If Conservatives Fought

It should be no surprise that we had to wait for the perverts who run Hollywood to implode–while they kept abusing women and children the whole time–when conservative leaders have made it clear that they have no intention of challenging Leftist cultural dominance. The only thing conservatives want to conserve is the cultural Marxist status quo.

Some of you are still in denial or a bleary state of Netflix and football-induced hypnosis, so to drive the point home, I’ve prepared a little thought experiment. For your consideration, here’s what it would look like if conservatives fought to preserve our culture as hard as the Left fights to destroy it.

When Democrats are in control of the levers of power, they have no qualms about weaponizing the IRS against their political enemies. This is the most effective tactic on the list. As John Marshall said, the power to tax is the power to destroy.

And as Glenn Reynolds points out, Hollywood has a specific and easily exploitable weakness in this regard.

The first such proposal would be to restore the 20 percent excise tax on motion picture theater gross revenues that existed between the end of World War II and its repeal in the mid-1950s. The campaign to end the excise tax had studio executives and movie stars talking like Art Laffer, as they noted that high taxes reduced business income, hurt investment and cost jobs.

The movie excise tax was imposed in response to the high deficits after World War Two. Deficits are high again, and there’s already historical precedent. Of course, to keep up with technology, the tax should now apply to DVDs, downloadable movies, pay-per-view and the like. But in these financially perilous times, why should movie stars and studio moguls, with their yachts, swimming pools and private jets, not at least shoulder the burden they carried back in Harry Truman’s day — when, to be honest, movies were better anyway.

For extra fun, they could show pictures of David Geffen’s yacht and John Travolta’s personal Boeing 707 on the Senate floor. You want to tax fat cats? I gotcher “fat cats” right here! Repeal the Hollywood Tax Cuts!

Repealing Hollywood’s outdated 20% tax break should be a no-brainer for Republicans (but I repeat myself).

If the film industry’s debauchery isn’t sufficient motivation for conservatives to act, Hollywood’s nosediving profits definitely should be. After all, conservatives might not care about art, but they’re downright fanatical about money, right?

Not when it comes to money plays that involve risking their reputations with the lefty arts crowd. Roger L. Simon notes that conservative investors now have a once in a lifetime chance to buy out the whole film industry in one fell swoop. But they won’t.

If conservative investors had any courage, this would be the time to make a hostile takeover of the movie business.  Unfortunately, they don’t.  I know this from bitter personal experience. Wealthy conservatives are delighted to support the Philharmonic, but when it comes to popular culture they turn away, as if afraid to get their hands dirty.

That this is a huge mistake should be obvious.  They have abandoned the culture — and our children — to the creepiest people imaginable.  What is going on in Hollywood is far from being just about Harvey. It’s approaching a pandemic. So many previously silent assaulted or raped women are coming out of the woodwork, it seems like a long-belated remake of “Cheaper by the Dozen.” No one knows who will be next or if it will stop at Harvey.

It won’t stop at Harvey, and the self-styled moral conservatives who could have stopped it will incur a share of the blame.

If officials at the highest levels of law enforcement were serious about protecting our children (how often have we been told to “please think of” them when our betters want to further erode our liberty?), they’d leave no stone unturned in the hunt for the perpetrators of Hollywood’s systemic abuse culture. Unfortunately, law enforcement’s track record in this regard features a string of Roman Polanskis and Woody Allens.

The SJWs defacing pop culture have it made. Lacking appreciable artistic talent, they only need to check the right political and identity boxes to receive plush sinecures in Hollywood, the comic book industry, and traditional publishing.

Making a living in the arts has always been difficult. It’s become diabolically so since the conservatives–or at least political neutrals–who used to run the film and publishing industries gave away the farm to cultural Marxists.

Make no mistake. The expulsion of non-Leftist content creators from these industries is the result of a concerted and deliberate effort to squeeze thought criminals out of pop culture. The Left has been allowed to carry out their purge unopposed for so long that the process is all but complete.

The most obvious answer to this problem on the part of wealthy conservatives who complain about the corruption of popular entertainment would be to fund non-Leftist art projects themselves. But again, as Roger Simon mentioned above, conservative donors will gladly support the converged arts but not projects that might upset the Leftists they strive to impress.

If conservatives were as serious about saving the culture as they claim, then wealthy conservatives would fund non-Leftist films, TV series, comic books, novels, video games, and other popular media projects–regardless of whether they turned a profit. Converged companies like Tor Books and Marvel Comics are perfectly willing to take major losses in the service of their crusade to destroy Western culture. Wealthy conservatives’ “What’s in it for me?” and “I got mine” mantras betray the fact that they don’t really believe in the value of Western civilization.

To the struggling non-Leftist creators out there who just wanted to make art and be left alone: No one is coming to help you. We’re on our own since, unlike the cultural Marxists working night and day to drive us from the market, our self-professed supporters in business and government are lying about having our back.

It’s up to us to help each other sharpen our skills, strengthen our brands, and build audiences. The #PulpRev and the Superversive literary movements are good examples of fledgling mutual support networks of allied artists.

With or without support, continuing to create original, entertaining content is indispensable to salvaging something of Western culture.

I wouldn’t ask anyone to do what I’m not willing to do myself. That’s one reason why I’ve been creating fun, lecture-free stories for the past couple of years. If you’re starving for unique, thrilling, apolitical science fiction, give my award-winning Soul Cycle novels a shot.