Righteous Indignation by Andrew Breitbart
Republicans and conservatives have been playing defense for far too long. It's time to put the offense on the field. Andrew Breitbart has a game plan.
My son recommended I read Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World by Andrew Breitbart. This is the same son (I only have one) who back in 2017 told me I should start reading The_Donald on reddit.com because it would make me laugh at a time when the opposition Trump faced in his first months in office was getting me down. The_Donald is now found on patriots.win and it still makes me laugh.
The Trump election was the beginning of my intense interest in politics. Up until my late fifties about all I ever did was vote and listen to Rush Limbaugh. I suppose Rush planted the political seeds that would finally spring up in 2017.
I voted for Trump, not because I liked him, but because I did not want Hillary Clinton to be president. But it didn't take long to become a full-fledged supporter of Trump for one main reason: he did or at least tried to do exactly what he said he was going to do during his campaign. The man was on offense from day one. I am still amazed at how much he accomplished in the midst of overwhelming opposition from the Democrats, his own party and the mainstream media. Impressive.
Breitbart's book is an offensive playbook, something to read and study during hell week to get prepared for football season and the games that matter. Republicans and conservatives have been playing defense for a long time, too long, and they're not good at it. In the last few months I have written about Civil Disobedience to fill in the huge gaps in my knowledge about it, but while listening to Breitbart's book it occurred to me that civil disobedience is largely a defensive move. The government tells you to do something and you tell the government you're not going to do it, by actually not doing it. Or the government tells you you can't do something and then you do it. It's dependent on the government.
Breitbart's point is we need to get on offense. We need to be proactive. When I think of people today on offense I think of Project Veritas, Steve Bannon, Dr. Naomi Wolf, Dr. Robert Malone, Steve Kirsch, Edward Dowd, the groups out fighting for election integrity, the groups fighting school boards and many others I am not naming. Though many of these people have reacted to what the government has done, they have not waited around to see what else it might do. Getting on offense for Breitbart meant dismantling the mainstream media by exposing their lies and their hypocrisy.
I enjoyed Breitbart's back story, his introduction to Rush Limbaugh via his father-in-law, Orson Bean, his days with Arianna Huffington and his first big break when James O'Keefe walked into his office. Breitbart died in 2012 at the age of 43.
From chapter 7, "Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries," I leave you with the 13 points that "every conservative activist needs to use when fighting the left."
Don't be afraid to go into enemy territory.
Expose the left for who they are—in their own words.
Be open about your secrets.
Don't let the Complex use its PC lexicon to characterize you and shape the narrative.
Control your own story—don't let the Complex do it.
Ubiquity is key.
Engage in the social arena.
Don't pretend to know more than you do.
Don't let them pretend to know more than they do.
Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.
Don't let them get away with ignoring their own rules.
Truth isn't mean. It's truth.
Believe in the audacity of hope.
"Join Us," Breitbart writes in chapter 10. We can all be activists. Let's go save the world.
This article also appears on my website, The Asylum. The website also has several things that are not possible to do on Substack: The World Economic Forum Members Reference (thanks to Dr. Malone), Red State/Blue State reference showing Senate and House percentages by party affiliation, quotes, a large resources section, a robust search feature and some other things unique to the site: quizzes, word games and leaked communications. These latter three are satirical and funny, at least in my mind, but you'll have to be the ultimate judge on that.