A Counterfactual Analysis
He predicted every crisis. They ignored him. The solutions haven't changed.
If he had won
What we got instead
“Let it not be said that no one cared, that no one objected once it’s realized that our liberties and wealth are in jeopardy.”
— Ron Paul, Farewell Address to Congress, November 14, 2012
Ron Paul made specific, falsifiable predictions about housing, war, the dollar, surveillance, and NATO. The establishment mocked him. History vindicated him.
Ron Paul ran for the Republican nomination in 2008 and 2012. He was systematically excluded by media and sabotaged by the Republican establishment. His grassroots support was unprecedented.
Paul announces on C-SPAN. Over 1,400 Meetup groups form organically. Supporters fly a blimp across the East Coast. The "rEVOLution" logo becomes iconic.
Guy Fawkes Day money bomb. Record for single-day Republican online fundraising. Organized entirely by grassroots — not the campaign.
Boston Tea Party anniversary. All-time record for single-day online political fundraising. Paul becomes the #1 GOP fundraiser for Q4 2007.
Fox News bars Paul from a NH debate despite polling higher than included candidates. After raising $6M in a day, coverage is minimal.
Rather than endorse McCain, Paul holds a counter-convention. 10,000 attend at the Target Center in Minneapolis. The liberty movement is born.
Finishes 2nd at Ames Straw Poll by <200 votes. Media ignores him completely. Jon Stewart: Paul is "the 13th floor of a hotel."
Only Paul and Romney qualify for the ballot. Iowa: 21.4%. New Hampshire: 22.9%. More military donations than all other Republicans combined.
Rule 40 changed to block Paul's nomination. Teleprompter shows the result before the vote. Maine delegation unseated. Paul delegates rerouted on buses.
As commander-in-chief, the president has near-absolute authority over troop deployment. This was Ron Paul's most powerful lever — and the area where reality diverged most catastrophically from what could have been.
Did any of these interventions make Americans safer, richer, or freer?
“We talked about a humble foreign policy: No nation-building; don’t police the world. That’s conservative, it’s Republican, it’s pro-American — it follows the founding fathers.”
The Federal Reserve's balance sheet went from $0.9 trillion to $8.9 trillion. The dollar lost a third of its value. Ron Paul warned about every bit of it.
A 10x increase from pre-crisis levels. Even after quantitative tightening, 7x larger than 2007.
When the Fed creates money, Wall Street gets it first — buying assets before prices rise. By the time it reaches workers through wages, prices have already adjusted. The result: a hidden transfer of wealth from the working class to the financial elite.
“Every time the Fed implements 'quantitative easing,' a.k.a. printing more money, two things go up: taxes and inflation.”
Too restrictionist for libertarians. Too libertarian for restrictionists. Ron Paul's framework attacked the demand side — the welfare magnet — not the supply side.
“You can’t have open borders and a welfare state.”
— Milton Friedman, cited repeatedly by Ron Paul
Both parties are incentivized to maintain the status quo. Democrats benefit from demographic changes. Republicans benefit from cheap labor for donors. Both benefit from the enforcement bureaucracy. Neither wants to eliminate the welfare magnet. Paul was the only candidate who proposed addressing the actual incentive structure.
The president is not a king. But the powers Ron Paul did have aligned remarkably well with his most urgent priorities.
Everything that went wrong was within the president's power to prevent.
$38.5 trillion in debt. A dollar worth 66 cents. A million dead. A government that reads your emails. A home no one can afford.
Stop choosing candidates bought by foreign lobbies, beholden to defense contractors, and friendly with predators.
Choose leaders whose principles were established before the campaign — and never changed after it.
“Let it not be said that no one cared, that no one objected once it’s realized that our liberties and wealth are in jeopardy.”
— Ron Paul