Make America Innovate Again | Introducing Radical Moderation

By Gabriel Green

Summar: Partisans and their propaganda industry teach us what to fear. They specialize in teaching us buzzwords to watch out for, which indicate the enemy. Because of this, any discussion of specific policy is almost inherently divisive, not because the solutions are bad but because the language to describe them is alienating. That's why nothing new is being done about our problems.

There is a path forward though, so if you read to the end, I promise to offer some hope too. The core solution is to embrace authenticity, and the radical moderation that formed our nation and continues to form our people.

The Propaganda Industry

We have a robust propaganda industry in this country that specializes in division.

Their primary goal is not to teach you what to think, or what to believe. That’s secondary at best. Rather, their main goal is to teach you WHO to fear.

Having grown up in Wyoming, attended school in DC, and spent a “year abroad” in Arizona during a tense election season, I’ve witnessed all ends of the propaganda spectrum.

In Wyoming we’re taught to fear strawman versions of Democrats, liberals, leftists, and commies. In DC they’re taught to fear strawman versions of Republicans, conservatives, racists, and fascists.

In Arizona they’re taught, above all, to avoid interacting with folks who might persuade you to vote the “wrong way.” There’s also some pretty intense ~otherism~ going on there, where political candidates and their supporters are exclusively portrayed at their craziest.

Almost every image of a Red is fully body armored, white, and always depicted screaming. Almost every image of a Blue is barely clothed, young, and always depicted screaming.

Rarely did you see the Latina mother who’s Republican due to her concerns over abortion, having been raised Catholic and pro-Life. Rarely did you see the 45-year-old business owner who’s Democrat because of his concerns about the impact of tariffs on his profits. Nope.

They’re too confusing and out-of-line with what you’re supposed to fear.

How can a Democrat criticize a Latina without being the racist they so decry?

How can a Republican condemn the business owners they claim to support and defend?

Three-ish Languages of Politics

The most obvious tools of the propaganda industry are their use of fear-inducing images and sound-clips to trigger a gut reaction against the “other.” But it’s not their most insidious.

Their most dangerous tool is instead their ability to toxify words.

Stepping back a bit, there’s a flawed but useful book called the “Three Languages of Politics,” by Arnold King. It’s most commonly read in libertarian circles, and it breaks the world of American politics into three distinct languages. Conservative, Liberal, and Libertarian. It’s obviously biased towards holding up the libertarian language as best, but tries to give everyone a somewhat fair shake.

Having been trained up by the Libertarians at one point in my life (Koch Internship Program, represent!) I am intimately aware of the libertarian claim to a “middle way,” and reject it as false. But, I openly admit that the libertarians have some very good ideas (just like conservatives and liberals) and that the philosophy undergirding their beliefs is also part of what informs mine.

I’m just not a pure “anything” politically speaking, besides “American” in my ability to synthesize disparate beliefs into one awesome melting pot of values.

According to this book, Conservatives use language of “civilization vs barbarism,” Liberals use language of “oppressors vs the oppressed,” and Libertarians use language of “liberty vs coercion.”

Insofar as Americans are all a blend of different ideologies, this is a little flawed.

But it’s helpful for understanding a core concept, which is that “different people with different belief systems use different words.” And, it’s that concept, which the propagandists use against us.

Dog Whistles & Demonization

Back to the toxifying of words, I offer two that are foundational to these United States.

Equality. Liberty.

Liberty. Equality.

Depending on where you are, one of those words is basically a buzzword for “commie,” and the other is a buzzword for “racist.”

Here I thought that we Americans at least agreed that all people were created EQUAL and that we were endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, including LIBERTY.

See, while the propaganda industry is great at visually representing the other, they know just like we do that there are going to be certain “liberals/conservatives/enemies” that don’t match the stereotype. And they don’t want that conservative Latina, or liberal business owner, to convince you that maybe we’re all on the same team.

This has always been a trend in American politics, but it got a lot worse when certain technologies like the telegraph, the radio, and the television made it easier for propagandists to reach us directly and individually, rather than in a group. With the direct-to-consumer nature of modern media, this is even more obvious.

While the problem with groupthink will be addressed elsewhere, one of the powers of live presentation of ideas to a crowd is that the people can feel each other disagreeing if the speaker is talking out of their a**.

But, if you’re listening to one voice, alone in your truck, you can feel a different pressure. You can feel the pressure to accept the expertise of the talker; after all, they’re on the radio and you’re not.

In his book I, Citizen Dr. Tony Woodlief — a former colleague of mine — laid out a lot of this history really well. One of the most telling stories was about the H.W. Bush, Newt Gingrich, and Bill Clinton era, when politicians started perfecting message testing. They’d have test audiences listen to speeches, watch ads, and consume propaganda, while having them indicate which ideas they liked and didn’t.

Most importantly, they started to pay attention to words that caused fear; going back to Ol’ Thucy himself, we’ve always been heavily motivated by fear.

Gabriel Green’s Political Nightmare

This gets us into the biggest problem I face at a personal political level.

I am not a conservative. I am not a liberal. I am not a libertarian. I am not a statist.

I am an American, with ideas that contain multitudes. I am informed by the history that led to our founding, and the history that has come since. I am informed by the generations of Americans and the legacy they’ve passed on to the countless fellow Americans I’ve had the privilege of talking to, even if briefly while waiting in line somewhere.

And, that’s true about all of us. While we’ve been taught to think of ourselves as one of those labels, the truth is that if you push hard enough, we all have some belief that someone else would label as the-very-thing-we-fear.  

I experienced this when a so-called “conservative” called my support for the police “leftist.”

I experienced this when a so-called “liberal” called my support for cultural diversity “fascist.”

Libertarians just seem to hate everything I say besides ,"taxation is legalized theft."

These labels don’t actually mean anything other than “enemy.” They indicate that I’m saying something with the not-quite-right-words, and therefore I am not to be listened to but rather feared. The listeners couldn’t risk the chance that I’d be persuasive…

We have been trained and conditioned by the propaganda industry to hear certain things, and label them as the other. They take the language of conservatives, and teach it to liberals as a dog whistle to guard against. They take the language of liberals, and teach it to conservatives as a dog whistle to guard against. And on, and on.

The Powers That Be

Why is this?

Well, it’s mostly because the powers that be are more or less the same group of people regardless of which “side” you’re on.

They keep political and nonprofit donations as secret as possible because if the truth came out, we’d all see that the man behind the curtain is pulling the strings for both sides.

It’s not that there aren’t plenty of died-in-the-wool partisan donors; Red Loyalists, Blue Loyalists, and heck, even some Yellow Loyalists (libertarians). But, the biggest donors aren’t actually that loyal, and often donate to candidates from both parties.

They’re doing what any good gambler does; they’re hedging their bets.

While partisan propagandists try to increasingly paint a picture of grassroots donations, and small business owners paying for most of politics, the sheer transparency of a South-African billionaire publicly bribing his way into our highest seat of power should be sounding alarm bells that this is not the case.

Elections keep getting more expensive, not because they actually cost that much to win, but because that keeps the petty millionaires and coalitions of small donors from being able to influence the candidates in the same way that the billionaire class does.

Don’t get me started on the money flowing around in the “nonprofit” industry, which does most of the heavy lifting for the propagandists so that by the time their chosen candidates are running they just have to blow the whistle.

The Problem with Specificity

This brings us to the core problem. Innovative Policy is politically impossible.

“Policy” is the way that government tries to solve a problem.

Sometimes policy can be about removing government barriers that shouldn’t be there in the first place. Sometimes it’s about spending money. Sometimes it’s about regulating something. And so on.

But, to explain any sort of policy that isn’t already publicly accepted, you need to use words. You need to talk about ideas. And you need to try to answer the big questions of “who, what, where, when, and HOW.”

Try doing this without using language that divides. Try to talk about a “fair” tax system without sounding liberal. Try to talk about “public safety” without sounding conservative. Try to talk about “limited government” without sounding like a libertarian. Etc. Etc.

But, as we all know, what we’re doing ain’t working.

We need something new, and we needed it yesterday. But, our leaders keep throwing out the same bland ideas that everyone knows aren’t going to do enough good, if any at all.

It’s like we’re a soldier in the revolutionary war who just got his leg blown off, and our political class offers Band-Aids doused in lemon juice.

The easiest way to change this is to go the full-populist-demagogue-route and accumulate a powerful following of blind loyalists who will simply trust that you can fix it. #CaesarStyle

We’ve seen that in action, and for all my disagreement with President Trump’s specific behaviors, I’m the first to admit that he’s the most innovative leader we’ve seen in a while.

He blasted the Overton Window open on things like: tariffs, calling opponents and their wives nasty names, and being publicly proud to think we’re the best darn country in history. I’ve never heard anyone come so close to a real solution to the Israel-Palestine issue, and then whiff so completely on execution. Same with things like Greenland, the Panama Canal, our proxy conflict with the USSR (sorry, they’re called Russia now), and more. He's mostly wrong about stuff, but it's a lot closer to right than what the establishment offers.

He’s breaking the “rules,” and saying whatever he thinks, and the people love that because they’re sick of message tested lines that meet the standard of the elites’ approval. It just stinks that he — like all human beings on earth — has a limited perspective and therefore is incapable of actually solving the problems by himself like he and his supporters want.

A Better Solution

But, there is a better way. And we have to thank President Trump for showing it to us.

There is no disputing that President Trump says whatever he thinks. It’s the closest we’ve seen to honesty besides maybe at the other end of the spectrum with Senator Bernie “I don’t care if it’s unpopular, I’m going to say it anyway” Sanders. And it should reveal something to us that we have to look outside the bounds of what our political class teaches us is ~moderate~ to find real honesty.

That’s because the political classes’ version of moderate is actually just oligarchy.

True moderation, like the design of our Republic, balances all three types of government (rule by one, by few, and by many). Our political class only practices one of these forms (rule by few), so it’s inherently not moderate. Trump is offering something different, but it’s still only one of those (rule by one). We just haven’t seen that in so long that it feels new to the Americans.

Note that the political left is always at best only ever offering one form too (rule by many).

What is the better way?

Honesty. And Radical Moderation.

See, President Trump has shown that our leaders need to earn our TRUST. But, where Donald Trump just says “whatever he thinks,” we need leaders that “speak their mind.”

That is, we need leaders who tell you what they really believe, after having spent more than a millisecond thinking about it. It’s not that leaders shouldn’t be quick witted, but they should have some guiding principles that help you know whether you can trust them or not. Their “instant reactions” should be guided by those principles, not their ego.

If you trust someone and their principles, you don’t need to actually understand everything they’re doing. And when it comes to our Republic, that’s kind of the point.

All citizens have a certain obligation to be informed, because this ain’t China and we want it to stay that way.

But we also have jobs to do.

Mechanics need to spend way more time learning about vehicles than legislative procedure. Doctors should study anatomy, not political theory. School teachers need to know a bit more than most, but even they should be focused more on the lessons they’re teaching than being fully aware of the exact mechanism by which agencies regulate the fishing industry.

We need some level of expertise in our administrative structure, and we need to be able to TRUST that the people in those positions know what they’re doing. To that end, we elect representatives who we absolutely must TRUST, whose job it is to hold those agencies accountable and to set a policy agenda that aligns with the values of the people.

The only way forward is for us to start choosing honest representatives, who believe in the Republic not their own agenda. The only way forward is to re-embrace the Radical Moderation at the core of our nation’s founding, which attempted to blend the three forms of government instead of simply choosing one.

That all starts with leaders who speak their minds, based on their principles.

Honest Gabe

That’s why I am Honest Gabe, to a fault. I share opinions that I know are controversial and test poorly; such as the hill I’m willing to die on that SpongeBob is not a good show.

There, I just lost the under-30 vote.

But, I also work hard to focus on the things I know are less divisive, especially in policy. And I'm always open to being persuaded of new solutions, because I stand firmly on principles.

I choose to focus on economic issues because all of us agree that it’s important, and everyone understands that without a strong economy none of the other ~civil society~ stuff that makes life worth living is possible.

And I choose to advocate for stronger local government, not because it is the most efficient or always gets the best results, but because it is the most responsive to the people.

I am a Radical Moderate. And I need people to trust me when I say that, not believe that I’m secretly a “whatever-they’ve-been-taught-to-fear.”

My principles are informed by conservatives, liberals, libertarians, and even some statists. I’m mostly in favor of a “limited government that performs its few duties well,” but when it comes to the protection of our National Parks I’m as “big government” as it gets.

There, I just lost the libertarian vote.

I use the language of every political ideology, especially when I’m talking to someone who speaks it fluently. Like the Apostle Paul, I try to speak directly to the community I’m writing to, which is why sometimes I “talk like a liberal,” and other times I “sound conservative.”

I have strong social views, like my personal view that tattoos are defiling your personal temple, but I don’t believe in imposing them on others because I definitely don’t want them to impose on me. Trust me, I would not do well in a society that mandated religious orders, personal appearances, or even something as simple as bedtimes.

Furthermore, I mostly choose not to wade into social issues in my politics because they are: 1) not the role of government but of civil society, and 2) literally the most divisive topics because they touch our daily lives in a way that most government policy never does.

When the propagandists repeatedly focus on the social issues, you should pay attention to the dog whistles they’re using, and the strawmen they hold up.

Look for honest leaders instead, both in politics and thought. Look for Radical Moderation.