Thursday at CPAC conservative pundits Charlie Kirk, James O’Keefe, Larry O’Connor, and Matt Boyle paid tribute to conservative firebrand Andrew Breitbart. March 1, 2022, marks the tenth anniversary of Andrew’s death and even though he’s been gone almost a decade, Andrew is someone all conservatives in the fight should know.
Andrew was so much more than the originator of the eponymous website Brietbart.com. He influenced a lot of conservative activists for the better by showing us how to fight the left on our own terms. Even those of us like myself who never got the chance to meet him in person continue to be influenced by his methods, tenacity, and courage. It’s therefore imperative that our rising generation of conservative activists also be aware of who Andrew was and how his legacy lives on today.
As Kirk pointed out, part of Andrew’s legacy lies in his belief in the younger activists and the rising generation. As a fellow Gen-Xer, Andrew was all too aware of the edict the Boomer generation gave us of waiting your turn and paying your dues. That waiting and paying rarely paid off for Gen-X and so we were perpetually relegated to the background long after we were ready for the spotlight. His belief in the rising generation is a big reason why so many young conservatives now come right out of school and hit the ground running. PJ Media’s own Cameron Arcand is an excellent example of a young conservative who started blogging in high school and is now a prolific columnist. Andrew lifted up and paved the way for a conservative like Cameron to have his work taken seriously and his voice heard.
Related: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Gives the Roadmap to Liberty at CPAC
Andrew basically single-handedly invented the concept of “going viral” on social media. He also had an interesting habit of retweeting the hate directed at him by the left. One of the first few on Twitter to do this, Andrew was of course wrongly accused by the left of retweeting hate in order to have his followers swarm and attack the hater back. This was the halcyon days of Twitter when permanent banning was only a dream in Mark Zuckerberg’s pointy head. In fact, Andrew retweeted the left’s hate in order to shine a light on it. He showed the right how to expose the left for the horrible haters who like to lurk in the darkness that they are. He showed us that challenging the left also means making them live by their own rules.
It’s good for the rising generation to know that ten years ago, it was unusual to see conservatives openly challenging the left, especially in the cultural arena. O’Connor said Andrew inspired other conservatives because “it was great to see someone fighting for us for a change.” With his favorite maxim, “politics is downstream from culture,” Andrew intuitively understood that the left had a stranglehold on Hollywood and our national media. Andrew made it okay for more of us on the right to speak up. He challenged the left intelligently, swiftly, and with their own standards–and he did it all with humor.
Andrew was the quintessential “Happy Warrior.” He could find humor even in the most stressful of interactions with the left. Once in a text to the Breitbart team, for example, when he decided to interrupt the televised press conference of disgraced Democratic Representative Anthony Weiner, he assured them, “Don’t worry, I’ll keep a low profile.” Well, they all knew Andrew was anything but low-profile and ten years on, we’re still laughing at his reply to his team’s concerns. Andrew’s power was in knowing it’s more powerful to be courageous while being smart and funny at the same time. This frustrates the left, who are forever the least intelligent and most miserable angry people in the room. He showed the right how to make confronting the left fun. “He changed the fight,” stated Kirk to the panel’s agreement.
While no one person can or has filled Andrew’s shoes over the intervening years, there are many more of us out here fighting the good fight every day just like Andrew. You can help us here at PJ Media continue the good fight by becoming a VIP member today. CLICK THIS LINK and use code FIGHTBACK to get 25% off on all the latest in conservative news, politics, and culture that the left doesn’t want you to see.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member