ReviewBrah -- how to set the tone for change

[ClaytonB]

ReviewBrah is a popular YouTube reviewer of fast-food menu items. His dry humor and his buttoned-down persona have fueled an enormous following of nearly 3 million subscribers with many millions of views per month. Now, I don't believe that ReviewBrah is on a mission to "change the fast-food industry", however, there can be no doubt that he truly has a megaphone in that space and that the established chains ignore his reviews to their peril. Any wise marketing department at a fast-food chain would be main-lining his reviews as they are pure marketing (and even product-development and operations) gold.

I'm including this video here to talk about tone in fostering social change. Listen to this latest review on Taco Bell and some of its failings:



Notice:

- His tone is even and rational. He is not losing his cool. He is not ranting or venting. Neither is he a dead robot, he cares about receiving good service, but he is not rage-flipping the desk, either. We might even say that he exhibits patience in calmly ordering from four separate locations instead of nuking them for their first, second or even third failure.

- His commentary is fact-driven. He gives a clear and concise narration of events, as they happened. He does not use adjectives to pile on additional "badness" onto Taco Bell's failings, he simply allows those failures to speak for themselves.

- He places the failures of Taco Bell in the context of a wider pattern of failures and quality issues. He is not attacking the Taco Bell brand because he's had one bad experience with one menu item. In fact, he is not attacking the brand at all and we can hear from his tone that he wants Taco Bell to succeed, but he is lamenting that they will not succeed so long as they continue to tolerate these massive quality problems.

Now, compare this tone with the tone of a lot of libertarian social commentary about the government. Yes, I realize that the government is not Taco Bell and that the government is not subject to market discipline and doesn't "have to" listen to the complaints of citizens at the risk of bankruptcy/collapse, as private companies do. But this post isn't about that particular snafu, it's about tone.

If you are ever going to be heard by elected officials, or the public-at-large, then you're going to have to hit the right tone. ReviewBrah is not having an existential crisis because his Taco Bell orders didn't go through. His "customer rights" are not being "violated". He's not on the verge of taking up arms and going to down to shoot up Taco Bell. He's not going to start an anti-Taco Bell civil war. And so on, and so forth. ReviewBrah is centered, he is untouchable, he is above the fray, he cannot be moved by any failure of Taco Bell or any other fast-food chain. That tone is precisely what gives his megaphone so much reach; his language is not exuding powerlessness and desperation.

While there is nothing wrong with calmly discussing natural and civil rights and how important those are to a well-ordered government, the fact is that most "my rights"-language exudes a tone of desperation and powerlessness. It's the bullied kid threatening to tell the Principal on his bullies... one of whom happens to be the Principal's son, so what a laughable threat that is! "OK, fine, what are we supposed to do?" Well, depending on the specific circumstances of your local government, parties, etc, there might not be anything you can do in the short-term. But that's the point of the video above -- ReviewBrah can't "force" Taco Bell to change, he can't "force" them to deliver the items they advertise, but he's not having an existential crisis over it. He's calmly acknowledging the absurdity of the situation and then he's doing something very ingenious.

Notice how he chastises Taco Bell. He does not say, "Taco Bell, you really need to clean up your act and get your $#@! together or you're going to go bankrupt." Instead, he begins a sequence of common-sense questions. "Have you guys noticed this?" "I wonder what's going on at Taco Bell? Why are they having these logistical problems when other fast-food chains are able to deliver the items they advertise on their menus?" And so on. He even goes on to review another Taco Bell item. So, this is not some kind of tirade or attack on them, it's structured primarily in the form of questions, and these are not clever debate-club questions designed to "set up" and "trap" a "debate opponent", they're just common-sense questions that even a child would ask.

So, to apply this to libertarian strategy, we need to think about how to change our tone and structure our criticisms not as verbal threats ("change or else"), direct attacks ("you're horrible and evil!"), or even as debate traps, ("If you're so legitimate, then why did you do XYZ?"), rather, as child-like questions, carefully chosen to get to the heart of the real substance of the issue.

The fact is that the State is a criminal gang. But regardless, the other fact is that most people are so far from being able to understand the criminal nature of the State that even a fact-filled presentation of the State's unspeakable crimes -- complete with names, times, dates, places, etc. -- is not going to reach the ordinary person. The reason for this is that most people acquiesce to the State's ultimate fall-back argument for its legitimacy: if we're so wrong, then how come the Universe (or God or whatever) has permitted us to be in power? If you believe in evolution, then their ultimate fall-back argument is evolutionary: we are on top because that's how things evolved. If you believe in God, their ultimate fall-back argument is a variant of the divine-right-of-kings: God allowed us to be on top, and that proves that we're the rightful rulers. It has been a surprise to me to learn that this is, in fact, how most people really reason about politics in the closet of their mind, regardless of what they may say with their lips in polite society. And the #1 failure of libertarian messaging in reaching people is our failure to understand that fact about people. Tone is everything. Screaming to the Principal about how his son and gang keeps beating you up on recess will do you no good whatsoever, in fact, it just ensures you remain the zeta-wolf.

Here are some specific changes that libertarians need to make in order to increase their social and political reach and influence:

- Avoid hyperbolic language, avoid edge-lording, avoid inflammatory social commentary. Don't use adjectives when you can avoid them. "There are questions about the 2020 election, particularly in swing districts in swing states" is far superior to "The 2020 election was stolen by an evil cabal of globalist elitists!"

- Stick to the facts. Avoid the urge to go from the "IF" to the "THEN". Just state the facts and let people make the connection on their own... this is always a more powerful way for people to have an epiphany, anyway. If the State does criminal things, then the State is a criminal. Stick to the first half of that sentence only. "Here are the facts about the 2020 election that have given rise to questions in many people's minds about what really happened."

- Try to frame social and political criticism in the form of the innocent question. "Why doesn't the emperor have any clothes on?" is a far more effective social critique than, "Look at that fool! He thinks he's clothed but he's actually naked! HAHAHA!"

- On that note, while humor is an extremely powerful weapon for destroying social and political follies, it must be used with a light touch. Love him or hate him, Trump was an absolute mastermind at the correct application of humor and wit to the social and political spheres. When he could highlight someone's folly without directly mocking them, he would do so. The press-conference showdown between him and Jim Acosta is just one example of this in action, or the many swipes he took at Hillary on the debate stage. Probably less than one in a million people have the necessary skills to pull off that balance, so most libertarians should assume they don't have that level of skill. Mocking your enemy is an investment into him, it proves you care. Once again, this breaks tone because it signals obsession and desperation -- powerlessness. Using humor without signaling weakness is an extremely rare skill and the vast majority of commentators don't have the chops to pull it off.

- "Keep it 100" as the kids say nowadays. Meaning, stay humble, don't aggrandize your knowledge of facts and arguments. You may understand the conclusions of many libertarian arguments which you do not fully understand how to argue from first principles. Be ready and able to acknowledge you don't know the answer to a question and that you'll follow up. A lot of comment-threads start out with something like, "Free market principles are the best way to help the poorest in society" -- a true claim -- and when that claim is challenged by a leftist by questioning it from first-principles, the OP commenter doesn't know how to rebut/refute that question, and then the discussion goes off the rails from there. So, we often end up discrediting our own legitimate, true beliefs because we ourselves don't yet fully understand how to argue them from first-principles. That's OK, not everyone can be an academic Austrian economist, but it's better to say, "I don't know the answer to your question, let me look it up and get back to you" than to run off into the weeds with egotistical nonsense in a futile endeavor to save face.

Tone is crucial. Without getting the right tone, the libertarian movement will never be able to rise out of the less-than-1% margin of politics. This is one of the reasons why the GOP establishment is so damn smug and tramples over the libertarian movement like the Principal's son giving us another collective swirlie. They know you don't stand the slightest chance of challenging them so long as you keep screaming about how "my rights" are "being violated" and "this better change" or "there's going to be another civil war." That's precisely where they want to keep you, running to the Principal in futility, screaming something-something about his kid keeps beating you up. Yeah, whatever kiddo, run along now, here's a lollipop, and don't be late for class.