Tom Piatak writing in Commentary
* * *
Two years after Sam Francis’ untimely death, Michael
Brendan Dougherty wrote a long essay about Francis titled “The Castaway.”
The title came from an email Francis sent to friends
(including me) after William F. Buckley described him as one of the “castaways”
from the conservative movement. This was Francis' response to Buckley:
“As I have mentioned before, a ‘castaway’ is someone like
Robinson Crusoe who managed to save himself after the ship on which he was
traveling was wrecked . . . It is not someone cast out or away from a ship.
That is called being marooned (Ben Gunn in Treasure Island is an example, as
was Alexander Selkirk on whom Crusoe is based). The word ‘castaway’ as applied
to me by Buckley implies that the conservative movement was the ship in which I
was traveling, that it wrecked and I survived."
Earlier this week Dougherty again wrote about Francis,
this time arguing that his essay “From Household to Nation,” published in the
February 1996 issue of Chronicles, had accurately predicted the rise of a
campaign like Donald Trump’s. Many people found this persuasive, including Rush
Limbaugh, who told his listeners yesterday that Francis had indeed understood
the forces giving rise to Trump.
* SEE: USUALLY RIGHT (DOT) COM
It is hard to imagine many other political writers who
could be profitably read two decades later, much less accurately credited with
predicting events two decades later, but Sam Francis was just such a writer.
(Francis did more than predict the rise of someone like
Trump; he told attendees at the Fall 2004 meeting of the John Randolph Club
that someone named Barack Obama had a bright political future, a theme he
explored in the March 2005 issue of Chronicles).
Like so much of what Francis wrote, “From Household to
Nation” seems as fresh today as when it was written. In it, Sam saw the
critical dividing line in American politics as running between “Middle America”
and the “Ruling Class,” with the principal issue dividing these groups being
globalization:
“As champions of the globalist Right like Jack Kemp, Phil
Gramm, Steve Forbes, Newt Gingrich, Ben Wattenberg, George Gilder, Robert
Bartley, Julian Simon, and George Will never tire of explaining, globalization
means the disappearance of nationality, of cultures closely linked to national
identity, probably of national sovereignty itself, and even of the distinctive
populations of which nations are composed. By signing on to globalization,
then, the right has effectively metamorphosed itself into the left and
forfeited the sole grounds of its appeal to the nationalism and social and
cultural conservatism that continue to animate Middle Americans.”
Nationalism continues to animate Middle Americans today,
which is why Trump’s criticisms of foreign trade and immigration and his pledge
to “Make America Great Again” have proven so potent.
Pitted against these paladins of globalism in 1996 was
Pat Buchanan, whose “protectionism . . . follows from his economic nationalism,
reflecting the economic interests and identity of the nation, just as a defense
and foreign policy follows from his political nationalism, reflecting the
political interests and identity of the nation. So, for that matter, does his
support for curtailing through a five-year moratorium, all immigration, legal
as well as illegal.”
Francis did not predict that Buchanan would win the
Republican nomination, but what he did predict makes startling reading today:
“If Buchanan loses the nomination, it will be because his
time has not yet come, but the social and political forces on which both his
campaigns have been based will not disappear, and even if he does lose, he will
have won a place in history as an architect of the victory those forces will
eventually build.”
Francis also recounted the advice he gave to Buchanan
before the 1992 New Hampshire primary, advice reflecting the same view of the
conservative movement Francis expressed in the “castaway" email cited by
Dougherty:
“I told Buchanan privately that he would be better off without all
the hangers-on, direct-mail artists, fund-raising whiz kids, marketing and public
relations czars, and the rest of the crew that today constitutes the backbone
of all that remains of the famous 'Conservative Movement' and who never fail to
show up on the campaign doorstep to guzzle someone else's liquor and pocket
other people's money. 'These people are defunct,' I told him. 'You don’t need
them, and you're better off without them.
Go to New Hampshire and call yourself a patriot, a nationalist, an
America Firster, but don't even use the word ‘conservative.' It doesn't mean
anything anymore.’”
* YEP! BINGO! THIS IS WHAT I KEEP SAYING! THE WORD
"CONSERVATIVE" IS MEANINGLESS ABSENT CONTEXT!
If it proves nothing else, this year’s campaign does
vindicate Francis’ dim view of organized conservatism.
The grandees "of all that remains of the famous
‘Conservative Movement" have issued numerous ineffectual fusillades
against Trump. Those grandees include some of the globalists cited by Francis
in 1996, such as George Will, and their disciples, such as Jonah Goldberg,
former intern to Ben Wattenberg, and Paul Ryan, former intern to Jack Kemp.
During the entire time Trump has been denounced by the
likes of Will and Goldberg, he has continued to rise in the polls.
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