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Posted on 05/23/2025 8:00:19 AM PDT by Angelino97
On December 2, 2023, in the modest gymnasium of a community college in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, President Donald Trump addressed a raucous crowd of supporters. As he spoke about the enduring force of the movement he ignited in 2015, he paused to reflect on a man many had forgotten—but whose ideas are increasingly animating the rising generation of conservatives.
“You know there was a man, Pat Buchanan, a good guy, a conservative guy,” Trump began.
A sudden, collective cheer erupted from the left side of the stage—unmistakably youthful, unexpected in tone. “Wow! Young people, they know him,” Trump responded with a mix of surprise and amusement.
The cheering came from a group of College Republicans—mostly young Midwestern men. They represented more than just campus enthusiasm. They were the surface current of a deeper, surging tide within the American right: a generation of young conservatives who have not merely rejected progressive orthodoxy, but who have turned their backs on the neutered, market-centric consensus that long dominated Republican politics.
Their affinities lie not with Reaganite optimism or Bush-era globalism, but with the sobering, culture-first realism of Pat Buchanan. These are the heirs to the original Buchanan Brigade, animated by a blend of cultural traditionalism, economic nationalism, and a deep-seated skepticism toward America’s post–Cold War trajectory. They’re not interested in conserving the status quo. They want to recover something lost.
Three developments define the social fabric of 21st-century America: the triumph of multiculturalism, the commodification of the consumer, and the cultural conquest of the Left. For decades, neither major party offered a meaningful response. Democrats embraced the transformation; Republicans timidly adjusted to it. In the 1990s, Buchanan was virtually alone in warning that the West was in decline—culturally, spiritually, and economically. The relative prosperity and comfort of the ’90s muffled his prophecy, and few listened.
Then came the Great Recession. For millions of Americans, it was more than an economic downturn—it was the unveiling of a deeper, festering crisis. Young people, in particular, felt it viscerally. The America they inherited no longer resembled the country celebrated in their parents’ stories or history books. The economy seemed rigged, the culture foreign, and the future grim.
By the time Donald Trump descended the escalator in 2015, a vanguard of young men had already begun rejecting the stale dogmas of Conservatism, Inc. They were the ideological foot soldiers of Trump’s first campaign—angry, disillusioned, and increasingly well-read. What started as a populist rebellion quickly matured into something more coherent.
Tax cuts and platitudes about the Constitution no longer sufficed. Legal immigration was no longer seen as harmless. Endless foreign aid and wars of choice were now understood as betrayals—not of international obligations, but of national ones. The refrain “Democrats are the real racists” gave way to “Stop playing by the Left’s rules.” Conservatism, these young rebels concluded, should not exist to preserve the wreckage of liberalism—it should stand to restore greatness.
It is no surprise, then, that Buchanan’s The Death of the West has become a sacred text among this emerging young right. In an era when most of their peers don’t read, these young conservatives have made it required reading. It has even shaped elected officials. The third-youngest vice president in U.S. history—himself a product of the Midwestern populist realignment—publicly cited Buchanan’s work as formative in 2021 during an interview with David Freiheit.
This revival of Buchananite thought has unnerved many in the conservative establishment. The backlash has come not just from the left, but from within the right—from those who seek to redefine conservatism as a more polite version of liberalism. Joel Berry of The Babylon Bee, for example, dismissed the “Pat Buchanan Right” as radicals, himself seemingly more comfortable cracking Reagan-inflected jokes than grappling with the real challenges faced by today’s young workers, parents, and future homeowners.
But the old consensus is crumbling. The new generation doesn’t want talking points; they want answers. They see through the empty gestures of conservative influencers who quote the Founders one minute and promote materialism the next. The polite right has had its time—and failed.
While Trump may be the most visible beneficiary of Buchanan’s intellectual legacy, the future belongs to those young men and women now entering the institutions of politics, media, and civic life. Their influence will not be limited to elections, but to the cultural soil out of which political movements grow.
Buchanan was once a lone voice, a dissident within his own party. Today, his ideas no longer echo in isolation. They resound in lecture halls, in podcasts, in online reading groups, and in quiet conversations among friends questioning what went wrong with the American dream.
It is likely that Buchanan will not live to see the full fruit of this realignment. But it is his vision—of a nation rooted in faith, heritage, and cultural continuity—that may yet shape the American right for decades to come. This is his final, and perhaps most enduring, gift to the country he tried so long to save.
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Pat was ok but he was very anti Israel/Jewish.
God bless “Pitch fork” Pat.
Globalist schill Hugh Hewitt most triggered.....
I used to love Pat on the shows “CrossFire” and the “McLaughlin Group” back before CNN and PBS went all lefty all the time.
Proud to have voted for Pat in the ‘92 and ‘96 GOP primaries.
Pat believed that America first really meant America first.
Lol.
Unfortunately, you are right. I always agreed with Pat’s policies but with respect to Israel he always seemed to have a reason why Israel should not do what it needed to do to defend itself.
He really got Eleanor Clift wound up mad...lol
Pat was not anti Israel. He just believed that American taxpayers should not be subsidizing it’s Zionist policies.
Pat was a faithful Catholic, but he also respected those who worshiped the God of Abraham. This did not include self-loathing Bolshevik Jews, of which the vast majority are in the USA.
Here are some Buchanan quotes from the ADL—obviously not a friend of Buchanan:
https://www.adl.org/resources/profile/pat-buchanan-his-own-words
If you read them carefully he is calling out everybody for their hypocrisy on a wide range of topics—including sensitive ones nobody wants to address.
I don't recall Pat ever saying that Israel should, or should not, do anything.
He only wanted Israel to do it on its own dime.
And he didn't want the U.S. engaging in Mideast Wars, including the Gulf War and Iraq War.
I ran as a Buchanan delegate in the bootleg Louisiana GOP caucus, February, 1996. While I didn’t win my race, Pat got a majority of the Louisiana delegates, and took Phil Gramm out of the race.
I was lucky to get to know Pat and his sister Bay a little bit, and was proud to have fought for him.
https://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/news/9602/06/caucus.results/index.shtml
Is. He’s 86, but I assume there’s a reason he no longer makes public statements.
Pat was not anti Israel. He just believed that American taxpayers should not be subsidizing it’s Zionist policies
_______________________________
BINGO! And American taxpayers are still giving billions away to Israel every year. Let’s hope Trump changes all that
He didn't start out that way... The school of hard knocks and firsthand experiences changed his point of view. And when the ADF and associated groups and individuals tried to “cancel” him before that was a widespread phenomenon... he gave back as good as he got.
This is an example of what happens when people and groups try to shut down a strong personality using every dirty trick in the book after the person made relevant observations and conclusions that were found to be distasteful to the accepted consensus.
Buchanan had many Jewish friends, associates and staff. He was never accused of discriminating against individuals, but he was not afraid to speak the truth about history or current events regardless of whether it was politically correct or not.
Rabbi Yahuda Levin of New York, served as one of Buchanan's four campaign co-chairmen during his presidential campaign and took a lot of heat for this. He said, “I don't have to be married to him or believe everything he says” and then went on to defend Buchanan as a person and his policies.
One of my closest friends from childhood is Jewish and he can rail on and on about issues that we disagree on and I still love him. I was once talking to a guy who was sitting next to me on an airline flight. I told him that my friend was always very sensitive to any form of Jewish stereotype but that the older he got the more he resembled them. This was meant to be a humorous observation. But the person I was speaking to turned out to be a Jewish lawyer and he took great offense to this innocuous observation. He condemned me and said that I was a bad person.
This foot in the mouth moment was actually quite humorous to me and this guy worked himself into a tizzy over basically nothing. Jewish people love to argue which is a trait in my own heritage, but in this case the other person despite his great intelligence seemingly had no ability for any form of introspection.
Tony Brown’s Journal on PBS was the ‘intellectual black’. He called him a racist. That was too much for me. Then ‘good guy’ Bernie said the same thing about Trump-not so good. These people try to nip these up-comers with that language and sometimes it works. It was used against Goldwater in ‘64 and it took 16 years to get over it with the election of Reagan.
Goldwater’s funeral was noteworthy for the respect he received. Buchanan’s will be the same-that is if the MSM will cover it.
You do realize that he is still around and his writings and point of view are the basis for much of the America first agenda? I do hope that President Trump is able to give him the recognition that he deserves.
and yet he never became president.
Trump is President and he has already achieved more than any President this century and beyond.
MAGA🇺🇸
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