The strange and scary candidacy of Ron Paul

Some on the left, including Ralph Nader, have oddly embraced Ron Paul at times. Tentatively embracing Paul is somewhat understandable given his opposition to the wars, opposition to the drug war, and support for civil liberties. Paul’s motivation for those positions differs from those on the left, but I guess if policy preferences align, it may not matter precisely why.

Paul’s Shady History
Except for those few policy overlaps however, Ron Paul is an unmitigated disaster as a candidate. For most of his career, Ron Paul has strangely occupied the same fringe, right-wing political space as survivalists, white supremacists, and conspiracy theorists. For more than a decade, Paul published a racist, homophobic, conspiracy-rich newsletter known as The Ron Paul Survival Report. In the newsletter, Paul discussed the coming race war, the New World Order, the enjoyment gays derive from contracting AIDS, and even more twisted stuff.

Ron Paul’s only defense to date has been that he did not write the newsletters and did not know what was in them. Although it is plausible that Paul did not write the newsletters — prominent people tend to have people write for them — it is doubtful that he had no idea what was being published under his name for ten years. The name of the newsletter itself, the Ron Paul Survival Report, is a clear homage to the survivalist fringe that Paul’s newsletter appeared to be targeting. Paul would have known generally what it was about from the name alone.

Even if his totally implausible defense on the newsletter was believed to be true, a number of recorded statements reflect similar sentiments. For instance, when challenged on his written claim that “95 percent of the black males in [DC] are semi-criminal or entirely criminal,” Paul defended himself saying “These aren’t my figures […] that is the assumption you can gather from [criminal justice statistics].” When challenged on his written statement that “only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions,” Paul’s spokesman defended by saying that this statement is true because only 5% of blacks share the same views as Paul.