I like Ben Domenech. Besides being the publisher of The Federalist, one of the nation’s few “really conservative” news outlets. Last week, he sat in the hot seat on FOX News’ Primetime for an hour each weeknight. Though I have been a fan for some time, his sitting in that chair, giving us the daily “real” news from a truly conservative perspective. (it was neat to get facts without spin!) While sprinkling each hour with his suggestions for us all to adapt to play an active role in righting this ship of Democracy: the United States of America. He made some excellent suggestions for us. They’re so good and appropriate, I thought we’d share a few of his suggestions — just 85!
His suggestion is for all Americans to tackle the “Wokeness” the Left has created and thrust into the U.S. marketplace of ideas. While the Left’s approach is to demean all who reject their woke ideals, the cool, calm, and resolute Domenech quietly put any of those fears and concerns to the side and, in that calm, deep voice, gave us the keys. The overarching theme of these 85 suggestions is this: “Stop talking and start doing. Create the culture you want to see. Vote not only at election time but with every day of your life and every action you take. Self-government starts at home, with you, and now. If YOU don’t pick up the mantle and put it in action, who do you expect to do that for you?
Wow! That is a great starting point for this conversation. Let’s look at his 85 keys to doing just that:
1. Run for office.
2. Recruit someone excellent to run for office and a group of friends to help that person win.
3. Primary a woke or sleeping incumbent.
4. “Start a neighborhood group — present yourself under an umbrella that welcomes all other responsible members of your community who are sick and tired of being sick and tired, and who are willing to stand up.” (quote from Ben’s monologue)
5. Cook some or some more of your own meals.
6. Grow some of your own food.
7. Shop at your local farmer’s market, or participate in community-supported agriculture.
8. Shop local for other stuff, too.
9. Cut cable and send the cable payment to something useful, like your local church or a fund to help kids escape public schools.
10. Work out. If you already work out, up your game. If working out is intimidating, start going for walks. See where it leads, and feel good about doing more than you used to.
11. Play board games with your kids instead of letting them watch some screen.
12. Organize a mass protest against school masking.
13. Start a local online news blog that uses open-records requests to obtain curriculum from the local schools and post screenshots and basic summaries of what you find.
14. Don’t send your kids to schools that medically and socially abuse them. Have education standards that are far above “free babysitting.”
15. Volunteer to coach local kids’ sports.
16. Go to church—every week.
17. Go to church midweek, too.
18. Go to your church’s Sunday School or education hour before or after the service.
19. Pick up and drive an elderly, handicapped, or otherwise needy person to church on your way.
21. Volunteer through your church.
22. Volunteer at your child’s school.
23. Notice that a neighbor struggles with something, like childcare or lawn care or loneliness. Do something to help.
24. Invite people over to your house for dinner. If dinner is too intimidating, do drinks or dessert or popcorn.
25. Get to know your neighbors and your neighborhood.
26. Cultivate the art of hospitality, and use it as a tool to build community. Without thriving families and strong, close-knit communities, conservatives will never rescue or rebuild the republic.
27. Start or any group that brings people together in other people’s living rooms regularly: a book club, a woodworking club, a volunteer group, a craft club, a playgroup for preschoolers and their parents — the possibilities are endless.
28. At Christmas, go caroling in your neighborhood (even if it shocks the neighbors).
29. Visit senior centers, new neighbors, and anyone you think might be lonely; invite them to celebrate holidays with your family or church.
30. Try to buy less stuff made in China.
31. Watch local sports instead of pro sports. Better yet, participate.
32. Stop using social media. At the very least, use it as little as possible.
33. Move your savings and investments to pro-America institutions. If you can’t find any that are specifically pro-American, choose a small local bank or credit union. Or a pro-life one.
34. Pay down your debt. Try to go debt-free.
35. Move from a blue state or city to a red state or city.
36. Don’t pay for your kids’ school bundled into the mortgage; get a less expensive house and use the savings to give your kids a private education.
37. Bring someone a loaf of bread you made. Or a loaf of bread you bought from a local bakery.
38. Rediscover an old hobby. Or try a new one. Acrylic paint is cheap.
39. Read your kids books.
40. Take a bike ride. Bring your kids.
41. If you don’t have a spouse, make specific plans for how you plan to try to find one.
42. If you don’t have kids, have some. If you’re not married, do that first.
43. Call a relative you haven’t talked to in a while.
44. Call a friend with a different political worldview, and make it a pleasant conversation.
45. Read a book.
46. Make a budget, and follow it.
47. Think seriously about apprenticeships and starting in an entry-level job for your teens instead of or before heading off to college. Colleges are COVID traps right now, and even pre-COVID, the value they provided in exchange for the time and money invested in them was significantly diminishing. Businesses are starving for workers right now, and entry-level positions for many, eventually highly paying jobs are wide open, such as in the trades and entrepreneurial positions in small businesses, such as mechanics, construction, bakeries, florist shops, lawn care, and more. Employers are often paying people to acquire skills while they work in well-paid, good-benefit fields like health care and construction, and they will take any halfway competent, warm body right now.
48. Write a book. Publishing and libraries are a wasteland right now. People need better options.
49. Create a documentary.
50. Make jokes. Share them.
51. Make beautiful art, and bring it to art shows. Spread beauty.
52. Paint a public mural on a building visible to others that doesn’t look like those hideous graffiti “art” cities are putting up everywhere. Make it utterly gorgeous. Put those anti-beauty nihilists to shame.
53. Get your friends who can play or sing beautiful, classic, and fun music together and serenade passers-by in a local park.
54. Become a foster family. Private foster agencies are a perfect option.
55. Adopt a child.
56. Bring your local police station some home-baked goods or offer to buy officers on duty a nice big round of hot coffee from a local shop.
57. Call your local police station and tell them you support them and thank them for protecting you.
58. When your neighbors are rude, walk over and nicely talk to them about it instead of calling the cops on them.
59. Go to a city council meeting.
60. Smile at people while you’re not wearing a mask.
61. Whistle or sing while not wearing a mask.
62. Learn some cheerful songs. Sing them.
63. Support a Christian school. Or start one.
64. Homeschool or privately tutor the kids of someone who can’t.
65. Start a public charter school.
66. Ask your school board and school administration to use the Hillsdale 1776 Curriculum for civics and American government.
67. Read the Constitution.
68. Read The Federalist Papers.
69. Subscribe to the Claremont Review, and read it. Leave your finished copies on the table in your local library.
70. Move your investments out of institutions and companies that hate America.
71. Ask your library to purchase conservative books they don’t have in stock.
72. Complain to your library about them buying child mutilation books.
73. When one of your favorite video people uses Rumble, watch your videos there instead of YouTube.
74. Contribute to Alliance Defending Freedom, and First Liberty like your religious liberty depends on it.
75. Take a free online Hillsdale College course. Recruit friends to take the course with you and host discussions at your house, church, library, or another community center.
76. Donate your legal, financial, fundraising, maintenance, or other professional skills to a local church, Christian school, family, or another nonprofit charitable organization.
77. Start a men’s club of any manly variety — cigar-smoking, shooting, running, drinking, self-improvement, business coaching, etc.
78. Mentor someone personally or professionally.
79. If you’re a woman, start dressing more femininely. Try a few dresses on, and buy one.
80. Prudently allocate any stimulus checks you’ve received.
81. Stop using Google.
82. Intentionally improve your homemaking and home management skills.
83. Keep at least a few weeks of basic home supplies, including food, in stock at your home.
84. Stock at least some basic emergency preparedness supplies (more ideas here).
85. Support a Wide Awake writer on Substack, Patreon, or some other subscription or membership option.
Summary
Now you see why I really like Ben. His words of wisdom flow from him, not like those edicts we hear daily from Fauci and Psaki or President Biden either. And he SOUNDS sincere. Isn’t that a pleasant surprise in today’s raucous political environment in which everyone makes everything they say sound demeaning?
And he’s married to Meghan McCain — the daughter of late Senator John McCain (R-AZ). I guess that explains Ben’s calm approach to almost everything. His wife is a political tiger!
As you approach the next few days and weeks, wouldn’t it be prudent to adopt an approach as the one Domenech suggests? Why not stop worrying about everything every day ALL THE TIME! That worry certainly does not help you. In fact, your doctor would tell you it is tremendously dangerous to your physical and mental health.
Take a breath and start at the top of Ben’s list. You may not be able to get them all done in the next month or maybe not even the next year. But just launching yourself into specific tasks, each designed to help you and others, doing so will keep you concentrated on good things rather than the garbage and sewage from the D.C. Swamp that has dominated your thoughts and conversations.
It’s time that ALL Americans cancel “Wokeness.” It was created perceptually by the Left to use as a weapon against their political opponents. No, it’s not a “real” weapon. Why? Because conservatives have no idea what it specifically is and does! That’s the point of their use of it. They can define it, change it, and apply its poison to anyone and anything they so choose.
Hey: here’s a novel idea. Why not just CANCEL “Wokeness” and stop this craziness!
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Beautiful writing with many good suggestions.
But an important one is missing. People should read the Anti-Federalist Papers. That is where several of the founders including Patrick Henry made the case for limitations on the federal government. They are the ones that gave us the Bill of Rights.