Don't Run Down The Middle
Before you temper your message on behalf of voters who will never support you, think about what you stand to lose in the process.
The Edge of The Knife
There’s often controversy surrounding the messaging of The Libertarian Party, and the liberty movement in general. A struggle as old as the party itself, libertarians have been arguing about whether or not to say the quiet parts out loud. We know our beliefs are radical and fringe, and the average person who accepts the status quo is easily scared. We understand that the truth of the liberty we seek is radical and frightening. To speak the radical truths of freedom is often considered to be edgy, extreme, and frightening. Some among us even fear that it will be to our detriment to speak so openly about what we desire.
The path of political action has been the chosen course for many in the liberty movement, either as Republicans or as members of The Libertarian Party. But a political course necessarily requires acquiescence to compromise and populism. Success in the political arena requires convincing a plurality or majority of those involved to side with you and elect you to office. But if the harsh truths of our principles frighten the masses, how can we ever win elected office?
“It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”
-Samuel Adams
True cultural change requires a movement, not a campaign. A movement of a righteous minority can change and shape the world. But only if they are committed, steadfast, and determined in the face of the inherent oppression of the state. But those possessed of the rare courage to stay principled in the face of adversity are not those who can be easily won over by political arguments and persuasion.
Running Down The Middle
There have been many attempts to campaign as libertarians who can speak to the politically homeless and those dissatisfied with the political climate that has overtaken the modern world's culture. But the politically homeless, the moderate middle, are not libertarian and do not hold the same values and ethics as Libertarians at the end of the day. Whether they be pragmatist defense attorneys who think they know better than anyone else or fragile stand-up comedians who have assured themselves of that fact, they both believe they need to be popular to achieve their goals.
While some may want to win elected office, and others claim they want to build a movement, the reality is that the self-proclaimed leaders of the modern liberty movement have thus far failed to understand one simple truth. Libertarianism is not a popular ideology, and it never will be. Freedom is dangerous, risky, and drought with risk. The average person is not willing to accept those risks, and as such, the average person cannot be won over to support our side. What Nicholas Sawark and Dave Smith have in common, is that they believe they can accomplish their goals by appealing to people who hate everything they stand for. Nick is desperate for votes, to validate himself on the ballot, while Dave seeks out a following to build a movement that changes culture. Both will fail to accomplish their goals in any meaningful manner, as they have failed to identify the correct people to which they should be making their case.
Both of these individuals, by their example, and by their chosen outrage, have shown that they don’t understand what truly makes libertarianism unique, and what has led to its persistent failure over the years. They believe that their goal can be accomplished, an election won, and a movement populated, by convincing the vast middle of America’s politically homeless to consider their values. Worse, they’re both attempting to attract those in the middle by tempering their message and compromising on the principle as they present it, and adopting a form of respectability politics.
A Transient Base
The problem with those voters and individuals who can be won over, convinced, and whose vote can be earned, is that it will require constant maintenance of their support to retain it. When courting voters, you find yourself constantly compromising to find an acceptable policy that keeps you in office, like vouchers and school choice as opposed to the outright abolition of public schools. If you’re honest with yourself, you know that the principled libertarian policies would include legalizing heroin, ending public schools, abolishing the police, and the dissolution of social welfare programs like social security. Yet when you’re trying to cater to the middle, you instead pitch medical marijuana with taxes and regulations, vouchers and charter schools, reforming police training, and reforming welfare instead of abolishing it. You have caved, become a coward, and allowed the masses to dictate your principles in the light of social acceptability.
When you move your policies towards what is popular, instead of exerting your principles to move popularity towards your position, you have understood the Overton window’s application, but acted as its subject instead of its manipulator. You have effectively failed at promoting the libertarian principle, by allowing the popular sentiment of non-libertarians to dictate your policy.
If your goal isn’t to win votes but to build a movement that affects culture, you have an even more important distinction to make. Are you going to make the mistake of the campaigner, and build your movement around people who will force you to compromise on your principles, or will you build your movement around a group determined to stand in the face of violence thrown at them?
Moderating your message to attract middle-of-the-road voters, and allowing them to influence your policies and principles, means that you have already failed. When you begin to engage in the practice of respectability politics in order to appease donors and supporters, then you’ve lost sight of the principles at risk. If you’ve built your movement and surrounded yourself with people who have so little commitment to the principles you claim to espouse that they would abandon you based on a choice of messaging, or the tweets of an affiliate, then you are not a leader worth following.
If your donors and supporters are willing to abandon you to support your opposition because they don’t like what someone else in your organization said, then they weren’t there to support your principles, only to seize something of short-term gain from you unwittingly. In fact, if someone were a true believer in the values of liberty, then no amount of toxic messaging, mean tweets, and cruel and harmful jokes from a state party's Twitter account could drive them to support and vote for those who aim to keep them in bondage. If the movement you’re building relies on people sticking around for any reason other than their belief in the principles, then you’ve attracted an unreliable support base that was ready to abandon you anyways.
A Movement, and a Revolution
A movement relies on the commitment of its adherents, not their numbers. The fight for liberty will require them to stand strong in the face of adversity, and it cannot be left to those whose support can be swayed so easily. The movement that can achieve liberty in our lifetimes won’t be found in the votes of middle America, but rather it lies with those who have become so disillusioned with the liberty movement that they’ve opted out of participation. The movement lies with those who’ve walked away from your constant efforts to supplement their dedicated support with the numbers of the uncommitted. The Revolution lies in the principled integrity of those who refused to be spoken for by the likes of you. Bill Weld, Gary Johnson, Jo Jorgenson, Nicholas Sarwark, and now Dave Smith - potential and intelligence squandered by the political reality that believes that popular support is necessary to change the world.
Dave Smith claims his goal is to bring 100,000 members into the Libertarian Party in a year, and that the messaging of the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire is hurting his attempts to do so. He wants to raise millions of dollars, he wants to recruit tens of thousands of new members, and he wants to start a movement and revitalize the Ron Paul Revolution. But he can’t do it. He won’t do it. Because he doesn’t understand what it would take to do it. He doesn’t understand that it was people trying to water down their principles to attract the middle, to begin with, that drove the die-hards out of activism.
Changing the world isn’t a stand-up comedy routine. You can’t read the room and adjust your delivery and jokes to make sure you get the laugh. We are here to speak hard and painful truths to power, and maybe a comedian who can’t grasp that fact, isn’t the best person to lead the charge. But what is to be expected, from a comedian in New York, who thinks he alone is responsible for the success that the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire has achieved?
But at the end of the day, He’s wrong, and I’m right, and Dave Smith can cry about it with his buddy Malice if he wants to take 37 minutes on a friends podcast to talk shit about me while pretending he doesn’t know me and blaming me for the consequences of his own strategy.
Subversive #85": “Running Down The Middle”
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Summary
Libertarian politicians, regardless of caucus or radicalism, eventually embrace the pragmatic belief that they need to campaign toward normal people in order to win and make a change. But what if this understanding was inherently flawed, and running down the middle was the cause of the constant failure of the liberty movement to take hold in any meaningful manner?
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Justin, truth be told, the LP could be the party of swashbuckling freedom fighters, pioneers, artists, tech innovators, billionaire entrepreneurs - instead they run candidates for Governor with zero experience, no money, no website, and that are practically impossible to contact. The good news is that we can change that. I'd be happy to demo how.