The following is an interview with Patrick J. Buchanan, the Editor of the American Conservative and the host of “Buchanan and Press” on MSNBC. He also writes a nationally syndicated column. He has served as an advisor to Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan and has run for president three times. In the 1990s, Buchanan became an outspoken apologist for the Old Right, calling for a return to an “America First” foreign policy, a revival of economic nationalism, and restriction of immigration. He has written six books, including Right from the Beginning, The Great Betrayal, A Republic, Not an Empire, and most recently, The Death of the West.
Beale: Your latest book, The Death of the West, was a national best-seller, could you summarize your thesis?
Buchanan: The West is dying in every possible way. Not a single Western nation has a birth rate able to sustain its population. Many have maxed out—many have already begun to die. Russia is losing one million people a year. I see no turn around. If Western nations include New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, their percentage of the world population was 30 percent in 1950, 20 percent in 1960, 16 percent today, and 10 percent in 2050. The median age will be 51, which is ten years older than today. The question is—what are the reasons for it and the consequences of it. The principle reason is the loss of faith. It is dead in Europe; it is dying in the United States. Alexander Solzhenitzyn said that when faith dies, the nation dies.
Beale: Is The Death of the West inevitable? Can it be avoided?
Buchanan: Can it be averted? It is going to continue. It has been going on for twenty years. Birth rates have been falling below replacement levels. The question is—what replaces it? In Europe it is an Islamic immigrant population to sustain pension levels. The United States is going to be a country of minorities. It is hard to see how these trends can be averted.
Beale: Regarding current events, what is your opinion of the recent Supreme Court decision on the Texas sodomy law?
Buchanan: My view on this issue is that the Supreme Court is usurping powers that do not belong to it. There is no Constitutional right to sodomy. It has always been a state issue. It’s an example of the Supreme Court imposing a sexual revolution on the country.
Beale: In his dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas strongly disagreed with the majority’s opinion; however, he also said that he thought the Texas law was silly. If the sodomy law was on the state ballot, and you lived in Texas, would you vote for it?
Buchanan: Well, the Justice has a good point. The state should take a stand against homosexuality, saying that it is wrong, but the idea of police going into people’s homes is just not going to work. Bath houses should be shut down for public health reasons, but I agree with Justice Thomas that police have more important things to do.
Beale: Continuing with current events, in the current issue of the Atlantic Monthly you have an article addressing the question as to whether President Bush is unbeatable. You wrote that article a couple of months ago—has your opinion changed since then?
Buchanan: Bush is more vulnerable today than he was two months ago. The loss of manufacturing jobs is more acute and Iraq is shaping up to be a catastrophe. He is still the odds-on favorite candidate to win. The Democrats have no candidate with sharp disagreement and with appeal on issues of national security.
Beale: Who do you think is going to win the Democratic nomination?
Buchanan: My guess would be Howard Dean—and as for the non-Dean candidates, Kerry is fading, Liebermann has no traction, and Gephardt is not running strongly. The Democratic establishment will move to Gephardt as their fall-back. Dean has the passion and the momentum. Today, he would win New Hampshire and Iowa. No one who has won New Hampshire and Iowa ever lost the nomination. . . . We won New Hampshire, but were in a dead heat in Iowa. Dole started out much stronger than us. The Republican establishment rallied around Dole.
Beale: What do you think about Alabama Judge Roy Moore? You recently had him on your MSNBC show.
Buchanan: I think that he did the right thing. Somebody has got to define the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction. The state Supreme Court Justice made a sovereign decision. Judge Moore was not trying to establish a religion. He was not trying to impose his religion on others.
Beale: An equally controversial issue is immigration. What problems are caused by immigration?
Buchanan: The problem is that we are ceasing to become a country. We are becoming a global mall. In economic terms, look at California. Immigration has led to an exodus of taxpayers and an influx of tax-consumers. California today is what America will be tomorrow. We are losing our national cohesion. There are nine million people in the Los Angeles area—five million of them do not speak English as the primary language in their home. It has already happened to the Soviet Union. Yugoslavia split into six countries. These are secessions along the lines of culture, language, and religion. The forces of unity are weaker than these centrifugal forces.
Beale: Some of your critics accuse you of espousing an identity politics for white people. What is your response?
Buchanan: I don’t espouse an identity politics for white people. My position on immigration is designed to prevent that from happening. It will happen if whites become a minority.
Beale: Your name is constantly invoked in discussions of the neo-paleoconservative feud. How would you describe yourself? Would you call yourself a “paleoconservative”?
Buchanan: Well, I am clearly old right. The neoconservatives are newcomers. They are for big government, they are globalist, and they are often agnostic on issues like abortion and gay rights. Our cause was anti-Communism. We believe in the wisdom of the Founding Fathers. We favor history over ideology. Our values and beliefs are rooted in faith and tradition. The neoconservatives are anti-Communist liberals who came into the movement when Reagan came into power. Their effort to redefine conservatism will fail.
Beale: Why will they fail?
Buchanan: Their Wilsonian foreign policy will fail. It is already failing in Iraq. You cannot create a new empire. Big government is anti-conservative and it just doesn’t work. In D.C., they are spending $10,000 per pupil and test scores are far below national averages. It will fail like the Great Society.
Beale: Moving to a different topic, what would you say is the relationship between your Catholicism and your conservatism?
Buchanan: Some of my social views are close to papal encyclicals. My Catholic beliefs on natural law support a moral right and wrong. A good and decent society will build itself on these principles and ideas. They are similar to what the Founding Fathers believed. I believe in the existence of the soul—and this is why human beings have innate dignity. My Catholicism is interwoven with my conservatism. You cannot separate them. The one is interwoven with the other like blood and the body.
Beale: Following the 2000 elections you have written a best-selling book, started a new show, and have a new magazine. What’s next?
Buchanan: I like writing books. Maybe if I run again I can start another new magazine. . . . The causes we fought for in the 1990s—an America First, non-interventionist, anti-imperialist foreign policy, relentless opposition to globalism, a belief in national sovereignty and control of our borders, and preservation of traditional morals—these are the issues of the future. Many of the problems Bush has are because he took the wrong side on these issues.
Beale: So what would you tell your supporters—the Buchanan Brigades? Who should they vote for in 2004?
Buchanan: I would tell them to vote their conscience. I can’t say right now either candidate—Democratic or Republican—will be indispensable to our cause.
Beale: You have repeatedly said that you have served three tours of duty as a presidential candidate and that you don’t want to run again. Are you running again?
Buchanan: In what party? We drove the last vehicle we had into a canal.
