Pat Buchanan: Globalism Defeating GOP

It is a rare, rare thing when I find myself agreeing with Pat Buchanan -- further proof that politics makes strange bedfellows and that the ideological specturm curves enough to where, if you go far enough, you eventually find yourself shaking hands with your mirror image. Be that as it may, Pat raises some interesting points about what I believe is the most important issue of the early 21st century.

No, its not terrorism, energy, global warming, Iraq, the deficit, health care, or social security.

Nope, the biggest issue of the 21st century can be summed up in one word -- Globalization.

First, Buchanan notes that the result of the 2000 and 2004 elections gave the GOP the false impression that they, somehow, were America's party:

...since 9/11, the party has indulged in a willful self-delusion that it has become America's Party. The Bush triumph in 2004, talking heads brayed, settled the matter: Red State America has triumphed over Blue State America. The future belongs to us.

This was always hyperbole. Where Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan rolled up 49-state landslides in re-election runs, Bush won 31 states, losing every state north of the Potomac and east of Ohio, two of the three great industrial states of the Midwest, Michigan and Illinois, and he was skunked on the Pacific rim. Had Kerry hammered him on trade and lost jobs in Ohio, Bush would be a one-term president.

I and most others here agree. So why didn't they?

...
What killed the first Bush presidency and is ruining the second is the abandonment of Reaganism and his embrace of the twin heresies of neoconservatism and Big Government Conservatism, as preached by the resident ideologues at The Weekly Standard and Wall Street Journal.

Under Bush I, taxes were raised, funding for HUD and Education exploded, and a quota bill was signed under which small businesses, accused of racial discrimination, were made to prove their innocence, or be punished, in true Soviet fashion.

Under Bush II, social spending has exploded to levels LBJ might envy, foreign aid has been doubled, pork-at-every-meal has become the GOP diet of choice, surpluses have vanished, and the deficit is soaring back toward 5% of GDP. Bill Clinton is starting to look like Barry Goldwater.

This is an amusing comparison, but on fiscal responsibility its largely accurate. But the real fire and brimestone Pat reserves for the "globalist" GOP.

Both Bushes abandoned the economic patriotism that had put America and Americans first--for free-trade globalism. Result: the most massive trade deficits in U.S. history, the gutting of our industrial base, the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs, and the largest wealth transfer of all time with technology, factories, high-tech and high-skilled jobs pouring out of America into Asia.

Working America and the middle class have been sacrificed on the high altar of the Republican Moloch of Free Trade. And how have our Chinese brothers reciprocated our magnanimity?

Both Bushes embraced the "open borders" immigration policy the Wall Street Journal has trumpeted for two decades. Result: We have 10-15 million illegal aliens in our country, among whom gangs like the murderous Mara Salvatrucha are proliferating. Native-born California taxpayers are fleeing the Golden State, as Third World tax consumers pour in. So great is the crisis on the Mexican border even the liberal Democratic governors of New Mexico and Arizona have declared states of emergency. Meanwhile 35,000 U.S. troops stand guard--on the border of South Korea.

The late editorial editor of the Journal, Robert Bartley, once said, "I believe the nation-state is finished." He and his progeny have surely done their level best to bring that about.

As the country we grew up in becomes unrecognizable, we still hear the Journal, that good and faithful servant of the U.S. Business Roundtable, warning us not to oppose open borders. Meanwhile, our very own Dr. Pangloss, Ben Wattenberg, warbles on about our being the "first universal nation" and, in echo of M. Dominic de Villepin, burbles, "Isn't diversity wonderful!"

Pat and I disagree on the ultimate benefits of globalization and diversity -- as most here do -- but I think it is important to note that the issue of globalization he is pointing to is what is underlying the uneasiness most American are feeling.

Quite simply, the world, it is a changing. We all know it. We can all feel it in our political bones -- that something quite dramatic, important, world changing, and, frankly, damn frightening is taking place at the macro level of world geopolitics and economics that is having dramatic impacts on the micro level we all live in. Buchanan uses free trade as his globalization demon,  yet there are other equally frightening things going on:

What does the rise of China mean for the US? What does technological innovation mean for my family, myself, and our values? What good is the nation-state if it can't protect you? How is it that I feel closer to members on an internet bulletin board than my own neighbors? Why is it that my kids won't be able to get ahead unless they have a degree from a good college? Why is my company dropping my health benefits? Why is the price of gas going through the roof?

These issues are all interconnected and they all scream one thing:

The party that best comes up with a program to manage the long crisis of globalization will win lasting political power for most of this century.

The right's ultimate program dealing with globalization entials blocking it if it can and, barring that, shifting the burden of transitioning to a globalized world onto the backs of their political opponnents. Thus the GOP's current policy of styming social change like banning gay marriage or locking up illegal immigrants COULPED with the policy of protecting the wealthy and corporate America.

The ultimate result of this policy, of course, is disaster. Pat sums it up nicely using foreign policy as a case study of the inherent contradictions and ultimate impossibility of the GOP's response to globalization:

In foreign policy, Bush I was an internationalist out to build a "New World Order" after the Cold War. However, post-9/11, Bush II converted to a neoconservatism that calls for unilateral American intervention in the Middle East and the Islamic world, to bring down dictators and establish democracy.

Thus, in March, 2003, Bush, in perhaps the greatest strategic blunder in U.S. history, invaded an Arab nation that had not attacked us, did not want war with us, and did not threaten us--to strip it of weapons we now know it did not have.

Result: Shia and Kurds have been liberated from Saddam, but Iran has a new ally in southern Iraq, Osama has a new base camp in the Sunni Triangle, the Arab and Islamic world have been radicalized against the United States, and copy-cat killers of Al Qaida have been targeting our remaining allies in Europe and the Middle East: Spain, Britain, Egypt and Jordan. And, lest we forget, 2055 Americans are dead and Walter Reed is filling up.

True to the neoconservative creed, Bush launched a global crusade for democracy that is now bringing ever closer to power Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria, and Shia fundamentalists in Baghdad and Basra.

Democratic imperialism is still imperialism. To Arab and Islamic peoples, whether the Crusaders come in the name of God or in the name of democracy, they are still Crusaders.

I agree with Pat Buchanan. God help and forgive me, but I agree with Pat Buchanan.

What do we do? What is the liberal-progressive, Democratic program for globalization?