Much ink has been spilled since the 2012 elections (or even 2008) about the need for a Republican makeover. Many of those pushing the narrative have anything but Republicans’ best interests at heart. Their desire is for perpetual Democratic dominance, not a Republican renewal. But the underlying point is undeniable: the current Republican Party is in a handbasket riding to hell.
The basic cause is that the GOP, like any large national party must be, is a coalition of at least 3 major factions: hard-core social conservatives, practical economic conservatives, and libertarians. (So-called “national security conservatives” are either largely embedded in the economic conservative ranks or are part of a now largely defunct group of ex-Democrats buried in the social-conservative ranks and often mislabeled “neoconservatives” — think well-armed Woodrow Wilson carrying a backpack full of Bibles and “Left Behind” novels and you’re getting the right cartoon.) Among these ranks, libertarians are ascendant, powered by the energy of the “Tea Party” movement that emerged in 2009 and represented by the Ron/Rand Paul dynastic family.
The libertarian wing of the Republican Party has had a pretty easy time of it in media coverage for the last decade or so. Many Democrats were happy to avoid criticizing Ron Paul (in spite of his long history of racist associations and his bizarre obsession with fringe conspiracy theories) because he was an ally against the “neocon” boogeyman during the Bush years. And when Rand Paul came along, free of the weird conspiracy theories and with a more lukewarm relationship with racists like Stormfront, he seemed benign.
For their part, Republicans were happy to mine the energy of the “Tea Party” as long as it stayed on the fringe of the institutional party. Alas, Rand Paul’s Obama-like rise has made that impossible. As Rand Paul positions himself for the credible presidential run that his father could never really hope for, the core representative of the economic conservatives — Chris Christie– has opened fire, calling Rand Paul and his libertarians “dangerous.”
From a centrist perspective, Christie’s view has merit. Economically as well as on national security, the libertarian view (made tempting by its reasonableness on social issues) would lead to some dangerously half-baked policies.
Economically, Paul brand libertarianism is caught in the 18th Century. Its total rejection of government involvement in the economy is just nonresponsive to the complex problems of the 21st Century. No where can this be seen more clearly than on infrastructure issues. Libertarianism would demand the government privatize everything, including roads, and allow competition. But it takes little imagination to see how trying to cobble together competing networks of toll roads would be disastrous, especially in urban areas. Economic libertarianism is all abstract theory with no practical connection to the real world.
National security libertarianism has another name: isolationism. This was Christie’s main target. Paul-type libertarians were respected by Democrats simply because they shared hatred for George W. Bush and the so-called “neocons.” But a closer examination of the implications of libertarian isolationism reveals a philosophy that seeks to hide from the world. Treaties, even when ratified by the Senate in accordance with the Constitution and thereby made “the supreme law of the land” are somehow unconstitutional violations of American sovereignty. Trade agreements might be ok, but only if they are bilateral instead of multilateral (18th Century thinking again). Military alliances (and all the intelligence assistance and other help needed to address a global non-state threat like al-Qaeda) are right out.
Christie is right to call this dangerous. Ron Paul was just wrong when he said that al-Qaeda would not attack the United States if we only adopted a more isolationist foreign policy. From the standpoint of Islamic militants, we are an existential threat because of our economic power and our libertine culture. Unless we are willing to adopt their vision of violently repressed women, government-mandated piety, and massive economic payoffs to their corrupt leaders, Islamic militants have no desire to back down. So we have to deal with the reality that we’re going to be in a long fight with them.
Now, this doesn’t mean it has to be throwing troops all over the planet to do the fighting. There are sound reasons for not reprising the hypermilitarized Bush-era security strategy. But the Ron/Rand Paul position has never seemed limited to simply ratcheting down the militarization of the anti-Islamic struggle. Instead, the libertarian view is that the real enemy isn’t Islamic militants at all. Rather, it’s the U.S. government’s attempts to fight Islamic militants. Libertarians seize on exaggerations like the Snowden/Greenwald leaks and cherry-picked stories of mistargeted drone strikes to argue in favor of a near-total elimination of all practical options for U.S. defense against a dispersed global enemy like the al-Qaeda network. And they propose zero alternatives to replace those tactics.
Christie’s right to call that dangerous. And its about time some major Republican was willing to say it.
Jason is an attorney practicing criminal law, civil litigation, and administrative law. Jason formerly worked as a Resident Instructor of International Relations at Creighton University, focusing on civil-military relations and national security strategy. Jason also served 15 years in the United States Air Force, including service at USSTRATCOM, America’s nuclear-weapons command.
Jason lives in Minnesota with his wife, three sons, three dogs, and three cats.