By SHAUN KENNEY
Having yet read Steve Kornacki’s The Red and the Blue, it is difficult to comment more broadly on the differences between two protagonists in his short repackaging of politics in the 1990s — Pat Buchanan and Donald Trump. Indeed, Kornacki takes to the social media via Twitter and places square aim at both men, lumping in Trump’s critiques of Buchanan as being somewhat contrary to Trump’s present position on issues such as border security and the like.
I am far less interested in Kornacki’s characterization of the president, though I would agree that Trump’s shift from Democrat to Republican was more opportunistic than conversion. Rather, I am far more interested in the defense of a much-maligned public figure whose corpus of writing deserves far more attention and praise than it receives: Mr. Patrick J. Buchanan.
During the latter part of my early college years, I picked up and read with interest A Republic, Not an Empire. As I was growing up in northern Virginia, people always whispered in secret admiration of both of the Buchanan siblings, each one having a unique story.
The one poisoned arrow that still stings to this day — one that exposed me to the hypocrisy of the American media establishment — was the mischaracterization of Buchanan’s position regarding both the Second World War and the State of Israel.
The media, always eager for a bogeyman, flayed Buchanan alive as an anti-Semite. The truth was anything but, and even a casual reading of Buchanan’s work reveals a mode of American political thought that knocked off the rough edges of populism while reasserting basic truths about American culture, the enduring quality of family, and the fragility of our institutions.
With regard to Europe, Buchanan’s insight was rather straightforward. It wasn’t that the Nazis were unique in the history of violence; they simply had modern tools. Tacitus wrote that the Romans created a desolation and called it peace; the bloodlands of Eastern Europe were a maelstrom from which America has yet to extricate itself. Why fight a bloody European civil war to preserve the British Empire, asks Buchanan? True, the Jewish Holocaust was horrific in scope and industrialized scale, yet we are given reminders from history and newspapers that humanity’s ability to annihilate one another is latent, dark, and omnipresent.
This leads to a very critical second point in Buchanan’s work vis-a-vis Israel. Far from anti-Semitism, Buchanan’s lead focus was that the antidote to globalism was the ability for nations to defend themselves. Israel with her free markets and self-sufficiency remains a marvelous example of how a Buchanan-led foreign policy might have worked in places such as Georgia, Lithuania, Poland, South Korea, and most notably Taiwan.
The oath taken by the Israeli Defense Forces that “Masada shall never fall again” is not a mandate that will ever be defended by the United Nations (who are entirely hostile to the very existence of the Jewish State), but rather by the Israelis themselves.
Buchanan understands globalism in a certain context; necessary to defeat Soviet Communism, but an inherent vice smuggled into American foreign policy the moment we called in the mortgage loan on the British Empire during the 1950s. Once the Soviets were gone, the “peace dividend” could be spent on restoring American fortunes independent of the vices of the Old World. In the wheel of the world’s economy, America could still be the hub and other nations the spokes — but our republican form of government would be restored; the long emergency of the Cold War declared over.
Kornacki points out that Trump was highly critical of Buchanan as the two men vied for leadership of what remained of Ross Perot’s populist-led Reform Party. Trump called Buchanan’s followers “wackos” among other things, labeling Buchanan an anti-Semite, a “Hitler-lover” who did not like blacks, gays, Jews, etc. Trump’s exit from the 2000 presidential contest attempted to point toward David Duke, saying that Buchanan’s refusal to reject Duke’s support was company Trump refused to keep.
Of course, Buchanan never required Duke’s shade to have his place in the sun. When Buchanan was asked point-blank about Duke’s purported support of Trump in 2016, Buchanan rejected Duke in toto as well as the tactic of the media raising the question. Certainly no one questions the left about support from the likes of Louis Farrakhan.
Naturally, there are several things that separate Buchanan from Trump. For one, I would readily agree with Buchanan that the “culture war” is over — and we have lost. We have far more to learn from the French Resistance of 1940 than we do from snake-oil salesmen claiming they can change the culture from Washington, D.C. Or the French Vendée. Or the Christians in the catacombs. Or by simply killing your television and reading a book. Or best of all, restoring a recognition of the Real Presence in the Church and praying the rosary daily.
Second, Buchanan warned about the dangers of American imperialism, and our children will be reaping that bitter harvest in the years to come. Once you become an imperial power, it is nearly impossible to stop being one. One is challenged to think of a republic with imperial ambitions that then reverted to a republican form of governance. Not only do we find ourselves imposing our will in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, but we find the federal government doing likewise in places like Texas, New York, and North Carolina.
Is it any small wonder that, when good men threaten that power dynamic, others heavily invested in the preservation of empire would seek to savage its critics?
MSNBC journalists might choose to punch above their weight class to sell more books. Yet the long legacy of Patrick Buchanan as both prophet and prognosticator serves as a warning to those who seek to transform America into a participant in the hatreds of the Old World. More to the point, though the flame of the West may be flickering, the core values that made Western Civilization the envy of the world do best when we share our virtues — not our vices. That is not an imperial enterprise, but a republican one.
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The following is part one of a four-part series penned by Anonymous Andrew entitled “An Opinion From the Trenches” —- republished with permission from the author. I hope it impresses you the way it impressed me. — SVK.
Part One
I sorely miss the good old days when we went together to 11 o’clock Mass every Sunday to a magnificent Gothic stone church in the city. It had a beautiful high altar and was packed with pious faith-filled worshippers.
Why is it that that particular church no longer exists today? What happened to all the people who used to crowd our Catholic churches on Sunday? What happened to all the humble faithful in the long lines at the confessionals?
It may not be kosher, but below is an unscholarly critique from a penitent octogenarian with no degrees or trophies. Did a sort of spirit of adventurism fueled by outside influences, including the newly introduced TV (which had most us still almost giddy at the time), also overwhelm many of God’s representatives, causing them to abandon much of the great Catholic heritage we had when I was young?
The blitzkrieg changes like destroying God’s high altars (again), the church mentioned above, the loss of more sublime receiving the Sacred Host on the tongue while kneeling. And, valued as it is, our Saturday evening Mass also detracted from keeping Sunday holy.
Overall our Mass seems to have rearranged from a reverent and worship atmosphere (and an all for one, one for all) to being more of a socialite/political atmosphere where Christ shares the spotlight. The celebrant instead of being mainly concerned with our great Catholic ritual now carries the extra burden of being expected to perform or even wow the congregation.
Some of their impromptu changes bewildered and upset many of the common Catholics at the time, traumatizing some that I knew. A clear proof of the poor judgment used in a great many cases was that our good nuns (perhaps the backbone of our Church at that time) abandoned their vocations in droves, almost immediately.
Although not convenient for many, meatless Fridays were good for the soul and the prosperous. It also tied all Catholics closer to each other and to our Church.
Still, despite getting carried away with changes and now the scandalous behavior of some of our weak and disloyal clergy, it is our Catholic Church that received and spread the Good News from Christ. It has the Eucharist.
It still is God’s flagship to eternal life. And in the meantime, it shows us the best way to live.
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We love your comments! First Teachers encourages readers to submit their thoughts, views, opinions, and insights to the author directly, either via e-mail or by mail. Please send any correspondence to Shaun Kenney c/o First Teachers, 5289 Venable Road, Kents Store, VA 23084 or by e-mail to svk2cr@virginia.edu.
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