Tucker Carlson said in 2008 as the host of a major Ron Paul presidential campaign event, "I voted for Ron Paul in 1988 when I was in college." Carlson was referring to Paul’s bid for president over three decades ago as the nominee of the Libertarian Party. “I voted for Ron Paul for a bunch of different reasons. One, I grew up in a libertarian family … I grew up around libertarianism.”
“I believe Ron Paul’s ideas are important,” Carlson said that night. “I believe Ron Paul’s personal example is inspiring, and I think the country benefits from listening to Ron Paul.”
Eleven years later, Carlson apparently has a different view of libertarianism.
“In Washington, almost nobody speaks for the majority of voters,” Carlson said Wednesday night on his top-rated Fox News program, portraying the conventional Republican as a “libertarian zealot controlled by the banks, yammering on about entrepreneurship and how we need to cut entitlements." (As the Washington Examiner’s Tiana Lowe notes, who, exactly, are these Republicans willing to slash entitlements?)
After endorsing 2020 Democratic hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s economic program — a curious stance for a conservative pundit—Carlson asked if any Republican would dare show the same kind of “economic patriotism” the Massachusetts Democrat is offering.
“Probably not,” Carlson lamented. “Here’s the depressing part: Nobody you voted for said that, or would ever say it. Republicans in Congress can’t promise to protect American industries. They wouldn’t dare.”
Then he tore into libertarians again. “It might violate some principle of Austrian economics. It might make the Koch brothers angry. It might alienate the libertarian ideologues who, to this day, fund most Republican campaigns.”
In a follow-up segment Carlson pinned these destructive “Austrian” free market ideas on “libertarian” … Mitch McConnell?
Really?
Throughout both segments, Carlson conflated libertarianism with the current or at least pre-Trump economic policies of the U.S., the contemporary Republican Party, and insisted that the political class’s blind adherence to “libertarian” capitalism has hurt the middle class.
I had no idea libertarians were so powerful! Did Rand Paul actually win the last presidential election?
Similar to Carlson, there is another figure on the Right who has criticized current U.S. economic policy including the policies pushed by most Republicans and particularly McConnell — and this critic even takes issue with the term “capitalism”: Libertarian icon and one time Tucker Carlson-inspirer Ron Paul.
“I oppose today’s so-called capitalism. I don’t even like the word capitalism, I like free markets,” the former Texas representative said in 2016.
continued..https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...ws-to-ron-paul
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