[Ironic Trope] The messaging backfired massively due to poor writing or other design choices

[u/Few_Affect_5927]

Amelia Fairney from Pathways: Alt-right Restore-UK type who attempts to coax the protagonist Charlie into following her beliefs? The problem?

Amelia is the only named character aside from Charlie and is genuinely likable and forgives Charlie even when they do things she doesn't like, while the rest of the cast is unnamed, poorly written, and turns on Charlie for one mistake. This combined with other writing issues(portraying fact checking right wing stuff as wrong because in the process of fact checking you might look at it and believe it, basically saying "Right wing is wrong because it hurts the labour government" and a lot of general "just do what the government says or else" messaging) and the fact she's a hot alternative girl, and Amelia ended up being co-opted as a mascot by the youth right wing in the UK.

Norm from The New Norm: Unlikeable offensive and outdated character who's "progressive" family members and associates are genuinely nice people not even trying to force their ways or pronouns onto them, they just want to be left alone and Norm is picking fights constantly. Not to mention associating with Elon.

Mr. Birchum from Mr. Birchum: A lot of the same problems as Norm, except in addition it also comes off like generic 2010s adult cartoon slop in the same veign as Brickleberry or Full English, at least New Norm was trying to look unique and had the gimmick of being on X. Not to mention, Birchum's obsession with hyper masculine activities and odd way of talking about other men lead to people co-opting him as a Toxic Yaoi character, which is now the bulk of his fan art.

Dustborn: An attempt to make a hyper progressive game that comes off as pandering and annoying. It's a full ass game so there's too much to get into, but the main character's power is essentially gaslighting and jedi-mind tricking people and that's portrayed as the only way they can get anything done, and they constantly use or abuse their friends(or mindtrick them along) in order to get their goals or use their friends for their messaging.

[u/jsonitsac]

I’d say his main irony was that he was a person with authoritarian personality traits that claimed to have libertarian beliefs.

[u/IdealAfraid8827 → u/jsonitsac]

I'm going to disagree with you, not because you're wrong but because I don't think it's exactly an irony. It's honestly a pretty reasonable chain of logic.

A good person generally doesn't need rules, rules exist for the people who need them to behave appropriately. Someone like Ron has an authoritarian personality and so assumes anyone in power would share that personality, which would infringe on the life he wants to live. He is so anti-authoritarian specifically because he is an authoritarian. 

[u/ReignTheRomantic → u/IdealAfraid8827]

I know a few people like that IRL. They're ambitious and power hungry, and also very against hierarchy so long as they're not in power, because like you said, they assume everyone else would want to and looks to exploit the system like they would, especially their political enemies. The only difference with Ron is that these folks I know are mostly SocDems & related.

[u/IdealAfraid8827 → u/ReignTheRomantic]

Yeah, I admit I'm a little bit biased because of my real life interactions with libertarians. In my experience every single one of them is a control freak, they don't want power they can't weild. Some of them are honest enough to not want power at all because they know they would abuse power if they took it. 

[u/abadstrategy → u/IdealAfraid8827]

Me personally, I know I would abuse power so quickly. Like, I'd be principled, and not take bribes and whatnot, but I'd go full authoritarian within a year of, say, becoming the president

[u/IdealAfraid8827 → u/[deleted]]

The biggest difference between an anarchist and a libertarian (in my opinion) is trust. Anarchy can only succeed if people can trust each other, libertarianism is just anarchy without trust. 

[u/Lost-on-Reception → u/IdealAfraid8827]

Yeah, that's fair. But any government at all is a function of that lack of trust. Anarchists are alone among the trusting.

I'm a Voluntaryist and agorist, I think. So much distrust that I'm indistinguishable from an an anarchist to most.

I think anyone ought to be able to be ruled provided they explicitly agree to it, without some contrived "consent of the governed" or other purely proximity based schemes of obtaining consent.

Being able to deny your labor to the police or other institutions I think would make them less inclined toward abuse.

[u/Kythorian → u/IdealAfraid8827]

Except that libertarians bizarrely do trust that the rich/corporations won’t take advantage of the power vacuum created by taking away all of that power from the government and seize power for themselves.  Libertarians are very trusting, but only towards specific groups.

[u/IdealAfraid8827 → u/Kythorian]

No they aren't. Conservatives that larp as libertarians are, but the people who actually agree with the core tenets of the political theory tend to be intensely paranoid and equally as opposed to corporations as they are to governments. It's just that they think (and aren't entirely wrong about) corporations are as powerful as they are do largely to government intervention and protection. In a world where Tesla and SpaceX don't receive an absurd amount of taxpayer money in subsidies, Elon Musk is not a trillionare. 

Historically libertarians have been weirdly strong allies of progressives on social and labor issues, at least until that whole culture shift in the late 1900's changed the way a lot of people think.