Donald Trump won by converting voters across the constituency spectrum. But in the euphoria of his victory, including winning the Senate and the general right turn of the entire country, it’s easy to forget that the nation remains deeply divided, and the margin of victory was narrower than conservatives’ ecstasy warrants. Split tickets and ignoring the down-ballot in close Senate contests suggest that MAGA is, presently, at least as much a Trump phenomenon as it is a national movement. And the metamorphosis he created may prove ephemeral with his exit. In short, a compelling leader who persuades is great, but having a culture that creates and manufactures ready-made conservatives would be even better.
Entertainment is the Rosetta Stone of culture, and culture is the path to political nirvana. We’ve become aware of and angry over the pollution emanating from much of academia, but the influence from that quarter is less than that exercised by the entertainment world. Universities train foot soldiers to shape and use the culture, but their success has occurred because the mechanics, the cultural ground, was ceded without a fight. While emptying the vomit from education is imperative, engaging progressives in the entertainment marketplace is of even greater importance.
The skeptical will counter that Taylor Swift and Beyoncé didn’t move the needle in the election. Of course not — celebrity endorsements are like speeding past a restaurant and thinking you’ve eaten. That’s not where the action is.
For too many years, the only weapon the right has carried into election battles has been advertising. TV airwaves are inundated, and by the time votes are being cast, a voter, particularly in a swing state, exhausted by the relentless exposure, must exercise religious restraint to keep from hurling a shoe at the flatscreen. There is a benefit if your side wins, but win or lose, the ads must be recreated every two and four years, the money, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars — billions, nationally — once more shelled out. The return on investment is not what it could be. Spending billions on advertising and nothing on entertainment is dropping paper ordnance from a heavy bomber.
It’s arguable that the movie business as we’ve known it is finished. Outside Netflix, companies have yet to figure out a way to make streaming profitable. The market exists. It is open. All that’s required is a better mousetrap.
Since at least the Greeks, people have wanted and enjoyed stories — indeed, paid for the privilege of seeing them told. That desire has not abated. Now, while the streaming industry is reeling, is the time to grab it.
Imagine this: what if, in 2010, Netflix had produced a historical drama on Israel, its creation and conflicts? Think of seven or eight seasons with eight or ten episodes each (The Sopranos had 86 episodes). Imagine it delivered through characters, real and fictional, replete with the traits that furnish drama: love and lust, courage and cowardice, greed and altruism, all seen through a different lens from the one routinely offered by the Washington Post or an Ivy League history professor. Is it possible that might have influenced perceptions after the events of October 7? How many of those reading this know people for whom history is a movie or TV show?
Or try this: going back to the 1930s and the inception of talking movies, there is no more enduring genre than gangster films. What is Marxism but a gangster story on a macro scale? You can’t discuss Marxism without including violence, power, greed, courage, heroism. How many seasons and episodes would historical dramas on Russia and China yield? Additionally, is it possible there is another narrative on the Vietnam War — one suggesting we should have been there and could have won — that might be revealed and established? Would a different narrative light, one in contrast to, say, Robert Redford’s hagiography of Che Guevera, influence young people’s perception of Marxist-Leninist governing philosophy?
What about a series on 1960s radicals? Their actions served as a launching pad for today’s progressive movement, and to this moment, many of them continue to be lauded on the American left. The fact is, a number of those radicals were trust-fund babies and stone-cold killers, unconcerned with collateral damage in their march to utopia and more than willing to murder those opposing them. Think that might make for an interesting tale?
And there is no reason to confine this notion solely to America. War pictures are another enduring genre. The West needs its memory jolted, a collective spine-stiffening. The battles at Tours, Vienna, and Lepanto, to name a few, are stories worth remembering and telling. And how did Islam colonize the Middle East, enslaving, murdering, or converting nearly all its inhabitants? That might make for a few years’ of quality and compelling streaming material.*
These stories, told well, would generate enormous profits. (Their mere mention would guarantee priceless publicity due to rent-free squatting in the spacious minds of critics and academics.) In sum, there is an opportunity to shape thoughts, influence voters, and make money, all of it accomplished with an investment that doesn’t have to be repeated and has the potential to reach a new audience for years to come.
There are beachheads in this arena, chief among them from the Daily Wire. But the infusion of a few hundred million dollars into the industry while it is flailing could tip the scales for the foreseeable future. And although that’s an enormous amount of capital, recall that in 2015, the Koch Brothers assembled donors who pledged $900M to defeat Hillary Clinton. (Ultimately, this didn’t materialize because of a refusal to back Trump.) Would a third of that amount promised to entertainment be a greater risk? Obviously, there is risk, and it’s a great deal to ask, but there is a firm argument that suggests, “If you build it, they will come.”
Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Mrs. Adelson, can you bring together some entrepreneurs who might be persuaded to the wisdom in this action? If so, I know some successful and established writers who could be assembled quickly.
* Not everything must be political. What about taking on the canon of Western literature? It’s a compelling hook: The Great American Novel and The Great European Novel. Dostoyevsky, Hugo, Dickens, Twain…do them all. That project, announced in advance, would generate quite a bit of interest.
Image: LIDayo via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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