However they make an interesting point that Republicans are returning to the “Middle America” strategy offered by Pat Buchanan in 1992/1996 with the selection of Vance by Trump today.
We rejected Buchanan and his strategy in the 1992 primary and choose instead the path of neocons and deep state affiliated politics with Bush senior and his CIA past.
IMO we would have been better off today. The Bush(s) era got us wars, stellar short term stock profits but at the cost of selling off our industrial base to China. Meanwhile we’ve seen the ascendance of the Democratic Party far left in controlling societal norms (who would have fathomed trans women wearing devil horns reading LGBTQ-friendly books to 1st graders these days in 1992?), open borders and near total control of media and education.
Pat Buchanan is far too old now (85) but maybe Vance and Trump can help get us back to our real America roots?
Wow. I just stepped back from reading this article, looked again, and realized that this is a Leftist steaming pile of crap.
I disagree with the article and stopped reading when I came to TBE talking point, long and listless speech. That seemed to be the spaghetti they were hoping would stick to the wall, yesterday.
President Trump did not give a rally speech. He entered into a conversation with the American people laying out our nations problems, and the ability through his leadership we have to overcome them to bring prosperity to every American regardless of race, creed or walk of life. The left wanted the equivalent of mean tweets. So this is the best they can do. In that vein I dismiss the article.
As of now, the gop still wants endless spending and rewarding woke multinational corporations with generous benefits in America. Throw in that new NAFTA did nothing to help prevent illegal immigration via Mexico. Corporate gop still dominates, and we see it dripping out with rumors of citizenship for foreigners by graduating here.
Pat isn’t and in actuality never was. Pat Buchanan was and is merely a loud mouthed political gadfly
I remember calling someone in his campaign because I was interested in it.
A couple of days later the state GOP chairman called me to dissuade me of being interested in it.
What a better world we would be in today had we followed the Buchanan philosophy.
Maybe we would have avoided a forever war or two.
An invasion of hostiles from all over the world through nonexistent borders.
Crazy high apocalyptic inflation that may sink us.
We might have avoided the reigns of Obama and Brandon.
Maybe we might have avoided the complete takeover of media and education by communists.
And on and on.
How did they so effectively negate the Buchanan movement and world-view?
Called him a Nazi for opposing forever wars and the military-industrial complex of the Bushes.
It was an outrageous falsehood, perpetrated, as he said, "to poison debate". Which it did.
He was unjustly labeled because he was neither RINO, Rat, nor communist.
He was actually super brave and protoMAGA, and he was and is a great American.
“Chris Lehmann is the DC Bureau chief for The Nation and a contributing editor at The Baffler. He was formerly editor of The Baffler and The New Republic, and is the author, most recently, of The Money Cult: Capitalism, Christianity, and the Unmaking of the American Dream (Melville House, 2016).” This guy sounds like he was one of the Hussein Obama shoe shiners.
Well, there was (is) an ongoing a conflict in conservative movement between neoconservatives and paleoconservatives.
The neoconservatives (Gingrich, Bushes) were in charge for a while.
Now, it seems that the paleoconservatives (Buchanan) are having upper hand. Will see for how long?!
Neocon is now a slur in some circles.
But, the party seems getting unified, even Newt is supporting Trump now.
Your comments are far better than the noisome editorial from the Nation.
Tariffs are an important topic. Perhaps tariff wars started the depression. Many policies from FDR kept it going. Our early history featured tariffs, and no depression.
Tariffs are a source of government revenue. It’s a tax, ultimately passed on to consumers. Like all taxes, and inflation, it’s bad. Adam Smith recommended many sources of tax revenue. I think the idea was that if you taxed one thing too much it would prove counter productive. The solution is not to tax everything too much! We should reduce spending and most tax rates should be reduced and enact modest tariffs. I think President Trump simply did not like a bad deal where others enacted sky-high tariffs and we enacted none.
We need a manufacturing base for reasons of national security. We need defense manufacturers, a broader base that can be mobilized, and suppliers. We need to grow some of our own food, produce petroleum products, pharmaceuticals, etc. A MODEST level of tariffs makes sense for the US and other nations as well.
Having some manufacturing is good for social harmony. Not everyone wants to hit the books in high school and beyond. A mix of job types is good for a people with diverse skills. A people with diverse skills is good for the nation.
Buchanan was an eyewitness to the Silent Coup that took out Nixon and installed Deep State Swiss Army knife and Warren Commissioner Gerry Ford and his chief of staff Rockefeller Republican Tricky Dicky Cheney not to mention Rocky himself as the VP which Squeaky Fromme and Sara Jane Moore attempted to make President.
Buchanan was ahead of the curve on his contempt and distrust of the Bush Crime Family.
Daddy Bush’s career path didn’t sit well Pat.
I mentioned Silent Coup which can be found on Internet Archive and is very much worth a read although excellently researched, it is light on connecting the dots of the big picture which was undoubtedly a Deep State move to oust Nixon.
The day Pat Buchanan announced his Independent run for President he was speaking in Warren, Michigan. I went to the speech with my daughter who was about 8 years old. As we were driving, I was telling her about our two major political parties and how he was not part of either of them. I asked if she knew the names of the two parties?
“Umm, Republicans and Communists?”
Man, I raised smart kids.
The Nation - need we say more??
Buchanan party works for me.
“The GOP Is Pat Buchanan’s Party Now”
When did the GOP become Anti-Israel?
Pat’s problem was that he was anti-Israel, and when that started coming out, he nose-dived, as Republicans have been and still are pro-Israel.
But on other stuff, mainly the exporting of our industrial base, he was right, but like just about all populists, he still didn’t want to go after the labor unions, who were INSTRUMENTAL in making it next to impossible to manufacture in the US, in the first place. Perhaps he would have gone after them, once he saw the HUGE damage they would do to the country when imports, outsourcing, and immigration were restricted...but he wasn’t talking that way at the time, so he was only halfway there, and thus didn’t have a coherent plan.
For me, the first time I ever heard a dire and terrifying warning about how political correctness would ruin America was from Buchanan. It’s been a long time since than. Can’t even recall when, but it was him.
DO get this correct - 1992 saw BILL CLINTON sworn in as President for the first of TWO terms (8 years) - NOT Bush.
The Clinton’s began the big decline of which we see results today. It could be argued that the decline started with the assassination of JFK back in 1963.
Unfortunately, 24 years too late?