A while back, I mused on why we as conservatives are losing the culture war. One of my comments was how we can turn this around by, among other things, providing genuine artistic options. There are conservative artists out there. For example, John Ondrasik, who works under the moniker Five for Fighting. You know the songs; for example:

But do you know Ondrasik? You should.

so true…leaving Afghanistan in an orderly methodical manner without risk to our people, and safe passage to afghan allies who will now be murdered makes sense…instead we start with giving the Taliban Bagram??? A 3rd grader playing Risk would know better. https://t.co/0nf2oDjkpj

— John Ondrasik (@johnondrasik) August 17, 2021

Ondrasik is anything but your stock issue pop star, smothered in handlers and marinated in pop culture love until he or she says or does something in violation of the wokey wokes conduct code and therefore faces the wrath of the social media cancel club. For one thing, most pop stars don’t have a degree in applied mathematics, this obviously transpiring before 1+1=2 was declared racist which no doubt will be of great surprise to Oakland Tech’s first-ever black valedictorian Ahmed Muhammad and his advanced-far-beyond-his-years math skills. But I digress; back to Ondrasik’s unusual résumé.

Ondrasik has been married to the same woman for over twenty years. Don’t bother looking for lurid party tales or torrid TMZ takes on him; there are none. Ondrasik is a family man who has, throughout his career, planned tours around his kids’ schedules rather than hitting the road whenever the mood strikes. He writes and performs his own material, drawing on well-honed piano pop/rock melodic sensibility and a philosophical lyrical bent widely separating him from the dribble and drivel excessive repetition of modern mainstream pop.

Have I mentioned that Ondrasik puts his money into action in the directions to where he points his mouth? His charity work and willingness to travel the world in order to entertain our troops are well-documented. Ondrasik also helps those with four legs and fur; next month he is playing a benefit concert to help build a tiger habitat at the Moorpark College Zoo.

Oh, and by the way … he’s a thoughtful conservative unafraid to speak out. Firmly in control of his own image, Ondrasik doesn’t parrot the party line. He definitely does not fit in with the music industry überliberal lockstep “mentality.” Which should come as no surprise, really, as his background and body of work reveal Ondrasik to be both pop/rock’s thinking man and the thinking person’s pop/rock artist of choice.

Which leads to the question of why Ondrasik isn’t more heralded in conservative circles. He has the artistic tools and track record; he has the smarts. He, along with other artists of note such as Richie Furay, provide authentic, quality alternatives to endless leftist propaganda. Yet for whatever reason, Ondrasik is seldom mentioned by the right even as we kvetch about not having anything in the arts worth supporting.

We can make inroads into culture, thus making inroads into politics — which remain downstream from culture — by seeking out and then actively supporting artists who reflect our values and whose artistic merit is unimpeachable. Ondrasik, who releases his music under the Five for Fighting name as it was suggested shortly before his career started taking off by some record company suits who thought it’d be a more catchy phrase than his name, is such an artist. Can we lay off the endless ranting, chill, buy a Five for Fighting CD or download, and be happy doing so? As the song says, there’s never a wish better than this.

PS: I would be remiss if I didn’t include a certain someone’s favorite Five for Fighting song.