Building Our Own Media

No, because “Cool” is a perception, not a statistic. People want to have an aura of elite or selectivity, as if they are rebels or famous or somehow extra special and “artsy”. You will hear them brag about being a “movie snob” or a “food snob” and they will point out how they found special places to buy their groceries, etc. When a style shows up at Target or Penny’s it is a sign that it is on its way out. While many of US have moved beyond a society that is like High School, the people on the Left often operate on some level as if in High School.They didn’t grow up emotionally which is why they believe in hope and change and helium balloons will solve problems. Certainly I could be wrong, but that is how I see it. Yogi Berra famously said: “Nobody goes there any more, it’s too crowded.” And, oddly, there is some truth in that mixed up quote.

Buying an old media outlet, like a magazine, a newspaper or a news network is a poor value. These outlets have an aging readership and a white elephant infrastructure. Their only truly valuable part is their brand. And the brand will begin taking a vicious beating the moment it drops out of the left's consensus network.

The 'value' of buying the New York Times is that it's the paper of record. Or as the slogan goes, 'it's not news until the New York Times says it's news' - or some such thing... If Trump were to buy the Times, then fire every top person and replace them with conservative 'think tank types' ( and YEAH that includes Greenfield, Styne, Sowell, Rush, Hannity, etc etc) and a bunch of first rate rewrite guys - they could pull this off.

What appears in the New York Times today - appears in your local paper a few days or weeks later. The Times tells us 'what's news'. Other papers don't have the staff to do a lot of original work - OR THE CONTACTS.

That's key. Contacts.

It's why Republican who say something bad about a fellow Republican get space. And why a democrat who does the same - speaks badly of his own party - is shamed. Papers run on black books -contacts top editors have - and those 'friends' open up if they basically like what's being written. Big scores - coin of the realm is information.

Editors pride themselves on knowing that everyone has an angle for the information given but they've decided they're 'oh so smart' and can out smart the folks feeding them. They can't. Insiders see the press as puffed up fools... but that's another story. (Oh -and those big police raids where the drug busts are in the millions and millions? That's not street level police work either - it's one gang calling in to rat out another gang in order to gain influence.) Cops to the same thing editors do - they 'balance out' the competing 'desires'...

My point is it could work. If Trump had what it took to buy the Times and fire 'the culture' he could do it. Lower level papers would flounder... and that would give him the opportunity to have major impact... It could be done.

The Romney Campaign's big mistake was relying on big dumb sledgehammer media tactics, spending more money to do less, while neglecting the people on the ground. If the Republican Party is to compete, then it has to learn from that at every level. Think small. Look at the individual. Bring together committed individuals into organizations where they cooperate and make things happen, instead of viewing them as piggy banks for end of the year donations. That is what made the Tea Party work. It is the only thing that has any hope of revitalizing the Republican Party and the right.

A culture war is a shouting match. It's not so much a war of ideas as a war of slogans that are embedded in everything. The left has too much top-down control to be directly beaten at that level. It can be challenged and occasionally humiliated, as Breitbart had done, but it still remains in place. If the left is going to be beaten, it will be from the bottom up by empowering the people who want to fight, rather than just building more expensive operations while ignoring the ground game.

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Interesting statements, but right for the wrong reasons. Romney's campaign wasn't interested in fighting. If it had been, Benghazi would have been hammered through Obama's rhetoric from the day after it happened, as it was one of too few points of significant difference between the candidates and the ONLY fresh one at election time.

Unfortunately, connecting with its base is anathema to the GOP-E. So while it's a great idea, Mr. Greenfield, I humbly suggest that you not hold your breath.

There are a whole lot of people that don't care what celebs think. They don't care what was on the last episode of glee. They wouldn't recognize more than a fraction of the people that won grammies or an oscar. They don't care that some narcissistic wind bag is a food, beer, wine or movie snob. An ever increasing amount of people don't care that some self described guardian of the cultural elite doesn't bestow us with their favor.

If celebs, the left (and that might be redundant), the purported "cool" kid alter-ultraconformists, the old media, and the ushers of pop idolatry don't like conservatism, then good. Their culture is vapid, degenerate and self destructive. Their ideology is an irrational blend of existential fascism and cultural marxism. Every place they control is falling apart and the longer they have been in control it the worse it is. We should neither desire their praise nor their accolades. We should hold them in as much contempt as they hold us, but more importantly we should never ever pander to them.

"There are a whole lot of people that don't care what celebs think"...
"If celebs, the left (and that might be redundant), the purported "cool" kid alter-ultraconformists, the old media, and the ushers of pop idolatry don't like conservatism, then good. Their culture is vapid, degenerate and self destructive. Their ideology is an irrational blend of existential fascism and cultural marxism. Every place they control is falling apart and the longer they have been in control it the worse it is. We should neither desire their praise nor their accolades. We should hold them in as much contempt as they hold us, but more importantly we should never ever pander to them."

I do not disagree with your gist here. But one must keep in mind that theese views are not what would be considered "mainstream" right now. As much as 'we' want, this, what you refer to, is still the predominant force in the society today. And it has this predominance because the "cool kids" tell them that this is how it should be.
This is the result of the dumbing-down and the lowering of the bar for what is accepted intelligence. This has not occurred overnight. This is the planned result of decades of interference from established planners. heir plan has worked, and is continuing to work.
The obvious question is now....How do 'we' counter this?
Education, media and politics. In that order must be countered and brought into the same prominence and mind position as what is now considered "cool."
And frankly, I see little chance of this happening given the depth of infiltration that has occurred.
Bickering among 'ourselves' over semantics and conservative political correctness (yes, it is a real thing) does nothing but divide us and our message. That is playing directly into the game of those who wish to destroy 'us' and all we belive in and desire for our culture and our world.

.../rant

Thus using their venues of record is not the avenue in either case.

I would counter that by pointing out that a) these are venues that the public is familiar with and already accepting to views coming from these venues and b) by using 'alternative' venues it is very easy for the left to mount a "vocal shunning" movement to label these as 'wrong' 'right-wing' and 'not-cool.'
These reasons support the use of familiar and long-standing media venues.

Not considered mainstream by whom? Why exactly do you call it the predominant force with such certitude? What facts do you have to back this position up?

I absolutely agree that where we are now as a nation is the direct result of more than a century of planning and incrementalism and I absolutely agree that we must counter it in at least a similar fashion.

I'm not sure that I agree that there is such a thing as conservative political correctness. Honest and open debate among conservatives is one of the multitude of things that makes us better than leftists and while it may hurt our short term efficiency it will help us in the long term. Not being true to conservatism is one of the things that allowed us to be dragged into this mess in the first place.

The average FReeper, I suspect, does not spend much time watching junk like “Glee”, “Modern Family”, and “The Today Show”, but there are millions of citizens who do. Through such programs, the left relentlessly promotes its ideology.

While I can't speak for Greenfield, I think that's something we are all aware of, including him. I read the article to say this is not a one-stop solution. After all, this is a war, again, as we all know, and it's going to take multiple tactics on multiple fronts - in multiple battles, to be successful.

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