The Right TV

Catherine Seipp recently weighed in on one of the best television shows ever, The Simpsons:

The cartoon family became the longest-running primetime series in TV history with its 300th episode last year, surpassing even Bonanza and Ozzie & Harriet. It continues to add to the pop-culture lexicon, especially on the right, although I'm sure that was not the intention of its lefty creator, Matt Groening. The show's description of the appeasing French as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" was quickly picked up by war-hawk bloggers. And Ben Stein once told me, when I asked him about conservatives in Hollywood, that The Simpsons was a breakthrough statement against leftist pieties — because it "was the first show that said if you're a loser, it's your own fault."

But it is her opening remarks that ring most truly, because as much control as Republicans have in Washington, the Democrats hold a massive share of power elsewhere...

One of the election lessons for Democrats is that while the Left doesn't understand the Right, the Right can't help but understand the Left, because the Left is in charge of pop culture. Urban blue staters can go their entire lives happily innocent of the world of church socials and duck hunting and Boy Scout meetings, but small-town red staters are exposed to big-city blue-state values every time they turn on the TV.