Is there a more sickening symbol of Republican decrepitude than Rand Paul?
OK, you might well nominate Lindsey Graham, who in a previous life rightly called Donald Trump a “jackass” and an “idiot,” but Graham isn’t speaking at the Republican convention, mostly because his embarrassing trek from critic to bootlicker has landed him in some trouble back home. But unlike Graham, Rand Paul isn’t up for re-election this year. So Paul could well afford to speak freely as a poster child Republican – a guy who had Trump’s number but who has since surrendered.
Granted, there were many lowlights last night. Melania Trump oozing empathy for virus victims – while addressing a maskless assemblage – certainly qualified. So did the appearance of Abby Johnson, an abortion foe who has endorsed “household voting,” whereby “in a Godly household, the husband would get the final say.” So did the address by Florida Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez, who hailed Trump’s genius at “confronting tyrants,” without mentioning the genius’ subservience to the tyrant who hacked the ’16 election, puts bounties on American soldiers, and poisons political rivals. And let’s not forget Eric Trump, who’s literally wanted for questioning by New York authorities, and who last night recycled the blatant lie that Joe Biden wants to defund the police.
But as soon as lightweight libertarian Rand Paul opened his mouth, my money was on him.
He said that when he first met Trump, “I was struck by how down to earth he was…just a normal guy.”
This is the same Rand Paul who, four years ago, described Trump as “a delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag.”
He spoke last night about how “proud” he is of Trump.
This is the Rand Paul who once said of Trump, “The ‘truth-telling’ is bluster, the ‘truth-telling’ is non-sequitur, self-aggrandizement, and is there really anything substantive…?”
Last night he lauded Trump for (among other things) standing up to “the socialists who are poisoning our schools.” (Huh?)
This is the same Rand Paul who once ridiculed Trump as “a reality TV star,” and asked, “Do we want someone with that kind of character to be negotiating with Putin?”
It’s a tough job, bowing to a man you once reviled, and sometimes it requires some old-fashioned lying. Paul said last night that Trump is so wise that he even foresaw that the Iraq war would be a disaster – and duly opposed it. (“Iraq,” said Paul, “which President Trump has long called the worst geopolitical mistake of our generation.”) In truth, for what that’s worth, Trump voiced opposition to the war more than a year after it began; suggested before it began that an invasion might be good, and said in one of his ghost-written books – three years before the war began – that a military strike on Iraq might be good.
No matter. Paul’s address wasn’t aimed at those of us who respect facts and consistency of principle; it was intended to wow the credulous suckers who like him, have surrendered to tinpot authoritarianism. You might think it’s a tad weird for a self-professed libertarian (an advocate for limited government, a foe of federal power) to park his beliefs and extol a president who sends federal goons into American cities and launches boycotts against private companies that piss him off…but we’re talking here about Rand Paul. This is a guy who used to denounce Trump’s racism (“It’s important that we not vilify people based on their ethnicity,” only to echo Trump’s recent attack on Congresswoman Ilhan Omar by offering to buy Omar a plane ticket back to Somalia.
As the late libertarian activist Justin Raimondo said of Paul a few years ago, “For the life of me, I can’t figure out what he really believes.”
Well, we can. He believes in proximity to power. He’s a veritable metaphor for an entire party hooked on power, at the expense of principles and moral courage.
Five years ago, referring to Trump, Paul warned: “If no one stands up to a bully, a bully will just keep doing what they’re doing.” Sage advice, then and now. Too bad Paul and his colleagues went AWOL.