In his pre-inauguration rally, Trump presented Patriot Awards to several individuals who had been instrumental in moving the conservative base. It's an acknowledgement that Trump did not win all by his lonesome self, nor because of his team. There are many committed and very smart people who worked for years behind keyboards and video cams to bring stories and analyses that mainstream media will not cover. Many of these awardees paid posthumous credit to Andrew Breitbart, a name hardly any local commenter has ever mentioned, somewhat demonstrates the limitations of Singaporeans' worldview.Breitbart was an American conservative journalist and commentator extraordinaire. He started off as a Liberal. a typical product of US universities captured by ideological progressivism in the last few decades. It was during the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Clance Thomas that Breitbart redpilled to conservatism when he saw through the Liberal lies of Anita Hill's unsubstantiated claims of workplace sexual harassment by Justice Thomas. Ditto for Justice Kavannaugh, ditto for Trump -- the Democrat playbook is predictable, all you do is make a claim. It's you-said-he-said stuff, it can't be proven either way, but the political damage is done. He co-founded Huffington Post (now renamed Huffpost) and was a regular contributor to Drudge Report. Eventually he left Huffpost to start his own Breitbart News Network. Huffpost and Drudge Report are now unashamedly progressive Left.
More than anyone, Brietbart recognised early "how the internet could be used to route arround bottlenecks imposed by official spokesmen and legacy news outlets." and how this could be the platform changing the way people write about politics. Breitbart inspired many on the Right in the online sphere. The Left dismisses them as conspiracy sites and weaponised various agencies to take them down. For example, the Islamic gangs in United Kingdom which gang rapes and grooms young British kids are only now getting publicity because of Elon Musk. This has been going on since the 2000s. If you know about this much earlier you probably heard from Tommy Robinson, who was on a mission to get the government to act since 2011. But you would have been branded a conspiracy theorist. Tommy Robinson is rotting in jail in solitary confinement under a marked up charge of being a terrorist when all he did was to raise awareness of about 180,000 rape victims. Musk said he will fund Robinson's appeal for some of the charges. Because of the publicity triggered by Musk's involvement, the case is now a full-blown scandal of unimaginable covers up by police and politicians pandering to the Muslim votes. Singapore seems to share this dismissal sentiment of anything not from mainstream media which is evident when state media publishes only syndicated news of the Left's narratives.
In Singapore politics, the opposition has had a long uphill struggle imposed by problems of fragmentation, quality, funding, lack of clearly defined ideology, and strategy.
Quality has been an issue for two reasons. One, as long as the PAP is providing the stability and decent quality of life, people are happy to trade off certain levels of personal rights and freedom for security. It has not been easy to attract talent under the realistic circumstances of the past several decades of economic success enjoyed by the country. Two, Singaporeans are generally reluctant to take on the sacrifice and pains of a start-up enterprise when times are good and more particularly, with Barisan Socialis, which was upfront Socialist, now long gone, there is no ideological struggle in Singapore politics. It is more like running a family business. A certain tipping point has to be reached before more committed brave souls would consider stepping forward. The Workers' Party appears to be emerging from mediocrity and moving towards that tipping point. It was no coincidence the PAP acted the way it did when it did, against the party. A blooming flower has to be nipped in the bud.
Except for SDP which has tried to put forward their views on the economic management of the country, I have not seen any parties' proposals in a comprehensive manner, be it economics, foreign affairs, education, defence, etc. Now, I am not debating the merits of SDP's ideas here, just mentioning this is what we need to have. The Workers' Party and the PSP are more level-headed. The others are chasing every mis-step and mistake of the government down rabbit holes. Some are focussed on bridgehead attacks, such as Reform Party's focus on management of reserves.
Lim Tean and Kenneth Jeyeratnam constantly share their opinions. Whilst their views are worth digesting, their ascerbic style of presentation drives away the very people they should be trying to convince. Personally I would like to see both of them in Parliament. The duo would be disruptive in Parliament but I see in their rambuctious style, firebrands and mavericks who will be good watchdogs in exposing gaps in governance. They can be guardians of transparency and integrity compelling the incumbent majority to address inefficiencies or wrongdoing. Much as the PAP hates it, this is in the public's interest.
It's often been said of the futility of opposition given the "lame 64%", a derogatory term for PAP supporters. Never blame the voters. Opposition carries the heavy yoke to convince voters on the other side of the aisle. But do they have the strategies? Sure, 'walk-abouts' and door-to-door outreach programmes, gifts, these are all great. But this is not strategy. These are just tactics.
Andrew Breitbart had a famius quote - "Culture is upstream of politics". What this means is the cultural priorities of a society shape the politics of the country. The politics do not dictate the culture. Was he right?
Breitbart was spot on with Islamist countries, and got it mostly right only with countries having decent democracies. Brilliant as he was, Breitbart certainly could not have explained for communist countries and most definitely not for what happened in the West in the past decade.
In the West, Liberal progressive politics created the culture of pronouns, transgenderism, LGBTQ+++, DEI, critical race theory, climate alarmism, all the shebangs of wokeism. The West turned extreme Left, and just like in the days of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Castro, politics was upstream of culture. American 'conspiracy theorists' on the Right saw the trend very early and called out the Democrats as Communists in Socialists' clothings, much to the chagrin of majority of the people unable to see this from their Tik Toks. Don't believe Obama et al are communists? Here's an example. The first black president chose of all people to be his Master Spy, John Brennan, who became the fist conmunist Director of CIA. Brennan is a self-proclaimed communist who boasted having voted presidential candidate Gus Hall, leader of the Communist Party of USA.
"Pick your target, freeze it, personalise it and polarise it"Saul Alinsky was a self-proclaimed Communist who somehow evaded the McCarthyism dragnet in the 1950s. He was Hillary Clinton's mentor in university days. Barrack Obama honed his skills in community organisation from the teachings of Alinsky's institution, the Industrial Areas Foundation. Breitbart was absolutely wrong about the West. Progressive Democrat politics created the cultural schisms that divided Western socieries. What happened in the West was classic Alinsky #13 in action and how effective it has been.
Saul Alinsky's Rule #13 (Rules for Radicals)
Most thinking people outside of the West can see the craziness and wondered why are they self-destructing? It's Animal Farm playing out in real time. To recreate the world you want, you must first destroy the existing society. I have had a hard time in the past several years trying to convince people the Democrats are George Orwell's pigs.
"A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag."The US was just one Democrat president away from complete disaster. Trump won partly because the Democrats forget Alinsky's Rule #7. Fatigue sets in after some time watching girls get trashed by men in women's sports, seeing men in girls' bathrooms, or tampons in boys' toilets, kids coming home saying mom I'm not a boy but a girl (happened to Elon Musk's son), not securing a job because one is not with the preferred pronouns, etc, etc. DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) is Liberals' hypocrite virtue-signaling that smart people soon see for what it is -- affirmative action. In our part of the world, we understand what affirmative action has done to our Northern neighbour. DEI throws merit under the bus, quality dives and incompetence is normalised. The disastrous mismanagement of the ongoing forest fires in California is the consequence of municipal attention to DEI ideology instead of high levels of public service. All across America we see evidence of corporation and municipal services deteriorating, including the military, as a consequence of elevation of DEI ideology over merit. Just imagine how close Kamala Harris came to be the first DEI president.
Alinsky's Rule #7 (Rules for Radicles)
Breitbart has it right in the case of decent democracies where the constitution prevails. Culture is upstream of politics. However, whether culture shapes the politics, or politics create the culture for control, the real political battle is not winning arguments about the SimplyGo funble, or the PSP vs PAP volunteers in the voter-outreach altercation, or the Rajahs of Ridout Road, etc. The real battlefield is in the terrain of our local culture.
Taking pot shots at the ruling party over isolated mis-haps and misteps of government is guerilla warfare or pandering to populist appeals. These are useful, but to win, the opposition needs to confront the real battle and must have a strategy for fighting in the terrain of our culture. To do so, it must first understand and identify what are the terrains.
Fighting in the culture terrain is not the same as culture war.
Culture encompasses values, norms, practices and beliefs such as freedom of speech, religion, association, gender roles, etc. A culture war is a challenge in all these components. The culture war in the West is between conservative Judeo-Christian values of the Right centred on family, personal responsibility, accountability, hard work, upholding the Constitution, versus the subjective relativism of the progressive Left of unfertered individualism that manifests in pro-criminal policies, religious persecution, and often surfacing in hedonism and debauchery. Thankfully, Singapore has no such problems. But we should be wary of the creep of progressive Leftism which advocates for systematic changes to achieve social, economic and environmental justice. An illustration is the statement on the LGTB+++ issue by the president of AWARE not too long ago.
The culture terrain is the arena where values, norms, practices and belief systems evolve in today's globalised and digital world. Fighting in the culture terrain means having an appropriate strategy and execution capability to maximise presence and understand trends. This places the opposition in a good position to offer policy propositions that are non-partisan in appeal. What are these terrains?
Digital culture:
These are contents consumed online over platforms like Facebook, Youtube, Tik Tok, X, Rumble, etc and more heavyweights like podcasts and online news platforms. It also involves online interactions and watching social media trends.
In the 2016 Philippines presidential election, Nicanor Gabunada was the social media strategist for Rodigo Duterte's campaign. A former ABS-CBN executive, Nic was instrumental in leveraging social media platforms to bolster Duterte's online presence and engage with voters. Nic's army of influencers turned the incumbent challenger, a brilliant administrator Mar Roxas, into a bumbling mess in the eyes of voters.
In the US, Trump faced a much tougher challenge in the online war as the Left has captured almost all forms of media. Of cable news, only Fox is the single Right wing voice. Even then, its CEO is ultra Left globalist Lachlan Murdock, and RINO ex-speaker Paul Ryan, a rabid Trump hater, is an influential board member. The original owner Rupert Murdock has lost control of editorial direction to his progressive son Lachlan. The son let his team lean right in their reporting and analysis work because it is all about the Benjamins, where they earn big bucks. But he pulls the reign at critical junctures, such as calling the 2020 election early for Joe Biden, and sacking the very popular Tucker Carlson.
Almost all Big Tech such as Google, Meta, Apple, Youtube, etc, are lined up behind Democrats. All fact checking sites are from the Left. The Left is well organised and funded by Soros, Democrats, and sone dark money sources. The Left understands this terrain very well and have insidiously build up mastery and control for the past several decades. Conservatives are new kids on the block and are mostly a disparate group of independents with people like Alex Jones of Info Wars, Breitbart News, The Federalists, The Gateway Pundit, Revolver News, Glenn Beck, Tim Cook, Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA, Joe Rogan, James O'Keefe of OMG Media, Dan Bongino the ex-Secret Service guy, Candice Owen, Wayne Alley Root, and many more. It is worth noting Beck, Rogan and Breitbart started out as Liberals. While the Left platforms have carte blanche, the Right faced political persecution, service denials and advertisement squeeze by big tech. The battle for free speech finally swing in favour after the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk in 2022. But for Musk, democracy would have died in darkness as one side of the political narrative is snubbed out. Trump owes much to a bunch of patriots who worked to bring conservative narratives to the fore.
Singapore opposition faces the great wall of state media. The parties all have Facebook accounts. Kenneth Jeyaratnam of Reform Party has his angry provocative blog, Chee Soon Juan of Democratic Party and Lin Tean of People's Voice have their occasional videos. Facebook presence alone does not quite cut it because they circulate in echo chambers. As far as I know, only Goh Meng Seng of People's Power Party, has stepped up to have regular late night live stream sessions. Whereas previously Goh had been the bane of jokes by his detractors, in part for his colloquialism and somewhat shallow in content, I see some remarkable improvements in his contents lately that now has some meat. Overall the opposition lacks a proper strategy and technical strategists in this terrain. On independent fighters in this arena, the terrain is barren except for Alex Xu and his Online Citizen website.
Opposition needs two things. One is a strategy and strategists to position themselves and dominate the terrain with their narratives. They need a small army of influencers to amplify their messages. Two is less focus on populist tactics, that is, taking pot shots at mis-steps of governance and blasting in their echo chambers. Remember Alinsky's Rule #7. Their job is to convince fence-sitters and if possible, PAP supporters. This can only be done without the vehemence or show of anger. This is not a political rally where one works to fire up the base. It is a battle for minds, one that can be entertained if approached in a more subtle way. I don't see the opposition having the capability to make inroads into the more educated and upper percentile population with their current approach. This needs a more visionary and philisophical level of discourse which unfortunately is absent. For example, there are the usual noises that accompany each electricity price increase. But I have never seen anyone attenpting a big picture scenario explanation on the systemic grip of the forever price increases. The closest I think is Jamus Lim of Workers Party whose take on issues has been unbiased. He can do better if he marries his professorial lecture style with a bit more oratorical delivery.
Entertainment culture:
This is a big deal in America where Liberals dominate. Hollywood is unabashedly Democrat. I think lifestyle has a lot to do with tbis. Art pushes the envelope. Liberalism skews towards the abandonment to explore the limits. Conservative values hold one back. The music industry is no less different. Comedians are commentators of current affairs and have always been non-partisan, pulling pranks and jokes at the expense of politicians of all shapes and sizes on any topics. In the Biden era, only Ricky Gervais can get away with what he did at the Golden Globe awards ceremony when he told fellow Liberals to just come up stage, receive award, thank mom and dad, and fxxx off, don't give any political speeches. Any other comedian saying something like that would have been skewered in that cauldron of Liberals. But of course comedians can be Liberal heroes when it comes to Trump-bashing. Did you see Kathy Griffin holding a bloodied head of Trump? Entertainment culture is totally pro-actively avid Trump-haters and it is a terrain conservatives have lost for decades.Entertainers have big megahorns and deep pockets as Democrat donors and totally dominate the politics. Only a handful of gutsy voices committed to faith can be seen in support of Trump. This includes Jon Voight, James Wood, Dean Cain, Vin Diesel, Mel Gibson, Kevin Sorbo, Scott Biao. etc.
In the end, despite their dominance, Hollywood endorsements of Kamala Harris did not matter. Perhaps Alinsky's Rule #7 had a lot to do with it.
In Singapore there is hardly any significant nativist entertainment industry here that matters. The channel 8 TV stars are an artificially contrived lot of no importance in the context discussed here. What is important is for Singapore to recognise we are importing and consuming so much Western, predominantly American, culture. Most of us can appreciate but not necessarily agree the lifestyles of the artistes. We can like the music, but not the drugs of the bands. We can like Robert de Nero's masterly performance in 'Taxi Driver" but not his senseless, imbecilic, profanities against Trump. Unfortunately there are always the Amos Yee's amongst us that are vulnerable to these subtle cultural suggestions.
Whilst we are small time content creators, we are huge consumers of the massive imported culture. To that extent, opposition must have a strategy to immerse itself in the arena. Do you have any connection with the hundreds of thousands of Taylor Swift fans in Singapore? I can offer a sure win simple idea for Workers Party. Host a community talent time series. Live stream it. You get an inmense audience. Other details, get your consultants.
Sub-cultures:
These are smaller groups with distinct practices and beliefs. Examples are online gamers, niche hobbyists, tatoo afficianos, health enthusiasts, night clubbers, football fans, fight club alphas, investors, crypto traders, etc. I am wondering how much Kelce Travis and Taylor Swift got paid by the Left for monetising their love story in the football public stadiums. Did you notice the amount of support Trump receives whenever he watches an MMC fight? The Workers Party has Kim Song but does not know how to utilise the resource. Kim Song is just an example. I am sure that are more names out there. A presence in all these sub-cultures pays dividends.
Traditional and heritage practices:
These are customs, practices and traditions passed down through generation. This is a terrain the ruling party doninates through various agencies like People's Association, the schools, grass root organisations, religious bodies, and their members sitting in various advisory boards. Opposition has and must continue to build their presence even though it is restricted to the various festive dates.
Global influences:
The government grants about 2,000 new citizens monthly. We have a huge foreign born citizenry in our midst. These have entirely different cultural backgrounds. Does the opposition have any presence amongst them?
Opposition must seek to dominate these culture terrains and it is not just for name recognition and familiarity, but to understand the cyltural trends, the aspirations. the difficulties, all of which eventually impact policies. Be in a position to sell policy suggestions that matter to the particular culture terrain. This way opposition is not promoting populist narratives to their echo chamber, but propositioning to a particular segment of the population. Although the base is important, opposition must try to reach out to all Singaporeans which is best done in the culture terrains. In this battlefield, it is not about high HDB prices, inflation, MRT train breakdowns, etc. It is about the cultural values of the terrain.
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