The first, by Pat Buchanan, poses the question
Last Hurrah for Reagan Coalition?
George H.W. Bush’s failing in 1992 is the failing of son George W. Bush. With the sole exception of Mike Huckabee, the GOP seems unable to comprehend how throwing U.S. workers into Darwinian competition with foreigners earning one-fifth or one-tenth their wages impacts the Reagan Democrats now deserting the GOP. A party that used to admonish one and all, “There is no free lunch,” cannot see that free trade is no free lunch.''
I am not sure about Pat's mention of Huckabee above; evidently he thinks Huckabee is better able to comprehend the downside of free trade and outsourcing than the other GOP candidates.
Moreover, the party is mired in the past, looking back to the time of Reagan. Reagan was a good man and a great president, but our time is no more his time than the Eisenhower 1950s were like the 1920s.
While the GOP is in grave trouble, defeat in 2008 is not foreordained. The Democrats are winning not because of the superiority of their candidates or ideas but because the Republicans are perceived as failing. Neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama has the answer to what ails America. Both, and Barack especially, have moved far outside the mainstream of the nation.
[...]
Does anyone think Democrats have an answer to the immigration crisis that now grips every great American city? The amnesty, the “path to citizenship” they favor, will mean the next invasion will be the last and decisive invasion that makes America unrecognizable.
[...]
On issue after issue, the Republican Party, if it stood true to its beliefs and purged the twin heresies of neoconservatism in foreign policy and Wall Street Journal ideology in trade and immigration policy, would still stand well with Middle America.''
In answer to the first rhetorical question, about whether the Democrats have an answer to the immigration crisis, of course they have no answer, or more properly, no solution. But then neither do the Republican frontrunners, the anointed candidates who, we are told, are the 'electable' ones. Every one of them, despite their recent campaign trail 'conversions', have supported amnesty or some form of lax immigration policy. All of them are politically correct, most if not all are committed globalists. All of them represent the status quo. So, given that the status quo will be fatal for America, any change would be good change. More of the same will do us in.
My problem with Buchanan's message in this article is that he seems to take as a given that even the inferior 'mainstream' GOP candidates would be acceptable as the only alternative to the Democrats, who would be infinitely worse. But if the Democrats would do nothing to forestall the 'final invasion' that, as Buchanan says, would make our country unrecognizable, neither would any of the likely GOP nominees.
And I wonder why Pat has been reticent about Ron Paul; why is he refraining from any favorable comment about Dr. Paul, when Dr. Paul is the only candidate who would pursue Buchanan's ideas about noninterventionism and the preservation of American sovereignty? I get the impression that Buchanan will end up giving his endorsement to whichever GOP candidate gets the nomination, even though that candidate will likely destroy any vestige of conservatism in the GOP. I get the feeling that Buchanan is basically a party loyalist when all is said and done.
And I wonder, too, why Pat resorts to circumlocutions like 'the middle class' and 'Middle America,' thus avoiding any racial or ethnic reference to the (white) majority? Buchanan begins to sound like Lou Dobbs when he refers to the 'middle class.' He makes it sound as though the problem is one of economics and class struggle.
The second piece from Chronicles is by Clyde N. Wilson,
The Way We Are Now -- Facts That Just Won't Sink In
A few important lines from the piece:
More Third World aliens now enter the U.S. every six months than the entire number of British and European settlers who created the country out of a wilderness from 1607 to 1776.
Immigration in the last few decades has created a new American population. Surely there is no other instance in history of an entire people so weak and befuddled as to allow the rulers to give away their country and disinherit their children.
It is reported that last year in the U.S. eight billion dollars was spent on “diversity training.”
Politicians will never do something just because it is the right thing to do. They will often do wrong things if the wrong things flatter their vanity and enhance their power. They must always be forced to do the right thing by threat of punishment—witness the recent defeat of illegal alien amnesty.
However, defeat of the amnesty did not solve anything. Illegal immigration continues apace.''
The first line I quote above is really something to think about, and bears repeating for emphasis:
More Third World aliens now enter the U.S. every six months than the entire number of British and European settlers who created the country out of a wilderness from 1607 to 1776.''
A few more snippets to think about:
Except for McCain and Dr. Paul, the Republican presidential contenders have the same military service record as Hillary Clinton.
The victory of any Republican candidate except for Dr. Paul in the next Presidential election will have one certain result. It will destroy forever any hope of conservative influence on American political life.
But Hillary must be stopped! Abandon every idea, principle, and hope you ever had and rush out to hail Mitt or Mike or Rudy as your saviour.''
Wilson, as always, offers a rather dark message, and the comments following are, as typical for Chronicles readers, equally mordant. Maybe it's sad to contemplate, but Wilson's words seem to have more truth than Buchanan's. I fully agree with Wilson's bleak statement about how the election of any Republican other than Dr. Paul will mean the end of any conservative influence in American politics. To me, it will be proof positive that the Gramscian plan to subvert all political parties in our country has been successful. We now have a Republican party which basically stands for a slow-motion version of liberalism, masquerading as conservatism, and we have a group of voters who believe themselves conservative, though they care about a political party and its fortunes far more than they care about anything resembling conservative principle. And ultimately, conservative principle is only good if it succeeds in conserving something, namely our people, our heritage, our culture, our faith, our traditions, our homeland, our territory. 'Conservatism' or what passes for it these days in America has lost sight of all these things, and seems to be obsessed solely with beating the Democrats at their own game.
Politics in this country has become merely another form of sport, in which the goal is simply for 'our side' to win. Winning, it seems, is not a means to an end, the end being the preservation of our country and our inheritance, but winning IS the end. Winning is not the main thing but the only thing.
It may be that if (I hate to say 'when') we elect yet another politician who will pursue more of the same failed policies, and when we see that our situation is even more dire as a result, people will realize that they chose wrongly. And I will not be able to resist the urge to say 'told you so' when that happens. But I suspect that the majority of America will adapt and passively accept whatever grotesque caricature of America is put in the place of our Republic.
Or it may be that some large-scale awakening will happen, but barring some drastic event, that seems unlikely.
I think I am feeling especially discouraged at the results of the Iowa caucuses, and inclined to be very disappointed with the 'masses' out there. Then I have to remind myself that the unthinking majority is always on the sidelines when major shifts occur in history. I am a stubborn optimist, hoping against hope that people will somehow realize the failure of the current order of things and the need for change, genuine change, and a return to the principles that guided the founding of this nation.
