One of my biggest complaints when it comes to my fellow conservative minded individuals is the absolute disdain that is shown towards pop culture. Complaining about the President going on late night talk shows, boycotting going to the movies because of the “liberal elitists,” it just reinforces the stereotype of republicans being a bunch of boring Lawrence Welk listening to prudes.

While conservatives like to avoid pop culture, the simple truth is that conservatives are a huge part of pop culture — and not a good part. We are the butt of everyone’s jokes, yet we don’t do anything about it but cry like a bunch of babies, take our balls and go home.

The front lines of the culture war is where the fight for America’s future will be won or lost.

To the casual low information voter, the GOP is filled with uncool, rich old white men who hate minorities.

As long as we stay on the sidelines instead of actively participating in the process, in the national arena these are the myths that will continue to be spread about us.

To the average American, who would you rather want to sit down and drink a cold one with, Mitt Romney or Barack Obama? To those who don’t actively engage in politics on a daily basis (most of America) the answer is not the uncool rich white guy.

If you win the culture war, you win the hearts and minds of the people, the left knows this and they play the game great. Once you build trust with the people on the little things that fill up the pop culture wasteland, they start to listen to you on the important things.

Brandon over at Misfit Politics has a great post up about how, “Our cultural ignorance is killing us and this country.” Here’s a snippet:

Is it so bothersome that someone has a different opinion than you, that you have to reject them and their craft outright? Have we chosen to close ourselves off from the rest of the world if their opinions don’t fall in line with ours?

Have we really become so like progressives in that regard?

I’ll give you a perfect example of my point.

Super Bowl halftime shows are often over-sexualized performances with half naked (one time actually naked) stars shaking their junk around while background dancers move provocatively to the music. If you’re like me, you cried foul. There are children watching this, and this is what they presented as family entertainment? We wanted something fun, and clean.

Then, last Super Bowl we got it when Bruno Mars took the stage. Talk about talent! The show he and the Red Hot Chili Peppers put on was energetic, fun, and didn’t rely on a tired strip show routine to make it interesting.

Yet still the disapproving tweets were ridiculous.

“Why should I watch this? It’s just more liberal tripe.”

“Just another Obama voter getting a big stage.”

Etc…etc….et-frickin’-c.

Perhaps Bruno Mars did vote for Obama. Perhaps he’s a liberal.

Who cares?

The man’s good-natured show did nothing but cleanly entertain. There was no politics involved. It had no political significance until we injected politics into it. This bothers me greatly.

Conservatives complain all the time that we are held back in the entertainment industry because of our beliefs. The claim isn’t a false one, yet we do the exact same when the opposite gets up to perform, no matter how small the offense. Even if it’s retaliatory, it’s hypocritical.

Read the whole thing here.

I’ll finish with this quote from the late, great Andrew Breitbart,

“Once you see what their plan was, you realize that it was implemented. It was taking over the cultural institutions. The left is smart enough to understand that the way to change a political system is through its cultural systems. So you look at the conservative movement—working the levers of power, creating think tanks, and trying to get people elected in different places—while the left is taking over Hollywood, the music industry, the churches.”

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul recently told Glenn Beck that Republican’s will not win another Presidential election in his lifetime, “…unless they become a new GOP, a new Republican Party.” During the interview on Beck’s The Blaze, Sen. Paul added, “And it has to be a transformation, not a little tweaking at the edges.”

Rand Paul is 100% right. I was not a fan of his father’s Presidential bids, and it is far too early to get behind a candidate for 2016, but more and more it appears to me that Rand Paul is the clear choice for the future of the GOP and the country.

From The Blaze:

“You have to take your message to people in a way they can understand it,” Paul asserted.

The senator said, for example, that if he is speaking with 1,000 young people, he doesn’t focus on taxes and regulation, but about the government looking at your cellphone.

He added that Republicans have failed to speak with African American and Hispanic communities about how the war on drugs and our legal system has disproportionately affected them.

The primary goal, Paul said, is to present the “ideas of liberty” to everyone.

“There are many people who are open among all these disaffected groups, who really aren’t steadfast supporters of Obama or an ideology,” Paul asserted. “I think they’re open to listening, but we have to have a better message and a better presentation of it.” Read More…

The next generation of the Bush family dynasty is getting ready to take the first step towards walking in the footsteps of his predecessors. This time its going to be different though, because this Bush is a conservative. Really, he promises.

George P. Bush, son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, grandson of 41st President H.W. Bush and nephew of 43rd President George W. Bush is running for the title of Texas Land Commissioner.

From the AP:

“On social questions, national defense, economic issues, I’m a strong conservative,” Bush told The Associated Press.

That kind of statement helps make him the latest – and perhaps one of the more unlikely – faces in the parade of Republicans marching even farther to the right in already fiercely conservative Texas.

As he takes baby steps away from the Bush legacy, George P. could struggle to convince the party’s far right that he’s really more conservative than either of his elders who have occupied the Oval Office.

“A Bush can’t be a true conservative,” said Morgan McComb, a North Texas tea party activist and organizer.

Bush insists that he’s up to the challenge, noting that he was an early supporter of tea party hero Sen. Ted Cruz, who after less than a year in the Senate has rocketed from relative political unknown to ruler of the Texas GOP.

“That’s something that we bring to the table that’s different,” Bush said. “We’re a mainstream conservative that appeals to all Republicans.”

James Bernsen, Cruz’s former campaign spokesman, said the Bushes “walk in certain circles, and some of those people might put their nose up at Ted sometimes, but George P. tries to cross that divide.”

“George recognizes that it’s a blessing and a curse to have that last name,” Bernsen said. “There’s a reason he’s not really being challenged on the ballot. But he also realizes there’s a lot of people who will be very skeptical of him.

I didn’t vote for P’s uncle in 2000, though I admittedly did “fall in line” post 9/11 and voted for W. in 2004. Bush’s 2000 campaign brand of “compassionate conservatism” which is just another way of masking love of big government programs, just did not appeal to me. George W. Bush is most definitely not the evil war-criminal that progressive nut-jobs make him out to be, he is a good guy whose Presidency was forever changed and will always be remembered in history because of the morning of September 11th 2001. He is not a conservative, neither is his father, brother or any other member of the family to have held political office.

Is George P. Bush going to be different? I don’t know, I hope so — but I probably doubt it. I would just hope that he’d pursue some other career path and let the family business no longer be politics. But that’s not going to happen. Time will tell if this Bush is going to be different, but looking at the families past, I wouldn’t bet on it.