Rand Paul explains why Donald Trump is like Gollum from Lord of the Rings
Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) posted an article entitled “Electing Gollum should not be our objective” on his Facebook page on Wednesday, comparing rival Donald Trump to the “Lord of the Rings” character.
Paul began, writing of Trump’s apparent thirst for power: “One candidate on this national stage wants you to give him power. He tells you he is rich, so he must be smart.”
He goes on to warn about the corruptive nature of power, writing: “If you give him power he claims he will fix America, but there is another tradition in America. A tradition that believes that power corrupts, and that our goal should be not to gain power but to contain power or limit Presidential power. Our founding fathers feared centralization of power.”
“They wrote the constitution to restrain the accumulation of power by the government. Trump is ignorant of this tradition, or worse yet, he is overtly opposed to the limited government tradition,” he continued, adding: “This race should not be about who can grasp the ring. Electing Gollum should not be our objective. This race should be about which candidate will best protect you from an overbearing government.”
Paul concluded, promising: “I am the only one on this national stage who really doesn’t want power or dominion over you. I want to set you free, I want to leave you alone, and I want a government so small you can barely see it.”
Later on Wednesday’s edition of CNN’s “The Lead,” Paul elaborated on his reasoning for comparing Trump to the villain from Lord of the Rings.
Host Jake Tapper asked, “Today you wrote a Facebook post in which you likened Donald Trump to Gollum the bad guy from ‘Lord of the Rings.’ There’s a picture of the handsome fella. Okay. How on earth—or I should probably say how on Middle Earth is Donald Trump like him?”
Paul answered, “You know Gollum was after his precious, his little ring, the ring of power. And to him power was really important to be an obsession. And I think Donald Trump in some ways represents that in the sense that he’s so smart, he’s so rich, if you just give him power he’s going to fix everything.”
- Source Links – August 29, 2020
- About Pat Warde: Eulogy Tribute by Eleanor Hughes – April 1, 2019
- Editorial Note – January 15, 2019
You must be logged in to post a comment Login