OPINION:
Rep. Riley Moore, West Virginia Republican, sent a letter to President Trump a few days ago suggesting that now would be an optimal moment to give the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Patrick J. Buchanan.
Mr. Moore made the case, simply and accurately, that Mr. Buchanan saw very clearly and long before anyone else that America’s trade, domestic and foreign policies would all begin to falter as the foundations for them — dependent almost entirely on the residual Christian goodwill that survived in the West — started to erode.
Mr. Buchanan also had a clear vision that nationalism, in the healthiest and best sense of that word, would necessarily have to be reborn. He recognized that the enlightenment had failed, that it turns out individuals marinating in a hyper-rational culture would be increasingly unable to make the sacrifices involved in raising children, fighting wars, building for the future or doing any of the things that societies need to do to survive.
Europe (and a good chunk of the United States) have just begun to realize that if you don’t have children, you don’t have a future.
Those coming to Washington next week for the National Conservatism Conference owe their most welcome intellectual crusade directly to Mr. Buchanan.
From a practical perspective, Mr. Buchanan was the herald of the new Republican Party, arguing that legal and illegal immigration would become one of the principal dividing issues in the United States, as corporate interests used immigration to suppress wages and keep the working class at bay. In his famous formulation, he anticipated that the U.S. would become like Lebanon (then engulfed in civil sectarian violence): two peoples inhabiting one land. He saw with clarity that such a circumstance would lead to social unrest, if not violence.
Finally, it seems very likely that Mr. Trump’s presidencies would have been significantly less likely had Mr. Buchanan not provided the essential grounding for them during his 1992 challenge. That primary effort, ostensibly directed at President George H.W. Bush but really all about the failing neoconservative regime, was prophetic, right down to Mr. Buchanan’s framing of the question as one of peasants with pitchforks versus the rich, uncaring and the obvious royalty of American life represented by Bush and his crew.
Mr. Buchanan was even right on religious matters. He routinely attended the traditional Latin Mass at St. Mary’s in Washington, long before that sort of thing was fashionable among Catholics on the right.
Adviser to three presidents. Visionary, albeit of dark visions. Fire bell in the night for the American republic. Extraordinary writer. Accomplished debater on TV and radio. Defender of the faith. A man whose life has been full and rich and consumed by his effort to save the nation and the citizens he loves.
Perhaps above all, Mr. Buchanan is a man of goodwill. During his long career, he loved people, even those with whom he disagreed, and liked a good story or a good fight in equal measure.
Mr. Moore is right: Mr. Trump should give Mr. Buchanan the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor to The Washington Times.
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