An article in Monday’s New York Times delves into a troubling source of support for Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul: white nationalists and other groups who think the country has a “race problem.”
It’s the kind of support Paul’s critics — and some of his allies — wish he would disavow. But so far, Paul has repudiated the views of extremist groups with racist or anti-Semitic views, but not their support.
Paul’s Libertarian leanings, including his admission that he would have opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1965 because he feels it violated private property rights, his isolationist foreign policy views and his zealous opposition to the Federal Reserve all have attracted adherents on the right. And some Libertarians who have known Paul since the 1980s, when he ran for president on the Libertarian line, have said Paul and associates like Lew Rockwell and the late Murray Rothbard deliberately courted disaffected white Americans, both to sell newsletters, and to build a so-called “paleolibertarian” movement.
From the Times article:
Don Black, director of the white nationalist Web site Stormfront, said in an interview that several dozen of his members were volunteering for Mr. Paul’s presidential campaign, and a site forum titled “Why is Ron Paul such a favorite here?” has no fewer than 24 pages of comments. “I understand he wins many fans because his monetary policy would hurt Jews,” read one.
Far-right groups like the Militia of Montana say they are rooting for Mr. Paul as a stalwart against government tyranny.
Mr. Paul’s surprising surge in polls is creating excitement within a part of his political base that has been behind him for decades but overshadowed by his newer fans on college campuses and in some liberal precincts who are taken with his antiwar, anti-drug-laws messages.
The white supremacists, survivalists and anti-Zionists who have rallied behind his candidacy have not exactly been warmly welcomed. “I wouldn’t be happy with that,” Mr. Paul said in an interview Friday when asked about getting help from volunteers with anti-Jewish or antiblack views. …
Read the entire piece at the New York Times.
