Since Jefferson Davis is no longer available, why not Ron Paul?
Every April since 2004, I've been celebrating Confederate "Heritage" Month by posting daily at Old Hickory's Weblog about various aspects of pre-Civil War history and the use in more recent times of Lost Cause dogma, aka, neo-Confederate ideology.
Ron Paul finally got the attention of a number of liberals when he came out last Sunday on Meet the Press as opposed to civil rights laws, accused Abraham Lincoln of starting the Civil War as part of his nefarious intent to destroy the Constitution and worried that the US had been way too hasty in abolishing slavery.
After that, liberals who can't figure out that the guy is a flaming rightwinger probably wouldn't be able to see it if he put together an ad campaigning featuring himself yelling, "I hate n*****s!" They would claim that, well, he's expressing a personal opinion, but he still supports the Constitution.
I'm going to link to a few posts that have come out in response to Paul's overt neo-Confederate stance. But I want to make the point first that, yes, politics makes strange bedfellows, I don't mind if he's against the war, some of his support up to now comes from his criticism of the Iraq War, and yadda, yadda. But not only is the guy a flaming rightwinger who panders to racists and nativists. His criticism of the war is poor quality. He says things like he's opposed to the war because it was fought to enforce UN resolutions, which is false and also echoes a stock prowar argument. Among the New World Order paranoids who are his most enthusiastic and longtime supporters, the UN is a particularly sinister element of the Jewish World Conspiracy against good Christian American white folks.
And what about his response to Business Week when asked how he would respond to a "hostile" action by Iran and he responded that he would treat it like Kennedy did the Cuban Missile Crisis? And we're supposed to think this guy is some kind of antiwar hardliner?
Josh Marshall at TPM picked up on Paul's pro-Confederate comments to Timmy Russert in You're No Abraham Lincoln 12/24/07, saying straightforwardly that what Paul said was "morally and historically wrong". TPM has the video clip, which I'm also including at the end of this post. Marshall also asks caustically, "Did Paul give in to the heavy media pressure to come up with a clear position on slavery and the Civil War?"
No, but he wanted to make sure his tribe of hardline rightwingers know that he's one of them, despite the praise he's been getting from liberals who should know better.
In a 12/26/07 post, Antipodes, he returns to the "alternative universe" of the Paulians. Here he grouses a bit along the lines of, why should I have to bother about Ron Paul one way or the other, because his poll showing is pitiful.
There are a couple of reasons. One is that Paul has been a chief conduit for mainstreaming themes from the white-supremacist, militia-type far right into the Republican Party, although admittedly it's increasingly jarring to see any form of the word "mainstream" in the same sentence with "Republican Party". In connection with that, the Old Right isolationist viewpoint that Ron Paul represents is working hard to appeal to today's peace movement. But their basic orientation is not fundamentally different than Dick Cheney's unilateralist nationalism, despite differences on specific policies. And I don't want to see the revived peace movement marginalize itself by embracing Old Right unilateralist approaches.
The other is what Taylor Marsh notes in a post at her blog that is otherwise way too generous to Paul (Mormons for Ron Paul 12/23/07), "If he'd run as an independent I believe all hell would break loose politically with Democrats jumping across to vote for him on the issue of Iraq and foreign policy alone." We won't know until after a few primaries whether Paul is interesting in such a move. But it's unthinkable that some Republican movers and shakers haven't toyed with that idea as a way to keep the White House in Republican clutches.
Jane Hamsher at FireDogLake writes on Russert Roasts Ron Paul on Meet the Press 12/23/07, observing that, "Russert expresses the outrage of the Village Elders at Ron Paul for being...well, Ron Paul. And rocking the Republican boat."
That's probably true. But not every "alternative" viewpoint to the press corps conventional wisdom is a good alternative. And within today's GOP, even though there's not much discussion among Presidential candidates of the Civil War, the neo-Confederate viewpoint is more-or-less respectable.
Glenn Greenwald continues to sing Paul's praises, although he has said that he's not supporting him or anyone else for President, in Various itemsSalon 12/24/07 (item 4).
Meanwhile, the invaluable Edward Sebesta at his Anti-Neo-Confederate blog makes his own debunking of Paul's pseudohistory in Ron Paul whistles Dixie 12/24/07.
Digby notes that Paul also embraces not just neo-Confederate pseudohistory but also creationist pseudoscience in Dogwhistling Into Hell Hulabaloo blog 12/23/07. She also points out that Paul is very much a mainstream Republican on creationism. Also, she looks at Paul's far-right affinities in Tucker And Air Force Amy 12/26/07. That report talks about conservative journalist Tucker Carlson observing during Ron Paul appearances that Paul's audiences typically responded most enthusiastically to a line about how the Federal Reserve Bank is unconstitutional, a longtime rightwing talking point and one of the John Birch Society's big causes. Digby observes, that...
... it should be of more than a passing interest to mainstream journalists who are writing about Ron Paul that his biggest applause lines are echoes of an underground right wing radicalism that's coming up to the surface. I don't know what it means, but it's usually not a good sign.
And Daily Kos (Markos Moulitsas) digs up a telling quote from Ron Paul from 1992, reflecting a position he's given us no reason to think he's changed, in The overt racist in the GOP field 12/26/07. As Moulitsas says with sarcasm, "But Paul is against the war in Iraq and he wants FREEDOM! So that must make his racism okay."
Shoot, with the post I already have in the can for April relating the Mexican War, aka, la guerra de los Estados Unidos a México, I could fill up the whole month of Confederate "Heritage" posts just by quoting those posts linked here and commenting on them.
Ron Paul on the evils of Abraham Lincoln from his Meet the Press appearance of 12/23/07:
Since Jefferson Davis is no longer available, why not Ron Paul?
