Andrew Klavan on how conservatives need to take a leaf out of the Trump playbook - and challenge the Left's narrative

One of my favourite conservative commentators, Andrew Klavan, has produced a brilliant article for the PJ Media website, entitled Trump Moves the Narrative Football. Klavan isn't a fan of Donald Trump (he has called him "bad", "petty", and "a little man"), but, unlike many of The Donald's non-admirers on the Right, he does wish that more traditionalist conservative politicians would learn some lessons from the guy. For instance, following the controversy surrounding the decision by the American football player, Colin Kaepernick, to show contempt for his country by refusing to stand during the national anthem, the NFL has finally bowed to pressure by making it compulsory to stand during the anthem - any disloyal wankers who have a problem with that can skulk in the dressing room until it's over. One of the most vociferous critics of...



...the NFL's refusal to curb political grandstanding by eye-wateringly rich left-wing players was Donald Trump. His - and Vice-President Mike Pence's - intervention undoubtedly convinced a lot of fans to refuse to attend games while this disrespectful nonsense was allowed. Klavan writes:

The NFL anthem controversy is a prime example of how Donald Trump is doing something of yuge importance that conservatives never think to do, and that intellectual conservatives don't even seem to understand needs doing. He is challenging — and often changing — the left's narrative.

The narrative is essentially a set of assumptions so pervasive that people are afraid to oppose them. They think they are alone in disagreeing with those assumptions and they fear they will be deemed immoral by the majority. For a long time, the left has controlled this narrative by dominating and censoring the means of communication: social media, the news networks, Hollywood and the academies.

They use these instruments to make outlandish ideas seem mainstream. That America is racist and oppressive. That men and women are interchangeable. That abortion is something other than an atrocity. That capitalism is somehow an evil despite its manifest blessings. And so on.

As so often with Klavan, that's absolutely spot on. By coincidence, I wrote about the urgent need for the Tories here to do just that - i.e. take control of the political narrative - last week, but I lost focus and ran out of steam. Enthused by Klavan's article, I've rejigged it slightly, and it'll be my next post.