Actor Nick Searcy. Photo provided courtesy of Nick Searcy

*Edit: Redstate would like to apologize for the glitch in the byline. This article is not written by “Redstate Staff” but by the man himself, Nick Searcy. We apologize for any confusion and are working to correct the error.

As I said in parts One and Deux of my brilliant and strangely seductive indictment of modern Hollywood, we, as conservatives, must build a way of producing and delivering entertainment to the vast audience out there that is disgusted — and being systematically and deliberately insulted —  by modern Hollywood. And the first step that conservatives have to take is to recognize the power of storytelling. 

Conservative investors are not generally disposed toward financing feature films or television shows.  And it’s not just because they are risky investments, it’s because we don’t perceive the value in storytelling. 

Take, for example, if I may be so bold, Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus didn’t teach by saying “here are the facts.”  Jesus spoke in parables. He told stories that educated by illustration, that lit the path, showed the way.  Those parables landed on his congregations with much more power and persuasiveness than a simple recitation of facts would have done.

But conservatives, to this point, have considered funding narrative entertainment — stories —as beneath us or beyond our capabilities. Our investors see value in news networks, fact-based websites, podcasts, and talk radio — but not sitcoms, dramatic shows, or feature films.  We tend to fund documentaries, but not movies that become part of popular culture.

A friend of mine, the venerable Loy Edge, put it like this — if conservatives built the library, it would be all non-fiction.   If liberals built the library, it would be all novels, poems and short stories.  And the liberal’s library would be far more fun to visit and far more popular.  That’s where I would go.  It’s much more fun to watch a gripping Stephen King movie, no matter his politics, because he is a great storyteller, than it is to read a history book about the brutal, gruesome, and murderous historical consequences of Marxism.

The most overused quote in 21st Century conservative columns and speeches has got to be this one, and the reason it is so overused is that we have not addressed it to this day. As the late great Andrew Breitbart famously said, “Politics is downstream of culture.”

We have let the Hollywood Left define the culture for at least the last 50 years.  We had already conceded academia to the leftists, and as a result of their long march through the institutions, we have an army of socialist youth that rally to socialist superstars like Bernie Sanders and AOC because of their sheer ignorance of the death cult that is socialism.  But now, we have been given an opening.

Hollywood has destroyed itself.  By expressing their seething contempt for a large portion of their audience, they have alienated at least half of them — and they have destroyed the mystique of the “movie star.”  Now, when middle America hears “movie star,” they don’t think, as we once did, “oh, someone beautiful or handsome and fascinating, who causes me to laugh or feel emotions when I watch them.” We don’t think of Marilyn Monroe, or Clark Gable, or even Tom Hanks.  Now we think, ”Meryl Streep. Robert DeNiro. Another leftist blowhard who hates me because I won’t vote like they do. I’m not watching them anymore.”

But if we just ignore it, we forfeit the game to them, rather than putting our money where our mouths are, and fielding a team that will compete with them, and beat them at their own game.

So how do we build a new Hollywood, one that tries to entertain rather than lecture, one that once again tells stories instead of distorting them with politics?

Frankly, we need a Rush Limbaugh (whose show I hosted on Dec. 27, 2017. Did I mention that?) in the world of filmmaking and television.  And here’s what I mean:

For you young whipper-snappers out there, it is hard to understand what life was like before Rush.  There was no one, and I mean NO ONE, like him.  There was no Fox News, no Sean Hannity, not really even a talk radio format, not on a national level. There was no alternative to the alphabet networks’ relentlessly biased reporting. Rush, almost completely by himself, destroyed the monopoly the left had on the news business.  And his effect on the culture has been immeasurable —Rush changed Andrew Breitbart, Rush changed me, and countless other listeners — which is why they have tried and failed for 30 years to destroy him.   They know how effective he has been. He totally changed the culture, mostly by fearlessly standing up to his haters, and showing the rest of us that it could be done — and that it was FUN to do it. Rush taught us to LAUGH at them when we confronted them.

And now, we must accept our role. We are now the counter-culture.  We are the punk rockers.  We are the Sex Pistols! God save the Queen!  We mean it, MAN!

If there had been a Rush Limbaugh during the Nixon years, he might not have resigned.  Nixon might have had the courage to fight back against the Left, to at least make an argument against a totally political movement to unseat him and regain power, by any means necessary, which is how the Left always operates.  History would have changed. In fact, I would argue that without Rush, there would never have been a President Trump.  That’s how much he changed the culture.

And speaking of President Trump — because as we all know, everything, at the end of the day, is about President Trump — one of the main reasons that the Left is so ineffective against him, and why they hate him so much, is that President Trump does not come from the world of politics.  He comes from the CULTURE, and as Andrew said, politics is downstream from that.  Trump was on television for years, on countless shows and in magazines even before he got his own show, and the American people got comfortable with him.  They got a sense that he was a real person, not a focus-grouped phony like almost every single politician we encounter (Google “Mitt Romney”).

Like Rush, Trump doesn’t put on airs, or focus group his thoughts — he just talks to us, and tells us what he thinks, unfiltered and with brashness, whether it’s on Twitter, or walking to the helicopter — “Not you. not you. You’re fake news. Don’t be rude, Don’t be rude…” That’s one of my favorite things about him.

Or at the Daytona 500 — wasn’t that great?  I mean, granted, it ruined the day for the 5 or 6 Democrats who actually watch NASCAR.

My friends,  I have the solution.  I have a candidate that I would like for you to consider backing as the Rush Limbaugh of entertainment.  This man has worked in Hollywood, in the belly of the beast, for almost 30 years.  He has already directed one movie that affected the culture positively. He is going to direct two movies in the next 12 months, when the world opens up again after we defeat the Chinese virus attack.  One is set in the world of gospel quartet music called “Where I’m Bound”,  and another movie about the battle of King’s Mountain in the Revolutionary War, the first battle that America actually won in 1780 which led to the American victory and the founding of our country, called “Revolutionary”.  He is working with a group called American Pictures to make these movies — and subsequently others —that will be — gasp — positive about America and will not mock or slander people of faith.  He is also working with a group to build a new streaming service and content platform called CREADO, which will compete with Netflix and Youtube and do so without censoring conservative voices or narratives. 

And he is also the biggest Hollywood star to ever guest host the Rush Limbaugh show.  I am talking about THIS MAN.

It is long past time for conservatives to get off the sidelines and get out their checkbooks.  I’ll be at the bar.  Remember, with apologies to Ronald Reagan:  I’m from Hollywood, and I’m here to help!

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