The Conservative Pop Culture Gap

Over at Powerline, an interesting post and a more interesting thread on whether conservatives can close the “Pop Culture Gap.” One guy even laments that the Republicans blew by not taking the book South Park Conservatives to heart! So, apparently the day of vindication of Paul Cantor , Brian Anderson, and our Peter Lawler, not to mention my Carl’s Rock Songbook is at hand, right? Let us all turn to sites like Acculturated, and if we’re Catholic, let’s join Mark Judge in holding that pop culture saavy ought to be one of the key criteria for choosing a pope , correct?

Well, I think all the stuff in the Powerline post about the need to stay somewhat up-to-speed with the latest marketing techniques that Obama employs is right. I say “somewhat,” because trying to hard too be hip is lame, and can easily backfire if you don’t have the MSM and Daily Show in your pocket the way our supposedly-hip president does. But some strategies to counteract what the dirt the Dems are doing to us with things like Upworthy do have to be devised.

That said, I think the full-speed ahead into hip-with-the-millenials pop culture knowingness approach that some seem to be implicitly recommending is fraught with problems. With contradictions. Recent essays of mine here have tried to highlight certain Paradoxes of Conservative Pop Culture Studies , and questioned the burning need for, to take one specific example, More Conservative Rap Critics .

P.S. Apologies that the songbook has been on hold again . . . busy-ness simply . . . but I’ll be returning to the series on rap with a post or two this weekend, I promise.