Alexander Brown: Politics is downstream from culture, so we're heading upstream

Some culture wars are worth having.

(Photo credit: Rob Gonsalves, ‘Carved in Stone.’)

I am both a proud and resolute managing editor on this Sunday morning.

Without Diminishment is growing, and growing fast.

Geoff, Caroline, and guest contributor Margareta Dovgal have so far shared tremendous columns and calls to action in these pages, which have spurred hundreds of thousands of engagements online — and we can’t wait to introduce you to our growing list of contributors.

We’re thrilled to announce we will be speaking as special guests at the University of British Columbia on October 30th, to connect with the future of Canada’s new right, and to build on this pivotal moment to best represent a generation of young Canadians being left behind by Liberal gerontocracy. (Get your tickets now!)

Without Diminishment remains a Top Rising Bestseller on the Substack platform.

We’ve received major testimonials from the likes of the Hon. Gordon Campbell, we continue to hear from the great Sam Sullivan in the comments (also a member of the Order of Canada), and who could forget these colourful, pugilistic words of affirmation from a certain ‘based’ Member of Parliament: “Long live the new sh*t disturbers.”

And now, with our Launch Sale concluding Tuesday, entrenched interests in media are lashing out at Without Diminishment, and choosing to mischaracterize our work entirely.

Frankly, I take it as a compliment. Without Diminishment wasn’t founded to compete in the same opinion space as those on the left, or amongst those who play nice on the Laurentian cocktail circuit, where to exist and stay in favour means log-rolling for Canada’s failing status quo.

Neither do we view ourselves, in any way, as being in competition with impactful and industry-leading daily conservative independent media operations such as The Hub or Juno News. Months ago, Geoff, Caroline, and myself identified what we believed to be a key vacuum and niche in the market, where we wanted to serve Canada’s present and future primarily through culture writing, and we started to build.

As a writer, campaigner, third-party director, and show host, I’m a big-tent professional, who adheres to the principle of “write what you want to read.” And what we wanted to read — and to help build — was more culture, more of a defence of civilization, more of a targeted give a damn about the supermajority who have inherited the mess that is modern Canada, who deserve some friendly winds in their sails, and a principled rebuttal on behalf of their very existence.

We’re talking about establishing a social license for everyday, anything-but-ordinary Canadians, who won’t sit idly by under the threat of another decade of managed decline, and who refuse to be gatekept from tackling the issues that matter most to them.

There are many terrific publications out there serving their own vital roles, and we envisioned Without Diminishment as a complementary piece — a meeting point between the “yobs” (as a certain legacy columnist has so flippantly referred to the every-man conservative in the past) and the policy wonks. So far, I believe we’re serving that need well — through lively, provocative debate, and unflinching principles.

We’re writing what we want to read — but also saying things that Canada needs to hear.

It’s not just “the economy, stupid.” Politics is downstream of culture. And what’s flowing past our feet at the moment, causing flood damage to our once-great towns and cities, such as the increasingly calamitous Cowichan decision, soaks deep into the very land we were told to take for granted, amounting to an Exxon Valdez-level spillage that may take generations to clean.

Through abdication, the cardinal sin of cowardice, and a whole lot of go along to get along, many in the legacy press failed to heed common-sense warnings to defend the sensical during ‘fiery but mostly peaceful’ summers, a well-meaning reconciliation effort quick to be poorly served by half-truths and a growing industrial complex, and the worst of Justin Trudeau’s post-national experiment.

I have little sympathy for those who presided over this needless mess, which now threatens any pathway to prosperity, societal cohesion, or home ownership for Canadian under-40s — and, potentially, threatens even the very deed to the home they can’t afford.

There are establishment publications and columnists who had their time, and decades to dismiss Canada’s check engine light with bad faith. We’re here to outgrow them, outlast them, and to refuse to settle for the continued half-hearted defence of that failing status quo.

My grandfather, who founded the National Citizens Coalition back in 1967, Canada’s pioneering conservative third-party advocacy group, signed off in his first full-page ad to a growing number of concerned taxpayers under Trudeau the senior, with: “If you share my alarm, your support is welcome.”

I’m asking for that level of support again today.

Judge us by our friends — but perhaps, most of all, by our early naysayers.

Without Diminishment’s Launch Sale ends Tuesday. We won’t be accepting a dime in media subsidies, and we refuse to be incentivized to look the other way.

If you have yet to do so, and you’re in a position to contribute, help us take this best-selling start to a whole new level.

Let’s continue to venture upstream, to build and defend monuments of meaning, to establish safer, freer harbours, in the hopes of making the greatest possible impact for you and yours.

If you share our alarm, your support is welcome.

Alexander Brown is Managing Editor of Without Diminishment.