Pat Buchanan Quotes
The GOP's insoluble problem is that the multicultural, multiethnic, and multilingual country they created with their open borders appears not to like the brand of dog food the party sells.
Buchanan, Patrick J. Syndicated Column. Creators Syndicate, 13 Nov. 2012.
The stranglehold that the Southern Democrats had held on civil rights legislation had been broken in 1968 by Lyndon Johnson and the other Democrats with key support from some liberal Republicans like Lindsay. However, the South felt politically betrayed. The Republican leadership, in what was one of the most brilliant political strategies in American history, played to the disaffected racist Southerners and welcomed into their party. Within the next 30 years virtually the entire South had gone Republican, and the Republican captured both houses of Congress and the Presidency with the South solidly Republican. At the time, Lindsay and some Republican leaders criticized bitterly about the party pandering to the worst racist elements of the nation. The “Party of Lincoln” had become the party of the segregationists, the racists, the hate groups of the country.
Actually, there have been “paranoid” fear of opposition political viewpoints in America very often. In the early days of the Republic, the Federalists main concern was not England or other foreign enemies, but Jefferson’s Democratic Republicans. And those Jeffersonians were absolutely convinced that the greatest danger to America was the Federalists who would bring back a monarchy if they could. The Jacksonians triggered a similar polarization. The Civil War stemmed from this extreme. Even America’s most popular President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was elected to 4 successive terms, was perceived as the major “enemy” of America along with his wife Eleanor and the other New Dealers.
Muller warns of a very common error made by most politicians and critics who are faced with populism. To ignore them is also self defeating. Best results seem to come from just calmly present factual counter evidence to whatever is being alleged at the moment. And to acknowledge their right in a democracy to think as they do, but we respectfully disagree. The respect is very important in interacting with populists whose major complaint is most often that they are not regarded with dignity in the society as it now exists. And for many educated, above-average intellect people, there is a difficulty in extending their egalitarian philosophy to those who do not honor, respect or even understand the major tenets and norms of intellectual interaction. In most cases, the politicians who have populist appeal not only treat the people with great dignity and appreciation (feigned or real), but take of the cry for their complaints and suspicions in more eloquent oratory that the disaffected people are able to themselves, and that is a great part of the seemingly magic hold that the populist politician seems to have over his constituency.
Patrick Joseph Buchanan is an American paleoconservative political commentator, columnist, politician and broadcaster. Buchanan was an assistant and special consultant to U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and was an original host on CNN's Crossfire. He sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1992 and 1996. He ran on the Reform Party ticket in the 2000 presidential election.
