Is Pat Buchanan a neocon?

[Person Man]

No, he's a paleocon.

[Bono]

Maybe I don't know my Paleos that well.  I get befuddled because it seems there are paleos who are very pro Israel (wouldn't Reagan, Bush Senior and Howard Baker be considered Paleo cons?) and virulently anti-union? 

Nope.

None of those are paleo-cons. Bush and Baker were moderate 'establishment' Republicans. Reagan was sort of all over the place but mostly a mix of theo and neo-con just like Bush the lesser. The last time we had a paleo-con as President was when Hoover was in the White House.

Do you actually know anything about what Hoover did? Hoover was, to begin with, from the 'progressive' of the GOP, and was the first Keynesian president. Most of the New Deal was built on what Hoover had already done. Coolidge was much more paleo-con than him, though Coolidge had a greater libertarian streak than most paleo-cons.

[Daniel Adams]

Maybe I don't know my Paleos that well.  I get befuddled because it seems there are paleos who are very pro Israel (wouldn't Reagan, Bush Senior and Howard Baker be considered Paleo cons?) and virulently anti-union? 

Nope.

None of those are paleo-cons. Bush and Baker were moderate 'establishment' Republicans. Reagan was sort of all over the place but mostly a mix of theo and neo-con just like Bush the lesser. The last time we had a paleo-con as President was when Hoover was in the White House.

Do you actually know anything about what Hoover did? Hoover was, to begin with, from the 'progressive' of the GOP, and was the first Keynesian president. Most of the New Deal was built on what Hoover had already done. Coolidge was much more paleo-con than him, though Coolidge had a greater libertarian streak than most paleo-cons.

And yet even Coolidge is not a real "paleo-con", since he supported US participation in the League of Nations and the idea of an international court.

"Paleoconservatism" is a misnomer because it is in fact quite a recent invention, dating back no further than the 1990s. To quote David Frum, paleoconservatism is like the "red-brick neo-Gothic churches you find in the older suburbs of English industrial towns: discordant elements hastily thrown together to create a false appearance of tradition in a time of rapid change". The extremist isolationism of paleocons like Buchanan and even Ron Paul bears little resemblance to the thinking of the members of the Old Right they claim to derive their ideas from. The foreign policy of the paleocons is closer to the thinking of McGovern than that of the pre-World War II Republicans.

[Albus Dumbledore]

No.  How about next time you disagree with someone, you say so once IN THAT THREAD.  No one else cares, has ever cared, or ever will care about you finding someone who said something wrong.

This is BRTD, Fezzy.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Buchanan isn't a neocon, obviously. He's just a fascist. Or perhaps a Nazi. He does seem to have a soft spot for Hitler and all that.

[DownWithTheLeft]

No, real conservative at its finest

[Albus Dumbledore]

Buchanan isn't a neocon, obviously. He's just a fascist. Or perhaps a Nazi. He does seem to have a soft spot for Hitler and all that.

Paleocons =/= fascist. Neocons are closer to fascism but I will admit he's a nazi-symp.

[Daniel Adams]

Buchanan isn't a neocon, obviously. He's just a fascist. Or perhaps a Nazi. He does seem to have a soft spot for Hitler and all that.

Paleocons =/= fascist. Neocons are closer to fascism but I will admit he's a nazi-symp.

LOL. The paleocons are the ones that constantly spew racist, anti-Semitic, and xenophobic garbage. They aren't fascists of course but they certainly are closer to that ideology than the neoconservatives.

[Albus Dumbledore]

Neocons are militaristic, nationalistic and pro-american foreign policy dominance while Paleocons stress small government, xenophobia and isolationism. Not really seeing links between paleocons/fascists.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

They aren't fascists of course

What are they if not fascists [qm]. It's not as though fascist parties in Europe use that name anymore themselves; the War and the Holocaust did discredit it a tad.

[Albus Dumbledore]

Paleocons are old-line reactionaries. Not every raving xenophobe is the second coming of fascism.

[jokerman]

They aren't fascists of course

What are they if not fascists [qm]. It's not as though fascist parties in Europe use that name anymore themselves; the War and the Holocaust did discredit it a tad.

In terms of ideological similarity, yes, it's quite easy to decribe paleoconservatism as a much milder version of fascism, but does that mean fascism is merely an extreme version of paleoconservatism?  No, I wouldn't say so.  In terms of actual political evolution, the two are quite distinct.  Fascism (and I'm talking about the Italian and especially German varieties) is a product more of the revolutionary psychology that also produced Communism.  It is not merely a respone to progressivism, but also partly a product of it.

[Daniel Adams]

Neocons are militaristic, nationalistic and pro-american foreign policy dominance while Paleocons stress small government, xenophobia and isolationism. Not really seeing links between paleocons/fascists.

Neither are fascists as I said in my previous post. However, I'd argue paleocons are much closer to fascism than neocons. The neoconservative position stresses an aggressive foreign policy not for conquest but to spread democracy. No neocon I know has ever favored Manifest Destiny-type imperalism (annexation of other nations).

Paleocons, on the other hand, share with fascists an extreme nativism which includes hatred of other races (in the paleocon's case, blacks and Jews). Belief in the supremacy of their race or countrymen is a core belief shared by both fascists and paleocons. Both are also very suspcious of free market capitalism when it doesn't fit their nationalistic ideas. Neocons are strong supporters of capitalism.

And remember it is paleocons like Buchanan who go around meeting with actual fascists and neo-Nazis. He was on "The Political Cesspool" to promote his latest book, a radio show whose stated mission is to "represent a philosophy that is pro-White". He is also sympathetic with several members of the European far-right, such as Filip Dewinter of Vlaams Belang.

[Albus Dumbledore]

One can be a xenophobe and not be a fascist. Buchanan wants to return to a past era as opposed to fascists who want to make a utopia of volk, god and fuhrer so he's not a fascist. Buchanan is chummy with neo-nazis because, like him they hate brown peolpe NOT because he's a nazi.

[Daniel Adams]

One can be a xenophobe and not be a fascist. Buchanan wants to return to a past era as opposed to fascists who want to make a utopia of volk, god and fuhrer so he's not a fascist. Buchanan is chummy with neo-nazis because, like him they hate brown peolpe NOT because he's a nazi.

Actually, the fascists are also obsessed with past eras, the golden ages of their nations. They want to return their nations to their supposed past glories: Hitler and the Nazis with their First and Second Reichs (the Holy Roman Empire and the Bismarck era respectively), Mussolini and the Roman Empire, Franco and the 16th century Spanish Empire, and so on.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Last time I checked Fascism included wanting to impose totalitarian measures. Buchanan is crazy but AFAIK doesn't want to set up those type of controls.

[Daniel Adams]

Last time I checked Fascism included wanting to impose totalitarian measures. Buchanan is crazy but AFAIK doesn't want to set up those type of controls.

True, which is why I do not think Buchanan and the paleocons are actual fascists. I do contend, however, that paleoconservatism is much closer ideologically to fascism than neoconservatism.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Paleoconservatism is basically fascism without the imperialism and hatred of civil liberties...which are the two worst aspects of fascism. Neoconservatism is basically the worst parts of every ideology thrown together into one awful awful mess. Neoconservatism is basically what I would see as the result of some academic experiment where you get a liberal and conservative academic to sit together and ask them to design the worst possible ideology that is based on the beliefs of both (even if the results aren't desired by either.) It's that bad.

[Brandon H]

Part of what BRTD says is correct. The Neoconservatives are the ones with the interventionist foreign policy and the ones attacking personal freedoms with things like the USA PATRIOT Act and warrantless wiretaps, just to name a few things. The attack on personal freedom is a very big element of Fascism. Paleoconservatives aren't the ones attacking personal freedoms.

[Eraserhead]

Did someone claim he was?

benconstine cited him (and Reagan, who left office before neoconservatism was even a developed established ideology) as examples of non-Jewish neocons.

Why do you the the need pwn the kid that didn't know the UK existed in 1945? There really isn't any point to this.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Pat Buchanan is a liberal.