What conservatives can learn from Sam Smith's devil worship ceremony at the Grammys.

Sam Smith wanted you outraged.

I am loath to write this piece. It is 11:25AM on a Monday morning as I sit down at my laptop to type some thoughts about Sam Smith and his Satan worship ceremony at the Grammys last night. This is not how I planned to spend my Monday morning, but alas, here I am, delivering the brilliance you expect from me.

This piece is not about degeneracy or the collapse of a God fearing culture in America or the fact that Pfizer overtly sponsored a devil worship ceremony on national television, all those things are gross but as I comb through my twitter feed this morning, the overwhelming grossness felt by these facts appears to be ground well traveled:

These heavy hitters are doing a good job of driving the outrage train, more so than I can competently add or detract. Instead I want to look at what Sam Smith did here and how learning the tactics at play can help conservatives to win.

As a kid growing up in the 90’s I was a massive fan of pro wrestling. Being a kid, in your innocence before the world has had a chance to corrupt you, you see wrestlers as either good or bad—”face” or “heel” in wrestling speak. You cheer for the “face” and boo for the “heel”. Cheering or booing is the desired result of all wrestling promoters, the chief among them being Vince McMahon, it means that the audience is emotionally invested and emotionally invested people buy stuff.

Being a kid though and not understanding the business of wrestling, I would often get mad at the heels—just as I was supposed to. I would yell at the television set, I would curse these heels and claim they were ruining everything, that the show would be so much better if Brett “the hitman” Hart (a face) could only stop being screwed over by the heels. I would argue with my friends that Brett Hart was the best and they would argue with me that Brett Hart sucked, but at the end of the day, we both religiously turned on our television sets to watch what happened next.

Blake, what does 90’s wrestling have to do with Sam Smith’s devil worship ceremony last night at the Grammys? I’m glad you asked.

In a word—indifference.

Indifference means lack of feelings one way or another.

If you are a pro wrestler who gets neither boo’ed nor cheered, you will not last in the business—the crowd is indifferent to your existence which means they will most certainly NOT buy your merch’.

In terms of marketing, indifference if the enemy.

What Sam Smith did here is brilliant from a marketing perspective.

Now before you jump down my throat and say I am condoning his devil worship show, I am not. There are lines which should not be crossed even if it means good marketing and making Satan worship seem “cool” is one of them.

Having said that, and with the thought of defeating these people, there is much to be learned from their tactics.

Sam Smith is an overweight, non-binary (whatever that means), gay, pop singer—not exactly someone in the assumed Republican voter demographic. When would a 56 year old male, blue collar, Tucker Carlson viewer ever feel the urgency to tweet about Sam Smith? Probably never—indifference.

But not now, now Sam Smith is a symbol of Satan, a corrupting force of the youth and someone who must be condemned.

Your outrage is a win for Sam Smith because it means you will speak his name to other people.

Your outrage is a turn from indifference to emotional investment and emotional investment, just as in pro wrestling, whether love or hate is very good for business.

As parents now react by railing against Sam Smith, their teenagers will see him as being more cool—because that is how teenagers think—and will buy more of his shit.

As I write this, Sam Smith’s ‘Unholy’ track is rocketing up iTunes chart to number 5. It would seem that all the free publicity that the controversy has stirred is proving to be very lucrative for Mr. Smith. This was by design, and can be anticipated when you understand your lovers AS WELL AS YOUR HATERS.

Here is what you also must understand:

Sam Smith’s performance was INTENDED to provoke. He knew that his fans wouldn’t care, but he also knew that the group that finds this type of thing threatening would immediately go up in arms—and they did. Hello free media. Hello loyal fan base doubling down on their love for him. Hello this same loyal fan base showing their support for him through buying more of his stuff. See how that works?

Conservatives, who I speak with that are running for office, have a predisposition to believe that they must appeal to all. That they must have a universally accepted message, that offending the opposition in a way that will put them into the news cycle is somehow a bad thing. I am here to say, it is not.

As conservatives, we must be willing to speak BOLDLY about what we believe because even when we “offend” those who do not see things our way, we will have moved them out of the camp of indifference. Those who do strongly believe in our message will rally and come to our defense, they may even feel so strongly as to open their wallet and make a campaign contribution.

So let them hate us and let them tell their friends how much they hate us, but their hatred will equate to free promotion and a stronger bond among our following. This is the part that really turns me on—what could be worse for a hater than to be, unknowingly, working on your behalf, FOR FREE? I love it.

Sam Smith and pro wrestling prove that emotional reaction is the key to good business. If conservatives are to ever win again, we must understand this truth, say what we believe, and embrace the arrows from the haters because it is the haters that will carry our message with far greater vigor than anyone else.