What They Voted For: Swamp

#trumpswindle | #WhatTheyVotedFor

Who:	Christina Flom (Roll Call)
What:	“Rand Paul on Bolton Appointment: ‘Heaven Forbid'”
When:	15 November 2016

Roll Call brings us up to speed:

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul says that President-elect Donald Trump appointing former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton to his Cabinet would be a major step toward breaking his promise of “changing America’s disastrous foreign policy.”

Rumors that Trump is considering Bolton as Secretary of State prompted Paul to write an op-ed in Rare.us, calling Bolton “part of failed elite that Trump vowed to oppose” ....

.... Paul said no man “is more out of touch” with the Middle East than Bolton and that Bolton is unable to see the mistakes he has made.

“All nuance is lost on the man,” Paul wrote. “The fact that Russia has had a base in Syria for 50 years doesn’t deter Bolton from calling for all out, no holds barred war in Syria. For Bolton, only a hot-blooded war to create democracy across the globe is demanded.”

This is one of those interesting things Republicans do to themselves. The Kentucky also-ran is not without a point, but he’s also Rand Paul, and this is Donald Trump’s Republican Party, now. There really isn’t anything surprising happening, which is a strange thing considering it’s happening at all. Still, though, as Donald Trump continues to undermine pretty much every allegedly respectable reason anyone might have offered in defense of their vote, we should remember that it always was about supremacism and lulz.

The Rand Paul Show (Iran-Contra Episode)

It really is a fun headline from Jonathan Chait: “Rand Paul Promises to Illegally Trade Weapons for Hostages With Iran”.

Right. The Kentucky junior did not make that promise explicitly, but the headline is intended to point out the problems of Sen. Paul’s generalizations. After all, “A skeptic might note that the actual Reagan approach to the Iran issue involved selling Iran coveted weapons in return for its helping to release American hostages, and then lying about it.”

Still, though:

But a Reagan skeptic fails to grasp the higher truths of the Reagan cult that are apparent to the Republican Party. It is a truism for the faithful that all of Reagan’s beliefs were correct, even the Reagan beliefs that contradicted other Reagan beliefs. Likewise all of Reagan’s actions projected strength and are worthy of emulation, even his underhanded appeasement of a radical regime that led to a massive scandal. Even Reagan’s appeasement projected strength. That’s just how great he was.

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Chait, Jonathan. “Rand Paul Promises to Illegally Trade Weapons for Hostages With Iran”. New York. 7 April 2015.