, whether in a book or in a political campaign, it is the character-driven story that strikes the strongest chord with the reader or with the voter. And every good story has its heroes and its villains. In this past political go-round, the super stars, as framed by the Left, were the victims of a cold, male-dominated conspiracy to crush the downtrodden.
Say what you will about Sandra Fluke, she was a real person. There were girls who empathized with her, and who were influenced by her story….Obama himself, the black child of a single mother, which is today’s equivalent of the son of a poor sharecropper…Michelle Obama, playing the role of the virtuous wife…..The Voter, as a savior of all those social programs for Americans.
And the Villains of this 2012 election season were easily type-casted for stock character roles in this liberal epic saga of good versus evil and Jami is right on target with the bumbling boobs and slimy Snidely Whiplashes that she has picked for their political parts.
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Republicans Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin with boneheaded public statements that were easily twisted to be anti-woman.
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Occasional comments by Romney which were slanted to imply he did not care about the poor, making him the clueless Marie Antoinette.
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The desiccated political corpses of Karl Rove and George Bush were dragged from their graves and paraded through the streets again.
A clever and incisive perspective on the out-of-step and out-of-focus approaches that have mired the Republican party in a no-win and always defensive posture. Note also, that what Jami is talking about here is the proactive shaping of our cultural narratives.
And it’s in the realm of entertainment where conservatives have a golden opportunity to put forward the heroes and villains of our own worldview.
The publishing field is a great example of an opportunity just waiting for the right takers. And I’m not talking about the next blockbusters from Mark Levine, Ann Coulter, or David Limbaugh. No. It’s in the realm of fiction where true cultural/political power lies. The book industry today offers fiction writers a dream come true—with all the self-publishing options out there, no one needs to stand at the guarded gates of Left-wing corporations in order to be seen, heard, and read.
Conservatives need to get creative in every medium. For if not now, when???
