While many works of the great Austrian scholars and libertarian philosophers such as Rothbard, Rand, Nozick, and Hoppe masterfully describe how their systems of governance (or lack thereof) would work, very few tell us how we would get there. This discussion is among the most important to our movement, as we can debate on the hypothetical ethics of anarcho-capitalism or minarchism all we want, but none of that will ever matter if we don’t actually achieve it. It is time we stop fighting amongst ourselves about the destination while we’re still at the starting line, and instead focus on launching ourselves on the path to a nationwide libertarian movement in the 21st century.

First, we must establish the fact that the present moment is the perfect time for any alternative political movement to grow. A majority of Americans believe that neither major party governs honestly, and the preference for a third party is currently at a historic high. Wealth inequality continues to grow, the housing market is at its worst point in years, and despite the endless, rambling promises of the current administration, things aren’t looking any better. Unfortunately, pointing fingers isn’t going to help us solve anything. Instead, we have to look at the groups most likely to want political change, namely young voters and Gen Z. Various studies show that not only does Gen Z primarily identify as Independents, but nearly 70% think the two-party system has failed us. Not only, then, is America as a whole demanding change, but the next generation of voters specifically is more than willing to fight for it. The issue, of course, lies in attracting them to libertarianism specifically.

Finding the answer to this problem may seem difficult, but we can actually look towards opposing groups such as the Democratic Socialists of America for answers. After the first election of Donald Trump, the DSA spiked from 5,000 members to nearly 125,000 and has since stabilized at around 51,000. The DSA currently maintains over 200 regular chapters and over 100 YDSA chapters at various college campuses, and they regularly involve themselves in their communities and in activism at levels unprecedented when compared to libertarians. While correlation may not always equal causation, it would not be controversial in the slightest to say that community involvement and rally organization play a pivotal role in attracting members. If I may briefly draw from a local observation, taking a look at the calendars of the various Libertarian Party groups in the counties near me, most events appear to be private discussions or debates behind closed doors, rather than actually reaching out to the community. I would argue that most Libertarian circles, while usually welcoming to outsiders, operate under the hopes that people will come to them, rather than actually trying to get out there and convince people themselves.

It must also be recognized that the two party system purposefully operates with simplistic ideologies. One side plays to the compassion of the egalitarian individual, while the other wishes to appeal to the moral law voters of the right wing. The ideologies do not need much explaining beyond “making it fair for everyone” or “making America strong” whereas libertarianism, being a far more in-depth ideology, requires at least a foundational understanding of natural law theory and economics. The average American doesn’t get their political views from reading theory, which is why the current strategy of providing free literature offered by the Mises Institute- for which I am eternally grateful, given the high cost of books- will not provide us with the numbers we need to make a difference. Americans aren’t attracted to dense treatises on theory, yet they are desperate for change, so how do we convince them?

I believe that the solution to this problem is the creation and exportation of a libertarian culture. The socialists have such a high approval rating among young adults because these young adults see it in their everyday lives, and believe in the impact of it. From Hollywood to social media to in-person events, the progressive mindset has become such a pivotal part of contemporary culture that it can passively convert almost half of my generation. There once was a time (ironically, when much of the country was up in arms over supposed communists in the film industry) that rugged individualism and anti-collectivist sentiment were a regular theme of entertainment media, from John Wayne western movies to later patriotic films such as Red Dawn. Even music artists involved themselves, like country singer Marty Robbins with his song “Ain’t I Right”, a rabidly anti-communist ballad which has received some attention in recent years.

However, now the collectivist statists make up not only our intellectual class in universities, politics, and the sciences, but they also take up the arts and entertainment industry. Every day, we consume this media through sites like X, Instagram, YouTube, and Spotify. User-generated content which espouses socialist or liberal ideals is a common find online, and resonates deeply with the younger generations. If we intend to see the success in creating a voter base necessary to do as the socialists have done- electing a DSA-affiliated mayor of NYC, for example- we have to take back the entertainment industry. With every new release, they continue to tighten their grip on American policy and opinions, and this will not stop until we fight on this battlefield as well. There are so many works we could turn into cinematic masterpieces or hit TV shows, from Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress to a faithful adaptation of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. We need not always be explicitly libertarian; often, the most effective stories subtextually frame their political goal, generally espoused under the surface or through the overarching moral of the story in their works, be it literature, films, TV, games, or documentaries.

Many nominal libertarians appear to be in line with the thought process that if we simply work with the GOP, a party which has long since abandoned any pretext of supporting limited government, we can use them to get political leverage. In reality, the exact opposite is true. The GOP intends to use us, the 730,000+ registered Libertarian Party voters, as the edge they need to win more seats. You may think they’re willing to compromise and that it could help us, but in the end, all it does is give them more power and further dilute the actual message of our ideology, as does letting anyone identify as a libertarian. When we start letting people who are blatantly Republican or Democrat call themselves libertarian, it allows them to shield themselves from standard criticism directed at their party, and changes what libertarianism is actually about by letting them flood in and use the movement for their own ends. We cannot let this happen, which means that we cannot simply use conservative culture as our own libertarian culture, nor can we adopt the “big tent” definition of libertarianism. A win for libertarianism cannot merely be in name only. Although considered dead by some, the Dallas Accords quite clearly set out what libertarians are, yet we’ve been letting in people who hardly even scratch the surface of that definition.

While the task of creating and exporting a libertarian culture may seem daunting, we can take comfort in the fact that 11% of Americans identify as libertarian-leaning. In 2020, Jo Jorgensen won over 1.8 million votes, which came to 1.18% of the United States population at the time. Think about it this way- if the US population is approximately 340 million people, of which 11% supposedly identify themselves as libertarians, this gives us over 37 million potential voters. So many of them, however, are locked behind the fact that they see us as a dead-end party, a wasted vote. Despite this, 1.8 million were willing to “waste” their vote on Jorgensen. If we establish ourselves as a serious ideology via the exporting of a libertarian culture and a focus on local-level politics and community interaction, we can exponentially improve this number. We may not win the presidential elections immediately, but if 10 million people voted Libertarian, we would see unprecedented attention during the next election, and this number would grow even more as people became more comfortable with both aligning with our views and actually voting for us on the state and federal levels.

So how do we begin our cultural revolution? If I were to give you any advice, it would be to organize. If you aren’t a member of your local Libertarian Party branch, join it. Propose new ideas, commit to rallies and volunteer work, and promote the voluntary, community-based social net rather than the state-enforced one. Educate people in ways that they will understand, and that will leave them wanting more. If you have a talent for art, writing, acting, singing, or anything else of that sort, use it for the movement. Make your voice heard and help spread the word through the mass media apparatus at our disposal. Stop pandering to the right and the left, pander to the next generation of voters, my generation, which is the one that can lead us to this victory. Don’t spend your vote on the “lesser of two evils” under the impression that it changes anything, spend it on the candidate you actually care about. If you’re a statesman, run for local office. If you can’t do any of these things, just spread the word. Even simple things like teaching time preference make a huge difference. Together, we can bring about the change that is needed. America was built on individualism and liberty- it’s time to bring that back.