failed badly-and how often sume leadership of the con- Catchers," except usually it's -has that happened in recent servative and paleo ranks, leftists Mau-Mauing liberals. decades? It failed because Pat marginalize the Bush conser- We can say: 'Look, gang: you fought back hard, and nailed vatives and neocons, and have a choice, It's either Pat and named the enemy, so that make a tremendous splash at Buchanan or David Duke. If the truth plus his basic lik- the Republican convention. At you don't vote for us, baby, ability carried him through with maximum, he can knock Bush you're going to get Duke. And scarcely a scratch. In other out of the box-in the same how do you like them apples?' words, Pat has shown the way the Gene McCarthy did in unique capacity to battle 1968. By getting large (though Note: This personal endorse- against an elite smear cam- not winning) percentage of ment does not imply endorse- paign-and win! Pat is our votes in New Hampshire, ment of Buchanan by the leader. McCarthy forced Lyndon Center for Libertarian Studies, We can already hear the Johnson to retire and not run which is a non-partisan, non- small Modal voices bellyach- for reelection. Consider this: political organization. ing: But Buchanan's not a suppose that Pat gets 30 or purist, e.g., 'he's weak on free 40 percent of the vote in New Right-Wing trade." To this we say: Come Hampshire. Bush then faces a off it! To call for purity in a year of Pat on his neck through Populism: A Libertarian Party candidate the convention, perhaps an makes sense; the whole point independent Southern race by Strategy for the of a libertarian political party David Duke in November, and Paleo is to expound a consistent perhaps also a strong Demo- doctrine. But to expect liber- cratic challenger like Cuomo- Movement tarian purity in a real-world capped by an ever-deepening By Murray N. candidate comes close to im- 'recession" (read: depres- Rothbard becility. On television and in sion). Is it so crazy to envision Well, they finally got his column, Pat has expressed Bush, a few weeks after New David Duke. But he sure forceful views on hundreds if Hampshire, announcing that scared the bejesus out of not thousands of political, so- for the sake of his health, for them. It took a massive cam- cial, and cultural topics. Do the sake of Barbara's health paign of hysteria, of fear and we agree with every one of and blah blah, he has decided hate, orchestrated by all wings them? Of course not, and so not to run in '92? Would you of the Ruling Elite, from Offi- what? That misses the point. bet your life against this sce- cial Right to Left, from Presi- The point is that Pat Buchanan nario? And at that point of dent Bush and the official Re- is strongly infused with liber- course: Pat could actually win publican Party through the tarian principle, and that he is it. New York-Washington-run as close as any real-world We have a dream: and national media through the candidate could possibly come perhaps someday it will come local elites and down to local to paleo-libertarianism. All of to pass. (Hell, if 'Dr." King can left-wing activists. It took a us should be proud and de- have a dream, why can't we?) massive scare campaign, not lighted to work as hard as we Our dream is that, one day, only invoking the old bogey can for a Buchanan presi- we Buchananites can present images of the Klan and Hitler, dency. Mr. and Mrs. America, and all but also, more concretely, a What are the prospects the liberal and conservative virtual threat to boycott Loui- for a Buchanan race? At and centrist elites, with a siana, to pull out tourists and minimum, he can throw a big dramatic choice. We can, in conventions, to lose jobs by scare into Bush, build a the scintillating terms of Tom businesses leaving the state. movement for the future, as- Wolfe, 'Mau-Mau the Flak It took a campaign of slander January 1992 5 that resorted to questioning the picked up 55 percent of the an instructive metaphor for sincerity of Duke's conversion white vote; he lost in the runoff --what will eventusallybe the fate to Christ ianity-even c hal- because the fear campaign of Establishment Conserva- lenging him to name his 'official brought out a massive out- tism.) church." Even my old friend pouring of black voters. But A left-wing populist, Doug Bandow par- note the excite- former Governor Edwards is a ticipated in this ment; politics in long-time Cajun crook, whose cabal in the Wall Louisiana rose motto has been the rollicking Street Journal, from the usual laissez les bon temps roulez which virtually torpor that we ('let the good times roll"). He flipped its wig in have been used has always been allegedly anti-Duke hyste- to for decades hated by businsssmen and by ria, to the extent of and brought out conservative elites. But this attacking Duke for a turnout rate- was crisis time; and in crisis being governed by 80 percent-that the truth is revealed: there is self-interest(!)- hasn't been seen no fundamental difference be- presumably in since the nine- tween left-wing populism and contrast to all other teenth century, the system we have now. Left- politicians moti- when party poli- wing populism: rousing the vated by deep de- tics was fierce- masses to attack 'the rich," votion to the pub- ly partisan and amounts to more of the same: lic weal?! It took a ideological. high taxes, wild spending, lot of gall for One point massive redistribution of Bandow to do this, that has nowhere working and middle class in- since he is not been noted: pop- comes to the ruling coalition a sacramental ulism won in of: big government, big busi- Christian (where Louisiana, be- ness, and the New Class of one can point out cause in the first bureaucrats, technocrats, and that the person under attack primary the two winners were ideologues and their numerous was not received into the sac- Duke, a right-wing populist, and dependent groups. And so, in ramental Church), but a pietist Edwin Edwards, a left-wing the crunch, left-wing popu- one, who is opposed to any populist. Out in the cold were lism-phony populism-disap- sort of official creed or liturgy. th,e two Establishment candi- peared, and all crookery was So how can a pietist Christian dates: incumbent Governor forgiven in the mighty Edwards challenge the bona fides of Buddy Roemer, high-tax, high- coalition. It is instructive that another one? And in a world spend "reform" Democrat em- the Establishment professes to where no one challenges the braced by the Bush Adminis- believe in Edwards' teary Christian credentials of a tration in an attempt to stop the promises of personal reform Chuck Colson or a Jeb dread Duke; and the forgotten ('I'm 65 now; the good times Magruder? But logic went out man, Clyde Holloway, the offi- have mellowetj"), while refus- the window: for the entire Es- cial Republican candidate, a ing to believe in the sincerity tablishment, the ruling elite, good Establishment conserva- of David Duke's conversion. was at stake, and in that sort of tive, who got only five percent They said1 in the 60% when battle, all supposedly clashing of the vote. (Poor Human they gently chided the violent wings of the Establishment Events kept complaining dur- Left: 'stop using violence, work weld together as one unit and ing the campaign: why are the within the system." And sure fight with any weapons that media ignoring Clyde enough it worked, as the former might be at hand. Holloway? The simple answer New Left now leads the re- But even so: David Duke is that he never got anywhere: spectable intellectual classes. 6 January 1992 So why wasn't the Establish- note: TV pundits, who regularly priestcraft or State Church -ment willing to forgive and constituted the opinion-mold- have face lifts twice a year, forget when a right-wing radi- bitterly attacking Duke for his ers who apologized for that cal like David Duke stopped alleged face lift. And nobody rule. Now, in a more secular advocating violence, took off laughed!) age, we have technocrats, the Klan robes, and started 'social scientists," and media working within the system? If it What Is Right-Wing intellectuals, who apologize for was OK to be a Commie, or a Populism? the State system and staff the Weatherman, or whatever in The basic right-wing ranks of its bureaucracy. your wild youth, why isn't it OK populist insight is that we live Libertarians have often to have been a Klansman? Or in a statist country and a statist seen the problem plainly, but to put it more precisely, if it world dominated by a ruling as strategists for social change was OK for the revered Justice elite, consisting of a coalition they have badly missed the Hugo Black, or for the lion of of Big Government, Big Busi- boat. In what we might call the Senate, Robert Byrd, to ness, and various influential 'the Hayek model," they have have been a Klansman, why special interest groups. More called for spreading correct not David Duke? The answer is specifically, the old America of ideas, and thereby converting obvious: Black and Byrd be- individual liberty, private prop- the intellectual elites to liberty, came members of the liberal erty, and minimal government beginning with top philoso- elite, of the Establishment, has been replaced by a coali- phers and then slowly trickling whereas Duke continued to be tion of politicians and bureau- on down through the decades a right-wing populist, and crats allied with, and even to converting journalists and therefore anti-Establishment, dominated by, powerful corpo- other media opinion-molders.