Maddow vs. Paul

As much as I like to pride myself on intellectual debate and theoretical discussion, I can't help but admit that Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann are two guilty pleasures of mine. I love the passion that Maddow and Olbermann both have for the left - anyone who remembers Olbermann's five minute plea with America at the end of his show following the Prop 8 controversy will agree. In terms of academic honesty, Maddow and Olbermann are relatively fair; more or less all of the statistics they make their interns find have credibility behind them. But in terms of providing legitimate points of digression from the status quo, Maddow and Olbermann both fall short, opting to focus on petty cheap shots and rhetoric rather than logical deduction - sometimes I can't distinguish their tactics from Glenn Beck's or Bill O'Reilly's. There's no theoretical argument, nothing bound by the parameters of logic and reason. And this can be a problem.

Such was the case on The Rachel Maddow Show on May 14, 2010, when she hosted Dr. Rand Paul, a moron libertarian who recently won the Kentucky Republican primary. Rather than address issues that are of true concern, for instance, whether Paul, if elected, would continue to support American imperialism directly or vis-a-vis Israel, or whether Paul would support bailing out the big banks (again), Maddow backed him into a corner based on a relatively anachronistic piece of legislation: the 1964 Civil Rights Act. I'm not detracting any importance from this act, but I can't see how discussing this 46 year old piece of legislation is important. People of our generation, especially us on the left, don't question this - just in virtue of not being racist provides tacit support for this legislation. But by focusing on this piece of legislation, Maddow essentially gave Paul an easy out: he didn't have to discuss his libertarian philosophy which would have incredibly petrifying effects as he spent the majority of the show talking about a 46, yes 46, year old piece of legislation. How are we going to expose libertarian greed and solve economic disparity if we're focusing on everything BUT it? I'll address that in a future post, but for now, I have to throw a few darts and Maddow for playing the FoxNews game, or at least, I'll defer to the academic field here.

What is most interesting about this debacle is the reaction from the GOP. The immediate backlash from the GOP was, as Charles Babington put it, to "tame" Paul (source). This essentially infers that Paul, as a nominal Republican, is now bound by the parameters of the party, even though his philosophy disagrees with a majority of what Republicans stand for. In his own response to the interview and subsequent media backlash, Paul himself identified what Maddow had done as "[a] Democratic talking point," which had the result of further polarizing him to adopt the manifesto of Republicans (source). Now it seems that Paul has sacrificed his libertarian position for a Republican one; by identifying his enemy as "Democratic," he fell into the trap of Republican association, even though he is a stark opponent of some of the most elementary Republican platforms. Paul surrendered to the two-party trap very early, which means if he wins, sacrificing the libertarian discourse for Republican ideals will be commonplace during his tenure, more or less killing his chances at successfully pushing libertarian ideals foward.

What does this say about the libertarian movement? It seems to be the case that despite the recent surge in popularity of Ayn Rand, libertarians cannot survive in political environment saturated with neo-con Republicans. We first saw this lack of support for the libertarian philosophy in Ron Paul's 2008 failure to make any noise during the Republican primary. He was getting applause during the debates when he stood out against the war, which at the time, was wildly unpopular. However, Republican voters aligned themselves with the traditional Christian conservative discourse and essentially dismissed the libertarian plea; Paul took a seat very early to McCain and the devil. I mean Mitt Romney.

Unfortunately for libertarians, it seems that the political environment is still too virgin for a successful movement. This is great for the radical left; nothing scares me more than a complete lack of regulation in a free-market system. But what does this say for Rand Paul? As aforementioned, it seems to be the case that Paul will be easily manipulated in the senate by the Republican war machine. I could be wrong though - he might end up being the conservative version of Alan Grayson or Dennis Kucinich, sticking to his radical ideals at the expense of being ostracized by the majority of the party. This is the best case scenario for libertarians. Although he is (relatively) young, he might stick to the radical theory of de-reguation. Certainly, this would grant the small libertarian movement some solace. However, it will probably make Senate parties a little awkward if Paul continues to bash Republicans for neo-jingoism.