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Introduction

The inspiration for The Culture Alliance has been building for a long time, but it finally came to fruition after the 2006-midterm elections. Having been a politically engaged conservative since the election of Ronald Reagan, I always hoped that political change would eventually lead to cultural change. In recent years that hope has appeared increasingly naïve. In spite of the growth and influence of the conservative movement, politics has proved a fickle mistress.

Most conservatives would agree that we are losing the ideological battle for the nation’s soul. This has happened in spite of the domination of conservatives on talk radio, the large numbers of best-selling conservative books, and the overall growth of conservative voices on cable, in newspapers and magazines, and on the Internet.

We are great at preaching to the choir, but we haven’t been nearly as good at making converts.

Why is this? Steven M. Warshawsky in his article on "Bringing Conservatism Back to the American People," says the problem is "The Liberal Propaganda Machine":

Beginning in the 1960s, liberals steadily gained control over the ‘means of intellectual production’ in this country—the news, education, entertainment, and legal professions. By the 1990s, these professions were filled with left-wing Democrats, who consciously wield their power over these industries to promote their ideological agenda. Thus, while conservatives were busy pursuing profitable careers in business, finance, engineering, medicine, and other ‘practical’ professions, liberals were tightening their grip on the nation’s schools, courts, and newsrooms—and using these institutions to change the way ordinary Americans think and live.

Liberals Set the Agenda

Liberalism today sets the cultural and political agenda for the American people, while conservatives largely react to this agenda. Despite occasional political victories, the trend is not a happy one for conservatives. The movement is toward an ever-larger welfare-regulatory state (which encapsulates the modern liberal worldview) and the breakdown of the nuclear family and a variety of other traditional American values. Unfortunately, through the liberals’ domination of cultural influence a growing number of Americans are coming to agree with them on many of these issues.

In the 50th Anniversary issue of National Review, Mark Helprin eloquently lamented this phenomenon. While acknowledging the cultural importance of William F. Buckley’s and others’ founding of the modern conservative movement in the 1950s, Helprin realized that “conservatives have yet to approach culture as William F. Buckley approached political philosophy half a century ago.”

The Culture Alliance is our answer to that crying need.

Conservatives Focus on Politics

Conservative activism today is almost wholly focused on politics. This is, of course, necessary and good, but people’s actions emerge from what they think—and that means culture. Today, public policy discussions always come up against widely held liberal assumptions, and conservatism finds it increasingly difficult to break through that barrier.

For the last thirty years, conservatism has taken a top-down approach to political change, and it has always—and will always—come up against the pervasive liberal indoctrination that takes place throughout American culture. Liberals and their worldview dominate all of the powerful idea generators of American culture, and thus true conservatism is a tough sell to average Americans. Liberal, statist assumptions suffuse the cultural air we breathe.

It is getting to the point that self-described conservatives are borrowing these assumptions to try to redefine conservatism. We all know about "compassionate conservatism," and others argue for something called "heroic conservatism." There is another version that might be called "populist conservatism." All these have in common the same theme: The American people are now so addicted to the welfare state and other liberal assumptions that if conservatism wants to survive politically, it must morph into a version of something it has criticized since the founding of National Review in the 1950s.

To continue down this road would be fatal to the conservative movement and tragic for our country.

The Culture Is Antagonistic.

To this point there has been no concerted, organized effort specifically to take on liberalism from the ground up. Certainly, isolated individuals do make their way into cultural professions, determined to change things, and isolated organizations are also doing good work in attempting to infiltrate into areas of cultural influence—but this has clearly not been enough. All that most conservatives can do is rage against an amorphously antagonistic culture, futilely hoping that somehow, some way, someday this will change.

Yet change will not come unless conservatives penetrate the nation’s cultural institutions in numbers that will eventually turn the tide. We are not talking about any quick fix, but instead something that will take time to bear fruit. However, if we truly want to see conservatism become America’s reigning social paradigm, there is no other way.

As I began to think about this, I looked back to my early days of political awareness. In 1980, as a politically ignorant twenty-year-old college student, I voted for Jimmy Carter. Why would I do such a thing? As an ethnic Italian-American, my father and all of my relatives were Democrats. How would I know any better? Fortunately, with the election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency, I began to hear about National Review and the Wall Street Journal editorial page—and my journey into conservatism officially began.

Like any new convert, I yearned to make a difference. But where could a young person turn for guidance in those days? There were few real conservatives involved in politics and public policy in the 1970s, and Ronald Reagan didn’t have a deep bench to call on to populate his administration. Morton Blackwell decided to change that.

Founded in 1979, Blackwell’s Leadership Institute identifies, recruits, trains, and places conservatives in the public policy process. As the organization’s website says, "The Institute produces leaders for a new generation of public policy leadership unwavering in its commitment to free enterprise, limited government and traditional values and equipped with the practical skills to implement sound philosophy through effective public policy." The institute says that it has trained more than 69,000 young men and women over the years, and without doubt Republican administrations during that time have benefited from the talent bequeathed to them from Blackwell’s endeavors.

Our first thoughts about The Culture Alliance were inspired by how we might utilize the model of what Blackwell did for public policy in pursuing a broader cultural agenda. The narrow confines of public policy meant that to apply this model to a greater cultural influence, it would have to be expanded. Thus The Culture Alliance.