Pat Buchanan, The American Cassandra

Reflecting on His Record

Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, Pat Buchanan right again.

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In the Greek mythology and histories of the Trojan War, Cassandra, the daughter of King Priam and Hecuba, was a fair virgin priestess of Apollo fated with a terrible curse. This curse, of course, was the ability to make utterly terrifying yet accurate prophecies that would never be believed initially. From her own death to Odysseus’s lengthy journey home, all would happen as Cassandra predicted in the tragedy that was to come with the Fall of Troy.

Looking back in 2023, I think about the brief window that three-time presidential candidate and author Patrick Joseph Buchanan gave in his 2012 book, Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025? The subtitle asks a poignant question. Presently, immigration is out of control, demographic change is openly celebrated by Democratic politicians and non-white pundits alike, the debt and deficit are outrageous, and we have not focused properly on how to address the rise of other nations like China. We are drowning in what seems like endless war spending in Ukraine, agitating a nuclear-armed nation in the process, while our sanctioning regimens do not hit quite like they used to.