As we already discussed here, the conservative "brain trust" over at the National Review Online put together an anti-Trump issue of the magazine this month, with twenty-two of them writing op-eds about how the monster their publication and movement helped to create is somehow going to destroy the Republican party.

A former adviser to Pat Buchanan predicted the rise of someone like Trump years ago, as Michael Brendan Dougherty discussed in his article at The Week here: How an obscure adviser to Pat Buchanan predicted the wild Trump campaign in 1996. Here's how the article begins:

Imagine giving this advice to a Republican presidential candidate: What if you stopped calling yourself a conservative and instead just promised to make America great again?

What if you dropped all this leftover 19th-century piety about the free market and promised to fight the elites who were selling out American jobs? What if you just stopped talking about reforming Medicare and Social Security and instead said that the elites were failing to deliver better health care at a reasonable price? What if, instead of vainly talking about restoring the place of religion in society — something that appeals only to a narrow slice of Middle America — you simply promised to restore the Middle American core — the economic and cultural losers of globalization — to their rightful place in America? What if you said you would restore them as the chief clients of the American state under your watch, being mindful of their interests when regulating the economy or negotiating trade deals?

That's pretty much the advice that columnist Samuel Francis gave to Pat Buchanan in a 1996 essay, "From Household to Nation," in Chronicles magazine. Samuel Francis was a paleo-conservative intellectual who died in 2005. Earlier in his career he helped Senator East of North Carolina oppose the Martin Luther King holiday. He wrote a white paper recommending the Reagan White House use its law enforcement powers to break up and harass left-wing groups. He was an intellectual disciple of James Burnham's political realism, and Francis' political analysis always had a residue of Burnham's Marxist sociology about it. He argued that the political right needed to stop playing defense — the globalist left won the political and cultural war a long time ago — and should instead adopt the insurgent strategy of communist intellectual Antonio Gramsci. Francis eventually turned into a something resembling an all-out white nationalist, penning his most racist material under a pen name. Buchanan didn't take Francis' advice in 1996, not entirely. But 20 years later, "From Household to Nation," reads like a political manifesto from which the Trump campaign springs.

Buchanan himself, to no one's surprise, said this about Trump earlier this month: Pat Buchanan: Donald Trump is 'the future' of Republican politics:

While pundits like Michael Gerson fret that a Donald Trump nomination would effectively shatter the Republican Party, eternal Republican pundit and politico Pat Buchanan says that Donald Trump represents the future of Republicanism.

Will the Republican establishment walk on a Trump nomination, should he win? If it does, let it walk, as it did in 1964. What the Trump phenomenon represents, whether the Washington establishment is appalled or not, is the future. Take a look at Europe. Ethno-nationalism from Scotland to Catalonia to Flanders, and nationalism in the form of parties like the UKIP [U.K. Independence Party] in Britain and FN [National Front] in France, new governments in Warsaw and Budapest — this looks more like the future than Angela Merkel or the E.U.

Pat Buchanan is the author of a book called The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Culture and Civilization, a book that is essentially a Donald Trump rant made quasi-literate; staid Republicans professing confusion as to why the rabidly anti-immigrant Trump has soared to the top of Republican polls might examine the sort of things conservative Republican megapundit Pat Buchanan has said on news shows, in op-ed columns, in speeches, and in his various other outlets for decades.

Buchanan doesn't necessarily think a Trump nomination would lead to a devastating blowout in the general election, either. He just needs to woo minority voters:

With Obama not running, there is no reason Trump, a builder and job creator, could not win more of the African American vote than McCain who lost it 24-1. There is no reason Trump cannot win more Hispanics, who respond to strong leaders and job creators. Romney lost over 70 percent of the Hispanic vote.

Which was summed up beautifully by Hunter at the end of the article:

Want to know the state of the Republican Party in 2016? It's Pat Buchanan explaining why Donald Trump will appeal to Hispanics despite what the genteel party scolds might think. There's your Republican Party.

Fox must still be hedging their bets on Trump, because Neil Cavuto brought on Buchanan this Friday to defend Trump against the writers over at the NRO and to discuss some of what he wrote in his article.

Cavuto forgot to ask Buchanan what he was smoking if he really believes Trump is going to appeal to Latino voters. Nothing like having another white nationalist on to defend Trump's nativism and racist rhetoric.

Here's Thom Hartmann's take on the Buchanan article and the real future of the Republican party... the Koch brothers.