In 1992 Pat Buchanan made a campaign stop at the San Diego-Tijuana border where he called for the US to build a 200 mile physical boundary between the US and Mexico. At the time Buchanan was seeking the Republican nomination for the presidency. Buchanan and his politics seemed to be on the verge of being drummed out of the GOP because his hostility to free trade and NATO and his extremist proposals on immigration as well as his list of woes against cultural decline marked him as an outlier.
Three decades later, Buchanan's ideas may still seem fringe, but there are no longer marginal. Donald Trump's version of those views shows no sign of flaming out. Is this ethnographic-nationalism and pugnacious stance toward cultural 'elites' going to be the signature of the Republican Party from now on? If so, what happened? Not all that long ago the GOP was the party of big business, free markets, 'traditional' family values and anti-communism.
If you are interested in the evolution of conservatism, looking at the tensions within conservatism long before Donald Trump's emergence will draw you to this SDG. We will see why the current incarnation of conservatism of the GOP should not come as a surprise. The flip side - the drama of salvaging the Republican Party as the party of conservatives will also balance our discussions.
