Ron Paul on midterm aftermath: ‘My fears were confirmed even sooner than I thought’

​Former lawmaker Ron Paul says he expects the current political climate in the United States will hardly change as a result of last week’s midterm elections, even if the Republican Party will soon assume control over the Congress as a result.

Paul, a longtime Republican member of the House of Representatives who has campaigned for president both with the GOP and as a Libertarian, said on Monday that recently elections mean “very little” despite ending with Democrats losing their majority stake in the Senate.

“Yes, power shifted,” Paul said. “But the philosophy on Capitol Hill changed very little.”

Although the Republican Party will soon have a majority representation in both the House and Senate as a result of the midterms, Paul said in a four-minute-long statement broadcast through his weekly telephone address this week that the very recent actions of President Barack Obama, a Democrat, suggest a change in Congress will do little to revamp the way Washington works.

In response to an Election Day tweet he authored condemning Tuesday’s events as almost meaningless, Paul said that it’s already becoming clear to him that having more Republicans in the Senate won’t change the way the government at large will go about doing business.

“Some were critical of my comment that, Republican control of the Senate equals expanded neo-con wars in Syria and Iraq. Boots on the ground are coming,’ Paul said with regards to some recent tweets. “But unfortunately my fears were confirmed even sooner than I thought. Shortly after the vote, President Obama announced that he would double the number of US troops on the ground in Iraq and request another $5.6 billion to fight his war in the Middle East.”

Indeed, Pres. Obama said Friday that he is ordering a surge of 1,500 additional troops to Iraq as the US continues to combat the so-called Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, as that group further wages an intensifying campaign of violence across the Middle East.

On the heels of statements from both the White House and the Pentagon in which administration and Defense Department officials alike have denounced a combat role in Iraq or Syria, Paul warned Monday that the latest decision from the president pushes the envelope with regards to what’s been promised.

“The president also said on Wednesday that he would seek a new authorization for the use of force in Iraq and Syria. He said that a new authorization was needed to reflect, ‘not just our strategy over the next two or three months, but our strategy going forward,’” Paul added. “That sounds like boots on the ground in an endless war.”

“Senate Democrats had been competing with Republicans over who would push a more aggressive foreign policy. This may explain their miserable showing on Tuesday: it is likely the honest, antiwar progressives just stayed home on election night. But with the Republican victory bringing to leadership the most hawkish of the neoconservatives like John McCain, the only fight over the president’s request to re-invade Iraq will be Republican demands that he send in even more soldiers and weapons,” Paul said.

As a result of the midterm elections held across the US on Tuesday, representatives from the Republican Party will soon have control over not just the House as exists presently, but also the Senate. Regardless, Pres. Obama said last week that he is willing to take executive action to make determinations concerning immigration reform, and perhaps other issues, if Republican politicians continue to stonewall the administration’s attempt to have legislation make its way out of Congress and to the White House.