The anti-interventionist movement, if we can refer to such an amorphous creature, is at a crossroads at the start of this election season. On the left, the remnants of the antiwar movement have been dispersed and absorbed into the Democratic party, where they have become foot soldiers for Obama — a President who has taken up the foreign policy of his immediate predecessor and injected it with some pretty strong steroids. Left-wing antiwar activism has almost disappeared entirely, except for the marginal protests of a few Marxist-Leninist grouplets. Indeed, some on the left are even jumping on the interventionist bandwagon,claiming the Western-backed Syrian rebels are really Marxist “revolutionaries,” and not Osama bin Laden-wannabees.
On the right, the only significant anti-interventionist mass movement in decades, the Ron Paul campaign, has been bushwhacked by the Romneyites, who have taken harsh administrative measures against Paul’s supporters and outright stolen a good number of their delegates to the Republican national convention, ensuring that the Paulians will be kept in a well-guarded corral in Tampa.
Ron Paul’s campaign has been a lodestar for anti-interventionists of the left as well as those on the right: it has inspired us, heartened us, and given us that most essential fuel — hope. Now it is giving us a lesson in how the political system in our “democratic” country really works.
The two-party system is playing the role it was designed for: to keep the national discourse within “acceptable” bounds, and make sure nothing too “radical” is presented to the American public for their consideration. Aside from domestic issues, what this means is that our foreign policy of perpetual war is not up for debate: Romney’s straining to define some significant difference between himself and the administration on, say, Afghanistan, or Syria, underscores this filtering process at work.
By privileging two state-sanctioned “parties,” the Democrats and the Republicans, with automatic ballot status and government subsidies, the political Establishment has rigged the game, and nothing proves this better than the experience of the Ron Paul campaign in the GOP this past primary season. The Paulians played by the rules: they organized at the grassroots level and got their people to the various local and state conventions, where the real delegate selection process took place. Highly organized, and dedicated to their candidate and their cause, the Paulians showed up in record numbers — and the Republican party bosses freaked out.
