Pat Buchanan
The thing about the 1950s is that some people really can't let go of them. There are men who, even now, don't feel embarrassed by the blatant social inequality of that era or its eventual social consequences - there are men who in fact feel that it was all preordained, and you can probably count Pat Buchanan among them.

Having grown up in an era where white heterosexual males essentially held the power of life and death over all, Buchanan now laments their supposed loss of influence and foresees the destruction of their once unquestioned hegemony - in the near future - and possibly for good.

In his unintentionally funny new book, given the understated title ‘Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?’ Buchanan fears the rise of diversity in the United States means that white people 'may discover what it is like to ride in the back of the bus.'

Oh Pat, really? We should all fear our progressive overlords sinister intentions? Who knew their ultimate agenda was to make old white men uncomfortable?

Whilst some are nostalgic for the bogus simplicity of earlier eras, Pat has moved way beyond that, and even waxes nostalgic about racial segregation.
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"Black and white lived apart, went to different schools and churches, played on different playgrounds, and went to different restaurants, bars, theaters, and soda fountains. But we shared a country and a culture. We were one nation. We were Americans," he writes, effectively asking, what was the problem?

That right there, you see, Pat.

Now Buchanan's exasperated that views as anachronistic as his seem to antagonize so many Americans. In fact, he blames an unlikely cabal of gays, feminists and - for all I know - MSNBC and possibly Lady Gaga for marginalizing his point of view.

Nonsense, that was actually accomplished by the passing of time.

In the last few decades, Buchanan has become the bright but embarrassing uncle at the holiday table, spouting opinions that mortify your parents and usually bring the evening to a grinding halt.

Almost every family has one.

Buchanan's self-pity party, his book makes clear, has been going on for decades (MSNBC is just the latest in a line of phantom aggressors). Meanwhile, the nation itself has moved on. Buchanan just hasn't noticed that it's really the passing of time, as well as torches, that has really sent him out to pasture at last.