The enemy of conservatism in America is the leftist establishment – the leftist-controlled institutions of news, education, and entertainment.  Take away these big, fat incestuously connected institutions, and the left in America is a circus sideshow and nothing else.  Democrat “leaders” like Obama, Hillary, Pelosi, and Reid are slow-witted, mean-spirited, and narrow-minded sock puppets filled by the chubby hands of the leftist establishment.

Indeed, the leftist establishment prefers empty vessels as nominal political leadership of the Democratic Party.  Defeat the establishment, and the battle is won, but as long as the establishment luxuriates in unmerited respect, the values we treasure face constant peril.  Winning elections, particularly the 2016 presidential election, will help advance our policy issues, but an even greater benefit can come if we use this election to discredit the leftist establishment.

This leftist establishment is already losing much of its cachet.  Viewers are shunning films and new television programming made by Hollywood leftists.  Parents, students, and conservative media are exposing the leftist totalitarianism in classrooms.  The leftist establishment media is losing audiences in a steady decline, motivated in large part by conservative disgust with its slavish following of the party line.

In the 2016 election cycle, which includes the battle for the Republican nomination and then the battle in the general election, Republican candidates ought to publicly announce that they will decline interviews with news organizations patently hostile to conservatives, that the Republican nomination debates will exclude these as well, and that this ban will extend throughout the general election.

This would be an overt campaign to de-legitimize this corrupt gaggle of leftist organizations as serious news organizations worthy of the attention of America.  The left would howl, of course, but so what?  No serious conservative ought to be talking to those hostile “gotcha!” outlets anyway.  So we ought to treat these leftist news outlets as the ideological hacks that they are and deny them the chance to make Republicans look bad or silly by “gotcha” questions. 

Isn’t this precisely how the left operates with conservative media?  How often have we seen Hillary or Harry or Nancy or Barry give interviews to Human Events or National Review or Rush Limbaugh or Mark Levin?  We are so used to leftist sock puppets like Hillary ignoring questions from conservative news journalists (while our guys feel compelled to treat leftist news hacks seriously) that we assume that this must be the natural state of things in American politics. 

So how will Republicans candidates communicate with voters?  There are reputable cable news outlets, like Fox News, which are not overtly hostile to conservatives.  There are many conservative talk radio programs to which any interested Republican can tune in.  There are dozens of internet news outlets (e.g., American Thinker).  The print media still exists, and local newspapers, especially, would welcome exclusive interviews, hosting debates, etc. 

Attacking the establishment leftist media is attacking the real enemy of conservative values and policies.  Openly attacking the leftist media establishment also places these giant corporations in a real bind.  How will CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and the sibling leftist news corporations react?  Attacking the Republican Party validates the conservative argument.  Combined attacks by these notional “competitors” would expose the monopolistic nature of leftist media collaboration in suppressing conservative news stories and proposals. 

In fact, it is this very lack of ideological competition, this collusion by vast news corporations that are supposed to provide protection for the news consumer by actual competition, that could become the major campaign issue for Republicans.  The left wants to attack big corporations, while actually Democrats are completely in bed with big business – and especially with the leftist establishment news media, which has vast power over politics in Washington.

It is hard to imagine a single conservative in America who could not understand and would not enthusiastically support this sort of campaign, and it is hard to imagine a single leftist who would not squirm at having to defend these entrenched corporations.  Making Big Media the issue could, in fact, be precisely the means to truly energize conservatives and, by making Democrats the obvious toadies of Big Media, to deflate the left in 2016.