Reason editor-in-chief Matt Welch has an interesting editorial kicking off the April issue of the magazine. In it he argues that Ron Paul's undoing was brought about indirectly by allegations of racism -- indirectly because "the issue of race relations has hovered uncomfortably around the edges of libertarian politics" going back to the early 1990s. The kernel of the tension was the "intramovement squabble" resulting from association between "paleolibertarians" and paleocon conservative populists led by Pat Buchanan:
The broader historical context of the self-styled “paleolibertarian” movement of the early 1990s, launched by Rockwell and libertarian movement titan (and former reason columnist) Murray N. Rothbard, who together hoped to rile up the “rednecks” in support of rolling back the welfare state and giving police more power.
“Cops must be unleashed, and allowed to administer instant punishment,” Rothbard wrote in a manifesto titled “Right-Wing Populism: A Strategy for the Paleo Movement,” which appeared in the January 1992 Rockwell-Rothbard Report. The historical model for this new program? Sen. Joe McCarthy, whom Rothbard praised as “fascinating,” “exciting,” and having “a sense of dynamism, of fearlessness.” The modern-day exemplar? “Right-wing radical” David Duke. Rothbard and Rockwell rejected the “upper-middle class yuppie suburbanites” of Beltway-based kowtowing libertarian think tanks, and instead wanted to “lead the charge against the cultural and social decay which agitates the American public.” They were closely aligned with Ron Paul (whose newsletters from this era are nearly indistinguishable from the Report), sounded regular alarms against the coming “race war,” focused constantly on cases of minority violence, and rallied around Pitchfork Pat Buchanan for president in 1992.
This is fascinating stuff and it's admirable that Welch is using the flagship publication of the libertarian movement to bring this unsettling issue to the fore. Ultimately however, I'm left wondering if Welch's optimism about the future of libertarian politics misses the big picture. Ron Paul's campaign, in number of sheer donors and dollars, obviously created a pool of people enthusiastic about libertarian politics. But how much of that pool was aligned with libertarian philosophy writ large, and how much was simply attracted to his anti-war message? Worse, it's undeniable that some of those supporters came from the same corners of racial xenophobia that Paul's name was associated with in the 1990s. It doesn't matter what Paul himself thought on the matter: some percentage of his supporters did so because they felt Paul was one of them.
It isn't clear to me how libertarians are going to completely purge racists, whose very support helped make Ron Paul's challenge briefly seem credible, from their ranks. Reduced to a core of purists, would they even come close to attracting the level of support Paul commanded at his peak? It seems more probable that the Ron Paul phenomenon was sui generis, rather than a sign of a coming libertarian golden age.
--Mori Dinauer
