Wow!

It looks like Ron Paul is a lot more popular with the public than with the Republi-turds.

Ron Paul is not “the answer.” The Andrew Levine article I previously posted explains fairly well why a RP presidency would be ineffective at genuinely dismantling the system (unified opposition from the political class and ruling class generally, the use of “terror” as a  bogeyman, etc.). Plus, RP’s plan for “deficit reduction” involves only a 15% reduction in military expenditures. However, this is certainly a step in the right direction. What this indicates is that half of the U.S. population is receptive to RP’s libertarian-constitutionalist message. Our secessionist-anarchist message is the next logical step in the continued radicalization of RP constituents.

This is what I think needs to happen: The RP message needs to go from a 46% sympathy level to a majority where a Ron Paul-like candidate would actually win a generally election. The masses of sympathizers for such a candidate would then have the opportunity to witness the political class throwing up every possible obstacle to prevent such candidates from appearing on the ballot, being included in debates, being nominated by either party, being vilified by the media,etc. The public would then have the opportunity to see that the system really is rigged in the establishment’s favor and start becoming open to more radical alternatives.

It’s quite possible the RP campaign could have a “Eugene McCarthy effect” or a “McGovern effect” where even though the campaign itself is a failure (perhaps miserably so) it sets the stage for the eventual takeover of one of the parties by Ron Paulians (the way the New Left took over the Democrats following the failure of the McCarthy campaign in 1968). If a RP-like candidate ran in a general election and was completely trounced (like McGovern was in 1972) it could still set the stage for such ideas to be worked into the mainstream political fabric (some analyst’s have called the Obama election “George McGovern’s Revenge”).

The reason the secessionist message is so important is because it creates a major barrier to an anti-state and antiwar movement being coopted the way the New Left was. Following the New Left takeover of the Democratic Party, the left-wing of the ruling class adopted a strategy of essentially giving the New Left radicals everything they wanted on social questions (public sector jobs, expansion of the regulatory welfare state, affirmative action, abortion right, gay rights, environmental legislation, etc.) in exchange for toning down and eventually abandoning outright their anti-capitalist or anti-imperialist message. Hence, the state of the Left today as an upper middle class movement that cares only about cultural politics and a bigger welfare state.

But secessionism cannot be coopted in such a way as it means the destruction of the U.S. empire, the overthrow of the federal regime, and the dismantling of the state-corporate alliance, and the preservation of these are the only things the U.S. ruling class really cares about.