Samiksha Bhattacharjee runs Ladies of Liberty Alliance UK - if you are interested in getting involved, follow them on Instagram and drop them a DM or email Samiksha at stateofthedebate@gmail.com.
Let’s be honest: for decades, the liberty movement has suffered from a severe lack of imagination.
Too often, it looks like guys in ill-fitting suits arguing over GDP growth charts in stuffy lecture halls, reciting 19th-century economic textbooks that nobody outside of a hyper-niche seminar will ever read. It is academic and dry, and completely disconnected from how “normies” view the world.
If we genuinely care about freedom and pushing back against the state, we have to do something new.
The battle for the future isn’t being won on parliamentary committees or inside think tanks (though the research being done in them, especially the latter, is very important).
It’s unfolding on TikTok feeds, X, YouTube, cinema screens, and bookshelves. Politics is downstream from culture, and right now, liberty is losing simply because it refuses to speak the language of culture.
Look at popular culture today. Almost every film, TV series, or bestselling novel views the world through a single lens: corporations are evil, markets are exploitative, and only a central authority can save everyone!
Freedom is being sold solely through dense theory that only nerds like you and me read. We are surrendering one of the most powerful tools of persuasion: culture.
Storytelling is what actually changes minds. Whether it’s films that illustrate the dystopian reality of state overreach and what socialism actually does to everyday lives (check out an example here), seeing or reading about it in a setting the audience actually cares about makes the stakes real.
I wrote my first novel at 13, and it taught me that people do indeed absorb ideas subconsciously through literature. So, my next book, a dystopian fantasy, was intentionally built after I had this realisation. Spreading the message of limited government through fiction rather than academia has proven successful (e.g., Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged). We just need to make it mainstream.
We desperately need more pro-liberty books, films, and media.
Winning the fight also means confronting a growing confusion on the right, a trap that many of my friends have fallen into. The biggest threat to individual liberty today doesn’t just come from the traditional progressive left. It’s also rising on the right, where many modern nationalists who I debate daily claim that “saving the nation” requires massive state intervention, economic protectionism, and social control.
They fail to understand that socialism is actually the downfall of a nation.
Replacing left-wing state control with right-wing state control is still authoritarianism, and both end in a disaster.
If we want Gen Z to see that, we have to meet them where they are. We need high-retention video hooks, witty commentary, and short-form videos that expose government overreach wherever it comes from.
That is why I do what I do.
And I’ve come to realise that people don’t connect with… sterile policy wonks. They connect with authentic people, which means presenting your true self online (which I try my best to do on my social media).
And that is why women are the absolute best messengers for this movement.
When women speak about liberty, the conversation moves away from assumptions and into real life. Women bring authenticity and empathy that instantly break the “boys’ club” stereotype the movement has carried for too long.
As the new Head of the Ladies of Liberty Alliance (LOLA) in the UK, changing that dynamic is the entire mission. I’m turning LOLA into a group designed to get more women onto broadcasts, into print, and at the front of the debate. We host meetups, run media training, and help female creators turn pro-liberty ideas into compelling content.
You don’t persuade a generation by lecturing them. You persuade them by telling stories, mastering the algorithm, and proving that freedom directly enhances their everyday lives.
If you are a woman who wants to speak up, write, broadcast, create content, or simply find a community of people who refuse to accept top-down control, we want you in this fight.
Join LOLA UK today. Follow us on Instagram and drop us a DM or email me at stateofthedebate@gmail.com. Let’s build this movement together!
Samiksha Bhattacharjee runs Ladies of Liberty Alliance UK, and is a social commentator. You can find more of her work at Samiksha’s State of the Debate.
Thank you for your article Samiksha. You are absolutely right in what you say.
You know what needs to be done and what we need to do is encourage and support you and others like you.
I think that the Fighting for a Free Future team are on board with your message and are working on the storytelling issue.
I like the sound of your LOLA organisation and I wish you well with this project. I intend to look it up.
All the best, David
Great work! So important.