Several fissures in the American conservative movement have become apparent in the past decade. One is between warhawkish neoconservatives, and isolationist paleoconservatives. The latter has been most clearly represented by Pat Buchanan and his America First Party (formed out of the right wing of the defunct Reform Party) and his magazine The American Conservative. As sometimes remarked in that magazine’s pages, the paleocons have found some common ground with the left, at least to the extent that they want U.S. troops out of the Middle East, and they don’t want the U.S. sticking its neck out for Israel. The paleocons also economic isolationists/protectionists where the neocons are (like the neoliberals) economic globalizers; and Main Street populists where the neocons are Wall Street elitists; and strictly anti-immigration (for reasons both economic and racial/cultural), where the neocons seem sympathetic to corporate America’s need for cheap immigrant labor. Throughout the Bush years, Buchanan and the paleocons were the most important dissenting voice on the right. (There is also the Constitution Party, which seems very similar to the America First Party in ideology, the difference being emphasis – the Constitution Party is much heavier on social-religious conservatism. Including, I think, support for Israel on “Christian Zionist” principles, which might or might not be enough to keep it from ever merging with America First.)
Now, since Obama took office, the Tea Party movement has emerged as a far more important – at any rate, far more visible and vocal – dissenting locus of the right. They challenge the GOP establishment. They do seem to come from the same demographic/cultural base as Buchanan’s paleocons. Their rhetoric is mostly based on smaller-goverment economic libertarianism and old-fashioned decentralism – that is, they want the federal government, at any rate, drastically reduced in size and functions and cost. But, I haven’t heard them say much at all about foreign or military policy. Nor immigration. Nor globalization. Nor the Wall Street/Main Street divide.
So: How do the Tea Partiers feel about these issues? Is there any consensus in the movement? Are they an ideologically different conservative movement than Buchanan’s paleocons, or are they just emphasizing different elements from the same general worldview? How does Buchanan feel about them (I’ve never heard him comment)?
