Exclusive — James O'Keefe: 'Amazing' How Andrew Breitbart 'Was a Cultural Figure, Not a Political One'
James O’Keefe, founder of Project Veritas, said Andrew Breitbart was a cultural — not political — figure on Tuesday’s edition of the Breitbart News Daily podcast with host Alex Marlow.
O’Keefe, who worked closely with Breitbart until the latter’s death, reflected on the Breitbart News founder’s legacy on the ten-year anniversary of his passing.
“The most amazing thing about him was that he was a cultural figure, not a political one,” he held.
“People love humor, and [Saul] Alinsky said ridicule is man’s most potent weapon,” O’Keefe stated, describing mockery as a tool to use against corrupt news media figures. “The thing that they hate so much is being ridiculed.”
He added, “They hate when they’re exposed and not taken seriously. You’re not supposed to expose them.”
Breitbart led the charge on setting news media narratives as opposed to simply reacting to the left, O’Keefe stated.
He said, “I think that exposing them is what they really fear. Exposing the bad guys out there is what matters. It’s what’s important, and another thing Andrew really knew very, very well was the importance of narrative and the importance of story. You’re breaking news and you’re watching it grow.”
He continued, “A lot of people on the right tend to react to what they do, sort of like if the left or the liberals — the liberal media — didn’t do anything bad, they’d just sit on their hands and knees and wait for them to do something bad to react to it. And it’s the idea of sort of going out there and — figuratively speaking — drawing blood via narrative. Like, you’re putting out information, you’re putting out your foot first and seeing them react.”
Washington Times commentator and Breitbart.com webmaster Andrew Breitbart speaks during the final day of the American Conservative Union’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) February 12, 2011, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)
O’Keefe expanded on Breitbart’s maxim of politics being downstream from culture. He emphasized the public need for access to information.
“It’s become like a cliché, a trite thing, ‘politics is downstream from culture,’ everyone says that,” he remarked. “I don’t know if anyone said that before [Breitbart] did — and culture is downstream from information, and he understood that in a profound way. In other words, politics is downstream from people having access to information.”
The Breitbart News Daily podcast is available for listening and download via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.
