Buchanan’s custom after campaigns is to retreat to his study and write books. His last one, “A Republic, Not An Empire,” was an argument for neo-isolationism, asserting in passing that Britain should not have made war on Nazi Germany. I vowed then to forevermore call him “Crackpot Pat,” and have had little reason to reconsider that judgment.
But Buchanan’s new book, “The Death of the West,” now a best seller in the United States, almost got me feeling a little sorry for the old brawler. “The death of the West is not a prediction of what is going to happen, it is a depiction of what is happening now,” he writes. The chances of the inexorable and, to his mind, execrable tide of history being reversed are “not good.” The book has the feel of a reactionary valedictory. It’s Buchanan’s way of saying that the culture war is over, and his side lost.
But before everyone to the left of him celebrates too much, let’s give the man his due. Amid scores of silly, even destructive, ideas, Buchanan outlines a powerful demographic truth that helps explain why the book has struck a nerve, at least among those conservatives who currently dominate book buying in the United States. At a time post-September 11 when nation-building and globalism seem in vogue again, American conservatives are clinging harder than ever to a sense of who they are as Americans, or at least who they think they once were.
Actually, the argument that conservatism has been defeated is more than a little peculiar now, with a conservative Republican president at 80-plus percent in the polls and Buchanan’s book on The New York Times best-seller list, one of five written by identifiable conservatives (none by identifiable liberals).
But the larger point is valid. “Europe has begun to die,” Buchanan writes, pointing out that of the 20 nations with the lowest birthrates, 18 are in Europe. In 1960, people of European ancestry were one fourth of the world’s population; in 2000, one sixth. In 2050, they will be one tenth. If present birthrates continue, Italy will lose nearly a third of its population in 50 years. Germany and Spain will each lose a quarter of their people. California and the Southwestern United States will be largely Hispanic.
Buchanan’s explanations aren’t so far off, either. Wealth makes children less necessary as insurance against need. Abortion and contraception have reduced the size of the developed world. Thirst for la dolce vita trumps family values. The result is that Europe is simply “committing suicide.”
Raising these issues is helpful, especially in reminding readers that civilizations come and go more easily than they might assume. The problem comes when Buchanan confronts what to do about it. He favors a worldwide Christian revival to return humanity to his golden age, the 1950s. Instead of figuring out ways to accommodate the future and build multiracial societies–perhaps the single greatest challenge of the new century–he counsels fear and resistance. Immigration, usually a great source of economic dynamism, is depicted here as a scourge. Unless the immigrants happen to be white.
Many of his blasts at political correctness are fun and even well aimed, but Buchanan is simply wrong much of the time. He says “China’s population swells inexorably.” In fact, projections are that it will grow by less than 5 percent by 2050. He writes that religious faith is dying in America, when signs are everywhere of the exact opposite. And this: “Americans are almost as divided as we were when General Beauregard gave the order to fire on Fort Sumter.” Come out of your study, Pat. Check out all of the American flags.
Maybe they wouldn’t cheer him up. The old supernationalist seems to have lost faith in America: “Though she remains a great country, many wonder if she is still a good country. Some feel she is no longer their country.” Buchanan among them, as he explains with his tiresome analysis of how everything has gone wrong in the United States since 1960s “radicals” like Hillary Clinton took over.
If nothing else, the months since September 11 suggest that reports of the death of Western civilization have been greatly exaggerated. When our lives are threatened, we will fight back. Together. Buchanan believes that the world of our fathers is gone forever, the victim of malign forces like Marxism and multiculturalism. But it turns out many of the values whose disappearance Buchanan lamented were there all the time, just waiting to re-emerge when we needed them most.
