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Why I voted for Pat Buchanan by Eyal Perlson |
Most people vote for a candidate because they agree with his positions or, more commonly, because they view him as "the lesser of two evils." At the very least they choose their candidate because his policies will not threaten their life, liberty, and livelihood. I do not subscribe to this opinion. A vote is the most powerful weapon we have in a democracy, short of good cash flow. Those of us who still want to implement change must recognize the importance of voting, and voting smart. This can mean voting for a marginal candidate you do not support, if he can send a right and absent message to the political establishment. As a Jew, atheist, and immigrant, I have little to gain if Buchanan is elected and much to lose. But occasionally we must rise above our personal interests and think of the greater good.
Of course, I say this knowing full well that Buchanan will not be elected president. He will not even win the Republican nomination (Bob Dole has already shored up enough delegates).
At first I planned to vote for Buchanan in order to sabotage the Republican party. My hope was that if Buchanan won the nomination he would push the party so far to the right that Democrats would be virtually assured of victory in November. Or, if he lost, that his successful showing at the primaries would create a rift in the party that would not heal after the convention, leading the Republicans to defeat, and creating a backlash that would discredit them for decades. This is exactly what happened in 1964 when Barry Goldwater ran for president.
But as the Connecticut primary neared, I grew more fond of Pat. I enjoyed his rhetoric. The frontier spirit of his war cry; "Don’t wait for orders from headquarters. Mount up and ride to the sound of the guns!" sent a warm chill down my spine. I appreciated his brutal honesty; while Bob Dole displayed his war wounds and Steve Forbes made an even bigger ass of himself, Buchanan spoke about specific problems and offered solutions, however unsavory. But most importantly, I recognized him as the only voice for the working class in this election.
Much has been made of the Democratic party’s shift to the right under Clinton since the ‘92 election. Whatever this signifies about the party or America, one thing is clear: part of this rightward movement has been the abandonment of the working class. This may have been inevitable, since droves of white working-class men and women (especially in the South) have been abandoning the Democratic party over the past twenty years. Some, like Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice, claim that the party has been responsible for this, since it has paid too much attention to social issues affecting women and minorities in an academic and elitist fashion that has turned off even members of these groups. It has certainly repelled more socially conservative working men and women.
The Buchanan candidacy indicates where they have gone. Ignored by both parties, they have sent a strong message to the mainstream, demanding that their concerns and fears be addressed. They are weary of growing income inequality in the US (currently the highest among industrialized nations), hurt by the continuing decline in real wages (over 10% for blue-collar workers in the past ten years), and unsure about their jobs and the future. Buchanan has addressed these problems, and that is why he is their man.
Of course, his solutions are all wrong. Not only are they draconic, but they would not improve the economic outlook for the working class. Immigrants have only slightly depressed working-class wages, and, according to Time, the large influx of low-skilled women into the job market over the past twenty years has had a much greater impact. Higher tariffs would raise the prices of consumer goods, hurting workers in their pocket-books, and possibly triggering a trade war that would lower exports and eliminate jobs in that sector.
Buchanan likes to say that he is a populist, and he is right in at least one respect: he is a master of demagoguery. In addition to immigrants, he blames feminists, homosexuals, and atheists for America’s problems, even though he knows full well that it is the economy, stupid. (This is a favorite ploy of the right.) He attacks Wall Street bankers (especially Jewish ones) knowing that Wall Street is inevitable in a capitalist society, but does not attack the capitalist system itself. He complains about greedy corporations downsizing, yet he has stood behind Republicans as they have unraveled the safety net.
The fact is, the greatest cause of the plight of the working-class is not immigrants, free-trade, or even greedy corporations. It is technological change. Fewer low-skill jobs are necessary and this trend will continue. Like a crew fleeing a sinking ship, both parties have abandoned these people, letting them fend for themselves in the murky waters. They have gone where the money and power is, to the burgeoning suburban upper middle-class.
If efficiency and economic growth are laudable goals (and I believe they are), they must be pursued with conscience, bearing in my mind that they are not ends in themselves but must improve all people’s lives, and not just those of the rich and upper middle-class.
If working people are losing their jobs, then the government must provide retraining programs, and demand that corporations who have profited from downsizing pay a share. Education must become the first priority so that the next generation is not placed in such an awkward position, joining the ranks of the economically insecure. Clinton emphasized education constantly torwards the beginning of his term. Like everything else he emphasized, he has not delivered. Patrick Buchanan has not even spoken of these things.
Let Mr. Buchanan’s successful run serve as a warning. Unless the major parties begin addressing economic insecurity in a period of technological change, there are going to be more Buchanans snarling even louder. It is easy enough to ignore these concerns when they primarily effect the working-class, but when change catches up with the middle-class, all hell will break loose. In order to avert a disaster, mainstream politicians, and especially Democrats, should be actively stealing Buchanan’s thunder.