Not Like Us: Kendrick Lamar Showed Up, and the Populists Checked Out

Benny and the Philistines-When Cultural Illiterates Pretend to Be Conservatives

Feb 10, 2025

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A small, Pixar-like anthropomorphic gator named Croaky is seated in an old-fashioned grand theater, dressed in an elegant smoking jacket and holding a program for a live music performance. Croaky has an expression of deep thought and appreciation as he watches the stage. In the background, a generic, exaggerated figure is reacting dramatically, looking confused and frustrated while holding a vague protest sign about 'real music.' The scene contrasts Croaky’s refined, engaged demeanor with the exaggerated figure’s clueless reactionary outburst. The lighting is warm and theatrical, capturing the grandeur of the moment.

One of the great tragedies of modern “conservatism”—really the populism identifying itself as conservatism— is its increasing disengagement from culture—not just in failing to appreciate it, but in outright rejecting its very existence when it doesn’t align with a narrow, self-imposed aesthetic. Nowhere was this more evident than in the backlash to Kend…

Not Like Us: Kendrick Lamar Showed Up, and the Populists Checked Out

Benny and the Philistines-When Cultural Illiterates Pretend to Be Conservatives

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