A reader writes:
Like most young Americans (and Obama voters), I certainly agree that Pat Buchanan is a nut, and I wish he had not added all the bizarre racialism to his essay. But if you strip out the "whiteness" part, a lot of what he says makes a lot of sense. In fact, it mirrors some of the things you have been saying. Unwinnable wars? Huge bailouts that help Wall Street without helping the little guy? Out of control spending? Horrible problem with illegal immigration? A lot of reasonable people think these are serious issues. And Pat was saying a lot of this stuff a long time before it was fashionable.
Pat Buchanan may be a racist, he's certainly tone-deaf, and he's never getting my vote. But, while I hate to say it, his essay really resonated with me. One of the pities of the Republican party is that people like Buchanan, who seem to have legitimate and important conservative points to make, allow themselves to be marginalized by ridiculous discussions of what white people are feeling, whatever that means.
I take my reader's point, and agree with it, by and large.
I too was complaining about spending when Fox News was ignoring it. I too am deeply concerned about nation-building in places that require long term colonialism to rescue. I don't see why the border cannot be secured. Or why corporate welfare continues; why it requires professionals to do my taxes; why wealthy seniors keep getting entitlements while poor working families cannot get health insurance; and I too oppose affirmative action and hate crimes laws.
But isn't this the Republican problem? The party has lost the capacity to convey its ideas with humor and good will or in a way that includes and speaks to non-white and non-Southern voters. (Reagan was rarely angry, always good-humored, civil, adept at arguing, and counted the West as his base. Now think of Huckabee or Romney and wince.) The GOP insults our intelligence with farces like Palin, idiots like Steele, bigots like Inhofe and lunatics like Beck. It expresses anger far more readily than reason or optimism. It rationalizes the evil of torture and the cruelty of discrimination. And its hero worship of the last president would make the most hardcore Obamaphile blush.
I'd like to support a party of the right that made its case with reason and care to the next generation. It doesn't exist. And it seems further away now than ever.
The Dish 