Buchanan’s custom after campaigns is to retreat to his study and write books. His last one, “A Republic, Not An Empire,” was an argument for neo-isolationism that argued in passing that England should not have made war on Nazi Germany. I vowed then to forevermore call him, “Crackpot Pat” and have had little reason to reconsider that judgment.
But Buchanan’s new book, “The Death of the West,” now a best-seller in the United States, almost got me feeling a little sorry for the old brawler. “The death of the West is not a prediction of what is going to happen, it is a depiction of what is happening now,” he writes. The chances of the inexorable and, to his mind, execrable tide of history being reversed are “not good.” The book has the feel of a reactionary valedictory. It’s Pat’s way of saying that the culture war is over, and his side lost.
STRIKING A NERVE
But before everyone to the left of him celebrates too much, let’s give the man his due. Amid scores of silly and even destructive ideas, Buchanan outlines a powerful demographic truth that helps explain why the book has struck a nerve, at least among those conservatives who currently dominate book-buying in the United States.
Actually, the argument that conservatism has been defeated is more than a little peculiar now, with a conservative Republican at 80-plus percent in the polls and Buchanan’s one of five of the top ten books on The New York Times Best Sellers list written by identifiable conservatives (none by identifiable liberals).
But the larger point is valid. “Europe has begun to die,” Buchanan writes without exaggeration, pointing out that of the 20 nations with the lowest birthrates, 18 are in Europe. In 1960, people of European ancestry were one-fourth of the world’s population; in 2000, one-sixth; in 2050, they will be one-tenth. If present birth rates continue (a big “if” Buchanan doesn’t focus on), Italy will lose nearly a third of its population in 50 years. Germany and Spain will each lose a quarter of their people. California and the southwestern United States will be largely Hispanic.
‘COMMITTING SUICIDE’
Buchanan’s explanations aren’t so far off either. Wealth makes children less necessary as insurance against need. Abortion and contraception have reduced the size of the developed world. Thirst for la dolce vita trumps family values. The result is that Europe is quite simply “committing suicide.”
Buchanan quotes the great historian Will Durant: “How did Rome reduce its population? Though branded a crime, infanticide flourished. Sexual excess may have reduced human fertility; the avoidance or deferment of marriage had a like effect.”
Raising these issues is helpful, especially in reminding readers that civilizations come and go more easily than they might assume. The problem comes when Buchanan confronts what to do about it. He favors a worldwide Christian revival to return humanity to his golden age, the 1950s. Instead of figuring out ways to accomodate the future and build multi-racial societies - perhaps the single greatest challenge of the new century - he counsels fear and resistance. Immigration, usually a great source of economic dynamism, is depicted here as a scourge. Unless the immigrants happen to be white.
RIGHT AND WRONG
Many of his blasts at political correctness are fun and even well-aimed, but Buchanan is simply wrong much of the time. He says, “China’s population swells inexorably.” In fact, projections are that it will grow by less than five percent by 2050. Writing after September 11, he notes that what he calls “the new faith” (in materialism) is “skeptical of patriotism.” Huh?
And this: “Americans are almost as divided as we were when General Beauregard gave the order to fire on Fort Sumter.” Come out of your study, Pat. Check out all of the American flags.
Maybe they wouldn’t cheer him up. The old supernationalist seems to have lost faith in America: “Though she remains a great country, many wonder if she is still a good country. Some feel she is no longer their country.” Buchanan among them, as he explains with his tiresome analysis of how everything has gone wrong since 1960s radicals like Hillary Clinton took over.
Buchanan and his wife Shelley have no children, for reasons he has always refused to explain. Fine. It’s his business. But his assumption that no one else in the United States wants children is strange, especially since the population figures don’t bear him out. He cites 30-year-old anti-marriage feminist tracts that had little impact then, and less now. He quotes Gloria Steinem attacking marriage 30 years ago, and neglects to mention she’s now married.
“Who is going to convert American women to wanting what their mothers wanted and grandmothers prayed for: a good man, a home in the suburbs and a passel of kids? Sounds almost quaint,” Buchanan writes. Except for the passel part (two isn’t a passel) this remains precisely what most American women still want, along with a good job.
The institution of marriage is in some trouble, but Buchanan must have missed all of those stories about the new baby boom. Even more strange, the book is full of laments about the death of God in America. Did he miss the new boom in religious observance?
If nothing else, the months since September 11 suggest that reports of the death of Western civilization have been greatly exaggerated. When our lives are threatened, we will fight back. Together. Buchanan believes that the world of our fathers is gone forever, the victim of malign forces like Marxism and multiculturalism. But it turns out many of the values whose disappearance Buchanan lamented were there all the time, just waiting to re-emerge when we needed them most.
