Renowned columnist and three-time presidential candidate Pat Buchanan announced his retirement earlier this year, capping a half-century career in Washington as a presidential aide, political contender, pundit, and bestselling author.

Nicknamed “Pitchfork Pat” for his strong populist rhetoric, Buchanan was regularly castigated by mainstream press for his opinions. He was labeled divisive, angry — and extreme, especially when it came to his social positions. Keep in mind leftist columnists are rarely, if ever, assigned such labels.

Time and distance afford us the luxury of perspective, and so it’s interesting to consider that when it comes to what the popular columnist predicted on these key issues we track, just how close or far off did he turn out to be?

At the outset, it should be noted that even Pat himself pleaded guilty to hyperbole from time to time. But he never made any apology for taking principled positions on matters of life, sexual ethics, and religious freedom, to name just a few core issues.

Perhaps Pat Buchanan’s most contentious and highly criticized speech was at the Republican National Convention back in 1992. Speaking from the stage that night in Houston, the then former presidential candidate during the primaries stated: “There is a religious war going on in this country. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we shall be as was the Cold War itself, for this war is for the soul of America.”

It is a question many are asking as we watch the madness of gender ideology sweep over our children and our culture across the globe: Will the tide finally turn back toward sanity and objective reality? Some assume it is already doing so, evidenced by things such as economically effective boycotts against major corporations like Anheuser-Busch and Target stores.

But a leading voice, one of the first to carefully document the brutal attack of gender ideology and transgenderism upon our daughters, is not so sure. Actually, she is certain it won’t.

Abigail Shrier, author of the important blockbuster Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing our Daughters, explains in a new essay over at Substack that it is incorrect to believe “that if we all stay quiet, the trans extremism will swing back or die down, like feathered bangs and breakdancing.”

Shrier adds, “A mistake lies at the heart of this question, a false conceit borne of metaphors like tides, and pendulums.” This mistake has to do with underestimating the nature of the beast we are facing here. She correctly explains,

“Gender Ideology is not a pendulum, and it will not swing back with a little help from inertia. Gender Ideology is a fundamentalist religion — intolerant, demanding strict adherence to doctrine, hell-bent on gathering proselytes. I do not here use the term ‘religion’ metaphorically or lightly.”

She is right to call gender ideology a fundamentalist religion.