The GOP Is Pat Buchanan’s Party Now
Politics tamfitronics J.D. Vance’s RNC speech signified a return to the blood-and-soil politics at the core of Buchanan’s failed presidential runs in the 1990s.Republican presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan campaigns in Lafayette, Louisiana, in 1995.(Eric Draper / AP Photo)Lionel Trilling’s description of American conservatism as an assortment of “irritable mental gestures” has long seemed like a perfect fit for Trumpism, which often proved in practice to be a motley collection of personal grievances, culture-war outbursts, and persecution complexes. Even within this basic template, though, the core ideology of the MAGA movement has shifted in significant ways. In 2016, Donald Trump was still at odds with much of the GOP establishment, and keen to come across, at least in key isolated contexts, as a team player; by 2020, Covid had him backed into a corner. But as...
