I’m as snarky as anyone on social media, even sometimes angry – it’s hard not to be angry a lot of the time given how these morons on both sides of the aisle act. But I’m less concerned with the killjoys on the other side of the aisle than I am with those allegedly on our team. Making fun of leftist boobs is fun, watching people who claim to care about the cause of conservatism engage in counter-productive stupidity.
My 6-year-old loves Taylor Swift. My 5-year-old does not. My wife kind of likes her stuff and I tolerate what I’m forced to hear while doing other things. What I don’t do is hate her. Why would I? She’s never done anything to me. She disagrees with me politically, but if I based by life on only associating with people who agree with me on politics I’d be surrounded by a bunch of miserable people, really horrible movies, bands that suck and unfunny people calling themselves comedians.
Hard pass.
Every time I write about pop culture and how it’s politically important to at least be aware of it, I get comments and emails from readers beaming with pride about how they don’t listen to music, watch TV or go to the movies, therefore paying no attention to what’s happening in the culture. I get it, a lot of the culture is garbage that offends sane people’s sensibilities, but that doesn’t make it irrelevant.
Whatever forms your worldview, there are more people interested in what Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are doing than what you find important. I don’t say that to be mean, I say that in the hope that it serve as a wake-up call to get people to at least be aware of where the popular sentiment in the country is.
Don’t be a killjoy – don’t be the parents who refused to let their kids listen to Elvis or The Beatles because rock and roll is the devil’s music or isn’t as wholesome as Bing Crosby. Well, Crosby was allegedly an abusive jerk to his family. Should that be ignored just because he had a smooth voice? Or do you separate the art from the artist?
That’s up to each individual, but everyone should be aware of the fact that the art exists.
But there are far too many people more interested in their own glory and bottom line than they are in advancing a cause. There’s a lot of money in preaching to a limited choir – you can make a fortune off a small, but dedicated, group of people.
What that won’t do is win elections. If you don’t already have your choir on your side, you’re screwed. The whole point is to expand the people on your side. They may or may not join your choir, but they might vote for your candidate. The “Reagan Republicans” in Macomb County, Michigan, didn’t become lifelong Republican activists, but they helped with three consecutive presidential elections. Did it matter that they didn’t become donors to conservative think tanks? Of course not. Unless you make your money from those think tanks.
So, while so many snarky killjoys mock Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, it’s important to remember the only people or cause really benefitting from it is them. The more social media engagements they get, the more revenue sharing to get from X. The motivation of people sharing and responding to posts does not matter, that they did is all that does because an ad was served to all of them and that's money in the bank.
I wrote in my book about how there used to be a difference between “famous” and “infamous” and how now there isn’t one, it’s all about getting attention. Attention is addictive, and it’s also money. If that’s your priority, you can make a lot of it. If you want to win elections, being a jackass who actively tries to alienate a bunch of people whose vote your side desperately needs is, to put it mildly, not helpful.
When you need help moving a couch from a friend with a pick-up truck, if they show up and smoke a cigarette in front of your house, it’s probably not a great idea to scream at them about the evils of smoking or how stupid they are for doing it. It’s their life, they aren’t oblivious, and you need their help. Pissing them off will only risk them leaving, and leaving you stranded.
We need the votes of everyone in November – Donald Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, probably the least popular person in all of politics in the last 50 years. Running against her didn’t make him more popular, it made a bunch of people who disliked her more vote against her.
Personally, I don’t care how the votes are gotten, as long as they’re gotten. But to get them, people need to stop alienating people and, at a minimum, leave them alone to like the things they like without some people dumping all over them. That doesn’t seem like a big ask.
It is, however, when it could cost some people their prestige, their social media clout, and even their slice of revenue sharing.
If you have to ask whose side is someone on, you already know the answer isn’t “the cause.”
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.
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