Perry Willis resigns from Downsize DC

Today’s Dispatch was supposed to be about hope. I’m putting off that good news for next time because of this breaking news…

Perry Willis has resigned from his roles as the Vice President of DownsizeDC.org, Inc. and of the Zero Aggression Project (at our sister organization, Downsize DC Foundation). His reason…

He has come to believe that libertarian psychology makes libertarian success unlikely.

Specifically, he thinks that…

• Libertarians suffer from many of the same psychological impediments as statists
• These defects enslave libertarians to the media and to statist politicians to an extent that libertarians don’t realize and are unlikely to admit, let alone address

In this message, I will…

• Acknowledge Perry’s record of libertarian accomplishment.
• More fully explain his reasons for leaving — they are blunt and challenging.
• Request your help with the next step, which includes good news.

Perry Willis’s Record

Perry managed two Libertarian Party presidential campaigns, worked on three more, and was twice the National Director of the Libertarian National Committee.

His copywriting was signed by luminaries such as Karl Hess, Milton Friedman, Ron Paul, Ed Clark, David Bergland, Charlton Heston, and many others. Harry Browne believed that Perry was both the most brilliant libertarian strategist and the best copywriter he ever met.

He created the American Liberty Foundation, a predecessor to Downsize DC.

He was one of the four co-founders of Downsize DC (with Steve Dasbach, the late Harry Browne, and me) and co-creator of the Zero Aggression Project.

Perry and I worked together from late ’99 to early ’02, first on the Browne campaign, where he was the campaign manager, and then for the American Liberty Foundation.

He returned again in early ’03 for TruthAboutWar.org.

He rejoined me in May 2004, shortly before we launched DownsizeDC.org’s Electronic Lobbyist System.

Add it all up and we worked together for about 17 years!

Personally, I think Perry hasn’t received the credit he deserves. He created Project Archimedes which led to record membership and fundraising levels for the Libertarian Party. That was lost when he moved to his next role, and it has not been matched since.

His innovations are too numerous to count, but a partial list includes…

• The Dixville Notch victory and resulting national media bonanza
• Operation Drumbeat, a successful strategy to get radio talk show hosts to talk about Harry Browne even when he wasn’t a guest on their shows
• The strategic insight “discovery before persuasion” that was part of the key to Project Archimedes
• The idea of consumer-controlled governance (“you have more power as a consumer than you do as a citizen”)
• And the subtle but potentially powerful insight that libertarians can and should be pro-government but anti-State.

Plus, there’s his history of American military interventions. This concise series is so powerful, we’ve re-issued it three times.

The Breaking Point

Of course, our financial situation played a role in Perry’s decision to resign. But he views that as merely a symptom of a larger disease. And I think you too should be bothered by Perry’s deeper concerns. 

Perry believes EVERYONE is manipulated by negative news created by a partisan agenda setting machine. This includes libertarians. Here’s what we’ve noticed in our work…

• If we publish a viable positive strategy for long-term success, open rates decline and few take action
• But a negative subject line that mentions some media-driven hysteria of the moment or the name of some political villain, gets far more response

In other words…

If the subject line was, “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sucks baby blood,” our message opening rates would soar and more people would take action on this so-called issue. By comparison…

If we use a subject line such as “How to create a libertarian future in just five minutes a day,” crickets chirp.

These lines by W.B Yeats constantly ring in our heads…

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Perry also observes that libertarians are often busy doing lots of things that are complicated and difficult while neglecting much easier things that would be much more effective.

We started describing those easy, more effective things as the year began. You were hearing a change, once again, in our strategic rhetoric. And this is what you should’ve heard…

• There are already enough libertarians (30-60 million of them) to equalize with the Left and Right.
• Less than a million of those would change public policy at the Congressional level.
• A mere eight million activated libertarians would be enough to control the primaries of one of the major political parties or get a third party candidate on the debate stage.

We devised a plan to make those actions more obvious and easier to achieve than ever before. We started sharing that plan and got little reaction. We were concerned, for the reasons described above. Even libertarians respond to negative drama, not positive hope.

Then, we ran out of money.

Perry needs to pay his bills. He’s skeptical that we can get libertarians to do simple, effective things. Is he right?

My next Dispatch will begin telling you why I’m still here — and still quite hopeful. We already have good news to announce, starting today.

First, we’ve raised $6,605. That reduces our need from $8,000 down to just $1,395. And we’ve made real strides on attracting new pledgers. Every bit counts. Pledgers help us plan ahead and avoid this kind of trouble in the months to come.

PLEDGE or DONATE

Plus $500 more is being offered to us! In order to collect on Brad G’s “challenge pledge,” we need a donor who will either…

Give a one-time contribution of $500.
-OR-
Start a new pledge of $50/month or increase their pledge by that much.

We are so close. Experience tells me that…

I can guarantee we’ll make the goal if someone steps up to match this pledge! So, please…

Make the Match

Thank you for being a SUPPORTIVE DC Downsizer,

Jim Babka, President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

P.S. Many will ask, what is Perry going to do next? He has several books in the works, along with special information products that will have a clever twist.

The post Perry Willis resigns from Downsize DC appeared first on DownsizeDC.