Pat Buchanan Back in the Conservative Mainstream
As I think everyone knows, Pat Buchanan became pretty estranged from mainstream conservatism over the past few years. On the one hand, the conservative mainstream spent some time trying to distance itself from its historical embrace of white pride politics. On the other hand, Buchanan doesn’t really share conventional conservative views about Iraq, Iran, or Israel. But with the Sonia Sotomayor nomination, there’s been a real Pat Buchanan renaissance where he’s everywhere, loud and proud, standing up for the white man. And as Eric Alterman and Danielle Ivory point out, everything’s coming up racialism these days on the right:
For once, Foxnation.com got it right. “Dems Now Get Taste of Being Called ‘Racist,’” said a screaming headline, and there’s no denying it was true. How else to characterize a story in which ex-Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo and radio host Rush Limbaugh compared Sonia Sotomayor’s opinions on race to those of the Ku Klux Klan.
David Duke found this to be a bit much. After all, he wrote, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, while Hispanic, was actually part and parcel of a Jewish conspiracy. Subsequently, Tancredo was asked if he wished to reconsider his KKK analogy. Alas, he declined. He also mentioned that he wasn’t sure if the Obama administration hated white people.
I was going to say something about the political consequences of all this, but actually Obama’s approval rating is frighteningly stable which reminds me that probably normal people are paying no attention and are basically unfazed by all of this.
26 Responses to “Pat Buchanan Back in the Conservative Mainstream”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
June 4th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Is it possible that there’s some mind-warping drug in the DC water supply?
June 4th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
This sort of “Hah! The Dems are getting a taste of their own medicine” reaction seems rather strange, actually, if you go through it all logically. After all, conservatives tend to think that accusing someone of being racist is as bad as, or perhaps even worse than actual racism. So from a conservative point of view, this headline would be the right-wing equivalent of a left-wing media organization saying something like, “Hah! Let’s see how white conservatives feel when *they’re* on receiving end of racism!”, in response to some current affair involving anti-white racism. Except conservatives would (rightly) criticize this. Which is why going through it logically probably isn’t very helpful.
June 4th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Racial pick, racial responses. It all makes me sick, but as ye sow, so shall ye reap.
June 4th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Playing dumb doesn’t impress anyone, it just gives your own dead-enders a place to hide.
Pretending that Sotomayor was a racist required ignoring four paragraphs of her speech.
Pretending that Obama didn’t talk about terrorism in Cairo requires ignoring five paragraphs of his speech.
They’re getting dumber all the time. Why would that help them?
June 4th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
… speaking of dead-enders.
June 4th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
I’m guessing the dashes in “-f-” stand for “dumb” and “uck”.
June 4th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
I was going to say something about the political consequences of all this, but actually Obama’s approval rating is frighteningly stable which reminds me that probably normal people are paying no attention and are basically unfazed by all of this.
Oh, but steady approval for Obama IS a political consequence. And a long-term one at that: each day that goes by with the Democrats represented by Obama and the Republicans represented by the likes of Buchanan is another day in which a lot of young people are internalizing impressions of the parties that may affect their voting for decades to come.
June 4th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Pat Buchanan standing up against the racist Sonia Sotomayor, and the racist apologists who support her? That’s odd, given the Pat is a racist himself.
One would think that Pat and Sonia would find common cause, given that they are both racists.
June 4th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
there’s been a real Pat Buchanan renaissance where he’s everywhere
If you mean everywhere on MSNBC, then I guess you’re right.
June 4th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
At least Sotomayor learned to read English. When were you going to get started?
June 4th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Jesus, Al, stop phoning it in. Sure that Donkey Benjamin loser was basically peeing on the rug, but at least he showed a certain amount of effort. I’ve seen more vigorous performances from Vince Carter.
June 4th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Okay, so I have to admit it. I voted for Pat Buchanan for president in the Republican primary. Not that I believed in him, I just wanted to screw up Bob Dole. I choose my party affiliation based on who has the more interesting primary. I switch back and forth pretty much every election. When I vote in the Republican primary, I vote against the frontrunner just to piss him off. Thus, the Pat Buchanan vote. What’s weird is that I started to like the guy when he didn’t have a racist angle to push. But now that he has one, I remember why I always hated him. But if he can be racist again, so can I. So Fuck the Irish! Okay, I don’t really mean that, but it felt good to say. What Pat should remember is that his people used to face real discrimination. Maybe he should have some sympathy for those that face it now.
June 4th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Because MattY is a hack, winner of the Hack Hackity Hack Prize For Hackery, with “HACK” and “HACK” tattooed on his knuckles, and because he smells of poop, he won’t tell the real story of how it’s racist to point out that racists like PatBuchananMyHero and TomTancredoBFF are racists. Click this link. Now.
June 4th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Pat Buchanan standing up against the racist Sonia Sotomayor, and the racist apologists who support her? That’s odd, given the Pat is a racist himself.
One would think that Pat and Sonia would find common cause, given that they are both racists.
em>
Indeed, one would think that! So, by following some very simple logic, there must be some false assumption you’ve made along the way.
Hmmmm…what could it be?
June 4th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
HTML fail
June 4th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Yeah maybe, some of my colleagues just lap that shit up. They seem to be getting madder and madder.
June 4th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Fostert, I am a Canadian and so this is none of my business, but I think that you are being very unwise in how you use your vote. After all, in a two-party system, the idiot party has to win sometimes. If Clinton had done something really wicked (other than bombing civilian Sudanese factories and so forth – something wicked with sex involved I mean, but more serious than receiving a blow job while talking on the phone), and if the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy had discovered it, you might have had a President Buchanan.
Fostert said: “Okay, so I have to admit it. I voted for Pat Buchanan for president in the Republican primary. Not that I believed in him, I just wanted to screw up Bob Dole. I choose my party affiliation based on who has the more interesting primary. I switch back and forth pretty much every election. When I vote in the Republican primary, I vote against the frontrunner just to piss him off. Thus, the Pat Buchanan vote.”
June 4th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Re “David Duke found this to be a bit much. After all, he wrote, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, while Hispanic, was actually part and parcel of a Jewish conspiracy. ”
————-
Hmmm. Strangely enough, I always thought that Benjamin Cardozo was the first Hispanic to be appointed to the Supreme Court.
But evidently the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials and the Hispanic National Bar Association
don’t count him — maybe because he was a Sephardi Jew.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_N._Cardozo#The_question_of_Cardozo.27s_ethnicity
Although some Hispanics say it wasn’t because he was Jewish but because he was Portuguese.
If we want to see the fur fly, let’s throw a few more dogs into the fight.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
See also 1) See also http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/us/27hispanic.html?_r=1
and
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2009-05-26-courtcardozo_N.htm?csp=34
June 4th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
1) See also
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2009/05/26/would-sotomayor-be-the-first-hispanic-supreme-court-justice-or-was-it-cardozo.html
2) Come to think of it, do the Orthodox Rabbis of Israel who ruled on Israeli marriages consider Sephardi Jews to be ..er. Jewish?
Too bad we can’t serve hard liquor during this discussion.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Well, Don W., the Portuguese don’t speak Spanish, so there’s good reason not to call them “Hispanic.”
June 4th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
As Colbert said, we know Sotomayor is a racist because a bunch of old white guys who support a border fence told us so.
June 4th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Re SqueakyRat “Well, Don W., the Portuguese don’t speak Spanish, so there’s good reason not to call them “Hispanic.””
————-
Well, for centuries the Romans used the word Hispania to refer to the entire Iberian Penisula. I think that trumps a definition the Census Bureau pulled out of its butt circa 2000 AD.
By the way, did anyone asked the Indian tribes of South and Central America if they wanted to be called Hispanic?
Woof!
June 4th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
Come to think of it, where exactly on the Iberian penisula did Matthew’s family come from? Could this late-breaking Hispanic identity of his be mistaken?
I mean, my recollection is that the Spanish drove the Sephardi OFF of the Iberian Penisula — except for those they burned at the stake, of course. Why identify with those who persecuted your ancestors — or is this a Jewish thing?
June 4th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
So, the fact that Buchanan (who has actually been constantly on tv for the last ten years) is on tv saying stupid shit (which he’s been doing consistently) means that he’s back in the Republican fold? I don’t get the connection.
June 5th, 2009 at 3:36 am
The one thing you can say about Buchanon is that he’s consistent. He’s a pro-isolationist, pro-protectionist conservative with strong undertones of cultural exclusionism and possibly racism (listen to his comments about Mexican immigration). Sometimes, particularly on certain foreign policy issues, he strikes the correct position, and sounds good.
At the very least, he offers an interesting position. I still remember reading his “A Republic, Not an Empire” in which he tried to defend isolationism as a possibility in response to World War 2.