Staff Reports
John Ondrasik — better known to millions as Five for Fighting — has been quietly doing what too few entertainers will: telling conservatives how to fight back in the culture, not with slogans but with superior art. In interviews and onstage in Washington, D.C., Ondrasik urged that the arts should rise above partisan rancor and that those who would speak for Western values must do so through work that actually resonates and endures.
His blunt counsel to conservatives boils down to one hard truth: if you want your ideas heard, the work has to be good — not merely serviceable propaganda dressed up as culture. Ondrasik has repeatedly stressed that quality and craft win hearts and minds far more effectively than cheap attacks or tokenism, and he’s challenged fellow artists to prioritize substance over virtue-signaling.
Ondrasik hasn’t stopped at advice; he’s put his own art to work for causes conservatives care about, from composing new versions of Superman to honor Israeli hostages to releasing songs that confront Islamist terror and the failures of the Afghanistan withdrawal. He’s openly criticized big-name celebrities for staying silent while innocent people suffer and has used his platform to keep attention on American troops and allied victims abroad.
That combination of principle and craftsmanship is exactly what conservatives must emulate. We don’t need culture warriors who recycle bland talking points — we need creators who make movies, music, books, and plays that move people and reflect our values without sounding like lecture notes from a think tank. Conservatives ought to fund that kind of excellence, praise it when it appears, and stop settling for “good enough” art that only preaches to the choir.
Local theaters, independent studios, and grassroots patron networks should be the backbone of a conservative cultural revival, because Hollywood and the legacy media will never volunteer the stage. Support means buying tickets, promoting work that transcends leftist orthodoxy, mentoring young creators, and being willing to defend quality over cheap outrage — in short, building institutions that prize excellence the way Ondrasik insists artists must.
John Ondrasik’s message is a patriotic one: fight for truth with beauty and skill, not with cowardice or sloppiness. If conservatives take that to heart and demand that our art be as unapologetically good as our ideas are righteous, we will reclaim the culture not by yelling the loudest but by producing the best.
