“From what I understand, it’s a good deal,” said 24-year-old Whitney Davis, a student at the University of Southern California and member of Young Americans for Liberty. Rand Paul’s campaign merchandise simmered in a baking pan behind her, the toxic smell providing all, leftist and libertarian alike, an opportunity to ponder state regulation of the textile industry and communist China’s role in feeding the free market. “Iranians were celebrating in the streets over the lifting of sanctions,” Davis said. “I feel like that’s what we want as libertarians.”
Some libertarians, at least. Ron Paul, for instance, considers sanctions against Iran an “act of war,” and indeed Iranians unable to obtain life-saving medicine for a loved one may be forgiven for confusing this tool of the statesmen for a siege. Rand Paul, by contrast, has said sanctions can be “a tool to achieve a desired result without war.”
The libertarians I talked to think his heart’s not in it: He’s just doing this because he’s running for president and needs to appeal to jingoistic Republican primary voters and the party’s even more hawkish donors. They also think it’s dumb. What billionaire militarist is going to decide their guy is Rand Paul (currently hovering at around 5 percent nationally) when there are 15 more reliable proxies to choose from? What he’s actually doing is alienating the only demographic in the country that actually likes him: Young people between the ages of 18 and 34, according to a a recent survey by CNN, are the only ones who view him more favorably than not.
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