Many conservatives have spent the last year pulling their hair out trying to figure out why so many Republican voters support Donald Trump. They’ve made the case time and again that Trump isn’t actually a conservative or even a Republican.
Other conservatives, many famous, have supported Trump.
For decades, they’ve participated in ideological battles over who is a true conservative.
During the 2008 and 2012 elections, they spent a lot of time insisting insurgent libertarian Republican Ron Paul wasn’t a conservative and didn’t belong in the GOP.
I was Ron Paul’s official blogger for his 2012 presidential campaign. A great deal of my writing focused on defending Paul from his attackers on the right.
These conservatives blasted Ron Paul for his unorthodox Republican views, particularly on foreign policy. They denounced Paul for opposing the Iraq War and for repeatedly attacking the George W. Bush administration.
The same things Donald Trump says today.
Let’s remember some of the high profile conservatives who said Ron Paul was a joke, but embrace Donald Trump.
Pundit Ann Coulter said Ron Paul was one of the least conservative candidates in the race, primarily for his foreign policy.
Coulter dismissed Ron Paul’s rowdy supporters as being like Justin Bieber fans, but today worries Trump’s fans aren’t violent enough. She even said Ron Paul’s son, Senator Rand Paul, was too “cranky” to be president in 2016, but Trump might be a gift from God.
During the last election, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly called Ron Paul’s foreign policy “dangerous” and said Paul would not be “nominated by the Republican Party simply because President Obama would beat Mr. Paul by a colossal margin – hello, Barry Goldwater.”
At the time, some polls showed Ron Paul could beat President Obama head-to-head. Current polling show Donald Trump might be the weakest general election candidate since Barry Goldwater.
O’Reilly said of Trump in January, “The combined Democrat and Republican establishments just may propel a tough-talking political novice into the White House.”
Rush Limbaugh has said good things about Ron Paul, including that he was the most serious fiscal conservative in the race in 2012. He also said Ron Paul was a dead end.
Limbaugh said Ron Paul’s “kookiness” would “destroy” the Republican Party if he became the nominee in 2012. Today, Rush says Trump has a much “bigger upside than downside” if he becomes the nominee.
Some wonder if Rush is now “cheating on conservatism” with Trump.
One could argue — and I did — that Ron Paul was the most conservative candidate running for president in 2008 and 2012 if shrinking government and obeying the Constitution still had any bearing on that label.
Like Trump, Paul believed the Iraq War was a mistake and that we needed secure borders. But unlike Trump, Paul never demonized ethnic or religious minorities when advocating these positions. Paul even spoke out against building a wall along our southern border.
Today, Ron Paul speaks out loudly against Trump.
The rampant hypocrisy among Paul-hating, Trump-loving right-wingers on foreign policy and other issues should be clear.
But there’s something more troubling.
Ron Paul-style libertarianism was harsh on government, but always compassionate toward individuals. Donald Trump-style authoritarianism largely embraces big government and collectively blames immigrants, Muslims and others for America’s problems.
What does it say about popular conservative leaders who instinctively rejected Ron Paul, but embrace a darker, more authoritarian challenge to the status quo in Donald Trump?
What does it say about what these people think conservatism really is?
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