When libertarian activist Glenn Jacobs sat down with Rare at last night’s Liberty Political Action Conference, we weren’t entirely sure what to expect. Jacobs, after all, isn’t just a sharp thinker on all things libertarian. He’s also the seven-foot-tall World Wrestling Entertainment performer Kane.
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Jacobs said he first became interested in libertarianism after becoming disillusioned with the two-party system.
“The problem, especially here in Washington D.C., is you come here and you feel like you’re entering a bubble. What we’ve seen over the last few decades is the rise of political elitism. I don’t look at the country as being divided as other people do,” Jacobs said.
Over the last three decades, Jacobs has traveled the United States, performing in venues as varied as high school gymnasiums, stadiums, and arenas. He’s been featured by the WWE since 1995, but outside of the wrestling world he’s simply Mr. Jacobs, libertarian and proponent of Austrian economics.
“I look at the country as a political class,” he said. “People in political power, corporations connected to political power, and these people have completely lost touch with what the average person goes through.”
Before Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) took the stage, Jacobs told a ballroom of libertarian Republicans that despite Americans’ high standard of living, “they would be higher if the state just got out of the way.”
Jacobs believe that ordinary people should have more power and crony capitalists should be left out in the cold.
“I trust the common person to do the right thing…the political elites do not,” Jacobs told the crowd.
Moments after Jacobs left the stage, Senator Paul arrived to great cheers from the crowd. As Paul continues his climb to the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, Jacobs sees him heralding a new era of the liberty movement.
“It’s encouraging. Unfortunately with Rand, they often talk about him for the wrong reasons. What Senator Paul is trying to do is extremely helpful for minorities, and that’s completely brushed aside and it shouldn’t be,” Jacobs said.
He also praised Senator Paul’s father, former congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas).
“It all goes back to Ron Paul and what he did in 2008 and the fact that he launched a movement,” Jacobs said. “Maybe he didn’t win the presidency, but I think maybe he did something more important: he changed the political discourse.”
On the first night of LPAC, Jacobs was the only featured speaker who wasn’t elected to the House of Representatives or Senate. Despite rumors that he may one day seek public office, Jacobs shot down any notion of a future in politics. In keeping with his world view, Jacobs feels he can do more for the libertarian movement outside of Washington, D.C.
“Politics is a very rough game. There are a lot of dirty tricks that go on. I really haven’t thought about it,” he said. “Maybe if something specific would come up, I could be interested, but it would ultimately depend on what other options I have.”
He also said conservatism has evolved very far beyond its inception.
“The definition of conservatism changed. It became about big government conservatism,” he said. “As far as what the people believe, ‘the government is the solution,’ that’s not what conservatives like Barry Goldwater and what most people in the grass roots movement believed.”