Ever heard of the Gartner Hype Cycle? Wikipedia describes it thusly:

The Hype Cycle is a branded graphical presentation developed and used by IT research and advisory firm Gartner for representing the maturity, adoption and social application of specific technologies.

And here is the graph:



When a new technology comes out, it often has a big hype. The hype of the viability or benefits of the technology often becomes exaggerated. Then as people start to see that it's not all they thought, many become disillusioned and give up on it. As the technology becomes more widely used, more realistic expectations of it's viability and benefits allow it to grow and attract more users.

Now look what happens when we change the labels on the graph:

Ron Paul sparked a movement when he ran for President in 2008, and he continued that movement in 2012. Do you remember how hyped up the movement was in 2012? I remember people saying that Ron was winning the race and that it was over for the establishment. That was totally unrealistic on several levels. Some people actually believed that Ron was going to go to Tampa and win the nomination outright from delegate strength. Ron did come really close to making it, but as we all know, he did not win in the end. The dashing of people's hopes that ensued after he lost was a very big problem, and many became disillusioned. They became anarchists, or Sanders supporters, or Trump supporters etc. Now Rand is trying to continue the education and White House aspirations of his father, but he's feeling the brunt of this disillusionment. But the war is not over, and many will come around and new converts will abound when they see that we can win little by little and educate people in the process. Rand will continue to press on, and he will certainly do better than the 3% he's been at lately, but even if 2016 ends up looking like a failure, 2020 will be another opportunity to educate people. A lot more people, because "No army can stop an idea whose time has come."