Ron Paul and Donald Trump have destroyed the Republican Party — and good riddance to it.
Ron Paul really laid the groundwork for this overthrow of the GOP with his revolutionary ideas about government, harking back to the Jeffersonian tradition, and its logical economic sequitor, the Austrian School of Economics (i.e. pure free-market capitalism). The 20%plus he was getting in the early 2008 campaign showed that a considerable tranche of the Republicans and Libertarians were fed up with the constant collectivist actions of the mainstream Republicans. The recent budget giveaway under Paul Ryan shows that the Republican Party has not changed, and is still the right wing of the Democratic Party.
So Ron Paul laid and wired the dynamite to blow-up the stinking edifice. All Trump did was press the detonator.
Ron Paul’s gentle, gentlemanly approach to his campaigns was not the vehicle that an angry public could drive off the ranch of Fascism. It would take another eight years of poverty, inflation, social degeneration in American society, soaring crime, and Obamacare taking the last discretionary dollars every month from millions of middle-class Americans, to push enough millions over the cliff that they would turn to a brusque, direct-speaking, abrasive Donald Trump. No matter that he has proposed horrendous socialist programs in the past like single-payer government medical insurance, and supported the income tax, Trump’s new supporters don’t care, because he is advocating 60% of the positions that Ron Paul articulated. Trump has formed a new party that grabs favorite positions from the left (affirmative action and single-payer medical) and the right (huge military increases while somehow cutting income taxes on everybody while somehow dealing with the deficit). Ron Paul’s Austrian Economics proposals make logical and obvious sense; Donald Trump’s don’t. But that will not stop Trump’s supporters from voting for him.
However, there is another reason why Trump may well win, and that is his conciliatory attitude, at least recently, towards Putin and Russia. With the sole exceptions of Rand Paul, Trump, and Sanders, all the other candidates are ready to go fisticuffs with the Rooskies, which is a near sure prescription for World War III. Ironically, it will be Trump’s peace LBJ vs. Clinton’s warmonger Goldwater (and recall she was a Goldwater Girl at the 1964 Republican Convention).
Personally, I could not and would not vote for Trump, based not only on his stereotyping Mexicans, and ridiculing disabled people, but also based on his ridiculous economic proposals (eliminate the deficit while greatly expanding the military, and cutting taxes on almost everybody and huge corporations). His proposals to “bring jobs home” would be highly inflationary for hundreds of millions of American consumers, while just helping a few thousand workers and stockholders in those companies. Trump doesn’t seem to grasp the economic principle that what is best for America is to have the highest cash balances possible in the savings accounts of consumers, and when he slaps huge tariffs on foreign goods, he helps impoverish those consumers while subsidizing American stock holders in the protected companies, and the Federal spendthrifts. That said, it probably would help the U.S. trade deficit slightly.
However, if Trump ran against Clinton, while I would not vote for him, and vote Libertarian if they ran somebody decent, or write in someone, I would be routing for Trump to beat Clinton, not only because of Clinton’s warmongering with Russia, but also for her support for the terrorism-promoting Iran Deal, and her long history of political actions and proposals (remember when she proposed lowering the estate tax to $250k). We definitely do not need “dynasties” in American politics, and the history of the Kennedys, the Bushes, and the Clintons illustrate why. Family dynasties ruling America smacks of Monarchy. The idea that only a relative or spouse of a powerful politician is competent to take over governance is an insult to a country of 310 million people, and an affront to Jeffersonian Republicanism.
The dissolution of a political party by one candidate, Trump, was foreshadowed earlier this year by an event which I have seen no American commentators mention. That event was the U.K. General Election of 2015, which saw the Labour and Conservative Parties wiped out in Scotland by the SNP (Scottish National Party), and saw UKIP, the UK Independent Party, gain almost 13% of the vote, though they garnered only one seat in Parliament. This broke a stranglehold on British politics by the Tories and Labour that has existed since 1900. Prior to 2015, people didn’t vote for candidates, they voted for party manifestos. But those days are thankfully gone. Masses of people, on both sides of the Pond, are starting to see that the economic policies of the Left consistently fail, and that the Right is not so far from the Left in its collectivist thinking.
The Democratic and Republican Parties, the Conservative and Labour Parties — these are the megatheria of the past, dinosaurs sinking into the La Brea Tarpits of History. In a decade they will be extinct, or starved and voted into marginality. So, whatever you may think of them, we owe a debt to Ron Paul and Trump for blowing up the Republican Party — that putrid and mephitic edifice of Collectivism and Fascism, masquerading as Free-Market Capitalism. The Western world’s politics will never be the same again.
-Paul Grad, Libertarian Party of Oregon Gubernatorial Nominee 2014
Paul Grad for Governor 