Diversify Your Freedom Portfolio (Part Two)

Continued from Part One.

The left finally learned to abandon reasoned discourse. It's a waste of time and resources. They've reaped great rewards for doing so, because when it comes right down to it, democracy is the only game in town. They put all their money on implementation. To be is to be perceived. The politics of perception is folded around one core truth; one single, unifying vision—get human beings to the polls to vote for your party.

That's it. Poke them. Prod them. Badger and cajole them. Fill them with hope and make them feel like part of a big giddy club. Burden them not with brilliant policies or prose, but sell them vagaries and tell them just what they need to know to get their "I Voted" sticker. Once the left had that single vision in mind, ironically, they took the best of what the free market has to offer and won: decentralization, organization, and tech-enabled volunteerism.

Renaissance

Now, it's the Freedom Coalition's turn. Staunch conservatives will have to swallow their social concerns for a while and mend bridges with libertarians, for only the latter really have the technical wherewithal to mobilize the Rightroots. Libertarians must back away from the fetishization of both principle and dead-end activism a la the Ron Paul presidency and infiltrate what remains of the Republican Party. And yet, both conservatives and libertarians will have to coalesce around a single, organizing principle—freedom (but with a view to branding, not bickering).

Again, both will have to engage in the kind of activism they dislike. Freedom investors will then have to redirect their resources within the structure of social change. Just as the consumer good is nothing without marketing and uptake, the ideas of freedom are but noble ghosts bouncing around in expensive beltway buildings. The Catos, Heritages and AEIs of the world will have to transform themselves so that, at least, they straddle more of the structure of social change. Otherwise, they will need to shrink or even go extinct. Successfully maintaining the status quo at the think-tank level will not only artificially inflate the values of these organizations, but ensure the slow decline of freedom in America. We can imagine, after all, effete intellectuals arguing in the echo chamber as the ship goes down.

So, how should you diversify your freedom portfolio? Who is doing mass media? Who is doing new media and viral media? Who's registering people and doing GOTV? Who are the effective gadflies of the right? Who's doing grassroots, rightroots and tech-enabled mobilization? As a savvy investor, it's your job to find out. Best get started. - Max Borders