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United States itself, by its voracious appetites to rule the world unilat–
erally. As a result, old categories like Right and Left, conservative and
liberal, dissolve under the guise of a choice between a New World Order
Party (which for Buchanan implies both the Democrats and Republicans
for the most part) and an America First Party. The latter is an amor–
phous group comprised of native-born Americans, dedicated to Christ–
ian fundamental values, for whom the rest of the world is a cross
between a cesspool and a diabolical conspiracy trying to engage a vir–
tuous nation in its schemes. That he is on to something is suggested in
his ability to round up a wide range of contributors-from Scott
McConnell from the traditional Right to Nicholas von Hoffman from
what used to be gratuitously called the New Left. They all sound a com–
mon theme-animus for Ariel Sharon, respect for Saddam Hussein. But
the specific villains and heroes of the moment are less important than
the ideological alliances that are being formed.
Buchanan's vision, however carefully embroidered, comes upon some
severe contradictions not so easily generalized. The pseudo-populism of
his appeal resurrects a leadership principle in which elites impose order
and justice on a nation by curbing excess. These may be anything from an
urban impulse in cultural expression to the unrestricted effort to innovate.
The central villain remains an economy that in its nature has become
global in structure and therefore no longer confined by the nation-state.
In Buchanan's world, problems may be universal, but solutions are always
national and hence controllable. Anything that smacks of reduction of
national power through loss of sovereignty, from the Hague to Brussels,
from world courts to the European Union, is seen as dangerous and inim–
ical to American interests. Buchanan and his army see a world of Hobbe–
sian menace without Hobbes's vision. As with the fascist vision, the
promise of social justice depends upon the commitment of all to a state
system. And as a result, the appeal to the people falls on deaf ears, as it
becomes evident that the guarantor of national health is America First and
its singular charismatic leader. The traditional conservative assault on
totalitarianism is conspicuously, nay ominously, noticeable by its absence.
Buchanan's co-editor, Taki Theodoracopulos, underwrites the anti–
Semitism that runs like a dorsal spine through all of these utterances.
Conrad Black, his former editor at
The Spectator,
described Theodora–
copulos as a man whose "expressed hatred for Israel and ... contempt
for the United States and its political institutions ... were irrational and
an offence to civilized taste." Black sadly remarked that Taki added, "a
blood libel on the Jewish people wherever they may be" to the pile in
asserting that "the way to Uncle Sam's heart runs through Tel Aviv and
