doctrine could never become firm, “^fet, at the same time, thernRuling Class proved unable to uproot the social, cultural, andrnnational identities and loyalties of the Middle American proletariat,rnand Middle Americans found themselves increasinglyrnalienated from the political left and its embrace of antinationalrnpolicies and countcrcultural manners and morals.rnThus, there emerged a chronic Middle American politicalrndilemma: while the left could win Middle Americans throughrnits economic measures, it lost them through its social and culturalrnradicalism, and while the right could attract MiddlernAmericans through appeals to law and order and defense of sexualrnnormality, conventional morals and religion, traditional socialrninstitutions, and invocations of nationalism and patriotism,rnit lost Middle Americans when it rehearsed its old bourgeoisrneconomic formulas. Middle American votes could be won byrnwhichever side of the political spectrum was better at feedingrnanxieties over cultural rot or economic catastrophe, but neitherrnan increasingly antinational and countcrcultural left nor an increasinglyrnpro-business right could expect to stabilize MiddlernAmerican political loyalties sufficiently to sustain a nationalrncoalition.rnThe persistence of the division of the political spectrum intorn”right” and “left” has therefore ser’ed to preent the formationrnof a distinct Middle American political consciousness and thernemergence of a new identity synthesizing both the economicrninterests and cultural-national loyalties of the proletarianizedrnmiddle class in a separate and unified political movement. Butrntoda}’ and in the future this division will no longer olitain. MiddlernAmerican political loyalties are ceasing to be torn betweenrna left and a right that are increasingK” convergent and indistinguishable.rnAside from the ideological castration of the spokesmenrnof both sides in recent years, the main cause of the eanescencernof right and left lies in tlie triumph of economicrnglobalization.rnThe globalization of the American economy (and culturernand population) not only presents a more immediate threat tornMiddle American economic interests than the prospect of thernlibertarian and pro-business let-‘cm-eat-cake policies of thernright but also strips the right of its capacity to appeal to MiddlernAmericans at all. As champions of the globalist right like JackrnKemp, Phil Gramm, Steve Forbes, Newt Gingrich, Ben Wattenberg,rnGeorge Gilder, Robert Bartley, Julian Simon, andrnGeorge Will never tire of explaining, globalization means therndisappearance of nationality, of cultures closely linked to nationalrnidentity, probabh’ of national sovereignty itself, and evenrnof the distinctive populations of which nations are composed.rnBy signing on to globalization, then, the right has effectivelyrnmetamorphosed itself into the left and forfeited the solerngrounds of its appeal to the nationalism and social and culturalrnconservatism that continue to animate Nhddlc Americans.rnThe right ma)’ still thump its chest about crime and abortion,rnand its leaders may still thunder about sex and violence inrnmovies they have never seen, but even on these issues thernright’s obsession with economic uplift as a panacea for crime,rnwelfare, and moral decline emasculates its older defense of nationalrninterests and cultural order, ‘i’he only reason the RepublicanrnParty has not already jettisoned its anti-abortion positions,rnand the only reason Bob Dole continues to complain aboutrnmovies and television programs, is the influence of the large,rnmilitant, and well-organized “religious right,” itself a MiddlernAmerican movement though one that can never exert morernthan a limited appeal.rnHaving denuded itself of any reason for Middle Americans tornsupport it, the right can no longer expect the Reagan Democratsrnto return to the Repul^lican column. Given a choice betweenrnonly the globalist right and the cqualK’ globalist andrncountcrcultural left. Middle Americans may well support thernlatter (the}- did so in 1992 bv voting for Clinton over Bush), becausernat least the left can be expected not to gut the entidementrnprograms with which Middle American economic interestsrnare linked. The 1994 Republican congressional sweep wasrnless a mandate for the GOP than a frenetic quest by alienatedrnvoters to attach thcmscKes to some political entit’ that justrnmight resist the Ruling Class and its regime and embrace thernagenda of Middle Americans. There was little danger of thatrnfrom “revolutionaries” like Mr. Gingrich, and in the past year orrnso the sprouting of militia groups, the land war in the Westernrnstates, the religious right itself, and the popularization of conspiracyrntheories that at least symbolically con’ey the hostilityrnand hatred with which the popular mind regards the federalrnleviathan and the elites attached to it testify to the political andrncultural alienation that now stalks through the nation.rnWhile Buchanan rightly distances himself from the morernbizarre and pathological expressions of Middle Americanrnunrest, no candidate in the fields of either party has sornclead- adopted the central message of the Middle American revolt.rnI lis columns and commentary in the months prior to hisrnannouncement of his candidacy began developing an economicrndoctrine that radiealh departed from conxentional freemarketrnand free-trade ideology, the main source of MiddlernAmerican distaste for Republicans of the mainstream right.rnBuchanan continues to support economic deregulation, a flatrntax, and the abolition of taxes on inheritances, family farms andrnbusinesses of less than $2 million, but in his last months as arncommentator he devoted a series of columns to attacking thern”mvth of Economic Man” and formulating what he called “arnconservatism of the heart” and “economic nationalism,”rnpegged on his active opposition to NAFTA, GAIT, the WoddrnTrade Organization, and the $5()-billioii Mexican bailout.rnThe core of his message consists of a rejection of the thinlyrnmasked economic determinism espoused by Kemp, Gramm,rnand Gingrich and an affirmation of the primacy of culturalrnidentity, national sovereignty, and national interests over economicrngoals. Increasingl-, his economic nationalism seems torndefine and drive his whole candidacy, informing even his culturalrnconser atism, though the concept of “economic” implicitrnin his writing and speeches is considerably broader than conventionalrnconcepts of cither the left or the right. “Feonomies,”rnit should be recalled, derives from Greek words meaningrn”household management,” and the purjiose of economic life inrnBuchanan’s woddview is not simply to gain material satisfactionrnbut to support families and the social institutions andrnidentities that evolve from families as the fundamental units ofrnhuman society and human action.rnThus, his “America First” foreign policy is more than the isolationismrnpreached bv the old America First Committee andrnconsiderably more than the neo-isolationism supported todayrnby most palcoconservaties. For Buchanan, “America First”rnimplies not only putting national interests oer those of otherrnnations and abstractions like “wodd leadershi]),” “global harmoii)-,”rnand the “New Wodd Order,” but also gixing priority tornthe nation over the gratification of individual and subnationalrninterests. Protectionism, to replace the federal taxes Buchananrn14/CHRONICLESrnrnrn