Pat Buchanan and the "Paleoconservatives" in the USA

Résumé du document

Politically speaking, the United States has always been known as a country of the two-party system. The main choice for the population is to vote either for the Democratic Party, or for the Republican Party. And yet, the United States overflows with all sorts of smaller parties and factions. This is mainly due to the idea that Americans have of freedom, which is explicitly mentioned in the Constitution of 1787. This Constitution is so dear to Americans that it would seem impossible for anyone to even try to change a single line of its founding principles. This is the reason why, in America, a huge number of associations, lobbies or political groups voice their beliefs. This is their right.

Extraits

[...] Buchanan is nostalgic about these presidents who conducted a tough policy, especially towards blacks, the presidents who indirectly defended the Confederate 131 Michael Zak, Back to Basics p Ibid. p Memo from Pat Buchanan to Richard Nixon dated August reprinted in "From the President: Richard Nixon's Secret Files", Ed. Bruce Oudes Harper & Row, New York, p http://www.realchange.org/buchanan.htm#top 132 flag and white Southerners. Nowadays, it is more difficult to reiterate such statements without being labeled racist. Things have changed; American society has changed. The 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson Supreme Court decision, establishing segregation, was overruled by the 1954 decision in Brown vs. [...]

[...] With such words, Buchanan appeals to many American families which find it hard to understand why their sons, that is to say American soldiers, have to stay in Iraq. Buchanan referred to the long war in Vietnam and also to soldiers who stay on the North Korean border in order to assure security. What the populists cannot admit is the fact that soldiers are sent to those places, so far from the American territory, whereas they would be more useful on the border with Mexico, for example. [...]

[...] Bush a Neoconservative? One of the main differences between the Democrats and the neoconservatives is the fact that the former do not spend much effort on foreign policy. During the first year of his presidency, foreign policy was not a priority for the 44th president of the United States. His policy was close to the Democrats'. However, 9/11 triggered a change in Bush's policy. Buchanan rightly declares: “September 11 changed Bush”.150 Bush is also a neoconservative insofar as he believes in big-government policy. [...]

[...] It seems as if one was the logical consequence of the previous one. He claims that the United States is experiencing a Indeed, his speeches, from 1992 to 2001, have not changed. In this respect, he proves to his electorate that he has always strongly believed in the same fundamental principles: he was “right from the beginning”.57 In this, he differentiates himself from other politicians. The problems he underlined in 1992 are still the same today. He therefore proves he is coherent and clear-headed. [...]

[...] As for euthanasia, Buchanan hardly ever uses the term as such. He uses the term “assisted suicide”,77 which can only shake the reader and the electorate. Again, he does not hesitate to compare modernists to Nazis. Nat Hentoff said that the Netherlands was first nation since Hitler's Germany to legalize the direct killing of patients by physicians”.78 Therefore, Buchanan compares doctors who carry out euthanasia to crazy physicians in concentration camps. The final result is the same: death. Besides, in The Death of the West, the part devoted to euthanasia is entitled Final Solution to the Aging Question”.79 This is definitely reminiscent of the Conference at Wannsee in 1942, whose aim was to find final solution to the Jewish question”. [...]