Young people voted for Barack Obama in overwhelming numbers, but some Republicans think they can make inroads into that demographic, by sounding more progress than they really are. The prime example of this is Rand Paul, also known as Idiot, Son of Idiot, Named after Idiot. If you night be tempted you need to learn what could happen to our nation, if Idiot runs the Reich.
Many young people and progressives who are wary of a Clinton presidency are seeking potential alternatives, even outside the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, much of the attention of voters seeking an alternative to mainstream candidates of both parties has focused on Rand Paul. This is no accident: Rand Paul has carefully positioned himself as "the most interesting man in Washington" for supposedly being a different kind of Republican, hip and able to connect with younger voters. Paul has made it his mission to bring more of the increasingly progressive youth vote back to the GOP fold, and polling shows that Paul does have greater support among younger voters than older ones. Paul has also mounted the most aggressive social media campaign of the GOP hopefuls for president, again partly in an effort to reach younger voters.
But Paul’s delicately crafted maverick image is far from the reality. Here are six things younger and more progressive voters need to know about Rand Paul.
1. Rand Paul wants more military spending and more war in the Middle East. Rand Paul has grown a reputation for anti-interventionism over the years partly by association with his stridently anti-interventionist father Ron Paul, and partly on account of statements he made during his early years as a senator. To be fair, he has staked out a slightly less rabid position on Iran than some other GOP presidential hopefuls, though that’s not saying much. As with all politicians, the key is not to watch what they say but what they actually propose and vote for.
On March 25, Rand Paul introduced a budget amendment calling for a whopping $190 billion increase to military spending. The United States already spends more on war and military expenses than almost the entire rest of the world combined. Paul hasn’t yet clarified what he thinks that $190 billion would be spent on, if not to facilitate more wars abroad. To pay for it, he calls for drastic cuts to climate change research, education, housing assistance, and foreign aid.
Rand Paul was even more hawkish than his Republican colleagues on dealing with ISIS, proposing a full-scale military assault that would almost certainly have demanded a resurgence of American troops on the ground in Iraq. No matter what one thinks of Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy, it’s difficult to argue that Rand Paul would be any kind of improvement from an anti-interventionist perspective…
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I’ve included only one of the six things you need to about Idiot. Click through for the other five.
Last year, the Religious Right largely celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision in 