Buchanan once more, Oct 16^th

Pat Buchanan doesn’t want Paul Ryan to become Speaker of the House; this isn’t because he doesn’t like Paul Ryan, but because Ryan can’t reduce the infighting in the Republican controlled house. In addition, Ryan doesn’t appeal to the rebellious house members who want to send home all the illegal immigrants, scuttle the TPP and, in general, change the direction of the country. These far right tea party types do not want to compromise on any of their issues; particularly on immigration where they see Ryan as likely to compromise on a path to citizenship for undocumented aliens.

Buchanan sees a resurgent nationalism world-wide and obviously thinks this is a good thing. Amazing!  Nationalism has been the root of most of the wars over the last several centuries; these wars were either about nationalism or religion. Now Buchanan welcomes a nationalism that pushes to close borders to all immigration, reduce trade and wave jingoistic hatchets at everyone’s nearest neighbor.

He seems to believe that there is some enthusiasm for this point of view. If there is it is hard to find. In the election of 2012 the Republicans took the House of Representatives by 233 to 201, then in 2014 they increased their lead in the House to 247 to 188. That’s a commanding lead and everybody in the country should rejoice, all our problems can now be solved because the Freedom Party is now clearly in charge.

But wait! (As the advertisements say.) If the country is now united behind good old jingoistic tea party isolationist Patrick J. Buchanan, as these Republican House victories seem to indicate, then why do we find the approval rating of Congress still in the cellar,unchanged and continuing to fluctuate at between 75 and 83 percent unfavorable? Surely you would expect some joy in the country about these remarkable conservative victories. You don’t find that of course. We also find no one willing to assume the leadership of these Republicans; most politicians agree it would be a career-ending job.

The tea party favorites aren’t distinguishing themselves in the polls. Senator Cruz comes up with just 10 percent, Senator Rubio doesn’t do quite that well and poor Senator Paul is wandering around with just 3 percent approval. The top spots are held by people who have never been elected to anything; that might be their appeal, but Trump’s appeal might be his showmanship. After all you get to watch a member of the rich and famous and speculate about what wonderful things he will do for you if you will just “sign here.” What could go wrong?