Three days ago, the prominent liberal YouTuber Sargon of Akkad released a video entitled 2018: What We Can Do, wherein he announced his plans form a new political movement. He said that he got a response from somebody about the debate he had prior to that with Richard Spencer and Millennial Woes on Andy Warski's podcast last week, and he decided that he felt that this was a loss for him, and that the primary reason he is starting the Liberalist movement was because he felt he needed to position himself as the leader of a movement because his critics kept saying that he should.
Anyways, not long after that, his friend Louis Le Vau hosted a livestream between himself, Sargon and professional shitposter Mister Metokur to discuss the Liberalist movement. In my opinion, that stream was a complete and utter disaster.
I'll try to keep my assessment of this stream short before I move on to my criticisms of the Liberalists, which was the main point of this post, so I'll be brief which each point. The first problem I saw is that Sargon wasn't even on the stream until about 20 minutes in. He was in the chat talking Louis and Metokur, and his initial absence led to Metokur suspecting that Sargon had Louis speak on his behalf rather than try to speak directly to him. The second problem is that Metokur floored Sargon and Louis on almost every point, and they were unable to answer him on the question how their new movement differs from conservatism since both movements fundamentally agree on things like property rights, but they had trouble acknowledging it. Metokur had Sargon pinned right down to the very reason why he started the movement, because he knows that Sargon is doing this to prove the alt-right wrong (as we'll discuss much further a little later) The third problem is just the incessant, autistic moralizing about it, and in my opinion Louis Le Vau is the most guilty of this; he often accused Mister Metokur of running from his "responsibilities". What responsibilities? Being a leader of a movement that was, let's face it, a disparate collection of gamers frustrated with the games industry, press and the political correctness they imbibe in, which he left because he decided that people were only using it to make money? Both Sargon and Louis tried to hit Metokur with the notion that people in GamerGate expected Metokur to be a leader, which Metokur easily brushes off by pointing out that they were wrong to do so. The fourth problem, quite frankly, is that they were arguing with someone who did nothing more than joke about the Liberalist movement on Twitter, and they take getting mocked way too seriously.
After seeing that train wreck of a stream, I decided to break my malaise regarding video content and post a video titled FAO Sargon, where I try to warn Sargon away from going down the path of pretension and excessive ego inflation. And then I saw the Liberalist Principles stream he had with Louis, Vee, Scrump, Rags, King Crocoduck, Uzalu and Friended. And, quite frankly, it was shit. While the principles being discussed were mostly acceptable or good, the stream was, by and large, a circle jerk consisting of people who were more interested in the fact that they thought were doing something than run a movement properly. It's only been three days since the Liberalist idea was brought to the table, and already it looks like this movement is going to flop.
And with that said, we can now move on to my main criticisms of this new Liberalist initiative, based largely on what I saw on the stream.
The name
I know this is going to seem like a tired point, but I think it is worth mentioning. The name just sounds lazy. It's just Liberal with ist at the end, or Liberalism with an ist at the end of it instead of ism. Fox from the West even suggested that it could refer to "liberal autists"as a form of mockery. And the way the Liberalists justify the name is a little hollow. They say Liberalist refers to liberal (or rather classical liberal) activists, but come on. Conservative activists don't call themselves Conservativists, do they? Just conservatives. The name isn't even all that original, Sargon admits that he borrowed the term from an American Thinker article dated to 2011. One of the comments that Sargon covered in a later video on The Thinkery said that a better name for the movement would be Alternative Liberals, or Alt-Liberals, but he doesn't prefer it. I can only guess that he thinks the label is too similar to the name Alt-Right, but it's definitely a better name than Liberalist. I understand that you want to separate your movement from the modern usage of the word liberal, and I wholeheartedly agree with basic idea of creating something separate from modern liberalism, but they could have come up with a better name. If anything, I think Alternative Liberals would probably have been the best possible name for this movement because of the fact that its proponents represent an alternative form of liberalism from the modern form of liberalism currently present in mainstream politics.
But, to be honest, the name is actually the least of our worries.
The Liberalists don't agree on freedom of speech
When Uzalu joined the stream, he said that "I don't say freedom of speech I say freedom of expression, because we're targeting political ideas and artistic expression.", which is the dumbest thing you can say if you're a liberal. Actually I think it's extremely dumb on its own. Somewhere around this time they get into a disagreement regarding whether or not you should be able to run as, say, a communist in a democratic society. Uzalu thought that communists should be banned because they want to turn democracy into communism, while Scrump and others thought they should be allowed to run on the basis that democracy should allow anyone to be able to run for political office, even those who want to overturn democracy itself, because the whole point is the ability to change the system through political means. But the whole problem is that they can't seem to agree on the free speech issue because Uzalu wants to be ambiguous with the terms. He does the same thing with equality of opportunity, he thinks the concept is ambiguous, and Crocoduck says "how about nobody will be prevented by the circumstances of their birth from the pursuit of happiness", which literally all equality of opportunity should mean in the fucking first place! I'm not kidding. How does a liberal movement fuck up its own basic ideas with such pedantry?
They want to form a political party, but they won't admit it
At some point in the stream Rags suggests that the Liberalists should consider disavowing people in the movement who violate the core principles, Sargon also suggests having a code of conduct for events set up for the Liberalist movement, and this whole stream was intended as just a way to the solidify core political principles of the movement. Kind of like, you know, a political party. Now, don't get the wrong idea here: I'm not against that. If Sargon wants to form a political party, he can. In fact, you could make the argument that perhaps he should. But the problem is that for some reason he and his friends are unwilling to invoke the prospect of being an actual political party, even though they seem to be discussing the key elements of one. In fact, Sargon trying to form core principles of a wider movement could be considered in itself a feature consistent with the aim of forming a political party. I wonder if they'll talk about organization an another stream and then I start seeing other aspects of it. But they want you to think that they're just spitballing ideas here.
The Liberalists keep talking about the alt-right like they're a big deal
What's one thing I said Sargon should do in my video? Ignore the alt-right. But what does he do? He keeps talking about the alt-right. He even tries to dismiss criticism by saying most of his critics are just alt-right, which, I have to be honest, sounds like the language of the very people he's supposed to be fighting (hint hint, wink wink, the "All my critics are Nazis crowd"?). In fact, after the stream, he spent an entire video on The Thinkery going through critical comments from the Liberalist stream, just wasting time picking apart comments from mostly alt-right users trying to own them, but that just makes him look like he's doubling down. What's funny about this is that he keeps saying the alt-right are weak, desperate and irrelevant, but in the same breath he spends almost thirty minutes giving them attention. In the process, he's allowing himself to be baited by some fucking idiots on the YouTube comments section. He even claims that the critical comments he gets from the alt-right are part of a /pol/ operation to smear him because they feel threatened by him, for some reason, even though as he said they're an irrelevant movement. I get a weird Clintonesque vibe from this stunt. I mean think about it: where else have somebody talk about a group of autists from who are toothless and incapable of garnering political capital but at the same are also out to get him...or her? Hmmm, I wonder where I've heard it before.
Oh well.
Uzalu also seems overly concerned about the alt-right. In fact, he admits that some of his arguments come from him having to deal with the alt-right, as if he's almost trying to satisfy them, when it shouldn't be the Liberalists' business to satisfy the concerns of the alt-right if they're so opposed to them. It's like he's being underhanded with the way he goes about the basic principles of liberalism in order to compromise with the alt-right and their criticisms of democracy. And I swear, Uzalu kept trying to tell Sargon to go after the alt-right like they were a problem or even a threat to the alt-right. After looking like an idiot because of it and getting turned into fodder for shitty memes. Ironically, most of the people on the stream seem convinced that the alt-right will never win. Even Uzalu thinks it's not hard to make them look stupid, which is weird given why he'd be so concerned about them. If anything, the Liberalists aren't sure if the alt-right are even a threat. But they keep talking about them like they are, and I fear this will lead to what another autistic crusade against the alt-right just like Kraut and Tea (in which case I can only hope there will be no plots to dox anyone this time).
Sargon has no real plan
This is arguably my biggest gripe with this whole thing. At one point in the stream Scrump asks Sargon how he intends to reach out to people who are outside of their political circle. Sargon responds by saying "there's loads of ways", but when Scrump asked him to give any examples he said "I don't know". Louis pretty much saved him by saying "share shit on Facebook, there you go". This is pretty basic shit, and he didn't know that? Sargon says he's thought about this for a long time, and he doesn't even know how to reach out to outsiders, and his friend has to save him with the most basic shit that he could otherwise have come up with himself. But that wasn't the end of it. Later on, Vee asks Sargon "Where are you planning on taking this? Is it just a website or is there more to it?", and Sargon just said "I don't know".
Put simply, Sargon of Akkad has no idea what he's doing with this movement. He hasn't thought everything through yet, and he has to discuss how the basic principles of the movement will form in a circle jerk with his friends. Sadly, Uzalu was the guy who challenged him and his friends the most, and he still had his head up his ass. If this were more well thought out, he would have announced the core principles on his own, he wouldn't need a two hour stream to do it because he is more than capable of making an argument for liberalism, and he would have had a much clearer idea of how to organize this movement. But sadly, this is not the case, and to me it's obvious why that is: it's because Sargon is doing this to prove people like Coach Red Pill and the alt-right that he's a leader. And for all that, his critics still dislike him for it. The alt-right try to claim that he has either embraced collectivism or that he is being hypocritical, other right wingers just dismiss the Liberalists as being another form of the Justice Democrats (Kyle Kulinski's lame attempt to reform the Democratic Party by kicking out the neoliberals but keeping the identity politics and everything else that sucks about the left) and everyone is just pointing out that Sargon is being full of himself. It's the whole reason Mister Metokur felt inclined to mock the Liberalist idea to begin with.
If as Sargon said the whole point was just to come with a name for something, the effort isn't even necessary. He could have just announced that he would be calling himself an Alternative Liberal from now on as just a general ideological moniker for the ideals he already has, and just encouraged anyone else who shares his political views to take up the moniker as well. But you wanted more than that, except for when you say you don't.
The Liberalists dismiss any criticism about how they're going about the movement
Let's be honest: most of the criticism leveled at the movement doesn't really have anything to do with the movement's actual principles, other than the way some people try to say that Sargon is embracing collectivism by forming a group, and is instead focused on how Sargon and the Liberalists are comporting themselves so far. This is true of me as well. I don't have a problem with most of the principles, and I'm inclined to support the basic idea of what Sargon wants. But what I do have a problem with is how pretentious Sargon comes across as, how he's falling into the trap set up by his critics in the alt-right, and the way that the Liberalists seem to be handling this kind of criticism. They refuse to deal with this in any way other than just dismissing them as just having an aversion to them doing something. It reminds me of when Metallica released that album Lulu with Lou Reed, the fans hated it, and all James Hetfield could say was basically "if you don't like it that you're just living in your mom's basement". I'm not kidding. Scrump and Rags actually accused the critics of not liking the idea because "it involves leaving the bedroom and actually doing something". How arrogant, pretentious and full of yourselves can you be? I can see why Sargon might be in danger of falling for this, but Scrump? What on Earth possessed such a mischievous shitposter to fall for such pretentiousness?
Uzalu's attempt to address the accusations of cringe by saying "ask yourself, what are you measuring when you say cringe?". They all agree with each other in deciding to ignore it because it's an emotional argument rather than a logical one. That to me is a sign that the Liberalists just don't get it. What is cringey is not the actual principles of the movement. What is cringey is that it's a bunch of YouTube content creators who want to be more than that, think they are so enlightened, are absorbed by their own hype or that of a greater political cause, and will belittle you if you criticize them. That is the reason why people think it's cringey. Even worse, like I said before, Sargon doubles down on this mentality through such sarcastic comments as "making manifestos is cringe", "doing things is such cringe", and then acts like a 6 minute fucking manifesto video done by the alt-right, and every other political hangout, is the same thing, just to belittle his critics.
The stream was ultimately unnecessary
If you're going to start a movement, you should get a clear set of principles down as soon as possible, not just get a sense of "broad goals" down on a stream where you can't even agree on one of the most important concepts of liberal societies, if not the most important. All the time spent going through the basic principles of the Liberalist movement on a stream could have been saved by just writing a manifesto of the core political principles that it embodies, and then publishing a video where you yourself go through the manifesto and explain it to anyone watching the video. That's all you needed, and I believe Sargon is capable of writing a clear manifesto outling the Liberalist political agenda. But for some reason he needed to do that with his friends and an audience, so they can sniff their own farts and talk about how they're all doing something and they're critics are just scared of doing things. And returning to the previous point, this is why people think it's so gay! Because it seems like an attempt to grab attention, Sargon thinks that it isn't.
In conclusion, I have said many times that actions, and how you comport yourself to the public, ultimately matter more than your arguments in the realm of political activism and the path to political power. And that's not me talking out of my ass either: it's the ninth law of Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power. People are going to be more convinced by the way the movement carries itself in public than what they say. Sargon, I would have thought, would have known this, but it seems that he doesn't realize this. He thinks of himself as more than a content creator, a man driven to do something that he does not want to do but must be done by the very people who he should be ignoring. That will be his own undoing.