Posted on 01/16/2012 5:52:12 PM PST by traviskicks
He has a solid, unshakeable base. His poll numbers are rising, not sinking. He hasn’t had to go negative. He hasn’t had to deliver a speech to get past his newsletter-induced Reverend Wright moment.
Oh, and one other thing: he’s in this race ’til the finish line.
His name is Ron Paul, and you have the establishment to thank for his shocking march from the margins to something almost mainstream.
In retrospect, at least, there’s really nothing shocking about it. At every step, he has been boosted up and pushed forward by the horrendous failure of the establishment to remove the real-life conditions that heighten his appeal.
Some of these failings, and their great power, have begun to inspire pieces of commentary unthinkable even two years ago.
Says Charles Krauthammer of his position in the GOP: “regardless of my feelings or yours, the plain fact is that Paul is nurturing his movement toward visibility and legitimacy.”
Says Mark Steyn of his foreign policy: “deploring it is an inadequate response to a faction that is likely to emerge with the second-highest number of delegates at the GOP convention.”
Says Glenn Greenwald of his embarrassment of the left: “Ron Paul’s candidacy is a mirror held up in front of the face of America’s Democratic Party and its progressive wing, and the image that is reflected is an ugly one; more to the point, it’s one they do not want to see because it so violently conflicts with their desired self-perception.”
All true. Yet in the minds of many, inside and outside the Beltway, the particulars of Paulmentum continue to taint the phenomenon with more than a whiff of illegitimacy. There is the newsletter issue. There are the associations with conspiracy-mongering. There is the almost wickedly gleeful hawk-baiting on the subject of Iran. There are the legions of Paul fans, on the Internet and in meatspace, whose enthusiasm borders on the berserk, and sometimes more than borders.
These things inspire something more dangerous than fear in the hearts of elites (and of normal people who can’t quite bear the thought of deciding to comprehensively reject the elites’ global leadership). They inspire contempt.
Natural a reaction as it may be for some, contempt for Paul, his supporters, and his sympathizers is so dangerous because it reinforces the sense that the response of the establishment elite to the global economic crisis should leave only a crazy person feeling worse than ever about the U.S. and the world.
After all, the establishment makes an apparently compelling case that, even if you hate some things about the way the post-crisis world is shaking out, you ought to thank your deity of choice that we even have a world to hate on. Barack Obama is not the only one to insist, in so many words, that the establishment saved the human race from a total financial meltdown. Surely you tinfoil hat people could set your overactive imaginations racing with visions of the apocalyptic nightmare that would have entailed. Now where’re the thanks?
Well, there’s just one problem. The establishment elite managed to forestall Armageddon by intensifying the conditions that led to the colossal crisis in the first place. Some say they did this by choice; others say they were forced to do it. The motives don’t matter half as much as the outcome: a financial system more concentrated than before 2008; a political system more dysfunctional; an executive branch more powerful; a federal government possessed of more money, greater reach, and broader authority; and promises of even more to come.
One objection to the picture you are no doubt beginning to form in your head is that, this time, they got it right. This is actually a nontrivial claim. Surely you remember doing something insanely irresponsible and knowing in a flash (miraculous survival!) that you’d never be so carelessly stupid as to try that again. Give the establishment the benefit of the doubt.
But the benefit of the doubt doesn’t matter either. Again, look at the outcome: an increase in the level of risk of total system collapse, courtesy of the intensified factors that led to 2008.
Surely the old military adage holds true, though, that the safest place to hide from an incoming artillery shell is in the crater blown open by the last one? Unfortunately, the ground is shifting beneath us. The international situation, with its complexly interdependent political, economic, financial, and religious variables, is deep into a period of extreme volatility, and getting deeper.
Put differently, we are carrying a Jenga into a moon bounce, with the role of the Jenga being played by civilization as we know it.
The intuition of an “inadequate response” at this order of magnitude is the animating spirit behind the Paul phenomenon. It’s correct to note that Paul’s foundational emphasis on liberty is central to his success, but not enough thought is being put into why the liberty pitch is working.
Answer? Because the logic of liberty offers an alternative structural response to the foreboding risk calculus exacerbated by the establishment’s answer to 2008. Dispersing political authority, and the financial power that concentrates around it, makes for a game much different from Jenga.
Back in June, in my first column in these pages, I advised that a new world disorder would be blunted in the U.S. because of the deep and well-dispersed cultural and historical resources uniquely found among Americans at such a scale. As a whole, our establishment elites have proven unable so far to craft a response to the ongoing global predicament that will not minimize what advantages the American people do enjoy should a new crisis indeed transpire.
Given the apparent likelihood of a fresh crisis event, and given how our post-crisis system is structured to cascade disruptions toward catastrophe, the somewhat out-of-left-field logic of liberty advanced by Paul seems to be striking a growing number of Americans — not just on the right — as something less of a gamble.
Excellent description of the Paul-bots / Pauistinians / PaulTards / Paul-bearers, ponygirl! We see this bunch every year at CPAC (bussed in, for the most part). They hijack the stupid CPAC Straw Poll every year, too... I see them stuff the ballot boxes with my own eyes. They're disgusting.
Why?
Thanks for the post. Very interesting perspective.
A brilliant post. One way or the other "we the people" are our own worst enemy. I'm "absurdly" sick of the masochistic self-flagellation.
Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite.
Ever heard of a pyrrhic victory? You may hold me in "low regard" but I respect you. I think you are on your way to eventually getting it. It's not necessarily selfish to quit playing a game where the house always wins. It's not necessarily selfish to risk dying on the operating table to remove the cancerous tumor. It's not necessarily selfish to abandon a sinking ship (unless you are an Italian cruise ship captain and you're the first one off).
See you in the surf.
I didn’t see all the debate, but Paul is not known, even amongst his (honest) supporters for being a great debater, which is sort of his appeal, no flash, all substance. :)
Because he is not a dissimulating statist, I trust him on the following subjects:
I believe that Iran is a colossal distraction and I get disappointed every time Ron Paul amplifies the distracting effect by saying stupid things about it.
Flash is all Ron Paul was going for in the debate. He was absolutely incomprehensible. He made no sense at all, he just kept going on and on, throwing out sound bites that were designed to get his immature base stirred up. Paul said nothing. He had no answers for anything, just sound bites that were unrelated to the question.
I think that Paul sees himself as the Perot of 2012. He knows that he isn’t going to win, but he wants to make sure that no strong conservative wins, either. He thinks that destroying the GOP will empower the Libertarians. Paul is a nut, but he is a dangerous nut.
Mr. Paul spoke Tuesday at South Carolina’s statehouse, where he picked up the endorsement of three of the state’s conservative lawmakers days ahead of South Carolina’s GOP primary on Saturday. State Sens. Kevin Bryant, Lee Bright and Danny Verdin added their backing to that of state Sen. Tom Davis, who endorsed Mr. Paul on Sunday.
More destruction?
Most definitely, more destruction. No true conservative would ever put their trust in someone who blames the US for 9/11.
Look, Ron Paul has absolutely zero chance of winning the Republican nomination. He is acting as a spoiler. The only possible reason for any political endorsements is because these politicians see Ron Paul as voting present on Romney. They haven’t got the guts to endorse a real conservative.
That is the major talking point in the MSM...
Ron Paul, DOC(Demented Old Coot)
This is not a game.
It's not necessarily selfish to abandon a sinking ship
No, but it is selfish to help sink a ship because it's a steam ship, instead of a sailing ship like your forefathers had. That's what you Paul supporters are doing. You should think of the rest of the people on that ship that simply want to get to a safe harbor...not abandon ship.
It's not necessarily selfish to risk dying on the operating table to remove the cancerous tumor.
It is when that patient is your nation, and you would send her to a quack to save you a few bucks.
Ron Paul is a quack, beyond a doubt.
See you in the surf.
No you won't. I'll be the one still here furiously bailing out water.
Have fun voting for the suction that is Romney. I can't do it.
Psalm 137:3
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
Have fun living for another four years under Obama's thumb....if you fool Paulbots would open you're eyes and support one of the candidates besides Paul, we wouldn't necessarily get stuck with Romney.
Proverbs 12:15
The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.
You took the words right out of my mouth! :-)
“He hasn’t had to go negative.”
OH PLEASE! RP leads in the number of mean attack and smear ads (and comments) against virtually ALL the other candidates (including now absent Michelle Bachmann).
“He hasn’t had to deliver a speech to get past his newsletter-induced Reverend Wright moment.”
YET. His time is coming, to be accountable for all his leftist and racist associations - if he’s even capable of it.
And if he helps to re-elect BHO (to continue the destruction of our country), he knows what he’s doing full well, and he should be vilified as a traitor.
RuPaul talks a big game on the Constitution as it suits him, and his zombie fanatics buy it (because they don’t know any better), but millions of the rest of us do NOT. In twenty years, he hasn’t been effective in bringing about any of the changes he loves to blather about - he’s all talk.
This says it all:
Put differently, we are carrying a Jenga into a moon bounce, with the role of the Jenga being played by civilization as we know it.
Uh ... okay ...
These things inspire something more dangerous than fear in the hearts of elites (and of normal people who can’t quite bear the thought of deciding to comprehensively reject the elites’ global leadership). They inspire contempt.
Natural a reaction as it may be for some, contempt for Paul, his supporters, and his sympathizers is so dangerous because it reinforces the sense that the response of the establishment elite to the global economic crisis should leave only a crazy person feeling worse than ever about the U.S. and the world.
I guess he's saying that the "establishment" has contempt for Paul and his fans and that they shouldn't.
Maybe, maybe not. But Paul's fans have just as much contempt for the rest of the party -- probably much more.
To judge by some of the blogs they write, Paulites are not victims, and they have more than enough contempt to go around for people they disagree with.
“Well I would call myself a Ron Paul hater, but I guess you would, but that’s no never mind to me because as I see it it puts me in very good company.”
I don’t know you well enough to call you anything. I have to assume that you’re a perfectly good person, and I will do my best to treat you politely regardless.
And don’t worry: I really appreciate the rabid anti-Paul folks. The more foaming at the mouth, the better.
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