Tom Valcanis
Life-long politics tragic, digital marketer and writer. Articles in the Age/SMH, the Big Issue, the Spectator, and editor of alt-lifestyle mag Hysteria from 2016–2020. An advocate for free speech, free markets, and small government.
Watch this video of a Reform UK rally. Spotlights swirling around the crowd. Cheers raising the roof. Fireworks literally sparking up from the stage. Out strides Nigel Farage to triumphant music, like he’s about to piledrive a pro wrestling rival into submission.
People pay to watch such spectacles. But this isn’t just free, it’s a political rally.
It’s enthusiastic. It’s full of promise. Above all, it’s exciting.
The average punter, fed up with politics as usual, will say to himself, “Yes, I want to be a part of that.”
Libertarians, by contrast, are the D&D nerds of the political world.
We prefer to be mired in discussions about the non-aggression principle, Laffer Curves, and interpretations of what John Stuart Mill meant by “what” on page 74 of On Liberty. It’s all head and zero heart; even an arch Stoic would protest at our lack of feeling.
Hell, our go-to band is Rush. Rush is awesome, but they’ve never been cool. (I know this, because I adore them and when I saw them it was a complete grey-beard sausage fest.)
Much of politics is weapons-grade cringe; but then again politics is often downstream of culture.
Logic gets people to embrace libertarianism. However, emotion is the enemy of being an effective libertarian.
Sure, we have a few cool-ish libertarians out there. I’ve seen people call Sen David Leyonhjelm ‘based’ or an ‘alpha male’ from time to time; Reason’s editor-at-large Nick Gillespie wears leather jackets and smokes pot, and comedian Dave Smith takes down hoity-toity hard-right commentators like Douglas Murray and isn’t afraid of anything.
Is any of this cool, though? David Bowie on Infinite Earths cool?
The left have pretty much every celebrity going, even the ones people still like. If Taylor Swift told her army of Swifties to vote the Volstead Act back in, they would (provided all pink and ‘cute’ drinks remained untouched.)
So how will we fare? Running a poll on our X (which you should all follow) we asked fellow libertarians what they thought of libertarianism: 42.9 per cent said it was “too niche to function,” which in the Australian experience, it kind of is. Most left-of-centre types will accuse us of letting corpo-warlords run rampant across potholed roads, selling our children into Dickensian poorhouses in exchange for dripping. (Well, we have two out of three right now, I’ll let you decide which.)
And 14.3 per cent responded that it’s for “economics nerds” and an equal 21.4 per cent replied that it was “principled, yet boring” or “cool and exciting.” I’m no maths guy, but I think most people think it isn’t cool or exciting.
Watch any given Donald Trump rally – which he still puts on – it’s is as exciting as Charles Foster Kane’s run for governor of New York in 1916 except he’s cracking wise and playing Nothing Compares 2U. It’s either blind Boomer irony or super double secret genius whipped up by his PR committee.
Do we want stuffed suits talking about the offset of percentages in a capital gains tax reform bill or a crazed Argentinian man waving a chainsaw around, ripping useless government departments from an organisational chart and shouting, “Afuera!” Hell yeah, dude! Socialists really do have mierda for brains!
Caveat time: I wouldn’t call “nationalising utilities” Farage, nor “using Palantir to increase mass surveillance” Trump, Libertarians (or libertarians) by any stretch. We can safely place Javier Milei in our camp. Lower taxes, more freedom, chainsaw-like cut-through. No 90-page ramble about Objectivism required. Who are the rock stars of the libertarian movement in Australia? Do we have any? Or are we travelling a tweed road into bland Margaritaville?
It’s all head and zero heart; even an arch Stoic would protest at our lack of feeling.
“Listen here, punk,” you might be saying, “Libertarianism is a principle, and any party must be emblematic of that principle.” Yeah great. The Labor Party doesn’t stand for anything of significance and the Liberal Party doesn’t stand for anything period. The left can’t meme, because it requires a suspension of disbelief and reality. Doesn’t stop them from advertising their socialist wage theft and wholesale destruction of future generations as ‘free stuff’ which people (seem to) gobble up. Don’t get mad, you ancient cadre of fossilised Menzoids, get even.
Much of politics is weapons-grade cringe; but then again politics is often downstream of culture. A three-hour exposition on why zoning laws stifle economic development will need to be chopped up into 10 seconds, split-screened with a German-speaking pigeon barbequing in his living room. I don’t know, it’s what the kids are into.
They also like flashy cartoons, which is why the libertarian-crusading Tuttle Twins are such a hit in the US (and soon, Argentina.) I mean, I cared about the environment watching Captain Planet in the ’90s. I wanted to have the power of fire come out of a ring, didn’t you? (If you said you wanted to be Heart, you are LYING.)
We must meet the people where they are. We know people are fed up with the cost of living; we know that people hate the fact we’re the world’s biggest open-air kindergarten. Few of us like the fact that everything is either mandatory or banned. It’s an anger and frustration that we can convert into excitement.
Let’s get people excited about libertarianism by making it cool – even if it requires using our painfully withered imaginations to get there.
This article was originally published by Liberty Itch.
