The Breitbart Effect – Opinion

Many of us have made a small difference in our lives. We form and shape our world, engaging in some molding of reality – making the world our own, being influenced by others, and changing them in return. Our reach is very limited for most people. Once we are gone, we may live on through our work and our loved ones’ private memories, but rarely does our impact on the world transcend more than a few degrees of separation. Few ever enter this world and create such a commotion, disrupting everything and everyone we encounter in such profound and staggering ways that the impact we leave on the world does not diminish when we are gone, with an impact that grows outward long past one’s time, touching the lives of individuals never met and never known. It is rare that people are more influential than others in shaping ideologies or movements.

Andrew Breitbart was among these rare.

The story of Andrew Breitbart isn’t only about him: It’s also a story of every single life he’s touched. It’s about all those he found, and those who sought him out. It’s a story of the people he saw – really saw – and whom he taught to fully see themselves, their own capabilities, their real gifts and potential. Only a small group of people knew him and were able to understand his teachings. They were encouraged to look at their potential and abilities the same way that he did. He also showed them how to pass the talent of creating new talents, movements and new ideas. Many people have seen a significant change in their lives, and it has had a profound impact on the lives of those around them.

Andrew Breitbart was the only person I never met. He was my first CPAC in 2012. I saw him many times and I kept getting encircled by his entourage or by all the people who wanted to get his attention. He obliged everybody every time I met him. Because I am an introvert and don’t have anything to add, I didn’t approach him even though I would. It was always my assumption that there would come a better time.

However, it’s okay to be funny. It’s not possible to be certain, but it is funny.

But I feel his presence in my life. He wasn’t a man that I met but someone whom I only saw. His enigmatic nature was amazing. It’s not incorrect to say the world felt a little bit more real around him, and everyone – recognizing that in some way – wanted to be part of that experience. This was an example of a man who lived fully in life and didn’t waste a second. That kind of energy, of absolute chaos and joyful exuberance, was appealing to everyone – even if they disagreed or even hated the man.

Ten years later I am attending another CPAC as a RedState contributor. Andrew Breitbart, a man I never met, fundamentally changed my life the moment I attended my first CPAC – not because I met him, but because I met so many people who knew him, who were changed by him, who were and remain driven because of the connections they made with him.

Andrew Breitbart is a manifestation of the ripple effect. He had hundreds of, if certainly thousands, of consequences for every single action he took. This is not truer, nor more visibly evident than in those who he called friends and colleagues – each of whom has gone on to shape, in some way of their own, nearly every part of the current conservative movement in the United States – and for some, even abroad. They have inspired others to take action, write, do political work and many other things by passing on the spark Andrew gave them.

Andrew Breitbart’s influence and impact never stopped. It has blossomed into a unique existence that lives on its own. Through his friends, colleagues, and every single person he gave time to, he set off something – an effect so tangible and real that even today it continues to shape the lives of his friends as well as strangers. Although Andrew Breitbart is not well-known to many, we have been able to learn a lot about him from those who knew him. Let us, however, be like Andrew and see the potential in others.