Yesterday on his MSNBC telecast, Ronan Farrow, like too many other seemingly naive members of his generation, confessed to being a fan of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) in spite of the fact that Farrow, seconds earlier, aired a clip of the senator vocally endorsing the idea of “traditional marriage” and attributing the redefining of marriage as the leading cause of poverty in the U.S.
We’ll circle back to the surge of fanboy admiration for the would-be Republican presidential frontrunner, but first some history.
The ascendancy of Rand Paul might be the one true barometer for the mainstreaming of the political fringes. If you recall, as I do, the previous two presidential elections, you might remember how Paul’s father, former-Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), was widely considered to be the wacky wild-card candidate during the GOP primaries in 2008 and 2012. As the analogue to, say, Dennis Kucinich on the Democratic side, no one other than his legion of doomsday-bunker-squatting, money-bombing John Galt disciples seriously regarded Ron Paul as a serious candidate and therefore laughed his hopeless candidacy.
In just about every Republican debate, whenever Ron Paul was humored with a question or two and subsequently filled his time with fantastical libertarian tall-tales from aboard his huffing, puffing, whimsical steam-powered jalopy, the other candidates along with with most of the audience-members could barely contain their snickering and smirking.
But just two short years following the 2012 primaries, Rand Paul, who’s generally the same political creature as his father is widely regarded as a serious contender for the GOP nomination. This is how deeply into the pits of screwball insanity the political discourse has descended. The Son of Weirdo Ron Paul is the real deal.
And it seems as if this surge of relevancy for Rand Paul in the presidential sphere is partly fueled by easily-deceived, privileged voters on the left who are climbing aboard an all new whimsical wheezy jalopy, evidently unaware that Rand Paul is an opportunist who’s views are generally anathema to progressivism. Among those naive leftists are Ronan Farrow and Ralph Nader in spite of his horrendous views on an entire roster of critical issues, many of which are torn from his father’s mystical playbook.
Simply because he occasionally tosses a few token scoops of chum to the left (then quickly backpedals), the left appears to be more than willing to ignore the following positions… CONTINUE READING