Anyone who follows my writing knows that I’m constantly repeating the idea that we as conservative libertarians need to involve ourselves more in the culture. I refrain as best I can from saying that we need to fight the media and, instead, say we need to become it.

I speak constantly about the need to participate and involve ourselves in things like the movie scene, stage acting, art, and gaming. I urge people to embrace the fact that, as Andrew Breitbart once wisely said, politics is downstream of culture. It’s not enough to win at the ballot box. We have to win their hearts in the arts.

The issue is that the right’s presence on the stage is skim. While we do have a presence, it’s often in hiding and vastly outnumbered anyway. The reason for this is pretty plain to see, and it’s a criticism of the right that’s worth listening to.

Conservatives have spent a very long time looking down on the arts and shrugging it off. In every article I write about Hollywood or gaming, there’s always a comment or two completely brushing off the arts and/or asking why I’m wasting my time even talking about it. Because Conservatives have had this mentality about the arts for so long, those who do get involved are ignored, or even ridiculed. Those who exist in the arts go largely unsupported unless they’re speaking out politically.

Too often, once they do, their time on the stage is over if not lessened.

This brings me to what needs to happen if we’re going to become the media and retake the culture.

It’s unrealistic to assume that getting involved in the arts can happen for many. They either aren’t artistically inclined or they just don’t have the time. That’s fair. However, there are many who do and would like to make efforts to step into the world and begin exerting their influence over various artistic industries.

In an effort to put my money where my mouth is, I took voice acting and improv lessons. I started a Twitch channel where I game for an audience three times a week. For some, those would hear me say I do this and consider it a waste of time.

We cannot afford to do that anymore.

Right-leaning people need to foster a better atmosphere for those who are artistically inclined. This starts by not sneering at the arts or immediately writing it off as lost or a waste of time. It’s too big a battlefield to surrender without a fight, and if fighting for our country is what we on the right are doing then we need to cheer on the operatives and volunteers who are willing to go into territories where they’re surrounded at all times by the enemy.

A more supportive atmosphere will lead to more right-leaning people to the arts where they will create and eventually thrive. Their influence will influence others and lead the culture in a different direction than the crash course it’s on now.

Hollywood is infested with hard-leftists but it’s important to remember that Hollywood doesn’t belong to them. That is, at the end of the day, American territory that all Americans should be welcome to take part in and influence. The only way that will happen is if we work to take it back, and that starts with a massive shift of our attitudes toward the arts.