Buchanan's surefire flop. Home Bound

The New Republic ^ | July 11, 2002 | Franklin Foer

[Shermy]

First, the Clinton administration justified its interventions as humanitarian necessities. In the war on terror, by contrast, Bush hasn't needed to appeal to altruism. He has employed the rhetoric of national interest--fulfilling the Buchananite criteria for intervention.

Take this one for example. The premise is that involvement in all "interventions" or "wars" are founded in the same events, and that one has to be a "Buchananite" to support a war against Osama et al. It's senseless drivel posing as knowledgable. Just another reason why left wing rags seem more irrelevant these days than right wing ones. They don't address facts, or detail what "rights" we are allegedly losing. They're not talking about anything except about themselves, and how they see themselves in the world.

[wheezer]

McCain has moved from being a neocon on the couple of issues with which he was identified, to being more of a conventional liberal on a host of issues. You really should try to keep up to date. :)

McCain would not be undercutting and undermining the President, as he is currently doing, if his neocon base wasn't behind fully him.

[Malcolm]

I can't believe I ever voted for PJB. Can't this guy go back to the McLaughin Report and shut up? He only makes the situation worse, instead of better, by being identified with the side that is right on an issue, giving cover to those that oppose by saying, "Buchanan is for it, so it must be wrong." It would be much better if he would just shut up. When it's all over, in hindsight it will be shown that his contribution hurt rather than helped a cause. I voted for Keyes last time (2000); I hope he doesn't turn into an embarassment like PJB. Good Grief!!!

[Torie]

You seemed to miss the main thrust of the article, which was that current events have sucked the oxygen out of Buchanism. Whether or not Buchanism is ultimately right and true over the long term, was not addressed in this article, nor did it purport to. I think Pat is all wet, and Justin ever wetter, both short term and long term, but that is another matter.

[Shermy]

Don't know. The "paleo right" is the enemy of the America hating left. The left's allies are the neo-cons. Both are factotums of big business and globalism at some level. Neo-cons have a reflexive distaste for American working people's issues - framing those as "left wing" or "anti-Capitalist."

The article seems to want to describe this, and at points does, but gets lost in the identity and faction-naming game.

[Torie]

Er, not THIS neocon, and in general I don't think so, certainly not now, where McCain is going off the reservation almost totally. He's even joined in with the gang in hanging up Bush's judge nominations for heavans sake.

[jwalsh07]

Goldwater didn't have much in common with Taft and Bricker in the sense that he was an internationalist, and they were isolationists. Neocons tend to favor free trade, a robust defense, internationalism, welfare reform, vouchers and a meaningful affording of equal opportunity to the young, a social safety net to the extent that it is not self destructive of the recipients and doesn't bust the economy, and a tax system that is progressive up to the point that supply side considerations make it counter productive. They tend to be rather permissive on social issues up to the point that it threatens the fabric of the commonweal, but strongly believe faith and religion are a good thing, even if not religious themselves. They are strongly opposed to all forms of irrational discrimination, including certain inane and destructive forms of quotas. It really is a rather clearly defined point of view, and defines my views. And I was never a leftie.

Hey, thats you! I, for one, am glad you're on my side, whatever side that is.

[bok]

No pandering for an immigrant vote politicians who pretend nothing is wrong is the real concern here. The article wasn't about this issue, but i see it as a major concern in this country and it will lead to the death of it.

[x]

This is just the standard, garden variety smear. You can see it in the reference to David Duke that Foer just couldn't resist slipping in. It must have made a great excitement and commotion at the New Republic, since for months they haven't been able to use Nazi slurs against their new Zionist allies at the National Review. I notice Foer left out the obligatory reference to Chomsky, but Alexander Cockburn is a good stand-in

I suppose Foer does have a point about Taki. I agree with the poor little rich Greek about just about everything, but I'd do just about anything to avoid spending any time with him. That the British aristocracy doesn't simply confirms what people have always believed about them.

But I'd turn around Foer's argument. What ideology isn't exhausted now? What political magazine isn't boring and hackneyed? National Review and the Weekly Standard may be increasing circulation by stoking the war flames, but their philosophy and principles are getting ever more threadbare as they embrace empire. Dittos for the Weekly Standard. Of course antiwar.com and lewrockwell.com are jokes, but who really pays much attention to the political articles in the New Republic? The point seems to be more to generate a buzz and influence a small circle in Washington or New York than to cast any real light on what's going on in the country or the world. The Nation? The American Prospect? No signs of life there. So long as they go on about the "stolen election" their appeal is bound to be radically limited (assuming that is, that Bush copes well with the war and the economy).

So yes, Buchanan will have trouble with his new magazine, but that's not because of anything unique to his ideology. It reflects a more general ideological confusion or malaise in the country today. The New Republic has new Wall Street backers to cushion his berth against the bumps, but that's no reason to be smug about things.

[Hoplite]

Just so long as you're not adding another Alouatta palliata to the pack at my heels, no sweat.
That's "Howler Monkey" for you clever folk reading this.
I gotta get another hobby. = )

Ain't this article just a 'real world' example of the phenomenon wherein sites such as the World Socialist Web Site and writers such as Jared Israel are used in appeals to authority here on FR?

My tent isn't that big, not by a long shot.

[Torie]

You are simply too much a gentleman to get much pleasure out of a good old fashioned rather well done bash piece, which I think has an element of truth, but is by no means a road map of anything of consequence.

Having said that, I agree with you in large part (as usual), particularly on the bit that ideologies are in a bit of a funk these days. The dirty little secret of course, is that, except at the fringes (and a totally ineffectual effort by some on the religious right to impose a stern parenthood that is going nowhere, and is losing steam steadily), there is a broad consensus on most matters of real consequence in the US now, and so of course flame wars, and personalities, and demogoguery take up the vaccuum.

Of course, as this nation moves more to socialized medicine, which is inevitable, given that the price tag is so high, things may revert a bit back to a politics that we haven't seen for a long time. But the right will lose that one. And innovations in medicine will be degraded, and my hopes of living to 120 will go out the window. Ain't that a shame?

[nopardons]

A little reality check for you, dear. Alan Keyes is already an embarassment. Don't you know about his race card antics and " victimhood " ploys ? If not, why not ?

[Shermy]

You seemed to miss the main thrust of the article, which was that current events have sucked the oxygen out of Buchanism. Whether or not Buchanism is ultimately right and true over the long term, was not addressed in this article, nor did it purport to. I think Pat is all wet, and Justin ever wetter, both short term and long term, but that is another matter.

Granted, that seems to be the thrust of it, and I kind of missed it at first, looking at what I thought funny.

I don't sense there is a "Buchananism" as a ideology of identity, in the same way their is the phenomenon of "Neo-Conservatism." Buchanan is one guy. I agree with many of the things he says, some not. There is a reflexive distaste for Jewish people in his views, and that seems to be a better mark that distiguishes him, Taki and Raimondo (hey, great press Justin!) as being of the same mind, rather than other views he espouses, but which many share. The other "Buchananite" mark of distiguishment I see is the critique of mass immigration as a cultural threat. I think the threat to the culture comes from the cult of multiculturalism inculcated into immigrants by teachers, an anti-integration ideology of enforcing difference and animosity, a direct attack on an American identity.

If there is a widely held and coherent "buchananism" such would support the construction of the forces at play by this writer. But I don't see such.

BTW, the way I see the "neo-con" movement is that they were lefties that substitute the cult of statism with the cult of the CEO, funded and directed not by the USSR and union front organizations, but executives of corps with their front group NGOs and "think tanks." Nothing has changed, it's just idolization for the personal gain of one elite for another putatively on a different side of the political spectrum. He points out that "Buchanites" may become "left". I don't know, not many examples. The best example of changing putative political idenities while staying effectively the same are neo-cons themselves.

[MinuteGal]

To all involved in this interesting thread: thanks for the intelligence and courtesy displayed here. A welcome relief from some of the lightweight drivel and heavyweight flames on some other threads currently up. This reasoned, in-depth debate is a pleasure to read and to learn from. This is what FR is all about. Good work, all!

Leni

[Torie]

Neocon = cult of the CEO. I don't think so. That is a wild shot, sort of akin to some in the article, which I must admit I enjoyed more, because I am naughty. This neocon for example has agreed with Daschle that Bush is misguided in not showing support as yet for any program that goes about effecting systemic changes in the way audits are conducted for public companies, and the financial incentives of the auditors that attend their endeavors.