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The Great Betrayal

Author: Pat Buchanan
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company • 1998 • 384 pages
The Great Betrayal

Long admired as one of the most principled conservatives in the movement, Patrick Buchanan nevertheless drew some flack when he turned against the GOP’s “free trade” stance during the 1996 presidential campaign. Some predicted that Buchanan would back off his controversial position the next time around. They were wrong.

In “The Great Betrayal,” Buchanan digs deep into history – especially the ideas and policies of the Founding Fathers, past Republican presidents, and such conservative economists as Adam Smith – to refute the notion that unfettered free trade is a bedrock principle of conservative economic theory, or of hallowed American policy. Quite the contrary.

Buchanan demonstrates that:

  • Washington, Hamilton, and Madison abhorred “free trade” and built the tariff wall behind which America secured her economic no less than her political independence
  • The Global Economy is the brainchild of utopian European intellectuals, none of whom ever built a great nation
  • The American eras of economic nationalism – 1865-1913 and the Roaring Twenties – were times of U.S. growth and prosperity unmatched before or since
  • Free-trade policy is the legacy not of conservatives, but of one-worlders and liberals like Woodrow Wilson
  • Free trade policy is a leading cause of the decline of family incomes that has forced unprecedented numbers of women into the work force and caused widespread family and social breakdown
  • The globalization of our economy will lead to global government – and the end of American independence and sovereignty
  • The NAFTA and GATT treaties were devised to benefit a “new class” of global elitists who have turned their backs on America, at the expense of the middle class

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