One of the most well-known conservative commentators has retired.
Pat Buchanan, 84, left an indelible mark on conservatism in the United States during his prolific career as a journalist, columnist, White House adviser to multiple Republican administrations, politician and cable news pundit.
Buchanan first cut his teeth in journalism working at the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. Motivated by the landslide defeat of Barry Goldwater, Buchanan used his frustration with the direction of the country to act as a catalyst for change. He went to work for the Nixon campaign as fate breathed new life into the former vice president’s political ambitions. During the Nixon years, Buchanan honed his talent for harnessing the power of words. As a young aide, he coined the term “silent majority,” which the administration successfully used to paint the far-left of the Democratic Party as hopelessly out of touch.
It was a resounding success. President Nixon won a historic victory in 1972 with the assistance of millions of Democrats who considered their nominee, South Dakota Sen. George McGovern, too extreme.
At times, Buchanan’s populism put him at odds with the Republican establishment. But the GOP has a history of attracting populist figures, and right-wing populism has thrived in the party during the Trump era.
Buchanan himself ran for president three times on a platform largely congruent with Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns.
The Washington Examiner has more on Buchanan’s legacy, how it molded contemporary American politics and why the 2024 presidential election may put it to the test:
“What America first means is we put the national interests of the United States and the well-being of our own country and our own people first. Our foreign policy, first and foremost, should be focused on the defense of American freedom, security, and rights,” Buchanan told NPR two days after Trump took office.
It was a phrase widely seen as considered discredited by World War II that Buchanan had been using as far back as his 1990 National Interest essay “America First — and Second, and Third.”
…
“The looting of America for the benefit of foreign regimes ends the day I take office,” read a campaign brochure during Buchanan’s 1996 bid for the Republican nomination. “If we cannot balance our own budget, what are we doing sending billions of tax dollars overseas to balance the budgets of foreign governments?”
Buchanan also articulated President Trump’s famous views on illegal immigration decades earlier.
“We need a sea wall to stop the tidal wave of illegal immigration and narcotics sweeping over our southern border,” read the Buchanan campaign brochure. “We need a ‘time out’ on legal immigration — to assimilate and Americanize the millions who have come in recent decades.”
However, the Examiner’s W. James Antle III notes that while Buchanan’s effect on the Republican Party is undeniable, the GOP these days finds itself in a far more precarious position than in the days of Nixon and Reagan’s landslides.
It remains to be seen if party leaders decide to embrace Buchanan’s paleoconservative views fully following the backlash to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade or moderate those views, as Trump himself has suggested.
READ NEXT: Trump Shifts All Blame to Abortion for Midterm Election Losses >>
