AND I WOULD'VE SUCCEEDED, TOO, IF NOT FOR THOSE MEDDLING SITCOMS. Stanley Kurtz's hysterical post unveiling the "the entirely unsecret conspiracy against patriotism, tradition, and religion hiding in plain sight on our movie and television screens, in our universities, and on the pages of the mainstream press" is a peculiar piece of argument. Conservatives, he insists, need to watch out; their total defeat in the pop-culture arena means that "one big loss could easily turn conservatives back into a marginal cultural force for some time." For them, any hold on power is precarious, because "one cable news channel, talk radio, and the blogosphere do not an invincible army make. It only seems that way because we also have nominal control of the reigns of power." But doesn't that minor "controlling the reigns of power" thing sort of discredit Kurtz's point? After all, Democrats controlled all reigns of power in the early '90s, and the presidency between 1992 and 2000, yet the culture didn't rise up to permanently marginalize conservatives. Indeed, folks watched Will and Grace, approved of Bill Clinton's job performance, and then split almost 50-50 in the 2000 election. Conservatives were fine. For all this cultural hegemony enjoyed by liberals, the right has basically owned the White House for the past forty years, controlled the House since 1994, etc., etc. Given that record, Kurtz's attempts to make conservatives once again the underdogs because of Big Love and The Da Vinci Code come off a bit hollow. The right, now in control, is desperate for a monolithic enemy to blame for their failures and shortcomings. All they've got left is pop culture. And so pop culture they shall use.
--Ezra Klein
