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Friday, May 16, 2014

Republican Establishment On Brink of Imploding Once More

Rubio Has Blunt Words on Climate Change, Hillary Clinton ... Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told ABC's "This Week" that he believed he was ready to be president and would take an all-or-nothing approach to running if he does decide to go ahead, while also sounding skeptical notes on climate change and Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state — two likely hot issues in 2016. – AP

Dominant Social Theme: Rubio, right man for the time.

Free-Market Analysis: In this past presidential election, the Republican Party establishment brain trust was so worried about libertarian Ron Paul that the party furiously staved off the congressman's bid before settling on the more establishment friendly Mitt Romney.

Of course, they might have well have settled on Puff the Magic Dragon, as Romney's candidacy soon went up in smoke, and the result was the election of Barack Obama.

The fundamental problem faced by Republican insiders is that the libertarian strain in US politics is a dominant one. When one adds up both democratic and republican libertarians, it can be seen that this worldview is immensely popular. How could it not be? Most people do not enjoy high taxes, rapid price inflation, unemployment, serial wars, virtually untrammeled regulation and all the other features of the current regulatory democracy.

And when it comes to this sort of social organization, the negatives are rapidly outweighing the positives. There is only so much redistribution that can be offered; a collapsing economy cannot simply be redistributed into comity. At some point, enough people will have had enough.

This is one reason that we have predicted the rise and possible victory of someone like Rand Paul. Ronald Reagan came along after the Jimmy Carter years and his rhetoric, if not his actions, took the edge off the libertarian fever of the time. Margaret Thatcher did the same thing in Britain. Presumably, someone like Ron Paul's quasi-libertarian son Rand Paul could provide the same sort of service to those dedicated to maintaining the current system.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...


Rubio had some accomplishments while legislator in FL. But few thus far in US Senate.

Not interested in him at this time for any higher position due to his misadventures in immigration posturing.

We have a number of fine governors who are managing their states well; that is where the best and most credible candidates will come from. (And to the LowInfo crowd we're talking about Republicans).