656: A Look at the Libertarian Party's Success and Growth Strategies: Insights w/ Angela McArdle

Brian Nichols  0:16  
With the Libertarian Party takeover complete almost one year later, How do things look narrow? Let's talk about that. Instead of 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 Tuesday there, folks, Brian wiggle here on The Brian Nichols Show. And joining us on a fourth and fifth episode, I am as always your host, running live our Stratus ip Studios here in lovely Eastern Indiana, don't let cyber attacks or outdated Business Technology put your company at risk. Alright, folks, let's talk about Yes, the Libertarian Party, not just the Libertarian Party for about the Libertarian Party, the National Libertarian Party, because we've talked about my goodness, I think going back to episode two of the show where I started to critique then Vice Chair of the party about we're not going to be taken seriously unless we take ourselves seriously. Well, how do we get to actually having folks take us seriously, that was the conversation of what we brought up here at The Brian Nichols Show way back when I first started the program and fast forward to where we are today. We see I think now the second or third iteration of leadership change in the LP, and I'm fingers crossed, hoping that we're on the right path. Now joining us to talk about whether or not we're seeing that we're on the right path current chair of the Libertarian Party. Angela McArdle returns to the program. Angela, welcome back The Brian Nichols Show.

Angela McArdle  1:51  
Hey there. Thanks for having me back.

Brian Nichols  1:53  
Absolutely. Angela, before we get started, number one, you've been busy not just because you've been elected as chair of the Libertarian Party, but you're also a new mom. So congrats on that. And you've been a little busy though, trying to I'm sure do both of those things. Talk to us. What's been going on in your world, playing both mom and now chair of the Libertarian Party?

Angela McArdle  2:12  
Yes. So I have a five week old baby He is upstairs. Right now. Hopefully you don't hear him crying. Usually he's very peaceful. He has three moods, right. Sweet, adorable cuddlebug shock and awe and pure unbridled rage. But we don't experience that last one. Very often. It's just if he's a little bit hungry or he has wet diaper, same. I took I took a week off, took one week off and just went back to it after he was born. I'm really lucky because I work from home. You know, I don't have to put in 810 14 hours like I was doing before he was born. So I'm taking it easy, but I am back in the saddle. Because we've got a lot of really awesome stuff that's happening in the Libertarian Party and I'm just excited to be a part of it. And the babies he isn't allowed to zoom calls with me isn't a

Brian Nichols  3:02  
new mascot for the Libertarian Party. Yeah, that gives a little Porky pawn a porcupine hat he'll be good to go.

Angela McArdle  3:08  
He has a little little porcupine, he does have a little stuffed on perfect. So

Brian Nichols  3:12  
you're already on the right path there. Angela with him. Well, hey, congratulations to you and your your family. That's a great starting off point. And I'm sure you're going to be excited to see the little liberty Liberty lover you're going to have growing there and your family. But let's talk about the the Liberty lovers that were growing across the country, shall we? And that is what I wanted to have you on the show today. Because we talked about many times during the program with you especially you know, who is our target audience what the means to measure success in the Libertarian Party. And now we're at a point where we actually are seeing, I think, some real substantive change in the way we're having conversations as a big L Libertarian Party reaching out to new folks and bringing in new coalition's that otherwise, we weren't really talking to, I'm seeing conversations change at least. But hey, who am I talk to us? You're the one who's actually seeing things from a leadership perspective, how are things going over LP,

Angela McArdle  4:02  
things are going really well. So we ended the year on a strong financial point, we went above what we thought we were going to make. That's really great. We ended the year I think close to $2 million in revenue, which is the strongest that we've done on a midterm year in like 20 years, I believe. So that's really exciting. Let me walk you through some of the outreach efforts that we have been doing over the last six months. So we kicked things off over the summer with a big Bitcoin live stream and outreach to the Bitcoin community. We have developed some really good relationships there. And I feel really good about that that has given us really great branding, strength. It makes us seem more serious. We're connected with people who are more financially minded people in the financial sector. So that's really great. We're still cultivating and fostering some of those relationships. We've also gained some new social media influencers people in the health and fitness community, I think that those are really good allegiances to build as well. His name is Mark webinar. I believe he's in the fitness community

Brian Nichols  5:12  
liner. Yeah, he's been on the show many a time. Yeah.

Angela McArdle  5:15  
So you know, and Smith, he was of the notorious, like, I'm not gonna shut down my gym fame out in Jersey. Yep. So those are the kinds of relationships that I think it's great to cultivate. Because I want us to start, start making alliances and grow our membership with members of communities that are not afraid of risk taking people who are fearless and who are courageous, and want to stand up for what's right, want to speak out, they're not afraid of the government, and they feel very secure in themselves. And, and have confidence. And I think that the LP really needs a boost of confidence. And we were starting to get that we are on that trajectory. But having members like that, it definitely helps.

Brian Nichols  6:02  
Let's talk about what you just said. And I wrote this down, I just like put it in like 14 brackets, because this is this is it, this, this is the problem we've seen, and that is the fear of change for the fear of what might happen. And in this case, the risk of the consequence. They I think this separates a lot of not even left, right libertarian, it's the risk taking versus the safe playing libertarian. And that's, I mean, look at COVID, right, that's where I my last straw was was, you know, jumped on broken whatever the freshmen because I was like, Guys, we cannot play this safe, we have to take a definitive stance, as a party as a movement. This is wrong, government overreach in this situation is wrong. I mean, cross the borders wrong, but like what more perfect of an example. And the mealy mouthed you playing it safe approach to the messaging. And that was just It set me off. And that right there, Angela, I think you hit the nail on the head is that we cannot be the ones playing it safe. And I think that's also it speaks to why I've seen there's such a natural inclination in the business environment, when I've been going out and having these conversations, because there is a natural understanding that in order to be successful in business, you have to take risks. One of the best books I ever read was from a one of my top sales icons I follow. He's a startup starter of a brand new. They're like a lead source company. But he does a lot of other stuff behind the scenes. He's done a lot of other companies and trainings and such. But anyways, the book is called whatever it takes, right? Like because you know that it's going to require risk, it's going to require sacrifice, it's going to require you to do the unpopular, the unsexy. The thing that's going to make you possibly have to face your family or face your friends and say things that they're not comfortable hearing, but they're the things that they need to hear. Because you know, there there are other people out there who are willing and open to hear and make change. My two thoughts.

Angela McArdle  8:09  
Absolutely. You're you're totally right. And, yeah, so we're doing it though, right? We're doing the thing. I want us to continue reaching out in this trajectory, like I wanted to talk to people. In the carnivore diet community, I think, well, actually, we already do, but I would like to bring them in a little bit closer, people who question mainstream narratives. On the opposite end of that spectrum, I've noticed that there are people who are very outspoken, who eat like, you know, super raw vegan diets like David Wolfe, for example. You never know who you're going to find alliances with its people who question mainstream narratives, that's a good place to start looking. So we're definitely going to be doing that. Same with people who are in sports who questioned the COVID narratives. I think that we need to cultivate relationships with them as well and say, Hey, you have a political home here. We don't, we don't judge you for calling things out. We appreciate it. We appreciate it.

Brian Nichols  9:02  
So you're saying that we might see Aaron Rodgers as I'd

Angela McArdle  9:05  
love to see and Rogers, I'd love to see some UFC people. I'd love to see some basketball players and people got benched over this stuff. And, and it appears as though everyone's being vindicated right now. You know, it's pretty gruesome. It's not I'm not happy to see people dropping dead on the fields. It's, it's, it's appalling. But but there is a little bit of vindication for those who said, I'm not going to do this. I'm a conscientious objector when it comes to what the government mandates going into my body.

Brian Nichols  9:36  
A little off topic, but not really off topic. But I mean, looking back to really what what helped propel you into more of a, quote, national spotlight, which I mean, you were already in the libertarian spotlight, but really, I mean, it pushed you more into a national conversation when you did your debate there. Over at the Soho forum with Ilya Shapiro, correct and the Cato Institute earlier, Salman, there's two elements. Thank you. Yes, I Yes, thank you. So I think that right there where you were making the libertarian case against the government mandates, and yet there was somebody who was actually willing to take an argument for the mandates, and that's a purchase blew me away, like, who are we? What what are we doing? What is our role, if anything to, at least in this instance, be the alternative? And present a clear alternative? I mean, now, looking back, it's kind of tough to like, I mean, you don't want to say I told you so. Right. But like,

Angela McArdle  10:33  
there are people in our larger movement, who wants to become the new mainstream? And it's a really strong desire. And I don't mean, they want to become the majority. No, because Sure, everybody wants to be like, in charge the majority, that's okay. They want to become the new mainstream. And, and that means watering down everything, you know, like becoming, you know, the three by five card of allowable opinion. And that's not, that's not good. That's not a good thing to pursue. I feel that that's, it's like becoming spiritually dead. It's like choosing to like deaden yourself. So I reject that.

Brian Nichols  11:12  
Do you feel now you're looking back at that debate that that was kind of like a defining moment between where the Libertarian Party really had that big, I wanna say, split, but more so a decision point, right, like, of which direction we were going to head?

Angela McArdle  11:27  
Absolutely. Absolutely. That's a really good way to put it. And that was a tough debate, because I had to not just argue against COVID mandates, I had to argue against all vaccine mandates. So I do a lot of research. And I haven't really discussed publicly much, you know, much my views on that, prior to that debate. So it was like, I sort of came out with my views and how I don't, you know, I don't have any shots myself, or if that's not something that I believe in, quite frankly. And I had to defend that on stage in front of a in a venue where you had to have a COVID passport to connect. So that was no, no joke.

Brian Nichols  12:06  
It was a tall order. You had to sneak in Ninja.

Angela McArdle  12:09  
I did sneak in. I had a fake one in case, I needed it. But I did sneak in

Brian Nichols  12:18  
how many how wild though, right? Like just in order to have that conversation, like to have a conversation of whether or not the mandate should be in place, that the actual facility that the conversation was being held, required the mandate in place, it just, it really speaks to and this kind of goes back to why I got so frustrated with my trust the experts friends back at the very beginning of this entire thing, because they were they were saying, Look at what all these people are saying. And I'm saying and I used to say no, no, that's that's all the people that had been allowed to speak, I was like, anybody else that's raised up is instantly shut down, or you just unperson. So you're completely removing people from the actual conversation, and then presenting that with the small group. And it doesn't have to be a small room, it could just be the loudest group as as the vocal majority and that wasn't the case. And the number one thing you got to look to do is just see that that was the reality was the vaccine numbers like after the first dose? I mean, how many people actually got their boosters, right? And then we've got the booster to the booster, those numbers just precipitously drop. Yep, exactly.

Angela McArdle  13:37  
So that's, that's definitely been been a critical thing and shaping the direction of the party and really have been like a signaling mechanism for other people who who might want to join, we've done outreach to the medical Freedom Movement, I'm going to be continuing to do that, especially with with birth rights. I intended to have a home birth, things got a little bit weird a complicated for me, at the end, I ended up having to go to the hospital. And it was a disaster. And unfortunately, it was like my, my rights were grossly violated. And when I talked about this and shared it with other women in the in the Liberty community, everyone came out and said that they had similar stories. Which I was like, well, that's not okay, we need to actually do something about that. So we have a really good opportunity to, to do work for women in the in the larger Liberty sphere and people who are ideologically aligned with us when it comes to birth freedom. So I'm going to be doing that. It's like, I can take something bad, you know, that happened to me and turn it into a thing for good and maybe also prevent other people from going through something like that. So that's my hope. But there are other there are other really good things that we've been working on, too when it comes to expanding our demographics. So I'm really excited about this anti war rally that we're planning In a DC, that's gonna be huge. Tell us about that. It's called rage against the war machine. And you can find out about it at rage against war.com. And we have a long list of demands, and why growing list of speakers and it's a really exciting, so it's going to be on February 19. Sunday presidents presidents Presidents Day weekend at the Lincoln Memorial, we're starting about 1230. And we're kicking off a huge rally the Libertarian Party in connection with the People's Party, which is kind of their kind of like ex Bernie Bros. on the on, if you have to say they're on the left there on the left, if you have to say we're on the right and we're on the right, but more on that later. We like to break break out of that paradigm a little bit. We're fundraising to pay for our the stage and riser and all the logistics right now. We're super excited. We're going to be having Scott Horton speak. Jimmy Dore, I was on his show recently to promote it. We're having an incredible coalition come out of this. People on the left and the right people who are apolitical. Everybody agrees that opposing nuclear war is really important. Garland Nixon, we're going to have David Swanson, Medea Benjamin, supreme from Wu Tang, he's going to be joining us as well. And yeah, we're going to be having a whole lot more, we're adding a lot more libertarian speakers over the next next couple of weeks to so that's that's building, Russell Brand has been invited, Roger Waters has been invited. So we're waiting. We're waiting to see if they show up. But yeah, if you want to see the list of demands, you can go to rage against or.com. If you want to support the event, we want as many people to attend as possible. And we are going to be busing people in from within a four hour radius. So if you live in New York City, we've got a bus for you. So we want you to come on down.

Brian Nichols  16:50  
There you go. Well, I guess two things I heard from there. Number one, coalition building.

Unknown Speaker  16:56  
Yes,

Brian Nichols  16:57  
thank God. Thank you, Angela. Because that's been something we needed to do the whole like, you're not libertarian, enough for the Libertarian Party that used to just Oh, my God, it's annoying. It's annoying, as pretentious. Like, yes, I'm sorry, I'm not I'm not exclusive enough for your little social club like that. That's that's how it used to be because that that was number one. Number two, culture, the importance of Brandon, you brought, you know, these different cultural figures, that is important to be able to incorporate them into having an ability to have a successful message, because as much as we hate it, the reality is, politics is in fact downstream from culture. Now, I think politics in some cases is formed by culture, or rather, a culture is where my politics in inverse, but when you look at the policy itself, it is downstream from the culture because you have to get the masses on board with it first. So I think what you guys are focusing on bringing people to the forefront who are talking to your average person who they're not plugged into what's happening on the news all the time, they're more plugged into what's happening on tick tock, or on the reels, right. So let them meet people where they're at on the issues they care about, but then do it in a different type of way, get them to have their ability to speak to their audience and let them just do what they do instead of us telling them well, you didn't do it libertarian enough,

Angela McArdle  18:25  
right. And this event is spun in a more cultural way too, because I love it, it is difficult to get people to come out to a boring political rally. That's not our people. That's not how people engage. People get fired up in Europe, I had a really good meeting today with some people from the Schiller Institute and people who have tomorrow we're chatting with some people who are organizing satellite events. In Europe, there's something about Europeans that, you know, were very critical of their socialist health care, and we perceive them as giving up a lot of their rights. But when they get mad, they really take to the streets. And that is one lesson we can learn from them. But the the coalition that we're building is really good. It's really impressive. So we've got all on all supporting the same event, right, we've got the Mises caucus, we've got peace in Ukraine, which is a little bit more. It's like the the legacy of the anti war left from the past. The people who are really like the movers and shakers in that movement 20 or more years ago, we've got Liberty speaks, we've got the radical caucus, we've got action for Assange. We've got punk rock libertarians podcast, we've got world beyond war. I'm really excited. You know, we may get the Schiller Institute as well, you're you're seeing groups from the left and the right. This is this is what we need to do. Right. I want to get as many people to vote libertarian as possible. Beyond that, I want to get as many people to adopt libertarian ideas as possible. If I can't get them all just get you know, like adopt as many of them as you can bring yours. up to when we get to like purity tests, you know, I think that should be reserved for people in leadership. And I'm totally fine with that, like we can we can get keep leadership, make sure that someone is a very legit very for real libertarian. But we do want to foster more of a sense of inclusion when it comes to our community and doing outreach events like this is the best way to do it. And honestly, like, if there's one thing that we should all come together on, it's trying to oppose nuclear annihilation, kind of a big deal.

Brian Nichols  20:29  
Kind of a big deal. Yeah, it makes all of a sudden all the little insignificant men truly like they become insignificant, because if world then your pet project doesn't really mean anything, sorry. Right. It's just the truth. It's just reality.

Angela McArdle  20:44  
Yeah, there's one other there's one other really interesting issue coalition that I've been working on, which is called the United independent movement, or the Independent National Council, and they are a group of into political independence and minor parties. They're all coming together and saying, you know, like, we don't necessarily agree on social issues or economic issues, but we agree that governance is really messed up right now. Which is interesting. So at first, I was like, this is I don't know, this is kind of boring. But then we started to take a look at like, what do we actually agree on? Right. Okay. So ballot access. Okay. Well, you know, that's not that exciting. But you're right, it's a problem. And what about, like revolving door alphabet agencies like the FDA? Yeah, that's an issue. What about like, budget, black holes, like the Pentagon were just billions of dollars disappear. Okay, now, now, we're getting something into something really interesting kickbacks for corrupt politicians like State Senator Pan and California. So all of a sudden, now we've got an even broader coalition, and the Libertarian Party is going to be helping to spearhead this. And one of the goals that we're working on is, it's like, it's like, the goal is to break the two dimensional paradigm of left and right, and make it more three dimensional. Instead of just like three different sectors, it's like, there's actually this whole group of people who who are totally not checked into that. And we kind of want to like rise to the top as this like, stale, duopoly farce just kind of falls apart. So that's what we're working on there. There's people from the left to the right all over the political spectrum. So I'm really excited to be working with them on that that's a think that's I n u dot one. That's their website for anybody who's interested in

Brian Nichols  22:29  
Angela, you're busy. I don't know how you're keeping up with the schedule you have plus now you have a little one in your life. I mean, my goodness, God bless you. You're doing you're doing quite literally the Lord's work. So please keep doing what you're doing. And we're going to just go ahead and ask folks to please if you are getting value from what we're doing here at the show what Angela's doing, please just go ahead and share today's episode to make sure more people hear of the good work that's coming from what Angela and LP leadership's doing helping reach out for building new coalition's I mean, this is this is how we win, folks. We have to reach people, where they're at on the issues they care about. And it's the issues that are important. So that's my final thoughts. If you guys really want to find success, it requires you to go out of your comfort zone, and actually embrace change, but it requires you to find others who are embracing change as well. And do it on those important issues. You find the agreement. Angela, what do you have for us for your final thought today?

Angela McArdle  23:29  
I think that I'm very excited about the future of the Libertarian Party and the liberty movement at large in this country. It's been a little bit painful, watching how slow the progress has been for a lot of people, but a lot of people are waking up, they are fed up. You're seeing the country balkanized a little bit, but in a way where people are just willing to let each other go and maybe just live different lifestyles. And I find that to be incredibly encouraging more and more people are truth seeking. And I'm excited that the Libertarian Party is going to be the vanguard for that and to help lead people lead the way.

Brian Nichols  24:04  
All right, Angela. Well, with that we're gonna let you go ahead and be mom. So where can folks go ahead, continue the conversation with you. And also they want to go ahead, maybe sign up to become a member of the third largest political party, we're gonna go ahead and do that.

Angela McArdle  24:19  
You can visit lp.org. If you'd like to know more about the party or you'd like to join. You can catch me on Twitter at Angela for LNC chair. The Libertarian Party is at LP national. If you want to follow the individual work I'm doing you can go to patreon.com forward slash Angela McArdle There you go,

Brian Nichols  24:37  
folks, all links will be included in the show notes. And by the way, one of those links that will be included in the show notes is from today's sponsor, and that is yours truly because we have a brand new ebook How to Win your local election. Angela, you know the importance of winning local elections and that's what we're trying to do here at The Brian Nichols Show is help you win your local elections. So whether you're thinking about running for Office, you are running for office or you're running for reelection. My new free ebook is going to go through talking about how you form your campaign messaging. How do you reach out to your voters heck, how do you even build a campaign team all that and more free ebook, you can go ahead and find it. Over on our website Brian Nichols show.com forward slash win local or you can go ahead and click the artwork in your podcast catcher it'll bring you to today's episode where you'll find the link to go ahead and grab your free copy but also you can find the link to today's episode, all of the transcript from today's episode plus all the links Angela mentioned and oh by the way all 655 other episodes of the program with that being said follow me at the Nichols Liberty twitter facebook and wherever it is you follow us please go ahead and make sure for video version that is I've heard has mentioned that you have video version of the show we have you on YouTube rumble and and honestly just hit the subscribe button and little notification bell so you don't miss a single time we go live. All right, that's all we have for you. With that being said Have a great Tuesday. Brian Nichols signing off on The Brian Nichols Show for Angela McArdle. We'll see you tomorrow

Disembodied Voice of Matt Ultan, Vocal Artist Extraordinaire  26:05  
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