Fear of Rand Paul’s Rise. By Ben Domenech. Real Clear Politics, July 19, 2013.
Domenech:
Michael
Gerson is terrified of Rand Paul. “This disdain for Lincoln is not a quirk or a
coincidence. Paulism involves more than the repeal of Obamacare. It is a form
of libertarianism that categorically objects to 150 years of expanding federal
power. During this period, the main domestic justification for federal action
has been opposition to slavery and segregation. Lincoln, in the Paulite view,
exercised tyrannical powers to pursue an unnecessary war. Similarly, Paulites
have been critical of the 1964 Civil Rights Act for violating both states’
rights and individual property rights — an argument Rand Paul himself echoed
during several interviews as a Senate candidate. This does not make Paulites
racists. But it does make them opponents of the legal methods that ended
state-sanctioned racism. . . . What does this mean for the GOP? It is a
reminder that, however reassuring his manner, it is impossible for Rand Paul to
join the Republican mainstream. The triumph of his ideas and movement would
fundamentally shift the mainstream and demolish a century and a half of
Republican political history. The GOP could no longer be the party of Reagan’s
internationalism or of Lincoln’s belief in a strong union dedicated to civil
rights.”
I am
unfamiliar with the moment when Gerson, unstoppable promoter of paternalistic
big government that he is, was bequeathed the ability to define the Republican
mainstream. But Gerson’s depiction of the libertarian view of the Confederacy
is simply fraudulent. I hear far more defenses of the South’s approach from Pat
Buchanan sympathizers than from libertarians. Paleoconservatives may find much
worthy of defense in the Confederate state, but consider: The Confederate
Constitution amended the US Constitution to better facilitate technocratic
rule. The Confederate ruling ideology, derived from John C. Calhoun's
concurrent majorities, remains current in leftist thought today (see Lani
Guinier). The Confederacy was the first to introduce mass conscription. The
Confederacy staged a series of repressions and massacres against local autonomy
(east Tennessee, central Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, western North Carolina,
etc.). The Confederacy imposed an internal-passport regime for civilian travel
later echoed by European autocracies. The Confederate state took over most of
its own economy by war's end. And the Wilsonian “progressives” contained a
surprising number of Confederate sympathizers who saw it as a noble experiment
and set about applying its principles in the form of the segregating the
federal government, fomenting the Klan, and more.
Agrarian
non-interventionists have their sympathies for the Confederacy (see Copperhead,
which glorifies the Sixties peaceniks – the 1860s), but that’s hardly a
viewpoint unique to libertarianism. And for those who actually study history,
the idea that the Confederacy was a liberty-oriented alternative to Lincoln and
the Union is absurd – in many ways, its worst aspects were the forerunner of
the modern technocratic top-down state.
Beyond
getting the definitions wrong – and purposefully so, in a Sharptonesque manner
– Gerson’s attempt to define Rand Paul as someone who cannot shape the future
Republican coalition is just the latest sign of how afraid the party’s elite
are of the rising coalition of libertarian youngsters and the populist middle class.
“Since 2010, almost all the intellectual energy in the Senate has come from Tea
Party lawmakers like Rand Paul and Mike Lee, who tend to be relatively dovish,
skeptical of foreign aid, concerned about civil liberties, and contemptuous of
neoconservatives. Making the case for an activist foreign policy has fallen
largely to Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, both of whom increasingly
resemble the aging characters in Kingsley Amis’s The Old Devils, shambling
around the Senate chamber and waxing nostalgic about the good old days when
they could bomb other countries in peace. Beyond Rep. Tom Cotton, the
neoconservative darling who still staunchly defends the Iraq intervention,
there’s little fresh blood among Republican hawks in Congress these days. So
perhaps it makes sense for Liz Cheney, the daughter of one of the architects of
Bush-era foreign policy, to provide a Senate counterbalance to Paul.”
Concerned
neoconservatives have nothing to fear on this count. If Paul is correct about
the trajectory of the coalition, his views will achieve more prominence. But
there will be a debate first, and the people will decide who they agree with.
It could be a messy debate, public and ugly on the stage in Iowa, but that
debate will happen. If Gerson and his allies have confidence in the strength of
their ideas, they should be prepared to make the case for them . . . not
attempt to escape the debate by writing Senators – particularly those with a
young, passionate following – out of the party.
