One looks forward to the completion of Pat Buchanan's memoirs, especially the insider tales of the Nixon and Reagan years. He has always been courageous and compelling in debate and unflappable in his commitment to conservative populist principles. He, perhaps more than any public figure, waged the culture wars with grit, determination, and eloquence. Patrick [...]
What is the conservative’s role in an America many believe has not only lost its way but seems to be losing its mind? What is it now that conservatives must conserve? In light of the great Patrick J. Buchanan’s just-announced retirement, we are republishing this excellent essay, which first appeared in our pages in 2012. [...]
It is the perennial task of the conservative to disentangle the truth from the weeds of confusion which keep growing up around it. Samuel Francis and Patrick Buchanan have greatly contributed to the present resurgence of conservative elements rising up in America. Whatever political victories may come of their work should certainly be celebrated. “Go [...]
Every empire had security reasons, to go along with economic ones, to justify permanent military occupation. I say this: Kill the terrorists. Destroy their bases. When necessary, go back and do it again. Don’t occupy foreign nations. As the United States pulls its troops out of Afghanistan after a 20-year war, The Imaginative Conservative looks back at [...]
The Afghan War was, at its inception, a just war. If the Taliban would not turn over bin Laden and those who plotted the mass murder of 3,000 Americans, we had a right to go in after him. But we decided to stay on and convert the most tribalized and xenophobic land on earth into [...]
What is the source of moral authority for modernity's doctrine that homosexuality is moral, other than some transient ideology, which Russell Kirk reminded us is political religion? What is the source of the morality that teaches same-sex unions are the equal of traditional marriage and any government that does not agree is a bigoted regime [...]
While Joe Biden's $6 trillion in total spending is spread over several years, it represents a claim on the nation's wealth equal to 30% of GDP — a figure comparable to FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society. Where does he propose to get the money to pay for this great leap forward for government? [...]
How can America unite again to do great things if we are led by people who believe America suffers from a great sickness of the soul, an original sin that dates back to her birth as a nation? Consider. After his long night of prayer for "the right verdict" to be pronounced — Derek Chauvin [...]
Make no mistake: Joe Biden is determined to emulate FDR and LBJ and to be remembered as a president who raised federal power to new heights. And once a Western democracy expands central power and control of the nation's resources, it never willingly gives up those gains. If Joe Biden's American Jobs Program, outlined in [...]
In the "domestic terrorism" at the Capitol, no protester set off a bomb, toppled a statue, or fired a weapon. Of the four who died that day, all were protesters. My guess, Minneapolis, not Capitol Hill, is where the action will be this spring, and it will not be Proud Boys keeping the cops busy, [...]
There is a specific Trumpian agenda, with which he is alone associated, that is becoming the issues agenda of the conservative movement and the party base, if not the party elites. “I don’t know if he’ll run in 2024 or not. But if he does, I’m pretty sure he will win the nomination.” So says [...]
The truth: The vast majority of criminals who rob, rape, shoot, and kill Americans in the tens of thousands each year, and the people who did almost all of the rioting, looting, arson, and assaults on cops in 2020, never wore MAGA hats. "Never allow a good crisis (to) go to waste. It's an opportunity [...]
For all the babbling about "democracy" we have heard in recent days, the establishment wants to eliminate the possibility that the people could rise up, and, horror of horrors, elect Donald Trump once more. As soon as the Senate received the lone article of impeachment accusing President Donald Trump of "incitement of insurrection" in the [...]
Joe Biden's inaugural address was the most confusing, contradictory and incoherent ever delivered from the steps of the Capitol, reflective of the mind of its author and the state of the Union he now leads. "We have met the enemy and he is us," said Walt Kelly's cartoon character Pogo, half a century ago, about [...]