Pat Buchanan declares defeat

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 16:00:00 +0000

Pat Buchanan doesn't want my pity, and he probably doesn't deserve it. But I couldn't help feeling sad for him reading his apocalyptic, overwrought new book, "Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?" By almost any standard, Buchanan has had a successful life and career – he's advised two presidents, run for president three times himself; he's a wealthy author, columnist and MSNBC pundit – but apparently, it's all been for naught. Ultimately his side can't win, he says, because demography is against him. As long as white America remains on track to lose its majority status this century – and we can debate when that will happen, but there's no way around it – the America Buchanan loves is gone.

Buchanan sometimes tries to argue that his lament in this book is about culture and values, but make no mistake: It's thoroughly about race. Even when Christianity and free-market conservatism might be said to have won, or to at least have a fighting chance of winning, he finds a way to lose. He puts together a strategy for Republicans to take back the White House in 2012 – it comes down to openly and unapologetically focusing on turning out more white people – but by his own account, a 2012 victory would only be temporary.

Listen to Buchanan’s greatest hits

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 13:43:00 +0000

We've sifted through Pat Buchanan's new book, "Suicide of a Superpower," so you don't have to. Here are some highlights:

"Our nation is disintegrating"

Buchanan sets the tone for the rest of his book early on, declaring that the state of the union is very poor, indeed.

Key passage: "Our nation is disintegrating, ethnically, culturally, morally, politically. Not only do we not love one another, as Christ’s teaching commands, we seem to detest each other in ways as deep as Southerners detested a mercantile North and Northerners detested an agrarian slaveholding South."

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Pat Buchanan declares defeat

Listen to Buchanan’s greatest hits