Former White House aide, three-time presidential candidate, commentator and magazine publisher Pat Buchanan told “The Washington Times” that “the conservative movement has passed into history. It doesn’t exist anymore as a unifying force.”
Buchanan’s definition of the term “conservative” is somewhere well to the right of Karl Rove’s. Here are a few choice quotes from the interview that illuminate Buchanan’s brand of radical conservatism.
“There is a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we will one day be as was the Cold War itself.”
“American culture has become toxic and poisonous. Take a look at what Hollywood produces today and what it produced in the 1950s. The alteration is dramatic.”
“We say we won a great victory by defeating gay marriage in 11 state-ballot referenda in November. But I think in the long run, that will be seen as a victory in defense of a citadel that eventually fell.”
“Frankly, you would not have a cultural war in this country if the Supreme Court had said, ‘Look, free speech is one thing, but pornography is not covered by the First Amendment. If the justices had stayed away from forced busing, if they had let the states decide abortion and gay rights, you would not have had the cultural war — and probably not have had the victories that the Republican Party had in the 1970s and ’80s.”
“Both major parties agreed that they would do nothing to defend the borders and that we ought to have amnesty for those who break in illegally. There was no choice. The president has abdicated his responsibility to defend America from a foreign invasion. We add half a million illegals to our population each year, most of whom come to work, some to commit crimes against American citizens. I say, look, the kind of immigrants we want are people who want to come here and become part of the American family … not just to work and then go back home.”
“Look, you’re going to have 100 million people of Hispanic, primarily Mexican, descent in the American Southwest by the middle of this century, and I think you are in danger of losing the American Southwest, de facto. I think this country is risking coming apart, like other countries in the world, over issues of language, culture and ethnicity.”
