Suicide of a Superpower
Will America Survive to 2025?
by Pat Buchanan


(Click for Amazon book review)

OnTheIssues.org BOOK REVIEW:

I love Pat Buchanan because he's loudly explicit about his views, unlike most politicians. But yikes, this book makes me cringe in chapter after chapter because he sounds so racist. Buchanan is careful never to say anything blatantly racist, but the undertone is… well, it's racist. Buchanan's thesis is that America is committing suicide because white Christians are not keeping up with the population increase of non-white non-Christian Americans, and that applies to other countries in the West (meaning mostly Europe, but also Japan).

Buchanan's purpose in writing the book is encapsulated in his opening statement: "What happened to the country we grew up in?" (p. vii). Conservatives have been pining for the 1950s for decades now, but Buchanan makes it clear that the aspect of the 1950s that he prefers was the white majority. Buchanan says America chose "replacement of her departing native born with millions of immigrants" (p. 169). So much so that we will become "a Third World America" (p. 236), meaning most of those immigrants come from non-European countries. Which means the white population is declining, which Buchanan calls "suicide."

Buchanan's "suicide" analysis is interesting if one sets aside the racist undertones. Evidently John Adams predicted in the 1700s that "There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide" (p. 43). Buchanan claims that Western civilization is committing demographic suicide--because "not one post-Christian nation has a birth rate sufficient to keep it alive" (p. 86). Buchanan extends the purely demographic argument to the social argument: "The drive to de-Christianize America, to purge Christianity from the public square, from public schools, and from public life, will prove culturally and socially suicidal for the nation" (p. 67).

On the racist undertones, each new chapter made me cringe a little more, and be a little less able to justify that Buchanan was just undertaking a reasonable political analysis. He cites Abraham Lincoln as a racist: "I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor to intermarry with white people," said Pres. Lincoln in 1858 (p. 198). But that was 1858, I could justify, and Buchanan was only demonstrating historical context. Then he cites Jimmy Carter as a racist: "ethnic purity… is a natural inclination on the part of people," said Pres. Carter in 1976 (p. 227). But that was 1976, I could justify, and Buchanan was only demonstrating that the opposing party does it too. Buchanan goes on dozens of times to cite how racist others are--including citing several pro-eugenics books with titles like "The Rise of the Colored Empires" (p. 123) and "The Passing of the Great Race" (p.124), and I could come up with no justification any more.

Buchanan's one saving grace is that he's a Catholic, and recognizes that Catholics have also been victims of racism. (He also decries that Catholicism is on its way to becoming a Third World religion (p. 122), meaning a non-white religion). I wish I could say I liked this book. But it made me cringe so often from racist undertone that I cringe again just writing this review. Too much on race--it makes the book unreadable for its otherwise strong content.

-- Jesse Gordon, editor-in-chief, OnTheIssues.org, October 2011

OnTheIssues.org excerpts:  (click on issues for details)

Abortion     Barack Obama: Blocked IL law: Born Alive Infant Protection Act.     Bart Stupak: Stupak Amendment: outlaw all federal funding for abortion.     Pat Buchanan: Post-Christian Europe:both abortion & insufficient birthrate.

Budget & Economy     Milton Friedman: 1920s: Federal Reserve monetary expansion caused Depression.

Civil Rights     Barack Obama: I benefited from affirmative action in my academic career.     Howard Dean: 2008 gaffe: Described Republicans as the "white party".     Jimmy Carter: Most animosity toward Obama is really racism.     Jimmy Carter: 1976: Defended ethnic enclaves formed by free association.     Joe Wilson: Apologized for shouting "You lie!" at Obama speech.     Lyndon Johnson: 1965: Shifted civil rights focus to equality of results.     Pat Buchanan: 31 states have banned gay marriage; none have approved it.     Pat Buchanan: White males bear entire burden of reverse discrimination.     Pat Buchanan: Founders believed in equality of rights, nor diversity.     Sonia Sotomayor: I'm an "affirmative action baby" at Princeton & Yale.     Tea Party: 2010: Supported two Southern blacks for House; both won.

Crime     Sonia Sotomayor: Denying vote to convicted felon violates civil rights law.

Education     Lyndon Johnson: 1965: Established Head Start; plus $200B on schooling.

Environment     Pat Buchanan: Environmentalism is yet another new religion.

Families & Children     Pat Buchanan: West is dying because children are no longer so desirable.

Foreign Policy     Pat Buchanan: Soviet Union was torn apart by ethnonationalism.     Pat Buchanan: China wins competition because US regulations don't apply.     Pat Buchanan: Islam attempts to reshape and replace the West.     Pat Buchanan: Palestinian state needed for Israel to remain Jewish state.     Pat Buchanan: China's 1-child policy results in millions of aborted girls.

Free Trade     Pat Buchanan: 19th-century free trade did not work out well for Britain.     Pat Buchanan: Detroit was forge & furnace of WWII Arsenal of Democracy.

Government Reform     Barack Obama: OpEd: 2010 federal pay freeze was all smoke and mirrors.     Jerry Brown: 2010: high civil discord threatens democracy's legitimacy.     Pat Buchanan: Foreign opinion now counts in US court.     Pat Buchanan: Dems idea of Supreme Court diversity: no white Christians.     Pat Buchanan: DC electoral vote is for Party of Government.     Pat Buchanan: 1970: Nixon should have vetoed the 18-year-old vote.     Richard Nixon: 1970: 18-year-old vote in law & then Amendment.

Health Care     Patrick Kennedy: ObamaCare: greatest advance for human rights in a generation.

Immigration     Eric Holder: Cheered Mexican president denouncing Arizona immigration law.     Janet Napolitano: Cheered Mexican president denouncing Arizona immigration law.     Pat Buchanan: White America is endangered species; Mexico is moving north.

Jobs     Robert Reich: Focus stimulus bill on minority jobs, not just white males.

Principles & Values     Barack Obama: OpEd: installed secularism as America's state religion.     Pat Buchanan: Multiculturalism & globalization is tearing America apart.     Pat Buchanan: Every culture has to be inspired by a body of morals.     Pat Buchanan: Catholicism is on its way to becoming a Third World religion.

Social Security     Pat Buchanan: Everest of debt puts Social Security benefits at risk.

Technology     Pat Buchanan: US retires space shuttle while China heads for the moon.

Welfare & Poverty     George W. Bush: 2002: Close the homeownership gap for minorities.     Lyndon Johnson: 1964: Food Stamps, initially 350,000 people, now 42 million.     Pat Buchanan: Tax credits like EITC are just welfare.

Click for quotations from other sources by: Barack Obama Bart Stupak Eric Holder George W. Bush Howard Dean Janet Napolitano Jerry Brown Jimmy Carter Joe Wilson Lyndon Johnson Milton Friedman Pat Buchanan Patrick Kennedy Richard Nixon Robert Reich Sonia Sotomayor Tea Party