Pat Buchanan: A latter-day Populist-Nativist-Know Nothing... and other observations

by Sam Jungle

First, there were the Know Nothings. Oh, to be sure, they called themselves "the American Party." In fact, they hated immigrants, especially Catholic immigrants, Jews (although there were precious few to hate at the time), and American Indians, among others.
The Know Nothings organized themselves more or less like Masonic lodges (a not-entirely open and accepting group themselves) with secret handshakes and passwords. Their nickname was their password‹"I Know Nothing."
This exciting group of political pygmies actually nominated the great Millard Fillmore as their presidential nominee in the 1856 presidential election. This gives us some clue as to their intellectual and moral prowess. On the great issues of the day, Millard Fillmore distinguished himself with his fence-sitting and mediocrity.
As with so many things, the Panic of 1857 basically did away with the Know Nothings. Not too surprisingly, they kind of melted away into the newly-formed Republican Party. Remember this melding; it sets up a pattern.
The next nativists on the scene were the real McCoy‹the 1890s Populists. These poor dirt farmers and their city-slicker organizers like Mary "Yellin' Ellen" Lease and "Sockless" Jerry Simpson have usually wormed their way into our admiration by their sheer audacity. After all, it would seem, any woman that supposedly told farmers to "raise less corn and more hell" can't be all bad, right?
Well, if we look beneath the veneer of self-righteous indignation against big business running government for its purposes (not a wrong notion in and of itself), what we find are folks who are suspicious of anyone a little different than themselves. There's a strong strain of anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic sentiment running just below the surface in 1890s Populist rhetoric.
After flirting with the idea of an integrated Southern Farmers' Alliance, Georgian Tom Watson, the 1896 Populist vice-presidential candidate with Democrat William Jennings Bryan, went "whole hog" the other way. It's a direct line from Watson's ultimate support of the "race card" to gain support of southern poor whites to the redneck/cracker racist appeals of Strom Thurmond, George Wallace and Orval Faubus. Note that one of those is still a U.S. Senator at this very moment!
In the 1920s the anti's were personified by the resurgent Ku Klux Klan. When they met for their national convention in Kansas City, MO, in 1924, this wonderful, loving group of folks were riding a wave. They and their supporters had gotten two different bills through Congress and past the Presidents [Harding & Coolidge] restricting immigration to a small trickle of northern European relatives of current citizens. No Italians, Jews, Slavs, or Japanese need apply.
The KKK of the '20s was so crude that even the largely pro-Nativist population of the moment saw through the burning crosses to see themselves as possible victims. After all, the United States is a nation of immigrants.
Amazingly, Mason and Baptist Harry Truman decided not to join the Klan. Of course, he was in politics under the patronage of Irish Catholic Kansas City political boss Tom Pendergast. Harry might stop a buck on his desk decades later; in 1924 he simply knew who he better support and who not. It also helped his decision that in the Kansas City area at least, the Klan worked hard to elect Republicans. Harry was a "yellow-dog" Democrat from way back!
In the days of the 1930s, nativism and populism took on a little different form with the "America First" movement championed by Charles Lindbergh and others. In this misbegotten affair, Lindbergh and others ignored the news filtering out of Europe about "Krystalnacht" and efforts to round up Jews, Catholics, Gypsies, gays, and Communists in concentration camps under Hitler. All that mattered to the "America Firsters" was that the U.S. had no business fighting a war in Europe under any circumstances.
Then we come to "Tailgunner" Joe McCarthy. In the early 1940s he was a Democrat who got elected to state circuit court judge in Wisconsin. Then he went to the army (at age 35 or so) to earn his nickname in the Army Air Corps. When Joe came back, he became a Republican, defeated Progressive Bob LaFollette, Jr., and became a U.S. Senator all in about one year's time. In doing so, he capitalized on people's fears about big corporations, big government, and foreign entanglements. McCarthyism turned out to be another form of Nativism spiced with anti-communism. Ironically, Tailgunner Joe was the son of Irish Catholic parents who knew enough about spreading hatred from the prejudice they and their parents had suffered from years earlier.
That the reactionary anti-civil rights folks from the South and the North belong in this Populist-Nativist "we-hate-you-if-you're-different" mish-mash is beyond doubt. They might have picked a slightly different group to be on the outs with, but the message is the same.
Pat Buchanan is a johnny-come-lately to all this "hate your neighbor" stuff. Like Tailgunner Joe, he is a bit of an unlikely candidate because of his Scotch-Irish Catholic background. Normally, Scotch-Irish folks contribute greater numbers to the intolerant Presbyterian or Baptist efforts. Poor Pat can't even get this part right. He doesn't realize that something really got fouled up in his heritage to allow him to come out as a Scotch Irish Catholic. At least he got the inferiority complex down right.
You see, Pat, who loves to denigrate people who says they are victims, turns around to say that he and his followers are victims, too. Victims of wishy-washy country club Republicans, victims of tax-and-spend Democrats, victims of all-too-powerful affirmative action Blacks and Chicanos in the roles of government bureaucrats.
Pat needs to get right with his Know Nothing-Populist-KKK-America-First-McCarthyite roots. The fact is, he can't have it both ways. He can't be tired of people claiming they're victims when he proclaims himself to be a victim. He can't claim the support of Union rank-and-file when what he wants to do is to destroy what few jobs they have left by cutting off foreign trade. He can't be a Catholic anti-abortion candidate when he states positions which have always been held by people who hate Catholics.
What happens to a political operative who tries to whip up "1,000% Americanism" by saying that anything foreign is dangerous to our health? They self-destruct‹like Millard Fillmore...like the 1890s Populists...like the America Firsters...like Joe McCarthy.
The problem is‹and was‹there is too great a time lag between the spouting of their messages of hate and the inevitable self-destruction. What happens is that too many people get sucked in to a message that has elements that appeal to them‹without thinking about the whole enchilada. If we followed Pat Buchanan's Nativist-Populist platform, we wouldn't be able to trust our neighbors, let alone our enemies. They'd all be our enemies‹for one reason or another. Pat would have us believe that Liberals/Blacks/Pro-Choice folks/Socialists/Feminists/Gays/and all foreigners are our enemies. Since the groups he places in the "bad list" clearly amount to a majority of the people in this nation if you put them altogether, Pat finds himself in a minority position‹even among the Republicans.
What Pat Buchanan stands for is the division of America into "us" and "them." Maybe this works if you're a militia freak, but most of us normal folks find ourselves in the "them" rather than the "us" category. Usually, this means the smaller group and its leader will wither away and self-destruct. After all, we haven't had a dictatorship in America‹yet!

Sam Jungle is the soon-to-be-fifty-year-old father of Chris Jungle. We hear he's got degrees up the wazoo. We assume this is why Chris is so strange.