This is not the Apostle Saint Paul under discussion here. Libertarian extremists Ron Paul and his son Randal Paul are something else. The senior Paul is still the cantankerous fanatic who took his pre-Tea Party Libertarian followers to seek the American Presidency in 1988 and tried in both 2008 and 2012 to win the Republican presidential nomination. While the older Paul is almost retired from politics at 78, his son “Rand” is readying for a presidential bid in 2016 from his Senate seat for the State of Kentucky. What is frightening about it is the highly sophisticated use of the Internet by the Paul’s. It is the real bully pulpit.
While in the usual sense, a bully pulpit is a position of power from which one can speak with authority, the Paul’s are actually using the Internet to create that authority. As their high-powered public relations people put it, the Paul’s are using the Internet to crowd source what they see as a digital bully pulpit. This is a giant step beyond being ‘liked’ on Facebook. The Paul Plan is to dominate.
Rather than call their supporters Libertarians, the Paul’s refer to their supporters as “liberty-minded” and obviously Republican. Their objective is to drive the political energy of the extreme right wing of American politics into feeding ideas, support, names of activists and local leadership from the grass roots to the Bully Pulpit that encompasses the Paul’s sites. It is a pyramid building exercise that could be the envy of Amway.
What the Paul’s are doing is creating conveyance. They see themselves as opening the flood gates for the real wishes of the American people. All that Randal Paul needs to do is offer leadership. He wants to be able to scratch today’s itch for millions of Americans. It is terribly simple and frightening as hell.
When you consider that almost half of the American population have no real love for their fellow man, Paul’s job is easy. Washington inside the Beltway is the enemy. Foreigners are to be distrusted and they are not even sure about Canadians. Business is good and welfare is bad. And no, young “Rand” is not named after former right-wing guru Ayn Rand but he might as well be.
The Paul’s Internet platform is based on Voices of Liberty, a supposedly ‘non-partisan’ site for exchange of right-wing theories, rants, ideas and arguments. And how do we know all about this? The public relations people for the Paul’s sent this blog a news release about it because we have readers in the United States of America.
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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