This Is Why We’re Losing!

I’ve always regarded Bill as tremendously insightful.  One of my greatest teachers, who time and again says the thing that no one else is saying, but which we all feel inside, that then seems perfectly obvious once you hear it.  In this case, I was watching Bill’s most recent video about The Power of Wanting; and about halfway through it, I felt that same bitter rage that he described (sans glass grenades in the sink).

It was a feeling I knew all too well at a visceral level.

Like him, I paused the video, scrolled down to the comments section, and wrote out the following rant:

As a content creator – an author, artist, game maker, video maker – I can tell you that nothing kills the wanting more, nothing kills the drive more, than constantly pitching and pitching and pitching and no one’s there catching. No one’s around to receive it. No one’s picking up what you’re putting down. So I’m not even preaching to the choir at that point, I’m preaching to a void, and that’s insanity. Talking to an audience who isn’t even there. Isn’t even present. I can’t tell you how many times I hear people say, “Gosh, I wish we had literature that wasn’t a bunch of woke, trash remakes,” and I then I hold up my books and say, “Here you go! Exactly what you’re looking for. It won’t even cost you anything to sample it,” and the response I get is to be ghosted. Ignored. “No thanks, we’re not interested.”

So as a content creator, why would I continue to pour time, money, and effort into making something that the market is telling me – BY THEIR ACTIONS – they clearly don’t want. I responded to their words when they told me it’s what they wanted, but they’re not backing it up with deeds, and that is why we’re losing the culture war. It’s because people don’t REALLY want it. Not badly enough.

If it turns out the work itself is crap, then fine. I accept that. But these days, it costs nothing just to try. I know so many great creators out there putting stuff out for free and people can’t even be bothered to give it the time of day, so these creators aren’t even getting feedback they need to tell them if what they’re making has potential or if they’re wasting their time and their lives. That tells me that the audience doesn’t actually care. Not really. That “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” is just a hollow slogan.

A virtue signal. A luxury belief.

Some time ago, I’d written an article on my blog entitled On the Issues: Capitalism, in which I outlined how people railed against the market without actually making proper use of the very tools the market provided them to solve whatever problems they had.  That through boycotts and voting with your dollar, if you cared about pollution or corruption or racism or wokeness or whatever, you had the power to fix it yourself without government intervention; and in a way that was more immediate, more potent, more effective, because you’d be targeting the bad guys directly where it hurt most: their bottom lines.

That if the problem was people putting profits ahead of everything else, there was already a remedy for that, which you could use to signal your disapproval with the direction the person or company was taking.  It’s just that pro-government people tend not to know about it or avail themselves of that option.  They’re shooting themselves in the foot, robbing themselves of their own power by delegating it to government.

Recently, I’ve come to see that the right, that conservatives and libertarians, are guilty of this as well – and shame on them, for we ought to know better, being the ones who always preach about the virtues of the market.

For a long time, I’ve tried to avoid posting negativity and bitchiness online, particularly with regards to myself and how I’m doing – believing that it only repels people since no one wants to be around it – and the internet is forever, so that stuff will stick for eternity. 

I’m ashamed to say that, for a long time, I was one of those people whom Bill decried as not helping the war effort.  Of just sitting on the sidelines as a consumer and spectator, rather than a player.  “I can’t do what I need to do because I’m fighting George Soros’ billions and you won’t even cough up two cents an episode.”  It wasn’t until after two or three of such public shamings, of his calling us all out in video rants, that I finally looked inward and dug deep and paid for my ticket to ride by becoming a member.

Moreover, I started making my own weekly content again, after a long hiatus – and this in between working two other jobs (of which only one has anything to do with actual content creation and pop culture, the other is just to pay my bills).  Yet here again, it seemed that no one was interested.  No one was willing to commit themselves to what I have been giving away freely this whole time, and I think that has been our problem all along.

The left uses shame quite effectively.  They use it as a weapon when it suits their purposes, shaming people into compliance through cancel culture, which is how they’ve managed to invade and occupy every institution we hold sacred, perverting it towards their own ends.  They use it as a sword.  At the same time, they also use it as a shield when it suits them, deflecting shame in the form of “no fat shaming,” “no slut shaming,” “no poor shaming,” and so forth.  Ironically shaming us for using shame against them.

As with any emotion, there is a healthy and unhealthy aspect to shame.  An adaptive form and a maladaptive form.  Our side has not been sufficiently shamed into realizing this is a Code Red moment and that we are not putting our money where our mouth is – literally or metaphorically.  We’re not doing all we can to help our brothers and sisters in arms on the front lines who are struggling.  We are just as guilty as the left of virtue signaling our beliefs and not following through with genuine action that would be reflective of the types of things someone who actually believed them would do.

In my Virtual President 2.0 series, I made a public commitment to give four years of service to the cause, and I intend to honor that; but in so far as my other contributions to the pop culture – my blogs, my regular videos, my books – those are all on pause for now.  They’re on pause because you all told me it’s not what we need.  You told me by your actions and lack of engagement, and this is me saying, “I hear you.  Message received.”  I shall not waste your time and money on them anymore.  So instead, I will focus on something else until those same market forces tell me that’s also no longer what the public wants.

Maybe, if people step up and show enough interest, I’ll consider reviving the others.  But for now, I share Bill’s sentiments.  We are losing this war because our people just simply don’t want to win.  They don’t give a @#$%!   They’re not as committed to the cause as our enemy is to theirs, and it doesn’t take a genius in military strategy to see how all this will play out in the end.

And this isn’t even about me.

Think of how many other great rhetorical warriors we’ve lost for lack of support.  Who hung up their swords and their capes because they didn’t have anyone in their corner when they got home.  I could name names, but it’s better – more personal – if I leave it to your own imagination.  I’m sure you can name more than a few, be it presently or throughout history.

How much time, how much sacrifice, how much altruism has been lost?  How many needless casualties have piled up from want of follow-through by people who said, “Yeah, yeah, we totally support you,” but then when it came time for action, revealed their true intent?  Would that people just said “No” up front, and rip that bandage off quickly, so we can get onto the business of healing …

Here’s a story that ought to resonate with many of you.  A man had two sons.  He said to them both: “Go and work in the fields.”  The first said “No,” but later thought better of it and went begrudgingly.  The second said, “Yes of course!” but then his father returned home to find him lazing about, never having gone.

Which one did his father’s work?

Obviously, you all know the answer already because it’s a story you’ve heard a thousand times I’m sure; yet how many of you act like that second son?  Your words say yes, but your actions say no.  In the end, the work will get done by those who said no at first, but were compelled by some greater power to change their mind; and there will be a reckoning when your Father gets home.

This is why we’re losing.  Time to face your shame and own it like I did.  Time to get to work.