No one in the Imperial City, outside of Ron Paul and his staff, believes the Paul campaign is going anywhere, and, more – they don’t believe it can go anywhere but into the dustbin of yesterday’s failed campaigns. It is they – the self-appointed gatekeepers and guardians of the Conventional Wisdom – who define the parameters of the possible, and they have deemed a Paul presidency impossible because it goes against everything they’ve ever known and were taught to believe. Even the “libertarians” among them – and I use the term very loosely – are trapped inside this bubble where nothing much ever changes, and this means the State and its worshippers are always going to be on top, and the libertarian “radicals” (and their progressive brothers-and-sisters-in-spirit on the “far left”) are always going to be marginal. This ultra-conservative mindset – conservative in the temperamental sense – is a function not only of what the Beltway pundits believe, but, rather, of who they are and where they live.
Don’t forget – the Beltway pundits create reality. Don’t they?
Seriously, Ron Paul is not going to be elected because of two things: 1) he wants to end our military involvement around the world; 2) he wants to dismantle the Federal Reserve. Make that three things, because this is the most important one: voters do not elect American presidents. I can’t believe intelligent people are still discussing presidential elections as though they are actually functional levers of American society. Especially after Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and Bush v. Gore.
And even for those people who believe "their man got elected," when was the last time they got what their man promised them? Liberals vote on promises of social justice - who, after Lyndon Johnson, god rest his putrid soul, delivered on that? Conservatives vote on promises of a balanced budget and an end to legalized abortion. What Republican ever delivered either of those?
No, you don't elect the man of your choice, and the man of your choice isn't even that.
To us ordinary Americans, the hoi polloi if you will, the process of social and political change is simple: we get to decide if and when a political change occurs, because, you see, we have these events known as elections. Which means we get to pick and choose our leaders: if we don’t like the current occupant of the Oval Office, we can pitch him out and raise someone else up to take his place. It could be any native-born American in theory at least.
No, Justin. In theory only.
To the Beltway crowd – the elaborate society that has grown up around what can only be characterized as America’s version of a Royal Court – this is an archaic fiction, a theory that will never be put into practice. In reality, they believe, they get to do the choosing, by setting up the standards and nominating candidates to the “top tier.” From these chosen few will come the actual winners. Having jumped through all the traditional hoops, and survived the scrutiny of the various lobbyists, both foreign and domestic, the elite’s favored candidates will be dutifully rubberstamped by the American public, and two will emerge from the two state-privileged parties – one from Team Red, and one from Team Blue – to do battle. This way, no matter who wins, the status quo prevails unto eternity.
And they would be right.
No one foresaw the implosion of the Soviet empire, including especially the Soviets and our own CIA – just as no one can imagine the decline and fall of the American empire, which Ron Paul has been predicting, now, for all the years he’s been in politics.
Yes, but it will fall with or without Ron Paul in the oval office, and I guarantee you that Ron Paul will not get there. He himself is under the delusion that the people still elect presidents, or at least he is willing to stoke that delusion amongst the people.
The only thing that will turn that delusion on its head is outright revolution, and that is not coming in the next two – or four – years. And if it eventually does come, Ron Paul will still not be the beneficiary. We will be in the position of Libya’s rebels – the scrabble at the bottom fighting each other for the reins.
Read Raimondo’s slightly lengthy post. It is full of very nice reasoning and historical “parallels.” It just happens to have a false basic assumption: that the people elect the president of their choice.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
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