Required Reading
Yeah, sure, it’s yet another post about Ron Paul. (Perhaps you’ve heard of him?)
But today’s post by Ta-Nehisi Coates is so much more than that. It’s about the complex emotions that surround his participation in the (Insert Disputed Number Here) Man March and Louis Farrakhan in his youth. It’s about movements, and the frustration of not being heard, and the lure of following the wrong people – even when you know they’re the wrong people.
I don’t know how to describe the feeling of walking from my apartment at 14th and Euclid, down 16th street, and seeing black women, of all ages, come out on the street and cheer. I can’t explain the historical and personal force of that. It defied everything they said we were, and, during the Crack Era, so much of what we come to believe.I think about that moment and I get warm–and then I think about Farrakhan and I go cold. The limitations of the man who’d orchestrated one of the great moments of my life were evident as soon as he took the stage and offered a bizarre treatise on numerology. The limitations became even more apparent in the coming months, as Farrakhan used the prominence he’d gained to launch a world tour in which he was feted by Sani Abacha and the slave-traders of the Sudan.During Farrakhan’s heights in the 80s and 90s, national commenters generally looked on in horror. They simply could not understand how an obvious bigot could capture the imagination of so many people. Surely there were “good” Civil Rights leaders out there, waging the good fight against discrimination. But what they pundits never got was that Farrakhan promised something more–improvement, minus the need to beg from white people. Farrakhan promised improvement through self-reliance–an old tradition stretching back to our very dawn. To our minds, the political leaders of black America had fled the field.
It is deeply personal and achingly human, while still being insightful and having the will to take a firm stance. Of everything I have read about Paul over the past month, this stands head and shoulders above the field.
I cannot recommend it enough.
Hear, hear. A flawless piece.Report
Thanks for the heads up Tod. These lines stuck with me:
Indeed, a question that should be asked of all politicians, especially anyone seeking the highest office. Whoever wins Iowa I would like to seem them meet the challenge head on. And the media will surely put it to Ron Paul if he does. But will Republicans ask it of a Romney? Or the Democrats of Obama?
Here’s hoping.Report
Well spoke. Oh how I wish this hope is not in vain.Report
Farrakhan promised improvement through self-reliance–an old tradition stretching back to our very dawn. To our minds, the political leaders of black America had fled the field.
I read this and I think of Simpsons episode where Homer gets the thought cloud over his head as he ponders something in no way related to the word that triggered the thought.
Now what I would like to see is this thought cloud over black America, that fled the field and is pondering improvement through self-reliance, and see the images of fleeing the field and of the perceived self-reliance that are actually being generated.Report
Now we are comparing Ron Paul to Louis Farrakhan?
Note the people who support Paul despite his baggage largely because they don’t think the baggage reflects how Paul really feels. How many people are actually out there saying, “sure Paul is a racist shitbag of a human being, but he’s against the war”?Report
Actually no. TNC is comparing the motives and feelings of people who were looking for a hero to lead them and how they dealt with their hero being seriously flawed.Report
You do realize that to do the very thing you just said, Coates would necessarily draw some equivalence between the heroes, right?
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I suppose, but one has to start somewhere.
It also seems to me that Coates is, if anything, comparing himself and likeminded fellows to Paul’s followers. I actually see his essay as an act of charitable understanding: he’s trying to empathize with Paul supporters by relating his own, earlier support, albeit equivocal support, of Farakhan.Report
Ah. We did that thing where we looked at the pictures but didn’t bother to read the actual post, didn’t we?Report
Ta-Nehisi’s post was a spectacular one, and probably the best thing I’ve read on the subject yet.Report
TNC sure can turn a phrase from time to time.Report
So far my quote of the year.Report
Challenged closely by this I’d say…
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It’s a beautiful quote, but not applicable to Paul’s left wing supporters. To those people, the reason they feel they can support Paul is they trust that Congress will prevent Paul from enacting his crazy-ass domestic agenda, and they will only get all the foreign policy stuff that they love so much from Paul. That’s a dangerously naive belief, to put your trust on Congress to protect you from anything.Report
TNC never ceases to amaze.Report
TNC has become one of America’s best political commentators. He’s what George Will likes to think he is. He’s more thoughtful, and so more persuasive, than Glenn Greenwald (even though Greenwald is so nearly always right). I could go on naming names that fall short of TNC, but it’s a long list that quickly becomes much too obvious.Report
That’s a great post, but it still doesn’t explain why it’s this particular messenger and not some other — for either Farrakhan or Paul. I don’t think in either case that the message was so specific that no other messenger could have been found.
Consider that if Ron Paul hadn’t run, Gary Johnson could have been touted as “the next Ron Paul,” and he wouldn’t have been crazy. Well, not any more crazy than you’d have to be to climb Everest. But no conspiracy theories or racist baggage that I’m aware of.
Still, as long as Ron Paul’s running, there can’t be a “next Ron Paul.” And the longer Ron Paul keeps at it, the more that everyone even remotely in his corner also has to live in his shadow.Report
I think there is more too it than just that. (Although I find no fault in what you say.)
The thing that both Paul and Farrakhan have that Johnson does not (or at least does not to the same degree) is charisma. Paul & Farrakhan aren’t too people that are saying some good things and therefore people like them; they are two very, very likable people – likable to the degree that people don’t focus as much on the bats**t crazy part. (I still think Paul is both eminently unqualified for the post of POTUS and was easily the most likable person on those debate stages I saw this Fall.)Report
The thing that Paul has is charisma?Report
Yes, says I.Report
If one were to have the sort of amensia that’s now been in a few romatic comedies, and were to watch the debates without any knowledge of the persons on the stage, one would find Cain and then Gingrich to be the most likeable, while Paul was at best, an somewhat incoherent rambler when he wasn’t hesitant and halting. (that is, when he was allowed to speak, which was, when normalized for his level of support, significantly less than the other candidates).
Mr. Kuznicki exactly right – people don’t like Paul based on how he says thing, they like him for what he says – which is different than just about anybody else on the right side of political spectrum running for office says. However, the mass created by his history and established fundraising organization has created a pull that has precluded any other similar center of gravity from forming. While some early last year welcomed having both Johnson and Paul in the race, thinking two voices would create a resonance and enlarge this political school of thought within the Repbublican Party, that assessment turned out to be wrong (for now)Report
I think the ‘charisma’ people talk about with Paul isn’t the normal ‘politician’ charisma that someone like Obama or Reagan had. It’s a, and I am not comparing Ron Paul fans to cultists, but to a cult leader. You hear or listen to cult leaders on interviews and they’re not terribly impressive on the normal scale. But there is something there.Report
I very much want to agree with this sentiment. I think it misses an important dynamic, though, which is that both Farrakhan and Paul were able to become messengers only after carefully developing a deeply devoted, if relatively small, national base from the extremist fringes of society. That base provided a built-in national network of volunteers and fundraising that didn’t rely on lots of favorable and/or neutral coverage in the national press. Eventually the strength of the resulting organizations forced press coverage, enabling them to become spokespeople.
In other words, it seems a lot easier to become a messenger who gives voice to the many who object to the official consensus by first becoming a cult figure for the few on the furthest fringes of society. To the extent that the core infrastructure of the resulting movement is also drawn from these fringe cults of personality, the movement’s success becomes difficult to transfer to others.Report
This is an excellent point, Mark.Report
Thanks. This is what I wanted to say but couldn’t find the right words for.Report
Whoops, that last comment should be attributed to regular Dan Miller.Report
Yes, but that’s exactly what the Evil Dan Miller would want us to think…Report
Quick, check him for a goatee.Report
This is an important point.
Remember that the conversation 4 months ago was about how Ron Paul was being ignored in the press even though he was polling higher than others getting more attention. His base kept Ron Paul from going the same route as Johnson. And that base was built over years and successive presidential campaigns.Report
Brad – I could be wrong but I think you might be conflating a mid-90s interview with his debates. I saw most of the debates, and don’t remember him ever saying anything close to what you are suggesting. It sounds more like the old interviews that were dug up this past month/Report
THC’s essay on the Million Man March would have been more coherent without the tenuous connection to Ron Paul.
I do agree it’s difficult to imagine many people who could have led the MMM besides Farrakhan. Bill Cosby or one of the usual scolds? Can’t see it.
And I don’t even know what Ron Paul is except a magnet at the spot where the circle comes around and far right and far left meet. [Sort of—it takes a willful blindness to the other half of his positions outside the overlap.]Report
Wow, your ideological blindness and stupidity makes me wonder if you only make left turns when driving. If so, no wonder you seem a little slow as it will it always seems to take you 3 right turns to get where you’re going.Report
Wait… what? Where the hell did you get that from that comment?Report
TNC’s post was on two messengers who while their messages may have had resonance they themselves were flawed and not the best persons to convey that message. TNC used his personal experience with Farrakhan and the MM march to set context aand background and to explain why he emphazided and understood the RP followers.
While most everyone else commenting here understood that, TVD as is his want immediately attempted to make TNCs post about the MM march while dismissing its point and its importance as a RP defining post with a sneering comment about a “tenuous connection to Ron Paul”.
TVD is just another – maybe more polite – version of the rightwing that will obfuscate and attack any message or messenger who contradict their view of the world. TVD in this case is trying to reduce TNCs post to being all about the MM march, which is still a controversial subject for many people. I don’t think this is an honest reading or interpretation of the post. I believe his ideological blinders led him to that conclusion and I feel comfortable with my portrayal of him as being ideologically closed minded.Report
I was a big thumbs up on the Million Man march.
seeing black women, of all ages, come out on the street and cheer.
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The article isn’t really about Paul or Farrakhan, but about their followers. It’s about people who have such a need for a prophet, leader, what have you, that they blind themselves to the person’s foibles.* If you persist in seeing the article as actually about Paul and Farrakhan, then, yeah, it doesn’t make much sense; but then since that’s not the point that critique doesn’t really matter.
* I have much the opposite problem. I’m so anti-leader that I often blind myself to a leader’s good side.Report
The folks who followed Farrakhan in the MMM were sane. The Ron Paul thing, not so much. ;-PReport
Heh. That definitely got a chuckle.
But each had two sets of followers–the true believers and the ones following for a specific event. I’m not willing to stipulate that Farrakhan’s true believers were any more sane than Paul’s true believers. But I think those aren’t the folks TNC is talking about; rather, those who follow for a specific event, knowing something about the guy and hoping he’ll be some kind of savior, and then struggling to deal with the really disturbing imperfections of the man. The article is about the psyche of those folks, and of course TNC isn’t saying they’re identical, just that his own experience seems to him to help him understand those particular followers of Paul.Report
OK, I’ll buy that, James—from TNC’s POV. But the MMM attracted the whole community, whereas [although it comes as news to those in the left-and/or-libertarian bubble, perhaps incl TNC himself] Ron Paul has still only rallied the fringes of the American political spectrum.Report
But the MMM attracted the whole community, whereas [although it comes as news to those in the left-and/or-libertarian bubble, perhaps incl TNC himself] Ron Paul has still only rallied the fringes of the American political spectrum.
I think Paul is reaching beyond just the fringes, but not by much. So, yeah, good point.Report
Questions:
Were Ron Paul to come out on the debate stage and said, “We shouldn’t be spending all this money on the drug war cause all these black criminals just outrun the police anyways”, do you think his supporters would have trouble dealing with his flaws?
Were Ron Paul to be approached with a question from a woman at a townhall meeting and said “This is for the men, honey”, do you think his supporters would have trouble dealing with his flaws?
Ron Paul’s supporters aren’t exactly convinced the racism in those newsletters reflect the real Ron Paul. Call it denial, I suppose, but to a large degree “the in spite of his flaws” doesn’t really describe Paul’s relationship to his supporters.Report
Except most Paul supporters don’t believe that the nasty stuff that has been put out in Paul’s name really represents what Paul believes and anyone can see that Paul’s rhetoric in this campaign is light years away from those newsletters.
Farrakhan was openly bigoted, misogynistic, and militant all the way through the 90s, and as Tom points out, even managed to work his misogyny into his protests.
It is also somewhat important to consider that Paul is campaigning for the POTUS, and policy preference and effects might have something to do with Paul’s appeal among his supporters.Report
BradP, I believe the Million Man March was about black men standing up, realizing their innate potential for self-sufficiency, and fulfilling their ethical responsibilities. Which is why the women were cheering.Report
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/31/us/facing-complaints-of-bias-farrakhan-speaks-to-women-only.htmlReport
Tom is right, I think. In fact, this is why he still receives support, despite being obviously crazy. I remember a conversation I had with a friend once, a few years ago, in which I said that I was confused by support for Farrakhan. She basically told me that she was aware of his anti-semitism and some of his loonier views, but she admired him for what he had done for the NOI in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and for his work in empowering black men. I don’t, however, think she’d vote for him for president.
To be honest, I get that more than I get support for some do-nothing representative for Texas who clearly talks the way he does because it keeps him in power. And people are voting for that dude for president.Report
And if you talked to someone who supported Farrakhan in the 90s they would argue that he was not bigoted, that he did not hate jewish people–he was standing up for this community–and that people who described him as bigoted were scared of his message, scared of the strength of his support, and scared of the change he would bring to the status quo.
Perhaps there were people who said, “Yes, he is a big old bigot but I like him anyway,” but they were few– if at all. One of TNC’s points is that people disregard or downplay flaws when they believe they have found their savior.
So someone who is a Ron Paul fan might say that “anyone can see that his rhetoric is light years away from those newsletters.” as if his lack of bigotry was self evident. But, there in TNC’s piece is a recent quote from Ron Paul about the TSA that is not self evidently free from bigotry.Report
THIS IS AWESOME! Hopefully it can get bumped somewhere more prominent…
http://ronpaulswanson.tumblr.com/Report