can manage to keep up appearances until he ventures to saynsomething that is not written down for him. Next to hisnpleasant appearance, George Bush’s other virtue is his fidelitynto one of his party’s oldest principles, the conviction that thencountry belongs exclusively to those who can afford to buy it.nWhen his sons are accused of insider trading or profiting fromnan S&L swindle, the President is honestly baffled. Isn’t thatnhow everyone makes his money?nMr. Bush’s reelection hopes are pinned on the support of loyalnRepublicans, a class of Americans even more mule-headednthan the yellow-dog Democrats who refuse to vote for the partynof Grant and Sherman. To the tme Republican stalwart, nothingnmatters but his party’s control of the White House—nand the patronage that goes with it. They may agree with PatnBuchanan’s message, but they are afraid to vote for him, lestnthey split the party and hand the election over to the Democrats,nas if there were principled differences between the Bush andnCarter regimes. In fact. Bush’s New World Order internationalismnis the craziest of Carter’s policies, but we used to benable to blame that kind of one-worldism on liberal Democrats.nPat Buchanan is fighting an uphill battle in his crusade to reformnthe Republican Party. The first man to make the attempt,nJames Garfield, was shot by a disgmntled stalwart, and the party’snleadership is filled with would-be Charles Guiteaus.nNothing so reveals the character of the regime as the campaignncarried out against Patrick Buchanan. A devotednRepublican and loyal servant of two Republican presidents,nBuchanan was attacked as an anti-Semite by A.M. Rosenthalnand William Buckley (who later attempted to explain awaynhis slander), as a fascist by Charles Krauthammer and WilliamnBennett who also accused him of appealing to the “worstnangels” of the American character, and as another David Dukenby Rich Bond and Newt Gingrich. So much for conservatism’snBig Tent or the I Ith commandment of the GOP.nPat Buchanan’s importance as a challenge to the liberal-conservative/Republiean-Democraticnregime can be measured bynthe nastiness of the assault upon his character, and it is not toonmuch to describe the conservatives who piled on as lackeys ofnthat regime. But the fault does not lie with the Bennetts andnRosenthals—utterly implausible public figures who could notnhave taken in our same ancestors who paid extra to see Bamum’snEgress—but with the party that tolerates them and an Americannpeople who have forgotten the use of tar and feathers.nThe standard line from the liberal-conservatives is that ourninstitutions need reforming. Cut taxes, tame Congress, trimnthe fat from the budget, dismantle the EPA, and it willnbe morning again in America. But the acceptability ofnGeorge Bush and his mercenaries cannot be blamed exclusivelynupon our institutions. There is something wrong with thencharacter of a people who cannot look at a David Duke or NewtnGingrich or Bill Clinton and read their character in an instant.n”A man of fifty,” observed a Republican stalwart of an earlierngeneration, “is responsible for his face,” and our current cropnof leaders in both parties is a parade of Dorian Gray picturesnillustrating the Seven Deadly Sins.nThe relationship between a nation’s character and its institutionsnis not simple. Nations, as much as species, evolve bynadapting themselves to conditions that are, to some extent, ofntheir own devising. According to what is called the “gene-culturentheory” of E.O. Wilson and Chades Lumsden, certain humannqualities proved to be useful “in the beginning.” Individualsnendowed with superior agility, intelligence, cooperativeness werenmore likely to do well in the competition for resources and mates.nCultural forms were gradually devised to take advantage of thesenaptitudes, and these forms themselves served to filter out individualsnwho lacked the requisite skills: a population of NFLnplayers, for example, might not have much use for baseballnpitchers, tennis players, and lyric poets, especially if they werenin a race for the Super Bowl.nThe same processes are at work in the evolution of humannsocieties, although in this case the limited time involvednusually (but not always) would preclude anything like major geneticnchanges. A rough new world, for example, will naturallynattract a high proportion of adventurers, misfits, malcontents,nand ne’er-do-wells, who will form customs and institutionsncompatible with their characters. More settled conditionsnwill inevitably begin to favor the fortunes of shopkeepers andnorganization men, but an open and expanding frontier will enablenthe more adventurous souls to shake off the fetters of townnlife and light out for the territories, and the history of Americanis a ceaseless process of dissolution and creation, as familiesnpulled up stakes and moved west. Besides, many of thosenwho stayed behind were only half tame, living on farms and innbackcountry settlements.nThe social and political institutions of such a country will naturallyntake a different turn, away from the Old Worid’s settlednhabits of conformity and dependence. The Church of Englandnmight be established in the Carolinas and even take root innthe Low Country areas, but Henry Woodward, a truculentnAnglican minister of the 18th century, tells a miserable tale ofnthe contumacious and ribald backcountry settlers who acknowledgednno authority but their own. The Constitutionnultimately adopted by the 13 seceding colonies was a compromisenbetween the British conception of order, promotednby the Adamses and Pinckneys, and the near anarchy espousednby the most fervent Jeffersonians.nIn the long mn, however, it was the Federalist (falsely named)nconception of order that prevailed. Some blame the triumphnof government over the people on the process of modernization,nbut there is a universal tendency for all those in authoritynto increase their own power at the expense of any rival,nwhether that rival be another branch or lower level of government,nanother estate of the realm, or the citizenry themselves.nDespite the revolutions of Jefferson and Jackson, and—on anlower level—of Harding and Coolidge, the centralization ofnpower, which began with John Marshall’s appointment tonthe Supreme Court, never really slackened its pace.nBut the concentration of power is not an autonomous process;nit is parasitical and feeds upon the body politic. Politiciansncannot simply seize power, not if they wish to hold on to it; theynmust buy it, by bribing, one after another, the classes and interestsnthat can be expected to support the regime. From thenbeginning, Hamilton planned to use the nation’s borrowing powernas bait to attract the commercial interests, and Henry Clay’snWhigs and Lincoln’s Republicans structured tariffs, jiggerednfreight rates, manipulated the sale of public lands, and grantednmonopolies and franchises in a time-honored strategy for enrichingntheir supporters at the expense of the nation.nThese devices are no worse than the strategems of Europeannmonarchs who sold peerages and patents to raise revenues andnreward followers, but democracy opens much broader vistas forncorruption, and allows the many to take part in the vices of thenfew. Once upon a time, only the very rich (or the very poor)nnnlUNE 1992/11n