The Mentzen Playbook: How Beers shift Policy
đ§ I am working on a small series about the libertarian-to-fascist pipeline. Many of my friends who loved liberty, now openly embrace neofascists like Trump. Mentzen is an example of a right-wing libertarian who is slowly shifting into a more and more authoritarian rhetoric. I decided to write this to collect the ideas related to him in one place.
Noob Intro
âI vaguely remember some Polish dude selling beer on TikTok and ranting about the EU. Why should I care?â
Because Mentzen is a living case study in twenty-first century power stacking, a cocktail of meme culture, micro-donations, and Overton-window judo. Even if you have never set foot in Poland, the playbook ports nicely to any democracy silly enough to hand free airtime to fringe candidates.
Why This Matters
Two-round elections equal sandbox mode. The first ballot lets voters swipe right on whatever tickles their ideological itch; real coalition math happens in the runoff.
Audience beats office. A million TikTok followers translate into mailing lists, donors, and future party lists. These assets compound over time.
Window shifting economics. Stake out an even more radical position than the mainstream hard right, and suddenly yesterdayâs extreme becomes todayâs âsensible compromise.â
Simple enough. Letâs drill down.
Story Time: Beer, Bankers, and Blitz Scaling
Picture a craft-beer expo in ĆĂłdĆș. Mentzen shows up in a hoodie bearing his own brewery logo. Fans pay fifteen zĆoty for a lager and a selfie. They walk away buzzed and tagged in his CRM. Every pint is (1) data capture, (2) donation, and (3) social proof.
Now multiply the loop:
35 cities in 60 days
Roughly 400 attendees per stop
Ten euro average spend on merch, beer, and tips
Quick math: about 140 k euro gross in two months from glorified pub crawls. That is before TikTok ad revenue, Patreon superfans, or covert crypto wallets floating getting funding from **probably** Russia. Not bad ROI for a so-called âno-chanceâ candidate.
Framework: The Three Payoff Buckets
If you want to model this in true game-theorist fashion.
Win utility â the straight-up value of becoming president (huge prize, low probability).
Policy utility â the value of nudging actual legislation closer to your ideals.
Future utility â the value of personal brand, party subsidies, soft power, and plain old cash flow created by running.
Most people stop at bucket one. Mentzen is stacking buckets 2 & 3.
Deep Dive 1: Policy Utility & Moving the Overton Window
Real numbers
2020: Only 14 percent of Poles were ok with âtighten border, cut welfare for Ukrainians.â
2024: After Confederationâs viral blitz the number rose to 31 percent.
That is a 17-point swing achieved without touching executive power!
Techniques he uses
Shock markers. Call the EU âa Soviet sequel.â Not a serious white paper, just a neon flare that drags discourse two notches right so the next PiS guy looks moderate.
Meme velocity. Upload fifteen second shitposts with positions so spicy even liberal journalists cannot resist quote-tweeting. Congratulations, you just earned free cross-platform distribution.
Post-election Negotiation. Finish third with 17% in 1 one and say, âPay me policy concessions or I sit out the runoff, no embrace.â Front-runners cave, window stays shifted.
Case Study: Policy Utility
Late April. One flash poll shows Mentzen at twenty-four percent. Twitter meltdown. Newspapers push breathless âPolish Trumpâ headlines.
Two quick reactions:
PiS hard-swerves on Ukraine aid. Coincidence? Yeah, right.
KO starts whispering tax cuts for small business. They still claim they hate libertarians, but look: action beats words.
A week later Mentzen slides back to eighteen percent. Damage done, window moved, headlines immortalised.
Lesson: poll spikes are leverage, not prediction.
Deep Dive 2: Career Path
Mentzen is playing the long game.
2019: local tax adviser.
2021: launches the âBeer with Mentzenâ tour.
2023: Konfederacja cracks fourteen percent in parliamentary polls. New skill unlocked: king-maker.
2025: presidential run equals nationally televised debates plus regulated ad slots for the price of one hundred thousand signatures, pocket change after one beer tour. King-maker again.
2027: top of party list automatically. Free ride into the Sejm, likely a committee chair.
What scares me
King-maker. Historical runoff margins hover around 3-4% points. Konfederacjaâs floor is 6-7%. That means he can decide the presidency twice in a row without ever winning it.
Counter-Counters
âHe will alienate moderates and implode.â Maybe, but he does not need moderates for bucket 3.
âOverton window theory is oversimplified.â Sure, but it predicts observable concessions better than any moral-panic op-ed you will read this week.
Hit Me Up
Questions, insults, spicy memes â my DMs are open. I answer in bursts between coffee refills and my day job of yapping on discord.