The revelation that Ron Paul, or someone under his name, published racist pamphlets seems to have resulted in the death of the Ron Paul Movement.
Revelation of newsletters published under Ron Paul’s name containing racist comments and bizarre conspiracy theories and Paul’s own implausible responses that he couldn’t have possibly known what was for years being published under his name by people he approved have finally broken the back of the “movement” that trolled the blogosphere to hijack and spam every political thread in the name of Ron Paul. Contrary to what Captain Ed noted a few days ago, Paul supporters have not completely stopped their campaign, but their numbers are abruptly way down and now even Andrew Sullivan appears to be throwing Paul away.
More interesting in the ensuring recriminations, however, is the fact that even many of Paul’s critics may have long overlooked the critical weakness in Paul’s and his supporters’ claims to be the vanguard of a new small-l libertarian “movement” — that Paul’s “states’ rights” focus is anathema to any reasonable conception of individual liberty anyway. Paul is, in fact, a statist with rather authoritarian leanings — he just prefers that government coercion and infringements on individual liberties originate with the state governments whenever possible instead of the federal government. Big difference. Or not.
When combined with Paul’s rigid and coercive positions on abortion and immigration as well as his continual and willful association with openly racist groups like Stormfront (actual Stormfront endorsements here), it is increasingly clear that the authoritarian and even racist underpinnings of the Ron Paul “movement” should have been visible all along. The novelty of an anti-war “Republican” who mouthed some of the politically correct (among libertarians) positions about “hard money” and the drug war was enough to divert many eyes from the weird conspiracy-mongering about a “NAFTA superhighway” and the faintly lingering stench of Jim Crow.
Eventually, the ability of Paul’s supporters to continually attribute all of the many mounting elements of the case against Ron Paul as being the inevitable result of the swirling conspiracies that ranged from the Federal Reserve to the Council on Foreign Relations and back waned as more and more information came out about Paul’s seedy associations and sketchy dissembling as well as his supporters’ frequent outbursts of bizarre and frightening behavior. But now the mask is off the Paul “movement” and many of its earlier supporters who were merely naive are wandering away mumbling to themselves about their own foolhardiness. And good riddance. The only questions remaining are how soon Paul will take up his rightful position alongside Lyndon LaRouche at the lunatic fringe of American politics whether Paul’s supporters will pay off their bets.
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