Last week, I posted a link to renowned playwright David Mamet’s op-ed about his journey away from the Left. Today, I read a piece in the LA Times by Andrew Klavan welcoming Mamet to the Right.

Klavan writes:

David Mamet’s public coming-out as a political conservative—done in a 2,500-word essay in the Village Voice last week—is wonderful news for the culture, far better, I fear, than many conservatives will appreciate. The left has monopolized the arts for so long that some on the right have lost the knack of them. We love to denounce Hollywood and indulge in paroxysms of rage about the latest artistic insults to patriotism and God. But when it comes actually to producing mature and complex works of art—or supporting the people who produce them—a good conservative can be very hard to find.

An excellent point. As a writer myself, one with aspirations to pursue an MFA and a published novel, I have concerns about entering the creative world as someone uninterested in being a liberal propagandist.

But, as Klavan notes, Mamet’s conversion is good for both him and the Right. “The big question,” he writes, “is whether the good men and women of the right will realize what a gift they have been given in Mamet.”

Time will tell, I suppose. I, like Klavan, hope the Right will celebrate the fact that “our side” has gained a brilliant artist. (In the meantime, check out Klavan’s piece here.)