Post #2433031 · Elektrine

2026-04-29 13:49 UTC

In that sense, there is a fairly direct path from William F. Buckley, the godfather of Modern Conservatism, to Rufo. Not the mythological Buckley who purged the extremists – but the real historical figure who deemed the demagogues useful and the extremist energies indispensable.

Replies (2)

@tzimmer_history@mastodon.social 2026-04-29 13:50

But the self-anointed intellectual vanguard was never in charge. Because the movement they are “leading” is not fueled by ideas. It is animated by grievance towards a changing society, by a desire to restore dominance in a world they believe owes them admiration and deference.

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@wesdym@mastodon.social 2026-04-29 14:47

@tzimmer_history@mastodon.social Buckley was a common bigot with a smart mouth. It took a sufficiently shrewd fellow intellectual -- Gore Vidal -- to draw that out of him in public and get him to reveal it to TV audience, but he did. You can still look up the clip today, where Buckley calls him a 'queer' and threatens to commit violence against him, out of uncontrolled anger. If Buckley's the leading intellectual light of the Right -- and he is -- then the Right is morally bankrupt, and always has been.

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