Conservatism

2008

2008-07-15-Giraldi

Conservative Confusion on Iran
by Philip Giraldi
Antiwar.com, 2008-07-15

[Paragraph numbers and emphasis are added.]

[1]
The process whereby the neoconservatives
were able to hijack the Republican Party’s foreign policy
has been dissected and analyzed frequently over the past two years.
Perhaps more disturbing in the long term, however, is
their success at hijacking the label “conservative.”
When broadcast journalists Brian Williams and Katie Couric
describe someone as a conservative Republican,
they are frequently actually referring to a neoconservative.
When a Sunday morning talk show
has a “conservative” on a panel to provide “balance,”
he is more often than not a neoconservative.
This access to the media as the purported standard-bearers of conservatism
has proven useful,
as it enables the neocons to continue to have a major voice on policy
in spite of being wrong on every major issue. [!]
It also empowers them to constantly spin and refine their story,
exonerating themselves while fear-mongering that
there are new dangers that have to be dealt with, more dragons to slay.

[2]
Most Republicans, like most voters,
prefer not to think very much about what the “conservative” label means.
Conservatism means
supporting traditional ways of doing things domestically,
i.e., not embracing radical change,
and a strong defense policy overseas.
Apart from that,
there is not a great deal of refinement in the public’s view of conservatism.
For many, a desirable defense and security policy
is precisely what the neocons have created,
a vengeful lashing out at the rest of the
brown-skinned, non-Christian, ostensibly terrorism-fostering world
using the maximum military force to complete the job.
In line with that simplistic worldview,
many self-described conservatives
continue to defend President George W. Bush and his neocon foreign policy
only because
they believe it important to support a Republican president
come hell or high water,
not because they have considered the issues
or the ups and downs of the policies that are being pursued.
They take it on faith that Iran is bad and will have to be dealt with firmly, because, after all,
that is what they are constantly seeing and hearing on television
and reading in the newspapers,
mostly coming from the same neocons who brought us Iraq.

[3]
But there is no free ride, politically speaking,
and bad policies eventually result in a price paid at the voting box.
As the Iraq war is now disapproved of by more than two-thirds of Americans
and further involvement in Iran is equally unpopular,
Republicans and conservatives will have to rethink ... their foreign policy
if they ever hope to regain majority party status.
In so doing, they should return to the conservative principles
that were delineated by the Founding Fathers,
Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan
prior to the hijacking of the conservative label under George W. Bush.

[4]
The first principle for conservatives is that
war is a “last option” to be employed when all else fails
and there is a direct and imminent danger to the United States.
U.S. soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen
are a precious commodity not be wasted in pointless wars,
and
our armed services are
not an appropriate instrument for rebuilding or reforming other nations.
Iran’s form of government is none of our business,
and Tehran does not currently pose a level of threat to the American people
that would justify military action.
Ronald Reagan put it best:
“The defense policy of the United States is based on a simple premise:
the United States does not start fights.
We will never be an aggressor.”
Barry Goldwater recommended that U.S. foreign policy
“make it clear to all nations of this world that
we have no desire to expand our territory
or to impose our type of government
or our way of life on any other people.”
Prior to George Bush,
Republicans and conservatives have traditionally been reluctant warriors.
In the last century, the
First World War,
Second World War,
Korea, and
the escalation in Vietnam
all took place under Democratic administrations
with considerable dissent from Republicans.

[In fact, a standard, if much-hated by the Democrats, Republican line was that
Republicans were better at keeping the United States out of wars.]

[5]
In line with a reluctance to go to war,
conservatives have always believed that the first line of defense is diplomacy.
Diplomacy supports the national interest
without unleashing the unintended consequences that arise from warfare.
As Russell Kirk put it,
“A sound conservative foreign policy in the age which is dawning
should be neither ‘interventionist’ nor ‘isolationist’;
it should be prudent.”
Diplomacy between the United States and Iran has not really been tried
but is being dismissed by both the Bush administration and presidential candidate John McCain as naïve.

It is time to do the proper and prudent conservative thing,
which means sitting down and talking to Iran,
with no preconditions and with all issues on the table.

[6]
Conservatives also recognize that
while the first victim in war is certainly truth in the media,
the second victim is invariably civil liberties and the Constitution.
War means
armies, police, taxes, big government, and restriction of personal freedoms.
It erodes fundamental rights and nearly always means
intrusion into the private lives of citizens
through laws that remain in place even after the foreign threat has disappeared.
As James Madison wrote,
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. ...
Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded
because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
George Washington’s Farewell Address of 1796 put it even more starkly,
calling on Americans to avoid
“the necessity of those overgrown military establishments
which, under any form of government,
are inauspicious to liberty,
and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.”
If Iraq, Afghanistan, and the largely fictional global war on terrorism
produced
the PATRIOT Act,
the Military Commissions Act,
the loss of FISA court controls, and
the unitary executive concept,
it is useful to consider what a more serious war with Iran might bring.
The United States does not need to dismantle more of the Constitution
to fight yet another war of choice,
because doing so will not make us any safer, only less free.

[7]
Fiscal responsibility,
a strong dollar, and
maintaining the economic well-being of the citizens
are also traditional conservative agendas.
The war with Iraq has been an economic catastrophe,
coupled with a sinking dollar, spiraling debt, and surging oil prices.
Much of the U.S. public debt is now in the hands of an adversary, China.
A war against Iran will bring a terrible “energy shock”
and will only make things worse for the average American.
It could sink the U.S. dollar forever
as the world flees from its use as a reserve currency.
As Ron Paul put it,
“The moral and constitutional obligations of our representatives in Washington
are to protect our liberty,
not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars,
while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people.”

[8]
Finally, conservatives traditionally understand that
foreign and defense policy
should ultimately benefit the United States and its people.
The government should be empowered
to protect American citizens against foreign threats and terrorism,
not to create new terrorists through ill-advised interventions overseas.
Our nation,
which has always been respected for its fair dealing and its liberties,
is now looked down upon by most of the world
due to its bullying and intransigence.
John Quincy Adams said that
“America does not need to go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.”
Attacking Iran would unleash a new wave of international terrorism
and would convince much of the world that
Washington is intent on changing governments willy-nilly
and exterminating Muslims.
America does not need another 9/11.
Referring to the terrorism problem, Pat Buchanan has written,
“We need to remove the motivation for it
by extricating the United States from ethnic, religious, and historical quarrels that are not ours
and which we cannot resolve with any finality.”
George Washington put it another way in his Farewell Address,
that the United States should
“Observe good faith and justice towards all nations;
cultivate peace and harmony with all.
Religion and morality enjoin this conduct;
and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it.
It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation,
to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example
of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.”
George Washington’s advice, once revered by all true conservatives,
was good in 1796, and it is still good today.

2009

2009-11-18-Harbaugh-Hagel

After the overwhelming Democratic sweep in the 2008 elections,
the GOP has been characterized, correctly, by the media
as having rather few apparent leaders who command a national following.
I agree.

Here is a man who, in my opinion, could be an outstanding GOP leader:
Chuck Hagel.
He combines general social and economic conservatism and honorable service in the Vietnam War
with a long-standing opposition to the unnecessary US/Muslim wars.
What more could the GOP ask?

Obviously, there are many other candidates, and others will disagree.
But Hagel should, in my opinion, be,
with Huckabee, Palin, Romney, Gingrich, et al,
considered as a GOP leader,
by the media and the party.

Here is the problem:
Without him, around whom can anti-war Republicans coalesce?
So far as I know,
all the current GOP heavyweights are practically indistinguishable
with regard to war policies and Mid-East policies.
As widely remarked, they compete only to see
who can most slavishly proclaim devotion to Israel.
Is this a healthy political situation for the United States?
Of course not.
What better proof is there of Zionist domination of American politics?

And even if that is too controversial for you to stomach,
here is a question for GOP leaders:
Just where are anti-war conservatives supposed to go?
How many votes are you going to lose by not offering an alternative?
If anti-war fervor builds in this country, as it well might,
where is the GOP candidate who can credibly say,
“I opposed the war all along”,
and avoid a Democratic charge of being
merely opportunistic rather than principled
in a future election?

As to why the fine American Hagel has been so neglected by the GOP leadership,
see this post by Stephen Walt.

2009-12-18-Raimondo-libertarians-at-Reason-Gillespie

Calling Dr. Pangloss
We never had it so good – right?
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com, 2009-12-18

2010

2010-01-25-Hadar-non-interventionists-marginalized

The Populist Insurgency and Foreign Policy:
Why Non-Interventionists are Marginalized?
by Leon T. Hadar
Huffington Post, 2010-01-25

[1]
The Republican win in the special Senate election in Massachusetts
has been compared to a powerful earthquake
that could transform U.S. politics as we know it,
pointing to a forceful populist uprising that reflects the rage of
the economically distressed and politically frustrated American voters
who are ready to storm the barricades and get rid of
the crooked politicians on Capitol Hill and the Fat Cats in Wall Street.

[2]
According to the conventional wisdom,
much of this populist fury has been fostered by the members and the groups
that constitute the Tea Party movement --
who had backed Republican Scott Brown in the Senate race in Massachusetts --
and have created a political backlash against
the growing government intervention in the American economy
under President Obama and the Congressional Democrats,
that has taken the form of
the bailouts of the big banks and the auto companies,
the costly fiscal and monetary policies
(the economic stimulus program
and the injection of liquidity into the financial system),
and of course, the much derided health-care reform plan.

[3]
It is not surprising that Americans who according to opinion polls
are feeling worried about
unemployment, the value of their homes, and the availability of credit
are being energized to take political action.
What is intriguing, however, is that
at a time when the U.S. military
has been fighting two very expansive wars in the Broader Middle East
(Afghanistan and Iraq -- and soon perhaps another one with Iran)
while terrorism continues to be seen as a threat to American security,

the populist insurgents seem to have been relatively silent
when it comes to dead-end American foreign policy
and the high costs in blood and treasure
of the never-ending U.S. global interventionism.

They have been castigating the political and economic elites -- as they should.
But why do the foreign policy and military elites
seem to be immune to the wrath of the new populists?

[4]
Interestingly enough, opinion polls indicate that
most Americans are growing disenchanted with American global interventionism.
Indeed,
when Americans were asked in a recent survey of American attitudes conducted by the Pew Research Center and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR),
whether the U.S. should “mind its own business internationally,”
49 percent said they agreed with that sentiment.
That was up sharply from 30 percent in 2002, and was
the highest reading found
since the Gallup Survey first asked the question in 1964.
These results seem to be compatible with the findings in other opinion polls
that reflect
continuing public disillusionment with the Iraq War
and a clear support for
a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops from both Mesopotamia and Afghanistan.

[5]
So in a way, it seems that
as many Americans are unhappy with
Wall Street’s bailout and the health care reform bill
as they are with
the military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yet while the domestic policy issues seemed to have been the focus of the debate during the Senate race in Massachusetts,
America’s wars have received much less attention.
If anything, the Republican Brown ended-up attacking Obama’s foreign policy
from a more pro-interventionist perspective
when he called for
sending all the additional troops
that General Stanley McChrystal had requested.

[6]
Similarly, some of the stars of the Tea Party movement like
former Alaska Governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin and
news show host Glenn Beck
have accused President Obama of
projecting weakness in dealing with the threat of terrorism
and have appealed for more assertive U.S. policy
vis-à-vis Iran, North Korea and Russia.
At the same time, another political figure that has been much admired
by many of the new populists is Dr. Ron Paul
(I served as one of his foreign policy advisors during the campaign),
the Republican-libertarian Representative from Texas
who has been a staunch opponent of the decision to invade Iraq
and has called for U.S. military disengagement from the Middle East
as well as from other parts of the world --
not to mention his long-time criticism of
much the rising power of the National Security State.

[7]
It is possible that one of the main reasons why foreign policy issues,
including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
have not dominated the tea Party events
has to do with the fact that new populists may have strong disagreements over
the role that the United States should play in the world
as well as over immigration and trade and social-cultural issues.
Hence, my sense (which is based more on anecdotal evidence
than on the results of any major opinion poll)
is that while
most of the new insurgents project a Lou Dobbs-kind of attitude on immigration,
the Perot-type populists among them have been supportive of
a more economist nationalist approach on global trade issues --
like many progressive populists on the political left --
and of a less interventionist foreign policy,
not unlike the followers of Ron Paul among the Tea Party members
(On social-cultural issues,
“Peroites” and “Paulites” very much like left-wing progressives
tend to embrace a more liberal/libertarian perspective
in contrast to the Sarah Palin wing of the Tea Party that includes members of the religious right).

[8]
If we apply
the foreign policy typology proposed by diplomatic scholar Walter Russell Mead
it would be safe to argue that there are very few
Wilsonians aka neoconservatives
fantasizing about the democratization of the Middle East or
Hamiltonians seeking to promote U.S. business interests abroad
among the Tea Partiers.
Instead, one could suggest that most of the new populists are either
nationalist Jacksonians -
who have no problem using force in defense of the country
but are opposed to launching ideological global crusades --
or the more isolationist Jeffersonians -
who are worried about the negative effects that foreign interventions would have
on America’s political and economic freedoms.

[9]
While
the non-interventionist/Jeffersonian approach
represented by Paul and other libertarian figures and outlets and
the populist/Jacksonian position
advocated by the Peroites and Pat Buchanan
may be popular among the new populists,
the main reason
that they have failed to have more of an impact
on the right-wing populist insurgents
has to do with
the strong influence of
the elites controlling the Republican Party
and the official conservative movement --
as opposed to, say,
the views represented in The American Conservative magazine (I write for it) --
which continue to promote
the interventionist foreign policy principles
advocated by the neocons and the religious right
with their emphasis on the need to escalate the war against “Islamofascism,”
That explains why the majority of the Republicans and conservatives
are still in favor of an interventionist U.S. foreign policy,
a reality that is not going to change
until the Jacksonians and the Jeffersonians
start using their intellectual and political resources
to advance their agenda.

[The real question is why so few of the conservative political/media elite
has chosen to support the non-interventionist views of
Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul, perhaps Chuck Hagel, and even Michael Scheuer.
I suspect the reason is that old classic m-o-n-e-y,
and the desires of those who supply most of it.]

[10]
Unfortunately for President Obama and the Democrats,
the White House’s decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan
and to pursue a Bush/neoconservative-Lite foreign policy
makes it difficult for them to try to exploit the populist sentiments
by trying to project a less interventionist foreign policy.

2010-02-18-Eddlem-Mount-Vernon-statement

The Mount Vernon Statement and Ed Meese
by Thomas R. Eddlem
thenewamerican.com, 2010-02-18

2010-02-22-Raimondo-CPAC-Paul

Ron Paul!
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com, 2010-02-22

2010-02-22-CPAC-Utley

CPAC and the Wars
by Jon Basil Utley
Antiwar.com, 2010-02-22

2010-02-22-CPAC-antiwar-panal-video

Antiwar Panel at CPAC: Video
Antiwar.com, 2010-02-22

* Karen Kwiatkowski — retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel
* Philip M. Giraldi — former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer, current Francis Walsingham Fellow at The American Conservative Defense Alliance, and weekly columnist for Antiwar.com
* Jacob Hornberger — founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation
* Bruce Fein — former associate deputy attorney general in the Reagan administration

2010-02-24-Raimondo-CPAC-Paul

Ron Paul’s Victory: How Sweet It Is!
Paul victory causes panic on neocon Right, Obama-ite Left
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com, 2010-02-24

2010-02-26-Raimondo-Paul

Ron Paul vs. the Naysayers
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com, 2010-02-26

America's leading champion of liberty has some pretty vicious enemies –
inside the libertarian movement

2010-02-26-Giraldi

The War on Terror Is Anti-Conservative
By Philip Giraldi
campaignforliberty.com, 2010-02-26

[This speech was part of a panel sponsored by
the Future of Freedom Foundation,
Campaign for Liberty and the Ladies of Liberty Alliance (LOLA)
held on February 20th at the 2010 CPAC.
The panel presentation was titled
“Why Real Conservatives Are Against the War on Terror.”]

2010-03-01-TAC-Carey-Right-and-Hundred-Years-War

In From the Cold
The Right should not wage a Hundred Years War.
By George W. Carey
The American Conservative, 2010-03-01

2010-03-03-Raimondo

The War Party: A Paper Tiger
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com, 2010-03-03

What we're up against:
a conditioned reflex, a couple of catch-phrases, and Fox News

2010-05-24-Raimondo-Paul

Rand Paul’s Problem, and Ours
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com, 2010-05-24

[I think Raimondo is being excessively harsh on Paul.
Perfection would be nice, but is rarely achievable,
especially in political candidates.
I would vote for Paul if I had the opportunity.]

2010-05-25-MacDonald-Paul

Libertarianism under intellectual scrutiny
by Kevin MacDonald
TOO Blog, 2010-05-25

2010-05-26-Raimondo-Paul

Our Vitriol, and Theirs
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com, 2010-05-26

2016

2016-02-02-NYT-Reno-how-both-parties-lost-the-white-middle-class

How Both Parties Lost the White Middle Class
By R.R. RENO (the editor of First Things)
New York Times Op-Ed, 2016-02-02

[1]
LONG after the dust settles in Iowa — and New Hampshire, and even the 2016 campaign itself —
one question will remain:
Why, after decades of supporting the liberal and conservative establishments,
did the white middle-class abandon them?
Wherever Donald J. Trump and Bernie Sanders end up,
their candidacies represent a major shift in American politics.
Since World War II our political culture has been organized around the needs, fears and aspirations of white middle-class voters
in ways that also satisfied the interests of the rich and powerful. That’s no longer true.

[2]
As we know, the rich are now quite a bit richer.
In itself, this need not disrupt the old political consensus.
More decisive is the fact that the white middle class is in decline, both economically and culturally.

[3]
This story of decline is often told in racial and ethnic terms:
White America is being displaced by a multicultural America,
and especially on the right, voters are retreating to racist posturing.
There may be some truth to this story, but for the most part it’s a huge distraction.

[4]
In fact, the real cleavage is not interracial, but intra-racial:
The populism we’re seeing stems entirely from the collision of whites who flourish in the global economy —
and amid the cultural changes of the last 50 years —
with those who don’t.

[5]
And while we’ve heard a lot about the economic decline of the middle class,
the cultural decline of the white middle class isn’t discussed nearly as often.
It should be.

[6]
First, there are the consequences of the great success of the upper middle class,
which today lives in a separate world of well-manicured neighborhoods
with good schools, intact families and cultural confidence.
We compliment ourselves that a generally meritocratic system is open to far more people than was true 50 years ago.
And it has been — but the resulting culture of ambition paradoxically erodes middle-class confidence.
Today, the vast middle of the middle fears that unless you’re on the way up, you’re on the way down.

[7]
And it’s not just competitiveness that is eroding the white middle class.
When I was coming of age in the 1970s, drug use was already undermining the white middle class.
Since then marriage rates among high school-educated whites have declined and illegitimacy has increased.
A priest I know serves three small-town parishes in rural, white Pennsylvania.
I asked about his pastoral challenges.
The biggest: Grandparents parenting their grandchildren,
as their own children are too messed up to raise them.

[8]
Cultural instability compounds economic instability.
A person near the median in our society is on shaky ground.
He feels that what was once reliable is now eroding.
This is as much a source of today’s middle-class anxiety as stagnant household incomes.

[9]
What’s striking — and crucial for understanding our populist moment —
is the fact that the leadership cadres of both parties aren’t just unresponsive to this anxiety.
They add to it.

[10]
The intelligentsia on the left rarely lets a moment pass without reminding us of the demographic eclipse of white middle-class voters.
Sometimes, those voters are described as racists,
or derided as dull suburbanites who lack the élan of the new urban “creative class.”
The message:
White middle-class Americans aren’t just irrelevant to America’s future,
they’re in the way.

[11]
Conservatives are no less harsh.
Pundits ominously predict that the “innovators” are about to be overwhelmed by a locust blight of “takers.”
The message:
If it weren’t for successful people like us, middle-class people like you would be doomed.
And if you’re not an entrepreneurial “producer,” you’re in the way.

[12]
Is it any surprise that white middle-class voters are in rebellion?

[13]
Democratic and Republican Party establishments appeal to the interests of these voters,
promising to protect them (Democrats)
or spur growth that will renew economic opportunity (Republicans).
But these appeals miss the point.

[14]
Our political history since the end of World War II has turned on
the willingness of white middle-class voters
to rally behind great causes in league with the wealthy and political elite:
Resist Communism!
Send a man to the moon!
Overcome racism!
Protect the environment!
Today, white middle-class voters want to be reassured that they can play an active role in politics.
They want someone to appeal to their sense of political self-worth, not just their interests.

[Way, way too psychological.
There are real issues that legitimately concern, and should concern, white middle-class voters.
As to what those issues are,
Patrick J. Buchanan has done an absolutely great job of articulating those issues in his books.
To understand those issues, three of his books are critical:

• The Great Betrayal, on economics;
• A Republic, Not an Empire, on foreign policy; and
• Suicide of a Superpower, on demographics, immigration, and culture.

To turn the concerns of the white middle-class
into an exercise in "their sense of political self-worth"
is to wildly avoid confronting the real issues.]

[15]
This is precisely what Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders offer.
Mr. Trump speaks about restoring American greatness,
rhetorical gestures akin to Barack Obama’s vague 2008 slogan, “Yes, we can.”
We can mock both as empty.
But voters who feel disempowered and marginalized latch on to this promise.
They want to be partners with the rich and powerful in defining our future as a country,
not recipients of their benevolent ministrations,
which explains why they’re untroubled by Mr. Trump’s great wealth.

[16]
Mr. Sanders also appeals to the strong desire that the white middle class has
to recover its central role in the national project.
While he attracts support from a wealthier stratum of the middle class than Mr. Trump,
the appeal is the same.
He asks them to join him in fundamentally remaking our political economy.
We can dismiss his socialism as an unworkable throwback,
but he’s doing something our political establishment can’t or won’t:
asking middle-class voters to undertake a nation-defining transformation.

[17]
If these candidates have traction,
it’s because over the last two decades our political elites, themselves almost entirely white,
have decided, for different reasons,
that the white middle class has no role to play in the multicultural, globalized future they envision,
a future that they believe they will run.
This primary season will show us whether or not they’re right.

2016-02-23-Buchanan-nationalism-and-populism-propel-trump

Nationalism and Populism Propel Trump
by Patrick J. Buchanan
buchanan.org (his blog), 2016-02-23

...

Which brings us back to the anti-Trump cabal.

While their immediate goal is to deny him the nomination,
do they really think that if the party nominates Rubio,
things can be again as they were before Trump?
Do they not see that America and the West are undergoing a series of crises
that will change our world forever?

Bernie Sanders is not all wrong. There is a revolution going on.

Late in the last century, when Robert Bartley was editorial editor,
The Wall Street Journal championed a constitutional amendment of five words —
“There shall be open borders.”

Bartley, who told colleague Peter Brimelow,
“I think the nation-state is finished,”
wanted U.S. borders thrown open to people and goods from all over the world.
To Bartley and his acolytes,
what made America one nation and one people was simply an ideology.

But what was silly then is suicidal today.


Whatever one may think of Trump’s talk of building a wall,
does anyone think the United States is not going to have to build a security fence to defend our bleeding 2,000-mile border?

Given the huge trade deficits with China, Japan, Mexico and the EU,
the hemorrhaging of manufacturing,
the stagnation of wages and the decline of the middle class,
does anyone think that if Trump is turned back,
the GOP can continue on being a free-trade party financed by
the Beltway agents of transnational corporations?
[Buchanan omits the financiers of Wall Street, and the casino magnates.]

Absent some major attack on the homeland,
do our foreign policy elites believe the American people would support
new U.S. interventions
to defeat, occupy and tutor Third World nations in liberal democracy?

[I would go farther.
Even if there were a "major attack on the homeland",
that would not, in my opinion, necessarily justify a foreign intervention,
which might only produce more problems than solutions.]

Trump is winning because,
on immigration, amnesty, securing our border
and staying out of any new crusades for democracy,
he has tapped into the most powerful currents in politics:
economic populism and “America First” nationalism.


Look at the crowds Trump draws.
Look at the record turnouts in Republican caucuses and primaries.

If Beltway Republicans think they can stop Trump and turn back the movement behind him,
and continue on with today’s policies on trade, immigration and intervention,
they will be swept into the same dustbin of history as the Rockefeller Republicans.

America is saying, “Goodbye to all that.”

For Trump is not only a candidate.
He is a messenger from Middle America.
And the message he is delivering to the establishment is:
We want an end to your policies and we want an end to you.

If the elites think they can not only deny Trump the nomination,
but turn back this revolution and re-establish themselves in the esteem of the people,
they delude themselves.

This is hubris of a high order.

[I agree with Buchanan.
It is important to separate the messenger (Trump) from the message he is delivering,
that the policies that Buchanan cites are loathed by many.

My problems with Trump are not only some of his personal characteristics,
e.g., his inappropriately personal and unjustified attack on Megyn Kelly,
but more fundamentally with his message:
That he oversimplifies, overpromises, and fails to talk about
the downside of the policies that are necessary to avoid the problems Buchanan cites.
Take, for example, feminism.
Can America
provide the work environment that feminists want,
provide all the "health care" that the health care activists advocate,
and still be competitive in the global marker?
Germany and Switzerland are perhaps the closest instances of meeting all three of those goals.
But America is not those nations, demographically, racially, or culturally.
That is a fact, and I believe a relevant fact.]