What do you know? He's not dead.

Pat Buchanan.

Today's column is a celebration of the Buchananite takeover of the GOP in the person of the Duce, Donald Trump.

For him, in utter delirium, Buchanan even abandons his decades of anti-Israeli sentiment and propaganda and celebrates Trump's Zionism.

Not entirely happy with the Duce's current hostility toward China regarding Hong Kong, however.

He doesn't see it part of the virus-connected shift for the election year.

He's very please with all the stuff about NATO and Putin and trade and Iran and global warming and and and.

And race.

A Most Consequential Presidency

A reminder of Pat's preference for authoritarian populism over rule of law republicanism and popular government.

A preference that emerged only when the rise of the Duce emboldened Buchanan.

America First? Just another big issue the virus has completely obscured.

Will we hear again of Big Stick isolationism from Trump before the election?

Or will he just surprise us and walk away from NATO, the WTO, the UN, and some or all of our Pacific alliances, all after the election?

And then shock us all by again urging a formal US-Israel mutual defense pact, extending our nuclear umbrella to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv?

His muddled neo-isolationist nationalism played pretty well in his 2016 campaign, and might again.

And though I haven't seen much on that point I'd expect Biden to continue to be what he has been for all his career, a standard-issue adherent of liberal globalism, firmly defending its post WW2 institutional creations and affirming, if asked, our Article 5 commitment to putting Riga under our nuclear umbrella.

On the other hand, it has been the custom of Democrats to run on peace and then give us war, once in the White House.

Wilson, FDR, and even Kennedy/Johnson all did that.

The Duce could pull a Republican reversal, running as a foreign policy tough guy and then actually going through with major pieces of his 2016 America First agenda.

Trump tweets to congress: this is all the notice you're going to get, and I won't seek and don't need your permision

I will wage war without asking and without even advising in advance, he is saying.

Pompeo and other nutcases are fine with all this egregiously illegal and unconstitutional behavior.

And the congressional Republicans?

Trump warns of 'disproportionate' response if Iran strikes US targets

President Trump warned Sunday of a "disproportionate" military response to Iran if it carries out a retaliatory strike against the U.S. 

Trump said "these Media Posts" -- seemingly referring to his tweets -- "will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner.”

“Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless!," he added in his tweet. 

Steve M. has been warning for months that the Duce will not leave the White House if he loses in 2020 or when his second term (if he wins one) runs out in 2024.

I took that to be entirely Democratic bullshit propaganda.

But maybe not, eh?

Unsurprisingly, justification for such a refusal has already been provided by Pat Buchanan in several of his columns about how democracy - the republican order of our representative government - is harming the US and authoritarianism might be just the thing.

The authoritarian being Trump, or anyone of his ilk.

Not even a heads up

News seems to indicate Trump, far from coordinating with allies and a coalition and arranging collective preparations to deal with blowback in advance of the strike, did not even so much as let anybody know what was coming.

Even now, blowback planning seems to involve only American forces and nobody else at all.

We are all alone, out there, having given the hornet's nest a really good bash.

Collective security?

Pshaw.

And a significant possible ally of our adversary is Putin, himself, and the Russian forces more or less allied with Iran and its own allies or cat's paws in the region.

Bozo fucks up again

So, Trump is now totally fucking up the Iran and Iraq problems just as he did the Korea problem, though his idiot supporters to this day praise the stable genius for his unfathomably wise and perceptive handling of all issues.

And remind us always that Obama was weak and a failure and Hillary an ogress.

Mark Meadows to newsie: "There isn't going to be another Benghazi."

All this chaos is the result of the takeover of the GOP by Pat Buchanan, incarnate in the Duce.

And there will be a lot more and a lot worse if Bozo gets his second term, during the whole of which he will have not the least reason to care about what voters might think of what he wants, says, or does.

Delusions or Lies?

No, it's not that they are ignorant, or confused, or short on information, or misled by fake news.

They truly admire these guys and agree with what is most vicious in and about them and their programs.

The False Romance of Russia

Anne Applebaum joins those who try valiantly to hide - or evade - the ugly truth.

Just as well claim the Nazi voters didn't vote for all that mad, anti-Semitic, anti-Slavic, racist shit.

Or deny their profound and forthright embrace of state criminality, violence, and an agenda of war.

As for the ludicrous, glowing (at least in their terms) portraits of the enemy societies and their leaders by useful idiots of the left and, now, the right, they are not evidence of delusion but flat out dishonesty.

They are just flat out lies.

But I can't help but laugh.

She may be the only critic of this new idiotic and contemptible right who sees the grandfather role of Pat Buchanan.

And her exposé of Russian realities as well as the loony leaders of the pop stupid right is an extremely important piece.

She is the kind of conservative I admire, and I have loved her work for many years, now.

Not just her columns but her books.

Her excellent books.

He could just give the Taliban in Afghanistan carte blanche

He really believes most of what happens in the region is none of our business and no skin off our nose.

His totally shameless prioritizing of our business relationship with Saudi Arabia over the least interest in the domestic realities of the regime made that pretty clear, eh?

Trump Makes Surprise Afghanistan Visit, Says U.S. And Taliban Peace Talks Restarted

The real Trump rising

For the first three years the globalist, establishment types stopped him acting on his Buchananism.

Less and less, lately.

Donald Trump declares Syria ceasefire permanent and lifts Turkey sanctions

He's given both Syria and Turkey to Vladimir Putin.

Donald Trump has announced that the US will lift sanctions on Turkey, taking credit for a ceasefire deal that should end Ankara’s attack on Kurdish-led forces – at the price of ending the Kurds’ dream of local autonomy.

The US president, who has come under withering criticism for abruptly withdrawing US troops – and paving the way for a deadly Turkish offensive against the Kurds – said on Wednesday that a “small number” of US troops would remain in Syria’s oilfields.

In a televised address on Wednesday, Trump emphasized that US troops were “safe” and said America would leave other powers to fight each other in the region.

He added: “Let someone else fight over this long-bloodstained sand.

Wednesday’s announcement came as Russian troops expanded their presence across north-eastern Syria, the result of an agreement between Ankara and Moscow.

Just a week ago, Trump announced a series of financial punishments on Ankara – including the reimposition of 50% tariffs on Turkish steel – after Turkey launched its attack on Kurdish-led forces in north-eastern Syria.

That offensive began hours after a phone call between Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in which the Turkish president, informed Trump of his plans, and understood the US president to give a green light.

“The government of Turkey informed my administration that they would be stopping combat and their offensive in Syria, and making the ceasefire permanent,” Trump said.

“I have, therefore, instructed the secretary of the Treasury to lift all sanctions imposed October 14,” he added.

“How many Americans must die in the Middle East in the midst of these ancient sectarian and tribal conflicts?” Trump said. “I am committed to pursuing a different course, one that leads to victory for America.”

So, do they now regret the way the US ran away from the war in Vietnam?

Do they retrospectively regret all those "collaborators with US imperialism" we abandoned in the fall of Saigon, in 1975?

They?

Democrats joining Republicans in unanimously deploring the betrayal of the Kurds and the abandonment of Syria.

To be fair, it amazed me at the time how many supporters of the war did not mind at all the abandonment of thousands and tens of thousands of Vietnamese supporters of the US effort to a horrible fate.

I opposed the war but also was deeply ashamed of the betrayal of so many whom we had actively induced to rely on us.

In truth, we could not save everyone who had at least hoped for our victory - that would have been most of the people of South Vietnam - but we could and should have saved those publicly in any way associated with our participation in that war.

Tens of thousands though that would have been.

Because we were responsible for at least some of them sticking their heads up, daring so long to resist the reds, and we had promised them all they could count on us.

Why didn't the Brits give British passports to the entire population of Hong Kong when they agreed to turn over the colony to Beijing?

Why didn't the Commonwealth countries agree to accept them all as refugees, sharing them out among themselves more or less proportionately to their own part in the total population of the Commonwealth?

How was their failure to do any such thing not a shocking betrayal?

Not that they - the Vietnamese or the Hong Kong Chinese - would all have agreed to leave their homes.

But the invitations should have been extended.

Isolationist, anti-globalist Trump

'It's not our border'

In other words, "Fuck do I care?"

Which could be exactly what he told Erdogan on the phone, when asked.

‘They have a lot of sand to play with’

“It’s not our problem,” Trump said during a White House photo op. “They’ve got a lot of sand over there ... There’s a lot of sand they can play with.”

He added that the Kurds are “not angels," even though the Kurdish forces were the primary American ally in the battle against ISIS and al Qaeda militants.

Trump also repeated a Turkish talking point when he asserted that a Kurdish political party in Turkey are terrorists.

Why they glory in egregious lies

Why Europe’s new populists tell so many lies – and do it so shamelessly

Politicians have, of course, always dissembled, but the traditional political lie was designed to cover up an unpalatable fact. 

No one wanted to be caught lying. 

If accused, they had to explain (“I didn’t inhale”, “I am not a crook”, “not … with that woman”, the dossier wasn’t “sexed-up”) and they might then fall from grace, face a public inquiry, or indulge in that staple of political redemption exercises, the televised apology.

Populist lying, by contrast, is designed to be seen – it is the opposite of a cover-up. 

In the populist playbook, lying itself is glorified; it is an instrument of subversion, its purpose to demonstrate that the liar will stop at nothing to “serve the people”. 

The lies are signals that these politicians are not bound by the usual norms of the liberal democratic elite. 

Liberals have virtue signalling – populists have outrage signalling. 

This is the politics of appealing to the gut over the brain.

. . . .

Populists have been quick to turn the value placed on authenticity to their advantage. 

Not by striving to be truthful, but by demonstrating that they are authentic (or instinctively connected to the experience of “the people”, who are authentic) to the point of not caring about being shown to be liars – as long as the lies are told “in the interest of the people”. 

They tend to either sweep away the evidence that they lied with great nonchalance (well, I might have said that, but so what?), or flaunt the lie to show their chutzpah, their willingness to game the system – and to highlight the supposed hypocrisy or stupidity of whoever is being deceived.

The populist authenticity is not so much about being as good as you claim to be, but about being as shamelessly bad as people might imagine you could be. 

Shamelessness is populism’s debased form of authenticity.

Trumpism has no bench

He is never going to find a national security advisor with whom he is sympatico until he hires Pat Buchanan.

Or maybe Steve Bannon.

Trump Fires John Bolton In Final Break After Months Of Policy Divisions

Trumpism is really Buchananism.

But the Duce is so little self-aware he may not know that.

Pat Buchanan continues his long, slow slide to almost fascism

Although not quite.

Anyway, not yet.

If you think that what, about supranational institutions like the EU, the UN, or even NATO, bothers the new nationalists of Europe and America in part is their democracy deficit you are a fool.

And if you think they are even in part moved by concern for the political position of the world's eurowhites, or the rayonnement of their civilization, the much touted and much damned Western Civilization, you are again a fool.

Their increasingly evident love for authoritarian nationalism wherever it is to be found, while strengthening racism and racist policies within infected states, undermines both.

Let Them Howl, Boris!

PB here continues to celebrate stupid things ever less compatible with the rule of law, with republicanism, with responsible representative government.

Meanwhile, we are still in NATO

Serious Buchananites need to consider how we might deal with issues of nuclear balance and security from outside NATO.

Hard enough nut to crack from within, no?

Nato and Russia trade barbs after collapse of nuclear arms treaty

So, not a globalist, that means, I think.

Trump's intelligence pick is attempt to 'neutralise' spy agencies, say ex-officials

John Ratcliffe’s nomination follows announcement Dan Coats will leave after disagreements with Trump over policy and intelligence

Donald Trump’s nomination of an inexperienced but loyal partisan to become the director of national intelligence (DNI) is an attempt to “neutralise” US spy agencies as an independent and objective voice on global affairs, former intelligence officials warned.

Oh, is that what they are? They don't have their own, Cold War II, globalist agenda?

<snip>

“Trump is consolidating his personal control over the intelligence community,” said Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA intelligence officer. He said the current directors of the CIA and FBI have found their hands tied increasingly when it comes to accurate intelligence assessment, by risk of being fired for something at odds with Trump’s views.

“I fear that there is a slow takeover of the norms and procedures of governance by this president, amassing unprecedented executive power,” Mowatt-Larssen, now at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, added. 

“To do that he needs to neutralise or at least silence the intelligence community. He has been doing that for three years, but this takes it to the new level.”

The story emphasizes Ratcliffe is an ardent, Hannity-like Trumpist trumpet.

The idea is that he will corrupt the intelligence community and heap discredit upon its clear-eyed, candid, and disinterested vision.

Um.

But that isn't really the main issue, is it?

Tucker Carlson the new Pat Buchanan?

Sure looks it.

Tucker Carlson To Americans: Have More Babies

Bannon to Matteo Salvini: the Pope is the enemy

Trump’s ex-strategist advised Salvini ‘to target pontiff’s stance on plight of refugees’

Old news, but news to us.

Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon advised Italy’s interior minister Matteo Salvini to attack the pope over the issue of migration, according to sources close to the Italian far right.

During a meeting in Washington in April 2016, Bannon – who would within a few months take up his role as head of Trump’s presidential campaign – suggested the leader of Italy’s anti-immigration League party should start openly targeting Pope Francis, who has made the plight of refugees a cornerstone of his papacy.

“Bannon advised Salvini himself that the actual pope is a sort of enemy. He suggested for sure to attack, frontally,” said a senior League insider with knowledge of the meeting in an interview with the website SourceMaterial.

After the meeting, Salvini became more outspoken against the pope, claiming that conservatives in the Vatican were on his side.

How do we account for the key fact of our age?

That the worst and least qualified among us think they are entitled to rule everything?

And that so many others encourage this belief.

This is the real Revolt of the Masses.

It is what democracy as a cultural as well as political obsession corrupts into.

This man is simply a liar

The White-Extinction Conspiracy Theory Is Bonkers

says Farhad Manjoo.

Sure, reports of impending white extinction have been greatly exaggerated.

But mass media have been reporting birth rates below replacement and falling populations among whites for decades.

Peter Jennings decades ago told white Americans they would no longer be a majority of the people in the United States within fifty years and there was nothing they could do about it.

News magazines have been running cover stories about the browning of America for just as long.

I suppose their intention was to prepare public opinion and disarm possible political efforts to prevent such a demographic eclipse.

Didn't work.

In fact, all that publicity seems to have prepared public opinion to desire such efforts, with immigration "crises" and the rise of Muslim terrorism since 9/11 here and in Europe adding urgency.

So now we get a disinformation campaign of demographic decline denial.

I have seen the same nonsense on some progressive and usually highly informative YouTube channels.

Liars everywhere in politics, on all side, there are.

Buchananist neo-isolationism

With no chance to get any of his agenda done that requires congressional consent, Bozo is turning his attention to implementing as much of his neo-isolationist outlook as he can without it.

Trump Seeks Huge Premium From Allies Hosting U.S. Troops

The Duce is turning our troops into expensive mercenaries to encourage the host countries to refuse their presence.

The claim that he just wants to prod them into spending a bigger share of their own GDPs on their own defense is a figleaf for a policy of deliberate destabilization of the alliances.

For years, President Donald Trump has complained that countries hosting American troops aren’t paying enough. Now he wants to get even, and then some.

Under White House direction, the administration is drawing up demands that Germany, Japan and eventually any other country hosting U.S. troops pay the full price of American soldiers deployed on their soil -- plus 50 percent or more for the privilege of hosting them, according to a dozen administration officials and people briefed on the matter.

In some cases, nations hosting American forces could be asked to pay five to six times as much as they do now under the “Cost Plus 50” formula.

Trump has championed the idea for months. 

His insistence on it almost derailed recent talks with South Korea over the status of 28,000 U.S. troops in the country when he overruled his negotiators with a note to National Security Adviser John Bolton saying, “We want cost plus 50.”

He sees our troops in allied countries as there exclusively to protect faraway foreign lands in which we have no significant national security stake.

He sees a few thousand migrants in a caravan heading for the Mexican border as a national security emergency, but not a war against our allies in Europe or Asia, perhaps excepting only Israel.

Yes, this is absolutely Buchananism - apart from Bozo's strong support for Israel that mostly reflects the position of his Evangelical base and enables him to urge Jewish voters in America to come over to the GOP.

[I remember an old joke that Jews have the incomes of Episcopalians and the politics of Puerto Ricans.]

Was Buchanan paid off by the Russians, too?