Riverside County (home of Libertarian County Supervisor Jeff Hewitt) had their annual county convention yesterday. About 25 people showed up (mostly Mises Caucus) which is awfully small for a county with so many elected libertarian officials (there are at least five). The Mises Caucus took 4 out of 5 board positions during elections, with the last position filled by a good, caucus-neutral guy who's also eager to do good work.

Here's a rough transcript of the talk I gave.

I want to share with you some insights about LA and compare & contrast them to Riverside.

We live in a stretched-multi-ethnic-multi-cultural vastness that’s oscillating between fragmentation, civil war and the iron fist of a democrat controlled government.

You occupy a very special place in this world. You sit on the edge of civilization, right between chaos & order.

The people in LA look at Riverside and think it's uncivilized. They do - they think it's not cosmopolitan or developed enough.

The people in Riverside & east of you, look at LA & think LA is uncivilized. It's a tyrannical, dystopian hell scape.

You get to see both sides up close.

LA is highly civilized, but it's very "uncivil". Have you ever seen "Escape from LA"? LA literally sits on the edge of the continent and the cautionary tale is that LA has gone so far, gotten so bad, it literally breaks off into the ocean. It is the edge of our world.

LA is chaos and the end. It's the end of what we know as civilization, and the beginning of what the state thinks the end-goal of civilization is. Think about that for a moment. LA is what our state government wants Riverside to become.

And you're caught right in the middle of this - close enough to feel the shockwaves of the damage done by LA's policies, but just out of reach of their tyranny.

And just different enough that most Angelinos don't want to join you - but you might want to get Jeff to lobby Riverside to Build A Wall just in case! We know he could do it because he gets along so well with those MAGA Republicans.

The first thing you need to do in this precarious situation is strengthen your base. Use the political capital that Jeff, Wendy, Boomer & Bob have given you. Find people with shared values.

We cannot fix all of our problems by "building a wall" or simply shutting out the people that we don't like. As libertarians, we need to leave room for the art of persuasion, and remember that the overlap of competing levels of governance in California is messy.

But Riverside is managing things pretty well and doing a good job of distinguishing itself from Newsom's progressive agenda.

You need to start framing yourself as BETTER than LA. Think about it: What good does it do for LA to have a bunch of fine dining & fancy nightlife if you have to be masked up, have your papers checked at the door, and events get shutdown half the time anyway because of the fear of COVID?

Riverside should be openly mocking LA and taunting their local government.

You guys need to become California's Florida. A lot of people feel stuck in Southern California because of work, they've purchased property here, and they have family ties.

Be the landing pad for these people.

So how do you become California's Florida?

Step 1: Find your voice. What’s your tone? Your brand? What do you want people to think when they first encounter you?

Step 2: What’s your goal? What are you hoping to achieve? Come up with a broad vision, and then come up with some smaller, specific goals that will help you achieve that vision.

Step 3: Get organized. Map out everything you need to achieve that goal.

What resources do you need? How many volunteers will you need? What skills will those volunteers need?

Start small so you can give yourself a win and understand what it takes to accomplish something.

For example: Gene’s idea to oppose traffic light cameras.

Take Gene’s leadership, Loren’s organizational skills, and Jessica’s membership recruitment skills. Joanna's experience with local legislation. Jeff, Wendy, Boomer, and Bob's experience with local elections & campaign management. Put that to use on this project.

As you build a team around this project, you will build a better county affiliate. People who want to get active will naturally find their place. People who are content to be supporters or occasional activists will find their place, too.

Then do it again, Pick just one or two issues and go hard on them. Start stacking political capital in your community. Pretty soon, you won't need to work so hard to recruit. People will actively come to you.

Find the pain point and find the status quo opinion. Now solve the pain point and distinguish yourself from the status quo.

Position yourself as the last bastion of freedom before the end of the world.

Turn yourself into a recapture spot for #CalExit.

Thank you guys for having me. I know you had questions about LA's initiative so I wanna take some time to answer all of your questions & help you strategize.

#RiversidePromisedLand #RiversideIsFree #RiversideSanerSide