Robert Farley responds to my criticism of Pat Buchanan:
White America, as the construct exists in the mind of many Americans, is disappearing, even by some objective criteria; it's retreating deeper into exurban communities, and it's very, very slowly ceding political and financial power. Moreover, the idea of America is changing; Buchanan has a very definite vision of what America is, and is smart enough to understand that his vision is losing traction. In this context, it's hardly surprising that the response is a combination of rage and raw panic. That the ideological structure that supports White America is racist and has a disturbing narrative of American history is academically relevant, but it's also not the central point. Those who hold Buchanan's vision (and many do, although often not in terms as explicit as Pat is willing to put forth) really do find themselves under siege, and pointing out that these beliefs are both crazy and immoral has very limited effect.
And so I don't really begrudge Pat the platform to make this argument. Rather, I think that it helps to clarify the source and meaning of much of the rage on the right, especially coming as it does from a longterm advocate of movement conservatism. It's altogether more readable and interesting than most of what rolls down from the Weekly Standard or the National Review, in any case.
Farley puts this a lot more elegantly than I did, but these were some of the very reasons why I argued, and continue to believe, that Buchanan should not be fired from MSNBC.
-- A. Serwer
