CLIFF'S BOOK NOTES:

From Pat Buchanan, the man who presaged Trumpism and today’s major political issues more than 25 years ago. 

Like many Reaganites, Buchanan believes The Gipper’s biggest mistake was picking George H. W. Bush to be his VP because this led to Bushes 41 and 43, both of whom implemented policies favored by open border, globalist free trade fundamentalists, and interventionist “war party” NeoCons. 

Buchanan believes that great civilizations must be prepared to fight great wars, but they cannot survive long if they do, and he fears the U.S. has entered an era of permanent war. 

The U.S. needs to be concerned because the 20th century was a graveyard for several empires (Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, German, Japanese, British, Russian). 

Buchanan believes the British Empire declined because it fought two prolonged wars and sacrificed its industrial primacy for the lower consumer prices that result from global free trade, “believing money equaled wealth and financial primacy was important than manufacturing power.” 

Buchanan fears the same for the U.S. given its “permanent war” in the Mideast and its loss of manufacturing to China in exchange for lower consumer prices at WalMart.

“[F]ree trade puts the demands of consumers ahead of the duties of citizens, the unbridled freedom of the individual in the marketplace ahead of all claims of family, community and country. Free trade says what is best for me, now, at the cheapest price, is what is best for America. That is not conservatism.”