Pat Buchanan

White House Communications Director (1985-1987) · Speechwriter and adviser to Richard Nixon · Candidate for the Republican presidential nomination (1992, 1996) · Reform Party presidential nominee (2000) · Political commentator and co-founder of The American Conservative

Conservative commentator and three-time presidential candidate whose mix of immigration restriction, trade protectionism, non-intervention and social traditionalism is known as paleoconservatism.

Position
Solid, past the ring: second pole
Short, inside the ring: first pole
Balanced

★ Pat Buchanan on 12 axes

Share of each pole

Economy

Equality / Markets

OwnershipModerate: Private
25%75%
PublicPrivate
MarketsMild: Free
35%65%
PlannedFree
WelfareModerate: Self-reliant
30%70%
SharedSelf-reliant

State and liberty

Liberty / Authority

AuthorityNo clear record
DemocraticStrong leader
SecurityModerate: Order
23%77%
LibertyOrder
StructureModerate: Local
68%32%
LocalCentral

Society

Progress / Tradition

MoralityStrong: Traditional
8%92%
ProgressiveTraditional
ReligionStrong: Religious
15%85%
SecularReligious
TechnologyNo clear record
EmbraceCaution
CultureStrong: National identity
5%95%
MulticulturalNational identity

World

Global / Nation

TradeStrong: Protected
8%92%
GlobalProtected
Foreign policyMild: Strength
40%60%
CooperationStrength

How we placed it

Judgment calls

Positions summarize typical stances from primary sources and reference works. Where an axis is genuinely contested, the reasoning is below.

Markets: Favored tax cuts and abolishing several federal departments, but his economic nationalism and opposition to free trade and outsourcing pull him toward the middle.
Authority: No clear documented position on executive power versus democratic checks in the sources consulted; left null.
Security: Took law-and-order positions, as in his 1992 call to 'take back our cities' after the Los Angeles riots and his 1989 call for harsh punishment in the Central Park jogger case.
Technology: No documented view on technology regulation.
Foreign policy: Opposed the Iraq war and foreign interventions but put national sovereignty first and proposed leaving the UN, so the strength and non-intervention readings partly offset.

2 axes are marked as no clear record: there is no reasonable basis to place Pat Buchanan there, so matching leaves them out.

Who is Pat Buchanan?

Pat Buchanan (born 1938) is a retired American writer, commentator and political adviser from Washington, D.C. After studying at Georgetown and Columbia, he was an aide and speechwriter for Richard Nixon and later White House Communications Director under Ronald Reagan. He became a television commentator on programs such as Crossfire and The McLaughlin Group. He challenged President George H. W. Bush for the 1992 Republican nomination, won the 1996 New Hampshire primary against Bob Dole and was the Reform Party's nominee in 2000, receiving about 0.4 percent of the vote. He co-founded The American Conservative in 2002 and retired from his column in 2023.

Political views

Described in his 1992 convention speech a 'cultural war' over abortion, gay rights, religious schools and women in combat.
Source: presidency.ucsb.edu
Opposes abortion and called for voluntary prayer in public schools and against legal recognition of same-sex couples equal to marriage.
Source: presidency.ucsb.edu
Advocates economic nationalism and opposes free trade agreements and outsourcing.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Calls for sharply reducing immigration and opposes multiculturalism, themes of his books The Death of the West and State of Emergency.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Opposed the Iraq war and argued for non-intervention and bringing troops home.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Proposed in 2000 withdrawing from the United Nations, abolishing the IRS and ending capital gains and inheritance taxes and affirmative action.
Source: en.wikipedia.org

Legacy

Supporters see Buchanan as an early voice for positions on trade, immigration and foreign wars that later moved into the Republican mainstream, and many commentators note that Donald Trump ran in 2016 on themes he had championed decades earlier. Critics regard his views on immigration and culture as nativist. William F. Buckley Jr. wrote in 1991 that he found it impossible to defend Buchanan against charges of antisemitism, though he did not call him an antisemite, and the Anti-Defamation League called him an 'unrepentant bigot'. MSNBC suspended him in 2011 over his book Suicide of a Superpower, and his contract ended in 2012.

In their words

There is a religious war going on in this country. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we shall be as the Cold War itself.

Address to the Republican National Convention, Houston, 1992

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FAQ

Pat Buchanan: questions

What is paleoconservatism?

Paleoconservatism is a strand of American conservatism stressing national sovereignty, restricted immigration, trade protection, non-intervention abroad and traditional social values. Buchanan is its best-known political figure.

What was Pat Buchanan's 'culture war' speech?

At the 1992 Republican National Convention, after losing the nomination to George H. W. Bush, he endorsed Bush and described a religious and cultural war for the soul of America over issues such as abortion and gay rights.

Did Pat Buchanan run for president?

Yes, three times. He sought the Republican nomination in 1992 and 1996, winning the 1996 New Hampshire primary, and ran as the Reform Party nominee in 2000.

Sources

Image credits

Portrait of Pat Buchanan: Patrickjbuchanan.JPG by Bbsrock, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped, converted to grayscale and printed as a halftone by politicaltests.org; the halftone version is licensed CC BY-SA 3.0.

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