Guest Post by Pat Buchanan
Economic nationalism is alive and well in the GOP, and securing the border remains a central concern of America’s center-right.
“Take away this pudding; it has no theme,” is a comment attributed to Winston Churchill, when a disappointing dessert was put in front of him.
Writers have used Churchill’s remark to describe a foreign policy that lacks coherence or centrality of purpose.
For most of our lifetimes, this has not been true of the United States. The goal of our foreign policy has been understandable and defined.
From 1949-1989, it was Cold War containment of the Soviet Empire and USSR.
Ronald Reagan believed in a “rollback” of communism, once telling an aide that his policy might be summed up as: “We win. They lose.”
At the Cold War’s end, George H. W. Bush said America would now lead mankind in the creation of “a New World Order.”
George W. Bush was going to deny to all “axis of evil” nations — North Korea, Iran, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq — access to the “world’s worst weapons,” with our ultimate goal being “ending tyranny in our world.”
According to the Biden Democrats of today, America’s goal is the preservation of “a rules-based international order,” which is less inspiring than “Remember the Alamo!” or “Remember Pearl Harbor!”
What are the causes that actually animate Americans?
A March survey of 2,000 registered voters, done by the Center for American Progress, reveals that most Republicans still share the foreign policy priorities of Donald J. Trump.
Asked to identify their first three foreign policy priorities from a list of a dozen, two-thirds of Republicans, 65%, gave as their principal concern “Reducing illegal immigration.” And 57% of Republicans put “Protecting jobs for American workers” right behind it. Independents agreed that these should be the top twin goals of U.S. foreign policy.
What does this tell us?
Economic nationalism is alive and well in the GOP, and securing the border remains a central concern of America’s center-right.
In third position, at 31% among Republicans, was “Taking on China’s economic and military aggression.”
Only 9% of Republicans listed “Fighting global poverty and promoting human rights” as top foreign policy priorities. Last among GOP priorities, at 7%, was “Promoting democratic rights and freedoms abroad.”
Indeed, this was the least popular foreign policy option among all voters.
Conclusion:
The priorities of the Bush presidencies and the neocons — democracy crusades, free trade, the New World Order, open borders — have failed to recapture the constituencies they lost in the Trump years.
While “Combating global climate change” rests near the bottom of Republican concerns at 10%, it is the No. 1 priority of Democrats, with 44% listing it first.
When it comes to “Ending US involvement in wars in the Middle East,” that goal ranks 5th among all voters. Democrats, Republicans and independents all support that objective.
Since the last CAP survey in 2019, the greatest change is the reduced concern over “terrorist threats” from al-Qaida and ISIS. Fewer than 1 in 4 voters now view this as a top priority.
As Matthew Petti writes in an analysis of the CAP survey, today, Americans “prioritize getting out of Middle East wars over confronting Middle East adversaries.”
This survey would thus seem to provide public support for the Trump-Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan, and for Biden’s effort to reengage with Iran and renew the 2015 nuclear deal.
Also ranked high among Democrats and independents, but less so among Republicans, is “Improving relationships with allies.”
What does the survey tell us?
Illegal immigration and economic nationalism energize the GOP rank-and-file; climate change does not. There is no enthusiasm in either party for new democracy crusades. And there seems to be no enthusiasm in either party for a clash with Iran, North Korea, Russia or China.
Only 14% of Democrats wish to address China’s “military and economic aggression,” though 31% of Republicans do.
But the overall impression here is one of democratic confusion.
We Americans are all over the lot about what our foreign policy should be and what it should do. One is reminded of an insight from Walter Lippmann about U.S. foreign policy confusion before World War II:
“When a people is divided within itself about the conduct of foreign relations, it is unable to agree on the determination of its true interest. It is unable to prepare adequately for war or safeguard successfully its peace. Thus, it course in foreign affairs depends, in Hamilton’s words, not on reflection and choice, but on accident and force.”
Should we energetically promote democracy worldwide, because it is the right and moral thing to do, though the American people clearly do not see this as America’s cause?
Should we intervene to help Ukraine retrieve Crimea?
Should we fight to prevent China from consolidating rocks, reefs and islets of the East and South China Seas?
Is preserving the independence of Taiwan, which we conceded half a century ago is part of China, worth a war with a nuclear-armed China?
What role should U.S. public opinion play in the shaping of U.S. foreign policy?
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To beat anyone that opposes the NWO into submission.
To flood the world with dollars and blood.
While importing an endless flood of the stupidest people on earth.
=================
Neocon questions from a Neocon fuktard.
Hey, Pat …….. RETIRE, for fuksake!!!
He wasn’t like that when we supported his GOP nomination campaigns.
Indeed – Pat needs to hag up his spurs. His work is not so much embarrassing, but irrelevant.
I don’t think he writes his own stuff anymore. I really don’t.
“Promoting democratic rights and freedoms abroad.”
– Pat Buchanan
Umm, excuse Auntie, Pat, but how about promoting freedom and liberty right here at home in the USSA for starters? OK? Yeah, Auntie knows: don’t hold one’s breath.
America’s current cause, if you hadn’t noticed, is being the muscle for the utterly corrupt, decayed and decrepit system of hyper-finance crony capitalism. It ends badly when dollar reserve currency status is terminated in conjunction with the end of the Petro-dollar arrangement. Then ‘Muryka’s cause will be simple bare knuckle survival.
Auntie – I agree wholeheartedly, but one has to wonder why the push to a “green” energy sector when that will destroy the petro-dollar? I understand that the “green” in green energy is the folding kind, but how do we maintain the reserve currency status when we are not buying petroleum?
I think you answered your own question but are afraid to admit it to yourself. The anti-Western coalition is made up of people who hate you and hate being relatively inferior to you. Your ancestors made their ancestors look pathetic to the whole world of mandatory education. See those sanpaku eyes in the video feed thumbnail.
Although the dollar is somewhat tied to oil, its faith in U.S. operated markets that primarily hold it afloat, in the absence of a gold base, and keep it standing as the global reserve currency. The Federal Reserve counts on many of the dollars they print to find their way overseas, and today, more than 61% of all foreign bank reserves are denominated in U.S. dollars, and nearly 40% of the world’s debt is in dollars.
With that said, there are a great number of efforts currently underway, through IMF deceptions and cooperation with China and Russia, to kill the U.S. dollar’s global reserve currency status in lieu of another standard. And, if we ever suffer a truly catastrophic economic collapse that can’t be assuaged through stimulus payments and more massive printing and borrowing, at that point another standard will be found, and the United States will become a vassal to its creditors.
The USA is already a vassal to its creditors. This has been the case since the late 19th century, if not before. This is why the federal government does not serve the interest of the people. They aren’t even really in power.
As long as we are successful in keeping the Saud family in power, we will maintain the reserve status. If China is successful in assisting the Iranians in overthrowing the Saud’s, it will be gone and China ascends. It is all about proxies these days.
If you look closely, you’ll notice that the same type of people that have subverted America, have subverted China.
Subverted China? As opposed to what previously?
“Our current conflicts are actually being waged between two extremely different economic systems. Republicans largely pursue a capitalist system, even though our current system still more closely resembles a Crony-Capitalist system [thanks to Woodrow Wilson], while the Democrats desire something akin to Marxism and/ or the sort of economic fascism reminiscent of the Red Fascism of the Bolsheviks and Black Fascism of the National Socialists, where everything is produced for and owned by the state. These are diametrically opposed systems, antithetical to one another, with the Democrats’ Marxist “utopian vision” incompatible with our Founding’s premise of inalienable, God-given rights and individual liberty, and they cannot coexist any longer; and preferably, the side of liberty must emerge victorious on the other side of this battle.
The Democratic Party’s embrace of Collectivism and Cancel Culture denies individual liberty, and anyone who denies individualism and individual liberty also denies Western civilization.
There isn’t any compromise to be had between liberty-minded individuals who love freedom and communists who demand tyranny and submission to the state. …..
….. America needs something far superior to Her summer soldiers and sunshine patriots, those self-described “happy warriors” who are more interested in fighting for deregulating businesses, lower capital gains taxes or paying out American tax-dollars to fight foreign wars, against the advice of our Founders, rather than fighting the real and necessary wars right here for the preservation of freedom and liberty for all Americans. For the real fight for liberty at home, America needs Her hard men willing to do the hard tasks to defend U.S. and individual sovereignty, traditional America and its heritage and all that means — men who will not fade in the fight but will stand firm and true to their last dying gasp should it be asked of them to go so far.
No one is suggesting running right out this very minute or hour and starting the next full-blown, hot civil war. Certainly, we must see if there is any way left to find a peaceful path forward, even though it does look highly doubtful, once one considers the current mission and platform of the Democratic Party is nothing less than the full destruction of the United States Republic, to be rebuilt in the image and vision of Marx and Mao. And with that in mind, if one cannot even hint that a day and a time may soon arrive that demands a righteous and violent armed response in defense of all that America is founded upon, then I suggest the cowards should go ahead and cower and die, with their heads stuck in their nether regions, while the rest of us pick up our rifles and prepare to fight for traditional America and the restoration of real freedom and liberty. …..”
https://genzconservative.com/america-needs-her-hard-men/
They’re all in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. Not sure that’s a winning team.
I know a few fine young conservative men who served in Iraq and Afghanistan who see it in a fairly similar light to my perspective, who will more than likely be on the right side of anything that happens, when the shit hots the fan in America. They’ll definitely be standing in the right side of history and those rights espoused and codified by our famous revolutionaries.
We’ll see soon enough I imagine. Win, lose or draw, going down in a good fight and taking a few scores, a few hundred [or however many] communists to the grave with me, or fighting on to see victory, is infinitely much more preferable to me than to meekly submit to any advancing tyranny under Biden’s regime, or any other Communist “Democrat”, and living a coward’s life and less a man.
I just imagine there’s quite a number of ol’ Gray Heads who feel much as I do and don’t have a problem with pulling a trigger, should it ever become necessary to keep themselves and their families free and from under the Tyrants’ thumbs.
I’ve met a few young people as well with similar sentiments. When will it become a necessity…on a societal level?
Stop being anti-Semitic.
Trump and Putin are in agreement. ( don’t poke the Bear).
China can’t take on Japan, Australia and India.
Watch the movie “Contagion”
May you live in Interesting times…..
Does anyone get anything besides rehashed hash from these analysis pieces? I can’t read this stuff anymore. Right off the bat, what the center-right wants is obviously immaterial. No, I don’t have better options. I guess that makes you special, cupcake. Reality has come and gone. Maybe I should change my handle to Postreality. With narrative all things are possible. AOC is genius. Biden is president. Pat Buchanan et al. is keeping up with AOC and Biden. I am looking over your fresh comments just the same.
Amerika’s cause is international socialism. Oh, and global hegemony. Hmmmm, sounds like an “evil empire.” Ronald Reagan is spinning in his grave.
Ronald Reagan got G. H. W. Bush into the White House. You ought to know to question everything. Reagan led us to victory over the Soviet Union is a cold war but what good has that done for Americans not on government payroll? A president of ours would have seen the corruption and told us about it is no uncertain terms. He kept conservatives interested in their subjugation. That’s really what he did.
I think America’s “Cause” now is faggotry, transsexualism and general perversion of all types. And now I have one more company to boycott:
Iska, you will drive yourself mad boycotting. Passive political measures are a fairy tale. You are in and of a perverted world. The sound strategy is to go with the flow. You can’t change the flow, but if ever you can, well then.
Passive resistance in lieu of something moar kinetic is not a principled position?
Your royal we grows tiring, falconflight.
Couldn’t cypher that. I’m a little slow.
No, actually it isn’t.
So it is always a binary choice?
IKR? McDonalds is too expensive. My other option is to buy only the least profitable BK items (like a double cheeseburger) and skip the fries and soda (which I always do anyway). That’s getting over on the man.
Buy something at the grocery store? A can of tuna, can of beans, a banana? Would need a can opener and fork.
I’m with You, Doug! I eat a fifty-cent can of beans and corn just about everyday, that I get at the corner grocery [buy them 24 at a time] or some other cheap vegetable item, along with a $1.69 can of fruit that I eat half of and refrigerate ’til the following day. Me and the Mutt usually have a plug of Colby cheese and some chocolate chip cookies later at night, as we watch tv.
Basically, I eat simple and cheap, not because I don’t have the money to spend on dinners out ect, but other than special occasions or a dinner date, it just comes from habit and an early frugal life. Nuthin’ better than a peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwich for lunch … HahaHahahaha.
Canned fruit sucks. There is always fresh fruit available, especially this time of year. We have been getting the best cantaloupes the last couple of weeks and TN strawberries are coming in season, followed by peaches, plums, watermelon, pears and then apples.
Nothing but grape jelly should go on a PB&J.
HaHAhahaha … yes … some canned fruit is pretty bad but the Great Value Walmart brand of fruit cocktail is actually pretty tasty. However, in the summertime, I do buy fresh … especially cantaloupe.
I Love Cantaloupe. Split and clean them of seeds, add a touch of salt and Man … that’s some GOOD Eatin’!
I eat an apple a day all through the fall up until the oranges come in early in the year. Also grapes in late summer and again in late winter when the ones from S America hit the stores. We try to freeze strawberries & peaches and make lots of jams & preserves.
Only people who hate themselves eat that garbage. If you are going to eat garbage on rare occasion, why not treat yourself to something good?
Don’t forget miscegenation, though I guess it’s covered under “general perversion.”
It obviously is no longer to serve as a shining example of anything other than what NOT to do.
“America’s Cause In The World”??? Well … if one answers through the lens of conservativism, it should be only to serve America’s true vital interests, as far as they go in international trade concerns, protecting Americans traveling abroad and defending our borders and interior from attacks by our enemies, in whatever form they may take, from cyber and nuclear to terrorist bombings and actual physical assaults using any other assortment of weapons — rifles, chemicals, viruses, or pressure cookers. Basically, we don’t need to be the world’s policeman, but we can’t be so isolated that we allow several enemies to grow strong enough and allied in their hate for America to become a very real and existential, imminent threat to our country and its people.
As Auntie Kreist has already so perfectly put it:
“Umm, excuse Auntie, Pat, but how about promoting freedom and liberty right here at home in the USSA for starters? OK? Yeah, Auntie knows: don’t hold one’s breath.”
There are so many within Congress and the Biden administration, as well as in Democratic Party strongholds in several states who are working so diligently to upend our Constitution and the Bill of Rights day and night, by hook and crook, — to eradicate America’s Founding — that we had all better be more focused on what is unfolding right here at home much more so than what is happening anywhere else in the world.
Americans who love this country and its heritage see America’s cause, if we make its government synonymous with the country, to primarily be a cause that serves America’s people first — all of America’s people — and defends and protects the people’s inalienable God-given rights in the manner that was the Original Intent of the Founders. America’s primary cause should be to promote the highest level of freedom and liberty and prosperity for all Americans, but from WWII to the present, “the Cause” has morphed into serving America’s plutocrats and the Federal Reserve Bank, and this must not be allowed to stand in the near future.
>>>Should we intervene to help Ukraine retrieve Crimea?
I hope this is a rhetorical question on Pat’s part.
If Pat’s seriously raising the issue of retrieving Crimea from the Russians, we just might need the British and French help out.
/s
Crimea was and is Russian. It was only given to Ukraine after Uncle Nikita came to power.
I don’t wanna get nuked over Crimea.
The root of all evil is people trying to do good without wisdom. Why does America need an international cause?
Other than to provide US businesses with such a great place to do business that they produce massive amounts of stuff that other people around the world want to buy?
If American businesses cared about doing business in America, probably everyone would be better off. International trade is international communism gestating.
“What are the causes that actually animate Americans”
Lounge chairs
Delivered Meals
Football
Gas prices
Gas guzzling behemoths that make no sense driving to your Costco
The belief you won every war you ever started
Elections won by mail in votes without creases on the paper
Your done old son
I would suggest that we not have a cause of push on the world. Our cause should be for ourselves. To bind up our wounds and develop a new world view that is enlightened, realistic and creative. Time to use the power of our imagination to build a better world for ourselves. If we do this other nations may follow. We need a new mythology of universal efficacy. One that, ultimately, will appeal to all humans on this earth. It need not be foisted on them but will attract people of differing race, color and creed like a magnet. We need to celebrate the genius of the individual and return to small scale localism living in harmony with mother nature. Most of all we need to resolve the contradiction of original sin in such a way as to understand that we are really rising angels with a great destiny.