The new year marks a full decade since Rep. Ron Paul’s last run for president.

Across three campaigns spanning 24 years, this country doctor and Texas congressman never won the White House. The revolution he ignited, however, which packed the halls with young people wherever he spoke on the campaign trail, keeps open the question of Paul’s full impact on history.

Youth-driven movements often lack financial and institutional power. But the young do not stay young forever. In 1964, after a landslide loss in his bid for president, casual observers declared Sen. Barry Goldwater’s movement dead. But we can now see what pundits in 1964 could not. Goldwater energized a new generation of activists against an entrenched GOP establishment whose efforts did not end with defeat to Lyndon Johnson. The Goldwater revolution marched on for sixteen years, then helped put Ronald Reagan in the White House.

Throughout Paul’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns — despite straw poll victories and record-breaking fundraising — much of the media determined that he was not a "serious candidate." Pundits dismissed him as "quixotic." The media blackout was so explicit that Jon Stewart famously mocked journalists for treating Paul like the "thirteenth floor of a hotel."

While he found little support on cable news, the "Ron Paul Revolution" found a passionate home among the young. In 2008, they invented the money bomb, put a blimp in the sky, and threw snowballs at Sean Hannity. In 2012, they won straw polls, took over state GOPs, and challenged the Republican establishment at its national convention. After this, the iconoclastic elder statesman retired from elected office and returned home to Texas. Many in his army of supporters asked Paul for guidance on how to continue the fight for liberty. Never a central planner, Paul told them to find their own paths, and so they did.

Today, the growing influence of Paul's liberty movement is difficult to ignore. His supporters have won hundreds of elections to state legislatures—driving adoption of libertarian policies, such as constitutional carry and school choice. Many of Paul’s supporters — inspired by his lifelong crusade against the Federal Reserve — have spent the last decade pioneering cryptocurrencies to challenge the monopoly monetary authority.

The work continues.

Ron's son, Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, has become one of the most effective conservative statesmen — influencing former President Donald Trump to avoid new wars and challenging Anthony Fauci’s COVID regime. In a short decade, Paulism itself has merged with the DNA of American conservatism.

Railing against massive spending and bank bailouts, Paul’s economic libertarianism gave rise to the Tea Party. Throughout Barack Obama’s presidency, this movement countered much of his progressive policy agenda with populist demands to cut taxes, slash spending, and repeal Obamacare. Since the rise of Donald Trump, Paul’s influence can be seen with those "America First" conservatives demanding an end to forever wars.

It took 16 years for the supporters of Goldwater to revolutionize American politics. Ten years in, the Ron Paul Revolution is well on its way.

Eric Brakey is a senior spokesman for Young Americans for Liberty. He served two terms in the Maine state senate (2014-18) and as Maine state director for the Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign.