Donald Trump Flip Flops On Neo-Nazis (Now Likes Pat Buchanan)

January 9, 2016 — Ron Chusid

Trump Buchanan

Many pundits have compared Donald Trump’s campaign to that of Patrick Buchanan in 1992, including both in the mainstream media and in this analysis at National Review. Xenophobia has been prominent in both campaigns. Donald Trump previously criticized Buchanan’s views, even saying, “Clearly he has a love affair with Adolf Hitler, and that’s sick.” Now Buzzfeed reports that Donald Trump Praises Man He Once Called A Neo-Nazi.

Buzzfeed cited a tweet from Trump saying, “Pat Buchanan gave a fantastic interview this morning on @CNN – way to go Pat, way ahead of your time!”

Further examples of Trump flip-flopping were described:

Trump wrote in his 2000 campaign book The America We Deserve, “Pat Buchanan has been guilty of many egregious examples of intolerance. He has systematically bashed Blacks, Mexicans, and Gays.”

Trump, oddly enough, said Buchanan had said too many outrageous things to be president.

“Simply put, Pat Buchanan has written too many inflammatory, outrageous, and controversial things to ever be elected president,” wrote Trump in his book.

As previously noted by BuzzFeed News, Buchanan’s 2000 platform was identical to Trump’s in a number of ways. Buchanan was a protectionist on trade, used harsh rhetoric on immigration, wanted to limit donor influence in politics, and spoke loudly against Washington corruption.

On CNN on Saturday, Buchanan praised Trump saying, “Trump has raised the very issues I raised in the early nineties..”

In one Los Angeles Timesop-ed titled “Buchanan Is Too Wrong to Correct,” The Donald said that Buchanan was a very dangerous man” saying on “slow days, he attacks gays, immigrants, welfare recipients, even Zulus.”

And, speaking with The Advocate in 1999, Trump called Buchanan’s past works “disgusting.”

“I used to like Pat,” said Trump in the interview. “I was on Crossfire with him. I thought he was a nice guy. Then I read the things he had written about Hitler, Jews, blacks, gays, and Mexicans. I mean, I think it’s disgusting. That speech he made at the ‘92 Republican convention was a disaster. He wants to divide Americans. Clearly, he has a love affair with Adolf Hitler, and that’s sick. Buchanan actually said gay people had chosen ‘satan[ism] and suicide’ Now he says he welcomes gay people into his campaign. The guy is a hypocrite.”

As scary as it is to contemplate, a Trump victory is not impossible. He is clearly basing his message at this point in the campaign on attracting a segment of the Republican base which he believes could give him a victory for the nomination. There is no doubt that he will change his message for the general election, and many voters have a short enough attention span to allow a showman like Trump to get away with it. Two recent polls, here and here, also show that Trump could beat Clinton. Another recent poll shows both Clinton and Sanders beating Trump, with Sanders winning by a bigger margin. Sanders was not polled against Trump in the two more recent studies.

Posted in Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Politics, Polls. Tags: , , , , . 3 Comments »

Racist, Ant-Semitic, Homophobic Commentator Pat Buchanan Dumped By MSNBC

February 17, 2012 — Ron Chusid

Pat Buchanan thinks he was forced out of MSNBC by the Jews, Gays, and other conspirators working in the dark. Let him think that. I find a little justice in knowing that Pat Buchanan will spend the rest of his life thinking that the Jews got him. That’s what he gets for spending so many years defending Nazi war criminals, and Hitler himself. Buchanan’s racism and anti-Semitism are well known. He doesn’t even seem to understand why people might object when he goes on the radio and claims homosexual acts are “unnatural and immoral.”He doesn’t seem to believe that he is homophobic, as he doesn’t understand that the views he has expressed for years are racist and anti-Semitic.

Hunter of Daily Kos sums up Buchanan’s column:

Pat then goes on to blame loudmouthed Obama supporters, homosexuals, Jews, and I don’t know, maybe werewolves. Yeah, let’s say werewolves.

Buchanan’s recent book may have been MSNBC’s excuse for finally taking him off the air for good, but it seems mostly to be a “final straw” sort of thing. Buchanan has been mourning the downfall of white America for a considerable time now, so this latest book was hardly new ground for him. He has been accused of anti-Semitism even by such conservative stalwarts as William F. Buckley, and got in hot water a few years ago for a bizarre column proposing that Hitler was misunderstood. No, his pissy statement sells himself rather short on the number of ridiculously bigoted things that would regularly come from his mouth. No matter what he said on air or off, though, the network would always prop him up in front of the television cameras.

 

Posted in News Media. Tags: , , , . 20 Comments »

MSNBC Considering Dumping Pat Buchanan For Racist and Ant-Semitic Views In New Book

January 8, 2012 — Ron Chusid

Patrick Buchanan is a racist, anti-Semite, and homophobe. In the past the best defense of him, which is hardly exonerating, has been that he personally does not hate all these people but  used the buzz words of those who do in order to attract conservative voters during his political career. His latest book, The Suicide of a Superpower reportedly expresses racist and anti-Semitic  views which are making it harder for NBC to justify keeping him on the air. Media Decoder reports that Buchanan’s future with MSNBC is now murky:

The days of Patrick J. Buchanan as a commentator on the news channel MSNBC may be over.

Phil Griffin, the president of the network, said in an interview here on Saturday that Mr. Buchanan might not be allowed to return to the channel because of the arguments in his most recent book, “Suicide of a Superpower,” which have been criticized by some civil rights organizations as racist and anti-Semitic.

Mr. Griffin said that Mr. Buchanan, who has not appeared on the network since he began a book tour in October, was still employed by MSNBC, but that his future with the channel was unresolved.

“Pat and I are going to meet soon and discuss it,” Mr. Griffin said. But he cited some of the arguments Mr. Buchanan made in the book as reason the commentator had not come back, even after his book tour ended.

“During the period of the book tour I asked him not to be on,” Mr. Griffin said. “Since then the issue has become the nature of some of the statements in the book.”

Mr. Buchanan argues in “Suicide of a Superpower” — which has the subtitle “Will America Survive to 2025?” — that the “European and Christian core of our country is shrinking,” which is damaging the nation “ethnically, culturally, morally, politically.” The book also contains a chapter titled “The End of White America.”

Mr. Griffin said, “The ideas he put forth aren’t really appropriate for national dialogue, much less the dialogue on MSNBC.” The network has set out to brand itself as a network designed to appeal to progressive and liberal viewers.

On his Web site, Mr. Buchanan reprints part of an essay from Chronicles magazine titled “The Mob vs. the Statesman” that defends the book: “For all the hue and cry over Buchanan’s supposed ‘hate,’ the emotion that runs through ‘Suicide of a Superpower’ is not hate, but love. Buchanan sees the country he grew up in and loved passing away, and he wants to raise his voice in its defense.”

Mr. Buchanan’s comments have led to protests from civil rights groups and the Anti-Defamation League. The A.D.L. sent Mr. Griffin a letter urging that MSNBC drop Mr. Buchanan.

Posted in News Media, Republicans. Tags: , , , . 7 Comments »

Why Evangelical Christians Do Not Receive Much Respect

May 22, 2011 — Ron Chusid

Timothy Stanley, a right wing writer at The Telegraph, argues that America’s evangelical Christians deserve respect despite being wrong about the Rapture. While I would  not form an opinion of all evangelical Christians based solely upon the Apocalyptic views of one Christian cult, I cannot accept Stanley’s argument. He concluded:

Across the United States, atheists are gathering at Rapture parties to celebrate another day of life on this corrupted Earth. Their joy as Camping’s error is plain mean. While they knock back cheap imported beer and make-out in hot-tubs, thousands of evangelicals will be providing care and love to prisoners, homeless people, drug addicts and the poor. It is a noble calling worthy of a little tolerance.

There are evangelicals and non-evangelicals of a wide variety of views who do charitable work. Non-evangelicals actually do more than “knock back cheap imported beer and make-out in hot-tubs.” You cannot judge a religious or philosophical viewpoint by highlighting the charitable work of one segment of the believers in one viewpoint and mischaracterizing the behavior of others. The real way to judge the group is by the beliefs held by the whole group.

It is hardly worthwhile to devote any time to analyzing the validity of fundamentalist Christian belief as most people have already made up their opinions here and it will not be altered by a blog post. I will just make two points here: 1) those who have a low opinion of evangelical Christians do so based upon reasons having nothing to do with their charitable work and 2) my primary objection is not with their beliefs as much as with their actions to impose their beliefs upon others.

Stanley, incidental, is working on a biography of Pat Buchanan. If he misses why people with integrity are opposed to the Anti-Semitism and homophobia of this Nazi-sympathizer, it is not hard to see why he would miss the all the harm caused in the United States by the religious right.

Update: Camping Says End of the World Is Still On For October. Majority of Evangelical Christians believe Rapture will occur by 2050.

Posted in Religion, Social Issues. Tags: , , , , . 24 Comments »
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