An Interview with (Conservative) International Film and Television Star, Nick Searcy
Nick Searcy is definitely out of the Hollywood Conservative Closets. He plays guitar in Conservative bands, attends GOP-based events and makes no apologies for his politics.
Despite all of this, this apparently hasn’t affected his career whatsoever. Nick is currently one of the stars of the TV show Justified and has been in other TV shows such as NSCI, CSI, The West Wing and dozens more. He’s also been in dozens of movies such as Cast Away, Moneyball, Runaway Jury, Fried Green Tomatoes and more.
A-M: Nick, what do you consider the biggest threat to America?
NS: The creep of the entitlement mentality and the sort of socialist model that people are entitled to the wealth and the labor of other people. And I think it’s sort of being promoted through the educational system and through the media that the government has the right to take people’s private property and give it to other people. I think that’s the biggest threat because if that is allowed to continue it’s going to destroy the entire fabric of the American experiment and the whole thing will unravel.
A-M: Who is your political favorite?
NS: I’m a Ronald Reagan fan of course. I’m a Sarah Palin fan. I’m a Herman Cain fan. I’m a John Bolton fan—he was the first man I wanted to run for president. I’m a Dick Cheney fan. That’s pretty much buried me—I think that’ll pretty much finish me off right there. When I was joking with people on the golf course with liberals, they’d ask me who I’d like for president and I’d say ‘Dick Cheney’ and they’d say ‘Oh my God!’ (laughs)
A-M: How can we get America back to being the ‘shining city on the hill’?
NS: I think we have to sort of slowly take the attitude of the country back that’s been corrupted through the media and the educational system. It’s going to take years and decades; it’s not going to happen overnight because for so many years people have been schooled in liberalism. All our institutions—our Ivy League institutions have ingrained this philosophy into people; they don’t even recognize it as a Marxist philosophy but that’s what it is. So I think we have to slowly start taking all that back and standing up and calling it for what it is and saying ‘this is a philosophy that is anti-American and will destroy us. It’s just going to take a lot of diligence and a lot of work.
A-M: So how can all us regular citizens do that?
NS: I would say as many good-hearted conservatives that feel the call to run for local office to stop taking it back one office at a time—one city and town at a time. I’m preaching something that I myself wouldn’t practice—I would not want to be a politician!
A-M: That was my next question! (laughs)
NS: I appreciate people who are willing to stand up and take the slings and arrows—people like a Herman Cain; people who come from the private sector, from personal experience and not from academia and political science majors and professional politicians. I think we need more people like that to step forward and be brave and take the punishment that they’re going to have to take in order to take the country back.
A-M: What are three must-read books for Conservatives?
NS: Liberty and Tyranny by Mark Levin; Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue and Frederick Hyack’s The Road to Serfdom.
A-M: What was a big turning point in your life, political or not?
NS: The birth of my daughter really changed the way I look at everything. It changed the way I look at my life—the way I looked at human life, the miracle of a person that was a combination of my wife and I coming forth into the world. And also the adoption of my son, who was a foster child that we adopted and the experience of being blessed with being given another life that had been brought into the world somewhere else and being entrusted with being the one to father that child. Those two things—my children—were the turning point.
A-M: Were you always a Conservative?
NS: Probably deep down, yes. My parents were both Conservatives. I grew up in North Carolina in a county that was probably 7 to 1 Democrat. My parents were always the stubborn Republicans and I appreciated them. Even though I didn’t always know what they were talking about, I appreciated their strength and the fact that I grew up with that philosophy, imbedded in myself even at a time when I wasn’t necessarily a liberal but rather just politically unaware. As an actor, when I was in the theater in my early 20’s it didn’t seem politically charged to me back then. I don’t remember ever having a political discussion with another actor until around 1996—until the Clinton years. I don’t remember talking about it at all but maybe I’ve gotten older and things have gotten more serious over the years.
