In a move that has raised eyebrows across the political spectrum, the Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank, along with twenty named conservative allies, has urged President Trump to award Patrick J. ‘Pat’ Buchanan the Presidential Medal of Freedom, a decision that glosses over the more controversial aspects of his decades-long public record.
We respectfully recommend Patrick J. “Pat” Buchanan for the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation’s highest civilian honor. His enduring influence on our politics and civic culture makes him exceedingly deserving of this recognition. Over six decades, Buchanan has served as a presidential adviser, columnist, commentator, author, and conservative movement leader. In every role, he sought to enrich our public discourse and give voice to “forgotten Americans”—the blue-collar families have anchored our nation since its founding. [Heritage Foundation Letter]
Buchanan is often hailed as a principled patriot whose warnings on trade, immigration, and foreign wars seemed prescient. But behind the myth lies a darker reality: a career shadowed by rhetoric tinged with anti-Semitism, hostility toward America’s closest allies, and a divisive vision of national identity. Far from championing freedom, Buchanan has spent decades narrowing it.
A Pattern of Anti-Semitic Rhetoric
Buchanan has long insisted he is no anti-Semite. Yet his record tells another story. During the prosecution of accused Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk in 1990, Buchanan publicly minimized Treblinka as a “minor-league extermination camp” and described evidence against Demjanjuk as “unreliable.” Such remarks trivialized the Holocaust and gave oxygen to revisionists.
He also smeared Capitol Hill as “Israeli-occupied territory,” reducing the U.S.–Israel alliance to a sinister conspiracy. These are not isolated slips, they are a pattern. Even William F. Buckley Jr., Buchanan’s onetime ally, concluded in his exhaustive 1991 essay In Search of Anti-Semitism that Buchanan had indeed crossed the line by making statements that “give aid and comfort to anti-Semites.”
To grant him the Medal of Freedom now would not be an act of reconciliation, it would be an act of erasure.
Hostility Toward Israel and America’s Allies
Buchanan built his brand on “America First” nationalism, but his rhetoric has often crossed into outright antagonism toward America’s allies. His opposition to U.S. support for Israel wasn’t merely policy-based, it frequently singled out Jewish influence in Washington in ways that echoed classic anti-Jewish tropes about “dual loyalty.”
Buchanan also opposed the Gulf War and the Iraq War, positions some now view as vindicated. But his reasoning was never rooted in humanitarian concerns or world peace. It was rooted in an isolationism that treated foreign crises, genocide, and the defense of democratic allies as irrelevant. That is not statesmanship, it is abdication.
Divisive and Exclusionary Cultural Commentary
Buchanan’s cultural commentary paints a bleak picture of America’s future. He has warned of “the end of white America,” argued that multiculturalism will unravel the republic, and described immigration from non-European nations as a mortal threat to U.S. identity. These statements were not the sober warnings of a statesman, they were the rallying cries of grievance politics, exclusionary at their core.
A Medal of Freedom should not go to someone who defined American identity in terms that exclude millions of citizens.
The Anti-Defamation League’s Take
In spite of his continuing role as a political commentator for the mainstream media, former Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan now increasingly advances an anti-Semitic, racist, and anti immigrant ideology. Many of the views he holds are identical to those of self-declared “white nationalists.” Buchanan repeatedly demonizes Jews and minorities and openly affiliates with white supremacists. Among his frequent claims is that the sovereignty of the United States is being undermined by Israeli control and Mexican incursion, beliefs which he disseminates on mainstream cable and network television and in his prolific writings. [ADL: Patrick Buchanan: Over the Line]
The Freedom Medal’s True Purpose
The Presidential Medal of Freedom exists to honor individuals whose contributions uplift the nation, advancing its security, strengthening its culture, and inspiring its people. Awarding it to Pat Buchanan would instead legitimize decades of rhetoric that divided Americans by race, religion, and heritage.
If Buchanan is remembered at all in the history of American conservatism, let it be as a skilled polemicist and an early architect of populist nationalism. But do not confuse notoriety with nobility. The Medal of Freedom should honor unifiers, not those whose legacy sows division.
Bottom Line
Pat Buchanan’s defenders hail him as a principled dissenter, but the truth cannot be whitewashed. His long record of statements tinged with anti-Semitism, his antagonism toward Israel, and his divisive rhetoric on race, immigration, and American identity make him not a patriot to honor but a figure whose words have sown suspicion, fear, and division.
Pat Buchanan does not deserve the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His career is inseparable from remarks that trivialized the Holocaust, emboldened anti-Semites, undermined America’s closest allies, and promoted a narrow, exclusionary vision of the nation. To award him the country’s highest civilian honor would do more than dishonor the Medal—it would betray the very ideals of liberty, unity, and dignity that it exists to uphold. Buchanan’s legacy is a cautionary tale, not a cause for celebration.
We are so screwed.
— Steve
