A common theme I see among conservatives is impatience with those who don't know the ins and outs of politics. Believe me, I share that frustration and when challenged by someone who knows significantly less about politics than me, I can sometimes be more rude than I should be. Having to explain something that, in my mind, should be common sense, is annoying.
In my last VIP piece, I detailed how actress Mayim Bialik was shocked by the sudden discovery of antisemitism that seemingly came out of nowhere in our own American society. To someone like you and me, this antisemitism from the left isn't surprising at all. As people who keep up with the news, antisemitism is something we see from radical leftists on the regular. They proudly display themselves in almost every major activist movement, in the halls of Washington, and in the media.
But I had sympathy for Bialik who, for all intents and purposes, seems like a pretty decent person who values her family and understands right from wrong on a firm moral ground. Her ignorance about the antisemitism that surrounded her didn't surprise me because as I detailed, the left masks their social sins with the language of social justice. Bialik, like many Americans, probably hasn't looked too deeply into the real story behind American politics because she, like most people, is too busy living her life.
She's now getting a crash course in reality because the radical left has seized the moment to let their antisemitism run wild across the globe, sparking a wake-up call for many, especially the Jewish community to which Bialik belongs.
(READ: The Mask Isn't Coming Off the Left, the Blinders Are Coming Off the People)
Not everyone agreed with my sympathetic take on Bialik, noting that she should have known better.
But I'm here to tell you that it's not that easy. I should know. I was woefully ignorant about politics most of my life, and that was because, for years and years, I didn't think I needed to pay that much attention.
The year is 2007, and I was a security guard in Galveston for a little gated community. Politics was hardly ever on my mind. I was more concerned with hanging out with friends, chasing girls, making rent, playing video games, and traveling when I could. While I was never as ignorant as some of the people interviewed by Fleccas, if you had asked me who the Speaker of the House was, who my representative was, or even what every right in the Bill of Rights was, I wouldn't have been able to tell you.
Politics never crossed my mind and since I never stopped to truly learn about it, everything I knew about it came from mainstream media sources. Not even the news! A lot of the things I heard were offhand comments and jokes by celebrities or movies and television.
The only reason I became politically aware was because, in that guard shack, there was nothing to do. I spent most of my time watching movies, buying box DVD sets of television shows like Scrubs and South Park, and playing MMOs like World of Warcraft.
One thing I did have was a fascination with History, and I got heavy into historical documentaries, especially those about WW2 and North Korea. Long story short, this would cause me to trip into a fascination with dictatorships and how people fall under them. As 2008 approached, I noticed that then-Democrat Presidential candidate Barack Obama sounded an awful lot like some of the dictators I read about. This would lead me to a book called "Liberal Fascism" by Jonah Goldberg, and that would set me on the path to where I am today, a political/cultural writer at RedState and host of a political/cultural show on Rumble.
Why do I tell you this story?
Because I want to highlight to you how I broke from my ignorance by mere luck. If it wasn't for a trifecta combination of boredom, an unending supply of free time, and an interest in history, I never would have fallen into politics. I'd probably be just as ignorant as the next guy. Sure, as things got more economically unstable I would have taken some notice, but even then, probably only as far as I needed to go to make sure the prices went down so I could go back to sleep.
Not everyone is that lucky, and even if they do get red-pilled, there are a lot of influences that could lull them back to sleep and few of these influences aren't even malicious. It's just life.
Waking up politically isn't actually common. There are waves where it becomes more regular, like what we're seeing lately, but many of the people who are fired up politically today will be happy to go back to their regular lives tomorrow under the right conditions. It's a stressful thing, politics, and not everyone is built for it. In fact, I'd say that a small fraction truly is.
This is why getting the word out, informing, debating, and teaching is a never-ending task. Influencing the hearts and minds of the people is a machine that constantly has to be on and maintained. The vast majority of people don't even know they need to look for this information, which is why conservatives should be patient and sympathetic to the well-meaning but ignorant.
It's good to remember that most aren't even willfully ignorant. Even talking to someone for an entire evening about the ongoing political situation in America might not even spark that sense of urgency you think they should have. They'll acknowledge it's bad but they might not fully understand. Sometimes it takes days or even weeks for this stuff to sink in. It can be intimidating.
Winning a mind is never easy, and it usually means winning a heart first. This is why culture battles are so important to fight, because if the heart is affected then the mind begins to listen.
