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Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency
A searing exposé of the saboteurs of Reaganism and sappers of the Bush administration by three-time presidential candidate and bestselling author Pat Buchanan
American Empire is at its apex. We are the sole superpower, with no potential challenger for a generation. We can reach any point on the globe with our cruise missiles and smart bombs, and our culture penetrates every nook and cranny of the global village. Yet our beloved America is now reviled abroad, dictated to by arrogant judges at home, overrun by special interests, and buried beneath a mountain of debt. Where the Right Went Wrong chronicles how the Bush administration and Beltway conservatives have abandoned their principles, and how a tiny cabal hijacked U.S. foreign policy and may have ignited a “war of civilizations” with the Islamic world that will leave America mired down in Middle East wars for years to come.At the same time, these Republicans have sacrificed the American worker on the altar of free trade and discarded the beliefs of Taft, Goldwater, and Reagan to become a party of big government that sells its soul to the highest bidder.
American Empire is at its apex. We are the sole superpower, with no potential challenger for a generation. We can reach any point on the globe with our cruise missiles and smart bombs, and our culture penetrates every nook and cranny of the global village. Yet our beloved America is now reviled abroad, dictated to by arrogant judges at home, overrun by special interests, and buried beneath a mountain of debt. Where the Right Went Wrong chronicles how the Bush administration and Beltway conservatives have abandoned their principles, and how a tiny cabal hijacked U.S. foreign policy and may have ignited a “war of civilizations” with the Islamic world that will leave America mired down in Middle East wars for years to come.At the same time, these Republicans have sacrificed the American worker on the altar of free trade and discarded the beliefs of Taft, Goldwater, and Reagan to become a party of big government that sells its soul to the highest bidder.
5 pages, Audiobook
First published January 1, 2004
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942 people want to read
About the author
Patrick J. Buchanan
22 books395 followersOne of America's best known paleoconservatives, Buchanan served as a senior advisor to Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan. He ran for president in 1992, 1996 and 2000. Buchanan is an isolationist on the subject of American foreign policy and believes in a restrictive immigration policy.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/patric...
http://us.macmillan.com/author/patric...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
December 13, 2008
Buchanan is, like Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader, Amy Goodman, Michael Moore and a few others that slip my mind at the moment, what I would call a system approved rebel, a gatekeeper, or controlled opposition. He says a lot of good things, utters truths that someone in the mainstream or borderline mainstream would never bring up but when you get to the most crucial points or stances they always seem to avoid taking a true offensive against the power structure that they feign opposition against. More often than not if you follow the money trail these gatekeepers are usually interwoven with and funded by the same forces they claim to oppose.
That being said I have always had quite a soft spot for ole Paddy. Although its hardened quite a bit after reading this book.
To me "Where the Right Went Wrong" seemed like it was marketed as a real rip into the neo-cons by and for the old school paleo-conservative constitution thumper types and to a certain degree thats exactly what it is. There is one very good chapter that details the personal history of the "formerly" communism loving, Israel first cabal that pulls the strings of the moron G.W Bush and there are good critiques of the neo-con policy in Iraq and the rest of the middle east as well as their open door policy on immigration in America but I would consider the good bulk of this book filler, such as the random historical stuff and much that seems to be rehashed from his weekly columns that you can read on worldnet daily.
I think the funniest thing about Pat though is his idolation of Ronald Reagan, to whom he even dedicated this book. Come on there Paddy you really can't be so naive can you? Reagan was the original neo-con, a former lefty who was about as anti-working man as its possible to be. People forget that Reagan was the most effective union buster that this country has ever known and he granted amnesty to millions of illegal aliens from Mexico as a favor to his California agri-business buddies.
If all this isn't enough, to bring up a few other things that people tend to forget, Pat was among the cabal that trecked their way over to China during his years when he worked for Nixon that resulted in America losing its manufacturing base, which is funny because Pat dedicates a good portion of this book to the subject of America losing jobs and its manufacturing base to China. he neglects to mention that he had a hand in the whole process's genesis. As if this wasn't enough from what I have heard he had a hand in revising (for the worse if your a working or middle class white person) affirmative action policy during his time working for Nixon and Reagan.
Maybe I'm being too hard on Pat but even though he says some good things in his books and editorials I still have to consider him a shill, even though I'd like to believe otherwise. Read this book only if your REALLY into Pat Buchanan.
That being said I have always had quite a soft spot for ole Paddy. Although its hardened quite a bit after reading this book.
To me "Where the Right Went Wrong" seemed like it was marketed as a real rip into the neo-cons by and for the old school paleo-conservative constitution thumper types and to a certain degree thats exactly what it is. There is one very good chapter that details the personal history of the "formerly" communism loving, Israel first cabal that pulls the strings of the moron G.W Bush and there are good critiques of the neo-con policy in Iraq and the rest of the middle east as well as their open door policy on immigration in America but I would consider the good bulk of this book filler, such as the random historical stuff and much that seems to be rehashed from his weekly columns that you can read on worldnet daily.
I think the funniest thing about Pat though is his idolation of Ronald Reagan, to whom he even dedicated this book. Come on there Paddy you really can't be so naive can you? Reagan was the original neo-con, a former lefty who was about as anti-working man as its possible to be. People forget that Reagan was the most effective union buster that this country has ever known and he granted amnesty to millions of illegal aliens from Mexico as a favor to his California agri-business buddies.
If all this isn't enough, to bring up a few other things that people tend to forget, Pat was among the cabal that trecked their way over to China during his years when he worked for Nixon that resulted in America losing its manufacturing base, which is funny because Pat dedicates a good portion of this book to the subject of America losing jobs and its manufacturing base to China. he neglects to mention that he had a hand in the whole process's genesis. As if this wasn't enough from what I have heard he had a hand in revising (for the worse if your a working or middle class white person) affirmative action policy during his time working for Nixon and Reagan.
Maybe I'm being too hard on Pat but even though he says some good things in his books and editorials I still have to consider him a shill, even though I'd like to believe otherwise. Read this book only if your REALLY into Pat Buchanan.
November 22, 2024
The more books I read by Pat Buchanan, the more I'm convinced he's the greatest mind of his generation of politicians. This book is an excellent critique of the evil ideologies destroying America–first of all neoconservatism, but also globalism and liberalism. The neocons are a sinister cabal of elite leftists carrying out their Trotskyist permanent revolution under the cover of being Republicans. Yes, most of them are Jews. Buchanan explicitly deals with this fact, and their Israel First agenda. He's no kosher conservative, he's the real deal: a small-government right-wing traditionalist in the vein of Calvin Coolidge, Robert Taft, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan. The author's grasp of history's sweep, of the geopolitical context of world events, is on full display. Donald Trump is no Pat Buchanan, but under him, in certain respects, the GOP is course correcting back onto the right track that Buchanan describes.
October 13, 2020
Neocons captured the think tanks and the right-wing media outlets in order to convince a generation of conservatives that conservatism means subordinating American foreign policy to Israel and American trade and immigration policy to the World Trade Organization. It would be impossible to make sense of the 2016 election without understanding the civil war on the right: whether we will be an anti-war, America first movement, or one led by progressive war-hawks in favor of tax cuts. Buchanan names names and chronicles the history of the right being hoodwinked by Trotskyites to give up on traditional conservative values in pursuit of nation building, regime change, and globalism.
November 19, 2025
A magnificent assault on neoconservativism. He gets a little too hagiographic about Reagan.
June 13, 2025
Buchanan, Patrick. Where the Right Went Wrong.
We need to begin with what this book is not. It is not an attack on George W. Bush. Indeed, Buchanan, writing in 2004, ends with an eloquent testimony to Bush’s character. It is not even an attack on the war in Afghanistan, as Buchanan supported that. It does not even pin Iraq on W. directly. No, the fault is entirely with the neoconservatives (whom, for brevity, we shall label ‘neocons”).
Although the neocons’ failures are legion, Buchanan organizes them around several themes: war, immigration, China, and the economy. In some sense, these are all related, as they show by weakening America at home, the neocons enrich themselves via international organizations and markets.
War
Let us pretend for a moment, for I will not judge either way, that Iraq was a good idea. That is not the issue before the house, though. Rather, was Iraq a “conservative” idea? In other words, did previous conservative icons, notably Reagan, make the same arguments that the neocons made? The answer will always be ‘no.’ Therefore, the question before the house is this: does Bush’s rhetoric (e.g., America has a duty to impose democracy) reflect historic conservative thought? The answer will always be no.
Attacking neocons on this point is not anti-American. Indeed, it is upholding American sovereignty. Charles Krauthammer writes of a “new universalism” that “would require the conscious depreciation not only of American sovereignty but of the notion of sovereignty itself” (quoted in Buchanan, 12). There is a good reason conservatives have always seen neocons as ex-Communists.
The Axis of Evil
That Syria, Iran, and North Korea are brutal regimes, no one denies. That the world would be a better place if North Korea did not exist is a given. But Bush’s rhetoric marked a clear contrast from that of the man who actually nuked people: Truman. Truman never once threatened Stalin’s Russia with annihilation when they got the bomb.
Historically, “America’s wars were fought for America’s ends’ (Buchanan 20). For Bush, by contrast, “Our nation’s cause has always been larger than our nation’s defense.” In terms of history, at least up to World War II, this is simply nonsense. Even during the Cold War, Reagan engaged in containment, not pre-emptive strike. Vietnam and Korea are wild cards.
The War Party
“Neoconservatives,” Buchanan writes, “were the boat people of the McGovern revolution that was itself the political vehicle of the moral, social, and cultural revolutions of the 1960s” (37). In other words, “Conservatives were cradle anti-Communists. Neocons had the zeal of the convert” (39). The problem, though, is that the world ran out of Communist regimes (though why the neocons never called for an invasion of Cuba is beyond me). Fortunately, there were Muslims available. The Iraq invasion was planned in 1998, according to the Wolfowitz Memo (46). I do not have time to go into the memo, but it does explain the shift from candidate George W. Bush’s rhetoric to President Bush’s rhetoric.
Islam
As a civilization in the modern world, Islam simply cannot keep up. Islamic armies will never be able to invade the West anymore. Immigrants, however, can and are. And while Islamist nations certainly hate us, it is hard to say that they hate us for our freedoms. Maybe they do, but more plausible reasons are at hand.
Islam is only a threat because of terror and immigration. Whether fighting terror actually works is one thing; we know, in fact, that stopping illegal immigration does work. Are neocons in favor of that?
Economic Treason
Libertarianism says that tariffs shift the costs onto the consumer. History says that tariffs actually work. We have to be careful here, for it looks like we are arguing from correlation to causation. Nonetheless, Lincoln’s protectionist tariffs set America to be a rising power while Britain’s embrace of liberal markets foretold its doom.
Buchanan explains that free trade is never actually free. The costs are hidden under the trade deficits (169). Other costs are even more invisible. Like alcohol, Buchanan notes, free trade “saps [man] of his vitality and energy, then of his independence” (171).
Even worse, free trade works only when everyone plays by the same rules. But why should China play by those rules? Who will make them?
Neocons hate Southerners
Neocons hate paleocons (i.e., the original conservatives). But they really do not like Southern conservatives. Given their Communist background, this is not surprising. Before we get to some of the uglier rhetoric, we need to see why they hate traditional conservatives. It probably is not even a Southern thing. Rather, as Buchanan notes, “To neoconservatives obsessed with Iraq, such matters as abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, cloning, are but distractions. But to traditionalists, they go to the most fundamental matters of right and wrong and whether we shall remain one nation and one people” (225). That is not to say that neoconservatives support gay marriage and abortion (though many do). Only, that it distracts from going to the middle east.
But back to the South.
“Howard Dean wants the white trash vote” (Krauthammer Nov. 2003). Chris Caldwell has a little more decency: “The most profound clash between the South and everyone else is, of course, a cultural one. It arises from the Southern tradition of putting values–particularly Christian values–at the center of politics (Weekly Standard).
It is not only Southern conservatives. All patriots get the neocon axe. Bill Kristol writes, “If you read the last few issues of the Weekly Standard, it has much more in common with the liberal hawks than with traditional conservatives.” Of course, we knew it was always like that.
Conclusion
Buchanan wrote this over ten years before Trump. Everything he said, particularly the restructuring of the GOP, has come true. And it is almost entirely the neoconservatives’ fault. Good riddance.
We need to begin with what this book is not. It is not an attack on George W. Bush. Indeed, Buchanan, writing in 2004, ends with an eloquent testimony to Bush’s character. It is not even an attack on the war in Afghanistan, as Buchanan supported that. It does not even pin Iraq on W. directly. No, the fault is entirely with the neoconservatives (whom, for brevity, we shall label ‘neocons”).
Although the neocons’ failures are legion, Buchanan organizes them around several themes: war, immigration, China, and the economy. In some sense, these are all related, as they show by weakening America at home, the neocons enrich themselves via international organizations and markets.
War
Let us pretend for a moment, for I will not judge either way, that Iraq was a good idea. That is not the issue before the house, though. Rather, was Iraq a “conservative” idea? In other words, did previous conservative icons, notably Reagan, make the same arguments that the neocons made? The answer will always be ‘no.’ Therefore, the question before the house is this: does Bush’s rhetoric (e.g., America has a duty to impose democracy) reflect historic conservative thought? The answer will always be no.
Attacking neocons on this point is not anti-American. Indeed, it is upholding American sovereignty. Charles Krauthammer writes of a “new universalism” that “would require the conscious depreciation not only of American sovereignty but of the notion of sovereignty itself” (quoted in Buchanan, 12). There is a good reason conservatives have always seen neocons as ex-Communists.
The Axis of Evil
That Syria, Iran, and North Korea are brutal regimes, no one denies. That the world would be a better place if North Korea did not exist is a given. But Bush’s rhetoric marked a clear contrast from that of the man who actually nuked people: Truman. Truman never once threatened Stalin’s Russia with annihilation when they got the bomb.
Historically, “America’s wars were fought for America’s ends’ (Buchanan 20). For Bush, by contrast, “Our nation’s cause has always been larger than our nation’s defense.” In terms of history, at least up to World War II, this is simply nonsense. Even during the Cold War, Reagan engaged in containment, not pre-emptive strike. Vietnam and Korea are wild cards.
The War Party
“Neoconservatives,” Buchanan writes, “were the boat people of the McGovern revolution that was itself the political vehicle of the moral, social, and cultural revolutions of the 1960s” (37). In other words, “Conservatives were cradle anti-Communists. Neocons had the zeal of the convert” (39). The problem, though, is that the world ran out of Communist regimes (though why the neocons never called for an invasion of Cuba is beyond me). Fortunately, there were Muslims available. The Iraq invasion was planned in 1998, according to the Wolfowitz Memo (46). I do not have time to go into the memo, but it does explain the shift from candidate George W. Bush’s rhetoric to President Bush’s rhetoric.
Islam
As a civilization in the modern world, Islam simply cannot keep up. Islamic armies will never be able to invade the West anymore. Immigrants, however, can and are. And while Islamist nations certainly hate us, it is hard to say that they hate us for our freedoms. Maybe they do, but more plausible reasons are at hand.
Islam is only a threat because of terror and immigration. Whether fighting terror actually works is one thing; we know, in fact, that stopping illegal immigration does work. Are neocons in favor of that?
Economic Treason
Libertarianism says that tariffs shift the costs onto the consumer. History says that tariffs actually work. We have to be careful here, for it looks like we are arguing from correlation to causation. Nonetheless, Lincoln’s protectionist tariffs set America to be a rising power while Britain’s embrace of liberal markets foretold its doom.
Buchanan explains that free trade is never actually free. The costs are hidden under the trade deficits (169). Other costs are even more invisible. Like alcohol, Buchanan notes, free trade “saps [man] of his vitality and energy, then of his independence” (171).
Even worse, free trade works only when everyone plays by the same rules. But why should China play by those rules? Who will make them?
Neocons hate Southerners
Neocons hate paleocons (i.e., the original conservatives). But they really do not like Southern conservatives. Given their Communist background, this is not surprising. Before we get to some of the uglier rhetoric, we need to see why they hate traditional conservatives. It probably is not even a Southern thing. Rather, as Buchanan notes, “To neoconservatives obsessed with Iraq, such matters as abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, cloning, are but distractions. But to traditionalists, they go to the most fundamental matters of right and wrong and whether we shall remain one nation and one people” (225). That is not to say that neoconservatives support gay marriage and abortion (though many do). Only, that it distracts from going to the middle east.
But back to the South.
“Howard Dean wants the white trash vote” (Krauthammer Nov. 2003). Chris Caldwell has a little more decency: “The most profound clash between the South and everyone else is, of course, a cultural one. It arises from the Southern tradition of putting values–particularly Christian values–at the center of politics (Weekly Standard).
It is not only Southern conservatives. All patriots get the neocon axe. Bill Kristol writes, “If you read the last few issues of the Weekly Standard, it has much more in common with the liberal hawks than with traditional conservatives.” Of course, we knew it was always like that.
Conclusion
Buchanan wrote this over ten years before Trump. Everything he said, particularly the restructuring of the GOP, has come true. And it is almost entirely the neoconservatives’ fault. Good riddance.
March 10, 2022
If you want an honest but fair commentary on the state of the political sphere look no further than any of Pat Buchanan’s books. I have been a big fan for a long time, perhaps since the late 80’s. It’s not hyperbole when I say that his political commentary is spot on virtually all of the time. I would go as far as to say that he is the closest thing to a political prophet we have in our age today. Agree or disagree with him, you will know exactly where he stands and you will understand the situation, issues, dynamics and all. What is even more telling is when liberals and progressives (socialists) can look at his books and commentaries and agree with him.
Where the Right Went Wrong was written in 2004, almost 20 years ago, and you can see that Republicans throughout this entire time have taken aim at him for his strong anti-war opinions on the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and a host of other places where we have intervened. Before Trump made economic nationalism and non-interventionism a staple of Republican foreign policy, Pat Buchanan outlined The America First doctrine.
I cannot recommend this book enough! If you want to understand the numerous mistakes by the GOP over the past 20 years, read this book. I am a conservative that refused to support George W. Bush in two elections. (I didn’t vote for Obama – heaven no!) But Buchanan’s criticism should be welcomed by the GOP, not damned like it has been by some war hawks who write for the National Review. I highly recommend this one. Just look at Buchanan's suggestions for handling the aftermath of the Cold War, NATO, Russia and China - it's spot on!
Where the Right Went Wrong was written in 2004, almost 20 years ago, and you can see that Republicans throughout this entire time have taken aim at him for his strong anti-war opinions on the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and a host of other places where we have intervened. Before Trump made economic nationalism and non-interventionism a staple of Republican foreign policy, Pat Buchanan outlined The America First doctrine.
I cannot recommend this book enough! If you want to understand the numerous mistakes by the GOP over the past 20 years, read this book. I am a conservative that refused to support George W. Bush in two elections. (I didn’t vote for Obama – heaven no!) But Buchanan’s criticism should be welcomed by the GOP, not damned like it has been by some war hawks who write for the National Review. I highly recommend this one. Just look at Buchanan's suggestions for handling the aftermath of the Cold War, NATO, Russia and China - it's spot on!
May 3, 2025
Old but good!
July 7, 2022
A great example of bad faith argumentation.
June 30, 2011
Pat Buchanan gets a bum rap. Many liberals hate him for working for Nixon and Reagan and think of him as a racist nationalist. Minus the Reagan stint, many on the right hate him for the same reasons. But it's not all fair. Yes, he's a social conservative and a right-winger, but he is undoubtedly an intelligent guy and has somethings of merit to say. On Israel for instance, his stance is entirely reasonable (that is to criticize the damagingly close relationship the U.S. has with the country even though it is not always just and is always aggravating to the Arab world). But liberals and conservatives alike will call him an anti-Semite. Oy.
Where the Right Went Wrong is not the best written book ever (the language isn't always the easiest to read and it's all over the place, losing itself in grandiose retellings of history). But as an expose of the neoconservatives and a decrying of fair trade, it makes some fair points. Of course Buchanan is something of a firebreather and a compelling chapter on how damaging fair trade has been to America has to include a complaint about how many Mexicans are coming here. He's also a little bit dishonest at one point when he complains about how Robert Bork was defeated in his nomination by Ronald Reagan to the Supreme Court but Clinton appointees Ginsburg and Breyer received heavily lopsided votes in their favor. His point is about the awful, meanspirited Left, but here's the truth: Bork is a radical with less than widespread admiration in conservative community, he even lost some Republican and conservative Southern Democrat votes, and those same couple years an arch-conservative named Antonin Scalia was confirmed to the Supreme Court in a unanimous vote of 98-0. Buchanan might have mentioned that.
Where the Right Went Wrong is not the best written book ever (the language isn't always the easiest to read and it's all over the place, losing itself in grandiose retellings of history). But as an expose of the neoconservatives and a decrying of fair trade, it makes some fair points. Of course Buchanan is something of a firebreather and a compelling chapter on how damaging fair trade has been to America has to include a complaint about how many Mexicans are coming here. He's also a little bit dishonest at one point when he complains about how Robert Bork was defeated in his nomination by Ronald Reagan to the Supreme Court but Clinton appointees Ginsburg and Breyer received heavily lopsided votes in their favor. His point is about the awful, meanspirited Left, but here's the truth: Bork is a radical with less than widespread admiration in conservative community, he even lost some Republican and conservative Southern Democrat votes, and those same couple years an arch-conservative named Antonin Scalia was confirmed to the Supreme Court in a unanimous vote of 98-0. Buchanan might have mentioned that.
May 9, 2023
As with the last book I read of Buchanan’s, this book is dated. Still very good. He was right about a lot.
September 5, 2025
I had been curious about Buchanan from awhile ago, as his views are in a kind of resurgence (witness wunderkind Nick Fuentes), & actually the very content and general/mainstream political credibility of a kind of nationalistic, anti-immigrant, anti-Israel & -neocon program, sometimes awkwardly but helplessly called 'paleo-conservative,' is itself a preoccupation of that program. (This kind of nationalism is always weirdly Catholic, and one wonders why exactly (Irish and Italians?)--esp. given the dual-loyalty charge was so effectively once wielded against Catholics (they serve Rome not the Constitution) as it still is against Jews...*). To put it more clearly: the anti-neocons attribute their own political failures to the effectiveness of their enemies, the Israel lobby and to a less extent free-market think-tank elites.
Of course you could attribute the resurgence of these views to the return of know-nothingism to politics, powered by social media (and actually this kind of vulgar elitism may not even be wrong--although the unpopularity of Israeli, um, revanchism, e.g., is doing a lot too). But against neither Buchanan nor Fuentes is that really a legitimate charge; both are too smart. Both have highly synthesizing minds and a synoptic view of history (it's what disposes them to the high church theology of Catholicism and to actually to Aristotle and natural law more so than either the New or Old Testaments).
So anyway, Spotify showed me these Buchanan books & I listened on a whim. (This proved to be a mistake, because it was an abridged version.) Well, this book was very good in its beginning. B. is an excellent writer. Especially his account of the Israel lobby on foreign policy (which I already knew from an actually better account by Professor Mearsheimer) and of the neocons; he added much by having been a political insider for Nixon and Reagan & so on. (I was shocked that he's still alive; it's like how Kripke died a few years ago, or, Posner is still technically living....)
The book then fragments a great deal into the history of the Arabs (?) & to polemics against free trade and in favor of protectionism; here, invective only goes so far; whether or not he's right about the economics is something beyond me, although he is not trotting out any econometrics or statistics. It is a meta question how technical one must be to answer those macro questions; sometimes I want to say, pace Dr. Cowen, that economics isn't really a science, but I don't know. I don't even think B. is wrong about the economics, just that I have to reserve judgment, and neither accept nor reject either the "data" and the mainstream neoclassical account.... But I had misgiving, esp. after how good the anti-neocon sections were. I think the fragmentation and randomness here may be the result of the abridgment but don't know.
Anyway, the book is good besides that; I guess my prior expectation of a--I will use the vague word 'correspondence'--btwn. F. & B. was validated....
What is exciting about both B. and Fuentes is the restoration of a kind of intrigue to politics, the return of the esoteric, I mean that once you realize these people are very smart, the dangerous ideas they pedal become powerful, exciting. & they return the esoteric too b/c radicalism becomes plausible again, and suddenly politics is the purview of those with vast historical knowledge: things unknown. (No more of the easy confidence I had when I was a socialist, that you sometimes see, in a wince-inducing way, they say things like "actually, all the 'big questions' are simple and easy, and you're just villainous or a useful idiot or a giant idiot not to see it: and I can prove it, haven't you read the New York Times? Or taken a college political science class--at the University of Michigan?"). Because that confidence is actually rather bleak, it should properly make you weep, that there are no more worldviews to conquer. Certainty pulverizes hope, which is conditioned on the possibility of unknown unknowns. Or maybe it's just demotivating: why learn more when we already know what we're gonna get?
--And there is something pleasing about the return of the meaningfulness of talk of 'thinking critically' or 'reading between the lines.' Liberals nowadays will say that--& I know even some that are at least good at sniffing out the free-market ideological propaganda, or sometimes the vulgar racist leftovers w/ their secret influence campaigns--but in general, it's become all talk, and actually invoking any of that is seen as --what, gauche? Embarrassing? Quaint? Like a faux-pas, you're not w/ it, like if you still venerate the founding fathers --don't you know we're not actually supposed to do that? Think critically? & now the more internally consistent among the leftists (really, by "now" I mean in the past 8 years, & actually the first derivative has been negative for awhile now) have begun to attack the idea of 'thinking critically' itself as some kind of dogwhistle.... But the restoration of a clamoring mass of illiterates on both politcal sides, --the other day I saw a young leftist girl talking in a video, actually she was quite articulate & I bet may become famous one day if convenient ideology doesn't make it too easy for her to give up on self-improvement--anyway, she made a video trying to earnestly refute "noticing," --tacit acknowledgment that the whole regime is collapsing: --& right after that saw people still earnestly spouting critical theory--: and I was so excited and pleased that finally we have a 60s-style multiplicity of worlviews, types of people--Birchers conta Nixon contra Reagan contra Dixiecrats contra The Silent Majority contra intellectual Marxists contra the Berkeley FSM contra the hippies contra the Freedom Riders--and the reversibility of what Postman said about visual culture destroying childhood: that the esoteric, the mysticism of the book and of literary culture, is back by way of final annihilation: because no one can read! & no one knows any history. & isn't there something healthy about an intellectual who really lives in hated isolation, like Boethius or Spinoza or Erasmus or even Shostakovich or something. --Says Postman's: we've destroyed childhood--but what that means, the process now complete: we're all children now!
& even just the requirement that you know any history at all, and can see history in grand synoptic terms: that this is an entrance condition to real politics (now speaking from my own vantage again, rather than about the Overton window or about mainstream, now-visual culture, I mean that: now that I've seen how smart these people are, and that there are interest groups, and in some areas (Iraq, anti-Semitism to some extent, perhaps globalization & the free market--& none of these were ever unknown to me, --& I still hold out a hope for the history of Israel at least pre-1977, which is after all Professor Judt's view...) --learning history, and learning skepticism, and stakes, and being responsible for the truth: the energy comes naturally to rise to the occasion. That it's hard and there's no safety net: this makes it meaningful, live.
--Or I should append to that earlier paragraph, even that you remember who these people were! One thing that you notice about the disagreeable types in politcal writing is that they're always bringing up what these people used to do, what they one-time supported: & Hannah Arendt once again was right, that politics and truth don't mix, because truth is absolute: the written word is forever--& it takes a lot to resist the journalism-enforced amnesia of the news cycle--even that phrase encapsulates how ahistorical it all is. --One thing Zizek is right about -- although not in its goofy, Marxist sense-- is how so many issues are depoliticized by being considered in the abstract, and that the hermeneutic streak in "critical" philosophy is right that actually, everything really does turn on hidden, ideological assumptions: and a proper analysis often reveals a structure almost unrecognizable to its manifest image: which parts are operative, "what's really going on." They Live. : & only when you listen to these oracular political types (who are oddly so often Catholic, a bit anti-Semitic, a bit too disagreeable, too given to conspiracy theories, --) then you even begin to see what's at stake. The very best historians and professors do this too, --even liberal or sometimes very liberal ones. --That kind of analysis is the only kind of worthwhile intellectual work that even merely good intellects could do, I mean in the Ortega y Gasset sense of "regular science," in this case I mean in a way that would still be worthwhile. --Definitely they wouldn't do anything with statistical tests involved....
Of course, this book also truly saddened me, & it connected w/ some other views: but it saddened me to have pride in Jewishness tainted, or even inverted: like I had been let down by someone, by family....
I suppose I should say, although doesn't it go w/o saying, --that there is much about the figures herein discussed to hold at a distance, to ignore, in order to entertain what's good?
Of course you could attribute the resurgence of these views to the return of know-nothingism to politics, powered by social media (and actually this kind of vulgar elitism may not even be wrong--although the unpopularity of Israeli, um, revanchism, e.g., is doing a lot too). But against neither Buchanan nor Fuentes is that really a legitimate charge; both are too smart. Both have highly synthesizing minds and a synoptic view of history (it's what disposes them to the high church theology of Catholicism and to actually to Aristotle and natural law more so than either the New or Old Testaments).
So anyway, Spotify showed me these Buchanan books & I listened on a whim. (This proved to be a mistake, because it was an abridged version.) Well, this book was very good in its beginning. B. is an excellent writer. Especially his account of the Israel lobby on foreign policy (which I already knew from an actually better account by Professor Mearsheimer) and of the neocons; he added much by having been a political insider for Nixon and Reagan & so on. (I was shocked that he's still alive; it's like how Kripke died a few years ago, or, Posner is still technically living....)
The book then fragments a great deal into the history of the Arabs (?) & to polemics against free trade and in favor of protectionism; here, invective only goes so far; whether or not he's right about the economics is something beyond me, although he is not trotting out any econometrics or statistics. It is a meta question how technical one must be to answer those macro questions; sometimes I want to say, pace Dr. Cowen, that economics isn't really a science, but I don't know. I don't even think B. is wrong about the economics, just that I have to reserve judgment, and neither accept nor reject either the "data" and the mainstream neoclassical account.... But I had misgiving, esp. after how good the anti-neocon sections were. I think the fragmentation and randomness here may be the result of the abridgment but don't know.
Anyway, the book is good besides that; I guess my prior expectation of a--I will use the vague word 'correspondence'--btwn. F. & B. was validated....
What is exciting about both B. and Fuentes is the restoration of a kind of intrigue to politics, the return of the esoteric, I mean that once you realize these people are very smart, the dangerous ideas they pedal become powerful, exciting. & they return the esoteric too b/c radicalism becomes plausible again, and suddenly politics is the purview of those with vast historical knowledge: things unknown. (No more of the easy confidence I had when I was a socialist, that you sometimes see, in a wince-inducing way, they say things like "actually, all the 'big questions' are simple and easy, and you're just villainous or a useful idiot or a giant idiot not to see it: and I can prove it, haven't you read the New York Times? Or taken a college political science class--at the University of Michigan?"). Because that confidence is actually rather bleak, it should properly make you weep, that there are no more worldviews to conquer. Certainty pulverizes hope, which is conditioned on the possibility of unknown unknowns. Or maybe it's just demotivating: why learn more when we already know what we're gonna get?
--And there is something pleasing about the return of the meaningfulness of talk of 'thinking critically' or 'reading between the lines.' Liberals nowadays will say that--& I know even some that are at least good at sniffing out the free-market ideological propaganda, or sometimes the vulgar racist leftovers w/ their secret influence campaigns--but in general, it's become all talk, and actually invoking any of that is seen as --what, gauche? Embarrassing? Quaint? Like a faux-pas, you're not w/ it, like if you still venerate the founding fathers --don't you know we're not actually supposed to do that? Think critically? & now the more internally consistent among the leftists (really, by "now" I mean in the past 8 years, & actually the first derivative has been negative for awhile now) have begun to attack the idea of 'thinking critically' itself as some kind of dogwhistle.... But the restoration of a clamoring mass of illiterates on both politcal sides, --the other day I saw a young leftist girl talking in a video, actually she was quite articulate & I bet may become famous one day if convenient ideology doesn't make it too easy for her to give up on self-improvement--anyway, she made a video trying to earnestly refute "noticing," --tacit acknowledgment that the whole regime is collapsing: --& right after that saw people still earnestly spouting critical theory--: and I was so excited and pleased that finally we have a 60s-style multiplicity of worlviews, types of people--Birchers conta Nixon contra Reagan contra Dixiecrats contra The Silent Majority contra intellectual Marxists contra the Berkeley FSM contra the hippies contra the Freedom Riders--and the reversibility of what Postman said about visual culture destroying childhood: that the esoteric, the mysticism of the book and of literary culture, is back by way of final annihilation: because no one can read! & no one knows any history. & isn't there something healthy about an intellectual who really lives in hated isolation, like Boethius or Spinoza or Erasmus or even Shostakovich or something. --Says Postman's: we've destroyed childhood--but what that means, the process now complete: we're all children now!
& even just the requirement that you know any history at all, and can see history in grand synoptic terms: that this is an entrance condition to real politics (now speaking from my own vantage again, rather than about the Overton window or about mainstream, now-visual culture, I mean that: now that I've seen how smart these people are, and that there are interest groups, and in some areas (Iraq, anti-Semitism to some extent, perhaps globalization & the free market--& none of these were ever unknown to me, --& I still hold out a hope for the history of Israel at least pre-1977, which is after all Professor Judt's view...) --learning history, and learning skepticism, and stakes, and being responsible for the truth: the energy comes naturally to rise to the occasion. That it's hard and there's no safety net: this makes it meaningful, live.
--Or I should append to that earlier paragraph, even that you remember who these people were! One thing that you notice about the disagreeable types in politcal writing is that they're always bringing up what these people used to do, what they one-time supported: & Hannah Arendt once again was right, that politics and truth don't mix, because truth is absolute: the written word is forever--& it takes a lot to resist the journalism-enforced amnesia of the news cycle--even that phrase encapsulates how ahistorical it all is. --One thing Zizek is right about -- although not in its goofy, Marxist sense-- is how so many issues are depoliticized by being considered in the abstract, and that the hermeneutic streak in "critical" philosophy is right that actually, everything really does turn on hidden, ideological assumptions: and a proper analysis often reveals a structure almost unrecognizable to its manifest image: which parts are operative, "what's really going on." They Live. : & only when you listen to these oracular political types (who are oddly so often Catholic, a bit anti-Semitic, a bit too disagreeable, too given to conspiracy theories, --) then you even begin to see what's at stake. The very best historians and professors do this too, --even liberal or sometimes very liberal ones. --That kind of analysis is the only kind of worthwhile intellectual work that even merely good intellects could do, I mean in the Ortega y Gasset sense of "regular science," in this case I mean in a way that would still be worthwhile. --Definitely they wouldn't do anything with statistical tests involved....
Of course, this book also truly saddened me, & it connected w/ some other views: but it saddened me to have pride in Jewishness tainted, or even inverted: like I had been let down by someone, by family....
I suppose I should say, although doesn't it go w/o saying, --that there is much about the figures herein discussed to hold at a distance, to ignore, in order to entertain what's good?
April 13, 2009
Patrick Buchanan got it right in this book. He writes that Bush's posture after 9/11 is unconstitutional and harmful to the U.S. Nowhere in the Constitution is the president afforded the power of making preemptive war, yet his approach was to declare a virtual battle against evil, rather than going after the perpetrator of the act itself. Ignoring precedent and reality (numerous countries have developed chemical and nuclear capacities in the twentieth century despite U.S. policy to prevent such a spread even among our friends with no retribution,) Bush put several countries on notice they would be liable for regime change if they tried to enter that circle of countries.
"To attain Churchillian heights, Bush's speechwriters had taken him over the top." They defined four elements in his speech:
1. The war on terror is a war between good and evil and will not end until all elements of evil are eradicated;
2. Every nation must decide if it is with us or against us, if not with us they are with the terrorists;
3. Any nation that funds or assists any group we decide is a terrorist will be considered a terrorist state subject to attack;
4. Iran, Iraq, and Korea will not be permitted weapons of mass destruction and we would engage in preemptive strikes and wars to prevent their acquisition by those countries.
These elements caused the coalitions that had been created after 9/11 to "crumble." He went further in a speech to West Point graduates in 2002. The thrust of the speech was that the United States would never permit any country in the world to threaten its hegemony and would use its military to prevent any country from becoming greater than we are.
"Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators can deliver those weapons on missiles.... If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long." Ignoring history (containment worked with such lunatics as Mao and Stalin) Bush is making a case for perpetual war.
How did this happen? Buchanan argues that Bush's inexperience and ignorance of foreign policy permitted the neoconservatives to hijack his foreign policy Buchanan goes on with a more traditional (for him) jeremiad against free trade that he (and Ralph Nader - now there's a ticket) will lead to a us become a non-industrial low-paying service center economy unable to compete.
While I have rarely been in agreement with Buchanan, this time he got it right.
"To attain Churchillian heights, Bush's speechwriters had taken him over the top." They defined four elements in his speech:
1. The war on terror is a war between good and evil and will not end until all elements of evil are eradicated;
2. Every nation must decide if it is with us or against us, if not with us they are with the terrorists;
3. Any nation that funds or assists any group we decide is a terrorist will be considered a terrorist state subject to attack;
4. Iran, Iraq, and Korea will not be permitted weapons of mass destruction and we would engage in preemptive strikes and wars to prevent their acquisition by those countries.
These elements caused the coalitions that had been created after 9/11 to "crumble." He went further in a speech to West Point graduates in 2002. The thrust of the speech was that the United States would never permit any country in the world to threaten its hegemony and would use its military to prevent any country from becoming greater than we are.
"Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators can deliver those weapons on missiles.... If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long." Ignoring history (containment worked with such lunatics as Mao and Stalin) Bush is making a case for perpetual war.
How did this happen? Buchanan argues that Bush's inexperience and ignorance of foreign policy permitted the neoconservatives to hijack his foreign policy Buchanan goes on with a more traditional (for him) jeremiad against free trade that he (and Ralph Nader - now there's a ticket) will lead to a us become a non-industrial low-paying service center economy unable to compete.
While I have rarely been in agreement with Buchanan, this time he got it right.
June 2, 2008
Pat Buchanan savages GWBush's Neoconservative foreign policy as a costly and doomed over-reach to create the Pax Americana. His arguments did not rise to isolationism, but he clearly wants us to cease trying to police the world. He portrays the US as being at an “Imperial apogee,” which because of enormous expense, and world and national opposition will inevitably fall from power and pre-eminence. He is very bitter that the Neocons (ex-big government liberals) hijacked the Republican party from true conservatives such as himself and William Jennings Bryan. I mostly liked his foreign policy arguments, and thought even Scott might generally approve of these chapters.
But Buchanan’s economics are way off base. He fancies himself a true economic populist because he thinks free trade has destroyed high paying jobs for blue collar workers. And even more far-fetched, he thinks we can restore the good-old-days of high wage domestic hard goods manufacturing by erecting trade barriers. Here he is not just a throwback, but is practically a Luddite. You can’t stop globalization by tariffs and quotas any more than you can sweep back the tide with a broom.
I don’t think it is fair to call him a xenophobe merely because he doesn’t want cheap imported labor keeping low skill wages low. I thought his call for border control was pretty mainstream and non-racist. I agree that something must be done, but my biggest disagreement with Buchanan on immigration is that I think immigrants are the life-blood of America, and we should welcome lots of them.
Buchanan and I agree on the increasing judicial dictatorship of our country, and the congressional abdication of authority to both the bureaucracy and the courts. Don't get me started. . .
In sum. I rate this book 4 stars for political junkies, but I give it only a 2 star recommendation for more sane folk.
But Buchanan’s economics are way off base. He fancies himself a true economic populist because he thinks free trade has destroyed high paying jobs for blue collar workers. And even more far-fetched, he thinks we can restore the good-old-days of high wage domestic hard goods manufacturing by erecting trade barriers. Here he is not just a throwback, but is practically a Luddite. You can’t stop globalization by tariffs and quotas any more than you can sweep back the tide with a broom.
I don’t think it is fair to call him a xenophobe merely because he doesn’t want cheap imported labor keeping low skill wages low. I thought his call for border control was pretty mainstream and non-racist. I agree that something must be done, but my biggest disagreement with Buchanan on immigration is that I think immigrants are the life-blood of America, and we should welcome lots of them.
Buchanan and I agree on the increasing judicial dictatorship of our country, and the congressional abdication of authority to both the bureaucracy and the courts. Don't get me started. . .
In sum. I rate this book 4 stars for political junkies, but I give it only a 2 star recommendation for more sane folk.
February 24, 2021
Pat Buchanan has great analysis and takes and is a pretty light and easy read. This book is mostly about the takeover of the right by (mostly) jewish neo-cons who lobbied for war and free trade, conceded in the cultural war.
The book was written in 2004 and already feels sort of dated, but its always interesting to go back and see where the true right wings mind was at, and Pat definitely embodies that.
The book was written in 2004 and already feels sort of dated, but its always interesting to go back and see where the true right wings mind was at, and Pat definitely embodies that.
February 4, 2023
A decent book that hinted at some of the issues America faced (and still faces 20 years after the fact), but the main thesis of the book was completely incorrect. Buchanan believes Reagan was the last conservative, but he wasn't ever really a conservative. The neocons are terrible, true, but this ship has been sinking since long before the 1990s. There was some good information in this book, but Buchanan failed (or deliberately chose not) to really identify where the right went wrong.
June 29, 2023
With the war raging in Ukraine I have become lately interested in why the war in Iraq failed to bring democracy into the Middle East. This book by Pat Buchanan was a contemporary critique of the Iraq war and his view that conservatism is a philosophy that recognizes the limits of institutions. Just as important is his view that neo-conservatism is a refusal to see those limits, and thus neo they may be, but they aren't conservative.
The limits in fighting Iraq and the Middle East at large is that American cannot impose democracy on these nations because they do not have the culture that values it enough to fight for it themselves. What The United States did was either the most naïve form of idealism or the most cynical opportunity to feed the military industrial complex. Pat predicts the demise of the Republican neo-con movement through the weight of their own unrealistic expectations. He called that one right. Bill Kristol and Max Boot are on a life raft.
Pat also tees off on favorite topics like the failures of free trade, budget and trade deficits, and his mistrust of Israel, all issues that continue to be debated at different levels of intensity.
The limits in fighting Iraq and the Middle East at large is that American cannot impose democracy on these nations because they do not have the culture that values it enough to fight for it themselves. What The United States did was either the most naïve form of idealism or the most cynical opportunity to feed the military industrial complex. Pat predicts the demise of the Republican neo-con movement through the weight of their own unrealistic expectations. He called that one right. Bill Kristol and Max Boot are on a life raft.
Pat also tees off on favorite topics like the failures of free trade, budget and trade deficits, and his mistrust of Israel, all issues that continue to be debated at different levels of intensity.
July 31, 2025
Note: 3.5/5
Note: This review is based on the audiobook narrated by the author.
Hampered by its brevity and temporality, but these are also its best reasons for being written and read. Buchanan manages to cover a decent amount of ground in this, from current foreign policy to current domestic issues to historical precedents. Even if you don't agree with his solutions, there are plenty of poignant critiques of the contemporary American political system that everyone should recognize to some extent.
His specific takedowns of the Neoconservatives were pretty satisfying, and he deserves a good amount of credit for saying these things at the time. His judicial and trade analyses were also different from most of what you'd hear anywhere else too.
Note: This review is based on the audiobook narrated by the author.
Hampered by its brevity and temporality, but these are also its best reasons for being written and read. Buchanan manages to cover a decent amount of ground in this, from current foreign policy to current domestic issues to historical precedents. Even if you don't agree with his solutions, there are plenty of poignant critiques of the contemporary American political system that everyone should recognize to some extent.
His specific takedowns of the Neoconservatives were pretty satisfying, and he deserves a good amount of credit for saying these things at the time. His judicial and trade analyses were also different from most of what you'd hear anywhere else too.
October 18, 2022
Great writings on the Neoconservative Influence within American Politics from such harsh Zionist "Conservatives" such as Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of the Council of Foreign Policy Think Tank. Buchanan, making an argument for the traditional non-interventionist position of the United States, re-evaluates how this has subverted the Republican Party for the purpose of Foreign Interests, Internationalists, and the Global American Empire.
Although it defends Reagan/Reaganism a bit more than I'd like, you pair this with other Foreign Policy books such as the Israel Lobby and other Non-Interventionist and Paleoconservative works are perfect for any dissident or person on the Right today.
Although it defends Reagan/Reaganism a bit more than I'd like, you pair this with other Foreign Policy books such as the Israel Lobby and other Non-Interventionist and Paleoconservative works are perfect for any dissident or person on the Right today.
August 19, 2020
Buchanan’s critiques about American imperialism and the evolution of the Republican party feel insightful during the Trump presidency, resembling criticism academic readers likely may identify with Leftists. What limits this book, however, are Buchanan’s views on culture, civil rights, and religion, which downplays diversity and inclusion, perpetuating traces of xenophobia and explicit homophobia.
December 15, 2024
Pat Buchanan is one of the best statesmen our country has had. He gets nearly everything right about the decline of American conservatism at the hands of the neoconservatives. Reading this in 2024 makes me glad to see things heading in the right direction.
November 7, 2016
Very interesting read, especially for those interested in politics but also those just interested in the way some societies work.
July 18, 2019
I enjoyed Buchanan's hard-hitting, pull no punches observation of the neoconservative globalist RINO Establishment, but he lost me when he took swipes at Israel.
May 5, 2021
Great book! I'm sorry that I didn't read it when it was published as well as his other work. I learned so much.
March 11, 2025
PatBuchanan warned us about what’s transpiring today years ago.
April 21, 2025
one billion dollars to fund goth baddies plz
October 28, 2025
A visionary text that proves once more how right Buchanan was about the future of America. Perfectly pointing out real issues and offering solutions
September 26, 2023
Listened to this book through Hoopla.
I agreed with a lot that Buchanan brought up in his book, especially the disasters caused by the American Empire’s intent on spreading liberal democracy abroad. I also learned about the the novelty of the idea of “judicial supremacy.” Lots to chew on. In short, The American Conservative has hit the nail on the head in carrying on many of Buchanan’s ideas.
I agreed with a lot that Buchanan brought up in his book, especially the disasters caused by the American Empire’s intent on spreading liberal democracy abroad. I also learned about the the novelty of the idea of “judicial supremacy.” Lots to chew on. In short, The American Conservative has hit the nail on the head in carrying on many of Buchanan’s ideas.
October 20, 2017
In one sentence, it's all jewish, communism, Catholicism and Martin Luther King's fault. Despite it has some good points (we really need good case for conservatism), it mixes with NWO conspiracy theory and I would call for a refund for this book (happens very rarely).
I still hope to see more normal conservatives (and liberals) without neo- premix, who at least allow thought that maybe all idealistic ideologies are wrong, they are just weapons in the hands of interest groups (probably what this book is stating) to pump-up the masses to do crazy things.
Probably we cannot know the whole truth and various conspiracy theories can be employed to fight the case, but it leads nowhere, only reason and critical thinking can.
P.S. There are many logical discrepancies in conspiracy theories, I don't go into them, I tend to that everything is governed by self-interest - if someone can do something to increase its power, he will, no matter how you call it.
Better read The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government, will tell you more of reality than this B.S.
I still hope to see more normal conservatives (and liberals) without neo- premix, who at least allow thought that maybe all idealistic ideologies are wrong, they are just weapons in the hands of interest groups (probably what this book is stating) to pump-up the masses to do crazy things.
Probably we cannot know the whole truth and various conspiracy theories can be employed to fight the case, but it leads nowhere, only reason and critical thinking can.
P.S. There are many logical discrepancies in conspiracy theories, I don't go into them, I tend to that everything is governed by self-interest - if someone can do something to increase its power, he will, no matter how you call it.
Better read The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government, will tell you more of reality than this B.S.
May 19, 2010
Pat Buchanan does a great job differentiating neocons from traditional conservatives. This was written six years ago (2004) and its remarkable to actually see his predictions come true as far as trade deficits, currency debasements and blowback (terrorism) are concerned.
One idea that was new to me...It was the first time I had heard of a conservative strongly disagree with Milton Freidman and international free trade. But his arguement made sense from a Hamiltonian point of view; free trade amongst the states but high tarriffs on foreign trade thereby retaining the means of production and service within our borders, avoiding massive trade deficits, and funding the federal government with tariffs not taxes. I am not sure if history has proven this to be good strategy though (think Smoot-Hawley 1930's). I am going to have to think about this one item more.
But, all in all a good book / roadmap back to true conservatism and prosperity with respect to foreign policy, national security, economics, and government operations.
One idea that was new to me...It was the first time I had heard of a conservative strongly disagree with Milton Freidman and international free trade. But his arguement made sense from a Hamiltonian point of view; free trade amongst the states but high tarriffs on foreign trade thereby retaining the means of production and service within our borders, avoiding massive trade deficits, and funding the federal government with tariffs not taxes. I am not sure if history has proven this to be good strategy though (think Smoot-Hawley 1930's). I am going to have to think about this one item more.
But, all in all a good book / roadmap back to true conservatism and prosperity with respect to foreign policy, national security, economics, and government operations.
August 8, 2009
I won this at the Oakville GOP for guessing the 2008 Iowa Caucus results.
I've read other Buchanan books, and I realize he's actually a good author and decent writer.
This book is well researched, more facts and figures than I had expected.
Also, the book gives a good truncated history of Islam from its start. Buchanan also takes time to explain some Chinese history and American history.
This was written in 2004, so the Bush v. Kerry outcome was unknown. The book is already dated, but Buchanan's blaming current bad times in America on neo-conservative policy is solid and does not have the silly Obama-ite rhetoric.
This man has been in politics 40+ years, and he knows of what he writes.
Good book, better than expectations. He explains well where the Right went wrong, though he falls short on his brief solutions for how the Right can be right again.
I've read other Buchanan books, and I realize he's actually a good author and decent writer.
This book is well researched, more facts and figures than I had expected.
Also, the book gives a good truncated history of Islam from its start. Buchanan also takes time to explain some Chinese history and American history.
This was written in 2004, so the Bush v. Kerry outcome was unknown. The book is already dated, but Buchanan's blaming current bad times in America on neo-conservative policy is solid and does not have the silly Obama-ite rhetoric.
This man has been in politics 40+ years, and he knows of what he writes.
Good book, better than expectations. He explains well where the Right went wrong, though he falls short on his brief solutions for how the Right can be right again.
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