The political elite have been “emasculated” by Donald Trump’s candidacy, former presidential candidate and speechwriter Pat Buchanan said, regardless of the election’s outcome.
“Though a novice in politics, he captured the party of Lincoln with the largest turnout of primary voters ever, and he has inflicted wounds on the nation’s ruling class from which it may not soon recover,” Buchanan wrote in his syndicated column late Monday evening.
“Trump did not create the forces that propelled his candidacy, but he recognized them, tapped into them and unleashed a gusher of nationalism and populism that will not soon dissipate,” he added.
Buchanan, who served as a speechwriter for President Nixon, ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1992 and 1996, and famously won the Hampshire primary in an upset during his second campaign. He ran as the Reform Party candidate for president in 2000.
He argued that the elite in media and politics had been dealt lasting damage by Trump’s candidacy. “How could the Republican establishment advance anew the trade and immigration policies that their base has so thunderously rejected? How can the GOP establishment credibly claim to speak for a party that spent the last year cheering a candidate who repudiated the last two Republican presidents and the last two Republican nominees?
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“The media, whose reputation has sunk to congressional depths, has also suffered a blow to their credibility,” Buchanan wrote. “Their hatred of Trump has been almost manic, and WikiLeaks revelations of the collusion between major media and Clintonites have convinced skeptics that the system is rigged and the referees of democracy are in the tank.”
