Ron Paul Warns: GOP Senate Control Means Expanded Wars
Moments after his own son Rand took the podium to celebrate Republican Sen. Mitch Connell‘s midterm victory, ex-Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) tweeted out a dire warning about what could happen if the GOP takes over the U.S. Senate.
A Republican victory, he warned, would result in “expanded neocon wars” and definite deployment of “boots on the ground” in the battle against ISIS in Syria and Iraq:
Republican control of the Senate = expanded neocon wars in Syria and Iraq. Boots on the ground are coming!
— Ron Paul (@RonPaul) November 5, 2014
Of course, Twitter conservatives mocked Paul’s declaration for its wet blanket-like intentions and poor timing — given his son’s cheering of that very same potential GOP majority — but the elder politician is not wrong in his assessment.
If the GOP does secure a Senate majority, it will have been because of victories from hawkish conservatives like Joni Ernst, Cory Gardner and Tom Cotton.
Over at The Week, Brendan M. Dougherty had a great piece on how those candidates represent the lamentable resurgence of the Bush-era GOP. All three ran significantly hawkish campaigns: Ernst thumped her opponent for wanting to defund the Iraq War, and campaigned with hawk-in-chief Lindsey Graham; Gardner has spoken a great deal about military funding; and Cotton is a military vet who hasn’t been shy about bashing the libertarian wing of his own party.
Reason‘s Nick Gillespie brought up a similar argument last week: Even if the Republicans take the Senate, they are unlikely to rethink their approach to foreign policy, instead continuing to lard up military spending (while scaremongering about simple cuts to the rate of increase) all while claiming to be fiscally conservative.
With his election night tweet, Ron Paul may have fulfilled his reputation for being cranky, but he wasn’t exactly wrong.
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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
