Author: Patrick J. Buchanan

“Clinton to Paint Trump as a Risk to World Order.” Thus, did page one of Thursday’s New York Times tee up Hillary Clinton’s big San Diego speech on foreign policy. Inside the Times, the headline was edited to underline the point: “Clinton to Portray Trump as Risk to the World.” The Times promoted the speech as “scorching,” a “sweeping and fearsome portrayal of Mr. Trump, one that the Clinton campaign will deliver like a drumbeat to voters in the coming months.” What is happening here? As Donald Trump is splitting off blue-collar Democrats on issues like America’s broken borders and … Continue reading →

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In his op-ed in The Washington Post, Chris Grayling, leader of the House of Commons, made the case for British withdrawal from the European Union — in terms Americans can understand. Would you accept, Grayling asks, an American Union of North and South America, its parliament sitting in Panama, with power to impose laws on the United States, and a high court whose decisions overruled those of the U.S. Supreme Court? Would you accept an American Union that granted all the peoples of Central and South America and Mexico the right to move to, work in, and live in any … Continue reading →

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If China begins to reclaim and militarize Scarborough Shoal, says Philippines President Benigno S. Aquino III, America must fight. Should we back down, says Aquino, the United States will lose “its moral ascendancy, and also the confidence of one of its allies.” And what is Scarborough Shoal? A cluster of rocks and reefs, 123 miles west of Subic Bay, that sits astride the passageway out of the South China Sea into the Pacific and is well within Manila’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone. Beijing and Manila both claim Scarborough Shoal. But, in June 2013, Chinese ships swarmed and chased off a … Continue reading →

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“It’s a suicide mission,” said the Republican Party Chairman. Reince Priebus was commenting on a Washington Post story about Mitt Romney and William Kristol’s plot to recruit a third-party conservative candidate to sink Donald Trump. Several big-name Republican “consultants” and “strategists” are said to be on board. Understandably so, given the bucks involved. With the kind of cash that sloshes around in a presidential campaign, there should be no shortage of super PAC parasites at the enlistment office. Still missing, however, is the kamikaze pilot who gets just enough fuel to make it out to the fleet. Efforts to recruit … Continue reading →

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“No modern precedent exists for the revival of a party so badly defeated, so intensely discredited, and so essentially split as the Republican Party is today.” Taken from “The Party That Lost Its Head” by Bruce Chapman and George Gilder, this excerpt, about Barry Goldwater’s defeat in 1964, led Thursday’s column by E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post. Dionne is warning what could happen if the GOP perpetrates the political atrocity of nominating Donald Trump. For weeks now, the Post’s editorial page has sermonized about the “moral” obligation of all righteous Republicans to repudiate Trump. The Post’s solicitude for the … Continue reading →

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Forty-eight hours after Donald Trump wrapped up the Republican nomination with a smashing victory in the Indiana primary, House Speaker Paul Ryan announced that he could not yet support Trump. In millennial teen-talk, Ryan told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “I’m just not ready to do that at this point. I’m not there right now.” “[T]he bulk of the burden of unifying the party” falls on Trump, added Ryan. Trump must unify “all wings of the Republican Party, and the conservative movement.” Trump must run a campaign that we can “be proud to support and proud to be a part of.” Then, … Continue reading →

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“The two living Republican past presidents, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, have no plans to endorse Trump, according to their spokesmen.” So said the lead story in The Washington Post. Graceless, yes, but not unexpected. The Bushes have many fine qualities. Losing well, however, is not one of them. And they have to know, whether they concede it or not, that Trump’s triumph is a sweeping repudiation of Bush Republicanism by the same party that nominated them four times for the presidency. Not only was son and brother, Jeb, humiliated and chased out of the race early, … Continue reading →

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Friday, a Russian SU-27 did a barrel roll over a U.S. RC-135 over the Baltic, the second time in two weeks. Also in April, the U.S. destroyer Donald Cook, off Russia’s Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, was twice buzzed by Russian planes. Vladimir Putin’s message: Keep your spy planes and ships a respectable distance away from us. Apparently, we have not received it. Friday, Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work announced that 4,000 NATO troops, including two U.S. battalions, will be moved into Poland and the Baltic States, right on Russia’s border. “The Russians have been doing a lot of snap … Continue reading →

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In a recent column Dennis Prager made an acute observation. “The vast majority of leading conservative writers … have a secular outlook on life. … They are unaware of the disaster that godlessness in the West has led to.” These secular conservatives may think that “America can survive the death of God and religion,” writes Prager, but they are wrong. And, indeed, the last half-century seems to bear him out. A people’s religion, their faith, creates their culture, and their culture creates their civilization. And when faith dies, the culture dies, the civilization dies, and the people begin to die. … Continue reading →

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This week, SU-24 fighter-bombers buzzed a U.S. destroyer in the Baltic Sea. The Russian planes carried no missiles or bombs. Message: What are you Americans doing here? In the South China Sea, U.S. planes overfly, and U.S. warships sail inside, the territorial limits of islets claimed by Beijing. In South Korea, U.S. forces conduct annual military exercises as warnings to a North Korea that is testing nuclear warheads and long-range missiles that can reach the United States. U.S. warships based in Bahrain confront Iranian subs and missile boats in the Gulf. In January, a U.S. Navy skiff ran aground on … Continue reading →

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In the race for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump would seem to be in the catbird seat. He has won the most states, the most delegates, and the most votes – by nearly 2 million. He has brought out the largest crowds and is poised for huge wins in the largest states of the East, New York, and Pennsylvania. Yet, there is a growing probability that the backroom boys will steal the nomination from him at a brokered convention in Cleveland. Over the weekend, Colorado awarded all 34 delegates to Ted Cruz. The fix had been in since August, when … Continue reading →

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After winning only six delegates in Wisconsin, and with Ted Cruz poaching delegates in states he has won, like Louisiana, Donald Trump either wins on the first ballot at Cleveland, or Trump does not win. Yet, as that huge, roaring reception he received in his first post-Wisconsin appearance in Bethpage, N.Y., testifies, the Donald remains not only the front-runner but the most exciting figure in the race. Moreover, after the New York, New England, mid-Atlantic and California primaries, Trump should be within striking distance of the 1,237 delegates needed for the nomination. He will then have to persuade uncommitted delegates … Continue reading →

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As Wisconsinites head for the polls, our Beltway elites are almost giddy. For they foresee a Badger State bashing for Donald Trump, breaking his momentum toward the Republican nomination. Should the Donald fall short of the delegates needed to win on the first ballot, 1,237, there is growing certitude that he will be stopped. First by Ted Cruz; then, perhaps, by someone acceptable to the establishment, which always likes to have two of its own in the race. But this city of self-delusion should realize there is no going back for America. For, whatever his stumbles of the last two … Continue reading →

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I am “not isolationist, but I am ‘America First,” Donald Trump told The New York times last weekend. “I like the expression.” Of NATO, where the U.S. underwrites three-fourths of the cost of defending Europe, Trump calls this arrangement “unfair, economically, to us,” and adds, “We will not be ripped off anymore.” Beltway media may be transfixed with Twitter wars over wives and alleged infidelities. But the ideas Trump aired should ignite a national debate over U.S. overseas commitments —, especially NATO. For the Donald’s ideas are not lacking for authoritative support. The first NATO supreme commander, Gen. Eisenhower, said … Continue reading →

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“Things reveal themselves passing away,” wrote W. B. Yeats. Whatever one may think of Donald Trump, his campaign has done us a service — exposing the underbelly of a decaying establishment whose repudiation by America’s silent majority is long overdue. According to The New York Times, super PACs of Trump’s GOP rivals, including PACs of candidates who have dropped out, are raising and spending millions to destroy the probable nominee. Goals of the anti-Trump conspirators: Manipulate the rules and steal the nomination at Cleveland. Failing that, pull out all the stops and torpedo any Trump-led ticket in the fall. Then … Continue reading →

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