Ron Paul’s bizarre appearance on America’s trashiest talk show
It’s almost impossible to explain The Morton Downey Jr Show to anyone who didn’t live through it.
In fact, calling it a talk show barely scratches the surface. It was less a place for civil discussion than a televised cage fight where politicians, conspiracy theorists, activists, celebrities and assorted cranks were thrown into an arena with Morton Downey Jr and a studio audience encouraged to shout them down.
Years before Jerry Springer turned public humiliation into daytime entertainment, Downey had already perfected the formula. His audience, affectionately known as the “Loudmouths”, didn’t come to listen. They came to boo, heckle and occasionally sound as though they wanted to climb over the seats and settle things themselves.
Into this atmosphere walked Ron Paul.
Today, people know Paul as the libertarian congressman whose presidential campaigns inspired an entire generation of small-government activists. In 1988, however, he was running as the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate with little expectation of getting anywhere near the White House. Looking back, agreeing to appear on The Morton Downey Jr Show was probably one of the worst strategic decisions of his political career, although it’s hard not to admire the sheer optimism behind it. If your goal was spreading libertarian ideas to the widest possible audience, Downey’s programme certainly had viewers. Whether anyone could finish a sentence before being screamed at was another matter entirely.
One of the other guests that day was Dangerous Minds favourite Otto von Ruggins, keyboard player with the gloriously unhinged New York band Kongress and a veteran of no fewer than six appearances on Downey’s programme. Otto had originally written to the producers suggesting they devote an episode to drug legalisation and soon found himself becoming one of the show’s favourite recurring provocateurs. His philosophy seemed simple enough: if the programme insisted on being ridiculous, he would happily become the most ridiculous person in the room.
Judging by Otto’s recollections, that strategy worked beautifully.
He arrived wearing a black Teddy Boy jacket with red velvet trim over a black-and-white chequered shirt, prompting Downey to compare him to somebody returning from Emmett Kelly’s funeral. Otto didn’t miss a beat, explaining that the War on Drugs was so outrageous he had deliberately dressed just as outrageously in order to match it. When Downey responded with an insult that would probably never survive modern broadcasting standards, Otto fired back with the immortal line, “I didn’t come to fuck around.”
Somewhere amid all this chaos sat Ron Paul, gamely trying to discuss drug policy while the studio dissolved into its usual shouting match. At one point, when Downey mocked Otto’s appearance yet again, Paul unexpectedly came to his defence.
“Stick to the issues, Mort, and don’t attack the way he’s dressed!”
It was an oddly gentlemanly moment in the middle of what otherwise resembled a televised food fight.
Downey immediately turned his attention back to Paul, dismissing his presidential campaign before telling him exactly what he’d like to do if he ever reached the White House. The exchange eventually became memorable enough to appear in ABC’s year-end television roundup, with Downey looming theatrically over Paul while Otto stood nearby in his magnificent outfit. You couldn’t have storyboarded a stranger image if you’d tried.
Otto later claimed that, as he left the studio, someone grabbed his arm. For a brief moment he assumed it was a federal agent still annoyed about an earlier protest involving the Constitution. Instead, it turned out to be a producer from Nightline, who wanted to know what it felt like appearing on The Morton Downey Jr Show.
Otto’s answer deserves preserving.
“It’s like being high without drugs.”
Watching the clip today, what really stands out isn’t Ron Paul or even Otto. It’s how completely unhinged American television briefly became during the late 1980s. Programmes like Downey’s treated politics as theatre years before cable news fully embraced outrage as entertainment. Every disagreement had to become a shouting match, every guest a villain or a hero, every audience member another participant in the spectacle.
The odd thing is that everybody involved seems to understand exactly what kind of circus they’re participating in. Downey is playing Morton Downey Jr, Otto is playing Otto, the audience is playing the Loudmouths, and Ron Paul, perhaps alone among them, appears to believe he’s wandered onto an ordinary political discussion programme.
He hadn’t.
He’d wandered into one of the strangest chapters in American television history.
Below is an excerpt from the July 4th, 1988 episode devoted to the War on Drugs, featuring Ron Paul, Otto von Ruggins and, sitting in the audience, future Fox News correspondent Lisa Evers, then better known as Guardian Angel Lisa Sliwa.