Just how crazy is Pat Buchanan?
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Pretty goddamn crazy.
Despite his current position, as a friendly sparring partner with Rachel Maddow and in-house winger on MSNBC, the guy has been a very-thinly veiled fascist sympathizer for decades. And in his column this week, he all but removes that veil.
Available here, the column is titled “Did Hitler Want War?” Buchanan believes the answer to be no. He pins the blame for World War II on Poland, and Britain’s guarantee of protection to it. As evidence, Buchanan points to a string of inexplicably dumb decisions made by Hitler–so dumb that, to Buchanan, they negate the myths about the war and the man thought by nearly all sentient beings to be its instigator. Buchanan writes:
But if Hitler was out to conquer the world — Britain, Africa, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, South America, India, Asia, Australia — why did he spend three years building that hugely expensive Siegfried Line to protect Germany from France? Why did he start the war with no surface fleet, no troop transports and only 29 oceangoing submarines? How do you conquer the world with a navy that can’t get out of the Baltic Sea?
This is one of those instances in which the obvious answer is the correct answer: Hitler tried to conquer the world without the requisite equipment because he was a mad man who was also a pisspoor military strategist. Yet Buchanan would have it that Hitler’s ambitions of domination have been overstated; that, while he might not have been a peacenik, he did not want war. The Furher, you see, has gotten a bad rap from history.
That, my friends, makes Pat Buchanan the very definition of a fascist sympathizer.
In fact, Buchanan goes so far as to blame the horrors of the Holocaust on the Allied powers that fought Hitler. “Hitler wanted to end the war in 1940, almost two years before the trains began to roll to the camps,” he writes. I get it: if only we’d stayed home, the Holocaust wouldn’t have happened. This is revisionism that comes perilously close to denial.
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Now let’s be fair. Hitler had no choice. The Belgians were spoiling for a fight with Germany. They were still pissed off about WWI. The Norwegians were acting uppity. The Dutch border guards made obscene gestures. The Danish Coast Guard provocatively sent rowboats into German waters. The French are so annoying everyone wanted to fight them. The Russians were a bunch of Commies! The Czechs were insolent. The North Africans were secretly building up their camel cavalry. Had you and I been in Hitler’s place, we would’ve invaded these countries too.
I’m sure you are a much older, and intelligent person then me. I’m also sure you will think of some bohemian reason why my question to you is stupid. People like you find a reason to call me a racist because I like baseball and hockey; and hate Basketball.
In response to another comment. See in context »Well, my question is: If you agree with Hitler’s action’s; why do you agree with the death of so many people? I would appreciate an answer from a pompous person like you.
Hi Grossberger/Hitler Lover…….sorry……Joke, or no joke…..
I’m guessing you are in the early 60’s area in age.
I would love to learn something from a bigot like you. I have been told my views are that of a Bigot for a few years; but people like you are the Bigot’s that pro-longed the civil rights movement.
So any way, I was wondering if you would like to chat about how the Democrat Party works?…..You will help me at some point; so I really don’t care/ chance to post more of your racist propoganda
In response to another comment. See in context »Metsman12:
You don’t get it, do you? It’s called irony/sarcasm. Grossberger’s on the same side as you, so leave him alone.
In response to another comment. See in context »Mr. Porter,
I think the key question is not trying to guess what thoughts were in the head of Herr Schicklgruber over half a century ago but rather to understand why Mr. Buchanan thinks it is important to raise these questions now? What is happening in the first decade of the 21st century that informs Mr. Buchanan’s desire to examine The Führer’s policies today? Personally, I suspect that Mr. Buchanan admires certain of Hitler’s policies and thinks that they would make excellent models for application her. In particular, the Nazi’s had a strong anti-immigrant policy, particularly against immigrants from eastern Europe, most of who happened to be Jews. In the late 19th and early 20th century millions of Jewish immigrants fled pogroms in eastern Europe, mostly coming to the United States but finding refuge in Germany, France, England, and a variety of other places. The Nazi’s build their party on the anti-immigrant fervor that arose across Europe in the first three decades of the 20th century. Mr. Buchanan is a vocal opponent of immigration into the US at this time. I think that this is the root of his interest to creating a public discourse on re-evaluating Fascism.
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