How social conservatives traded causes for clichés

What does it really mean to love the flag or to dislike campus snowflakes or to suggest that #MeToo has gone too far?

A Q vote.
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In 1992, after failing to unseat the incumbent George H.W. Bush from the top of the GOP ticket, Pat Buchanan delivered one of the most memorable speeches in modern American history at the Republican National Convention in Houston. The "Culture War" address is a masterpiece, rightly studied by rhetoricians, including those who find its contents loathsome. One of its most remarkable passages comes when, having recalled encounters on the campaign trail with factory workers and an unemployed legal secretary, he praises the native wisdom of the American working class, men and women outside the conservative movement who nevertheless embodied its principles:

My friends, these people are our people. … They come from the same schoolyards and the same playgrounds and towns as we come from. They share our beliefs and convictions, our hopes and our dreams. They are the conservatives of the heart. They are our people. And we need to reconnect with them. We need to let them know we know how bad they're hurting. They don't expect miracles of us, but they need to know we care. [Pat Buchanan]

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Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.