Ron Paul has "Geek Appeal" too

During the recent Louisiana Governor's race, the Gambit Weekly ran one of its more shameful political profiles in which it was posited that Bobby Jindal appealed greatly to young "Gen-Xers" (yes the Gambit still defines Gen-X 30 somethings as "young" I guess that's kind of accurate) because... you know... he's in his 30s and he uses the interwebs and stuff. Meanwhile, Jindal's actual campaign had more to do with his constant harping on his Christian faith and the need for "ethics reform" in Louisiana. I had the darnedest time trying to remember the exact Nirvana lyrics which treated these issues. Ultimately I decided that Clancy Dubos was really making some sort of clever "Gen-X" inspired statement on the futility and meaninglessness of any political endeavor due to the constantly evolving manipulation of symbols and imagery by an unconquerable permanent ruling elite... or to put it another way, Clancy was reminding us that "everything is possible but nothing is real."



But one doesn't have to see Clancy as a subtle critic of popular culture in order to explain the silly "Geek Appeal" article. A more likely explanation holds that although the Gambit styles itself an "alternative" weekly, suggesting that it provides a refreshing counterpoint to other presumably "establishment" media, its actual purpose is to sell targeted advertising to a hip-leaning Yuppie Left demographic. And, honestly, what could be more "Gen-X" than that? The Gambit's business model is akin to "X-treme" marketing campaigns which co-opt the imagery of youthful rebellion and repurpose it towards the hawking of Mountain Dew and Corn Nuts. This situation was, perhaps, best captured by Lisa Simpson who once said of the 90s style outdoor music fest, "Wow! It's like Woodstock, only with advertisements everywhere and tons of security guards." And so the Gambit knows its readers are the kind of people who don't necessarily want to challenge the power structure in a meaningful way... but who kind of dig the superficial accouterments associated with that kind of pose.

Lately the young readers of Gambit and similar "alternative weeklies" across the country have attached themselves to the Ron Paul for President campaign. In New Orleans, several homemade Ron Paul '08 signs adorn telephone posts along Magazine Street where they hit the sweet spot of the grass-roots DIY aesthetic that appeals to the young and hip patrons of that strip's multiple day spas, sushi cafe's, and coffee shops. Ron Paul's campaign is picking up the awesome mojo of Clancy Dubos's "Geek Appeal".

Now, I'm no fan of Ron Paul. But, personally, I couldn't be more pleased with the emergence of his campaign because it sets the table for a tantalizing 3rd party run in the general election which would further feed my self-serving hobby of comparing the 2008 Presidential election to 1968. My model stars Rudy! Giuliani as the ghoulish authoritarian Nixon, Hillary Clinton as the bumbling centrist Hubert Humphrey, and Paul as the insurgent x-factor George Wallace. In '68 Wallace's run exposed a dangerous fault in the old Democratic "New Deal" coalition splintering the working class populist vote along racial and social lines and ushering in a major political realignment which appears to have peaked with the rise and... perhaps... fall of the Rovian neo-cons currently ruining our Constitution and pretty much blowing up the world.

An independent Paul candidacy has the potential to exploit tenuous new faults in the current political alignment. These faults lie between a growing number of Americans who are utterly disgusted by the war and the total failure of both major parties to give voice to this revulsion. Ron Paul is a "libertarian". And as a libertarian he naturally draws racial reactionaries and bubbas and gun nuts and such from the right by selling an anti-all-government orthodoxy as a panacea against all the evils of the world. But he also draws heavily on the Yuppie-Left vote... you know... Gambit readers and such who style themselves quality white people and "independent thinkers" in a very juvenile sense but who are also very tired of the war. The Yuppie Left is talking up Paul right now because.... well because they think it makes them interesting... but also because they don't want to vote for a pro-war Rudy or a... um... a pro-Hillary Hillary. Wallace's demo certainly overlapped with some of Nixon's "law-and-order" constituency as well as pulling "New Deal" votes from the old working class South. It's not the same exact scenario... but I still think there are interesting parallels.

Getting in on the fun this morning is the T-P's James Gill who weighs in with a column about Paul's recent "Guy Fawkes Day" fund raising stunt. Gill helpfully observes that part of the "libertarian" appeal to this age group has to do with their thoroughly buying the ongoing Social-Security- is-hopeless bamboozlement.

It is an article of faith in Libertarian circles that, were the maximum voting age 25, Paul would be the next president. Many young voters apparently fear that they will be forced to pick up the tab for Medicare and Social Security only to find the economy in ruins when their time comes.

To which the predictable libertarian solution is, "Well I never wanted/needed that anyway".

Gill is right about Paul's youth skewing demo and I believe the widespread Soc Sec myth is one reason but not the only reason. It's part of the endemic ahistorisism (ding! new word!) of most Americans who seem to have less and less understanding of how power and politics work with each passing year. Paul has a high appeal with self-styled "hip" yuppies who buy into the Alger-esque line that each of us is independently successful based upon our unique merits alone. And, as we all know, young yuppie types are quite eager to demonstrate the value of their unique merits.

What's particularly funny is the way this ultimately hyper-reactionary brand of capitalism has wrapped itself up in the symbolism of revolutionary populism. The Paulites were well aware of what they were doing when they chose Guy Fawkes Day for their fund raising stunt. Sure, the Guy Fawkes imagery evokes the anti-government meme of the Gunpowder Plot, but it also piggybacks off of the way this imagery has already been borrowed and re-injected into the culture through the popular (among hipster yuppie types) V for Vendetta graphic novel series. In fact, many a Paulite internet stooge incorporates V for Vendetta imagery into his/her graphic iconography.

And so the new libertarian impulse becomes a half-baked fashion statement as well as a dismal political belch which draws equally from the inherent "coolness" of knee-jerk misanthropic distrust of all things "government" and the materialist desire to demonstrate one's individual superiority through the illusory concept of "self-generated" wealth. I suppose that's all well and good if you're Ayn Rand but it's not the most constructive approach to public policy. Of course, given the state of the current polity ( i.e. the morass that is our current untenable Asian imperial venture or our stupid, condescending and unresponsive political elite) one can at least understand... if not buy into... the appeal of eschewing "constructive approaches" for gunpowder plots.

Update: More background on Ron Paul and his nutty nuttiness that the ahistorisist hipsters tend to discount can be found here at Orcinus.