Looking Ahead: Republican Candidates for the 2016 Election.

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2016, 2016 American elections, 2016 Presidential Elections, 2016 Republicans, America 911, American Liberty, Barack Obama, BBC, Bill Maher, Civilisation, Defend the modern world, Democrats and Republicans, Glenn Beck, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Obama, Pat Buchanan, politics, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Sarah Palin, The Blaze

The long, dysfunctional reign of Barack Hussein Obama is drawing at last to its close. Almost 8 years have elapsed since the whooping coronation of America’s first mixed-race President, and in those years, little has been achieved that could possibly justify the initial hype.

Immigration rates are much as they were in 2008. Guantanamo Bay remains open, despite the promises of 2008. The Iraq debacle has plainly not been resolved (despite bewildering Obamanoid claims to the contrary). New, frightening zeros have been added to the National Debt. ‘Obamacare’ has been so unpopular that it looks certain to be revoked on the next regime’s first day of term. Bin Laden, as we are never allowed to forget, was put out to sea on Obama’s watch, but really this only represents a shameful theft of credit from the United States military.

All in all, Obama has not lived up to his initial promise. The spreading realisation of this fact means that the contest to succeed him is destined to be a bombastic and emotional ride. Republicans, from the globally famous (and notorious) to the nearly unknown, are elbowing furiously for media coverage and endorsement.

Given the critical and violent days we live in, the choice of Republican runner will have great international consequences, including for Britain. For that reason I offer here my opinions on the current pack….

Mike Huckabee.

Mike Huckabee isn’t particularly well known outside America, but within the country, he is widely regarded as the most religious Presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter. A folksy southerner, Huckabee’s election book is (I think/hope humorously) entitled “God, Guns, Grits and Gravy” and the Senator is vocal in his commitment to traditional conceptions of the family, gun rights, and brash, uncomplicated patriotism.

Huckabee is a naturally divisive figure, as are all overtly religious politicians. Given this reality, I doubt he has the popular support to win a nomination, much less a national election.

DTMW Rating: 6/10.

Jeb Bush.

A member of the politically lucrative Bush dynasty, Jeb Bush should be familiar to most foreign observers. Like his brother and father, he is a middle-ground, compassionate conservative, open to reform of immigration and willing to spend money on public services. On foreign policy, he is tediously conformist – pro-democracy, pro-two state solution, tactful with Russia etc…

There is really nothing to recommend Bush beyond his ability to appeal to a broad selection of Americans. He is not a favourite of the right-wing establishment, and if he is selected as runner, grassroots support may be thin on the ground.

DTMW Rating: 6/10.

Marco Rubio.

Marco Rubio is a telegenic, Hispanic neoconservative with opinions and standpoints torn right out of an issue of the Weekly Standard. He is loudly pro-Israel, hostile to the nuclearisation of Iran, committed to halting Russia’s consumption of Eastern Europe, and full-square in opposition to communism and socialism.

For these reasons I rather like him. He might have a shallow, car salesman-like, professional sheen, but he also has an ‘American Dream’ backstory and the right sense of priority to keep that dream alive.

DTMW Rating: 8/10.

Rand Paul.

While most conservatives want to scale back the power of the state, Rand Paul wishes to make it all but disappear. Son of ancient populist Ron Paul, Rand is the young, handsome, smooth-talking and hugely radical driver of the libertarian tea-party movement. He is by a very great distance the most popular candidate with the grassroots of the Republican party.

The only reservations I have with Paul relate to his isolationism. Unlike Rand, I resolutely do not want America to ‘mind its own business’ (as his father would put it). On the contrary, I want the American military to remain the spearhead and shield of modern, democratic civilisation. For that reason alone I would advise voters to look for another candidate.

DTMW Rating: 6/10.

Ted Cruz.

And that candidate might look a bit like Ted Cruz.

Texan Senator Cruz offers a bracing synthesis of neo-conservatism, domestic libertarianism and compassionate social conservatism. Right about most things, willing to use the great American military to protect our friends and punish our foes, anti-government in spirit, compassionate on questions of race and with a long and proven record in practice, I believe that Cruz would make a very competent successor to Obama’s failed regime.

DTMW Rating: 9/10.

Others.

Other candidates running or likely to run include Donald Trump, Rick Perry, Scott Walker and Rick Santorum. I don’t believe any of these outliers has the charisma or substance to beat the runners mentioned above.

D, LDN.

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Gun Control and Tyrannical Government.

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The debate over gun ownership has dominated the politics of the United States for over 20 years. No Presidential candidate can afford to ignore it. The Media covers it obsessively. After abortion, it provokes more demonstrations than any other issue.

The American Left (and much of the centre) support the Europeanisation of US firearm laws – in other words, the restriction of guns to security and military use. The political Right, with a passion many find confusing, see the right to keep and bear arms as an integral part of American democracy – and the attempt to restrict it as an omen of impending dictatorship.

That last anxiety in particular must be pondered if one wishes to understand the spirit of America. For over 300 years, the Patriotic Right have argued that American democracy is vulnerable to abolition by a tyrannical elite, and that such a regime can only be effectively resisted by an armed population.

As the commentator Glenn Beck put it in his recent book Control: The Truth About Guns – “If we continue to stand up for our rights, none of us alive today will ever have to pick up a weapon against our government. The bad news is that if those rights are watered down or taken away, the risk of tyranny will increase with each passing generation.”

For a long time, like most Europeans, I found this American belief in the importance of firearms absurd. But the more I have reflected upon it, the more suspicious I find the refusal of our own government to bestow the same liberty.

While it’s true that a real totalitarian regime could not be overthrown by civil militias armed with semi-automatic weapons, the general populace, so equipped and working in concert, could surely resist arrest, molestation or abuse by that regime.

When Nazi henchmen jackbooted their way through German suburbs to capture Communists, Jews and democrats, they were cheerful and fearless from the certainty their prey was unarmed. Had the general population been equipped to the extent Americans are today, communities could have disrupted the process to such a degree that state policy may have been altered.

Had SS troops been killed or injured by the dozen as they sought to round up Jewish families, the situation might have arisen in which the groups who wished (anyway) to rebel finally found the occasion to try.

Just like that decisive moment when a schoolyard bully is enfeebled in front of his victim by another (stronger) child, thus leading to the collapse of the bully-victim relationship, in a totalitarian society a moment of state weakness can be fatally provocative. That is why if the North Korean regime (or any other regime like it) ever collapses, it will be the result of the people losing respect for the state, rather than because the state weakens in its systemic design.

You cannot respect a state whose enforcers run from your own bullets, whose bodies line the street having tried to line it with the bodies of your family. Little victories lead naturally onto bigger ones.

So the next time you hear Americans link gun ownership to the maintenance of liberty, try to empathise with them. You may even see your own security in a different, rather more horrifying light.

D, LDN.