Pat, Pauline and Extremist Politics

One month from Patrick J. Buchanan's defection from the GOP it's as if Bill Clinton never happened. It's as if we are back to the future, stuck in 1992 with a man named Bush in poll-position to win a three-horse race--with all the pundits silenced by the confounding novelty of this crowded winter carnival. And in '92 we found out that the pundits (even in their tentative comments and predictions) had the odds all wrong--the third horse really matters. Anti-Politics helps Arkansas Anti-Hero nose out Hero in Iraqi-Khaki. Never mind the Blair Witch Project and New Hampshire, Buchanan and weeks of eerie pollster silence on the topic must be starting to make George W. Bush feel that the State House is haunted.

But Buchanan is not Ross Perot, and more important, 2000 is not 1992. Above all, "it's the economy, stupid." In general, relatively high unemployment and low growth (such as we saw in 1992) help two kinds of candidates, the liberal and the extremist. One promises that the government will help, the other promises to find a scapegoat for the problem. And, of course, the incumbent tries (usually somewhat unsuccessfully) to deny that there's a problem.

In 1992, Americans voted for the helping-hand and the finger-pointer. But right now America is not even sure that there is a problem. There are certainly issues--health, education, social security, guns, the environment, social inequality--but none of these problems have as yet acquired the requisite electoral urgency to favor the liberal or the extremist. The moderate centrist is likely to prevail--although where that center will fall among Albert Gore Jr. '69, Bill Bradley and Bush remains open.

In other words, while the Democratic nominee will face none of the incumbent disadvantage that Bush suffered in 1992, neither will they be helped by a vote-splitting third candidate on the right. In fact, it may be that the third candidate on the right will help persuade voters of the moderateness of "compassionate conservatism," ridding the Republicans of alienating reactionary baggage. Why? Because Buchanan will simply fail to attract a substantial number of votes across a national base. The time is wrong, and history is against him.

If we permit ourselves a divergence, of some thousands of miles, to Australia (that quaint, puzzling country that just voted overwhelmingly to keep their Queen), the Pauline Hanson phenomenon provides an illuminating analogy. Hanson--the red-headed fish-and-chip shop lady--shows what can happen to right-wing extremists unhinged from a main-stream party machine. Hanson came to fame in 1996 with her maiden speech in the House of Representatives, shattering the "political correctness" consensus of the last decade and rocketing herself to political infamy. She then went on to the form the (somewhat ironically titled) One Nation Party. The limelight began to fade for Hanson by 1999 when One Nation was not even One Party. The party and the dream (or nightmare) had ended.

Hanson tells the story of what can happen to far-right political operatives outside the bounds of a two-party system. It shows that a lack of central control can lead extremists to go too far--even for them--and to lose all political credibility. More importantly, once these candidates create or join a fledgling party, pressure is placed on them to generate positive reform proposals rather than to merely point the finger. And again that is where and when Hanson lost her way, as evidenced by her personal defeat at the last election.

Hanson the Independent blamed Australia's economic woes on Asian immigration and aboriginal welfare-dependence. It was "their" fault for "our" problems. And her views found some resonance among those who had lost jobs and saw immigration as an easy and obvious culprit, or those who saw their own hardship and compared it to so-called "aboriginal privilege." But once Hanson became One Nation, running candidates in both the House of Representatives and Senate, things began to go awry. Her policy proposals became more and more incredible, until her positive economic program was to institute a 2 percent flat income tax (tax not tax cut). The bubble burst even amongst her supporters.

The pressure to prescribe had proved too much. The same may very well happen to Buchanan. After all, it is the Reform Party he has joined. It is one thing to blame minorities-- "those women" (the ones who have helped erode our family values and raised serial killers), "those blacks," "those gays" and "those Jews" or "those other countries" for America's woes. It is quite another to have to find prescriptions to the problems of single-parent poverty, crime and unemployment caused by structural economic change.

The fact that Buchanan will probably have no effect on the electoral outcome in 2000 does not mean that the United States can afford to be complacent. On the contrary, Australia's lesson has been that it is not the political damage that ultimately counts. It is, rather, the social damage. The multicultural, tolerant fabric of Australian society was seriously damaged by the One Nation phenomenon in 1996-99. Racial violence and tension escalated during this time, and even though Hanson is essentially out of the picture, Australia is still grappling with these issues.

The thing which must plague the liberal Australian conscience most is that much of this harm could have been prevented. Australian community and governmental leaders failed to adequately speak out and defend the values under attack by Hanson. Some were motivated by a belief that acknowledging Hanson's remarks gave them a credence they did not deserve. Others, however, were clearly motivated by the desire not to alienate the ranks within their own party that had reservations about free trade, immigration and affirmative action. It required a new party, Unity (an small offshoot of the Labor party), to be formed in order for there to be a vocal and unremitting attack on Hanson. One cannot help but fear that this same complicit silence may descend into mainstream American politics. Given the "disappearance" of Buchanan from the mainstream press over the last month, the American conscience should be on high alert to the Australian danger.

Finally, let us examine Buchanan as hick, a fruit-loop, a crazy, lunatic cave-dweller. Unfortunately, this sort of ridicule does not work as a social value defense strategy. It does not persuade people of the benefits of open markets, international engagement, immigration, racial and religious tolerance. Satiric witticisms amuse us at Harvard (or those of us in Sydney) but simply serve to reinforce the suspicion of many Americans that the intellectual and political elite are laughing at them. Pat Buchanan is not a joke. He is a social specter hidden behind a political shroud.

Rosalind J. Dixon is a visiting student from the University of New South Wales in Australia. She is a resident of Leverett House.