“Democracy requires common ground on which all can stand, but that ground is sinking beneath our feet, and democracy may be going down the sinkhole with it.”

American retired writer, political commentator, and political advisor

Patrick Joseph Buchanan is an American retired writer, political commentator, and political advisor. He served as an assistant and special consultant to U.S. presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan. Buchanan is closely associated with paleoconservatism, a nationalist and traditionalist current within American conservatism, and he is also linked with right-wing populism. Many observers see his politics as a precursor to Trumpism and to the contemporary postliberal New Right.