IRVING LOUIS HOROWITZ
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publication merits assessment. Appearing every other week (October
7,
October 2I, and November 4,2002) it calls for nothing short of a pro–
found shift in ideological fault lines within American culture. And for
his role in this effort, Buchanan deserves our sincere recognition. To
reject is a right. To dismiss is folly.
Nothing could be more risky than to underestimate Buchanan's
vision. He is by journalistic background sharply attuned to popular sen–
timent, unscrupulous in his alignments, and has no commitment to old
labels and alliances. Buchanan is an intellectual figure to be reckoned
with. He is the voice of an ideology that never quite dissolved-a voice
that speaks from the pre-World War II era of America First and foreign
entanglements last:
The blood of patriots must only be shed in defense of our country
and our people. But Democrats and Republicans want to take our
country into a war far away. Our sons and our daughters must
never die on foreign fields to defend the honor of the United
Nations or decide who rules over a foreign land. To defend our
people against the madmen who would destroy us we must first
secure our borders.
Nativist persuasions that underwrite the neo-isolationist thrust of
The
American Conservative
permit editors and authors to tap into long–
standing sources of discontent. These sentiments are neither Right nor
Left. They are better described as an extension of the Left fascism that
has nibbled at the edges 'of American politics since World War II. The
Lyndon LaRouche National Caucus of Labor Committees phenomenon
of the I960s, and even before that, the Charles Coughlin Social Justice
wing of the America First movement of the I930S, embodied many of the
causes espoused by Buchanan. In an earlier essay on left-wing fascism I
noted that "the history of fascism in the United States mirrors that of
Europe. Socialism, far from being dropped, becomes incorporated into
the national dream, into the dramaturgy for redemption, for a higher civ–
ilization that will link nationhood and socialism into a move forward."
This also helps explain how Buchanan could enlist an avowed "revolu–
tionary socialist" like Lenora Fulani, his vice-presidential running mate
on his I996 Reform Party ticket. They share a belief that the higher goals
of Americans are not served by the capitalist economic system, but by the
nation-state as such. As with Nazis and communists, linking capitalism
with the Jewish impulse to aggrandize the wealth of the nation helped to
cement this otherwise inexplicable alliance in seamless fashion.
