A Populist Path to Power?

Wall Street bailouters to jail? Here Pat Buchanan lays out the new populism worldwide theme and the real meaning of David Brat’s crushing of Eric Cantor.

“I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”

If Thomas Jefferson’s benign reflection on Shays’ Rebellion, that uprising of farmers in 1786 and 1787, is not the first thought that comes to mind today for his fellow Virginian Eric Cantor, surely it is understandable.

For the rebellious subjects of the 7th Congressional District just voted to end Cantor’s career as House majority leader.

Many lessons are being read into and taken away from Cantor’s defeat. But that election has also revealed a populist path, both to the Republican nomination in 2016 and perhaps to the presidency.

For what were the elements of Randolph-Macon College professor Dave Brat’s victory and of Cantor’s defeat?

First, the perception that Cantor was willing to do a deal with Barack Obama to provide a partial amnesty to illegal immigrants — while the media provided wall-to-wall coverage of the latest invasion across our southern border — proved devastating.

Talk radio, led by Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin, pounded Cantor on the issue of illegal immigration, the emotive power of which our Beltway elites will never understand.