In Part 1 (https://steemit.com/anarchy/@larkenrose/not-kokesh-for-not-president-part-1-of-2), I explained why Adam Kokesh’s presidential campaign is both tactically and philosophically counter-productive. But other things came up in our debate (posted below this article) that should be even more concerning to the well-intentioned but misguided people still supporting his campaign.
For starters, Adam has a habit of referring to any substantive disagreements with him, or criticism of his campaign, as “trash-talking” and “attacking” him, or as “tearing people down.” This is a classic politician (and narcissist) tactic: demonize the messenger in order to avoid having to respond to the message. Anything other than fawning, sycophantic adoration, Adam will depict as an unfair “attack” on him. Ironically, while in public he touts the virtues of “non-violent communication,” Adam is quick to get emotional and personally hostile towards anyone who disagrees with him or criticizes what he is doing. For example, in our debate he used the words, “when you attacked me when I was in jail,” to refer to me taking issue with his campaign admitting to taking donations to bail Adam out of prison, and diverting them to the (statist) Libertarian Party instead. Here was my actual post:
https://www.facebook.com/larken.rose.7/posts/2051231381823326
In response to that post, in an interview from jail—in a video he has apparently since removed from his YouTube channel—Adam had a strange, emotional tantrum at me, calling me “cowardly little Larken,” and basically implying that the “movement” should shun me, while saying exactly nothing about the issue of bail donations. As toxic narcissists often do, Adam plays the part of friendly, helpful, supportive guy, just as long as others are feeding his ego and his agenda. But when someone doesn’t, the mask comes off, and the hostility and overt malice shows up. Oddly, the narcissist will often then quickly go back into fake “nice guy” mode, as if nothing happened. (Plenty of people who know Adam personally know exactly what I am talking about.)
Such behaviors and tactics are quite common among politicians. When asked a question that he can’t answer, Adam goes into dodge-and-evade mode, getting emotional and then impugning the motives of whoever asked the question. As another example, during the debate, after I read things straight from his own campaign web site, word for word, he would say things like, “So many misrepresentations in there, I don’t know where to start,” and “I’m really disappointed, because you’re misrepresenting so much,” but then he did exactly nothing to refute what I quoted from, and gave a grand total of zero examples of me misrepresenting anything. This is the old propaganda tactic of finding different ways to say, or to imply, “My opponent is a liar!” without having to provide a shred of substance to back up that accusation.
Along the same lines, after referring to “some people who would tear down other activists” and would “attack other people who are doing good work” (which is how he characterizes anyone who doesn’t blindly rally behind his misguided campaign), Adam explained what “cointelpro” is, and said that if he were cointelpro, he would “want to support those people who tear down other activists” and “those who cause discord and division” as opposed to “those who are cooperative and supporting other people.” This was a not-so-veiled attempt to imply that either I, or the people who support me, must be cointelpro. Why? Because we don’t mindlessly cheer for Adam’s hypocritical and pointless political agenda.
As plenty of other people have already mentioned, Adam has slid right into the role of politician, complete with suit and tie, calculated cadence of speech, even the cliche mannerisms and gestures.
Running for office, and begging for votes, necessarily makes almost anyone into an unprincipled attention whore, toning down any actual ideas which might bother anyone, and instead focusing on forming alliances and agreements, trying to get support—financial and otherwise—including from people and organizations who aren’t even on the same page. Adam openly brags about being a lifetime member of the statist (and misnamed) Libertarian Party, while praising a number of openly statist candidates (including Austin Peterson and Gary Johnson). He also spent a chunk of our debate talking about the process of becoming a party delegate for the Libertarian Party, and how to play political games to try to get votes and influence within the system.
The moment you care more about saying things that will win over a voter, instead of saying whatever you believe is true regardless of what anyone else will think, you are no longer being sincere. Like almost everyone who has ever sought a position of power, Adam’s message has morphed into a jumbled, ever-changing mess, as he tries to say and do whatever he thinks will get him attention, money and votes. For example, anarchists obviously don’t want a President, so he started saying he was running for “not President.” Aside from being nonsensical gibberish (he already is not President, so I guess he won), it directly and obviously contradicts everything about his “Kokesh for President” campaign.
When I directly asked him if he really expected to be elected President, he did a tap-dance, by responding with, “I’m actually going to be elected custodian of the federal government, as it says on the website, because the first thing I’m going to do is resign.” Of course, there is no such office, and no election for such an office. His response was simply a way to distract people from the actual question.
If he had said, “Of course I won’t win, but I will use the attention of the campaign to teach people about the principles of voluntaryism,” I would have far more respect for him. If he had a shred of honesty, he would admit that he has exactly no chance of being elected President. But if he said that, fewer people might give him campaign contributions, so he pretends that he thinks he can win, and openly repeats that lie to his supporters. (The only other alternative is that he is actually delusional enough to think that he will win, which I do not for a moment believe.)
Once someone’s focus is more about politics and elections, than about principles, his words and actions make less and less sense. Everything becomes posturing, spinning, and trying to look good, because when you need votes, you will sacrifice almost anything for popularity and support. And that is when honesty is out the window.
When, for example, during the debate, I pointed out that Executive Orders can’t be used to dissolve the “government,” he got emotional, and compared that to someone telling the American colonists, “You guys can’t just declare independence!” Of course, the colonists weren’t asking for an official decree from their rulers, giving them permission to be free. Quite the opposite.
Adam didn’t even try to have an argument for why his magical “Executive Order” could do the impossible; he mostly just sidestepped the issue, implying that somehow such an Executive Order would magically work because the people would want it to work. He can’t afford to admit the obvious hypocrisy and dishonesty of his stated agenda, and the fact that there is absolutely no chance of his plan working. Instead, he keeps begging people to donate their time, energy and money to something that he knows will never, ever happen. So it’s not surprising that, during the course of the debate, his position got more and more unstable, until I couldn’t tell which side he was arguing. Whether he was just unclear in his own head, or determined to stay on both sides of the proverbial fence, his message got downright nonsensical. For example, he said this:
“When the American people decide, decisively, irrefutably, through the American electoral process, that we don’t need a President, we don’t need a federal government, no asshole in a suit in Washington, DC, no congressman, no senator, no supreme court justice is going to stand in our way.”
Except for the phrase about “through the American electoral process,” he was making my point for me, while demolishing his own. But he still was clinging to the schizophrenic notion that the way for the people to show that they don’t need a master … is for them to vote for Adam Kokesh. Then, even more bizarrely, he made my point yet again, even more precisely, saying this:
“So it really doesn’t matter at that point who I am, and what the plan is even, because at that point the American people will have asserted, clearly, irrefutably, that the federal government should have no authority whatsoever, and they will withdraw any material support necessary to get rid of that institution.”
I completely agree. What matters is whether people believe they need rulers. When they figure out that they don’t need rulers, Adam, his campaign and his “plan” will be utterly irrelevant and unnecessary. (It was nice, albeit weird, for Adam to admit that.)
His weird contradiction showed up yet again, when he said that, “The first thing I’m going to do is destroy the throne itself.” When I pointed out that “The President has no such power,” he responded with, “The American people do.” So which is it? Salvation via Executive Order from Supreme Custodian Kokesh? Or freedom by way of the people giving up their belief in political “authority”? I obviously advocate the latter. Adam doesn’t seem clear about which one he advocates at any given moment.
When I kept pointing out that an Executive Order is an authoritarian, statist decree, and that pushing a political/legislative agenda is not the answer, he insisted, “It’s not a legislative agenda,” “I’m not trying to legislate anything,” and that his agenda is “declaring the federal government of no authority” … by way of an official presidential Executive Order. Either he doesn’t notice the massive contradiction there, or he is hoping no one else will notice. (Previously he made a similar schizophrenic statement, declaring that “Voting equals empowerment … because it gives you one more way to tell the government to fuck off.”)
His schizophrenia went on and on in the debate, with him talking about “trying to localize government” via politics, in order to have smaller areas, each with a “voluntary government” (his term), and advocating “a practical way out of statism” by way of voting and politics. Meanwhile, he insists that his presidential campaign and his plan “is absolutely not about [himself],” and insists that he is “inseparable from the message of freedom.” And then, once again, not seeming to know which side he was arguing, he vehemently proclaimed that “No amount of voting, no amount of participation in the political process can make an institution based on coercion legitimate.” Meanwhile, he wants everyone to vote for him, so he can use his presidential power to issue an Executive Order to end the federal “government.”
Amazingly, during the debate Adam insisted that “the most important part” of his campaign is “waking people up,” and in his closing, he talked as if the campaign is all about the message of liberty. But it’s not. At all. (If it was, I wouldn’t object to it so strongly.) Feel free to go look up his campaign web site for yourself (www.kokeshforpresident.com), and see if it is about principles, or if it is about Adam and his master plan. If you still aren’t sure, Adam was nice enough (in a video made after our debate) to come right out and say this: “If we want to see that voluntary society achieved in our lifetimes, we have to put down the ideology in a sense. At least make sure that it is secondary, compared to taking this great step forward for humanity, together.” So there you have it. Hell with principles, let’s play politics.
As a final strange irony, the debate ended with Adam once again making the universally recognized gesture symbolizing subservience and obedience to “authority”: a military salute.
The only way I see to explain the massive mess of confusion and contradictions in Adam’s campaign and “message” is that he is determined to play the role of a hero/savior, where he wins the attention, glory, praise and admiration of everyone by saving the day. But that’s difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish while adhering to actual voluntaryist principles. So the best he can muster is to try to become a ruler (without really being a ruler, according to him) in order to use political authority and power (which he says isn’t really authority and power) to implement a legal/legislative plan (which he says isn’t really a legal/legislative plan) in order to grant the rabble their freedom (which he says won’t really be granting them anything). The two main problems with this ego-driven, “Put-me-on-the-throne-and-I-will-free-you!” approach are:
1 - In the real world, it has absolutely no chance of success. None. His inherently bogus “Executive Order” plan—which would utterly fail anyway—won’t ever see the light of day because he won’t ever get elected. And wishful thinking and believing really, really hard won't change that.
2 - As far as spreading the message of liberty, all his campaign does (in its present form, anyway) is spread a self-contradictory, schizophrenic “message” that will confuse and repel almost everyone, while mangling and perverting the concepts of anarchism, voluntaryism and libertarianism into an incomprehensible, unprincipled pile of political bullshit.
Given what a challenge it already is “un-demonizing” the concept of anarchism and voluntaryism, it doesn’t exactly help to have those terms linked to a “cult of personality” narcissistic egomaniac and his attempt to become President. You know that the media and the establishment would just love one more way to do “guilt by association,” trying to malign a message by pointing out the shortcomings in the messenger who claims to be the leading spokesman of that message. And Adam would make a very easy target for that demonization campaign.
But aside from what anyone thinks of Adam personally, if anyone is still waiting for some elected official, some legislation, some executive order, to give them permission to be free, then they still don’t even understand what freedom is. You can’t fix the root of the problem—the belief in “government” and “authority”—by way of any “political solution.” Ever. Playing the bogus game of “democracy” only serves to legitimize the game, and trying to add our own clown to the ridiculous circus of “politics” only strengthens and reinforces the statist assumptions and authoritarian mythology that most Americans still believe in. Running for office, begging for votes, playing politics—it all implies validity to the magical powers of democracy and constitutions, and the insane belief in the Divine Right of Politicians. And that is the exact and precise opposite of what needs to happen to change the mindset of the people, in order to achieve a truly free society.
