The Political Spectrum

In the comments section Jeff brought up this Washington Times article on Pat Buchanan. I was going to relegate my reaction to the comments section because, quite frankly, I have spilt far too much digital ink on this one writer. But upon closer examination of the article, there's just too much to let go without comment.

First snippet:

"[Conservatism] doesn't exist anymore as a unifying force," he says in an interview with The Washington Times. "There are still a lot of people who are conservative, but the movement is now broken up, crumbled, dismantled."

Right off the bat we have an observation that is so historically off the mark that it almost begs for parody. The conservative movement has never been a unifying force. It has always been splintered into different factions. One of the most wonderful things about conservatism is that it cannot easily be defined by any sort of orthodoxy. Edmund Burke specifically shunned the sort of mataphysical abstract thinking that dominates political ideologies. Perhaps the right was unfied during the Cold War in its determination to roll back Soviet domination, but the libertarian-conservative alliance was always an uneasy one.

Conservatism is made up of many different strands of thought, and this is a strength, not a weakness. Jonah Goldberg explains this in greater detail, and I made a go of it a while back on Southern Appeal.

Buchanan then continues.

Unnamed phonies, he suggests, have infiltrated the movement.

There are "a lot of people who call themselves conservative but who, on many issues, I just don't consider as conservative. They are big-government people."

Gee Pat, such as, say, YOU? I think Ramesh Ponnuru makes a pretty compelling case that Buchanan himself is guilty of the committing same transgression he is accusing others of performing. You know that whole "compassionate conservatism" thing? Wonder where George Bush may have heard that before?

In The Great Betrayal, Buchanan compares free markets to the law of the jungle and writes, "Better the occasional sins of a government acting out of the spirit of charity than the constant omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference." Conservatives who grind their teeth every time George W. Bush uses his favorite adjective should remember that Buchanan was the very first compassionate conservative — "I may charge him with plagiarism," he says. Buchanan has been slow to grasp the full implications of his new political stance. He still, for instance, opposes increasing the minimum wage. But his "conservatism of the heart" has moved him to favor higher unemployment benefits, to support a cap on executive pay, and to condemn Republicans' brave efforts in 1995 to curb the growth of Medicare.

Buchanan almost never talks about cutting government any more, certainly not about ending specific programs or programs that benefit the middle class. It is true that most Republicans these days share this reticence. But only Buchanan says that advocates of the flat tax have spent too much time with "the boys down at the yacht basin." Not even liberal Democrats bash corporations with his gusto, deploring as he does their greed, questioning their loyalty, and second-guessing their decisions. (For all the anti-corporate rhetoric, of course, a Buchananite economic policy would in practice involve an alliance between Big Government, Big Business, and Big Labor — as every country that has tried to implement such a policy has found out.)

But of course Buchanan remains a strong social conservative, correct? After all, he says so himself, and he criticizes the GOP for taking its focus off of cultural issues.

"They are indifferent to those moral issues because they see them — and correctly — as no longer popular, no longer the majority positions that they used to be," he says. "They say, 'Let's put those off the table and focus on the issues where we still have a majority — strong national defense and cutting taxes.' "

So, Mr. Buchanan concludes, Republicans have "abdicated from the cultural war. They've stacked arms."

How very fascinating. But where was the culture warrior in 2000 when he was making his own bid for the presidency? More Ponnuru:

What actually motivated the Buchanan brigades to pick up their pitchforks was, above all, their opposition to abortion. Buchanan won the 1996 New Hampshire primary because 64 percent of those voters whose top issue was abortion rallied to him. These pro-lifers must now be astonished to learn that Buchanan, in pursuit of a national ticket and $12.6 million in federal matching funds, cares more about trade and foreign policy than he does about abortion. He is apparently willing to join a pro-choice party and to risk helping the Democrats appoint two or three more Supreme Court justices in a post-Clinton administration.But even Christian conservatives, many of whom are also economic conservatives, have deserted him. Buchanan's vote peaked his first time out: He has never equaled his showing in February 1992, when he won 37 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary. There were, of course, non-ideological reasons for Buchanan's subsequent burnouts. To begin with, he was surprisingly lackadaisical about politics for someone who wants to reshape it. After losing in 1996, Buchanan went back to CNN; Steve Forbes, by contrast, never left the hustings. Gary Bauer has raised money for other candidates; Buchanan has done nothing to nurture a like-minded cadre in Congress. Buchanan's showing in the Iowa straw poll in August — Bauer placed higher — underlined the point that he has no future in the Republican party. The most recent poll shows him with the backing of only 3 percent of Republican voters, and he has the support of no acknowledged conservative figure.

So I guess it's up to other politicians to focus their energies on cultural issues, but when Buchanan is the candidate, he'd rather promote his William Jennings Bryan in the 21st century economic vision.

More Buchanan:

He expresses resentment over the "imperialist" prescriptions of neoconservatives. "I don't think neoconservatives are conservative at all," he says. "I'm often asked what exactly is it that they want to conserve. They are Wilsonian interventionists abroad; they are big government at home."

He sort of has a point. True neocons are struck with something of a utopian grand vision of spreading democracy as a cure for all evils, and earnestly support interventionist government at home. But how is that any more of a departure from conservatism than Buchanan's protectionism? In all honesty there is no "pure" conservative economic program. Burke was a fan of Adam Smith, though traditional conservatives generally have cast a suspicious eye on corporations, until more recently. That said, there is nothing inherently conservative about an America-first and only policy that severely restricts trade and therefore dampens the workings of the capitalist market. Thus when Buchanan claims that neoconservatives are not really conservative, I wonder if he has a mirror handy.

Additional thoughts What particularly bothers me about Buchanan and guys like Andrew Sullivan is their implicit belief that they are the definers of what authentic conservatism is all about. Perhaps we are all guilty of this to one degree or another. We fall into the trap of thinking that our ideas are the best, and anything which strays a little bit is wrong. But with Buchanan, Sullivan and others, they seek to define conservatism though their personal prism. As a result, they develop daydream realities which never were to justify their position. Take for example Sullivan's absurd remaking of the Reagan legacy after his death. Sullivan attempted to portray Reagan as some sort of social moderate so as to distinguish him from the vile theocrat known as George Bush. But in reality Reagan was no less of a social conservative than Bush, and in fact was often much more harsh and dogmatic than Bush could ever dream of being. Similarly Buchanan paints an idyllic image of a conservative harmony that never existed. Pity, because Buchanan is a tremendous writer with a gifted intellect. But for every astute observation he offers is a theory which defies logic.