When I was writing about Tucker Carlson’s infatuation with Victor Orbán, my friend, the journalist Doug Bell, said it reminded him of the time he saw Pat Buchanan in Lithuania in the early 1990s. I figured there was a story there and, it turns out, I was right. As a freelance reporter, Doug had spent a lot of time in Eastern Europe in the 1990s and developed a keen eye for the Western carpetbaggers of the era, North Americans who had a mission to bring Western values (whether in the form of conservatism or liberalism) to lands once ruled by communists.
I asked Pat Buchanan about the trip and he responded:
Did visit Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia in 1991 with wife and sister Bay. As I recall it was early in the year, but not directly related to my political opposition to George H. W. Bush. Did not decide to run until November of ’91. However, as I recall, Russian troops were controlling the TV stations those Baltic countries, and urged Bush to press Gorbachev for their removal.
Talking with Doug, I realized there was more than enough material here for a rollicking podcast.
In the end, our conversation took up not just Pat Buchanan but also Anne Applebaum, an American writer with extensive ties both familial and political to Poland. Applebaum discussed the rise of authoritarianism in Poland, including the turn to the hard right by many of her former friends, in her recent book Twilight of Democracy. (An excerpt of the book can be found here). Also discussed in the podcast: the economist Jeffrey Sachs and how a Polish Cardinal vetoed a Rolling Stones show.
(Podcast produced by Julia Elinore Peterson; post edited by Emily M. Keeler)
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Podcast: Carpetbaggers in Eastern Europe