Trump Is Just Pat Buchanan with Better Timing

Jeff Greenfield: “There’s a dose of Ross Perot, the billionaire businessman who declared himself free from the taint of elective politics. There’s the anti-elitist scorn of George Wallace, not to mention several spoonfuls of Wallace’s racial and ethnic resentment. There’s the rallying of the forgotten captured by Louisiana’s Huey Long back in the 1930s.”

“But to a remarkable extent, just about all of the themes of Trump’s campaign can be found in Buchanan’s insurgent primary run a quarter-century ago: the grievances, legitimate and otherwise; the dark portrait of a nation whose culture and sovereignty are threatened from without and within; the sense that the elites of both parties have turned their backs on hard-working loyal, traditional Americans. The limits of that campaign—and the success of Trump’s, in seizing the nomination of a major political party—are a measure of just how much our politics have changed in the past 25 years.”