South Park Conservatives: The Revolt against Liberal Media Bias

 by Ben-Peter Terpstra  

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Andrew Sullivan coined the “South Park Conservative” label to describe today’s politically incorrect adults, and Brian Anderson's book further describes this new group of conservatives.

South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias
by Brian C. Anderson
Regnery Publishing, Inc. (April 1, 2005)
Hdbk., 256 pgs.
ISBN-10: 0895260190
ISBN-13: 978-0895260192

America’s South Park attracts a cult following. The socially incorrect series pokes fun at tree-worshippers, radical gay activists, hysterical global-warming fanatics and Islamists. Is social incorrectness part of the arthouse cartoon’s charm? In the media’s antiseptic landscape, South Park’s refreshingly impolite, but what else can one take away? 

Andrew Sullivan, a British-American blogger, coined the “South Park Conservative” label to describe today’s politically incorrect adults. A new book, however, gives us some raw details about this interesting shift, from left to right.

In South Park Conservatives, Brian C. Anderson, a New York-based writer, demonstrates that the New York Times and other elite media organs are losing their power to influence Americans (and therefore the world).

Before AC (Ann Coulter), people who grew up in the States lived in a politically correct atmosphere with a clear wall – “good” PC apple polishers on the one side, “bad” politically incorrect rebels on the other. Hipublicans or South Park Conservatives, by way of contrast, are more fluid.

Thanks to some edgy websites, global online bookstores, new publishing houses (from the Emperor’s New Clothes Press to Encounter Books), radio jocks, influential bloggers, and satellite television programmers, the purity-test socialists are losing audiences.

In South Park Conservatives: The Revolt against Liberal Media Bias, Brian C. Anderson helps readers navigate through many of the above trends. Importantly, he also explains why FOX News Channel and other cutting edge media enterprises are winning audiences over.

In 2003, a UCLA political scientist and a University of Chicago professor found that FOX News offers viewers more “fair and balanced” reports than her competitors. In other words, the new media’s young fans are not tools but relatively well informed citizens.

As Brain C. Anderson explains:

It found Brit Hume’s Special Report – Fox’s most straightforward newscast – far more “fair and balanced” than other media outlets when it comes to asking think tanks for their opinion. Special Report cited 372 [socialist] think tanks and 367 conservative ones between 1998 and 2003. From 1990 to 2003, by contrast, CBS Evening News cited 815 [socialist] think tanks and 283 [!] conservative ones. ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC’s Nightly News proved only slightly fairer than CBS, the study found.

Does Fox News look like a right-wing station when we compare it to, say, CBS? Yes, of course, and Britney looks like a virgin next to Madonna.

When television programmers promote extreme left-wing views, more moderate shows will always look deceptively right-wing. In truth, FOX is demonstrably fair because its staff embraces intellectual diversity. Even the shock-rocker, Marilyn Manson, freely admits to being a big fan of Bill O’Reiley’s “conservative” FOX News show.

Take FOX’s Hannity & Colmes, for example. Significantly, one co-host is a Republican and one co-host is a Democrat. Switch to ABC, however, and you are lucky to spot a lone conservative. The shows are “stacked.”

Just as there are ways to promote political correctness, there are also ways to destroy it.
Within two months, Crown Forum, a conservative book publisher, launched four New York Times bestsellers. Specifically, Ann Coulter’s Treason shocked the establishment when 550,000 of her pro-Senator Joseph McCarthy books sold like hotcakes (without the support of the mainstream media). Nowadays, Coulter is a blonde right-wing pinup girl.
 
Not surprisingly, two superpower left-of-center publishers (Random House and Penguin) have established their own conservative imprints in order to compete with successful right-of-center publishers. Likewise, high-brow conservative and libertarian publishers are making their own waves too. The market for politically incorrect books is huge.

One of the most exciting places to be right now, of course, is on a university campus, where, according to Anderson, some South Park conservatives are shaking things up. Whereas the Democrats have 100,000 members, the young Republicans have tripled their numbers over six years. And with 120,000-plus members this “trend” is hard to ignore.

All in all, Anderson’s book is a must read because it challenges some of the myths surrounding “Hipublicans,” or neo-libertarian Bush voters.

“On cultural issues,” writes Anderson, “the students had clearly reached their own, sometimes idiosyncratic, conclusions.” From the pro-life heavy metal Yale student to the pro-hunting University of Georgia history major, the “hipublicans” are tired of the old Red Guards. Come to think of it, so too are thousands of my fellow Australians.

Anderson’s work is based on interviews, insightful observations and a sixth sense when it comes to predicting trends and long-term movements. But does the author know any real South Park Conservatives? That’s the question that was on my mind.

“I certainly know some people who are libertarian on social issues, believe in a strong military, and resist the idea of big government,” the author tells me in an email. “I work with some of them at the Manhattan Institute!”  That’s good to hear.

South Park Conservatives is available on Amazon.com.

Book Reviews, Culture: General

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