{"id":125682,"date":"2016-09-15T01:22:24","date_gmt":"2016-09-15T05:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/buchanan.org\/blog\/?p=125682"},"modified":"2017-12-13T18:31:32","modified_gmt":"2017-12-13T23:31:32","slug":"politico-trump-pat-buchanan-better-timing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buchanan.org\/blog\/politico-trump-pat-buchanan-better-timing-125682","title":{"rendered":"Politico: Trump Is Pat Buchanan With Better Timing"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jeff Greenfield – Politico.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Illustration by Brian Stauffer<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The presidency of George H.W. Bush was in trouble. Headed into the 1992 election year, the glow from the swift and decisive victory in the Gulf War\u00e2\u20ac\u201da victory that had pushed Bush\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s approval ratings to 90 percent\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhad faded. While a recession had technically ended in March of 1991, unemployment was stuck at 7 percent, and the rut was felt deeply in New England. When I went to New Hampshire late that year to cover the presidential race, every store in a once-thriving Manchester shopping mall was shuttered; only the unemployment office and the welfare office were open. The advertisements that filled local newspapers were not for products or stores; they announced foreclosure auctions.<\/p>\n

Into this state strode 53-year-old Pat Buchanan, a cheerfully pugnacious conservative who had spent his adult life shuffling between the political world\u00e2\u20ac\u201dspeechwriter for Richard Nixon, communications director for Ronald Reagan\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand the media, where he wrote columns and was a frequent face on TV shows ranging from the McLaughlin Group <\/i>to Crossfire <\/i>to The Capital Gang. <\/i>He came to announce a primary challenge to Bush:<\/p>\n

He would take on his own party\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s incumbent, attacking from the right. Go back to it now and what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s striking is how much his message, delivered on December 10, 1991, in Concord, offered a remarkable preview<\/strong><\/a> not so much of that year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s race, but of what would drive the appeal of Donald Trump in 2016.<\/p>\n

Buchanan warned that the United States was losing its stature as the first among nations amid challenges to American economic dominance, a softening of our identity and a growing fondness for multinational institutions. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We must not trade in our sovereignty for a cushioned seat at the head table of anyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s new world order,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he warned. He questioned whether America should really keep paying for its allies\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 defense. He railed against the effects of globalization, proclaiming that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153our Western heritage is going to be handed down to future generations, not dumped onto some landfill called multiculturalism.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He called for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a new patriotism, where Americans begin to put the needs of Americans first.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He called for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a new nationalism.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When I read the speech recently,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Buchanan told me in an interview, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was astonished\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at the parallels. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just an awful lot there.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re looking for the roots of Trump\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s political message, you can find yourself remembering the story of the blind men who describe what an elephant is like by touching different parts of the beast\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s body (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a rope,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a tree branch,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a wall.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d). There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a dose of Ross Perot, the billionaire businessman who declared himself free from the taint of elective politics. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the anti-elitist scorn of George Wallace, not to mention several spoonfuls of Wallace\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s racial and ethnic resentment. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the rallying of the forgotten captured by Louisiana\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Huey Long back in the 1930s.<\/p>\n

To a remarkable extent, just about all of the themes of Trump\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s campaign can be found in Buchanan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s insurgent primary run in 1992.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But to a remarkable extent, just about all of the themes of Trump\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s campaign can be found in Buchanan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s insurgent primary run a quarter-century ago: the grievances, legitimate and otherwise; the dark portrait of a nation whose culture and sovereignty are threatened from without and within; the sense that the elites of both parties have turned their backs on hard-working loyal, traditional Americans. The limits of that campaign\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand the success of Trump\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, in seizing the nomination of a major political party\u00e2\u20ac\u201dare a measure of just how much our politics have changed in the past 25 years.<\/p>\n

For those of us covering the New Hampshire primary, most of the focus was on the Democratic side, as Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton built an early lead, and then had to confront charges of draft evasion and extramarital romps. But it gradually became clear that Buchanan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s campaign was catching fire in the economically depressed Granite State. Conservatives who had never forgiven Bush for breaking his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153read my lips, no new taxes\u00e2\u20ac\u009d promise rallied to Buchanan; reporters would gather in the watering holes in Manchester and exchange stories about the growing size of his crowds. As even People<\/i> magazine noted<\/strong><\/a>, Bush backers soon grew \u00e2\u20ac\u0153concerned that the combative Buchanan could embarrass the President just enough to throw their carefully scripted coronation plans into disarray.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The fears of the Bush camp were well founded. Buchanan didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t win the primary, and in the end he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t come close to winning the race, but his 37 percent of the vote in New Hampshire was enough to give the president a black eye\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe New York Times<\/i> called<\/strong><\/a> it \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a jarring political message\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that carried \u00e2\u20ac\u0153many ominous signs for Mr. Bush.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It was enough to give Buchanan a prime-time convention speaking slot<\/strong><\/a>. He then used the national stage to warn, ominously, of both a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153religious war\u00e2\u20ac\u009d raging in America and a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cultural war.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Bush lost in November, but Buchanan stayed in the game as a polemicist-politician. At his high point, four years later, Buchanan would go on to win the New Hampshire primary, albeit with just 27 percent against a divided field. In that campaign, he gleefully identified himself with anti-establishment revolt, proclaiming<\/strong><\/a> in Nashua: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They hear the shouts of the peasants from over the hill. All the knights and barons will be riding into the castle pulling up the drawbridge in a minute. All the peasants are coming with pitchforks.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d A silver pitchfork, given to him by his campaign aides, still hangs in his office today.<\/p>\n

In recalling his New Hampshire visits of 1992, Buchanan today remembers his political appeal in the context of the consequences of hard times that still seems to resonate in this year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s campaign: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Broken families, guys out of work, spousal abuse \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 you saw all this back then. I was astonished when Trump picked up on this. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talking about towns hurt, jobs lost. And he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s running a conservative populist, nationalist, America-first campaign.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Why did Trump succeed in leading a hostile takeover of the Republican Party, when Buchanan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s efforts came up so short in 1992?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, why did Trump succeed in leading a hostile takeover of the Republican Party, when Buchanan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s efforts came up so short in 1992? One overriding reason is that the times have indeed changed. When Buchanan warned of globalism and intervention, the successful Gulf War and the Christmas Day 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union weakened that argument. If there really was a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new world order,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d America was unquestionably in charge. Today, with memories of the disastrous second Iraq War, China rising and Russia asserting itself again, anti-interventionism is a lot stronger argument. Immigration, too, is an issue far more powerful today. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Back then, there were maybe 3-4 million illegal immigrants,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Buchanan says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Today, there are maybe 12 million.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most startling parallel between Buchanan and Trump is the argument of bipartisan betrayal: They both used their pulpit to excoriate elites in both parties for leaving more vulnerable, working-class Americans behind. And on that front, the country has changed profoundly. The central American promise\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat our children would live better than we live\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhas been thrown into grave doubt, at least for those who are part of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the white working class.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Some 5 million manufacturing jobs have been lost<\/strong><\/a> since the start of the millennium; incomes for the average factory worker have been stagnant for just about all of the 21st century.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Those issues started maturing,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Buchanan now says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Now we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve lost 55,000 factories. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 When those consequences came rolling in, all of a sudden you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got an angry country. We were out there warning what was coming. Now, on trade and intervention, America sees what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s come.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

But there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one other major change that has made Trump\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s message far more potent than Buchanan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s: the speed at which a powerful, even divisive idea can travel from one like-minded individual to another. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If Buchanan had had social media he might have done a lot better,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d argues Ron Kaufman, a longtime ally of the Bush family, who has spent a lifetime as a Republican operative. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Back then in \u00e2\u20ac\u212292, people wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have been hearing about it every 15 minutes. There was no Breitbart<\/strong><\/a>, no Politico<\/strong><\/a>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The rise of talk radio, cable networks and an online echo chamber for political discourse has changed the game for people with an outsider message, whether on the left or the right. Longtime Democratic operative Joe Trippi, who turned the Howard Dean campaign into an online fundraising behemoth<\/strong><\/a> in 2004, says: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think one of the things we have all underestimated is how connected underground networks are these days\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfrom Occupy Wall Street to white supremacists to conspiracy aficionados. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 So if a Pat Buchanan came along today, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s much easier to roll over a party.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The kinds of attacks Buchanan leveled, alone, at his own Republican Party have become normal political chatter on the right these days, amplified enormously by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and company. Today, an outright majority of Republicans say they believe their leaders have betrayed<\/strong><\/a> them, by not fighting harder against President Obama and the left…<\/p>\n

Read more at Politico.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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By Jeff Greenfield – Politico.com Illustration by Brian Stauffer The presidency of George H.W. Bush was in trouble. Headed into the 1992 election year, the glow from the swift and decisive victory in the Gulf War\u00e2\u20ac\u201da victory that had pushed Bush\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s approval ratings to 90 percent\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhad faded. While a recession … <\/p>\n

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