Ron Paul: I want to believe

This article orginally appeared in the Yorker http://www.theyorker.co.uk/comment/politics/10759

“But now I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.” -Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum.

As we're all aware it is a very difficult thing to get fired from Fox News for being too controversial. However, Andrew “Judge” Napolitano pulled it off earlier last month. In what is now a semi-viral internet clip, he fulfilled his professed aim of showing how to get fired in five minutes. Through posing a series of “What if?” questions, with overt references to general conservative discontent with the 2012 candidates, what started as an interesting, albeit seemingly paranoid, anti-establishment polemic, soon became yet another libertarian endorsement for Ron Paul, disguised as a radical attempt to expose a great 'Big Government' conspiracy.

For those of us who have been following the Republican nominations race with a decent level of interest, especially via online sources, this very peculiar feature of the campaign is nothing new. Any online article or news video that fails to include Ron Paul in its discussion of the front-runners will be followed by a series of comments decrying a media conspiracy to stop Paul getting elected. A worrying spate of articles on self-proclaimed 'radical' blogs and 'alternative' news sites follow similar themes. Paul is depicted as a libertarian saviour being crushed under the jackboots of a bipartisan cabal of corporate leaders, Pentagon officials and representatives of that great monster; “big government”. A video where Paul was cut off for 'technical difficulties' became irrefutable proof in the eyes of his online cultists and the revelations of racist articles published in his name were but fabrications of such nefarious plotters.

Equally concerning is how this mania has partially spread to leftists as well as libertarians. Buoyed by Paul's non-interventionism and indifference towards Israel, several pacifists and others have given him their support, and thus been taken in by the cult of conspiracy that surrounds him. Just as libertarians see Paul as stifled by big government sycophants, these confused leftists, such as Glenn Greenwald, see him as under threat from militaristic neo-conservatives. The enemies are different but the general themes of paranoia and conspiracy remain the same.

Of course, it goes without saying that such fears are unfounded. Ron Paul has never polled above 20% and has never been close to being in contention. Having stood on a highly similar platform in 1988 and 2008, and having expressed his views loudly for many years, gaining limited media interest for a failed novelty candidate, should hardly come as a surprise. There is no news about him because there is nothing new about him.
It is surely not too much to argue that Paul is losing because his policies are simply too extreme. Granted there is validity to the notion that the media simplifies political issues and is biased in influencing the way people vote. Yet even if Paul got the round the clock coverage his supporters think he deserves, would ordinary Americans really mandate policies such as abolishing all federal education, cancelling all foreign aid and effectively cutting off the welfare lifelines of millions of their fellow citizens? Indeed this is precisely the reason why the left is wrong to back Paul. Aside from a non-interventionism, that also entails abandoning developing countries to the largely Western-inflicted horrors of poverty, Paul is an anti-abortion fundamentalist and creationist. He is nothing more than yet another Texan republican, with a few added quirks and gimmicks.

But what is really wrong with the Ron Paul cult and its conspiracy, if he won't win, why does all this matter? Firstly, it masks real issues, by putting an inaccurate, yet strangely hegemonic, pro-libertarian perspective on global problems that really require non-libertarian solutions. For example the IMF and World Bank enforcement of free trade upon developing countries has wrecked their economies even further and caused horrible famine like that of Niger in 2005. Yet Paul portrays the IMF as part of his imagined global conspiracy and thus implies the solution is even more free trade, when in reality this is what causes the problems in the first place and the real solution is to all these countries to use protectionism to develop first and then open up their markets later on, as Ha Joon Chang has rightly argued. Similarly, Western military intervention and support for Israel is accurately and passionately lambasted by Paul, but whereas his solution is total non-interventionism that would probably lead to great chaos and bloodshed, a more pragmatic approach would be to use diplomatic channels of intervention to promote conciliation and development in troubled regions. Currently, Paul's fairly accurate, yet fatally flawed, diagnosis leads to an even worse prognosis, that marginalises more moderate solutions.

Perhaps the greater issue I have with the nature of Paul's campaign and its fanatics, is its paradoxically illiberal tone. Any comment expressed critical of Paul is immediately attacked by virtual hordes of his troops, often very harshly and even personally denouncing the author and thereby preventing a fair and free expression of opinion. Self-created paranoia from Napolitano and his ilk is undemocratic in that it discourages the discussion and compromise so necessary to democratic politics. It pushes supporters of Paul even further to the extreme and prevents them from considering the rightful views of others. By failing to realise the wise words of Umberto Eco those who would see themselves as the greatest defenders of liberty thus become its greatest danger.