Just consider the similarities:
SANGER: But I guess the question is, If we can’t, do you think that your presidency, let’s assume for a moment that they contribute what they are contributing today, or what they have contributed historically, your presidency would be one of pulling back and saying, “You know, we’re not going to invest in these alliances with NATO, we are not going to invest as much as we have in Asia since the end of the Korean War because we can’t afford it and it’s really not in our interest to do so.”
TRUMP: If we cannot be properly reimbursed for the tremendous cost of our military protecting other countries, and in many cases the countries I’m talking about are extremely rich. Then if we cannot make a deal, which I believe we will be able to, and which I would prefer being able to, but if we cannot make a deal, I would like you to say, I would prefer being able to, some people, the one thing they took out of your last story, you know, some people, the fools and the haters, they said, “Oh, Trump doesn’t want to protect you.” I would prefer that we be able to continue, but if we are not going to be reasonably reimbursed for the tremendous cost of protecting these massive nations with tremendous wealth — you have the tape going on?…
Now, Hillary Clinton said: “I will never leave Japan. I will never leave Japan. Will never leave any of our ——” Well now, once you say that, guess what happens? What happens?HABERMAN: You’re stuck.
TRUMP: You can’t negotiate.
HABERMAN: Right.
TRUMP: In a deal, you always have to be prepared to walk. Hillary Clinton has said, “We will never, ever walk.” That’s a wonderful phrase, but unfortunately, if I were on Saudi Arabia’s side, Germany, Japan, South Korea and others, I would say, “Oh, they’re never leaving, so what do we have to pay them for?”
RON PAUL: They use [the term Isolationist] all the time, and they do that to be very negative. There are a few people in the country who say, “Well, that’s good. I sort of like that term.” I don’t particularly like the term because I do not think I am an isolationist at all. Because along with the advice of not getting involved in entangling alliances and into the internal affairs of other countries, the Founders said – and it’s permissible under the Constitution – to be friends with people, trade with people, communicate with them, and get along with them – but stay out of the military alliances. The irony is they accuse us, who would like to be less interventionist and keep our troops at home, of being isolationist. Yet if you look at the results of the policy of the last six years, we find that we are more isolated than ever before. So I claim the policy of those who charge us with being isolationists is really diplomatic isolationism. They are not willing to talk to Syria. They are not willing to talk to Iran. They are not willing to trade with people that might have questionable people in charge. We have literally isolated ourselves. We have less friends and more enemies than ever before. So in a way, it’s one of the unintended consequences of their charges. They are the true isolationists, I believe.
What was it Hegel should have said about farces?
The operative point to clarify is that Ron Paul always had a leery relationship with white supremacists, he never had either the ability or guts to thoroughly antagonize and purge from his organization that sort of supporter and instead kept them at arm’s length on the one hand while still trafficking in a “small government” verbiage that was only one f-stop away from “states rights”.
Yet that stance seems principled in comparison to Trump, who not only does not push them away, he toys with and seems to revel in playing to them as a constituency! And in that sense he is much more dangerous.
Ultimately Trump is a true dialectical fusion of the 2012 Republican primaries and its two major candidates, Paul and Romney. The former Governor of Massachusetts was a business-class country club party machine cog who had as much appeal and grace as a louse. By contrast, the Congressman from Texas was able to make the crowds explode with glee by trafficking in a retro vision of American commerce circa 1953 that seemed desirable to return to, despite the fact that he left out how Eisenhower’s tax code put a massive burden on the rich and the creation of the interstate highway system, which underwrote a good deal of that economic growth, was the biggest Keynesian public works project in American peacetime history up to that point.
Now we have a Republican who wants to return to 1953, segregation and all, with a (seeming) desire to rebuild infrastructure and the public sector rather than privatizing it who owns the golf course!
Either way, this is a nasty waltz down memory lane.
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