How the Truth Can Prevail

What the present demands of us

We are increasingly confronted with a startling fact: the truth is not popular, at least not nearly as much as it needs to be.

Day by day, society inches further toward views detached from evidence, fueling policies that harm rather than help.

Protectionism and immigration restrictionism are back with defiance. Corporate welfare is being doled out to well-connected industry groups while the tax code becomes riddled each and every year with yet even more complexities and loopholes. Transformational infrastructure projects are held up in costly stasis around our country by endless proceduralism, red tape, and lawsuits. Government services remain defiantly low quality, often hardly different technologically than they were decades prior. Special interest groups wield government influence not to protect the public but to shield themselves from competition, endlessly piling on anti-consumer regulations that inflate prices dramatically. From housing to healthcare, energy to transportation, their silent burden weighs heavy on the weary pocketbooks of working families. Many of us have fallen prey to mental despair and addiction as we fail to find satisfaction in our daily lives. Car dependency and the poor quality of our food yield unhealthy lifestyles, while the risks of crime, climate change, and inadequate disaster preparedness threaten our safety. This occurs as an ineffective welfare system ensnares the poor people it is supposed to help, the national debt accumulates at an unsustainable pace, a class of billionaire oligarchs (namely Elon Musk) increasingly seizes the edifices of the state for their own purposes, and a cabal of authoritarian powers—Russia, China, Iran, amongst others, set out to conquer their neighbors and destabilize America from within.

The facts are sobering and enraging. We are not as free, secure, prosperous, or happy as we should be. Our lives are filled with unnecessary suffering, and few are offering us a promising break from this perilous status quo.

The MAGA Republican Party consists of an ideologically incoherent fusion of ideas centered around a personality cult for an unstable narcissist. In it, are many causes for concern. Trump promises retribution against his political opponents, damaging the institutions that keep our society stable; he promises to appoint tools of America's enemies like Tulsi Gabbard to high-up positions in government and put anti-vax lunatics like RFK Jr. in charge of our public health. His agenda of tariffs and mass deportations promises only to harm the Americans he has promised to save.

The only glimmer of reprieve from this up-and-coming Trump administration is found in Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's DOGE project, which pays lip service to regulatory streamlining and deficit reduction. However, thus far, their ideas have inspired more caution than optimism. The examples of government waste they've pointed to as of this writing include funding for clean energy projects, scientific research, and interest payments on the debt we have no choice but to pay. These are not the right places to be focusing on for cuts. The Department of Education, they are hell-bent on abolishing, actually has a good reason to exist, even if it needs dramatic reforms.

The big-budget balancing action we need must come through Congress, which is currently gearing up to make our two trillion dollar deficit even larger by extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts. It appears most likely that the competing Musk-Vivek Libertarian vision for the Republican Party will run up against its Vance-Hawley Conservative Nationalist vision, which will almost surely defeat it in the 2028 primary, spelling a continued dark path for the GOP.

This occurs as the Democratic Party is splintered and seemingly directionless. Biden's industrial policy addressed, to a limited extent, America's over-reliance on China, with costs of its own. His continuation of Trump's combative trade policies with our allies was an unforced error, and in an attempt to appease established Democratic party interest groups, he fell short of weeding out the endemic rent-seeking that infects our federal government.

His moves on infrastructure and climate change were commendable, but much of the money has been caught up in the dysfunction that entangles all large infrastructure projects in America these days, diminishing the distance each dollar goes and stretching project completion times many years into the future. His steadfast commitment to supporting Ukraine is perhaps one of the most important elements of his legacy, as it is in large part responsible for the country's survival, even as his Middle East policy has fallen short with the tear-jerking scenes of Afghanistan, the continued chaos in Syria, and catastrophe in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Harris's campaign was running largely on continuity with Biden. Her candidacy promised a continued steady hand of American leadership, taking more steps forward than backward and safeguarding our precious institutions, but still falling short of the ambition that the present moment demands.

In a Democratic Party reeling from nationwide rejection, the calls of the left grow louder as they present themselves as the only alternative to the mainstream wing, which has just presided over an electoral disaster. Yet this group outright ignores many of our problems, or worse, attempts to confine them to their inherently reductionist class warfare-based view of the world, where behind every problem, there is an evil business at fault, and every solution can be found in a new tax, a new regulation, or a new subsidy.

Their vision of heavier-handed government intervention clashes with the nearly ubiquitous distrust Americans now have of the government, requiring them to make promises they cannot keep. Amongst them is the absurd claim that a Scandinavian-style welfare state can be funded almost exclusively off the backs of the rich, which is not remotely possible.

In short, at this critical juncture in American politics, the ideological marketplace offers few compelling options. Amongst the alternatives we are faced with are aggressive regression, incremental progress with no shortage of painful missteps, or glorious promises that are impossible to keep. We must aspire for better.

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Yet, even in this bleak moment, there is hope. Politics ebbs, and it flows. Political views nationwide are but a few viral messages from looking very different than they are today. Where once revilement for tyrants like Putin and support for federal law enforcement agencies seemed unshakable, we just witnessed America elect a man who praises the former and intends to tear apart the latter. Nothing can be taken for granted.

The advocates for the truth are scattered, but they are numerous. In academia and think tanks, careful researchers continue to point out the true origins of our problems and sketch paths to solutions. In business, the inefficient bureaucratism of the status quo is known well and ideas for reform abound.

Embers of change are heating up in the growing movement for radically reforming our voting system, where advocates have rightly pointed to our corrupted political institutions as the source of many of our woes. The pro-housing YIMBY movement grows more powerful day by day and has already scored transformational wins in cities and states in every corner of our nation.

The initial single-issue efforts have catalyzed an entirely new ecosystem around the abundance agenda and effective governance. You may know some of the organizations already: The Breakthrough Institute, The Abundance Network, The Inclusive Abundance Initiative, Chamber for Progress, The Niskanen Center, and Institute for Progress, amongst so many others.

Friends of mine at Project Liberal and the Center for New Liberalism are working on expanding the ideas of this movement even further into a comprehensive liberal ideological alternative to the mainstream ideas of our time. More people are talking about bold ideas like Georgism (Land Value Tax) than ever before.

The talent is there; the resources are increasingly there. What the truth now lacks is a compelling political story that can break through to normal, everyday Americans.

This growing coalition’s ranks are filled with intellectuals who often struggle to communicate with a public that has little interest in data, complex economic reasoning, or abstract principles. Finding a way to close this communication gap has been the subject of my investigation for nearly the past two years now.

Since beginning it, I've made the following discoveries about how successful political movements work, which I think will be useful in informing our effort to bring truth into the mainstream.

1. Successful political movements: Brand bad things as the status quo.

Winning narratives are as compelling as they are because they frame the things they want to change as part of the status quo. They present a story of politics where what is broken is protected by the establishment, and they position themselves as change agents. This framing is extremely useful. It makes them the natural protagonist and all of their opponent's natural antagonists. More so, it allows them to siphon people's deep-seated frustrations with how things are and their desire for change.

2. Successful political movements: Point fingers at the bad guys.

Bad things incite more anger when they are laced with ill intent. Many times, this framing is used dishonestly. For instance, some MAGA Republicans (including Elon) blame dysfunctional immigration on a Democratic plot to flood the country with Hispanics in order to secure a permanent majority. This narrative is obviously false, but it is no doubt effective. When unpopular policies can be tied to ill will, the outrage they inspire increases dramatically.

3. Successful political movements: Use mostly negative messaging.

Which one of these messages is more resonant with you? "We stand up for Ukraine and Taiwan in their fight for Democracy, or "We stand against Russia and China's plan for world Domination." I'm willing to wager for most people; it's the latter. We see examples of the power of negative messaging all the time. Democrat's most effective pro-choice message is "We stand against getting politics into your bedroom," and Republican's most effective pro-life message is "We stand against baby murder." In fact, looking at the Republican side, almost all of their messaging is negative. They "stand against radical woke ideology brainwashing our kids in schools," not for the things they actually advocate for, which is white-washed ahistorical propaganda in our schools. We might not like that people respond more to negativity than positivity, but it is overwhelmingly clear that they do.

4. Successful political movements: Use slogans that are easy to understand.

Specific policy views don't go viral; slogans that imply a constellation of policy views do. Most people don't understand how the government works, nor could they sketch out the particulars of really any policy topic; what they might be able to tell you is whether they support School Choice or not, the Green New Deal or not, etc etc. The good ideas need slogans of their own that are repeatable, identifiable, and marketable.

5. Successful political movements: Use storytelling and anecdotes.

You will never get someone to be interested in your macroeconomic modeling of the negative impacts of the Jones and Dredge Act or the benefits of Permitting Reform. What you can do is cite interesting anecdotes that help people understand these things better than any regression line ever could. We've seen anecdotes on Joe Rogan spawn entire internet-wide discourses; most recently, the spurious accusation that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is closing the bank accounts of people for political reasons has inspired a fury amongst right-wingers, leading to increasingly ample public support for abolishing the agency entirely. If people can be made interested in abolishing an entire agency over a single anecdote on a podcast, the potential to stoke popular support for other specific reforms is truly limitless.

6. Successful political movements: Focus on ends, not means.

Trump did not run a campaign on tightening asylum rules. He didn't run on deregulating oil and gas or putting in place ideological loyalty tests in the federal hiring process. These ideas are nerdy and, more importantly, yawn-inducing. Instead, he ran on SEALING THE BORDER, DRILL BABY DRILLING, and SMASHING THE DEEP STATE. Wonks might scoff at the absurdity of such vague language, but it’s proven to be successful over and over again. The policy discourse of mass movements fixates on the ends, not how they are achieved. The ends are always easier to understand and more agreeable than how they are attained.

7. Successful political movements: Tie it all together.

A coherent ideological alternative to the dominant ideas of our time must be able to unite their many sub-narratives into a broader meta-narrative, an overarching story of politics. Trump's meta-narrative is symbolized in his signature slogan, "Make America Great Again," he promises to return to the greatness we once had by crushing the evil forces that have engineered our decline. Bernie's meta-narrative is overthrowing the corporate oligarchy which has taken over our government. The President of Argentina, Javier Milei’s meta-narrative, is ending the control of political gangsters, which are robbing the people and destroying the country. This recipe is used over and over again because it works.

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The preeminent populist political movements of our time often use these strategies dishonestly. They point fingers at scapegoats rather than the true causes of our problems. They misrepresent facts to fuel outrage inducing negative messaging campaigns. Their slogans are simple but represent bad ideas, and many of their anecdotes are not indicative of broader phenomena, if not entirely fictitious. The ends they present themselves as pursuing will not be achieved by their policies, and their simplistic meta-narratives clash with the many nuances of the real world.

This is all the more reason that the advocates for truth must begin using the proven communication strategies—that other actors have so effectively deployed—for good. They must exit their current role as bystanders, talking almost exclusively with those who already agree with them, and work to advance an honest view of the world in a way that can resonate with normal people.

To do this, we must occupy ourselves with telling the true story of American politics. One that sheds light on systematically corrupted political institutions that deliver little more than broken promises generation after generation. We must illustrate with stories the many ways our government has put special interests, in their many forms, above the public interest, over and over again harming the many to help the few. We must build a new movement that crusades against a status quo of stagnation and ineffectiveness, using memorable ends-based slogans to articulate our vision.

When our candidates achieve victory, they must make every evil of the existing system our enemy and relentlessly pursue the change that is required. The politics of edge trimming, tweaks, and measly make-everyone-happy language has come to an end. In a time when Americans demand deep change, confrontation is an ally, and lack of ambition is only self-sabotage.

Therein lies the way we deliver ourselves from the perils of the present.

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Today, a central usage of my time is attempting to convert what I’ve learned into action to practice what I preach. Success requires us not only to make the truth resonant and compelling but also to get each true message in front of every ear that will listen and every eye that will see.

In my newly restarted YouTube channel, I'm working to do just that. I know many of you are brilliant yourself, and I eagerly hope you do the same. There are tremendous political fights that await us.

But we have the power and the responsibility to win.