The Moment Has Risen
By Esther Hartstein
Rightgrrl Contributor
February 3, 2002
It was only a short while ago that the Liberals considered themselves to be the enlightened future of mankind. And to these Liberals, I say, guess again. Reality is looking otherwise, for the conservative movement has risen.
It was only a short while ago, just a faint breath of memory away, that conservative thinkers were shunned by most media. This was an attempt by the Leftists who controlled it to keep a tight fist on their intellectually homogenous enterprise, and on the minds of the American people. The closed-minded phenomenon above was successfully challenged by Regnery Publishing, and other courtiers of conservative bibliophilia, who published rejected right-wing material , much of which has been profitable and even best -selling. Take the smash hit "Bias", by Bernard Goldberg. A number one New York Times best seller, this expose on the liberal bias of mainstream media is now featured prominently at the forefront of nearly every bookstore I enter, alongside other gems spewed forth from the fury of a long-ignored message.
In addition to non-fiction, there has been a huge and blossoming revival of the Right displayed in radio, TV, magazines, newspapers, and internet. There are currently no less than 82 radio programs featuring conservative hosts on air. Most of these programs are products of the past 10 years, revered by enthusiastic audiences of all ages, and hosted by some of the most sophisticated people out there. (Hugh Hewitt is a 3-time Emmy award winner and political science brain; Laura Ingraham is a Nobel Prize winner, a Pulitzer prize winner, and a 2-time Olympic gold medallist who graduated from high school at the age of 13.) In comparison, liberal/progressive radio, pardon the pun, could sure use some progress. Left-wing representation in the field of talk radio is virtually nonexistent.
Somewhere out there, there is an old myth that conservatives own the radio, whereas the liberals own the rest of the media, but never before has this myth been quite so mythical as now. About.com features a search engine that can connect you to over 700 magazines "of interest to conservatives", countless numbers of which promulgate conservative views, rather than simply appealing to an advanced right-wing reader base. In contrast, from a not-too-prominent array of liberal magazines, I have managed to count only 12 (after a strenuous web search). Most of these magazines, judging from their websites, are smarmy, screechy, poorly edited, and understandably, poorly circulated. Many of them are drug-y and slang-y, in contrast to the hyper-intellectual, top-notch journalism featured in right-wing publications.
This is not to say that the Left lacks potency in the magazine industry. Most Women's interest magazines, such as Glamour and Marie Claire, which cater to a young, single, and urban element, have taken strong liberal stands on issues such as gun control and abortion while managing to advertise themselves as mainstream. In adapting the liberal agenda of shrill advocacy group national Organization for Women, these magazines are redefining the concept of a "Women's Magazine" to be one of "a magazine which caters to the needs and desires of women." Nevertheless, despite the fabled leftists concept of "Women's Issues", which states that it is of paramount necessity on behalf of all women that the minimum wage be raised, a particularly saucy movement of dissenting women feel otherwise. This can explain the magical growth and uprising of groups such as Concerned Women for America and the Second Amendment Sisters; groups of thinking Conservative women determined to resist the leftist status quo. of these women angrily wish to identify what they feel are their actual needs, to the public. Internet has provided a strong outlet for this pent-up right wing rage. Townhall.com, a mall of everything conservative as well as a must-see, boasts 87 member sites belonging to Townhall.com alone.
TV, a longtime left-wing concept, is being taken over by conservatives. Fro the sensationalistic, entertaining, and revered-by-millions talk show, "The O'Reilly Factor', to the laid-back and hilarious "The Spin Room," media giant Fox News has provided conservatives with a forum to express themselves. For the large swath of generally religious Americans who voted for President Bush, Fox News is a refreshing break from ultraliberal news programs such as CNN. In fact, the adamant conservatism of huge audiences has forced liberal-friendly newspapers and national magazines to put consumer demand before editorial ideology, triggering a colorful infiltration of conservative ideas and their columnists in news sources such as the Washington Post and Newsweek magazine, where the acclaimed conservative writers George Will and Charles Krauthammer boldly speak out.
Conservatives have clearly taken a strong stand against media bias, proving to a media continuously ignores them that they not only preach the power of enterprise, but that they practice it, too, and the American people have taken notice. When their voices are shunned, the right creates its own voice, resulting in the fairy tale success of businesses that have taken heed. Mirroring the revival of conservative culture is the consanguineous rise of Christian rock, a genre which has made huge inroads among the youth of conservative America. Popping up all over the nation are bands throwing concerts best described as Jesus-fests. Their audience is a well-behaved conglomerate of trendy teens smashing the hitherto taboos of rocking with one's parents present. Christian rock is a genre that spans all genres, and is the fastest growing musical phenomenon today.
Who are the conservatives? And from where have they arisen? From the cowboy utopia of Nashville, Tennessee, to the glittering desert of Las Vegas, the advocacy of free trade, gun rights, flexibility in education, and other signature right wing issues have invaded cities, whereas they have traditionally been confined to Outer Sticks, USA. They have been brought here through surging migrations, in part due to the collapses of small towns throughout the nation. The migrants, like their rural and suburban counterparts, are predominantly young, prosperous, and family oriented, with heavy constituency among home-schoolers, whites, Arabs, Cubans, Orthodox Jews, and gorgeous blondes. In the wake of this new, and very idealistic movement, it is clear to Republican and Democrat alike that the Conservatism of today is showing a new face. The movement has risen from the dust of the American Backwater. Hear it roar.
Copyright 2002 by Esther Hartstein. Not to be reproduced in any fashion, in whole or in part, without written consent from the author. All rights reserved.