Thread: Return of America First?

Return of America First?
by Patrick J. Buchanan

April 18, 2006

Friday's lead story in America's largest newspaper must have made for
sober reading at AEI and the Council on Foreign Relations, the twin dorms
that house the Wilsonian wings of our national parties.

Americans, it appears, have had a bellyful of interventionism and
globaloney. Reporters Susan Page and David Jackson merit quoting at
length:

"In a USA Today-Gallup Poll, nearly half of those surveyed said the United
States 'should mind its own business internationally and let other
countries get along as best they can on their own.' ...

"The leave-us-alone mood is apparent not only in the proportion of
Americans, 64 percent, who want all or some of the U.S. troops in Iraq to
come home now. It's also reflected in concern about illegal immigration -
eight of 10 said it was "out of control" - and in the furious public
reaction to reports last month that a Dubai-owned firm was poised to take
over cargo operations at ports in six states.

"Attitudes have soured toward trade, as well. Two-thirds said increased
trade with other countries mostly hurts U.S. workers. By 50 percent-39
percent, respondents also said it mostly hurts American companies."

What do the polls mean? Bush and the Wall Street Journal may say America
is trudging backward to the dark days of "isolationism and protectionism,"
of "Fordney-McCumber and Smoot-Hawley that gave us the Hoovervilles,
Hitler and World War II."

But the truth is less dramatic.

What the polls are saying is that America, having tasted the fruits of
Bush's foreign, immigration and trade policies, rejects them. Why? All
three, of dubious conservative parentage, have failed.

Three in five Americans now believe the Iraq war - whether we invaded to
oust Saddam, strip him of WMD, turn Iraq into Vermont or establish our
"benevolent global hegemony" - was and is not worth the cost in blood and
money.

They are saying that a NAFTA-GATT trade policy that results in $800
billion trade deficits and the loss of 3 million manufacturing jobs - one
in every six in just five years - should be jettisoned.

When they read of China growing at 10 percent a year, as factories close
in the United States and GM and Ford, once the two greatest companies on
earth, are lingering outside bankruptcy court, they think we can do
better. And, we can.

They are not saying they dislike foreigners. But they are saying a
government that cannot stop an invasion across our Mexican border that has
left 11 million to 20 million intruders in our country, stomping around
under foreign flags and demanding the benefits of U.S. citizens, is a
failed regime that needs to be replaced. After all, what does it profit us
if we save Anbar province but lose Arizona?

What the polls are saying is that neoconservatism has failed and we wish
to be rid of it, that Davos Republicanism has failed and we wish to be rid
of it, that the open-borders immigration policy of the Wall Street Journal
is idiotic and we wish to be rid of it.

This is not only understandable, there would be something wrong with
Americans if they did not seek to regurgitate the fruit of such failed
policies. Yet, when one looks at the large Republican field of
presidential hopefuls shaping up, not one has broken with, and all seem to
stand behind, George W. Bush. None so more than John McCain.

And what do the Democrats offers? Taxes, censure, amnesty, Cynthia
McKinney and a four-year rerun of "The Clintons."

In 1964, Barry Goldwater and his 110-proof conservatism were repudiated in
the largest landslide since FDR's stomping of Alf Landon, who carried only
Maine and Vermont.

But by 1968, Great Society liberalism had been tried and had transparently
failed. The no-win war in Vietnam and the urban riots bespoke a failed
philosophy and policy. Today in 2006, it is neoconservatism and Wall
Street Journal Republicanism that have failed as badly as had Great
Society liberalism by 1968.

Where Bush has remained faithful to a Reaganite philosophy, on taxes and
judges, the country has remained with him. But where he listened to the
globalists and the Vulcans, who altered the liturgy and diluted the dogma,
he lost the country.

Fred Barnes has written darkly of a "paleo moment" in America.

But paleoconservatism is simply the faith of our fathers before we built
that shelter for the neocon homeless booted out of their own house by the
McGovernites, who appear, in retrospect, to have been more savvy than we
thought.

What does the old-time conservatism stand for? Limited government.
Balanced budgets. A defense second to none. Secure borders. A trade policy
that puts America and Americans first. And a foreign policy that keeps us
out of wars that are not America's wars.

Unfortunately, when the USA Today-Gallup poll shows Americans are looking
for precisely such authentic conservatism, neither party is offering it.
The children were right. The system doesn't work.

I realize Pat Buchanan has been pretty consistent with his writings - but where were all the others?

Why do you think the media has become a non-media?

I can't remember his name, but a gentlemen just died that had studied TV and its effects for 30 years. He said TV was nothing more than a 24/7 commercial.

Is that what it is? Just a constant commercial to keep us buying the products and following the policies that make corporations stronger?

Why has the media failed us??

I think part of it is the demise of the independent media. When newspapers, TV, and radio corporations were allowed to gobble up all the media in an area - then the only news we are going to get is their news -

Even our little local weekly paper got bought up by a large conglomerate. We had a local paper, 3rd or 4th generation owned. The large corporation came in, opened a newspaper - and offered free advertising. They did report things in the community - put a lot of kids pictures in the paper. Lots of band and football pictures. Before long, the family owned newspaper had to sell out to them. Now the decision of what to print is
made in some corporate office in another state - maybe another country - not sure who ultimately owns it.