Ageism in the Ron Paul ranks

Underneath the passionate and growing support for underdog Presidential candidate Ron Paul, lies one unmistakable fact. His support among older Americans is minimal. His ardent supporters may not like to read this, but some of the comments that are regularly posted on Ron Paul forums suggest there may be ageism in the Ron Paul ranks.

Presidential candidate Ron Paul has ignited the Liberty Movement in the United States. He is drawing support from independent-minded Americans who are rejecting the left-right political paradigm. He has tripled or quadrupled his vote totals from 2008 in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. It is inspiring to see so many youthful citizens getting involved in the political process for the first time. However, the results in the South Carolina Primary are evidence that Congressman Paul is not reaching a voter demographic that he would need in order to win the Republican nomination. Paul is not appealing to older voters.

Congressman Paul’s supporters offer many explanations for his lack of support among older voters. Unfortunately, most of those explanations contain serious blind spots. Some of the explanations are even patronizing or arrogant.

I endorsed Ron Paul for President before the New Hampshire Primary. Consequently, the following suggestions should be appreciated in that spirit. If Dr. Paul’s supporters want to appeal to older voters, they might want to consider the following suggestions.

People over 50 are not stupid, uninformed, or brainwashed at higher rates than younger people.

Not every person who supports an aggressive foreign policy is a warmongering Neocon. Neo-conservatism is a distinct political philosophy that has enjoyed success during the past several decades. Dr. Paul speaks about neo-conservatism in this excellent video. Most older Americans who support foreign intervention believe an aggressive approach has been necessary to combat communism and now Islamic fascism. They are not Trotskyites or Wilsonian imperialists like the Neoconservatives. Stop referring to everyone who has supported the foreign wars as Neocons.

Older people gather their news from different media sources than younger people. Instead of ridiculing older people for their choices, why not utilize their preferred resources to spread Dr. Paul’s message. The phrase, respect your elders, comes to mind.

It is possible the Liberty Movement has something to learn from older Americans. At times, one gets the impression that younger folks in the Liberty Movement believe they have all the answers. To older folks that attitude comes across as a case of extended adolescence.

Now for a few items that are sure to sufficiently annoy a sizeable portion of Ron Paul supporters (as if I have not done that already).

Some Paul supporters consider themselves Anarchists or Anarcho-capitalists. Older conservative voters will never resonate with a political movement that tolerates anarchist sentiment. Reform and restoration yes, destroy no.

In that vein, the Ron Paul campaign and Paul’s supporters need to be more outwardly patriotic. Congressman Paul is attempting to do this. But many of his supporters, in their efforts to be stalwart advocates for peace, come across as indifferent to American exceptionalism. Loving one’s country does not need to come across as primitive jingoism. Older conservative voters appreciate patriotism.

Drop the conspiracy theories. Since Congressman Paul has blown the lid off of the establishment order, many of his supporters are extremely distrustful of anything that they perceive to be coming from traditional sources. Congressman Paul’s accurate elucidation of the legacy of Federal Reserve System has opened the door to rampant conspiracy thinking. To a lot of Paul’s supporters, if the FED is a conspiracy, perhaps that calls everything else into question too.

Older Americans have been around long enough that they have seen conspiracies come and go and thus they are naturally skeptical of tales that seem a bit too tall. Even if some of these theories turn out to be true, most of them are outside the cognitive readiness of older Americans to hear them. Thus, it will be ineffective to bang people over the head with things they cannot contemplate as potentially true.

Stop fighting The Man. Challenge legitimate authoritarianism but resist the temptation to see all authority (and indeed the state itself) as necessarily evil. Baiting police into retaliation and hostile civil disobedience have their place in participatory democracy but there are some elements in the Liberty Movement that take it too far. Older Americans view this as immature behavior that reminds them of 1968.

Adopt a libertarian rather than a libertine attitude. Older conservative voters have lived through the libertine excesses of the 1960’s. They believe that era was the beginning of the downward spiral from a responsible nation to a selfish nation. Thus, they will react with suspicion to a movement that wants drugs to be legalized and to remove social shame from all personal behavior. Focus on the government’s role in mandating personal behavior, rather than encouraging a society that tolerates what older Americans consider to be irresponsible behavior.

The Liberty Movement is mainstream. It might be time for the more responsible citizens within the movement to marginalize the more adolescent factions. It might be time for the responsible libertarian adults to tell the anarchists, the libertines, and the selfish malcontents to grow up.

If the Liberty Movement wants to attract older voters it should embrace some of their attitudes, many of which come from the appreciation of a life well lived and the accumulated wisdom that comes with life experience.

Kevin Kervick is a social entrepreneur and freelance writer. He is the author of Discovering Possibility: A Common Sense Conservative Manifesto (For Classical Liberals Too).