Time to Wrestle

I am sickened but glad that Patrick J. Buchanan won the New Hampshire Republican primary. Here he stands, no longer an intemperate renegade we can dismiss, but a major contender for the Republican presidential nomination. Now we must face him in all of his abundant squalor.

Genesis 32:25 tells of how Jacob wrestles with an angel. When he is victorious, he demands from the bested messenger his prize: a name. The angel concedes defeat, replying, "Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven...and prevailed."

Pat Buchanan is no angel, yet he remains a force with which every decent conservative must wrestle. The prize we must wrest from him is the same as the one Jacob received from his heavenly opponent. From our struggle with Buchanan, we must win a name; we must find an identity. If we are not for him, what are we for? If his message is corrupt and filthy, what have we to say? If we rebuke his conservatism, what is the nature of our own?

First off, Pat Buchanan is not a Republican. In fact, a brief look at his platform demonstrates that he is anything but: geopolitical isolationism, trade protectionism, evangelicalism and anti-corporatism, mingled with the most virulent nativism to squirm across the political stage in recent memory. This sinister and eclectic agenda has not pestered the body politic since the early years of the century. What is it? Well, I'll take Buchanan's own self-designation, one that he is obviously, and perhaps correctly, convinced that few in the electorate will ever research. This recycled monster is good, old-fashioned, turn-of-the-century Populism.

The Populist (or People's) Party was founded at the St. Louis Convention of 1892. Among those who came together to form this agrarian empowerment movement: the Christian Women's Temperance Union, the Farmer's Alliance, the Knights of Labor, the American Federation of Labor and the Christian Socialists. Yet almost from the outset, the Party was as negative as it was diversely constituted. Georgian populist Tom Watson, one of the Party's guiding lights, was infamous for such enlightened remarks as, "Did [Jefferson] dream that in 100 years or less...red-eyed Jewish millionaires would be chiefs of that [Democratic] Party, and that the liberty and prosperity of the country would be...constantly and corruptly sacrificed to Plutocratic greed in the name of Jeffersonian Democracy?" And he was not alone.

The populists also had a recurrent nativist streak. Beyond simple prejudice or anti-Semitism, immigration was a threat because newcomers entered the work force and competed with the "good ol' boys." Eastern Europeans and the Chinese were especially unpopular among the populists; they referred to these immigrants as "black sheep" or "ignorant animals" who were accustomed to "using bombs instead of ballots."

With all of this, Buchanan seems to agree. He is toeing the line of a party that has been dead for a century. He has even resurrected the regionalism of the populists, attributing all national problems to the Northeast and, in particular, to those "New York bankers"--an inelegant use of code to say the least.

Indeed, the pernicious legacy of the populist admonition against "a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street"--business as the enemy-- can be heard loud and clear in the speeches of the New-Age Tom Watson, our friend from "Crossfire."

Buchanan's conservatism feeds on fear and derision. "You're not doing well? Blame the immigrant who took your job, the New York Jew, 'Bou-Bou Ghali' (I kid you not--his term), the countries with which we trade and the liberals who dilute the American soul." It is the conservatism of the opportunist, and it builds nothing.

The conservatism of the future is positive and forward-looking: one that embraces openness in markets, foreign and domestic; one that rejoices in diversity and recognizes its dynamism and potential; one that affirms the role of the United States as a moral force around the world and encourages personal responsibility at home; one that heals wounds and extends the hand of friendship to all who love this country. That is our identity; that is the name we must win.

Eric M. Nelson's column appears on alternate Mondays.