Buchanan Flirting With Fascism
More people should have spoken out when Adolf Hitler was rising to power. And more people should speak out now that Patrick Joseph Buchanan is rising to power.
Buchanan attracts Ku Klux Klan members, neo-Nazis, militia nuts, skinheads, anti-Semites, racists, sexists, homophobes, religious zealots and garden-variety bigots just like garbage attracts flies. Why not? Buchanan has devoted his life to releasing just the right scent to attract extremists and fanatics.
Buchanan is intelligent, a gifted speaker and a precise writer. He knows what he is doing.
And so should Americans who foolishly praise Buchanan for his willingness to say exactly what he believes.
As a writer, pundit, commentator and Washington insider, Buchanan carefully pushes his angry rhetoric just to the exact edge of outright racism or bigotry. He always leaves himself a tiny toehold from which he can claim that he is not an outright bigot.
But Americans should consider the evidence before they are beguiled by Buchanan’s lifetime of calculated innuendo.
Recently, Buchanan told a reporter how much he has been influenced by his father. “My father imbued in us that life was a battle,” he said.
It’s likely, however, that William Baldwin Buchanan imbued in his son even more. The elder Buchanan was a devoted backer of the America First Committee, a pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic, nativist and isolationist movement.
The elder Buchanan also was an admirer of fascist dictator Francisco Franco of Spain and of this nation’s disgraceful redbaiter Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
When he ran for president in 1992, the young Buchanan dubbed his campaign “America First.” As it turned out, former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke also called his presidential campaign “America First.” The messages from Buchanan and Duke were the same. Buchanan said Duke had stolen his ideas.
Like his father, Pat Buchanan has expressed his admiration of fascist dictator Franco. In addition, Buchanan has described Hitler as “an individual of great courage, … extraordinary gifts.”
As an admirer of the “Boer Republic,” Buchanan applied in 1974 to be ambassador to South Africa’s white racist government, which routinely tortured and murdered citizens of the wrong color.
Also like his father, Buchanan is an isolationist. He fears that the wrong sort of immigration will adulterate the dominant European white culture in America. He has said that he prefers Englishmen to Zulus and has suggested annexing Canada to keep the United States culturally correct.
Over the years, Buchanan has supported old Nazis, has belittled Holocaust reports and even has referred to Congress as “Israeli-occupied territory.”
AIDS, he has said, is “nature’s retribution” on homosexuals.
Writing in celebration of the 1983 defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment, Buchanan said “women are simply not endowed” by nature to compete in Western capitalism.
Respected Republican leaders have said publicly that Buchanan flirts with fascism and that his anti-Semitism cannot be defended. They have called Buchanan “Looney Toons” and a reactionary.
It should have come as no surprise when the Ku Klux Klan newspaper, The Thunderbolt, featured several editions with Buchanan’s photo and his views on Israel, racial quotas and homosexuality.
It also should have come as no surprise that Buchanan’s current campaign co-chairman has made repeated speeches to neo-Nazis and white supremacists. Or that other campaign workers have ties to racist and supremacist groups.
If Pat Buchanan isn’t a dangerous bigot, then he certainly gives off the odor that attracts them. That’s why more people should speak out about Buchanan’s despicable campaign tactics before the man attracts a critical mass of hatred.
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