571: Messaging Matters - Where's the Line Between Bold Messaging vs. Toxic Messaging?

Brian Nichols 0:02

focusing on winning arguments we're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and marketing and how we can use them to win in the world of politics teaching you how to meet people where they're at on the issues they care about. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. Well happy Friday they're blind liberal show I am today we are in store for another fun episode we know it you love Friday we're gonna have some fun today before we go ahead and have some fun talking about libertarian messaging up in New Hampshire and all fun things New Hampshire with a US civic and a want to go ahead and yes for one official last time and that is a shout out to today's sponsor and that is the expat money show. Now while the expat money show is going away as our sponsor after the past three months, that does not mean that the mission that the expat money show is bringing to the table is done because we have an amazing event taking place in November we're going to talk about but before we get there, I gotta get you interested in the expat money show because our good friend McHale Thorpe he's gonna help you protect the money you work so hard to earn from ambulance chasing lawyers, nefarious creditors and greedy unjust governments because he helps people just like you invest internationally secure second passports and residencies eliminate that tax bill and take advantage of offshore structures so you can travel the world freely and never have to worry about money again and I mentioned it Yes. Over at the expat money show not only are going to have years of experience brought to you every single episode from our buddy ex expat yes leader McHale thorough but also, you can head over the Brian Nichols show.com forward slash expat join McHale and amazing speakers across the board in the world of expatriation over at the expat money summit November 7 through November 11. Five days 30 expert speakers amongst them the one and only Congressman Ron Paul. And guys I will be talking about this in depth next month with McHale he's gonna be joining us here at the end of September as we get closer to November but I just gotta give you a heads up. There are limited spots for this virtual Summit. So please head over to the Brian Nichols show.com. Forward slash expat and get your tickets today. All right, folks. So it's Friday. Of course, it would not be a fun Friday without some controversy taking place in the world of libertarian politics. Heck, let's go ahead and talk about it. Joining me on the show today. Jeremy Kaufman, he's joining us from the Free State of New Hampshire. Jeremy, welcome. The Brian Nichols Show

Jeremy Kauffman 2:24

is great to be here. I'm not sure I've had the press talk about me or libertarianism from so many different angles, and so many different outlets in one week. So yeah, what a week.

Brian Nichols 2:39

Welcome back to the show, my friend. Yeah. So you're obviously a very noted figure across libertarian, but also in the entrepreneurial space, worlds. Let's talk first you are the head of library and Odyssey which are helping lead the fight to allow us to continue to communicate freely on the internet. And I'm

Jeremy Kauffman 2:57

not the head of Odyssey currently I was involved in obviously, but I'm not the kind of just to be clear about that. But yes, yeah.

Brian Nichols 3:05

And then on the political side, you are running for US Senate as a big L libertarian up in New Hampshire. And now we just had Bruce Fenton on the program. He's one of the I think it was like nine or so Republicans who are primary being up there. The the is it the incumbent that you're currently going, is he going against? It's someone up there is it basically a rhino

Jeremy Kauffman 3:23

right? No, it's a Democrat. Oh, shoot, really?

Brian Nichols 3:27

Who's the Democrat? I forget. Maggie, Hossam. Oh, I thought she was a Republican. Well, I mean, that wasn't, by the way.

Jeremy Kauffman 3:37

That was it. It's funny, because she was she is like one of the more centrist Democrats. I mean, Democrats still vote with Democrats at the end of the day. So she's so she's certainly, I'm not trying to say she's anyway, good. They're all terrible. But she is like she did have she went down and did a border wall ad to tell you about where she's at, in terms of how she thinks she can win this election.

Brian Nichols 3:57

She could have gone out to the Canadian border and had fun up there. But then she'd just be stopping drug smugglers and poutine. So So

Jeremy Kauffman 4:03

that's like laughing Yes. Because because she does, she does. She does try to act like one of the times we present ourselves like what she thinks that's the way to do it.

Brian Nichols 4:10

So you're running obviously, as the foil there as a big L libertarian, and I love if you could cuz you've been on the show a couple of times, and the audience we've grown since you were last in the show. So there's a lot of new folks here in the audience. So first, let's kind of give you a chance to reintroduce yourself to The Brian Nichols Show audience. What's kind of been your path here, this liberty movement and where you find yourself today, not just now running for office as a big ol libertarian, but also having quite a big influence in the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire politics.

Jeremy Kauffman 4:37

Yeah, well, honestly, I'm very excited about the future of the LP and where we're going and everything that's been going on within the Libertarian Party, but if I'm being honest, that in terms of me and my involvement, like I've got that like around third, like your free state is libertarian wise, like politically, like that's my biggest thing I think That's a way for libertarians to, you know, actually, when I think my campaign here can make a difference in New Hampshire can have an impact. It's a part of that it's playing a role in that. But the real strategy for libertarians is this libertarian concentration strategy. And then also my work, which, while is valuable to people, regardless of their political persuasion, is probably the most important thing that you know, I'm doing in the libertarian that still, you know, in that libertarian sphere, right, that's not like my personal life. So I think that, you know, the this, there's a lot of attention paid. There's a lot of this drama around the various Libertarian Party, you know, messaging stuff, but if you're a libertarian, if you're a libertarian, if you're in the Libertarian Party, like the things that I've been doing with, with my work, that's a real libertarian effort, right, that's helping keep keep people on line at a time when even our our heroes, your Ron Paul, Tom woods, people that were, you know, adjacent, but putting out a message, you know, Dr. Robert Malone, Brett Weinstein, these were all these people were getting censored. We were the people who were helping keep these people online and available. And, you know, press is paying me and the company has extremists for doing it. I mean, it's, it's upside down. But this is this is something some of the messaging stuff can be divisive. I mean, this is something that should be universal, right? Like we This isn't something that libertarians should be divided on. This is a good thing that these people are allowed to be, you know, out there and still speaking and communicate.

Brian Nichols 6:39

Yeah. Oh, and let's, um, I mean, heck, you mentioned the divisive stuff. Let's go to the fun topics. Because oh my gosh, if you were to head over to Twitter, you would swear the libertarian libertarian world was on fire. So really quickly, I am going to share my screen here on this is over on is LP NH Libertarian Party of New Hampshire, the official page up in New Hampshire, Happy Holidays picture of McCain, Meghan McCain crying at her father's casket, this has set the world on fire. Now, I tweeted earlier today that there is a difference between bold messaging and toxic messaging. I think this is more towards the toxic approach to messaging versus and I want to share an alternative video. Now this is something I think is phenomenal messaging. This is something that Jeremy you did over for your campaign. This was when you were you're looking to raise

Jeremy Kauffman 7:33

some awareness. But Brian up to this, I want to be clear, he didn't know this was

Brian Nichols 7:37

part of the stick for today. So this is an ad. It's 57 seconds. By the way, folks, if you want to check the video of this guy next, you're checking us out here on YouTube. And of course over on Odyssey Take a listen.

Jeremy Kauffman 7:55

They say to dress for the job you want, not the job you have. And I want to become a lizard person. I would like to rule you. I'd like to lie to your face, and then do something else because it benefits me. I would like to be as corrupt as possible. I would like to enrich myself and then tell you it's for your own benefit. I'm Jeremy Kaufman and I'm running for US Senate I'm serious.

Brian Nichols 8:35

Like that's that's absolute gold. And the reason I want to show that as a foil is because what that ad did is it made me smile. It made me laugh. It made me feel good. It made me really laugh at the ridiculousness of you dressing in the lizard costume but identifying the reality of yeah, there are people in DC who could not give a crap about you and you're doing so tongue in cheek versus what just fell as an obvious approach to just toss bombs, ruffle some feathers and make people upset cause some some strife in the ranks. And I don't find that to be maybe as successful. So Jeremy talked to me we have two different approaches A to A to marketing here what's your what your gut telling you for maybe a better approach?

Jeremy Kauffman 9:22

So thank you and I don't mean to immediately jump to a tangent but beat a horse but just to show how the how the press will cover libertarians when they're in this Reuters article. Which front page of Reuters. Yeah, they said they described that as a bizarre ad that appeared to endorse a conspiracy theory. And they just and all they did was put a picture of it, right? They didn't they didn't let you play it and decide for yourself right. They said that Kaufmann appeared in a bizarre ad that reference to conspiracy theory.

Brian Nichols 9:54

And it was it wasn't bizarre and if we're gonna get

Jeremy Kauffman 9:57

Okay, fine, but like just the way that they the way that they talked about it, right, like they talked about it in a way that was basically like, you know, discouraging you from even interacting

Brian Nichols 10:09

with now worth the time of day to watch. Yeah,

Jeremy Kauffman 10:13

I agree with you, of course, I think it's I think it's funny, I think it's a great add, I think a lot of people get it. And I think it's, I think it's a message that can work. What I'll say is that like, that we're a small team of people. Here in the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire, it's a team of people to Team people that work on the ads, it's a team of people that do the tweets, it's not all the same people, but there's a bunch of us that are involved here. But you know, like, it's a pretty improvisational kind of thing. And this is all that we have. Because we're, you know, whenever Well, we're not going to get the press, you know, to give us any kind of fair shake, you know, we don't have the money to flood the market with with ads, social media is our best chance to, to get the message out there in an in an effective way. effective in terms of like, accomplishable, with the resources that we have. But I think that like we do, you know, let's, let's, let's take it as a given, although this is not my actual position. But let's take it as a given that. Pete did that tweet is that people didn't like that one. There's other ones that help you he has done that people didn't like, there's tweets that other LP affiliates have done, that I don't like, there's, there's LP, and he tweets that other people don't get he that I don't love, if I'm being completely honest about it. But let's, but let's talk about this kind of thing, because you're how do we deal with this? Because the idea that there's any kinds of rules in terms of how this outrage works, that it's not selective and not politically motivated? Like, it's obviously completely fake? Right. Like, here in New Hampshire, we've had Democrats literally elected Democrats say absolutely insane. stuff, like extermination type, you know, type language that we're, like, I'm trying to remember all some of the exact phrasing that they've used, but stuff that you couldn't say about literally anyone, or any group, you know, encouraging, encouraging violence, encouraging things that are like insane, right? And no one that's not, no one's going to pay attention to it. So it's not like there's any kind of consistent principle here. It's used in a one way, kind of of street. And I don't I don't believe that, this this sort of like these people, you know, taking, taking offense in this way. I don't believe that there's actually some substantial contingent of these people who are out there, like gasping Oh, I'm never gonna vote libertarian. Now. I don't I don't believe that those people were, you know, we're going to be so I think that there's, there's going to be some misses the way that we've got to do this kind of thing, which is this bottom up experimental messaging, trying to figure out what can go viral on on social media. So we've got to we've got to have a way of dealing with this and being like, well, you know, like, yeah, that one. Yeah, that one wasn't the greatest but like this is it's every every message put out by every affiliate or put out by every libertarian or every candidate running for office. Like we can't, we obviously can't all be responsible for everything that every other candidate, or you know, or affiliate says. And this, like this one, this one is not some kind of universal principle that you can't mock people who are dead people, mock people are dead all the time. I believe that this image has been tweeted multiple times in the past, not even by LPNs, but by other groups or other things. And it never generated this kind of controversy before. So I think it's all kind of fake, to be honest.

Brian Nichols 14:39

Okay, I have made this easier done. So I guess my two cents I just I don't feel it. Like what let me let me give my opinion by asking the question. What was the goal of this tweet, and I know you we weren't the author for this. But like, if, if we were to ask just across the board, like before we hit the send button What is the goal to go viral? Because we're causing outrage? Or is it to actually change people's hearts and minds? Like it's one thing to show the impacts of a McCain bloodsoaked foreign policy. And to go after that, I think 100%. But I don't find this to be as effective in accomplishing the goal of getting more people on our side. So I guess going back to my question, like, what was the goal? was the goal to ruffle feathers? Or to actually get people be like, Hmm, maybe I should consider libertarian, non interventionist foreign policy? You know, I mean,

Jeremy Kauffman 15:37

yeah, well, to be clear, I have no comment on whether or not I did the actual tweet, your LP nature stance is that we're not, you know, we're not disclosing or talking about that kind of thing. So, but the, in terms of why you're, you're doing these kinds of things, I think, with ones that are in this in this category, right, I think you are trying to skirt align with a message that a lot of people would actually agree with, which in this case, I suppose would be something like, these people are, like, horrible and evil, and it's okay to, you know, like, mock them and laugh at them and treat them with absolutely no respect, you know, whatsoever. That they're, you know, and you're, you're having that deep, you know, part of your brand, you're saying that's what you, you know, would, would stand for, and hoping that that's something that other people agree with, like, you know, it's like, I there's, if you can, you can laugh and mock, you know, bin Laden, or they're looking at how people laughed, and when Margaret Thatcher died, if you want an example of how people will treat just like a fairly mainstream conservative figure. You You know, this is it's, you can say that it's, you know, macabre or whatever. But like, it's, it happens all the time. It's very normal. And so like, to me, these these people, I also think I will say, and this was perhaps a mess, like, I don't think that tweet was intended to specifically be making fun of Magan. I mean, I can't I can't speak to the minder and 10 pound or whatever. So I think like, I'm not, but I'm not certain about that. But, yeah, anyway, I think that's what it would be. And

Brian Nichols 17:42

I hate that we're having this conversation, frankly, like, I wish that we could be focusing on like, Hey, here's the amazing things that libertarians are doing for the state of New Hampshire for the state of Indiana and like, you know, just talk about that stuff versus like a controversial tweet. Like, I think if we were able to avoid a lot of our own self inflicted injuries, we would find that not only more success, but I think we'd also find it easier to build coalitions on some of the most important things. And I mean, let's use an example. Right, Courtney Angeles, is going around the country right now helping get people aware about school choice. And we want people to be on board with school choice, but they instantly have a gut reaction, because maybe back in 2008, Barbara was a, you know, more a interventionist Republican, and she liked John McCain. And well, maybe she's had a change of heart. And now she's more non interventionist. And maybe she's considering voting for a libertarian, and she gets a little weary because now she's seeing this on social media. Now is Barbara on social media. I don't know, this is definitely hypothetical. Right. But this

Jeremy Kauffman 18:44

is tricky. And this also we need to be aware of this also gets into some like New Hampshire specific stuff in terms of where, you know, New Hampshire, like, we already have a school choice bill that is quite comparable to Arizona's we already have a republican party that is nearly universally in favor of school choice. Right. So like, you know, the the actual libertarian position on schools would be, you know, either at a minimum don't fund them above the municipal level, you either abolish them entirely, or certainly no funding above the above the municipal level, right. Like why is one city paying for another city's right schooling via this higher level state mechanism? So like, we we do think, within the state of New Hampshire that like, are partially our job with the Libertarian Party is to be taking, you know, the absolutist like the pure libertarian stances. Like if we're taking the Gary Johnson stances, there's already 150 You know, Gary Johnson's right, Bruce Fenton's in the bridge, Gary Johnson lane. I think Bruce is actually a better than Gary Johnson. But first, you know, he's in that lane and So in the sort of, like, you know, the kind of thing, right, so it's like, what what I mean, what's the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire? You know, doing and I think I think one of the roles we can play within the state sort of political ecosystem is, is being, you know, is being the most libertarian. You know, voice, which I'm not saying that tweet necessarily served the purpose of or whatever. But in terms of the in terms of the this sort of how there's all this political stuff planned out. I see that as part of the role of the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire places to be that is to be this like, very loud libertarian voice that both hopefully pulls Republicans our way, creates political space for them to appear more moderate, you know, like, it's good, like, let's make school choice like, like the moderate position, right. School choice isn't the moderate position, you know. Abolition is the libertarian position. So I think there's a there's a sense in which we're trying to do that a bit, as well.

Brian Nichols 21:06

Yeah. Well, and let's um, let's talk about the the libertarian alternative for Senate up there in New Hampshire, Jeremy, you're running for office. So obviously, you are a little maybe vested in this the success of the Libertarian Party up there in New Hampshire. So talk to the voters, specifically up in the Live Free or Die state. And now we had Bruce Fenton on the program. So they're familiar with some of the issues. But as we're going towards the end of the conversation, let's kind of direct folks to specifically why you're running for office and why maybe your campaign should be a better alternative versus the GOP, or in this case, I guess, the Gary Johnson of the GOP Bruce Fenton, I don't think you'd use that name so much, Jeremy.

Jeremy Kauffman 21:44

Yeah, I wasn't trying to dig up his person, I have friends. And look, if if Bruce Fenton wins the Republican primary, you know, we'll figure out we'll, we'll we'll figure out some things. But the odds, there's decent odds, at least the betting markets, I'm not trying to say you know, that it's probably going to be someone who's who's pretty weak. So it's going to be two bad choices, it's gonna be two choices, who are going to be the Pro, honestly, both, they're both going to be pretty pro government, they're going to be terrible on the drug war. They're going to be terrible on, you know, inflation, and the Federal Reserve and sound money and separation of money and state and all these things like you'll all have the most important issues they're going to be terrible on. And I think we have the ability to make them talk about them. I think we have the ability to get ballot access for the party, I think and have already demonstrated that with some of the messaging that I've been doing. We can get, you know, national attention. You know, Brian, and this is something I'd be curious to get your opinion on seriously. That's the lizard one is probably the taste of my ads, in the sense that it's, it's really not edgy at all. No, it's It's actually gotten the least views of all five of them, I believe. And the one that's arguably the edgiest, which is war is gay. God has gotten the most that was pushing a million I believe. So I don't know, you know, what do I do with that information? Because I actually agree, I think the lizard one is the most broadly appealing at

Brian Nichols 23:25

Yeah, I mean, what to do with it. I think it's, it's, um, it's interesting data. But I would also say that you, you're still getting more data, and you're still doing more ads. So as you do more ads, they might have been just, especially at the time to write like we were going through, at that point in time, a big cultural conversation when your ad came out about a lot of the social issues that have been pushed from the left. And you know, I think that maybe it helped push your ad also up into the conversation, especially with the Biden administration, going to more of the the pro war approach at that time, too. So yeah, I mean, it might be a matter of when your ad went out and what was happening around the world. But also, I mean, yeah, to your point, there are things that we need to as libertarians be the alternative voice, not just a different voice, but truly a principal different voice that people have not heard before. And sometimes it requires us to snap them out of their slumber and whether it's making them laugh, I guess, making them upset. There's a lot of different approaches. We're seeing levelled out there. So folks, it's up to you, I guess, wherever one you're feeling has is having the most success. I guess. It's also TBD when we look at the data, but hey, I guess that's a story we're gonna find out here in very soon, especially as we're getting towards 2022 elections. So Jeremy, please, if folks want to go ahead and support you support the campaign, we're gonna go ahead and continue the conversation.

Jeremy Kauffman 24:43

So you go to my campaign website at Jeremy for an h.com all of my videos are available on both my YouTube channel and my Odyssey channel. You just put my name in quotes into search engine will come up right away. And I'm also very active on Twitter at Jeremy Kaufman on Twitter. And if I haven't said enough, come visit New Hampshire come to New Hampshire, I'm always happy to answer questions help people come up for visit, you know, this kind of thing. Like, I think people who also come up here and check out what's going on up here, they'll kind of get it a bit more. I guess things really are a lot different up here versus the rest of the country.

Brian Nichols 25:24

All right, folks, well, there's your call to action, we'll make sure we include all those links there in the show notes. Also, folks, if you want to go ahead and check things out over at Brian Nichols show.com. Well, number one, if you're on your podcast app, click the little artwork in your podcast catcher will bring you right over to the website where you can find the entire episode plus the entire transcript for the episode. And oh, by the way, you'll find our link to YouTube. Now, YouTube didn't nuke one of our videos recently, because, for reasons, we'll find out, I'm waiting to see what the appeal says. But in the meantime, obviously, folks, if you want continue to make sure that you're catching all of our amazing episodes, head over to Odyssey, give us a subscribe there as well. And also, please continue to support the programs that we keep the lights on here, head over to Patreon become a $5 supporting listener. And with that being said, Oh, thank you for an amazing week of episodes. We've had five amazing guests this week ending here yesterday we had Marcia and right talking about teaching freedom. What a great conversation. If you missed it. I'll make sure I include that for you right here. So it's easy for you to find. But that's all I have for you today. Thank you for joining us, folks. With that being said it's Brian Nichols signing off here on The Brian Nichols Show for Jeremy Kaufman. We'll see you next week.

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