Dissident Mama, episode 23 – James Ronald Kennedy

James Ronald Kennedy was born and raised in Mississippi. He received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Louisiana, Monroe, and a Master’s degree in Health Administration from Tulane University, New Orleans, and a Master’s of Jurisprudence in Health Law from Loyola University, Chicago.

Ron, along with brother Walter Donald Kennedy, are the Kennedy Twins and are best known for their bestselling book “The South Was Right!,” which has sold more 180,000 copies and its “new edition for the 21st century” was just released by Shotwell Publishing. (My friend and mentor Dr. Boyd Cathey reviews it here.) The Kennedy Twins have written 16 other books, including “Punished With Poverty: The Suffering South,” “Dixie Rising: Rules for Rebels,” “Yankee Empire: Aggressive Abroad and Despotic at Home,” and “When Rebel Was Cool.”

Ron and his brother Donnie have been interviewed by numerous local and national talk radio shows such as Col. Oliver North’s radio show, Alan Colmes’ radio show, Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect, the BBC, French National TV, Louisiana Public Broadcasting TV and Mississippi Public Broadcasting radio and TV.

Both have served as Commander of the Louisiana Division Sons of Confederate Veterans and have received special recognition awards from the National Commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, as well as other Southern heritage organizations.

Ron and I discuss how he got involved in the Southern-without-apology movement, as well as how the Southern states went from self-determination, prosperity, and health, to an underling region of “bayonet governments,” to now a land of “stateless people.” It’s not all doom and gloom, though, folks, for this son of Dixie has big ideas about how to organize effectively and resist nonviolently big government at the local, state, and federal levels. Let’s just say that his strategies, if implemented, could “hang [the oligarchs] on the horns of a dilemma.” Sounds good to me.

Download this podcast. Or if you’d rather see our smiling Southern faces, you can watch the interview on YouTube!

Source: Dissident Mama – Dissident Mama, episode 23 – James Ronald Kennedy

Episode 209 – High-Rise (1:53:58)

We’re going to record a hot one tonight. Brace yourselves for a tirade or two from Robert on this one as we welcome James Jenneman, the Urban Agorist on to talk about the class-warfare flick from 2015, High-Rise.

Tom Hiddleston stars as Dr. Laing, resident in a high-tech skyscraper which places him amongst the upper class. Life seems like paradise. But, as building flaws emerge the social strata begins to crumble and the building descends into a class war.

Based on a dystopian novel by J.G. Ballard, it has Shining-vibes. Is it all in his head? Is the “building” haunted? Is the architect the mastermind who is pulling all the strings and realizing that central planning doesn’t work?

We will discuss all that and more on this one.

We’re also proud to announce that our YouTube video for this episode now features actual video footage of the show, check it out here, and be sure to hit that subscribe button!

If you would like to get (occasional) early access to future shows, join us on Patreon and support us at the $3+ per month level at:  http://www.actualanarchy.com/patreon

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Continue reading “Episode 209 – High-Rise (1:53:58)”

Resisting the spirit of the age

So here I go again, debating Orthodox monks. Nuts, right? You’d think I’d learn after the exhausting undertaking of challenging Hieromonk Gabriel of Holy Cross Monastery in West Virginia.

Actually, that turned out to be quite the fruitful rhetorical effort. The essay garnered some much-needed dialog, got me a shout-out and a share from “verbal swordplay” veteran Ilana Mercer, and might even be translated into Russian per the inspiration of a friend.

But honestly, there’s really nothing more important than resisting the fashions of globalism, especially when it comes to Church matters. So in that vein, I am once again taking on a priest, and this time, and an even more beloved and influential one, Abbot Tryphon of All-Merciful Savior Monastery in Vashon Island, Washington.

The West coast monk first triggered my anti-leftist senses in early October when he wrote “The Homosexual Person.” Here was my comment to his social-justice essay which basically lays the responsibility of LBGT at the feet of a “judgmental” society that “fosters hatred and rejection,” not at the feet of individual sinners.

But it wasn’t until the monk’s recent essay about the perils of “global warming” that I decided to put forth my own Dissident Mama commentary. I mean, why on earth is a person who purports to be against globalism actively calling for globalist interventions to largely government-created problems?

So, I shared his post on my blogger Facebook page and wrote, “The only religion Abbot Tryphon is pushing here with his ‘climate change’ nonsense is anti-human globalism. All hail the solar panel and the carbon tax! Uh, no thanks, Father.”

The ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia) monk actually replied to my post via his secular name, and then he and I then had a small, but telling exchange.

You can see that the priest sometimes operates by using straw-man fallacies. Just like he casually undergirds the “systemic racism” myth by implying that “inequality” is ultimately the fault of those on the political right (thus, we cannot really blame the the covetous, greedy, power-hungry BLM terrorists and their occult ideology), or when he sets forth the narrative that it’s conservatives who cause LGBT to needlessly suffer, Abbot Tryphon misses the mark pinpointing both the cause and cure of our mass consumerism and gluttony problems.

Although he gives a hat tip to their spiritual aspects, Abbot Tryphon either doesn’t get or doesn’t want to admit that our purposefully materialist society is the creation of centralized government. It’s the therapeutic-managerial state, along with their apparatchiks in the borg (legacy media, academia, banking, Silicon Valley, and corporate Murica), that is enriched and empowered by elevating trash and tearing down tradition.

Therefore, the abbot’s remedy to double-down on the cabal that spawned our disposable, dead culture in the first place is lunacy and must be called out. This is why he and his eco-followers claim that people who don’t agree with their obvious political statements are Christians whose faith is “problematic.” This pretense to silence dissent is not free-thinking nor is it nice. It’s dishonest.

Abbot Tryphon, who was physically attacked by a crazed lefty back in April 2019 and at a gas station of all places, says the “evidence is clear” and that the “vast majority of scientists” believe anthropogenic global warming is fact and is caused specifically by “overuse of fossil fuels.” Any intellectually honest person knows that there absolutely is a scientific debate to be had since there is no consensus. Just check out Harris-Mann Climatology and Real Climate Science, or listen to Dr. Judith Curry‘s story and review her and her colleagues’ work for yourself.

I also find it odd that the monk’s bold pronouncements are transmitted via a computer, which is made of heavy metals and minerals usually mined in Third World countries. Its manufacturing process requires toxic chemicals and fossil fuels, emits hazardous gases, and consumes large amounts of water. Green might be deemed “sustainable,” but that doesn’t mean it actually is, nor is it reliable. Scientism doesn’t trump reality.

Obviously, the cow on the platform is correct, but I still want to eat him … preferably from a local farmer who raises the humanely pastured cattle on mother’s milk and grass.

And that brings me to the ethical implications of Abbot Tryphon’s statement. I touched on this in some of my above response to him, that advocating for governments to “act NOW” against the “‘abundance and prosperity’ theologies” will have long-lasting and deadly implications for the masses, hitting especially hard the poor. Alex Epstein lays out the human exploitation and horrifying “unseen hopes” innate in a global green movement, so I do urge everyone to read “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.”

Enacting Abbot Tryphon’s environmental prescriptions without considering the catastrophic consequences of such radical regulatory changes would require the embrace of immediacy – a hallmark of the very drive-through consumerism he critiques. Instant gratification too is an “addiction” that feeds into the materialist mindset. Think Willy Wonka’s Veruca Salt: “Don’t care how, I want it now!” High-time preference is truly one of America’s falsest of gods.

Pragmatically, we lay people live out here in the secular world and drive to work. Who do you think builds your churches and supports your cloistered monasteries? We do. Who do you think is being fruitful and multiplying and bringing up children in the faith to sustain and grow the Church? We do, and we have to drive to the store for food and clothing, and sometimes to the woods for nature’s solitude. We must also drive to church, which for many of us includes long-distance trips several times a week or more, depending on the Liturgical calendar.

The ROCOR mission I attend is an hour from my home. Even before Wu-flu mania, my family and I had to trek 40 minutes to get to the only English-speaking parish in our area. If you limit my access to fossil fuels, you not only control things like my thermostat and my travel, you control if and when we receive the Eucharist. If you limit carbon, you limit my ability to provide for and feed my family, both food-wise and spiritually. You limit life and fellowship.

Allying with the “money-grubbing … moral imperialists” of the Deep State will only cause greater harm to the environment and the human beings who inhabit it. (Photo: All-Merciful Savior Monastery, which can be reached only by a ferry that I’m pretty sure is powered by diesel fuel.)

If you limit my children’s animal-based protein, you endanger their physical health, increase the likelihood of the further emasculation of straight men, embolden Big Ag and normalize the genetically modified garbage they push, threaten the livelihood of the small livestock farmer, and even increase the likelihood of cattle extinction … all of which fosters globalism.

This is why “Bureaucrats hate the quintessential American culture of family farms,” notes agrarian entrepreneur Josiah Cantrall. “Simply put, people who think for themselves, work hard, and don’t live off the government. Farming is part of our identity. It is our way of life, our heritage, our patriotism, and the foundation of our generational values. Farming is the essence of our loyalty to our families and our God – and there is nothing more sacred than that. That’s why unelected liberal elites don’t want farm kids working on farms.”

Big government delights in the dependent, unhealthy, identity-less “global citizen” who unquestionably obeys the collective. This is why we don’t need more reliance on the environment-wrecking, family-smashing, soul-crushing Leviathan, but waaaaaaay less.

I’m no materialist. In fact, I see industrial-capitalism as an evil imposition of Yankee domination, but I’m also no socialist. I’m a proponent of getting back to a more localist, distributist, agrarian way of living, but without all the starvation and poverty that environmental emotivism would produce. I think if Abbot Tryphon truly opened his mind, he would see that we share many views of what Christian stewardship means in practice on a personal level. I think he’d also benefit immensely from reading “I’ll Take My Stand.”

What we need to break the consumerist, rationalist chains inherent in globalism is more subsidiarity, more regional sovereignty, more political autonomy, more personal responsibility, and yes, a lot more repentance. Centralized mass democracy is our sickness, not fossil fuels.

Rearranging the world to fit man’s desires is dangerous business.

Fr. Seraphim Rose forewarns us of the manipulation of globalism veiled as “feel good” spirituality in his 1975 book “Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future.” You can see hints of it today when Kamala Harris blathers on about “equity” or Tom Hanks addresses college grads as the “chosen ones.”

In modern puritanical-progressive parlance, it’s known as the Great Reset, which is being called a “conspiracy theory” by the New York Times, even though the Gray Lady featured an article about the devilish design in April. More recently, Time Magazine dedicated an issue to it. Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, excitedly announced her participation in the “Great Reset Dialogue.” And Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau touted covid as an opportunity to “accelerate” the “reset.”

Check out the aptly named book “COVID-19: The Great Reset” by Klaus Schwab, who is World Economic Forum (WEF) founder and executive chairman. Or just listen to Schwab in his own sinister words.

Or watch WEF’s dystopian video on how not “great” the reset will actually be.

And what is the prime vehicle for moving globalism down the wide path? Why, protecting the environment, of course. Sustainable development. Smart growth. Smashing both food sovereignty and national sovereignty. And ironfisted control of both population and movement. How can one flee the tyranny if his car is a relic, gasoline is “history,” and the entire planet is participating in what UN assistant secretary general Robert Muller predicted in 1995 would become the “first global, cosmic, and universal civilization”? Eco-hysteria is part of the package deal.

“World leaders’ ‘Great Reset’ plan for global economy is the Green New Deal on steroids,” explains Justin Haskins of the Heartland Institute. This type of centralized domination by the “Davos Man” (as Ben Sixsmith of The Spectator calls these new-age leaders) will establish what I call neo-Marxism.

They call it “stakeholder capitalism,” but it’s really universal socialism – an earth-swallowing corporate feudalism with banking elites and technocratic social engineers at the top, and the rest of us “happy,” atomized underlings below. But what exactly is supposed to fulfill the statist serfs in this novel, yet anciently evil paradigm?

Is it God? Nope, Christianity is a superstition of backwoods yahoos. Is it family? Nope, that’s for rubes; we’ve got the global village. Is it pride in your work? Nope, you’ve got your UBI, instead of thata antiquated notions o f work ethic. Is it your home? Nope, better get cozy in your government-mandated coffin apartment since private property has been abolished.

Is it living off the land? Nope, enjoy your pre-packaged Impossible Burger. Is it culture? Nope, “Nationhood as we know it will be obsolete,” as US Deputy Secretary of State and a chief architect of the American-led Balkans invasion Strobe Talbott candidly admitted in 1992. Turns out, all this erasing of history is by design. Who da thunk?

Is it simple human interaction? Nope, because “driving to a distant family gathering for the weekend’” will become less acceptable since “the WhatsApp family group is not as fun but … it’s safer, cheaper and greener,” Schwab wrote in his terrifying tome. Upright global citizens gotta build up their carbon credits to get social credits, right?

“Buying a sex doll would be safer, cheaper, and greener than getting married,” notes Sixsmith. “That doesn’t mean it is a good idea.” None of this is a good idea for flourishing – human, environmental, or otherwise.

Occultist and ecumenist Bailey coined the term “New Age” and has influenced many one-worlders and their sick political and spiritual philosophy.

The dirty little secret is that reset success will be gauged specifically by an increase in goods and services. This mass materialism will distract us from our fake “unity in blankness,” as Fr. Seraphim Rose described the new-age deception. Thus, the very consumerism that Abbot Tryphon bemoans will become the your communion, sustainability and safety directives will be your liturgy, and the Davos Man will be your high priest. In CEOs we trust.

It’ll be “scientific world humanism, global in extent” as evolutionary biologist and eugenicist Julian Huxley (and brother to “Brave New World” author Aldous Huxley) called the goals in UNESCO’s 1946 reset statement. In other words, totalitarian nihilism wrapped in recycled packaging. It’ll be “environmentally friendly” and it’s been the plan for a long time.

And it’s been tried before. Just ask the New Soviet Man, who was “completely transformed, free of all Russia’s supposed backwardness and shaped and directed by the state’s leaders at the top.” The idea was to engineer a norm-breaking, pliable populace working toward the “selfless collective … irrespective of the country’s cultural, ethnic, and linguistic diversity, creating a single Soviet people.” All other hierarchies, especially the one with our Lord and Savior on high, is to become a thing of the past.

Just as the Georgian monk Elder Gabriel Urgebadze, who doused a portrait of Vladimir Lenin with kerosene and set it ablaze in the Tbilisi center square, we Christians must too resist this spirit of the age and combat the rallying cries of the comrades in green, even when they happen to be our fellow Christians or clergy.

Abbot Tryphon says, “We don’t have time to sit around and debate this,” but I say there’s no better time to challenge du jour virtue-signaling before it becomes defacto dystopia. Veritas vincit.

Source: Dissident Mama – Resisting the spirit of the age

Episode 208 – JFK (1:33:48)

It’s the return of the great Peter R. Quinones for another round of Costner epics as we review Oliver Stone’s, “JFK”.

JFK is a 1991 American epic political thriller film directed by Oliver Stone. It examines the events leading to the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy and alleged cover-up through the eyes of former New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner).

In reference to our review of “They Live”, it’s like Oliver Stone is fighting with us for over three hours to put on the damn glasses. Garrison is a naive idealist, like Nada, and his attempt to awaken others is net with scorn.

This promises to be a pretty deep discussion on the deep state that still has repercussions to this day.

We’re also proud to announce that our YouTube video for this episode now features actual video footage of the show, check it out here, and be sure to hit that subscribe button!

If you would like to get (occasional) early access to future shows, join us on Patreon and support us at the $3+ per month level at:  http://www.actualanarchy.com/patreon

Never miss an episode. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts to get new episodes as they become available.

* Note that all links that appear on this page that promote products and services for purchase are affiliate links, we earn a small commission at no additional cost to you on any purchase you make using one of our links.

Continue reading “Episode 208 – JFK (1:33:48)”

Dissident Mama, episode 22 – Nick Hankoff

Nick Hankoff hosts the blog and podcast “Come Home America with Nick Hankoff,” which “narrates and navigates America’s twin crises of identity and order.” Hankoff’s writings have also been published at the Daily Caller, the Mises Institute, The American Conservative, and The Advocates for Self-Government. Hankoff is the former chair of the Republican Liberty Caucus of California, and is also a husband, a father of three, a Catholic, and an overconfident Scrabble player. Hankoff is a busy man and even has another current rhetorical adventure, Order and Liberty, a podcast made with José Niño, who has also been a guest on the DM podcast. I think my chat with Hankoff is a riveting one and an intriguing followup to my appearance on his show earlier this month.

References in this episode include:
• Brion McClanahan’s podcast “If Republicans Had Guts,”
• the Acton Institute’s blog post “Reviving civil society: Formative vs. performative institutions,”
• Robert A. Nisbet’s book “The Quest for Community,”
• Hankoff’s podcast about the wisdom of Garet Garrett and his article on the need for militias,
• my essay “Identity-less-ness,”
• Murray N. Rothbard’s book “Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature,”
• cold-warrior conservative James Burnham,
• and the Great Reset.

Download this podcast episode!

Or watch the video on YouTube. Be sure to subscribe to the DM channel, too, if you like what you see.

Source: Dissident Mama – Dissident Mama, episode 22 – Nick Hankoff

Episode 207 – They Live (1:13:17)

We’re joined by special guest, Robert P. Murphy of the Bob Murphy Show to talk about John Carpenter’s “They Live’. The Matrix, a decade before the Matrix but in an over the top, 50’s schlock that is diametrically opposed to the polish and technical wizardry of the Matrix.

Bob did an episode on his show about the movie last year so we will discuss some of his points and give our own take as well.

They influence our decisions without us knowing it. They numb our senses without us feeling it. They control our lives without us realizing it. They live. Horror master John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing) directs this heart-pounding thriller. Aliens are systematically gaining control of the earth by masquerading as humans and lulling the public into submission. Humanity’s last chance lies with a lone drifter who stumbles upon a harrowing discovery – a unique pair of sunglasses that reveal the terrifying and deadly truth.

The left of the 80’s speaking truth to power has revealed it to be merely a tactic to acquire that power and themselves to be the aliens who now in the positions of power and influence to then silence truth and dissent.

We’re also proud to announce that our YouTube video for this episode now features actual video footage of the show, check it out here, and be sure to hit that subscribe button!

If you would like to get (occasional) early access to future shows, join us on Patreon and support us at the $3+ per month level at:  http://www.actualanarchy.com/patreon

Never miss an episode. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts to get new episodes as they become available.

* Note that all links that appear on this page that promote products and services for purchase are affiliate links, we earn a small commission at no additional cost to you on any purchase you make using one of our links.

Continue reading “Episode 207 – They Live (1:13:17)”

Dissident Mama, episode 21 – Michael Sisco

Michael Sisco describes himself as “Orthodox Christian. U.S. Army Veteran. Paleoconservative. Writer. Journalist.” He’s the creator of Saints Edward Media, which is “real news and opinion with a heavy emphasis on truth, peace, and order.” This “traditionalist news” outlet features meaty essays, as well as podcast interviews and live streams done via the Michael Sisco Show.

Sisco is a busy guy who’s involved in many things he sees as pushing forward civic engagement, community infrastructure, and fellowship. For instance, he was campaign manager for US Senate candidate Lauren Witzke, who won the primary but lost the general to Delaware democrat incumbent Chris Coons. Sisco also does traditional advocacy through the 25-point Book Club, Trad Meet Up, and the upcoming Trad Forum.

Sisco and I dive deep into his political and faith journeys, his work with Witzke, cancel culture and intellectual terrorism, this Saturday’s Million MAGA March, and his idea of creating an intentional traditionalist community in West Virginia. It’s quite the riveting conversation and serves as a nice followup to my appearance on his show earlier in the week.

Download this episode!

Source: Dissident Mama – Dissident Mama, episode 21 – Michael Sisco

Dissident Mama, episode 20 – Daniel B. Rundquist

Daniel B. Rundquist is a Minnesotan by birth, but a Southerner by the grace of God. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Rundquist owns his own publishing company, New Plymouth Press, and is an avid writer, a budding amateur historian, the author of five books, and a contributor to the Caldwell Journal. He’s also a husband, father of three sons, an Orthodox Christian, and my friend.

Rundquist’s forthcoming book, “The Unholy Land: The Struggle for Virtue and Unity in America,” is due out December 1. He has also authored two other nonfiction works, “Tears for Byzantium: The Entropic Course of American Exceptionalism” (now available on PDF) and “The Surviving Works of William David Sutton: 1843- 1899,” as well as fiction books “The Legend for Striker’s Gold” and “Bad Blood” (the latter three all available on Kindle).

If you’d like to purchase “The Unholy Land,” contact Rundquist through Facebook. Full retail price is $49.95, but Rundquist is offering the paperbacks to DM followers autographed and with free shipping for $45 and PDFs for $20.

Referenced in our conversation is Alan Greenspan’s 1966 essay “Gold and Economic Freedom,” my 5-part Puritans series, and Mikhail Smirnov’s recent article “How American politics destroys Orthodoxy.”

Download the podcast episode here!

My chat with Rundquist will eventually be available with video on YouTube, but I’m currently experiencing some technical difficulties with my home computer, so your patience is greatly appreciated. Till then, happy listening and I look forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments.

Source: Dissident Mama – Dissident Mama, episode 20 – Daniel B. Rundquist

Episode 206 – The Beast of War (1:33:04)

We welcome the great, Kyle Anzalone of the Libertarian Institute on to discuss an under-appreciated and listener-suggested war movie, “The Best of War”, just in time for Armistice Day.

Our listener, Nick, had the following to say (paraphrased):

“…I stumbled across a movie I had never heard of, it completely blew me away and so ever since I’ve been desperately trying to convince everyone across movie fandom to give it a shot and hopefully drag out of complete obscurity…I kid you not when I say this is the best Hollywood film you’ve never heard of. Quentin Tarantino’s old writing partner Roger Avery has it down as the best movie of 1988 and he also has it down as one of his 20 desert island films with ‘Apocalypse now’ being the only other war film…if you do see it, let me know if you agree with me that this might be one of the 10 best American movies of the 1980s, one way or another we need to find a way to raise this movie’s profile and prevent it from continual obscurity once and for all.”

Committed fighters, defending their homeland. Knowing the lay of the land. Using their weakness to their advantage. Being able to traverse the ridges where the tank was stuck going around and couldn’t raise the turret high enough there is a lot to talk about here.

Looks like a winner to me and we know Kyle, who was our guest on another war movie a few years ago called “War Machine” will bring a lot to the discussion as he is a machine when it comes to reporting on this topic on his show “Conflicts of Interest” with his co-host Will Porter.

We’re also proud to announce that our YouTube video for this episode now features actual video footage of the show, check it out here, and be sure to hit that subscribe button!

If you would like to get (occasional) early access to future shows, join us on Patreon and support us at the $3+ per month level at:  http://www.actualanarchy.com/patreon

Never miss an episode. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts to get new episodes as they become available.

* Note that all links that appear on this page that promote products and services for purchase are affiliate links, we earn a small commission at no additional cost to you on any purchase you make using one of our links.

Continue reading “Episode 206 – The Beast of War (1:33:04)”

Libertarians: The Morning After the Election Message

I had high expectations for yesterday and they were not all met. To the extent you are disappointed by the results, I apologize to you. I would like to offer a bit of a pep talk.

Everyone else seems to be in the soup with us. Democrats were anticipating a landslide and spent hundreds of millions to make it happen but it’s looking like the Republicans kept the Senate and gained seats in the House. Republicans expected President Trump to be re-elected and while the election was close, his odds aren’t good with millions of votes left to be counted from blue areas.

We will certainly assess the lessons learned, and I hope those conversations are driven by data and observed experience. In that we are not alone, as Democrats will have to confront their socialist and non-socialist wings and Republicans will have to reconcile their Trump and non-Trump directions. For my part, much of my focus is on the need I see for our candidates to have more money, more staff and volunteers, and more help from Libertarian Party brand association. I look forward to hearing the discussion and seeing people try things in different races as we figure it all out.

Here are six things I’m keeping in mind today:

· Jo and Spike are (as of now) at 1.1 percent, with 1,591,943 (and votes still being counted). This is the second best result of any Libertarian presidential ticket, second only both in percent and votes to Johnson/Weld in 2016. It beats 1980 when we had a billionaire underwriting campaign costs and 2012 (and 2008) when we had a candidate with high name recognition. Despite the media blackout, fundraising disadvantage ($2 per vote! Jo/Spike spent ~$3 million vs. $12 million in 2016; billions for the others), inability to campaign normally due to the pandemic, and lack of name recognition, 1 in every 90 Americans voted for Jo and Spike, and it looks like we beat the spread in some key states like MI, WI, PA, and NV. I’ve been in this party when our baseline was more around half a percent and it’s clear those days are behind us and we have a solid, higher floor.

· Relatedly, we had 50+DC ballot access for this election, for only the third time in our history. I cannot understate how difficult this was, overcoming gratuitous procedural obstacle, pandemic conditions, and a bidding war for paid petitioners caused by millionaire and billionaire candidates. As we do after every election, we are just starting to assess what states we retained and didn’t retain last night and our next steps. But I do want to acknowledge the hard work of everyone who helped make Jo and Spike one of the three choices that were in front of every American voter.

· Momentum. Jo was up front from the beginning that her goal was to help build the party and in that she succeeded. Membership is up 29% to 21,000, and registered voters is up 7% since March to 652,000 (in the 32 states that have partisan registration). The LNC will soon have a flood of names and contact info for new people the campaign brought in. I know some criticize us running a national presidential ticket but looking at the data, most of our best activists, candidates, and leaders were first reached by a presidential campaign. The bus tour earned a ton of local press and the ads the campaign made were spectacular. Polling shows our messaging reached an audience in particular with young people, Latinos, women, and those in urban areas.

· Local Libertarians won election and re-election. While we did fall short – and in some cases crushingly close – today has new Libertarian elected officials: Kalish Morrow, Wendy Hewitt, Trisha Butler, James Doyle, Bob Karwin – and Jessica Abbott, Jim Turney, and Cara Schulz won re-election. A big sign of progress is our first Libertarian elected as a state legislator in over 20 years: Marshall Burt in Wyoming, one of our Frontier Project candidates. Other races solidified us as America’s third party: Ricky Harrington getting 34% for U.S. Senate, Don Rainwater getting 13% for Governor, and many others that beat the spread between the old parties. Many other races secured ballot access goals (although others unfortunately fell short). Nearly all of these candidates achieved what they did with a fraction of the money their opponents had.

· The drug war lost. Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota legalized marijuana. Mississippi legalized medical marijuana. DC decriminalized mushrooms. Oregon decriminalized hard drugs. I remember when ending the drug war and not viewing drug use as a criminal enforcement problem was a crazy Libertarian position in this country. Now it’s winning every time everywhere.

· Talent. Out of choice or necessity, most of the L campaigns this year from Jo/Spike on down used homegrown Libertarian campaign staff talent rather than consultants or paid operatives. The pros and cons of that will be debated, but one outcome is many more Libertarians now have on-the-job training as campaign managers, field directors, fundraisers, GOTV managers, canvassers, and with crafting messaging. Every campaign wanted more of all of those things, and those who did can now teach and train others and build up a talent pool essential for winning in the future.

Thank you to our candidates, to their families, to their volunteers. Win or lose, the commitment is an enormous one and can be draining in so many ways. Our impact and our ballot access depend on you, and your often unsung efforts are appreciated by so many of us. Thank you especially to Apollo Pazell and Cara Schulz, two of our elected officials who also help advise our candidates all over the map.

Onward. We are going to take on the duopoly until they change or we get our people elected. Seeing a routine election treated as a do or die moment by so many Americans reminds me that we need to rethink the power we give to government, and only Libertarians can actually deliver on this.

As long as you are willing to keep trying, I will be here.

​- Joe Bishop-Henchman sends


Source: Liberty LOL – Libertarians: The Morning After the Election Message