From a libertarian perspective, I see some good news going into the 2024 election. There is a political realignment happening, ignited by the visceral rejection of what I have been calling the “Lockdown Authoritarianism” of the past four years. The activists who make up this new “Resistance,” as many in this new anti-authoritarian coalition have taken to calling themselves, are motivated by some core libertarian values: freedom of speech, skepticism of government power, bodily autonomy and food freedom, opposition to the financial black hole of neoconservative interventionism, and, yes, even a return to concern over wasteful, out-of-control spending and the rampant inflation it fuels. This movement will not only impact the election of 2024. It is also positioned to drive the policy conversation in 2025-26 in ways not seen since the Tea Party circa 2009-2012.
You weren’t expecting optimism? I appreciate your skepticism, so let me explain my thinking.
It seems like libertarians are always stuck between a rock and a hard place, trying to find political relevance in a two-party system. The rules of the game are set by those same two establishment parties to keep fresh ideas and political interlopers like Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, Tulsi Gabbard, and most recently, RFK Jr., off the ballot, off the presidential stage, and out of the national conversation. It’s like the movie Groundhog Day, but without the satisfaction of knowing there’s a happy ending coming somewhere around the corner.
But there seems to be something different happening this year that offers libertarian-minded advocates an opportunity the likes of which I haven’t seen since my Tea Party organizing days. We have a unique moment to leverage our libertarian/anti-authoritarian voices before, and especially after, the presidential election.
The last several months have seen Donald Trump openly courting big-L Libertarians (even at their convention, with the help of Senator Mike Lee). Trump has promised various policy changes libertarians covet. He even promised to put a card-carrying libertarian in his cabinet. Trump’s apparent receptivity to libertarian ideas probably doesn’t mean he’s had a come-to-Jesus moment, but it does mean that he considers libertarianism to be politically popular and important enough to be worth factoring into his promised policy plans.
More interesting still is a large swath of anti-authoritarians who originally came from the left, powerful voices turned away by the speech censorship, health tyranny, endless wars, and lockdown authoritarianism of the new woke left. There’s too many to list, but they include Elon Musk (and other successful and influential Tech Bros), RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Nicole Shanahan (RFK’s running mate and influential philanthropist), and a host of very powerful opinion influencers from Joe Rogan and Bret Weinstein to comedians like Jimmy Dore, Rob Schneider, and Russell Brand. Add to that an army of pissed off moms angry at government schools, COVID closures, and tortuous Zoom classrooms with sexually explicit curriculums. Those parents who had the gall to speak out at School Board meetings were declared “domestic terrorists” and targeted by the Biden Justice Department.
That’s a powerful, and very different coalition of newly minted anti-authoritarians now realizing that government power is, at best, a double-edged sword, and now thirsting for more freedom and a bit of sanity in public policy.
From all of their concerns comes a potent portfolio of issues that are libertarian at their core and represent the backbone of a new anti-authoritarian political movement that will emerge from this election regardless of who wins or loses. And I think it represents the next (albeit, very different) Tea Party, both in terms of political impact and its ability to define the public narrative.
As for Trump, his courtship of this anti-authoritarian coalition is encouraging. He will always be transactional on almost every issue, looking to see who and what is the most popular, and who or what will grow his popularity. Same as with virtually every political outcome always, what matters most is public opinion and the stories and narratives in popular culture. Politics is downstream from culture. Culture, stories, politics—these are all intertwined and influencing one another at a rapid pace. We need to ensure that liberty is a central part of this narrative as it emerges.
We libertarians need to be a source of support, power, and influence in what portends to be a transformational political realignment. Before this, the best we could have hoped for was marginally less bad policies on many things libertarians hold dear. But now I see a foothold and a productive way to push the Trump coalition in a better direction.
Should Trump lose, that same coalition will be the building blocks for a political realignment away from the most toxic ideas of National Conservatism, or Kamala Harris’s openly authoritarian progressivism. Remember that the Tea Party message grew in strength and influence with the election of Barack Obama. The loss in 2008 led to a more substantial victory in 2010, animated by the right issues, which in turn led to relatively successful efforts to curtail domestic and defense spending in the 5 years that followed. Today, the Tea Party coalition and their concerns are mostly long gone, but as a model for meaningful social change, that experience is highly relevant in 2024.
The issues, emotions and values that animate this new anti-authoritarian coalition also happen to closely overlap the issues that have defined our work at Free the People since our founding eight years ago. That’s not a coincidence, as our target audience was never the true believers, already in the choir, but “liberty curious” Americans who were looking for something better than authoritarianism, from the left or right. That is why we work on the issues, stories, and styles of communication that we do. It’s also why we are producing comedy now, inspired by many of “The Resistance” comedians driving this new anti-authoritarian movement.
All of these issues are ones we have specialized in at Free the People, having produced a number of award-winning documentaries and thousands of individual pieces of video content distributed on X, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and many other platforms:
- Fighting Lockdown Authoritarianism (All We Have)
- Stopping Speech Censorship and Mass Surveillance (Freedom Over Fear)
- Supporting Food Freedom to Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) (Off the Grid with Thomas Massie)
- Ending Endless War (State of War)
- Exposing the Cult of Wokeness (Cult of Wokeness)
- Defending Parental Rights in Education (Sick Year)
Here’s a specific example: Our wildly popular documentary Off the Grid with Thomas Massie has become a cult classic with the food freedom/Make America Healthy Again movement, even garnering positive coverage from The New York Times, which declared Massie a new and different kind of leader in the GOP. Massie is now coalescing with RFK Jr. and Nicole Shanahan to develop the legislative agenda on these subjects for a second Trump Administration. There is also real talk of Massie becoming Agriculture Secretary.
We have similarly amplified the right voices on a host of liberty-friendly issues, including Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tulsi Gabbard, Rob Schneider, John Mackey, Joel Salatin, and Greg Lukianoff, to name just a few.
This isn’t just an opportunity. I think it’s a necessity. We need to amplify a national conversation that is happening right now that shows tremendous promise. Untended by libertarian sensibilities, this is a conversation that could easily be diverted back to an authoritarian bidding war.
As for our work at Free the People, we are going to continue to do what we do best, driving the popular narrative. We are, I think, uniquely positioned to be relevant now, but also starting on November 6th. I can’t help but hope that there is some brightness at the end of the tunnel.
Add comment