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What Would Buckley Say?
National Review is not only the birthplace of the Never Trump movement, but also the “Reagan, Never Again” Reform Conservative movement. National Review without William F. Buckley isn’t National Review.
I don’t blame NR for publishing its famous “Against Trump” issue. They thought, with good reason, that Trump would push the Republican Party to further to the left than even another Bush. At the time of that issue, Trump might have actually been further to the left than he was by the time he became President.
When Trump governed as a conservative, some of the writers at NR became more sanguine about the Trump Presidency. Just like many of us at Ricochet, they changed their minds. Rich Lowry even expressed regret at having published the “Against Trump” issue.
Now, National Review contracted TDS in a big way. You won’t find a kind word about Trump anywhere unless it’s from a guest writer like VDH or Conrad Black.
Also, they have been silent on the voter fraud issue, which ought to matter even if there wasn’t enough to change the result. Maybe they think they will be mistaken for capital building rioters. They should relax.
I can only guess at what Buckley would think about Trump, and would likely guess wrong.
Buckley was a bit of an intellectual bad-a** in his day, and was friends with Reagan and Limbaugh when they weren’t socially acceptable. How would he have reacted to Trump? Your guess is as good as mine.
Also, what would he think of National Review today? Athwart history, anyone?
Published in General
I believe he would have accepted Trump for what he is, but would have kept his distance. In writing, he would have regretted Trump’s tone sometimes, but always praised or criticized his actions in keeping with Buckley’s philosophy and not made some attempt to be ‘cool’ or make friends. He had a code and said what he meant and Conservatives are less for his death.
I would agree that since Jan 6th, NR has quickly been all CYA.
Not a one of them have looked at the clear timelines that make it impossible for Trump to have invited the riot. The breaking into the Capitol was premeditated before that day. Trump is responsible for ginning up the false narrative that Pence could stop anything, but Trump did not incite violence, and quickly condemned violence soon after the main breaches happened.
More investigation is indeed needed, but that does not in any way suggest that there was provable fraud for which the available legal remedy would have changed the results of any states, let alone the 3 or 4 simultaneous miracles required to make Trump happy. What is needed now is to do the hard work in changing election laws to address fraud-vulnerable practices, hard work that Trump did not do before the election when there was the actual opportunity.
I’m getting the distinct impression that the virtues of NR or lack thereof are, as assessed by this post, positively correlated with 100% enthusiastic support of Trump.
If that is the rule, I stand with NR, not the Trump worship group, in spite of Kevin Williamson’s and Ramesh Ponnuru’s TDS/TOS disease states. Rich Lowry and Charlie Cooke are actually quite even-handed, praising the good things that Trump permitted to be done on his watch while he was busy watching cable news instead of actually working at the job applying intellectual energy as Reagan and GW Bush did.
The reason you are getting that impression has nothing to do with the post.
I agree whole-heartedly.
In the early 196o’s, Buckley drove the John Birch Society out of the Conservative Movement.
In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, Buckley drove the Anti-Semites out of the Conservative Movement.
In 2020, I believe that Buckley would have driven the Kraken Caucus out of the Conservative Movement. I believe that while Buckley would have been happy with the judges, regulations and tax cuts, Trump’s lack of character and embrace of overt lies, from Birtherism, to the Big Lie that Trump had actually won the popular vote in 2016 and 2020, would have lead Buckley to drop Trump.
There won’t be any further investigations. About the only effect of any investigations done will be an increase in the price of whitewash in the DC metro area.
The kiss of death.
So here’s how you think: Birchers + Anti-Semites = Trump voters/supporters (74 million).
One might have thought the bile would end with the election. One would be wrong.
I agree that the sheer stupidity of equating Birchers and Anti-Semites with Trump supporters is unreal. Sadly, I have come to expect that kind of nonsense from NTs.
[double post]
I think Buckley would have regarded Trump as a useful instrument in certain circumstances, but also at heart a nekulturny parvenu.
And he may well have been correct.
Of course, all of this begs the question of what he would have thought of a geriatric career politician and serial liar who pledges unity while twisting the knife.
What in the world gave you that idea? Try re-reading the post.
Pretty good Buckley impersonation there.
Exactly.
When evaluating any politician, you have to consider the alternatives.
WFB might have thought of Trump as a nekul … uh.. what James said, but would he have sat on his hands while there was a real danger that Hillary Clinton would become President? Would he have rooted for Joe Biden?
It’s sad that they would resort to this.
It’s the kind of smear that McCarthyites made famous.
This comment is just a test.
Having seen such types parade past for years in a long grey parade, he would have had Biden’s measure calculated and filed long before he was forklifted onto the throne.
I suspect he would have lamented the choices before us, personally held Trump in contempt, decried the conditions that led to this, and had a stiff Manhattan.
I dunno, Trump is a listed-in-the-phone-book kinda guy.
You know better, and you are putting words into my mouth that I did not say. You are falsely accusing me of equating John Birchers, Anti-Semites and Trump voters. You are suggesting that I am equating my mother and brother with members of the John Birch Society and Anti-Semites. That is horrible. You should be ashamed of yourself.
The question posed by this Post is “What Would Buckley Say,” in other worlds, what Buckley would have done faced with the Donald Trump of January 6, 2021. Here is my answer for why I believe that Buckley would have purged Trump. (I have read National Review since I was in high school and lead a petition drive for the high school library to have a subscription to “National Review” in 1968 or 1969, before I graduated from Saguaro High School in 1970.)
The John Birchers were conspiracy folks who believed that Ike was a Communist Agent. Ike. Buckley saw this conspiracy mongering as fatal and he moved strongly against them in the early 1960’s.
Anti-Semites will tell us how Jews own everything and control everything. Again, Buckley saw this conspiracy mongering as fatal, and he moved strongly against Anti-Semites in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s pushing Pat Buchanan and Joe Sobran off of the National Review Masthead.
“What Would Buckley Say?” As for Trump and how Buckley would act towards him, I make six points, First, I refer you to Jonahon Swan’s column at Axios from January 16, 2021. Swan writes,
“For weeks, Trump had been laying the groundwork to declare victory on election night — even if he lost. But the real-time results, punctuated by Fox’s shocking call, upended his plans and began his unraveling.
“Trump had planned for Americans to go to bed on Nov. 3 celebrating — or resigned to — his re-election. The maps they saw on TV should be bathed in red. But at 11:20 p.m. that vision fell apart, as the nation’s leading news channel among conservatives became the first outlet to call Arizona for Joe Biden. Inside the White House, Trump’s inner circle erupted in horror.
“Over the next two months, Trump took the nation down with him as he descended into denial, despair and a reckless revenge streak that fueled a deadly siege on the U.S. Capitol by his backers seeking to overturn the election. This triggered a constitutional crisis and a bipartisan push to impeach Trump on his way out the door, to try to cast him out of American politics for good.”
https://www.axios.com/trump-election-premeditated-lie-ebaf4a1f-46bf-4c37-ba0d-3ed5536ef537.html
Second, as for Trump’s increasing decent into the Kraken Conspiracy, I refer you to Jonathan Swan’s article from the next day. After the election had been called for Biden, Trump increasingly sought any way to avoid losing. Recounts were discussed. Lawsuit were discussed, and then the Kraken Caucus made its appearance:
“Then Giuliani, Sidney Powell and a swelling conspiracy crew marched into the room — literally.
“These two groups — the professional staff and the Giuliani cabal — filled in around one long, rectangular table in a conference room walled in by frosted glass. The pattern repeated itself the day after that and the day after that.
“A bizarre routine set in. These meetings would begin with official staff raising plausible legal strategies. Then Giuliani and Powell, a lawyer with a history of floating “deep state” conspiracy theories, would take over, spewing wild allegations of a centralized plot by Democrats — and in Powell’s view, international communists — to steal the election.
“Bewildered campaign aides would look around the table at one another, silently asking what the hell was going on. One would invariably shuffle out of the room, followed by another a few minutes later. Then another. Then another. The professional staff would reconvene in Stepien’s office, about 20 yards down the hall.
“Eventually, Giuliani would realize that he and his crew were alone in the conference room. He’d walk down the hall and knock on the glass outside Stepien’s office, where about eight aides had squeezed onto a pair of couches. ‘You guys, where did you go?’ Giuliani would say. ‘This is serious!'”
https://www.axios.com/trump-lawyers-biden-election-victory-debf79bc-750b-457b-a736-789b501d62a7.html
Third, 64 lawsuits were filed by Trump or folks aligned with him. He lost 63 of them. The one that Trump “won” was that the poll watchers could stand within six feet of the poll workers, and not twenty feet away. That’s it. That’s all that Trump won. The Texas case against Pennsylvania was trash, and was quickly discarded.
Third, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey was a loyal conservative Governor who went to Trump events. He voted for Trump. He campaigned for Trump. But since Ducey would not violate his oath, and certified that Biden won Arizona, Trump pushed our local Republican Party to “Censure” Ducey.
Fourth, Trump was tape recorded telling the Georgia Secretary of State to “find him 10,780 votes.” Clearly that is both illegal and impeachable.
Fifth, long before McConnell finally acknowledged that Biden had won, Buckley would have seen through all of Trump’s lying and that if Trump had was making all of this up, and was operating at the level of delusion/
Sixth, on January 6, 2021, Trump demanded that Pence violate his oath and refuse to acknowledge that Biden had won. Mike Pence is a lawyer. He knew that he absolutely, positively had no alternative but to call the election for Biden.
Faced with the above six facts, I am very confident that Buckley would have turned against Trump, by the time of the Trump riot on January 6th, if he had not done so long before.
You may come to a different conclusion than me. You may conclude that Buckley would have acted like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. I think that you are wrong, but I am not going to call you a John Bircher or an Anti-Semite, or any other name. And I frankly resent that you would suggest that I have equated my mother, my brother with being a John Bircher or Anti-Semite.
I will leave you with three people who guide my thinking. First, Charles Krauthammer’s autobiography was a tour de force, and I miss him terribly. I remember one point that he made, which was that he would speak his mind clearly and completely, regardless of consequence. (This lead him from working for Mondale to embracing Reagan!) Second, I find comfort in Rod Desher’s maxim from his book “Live Not By Lies.” Third, while I am not Catholic, I note that Pope John Paul II, would often say “Be not afraid.”
Please see my comment #52 above. The question is “What Would Buckley Say?” after the January 6, 2021 riot where the Capitol was breached by a mob for the first time since 1812, the Vice President and Speaker were both threatened with death, and people died. I think that Buckley would have seen Trump as a malign force that needed to be countered.
Nice try.
You listed two things that Buckley did and one that you project that he would have done. These things being the driving out of undesirables.
The “Kracken Caucus” within the Republican party includes your mother – according to the positions you have ascribed to her. You are the one who listed her with anti-Semites and Birchers.
My mother and brother voted for Trump as did 74 million other Americans. However, they are not part of the Kraken Caucus. I think that most of the 74 Million Trump Voters are not members of the Kraken Caucus, or QAnon, and would not have stormed the Capitol. I think that Buckley would have a problem with the Kraken Caucus, QAnon, or a the rioters, certainly not my sainted mother or physician brother.
Our Code of Conduct prohibits 99% of conspiracy theories. That encompasses the Kraken Caucus, QAnon and the rioters. Buckley, I believe, having read him since I was in High School, would also have an issue with the Kraken Caucus, QAnon, and the rioters.
This describes at least half of high profile Never Trump. Even when there isn’t money involved they are invested in a certain lifestyle. They take money from Pierre Omidyar and they don’t think a thing of it.
I don’t agree with this at all.
The actual issue is, why is populism and Socialism a problem now? China. The deep state. The media. The permanent bureaucracy. Huge progress in the middle east.
All of that stuff needs to be dealt with and that is the issue regardless if you drive someone out or not.
They just dropped the Flynn leak to the Washington Post. That is a 20 year felony and I think it’s pretty easy to find out who did it.
This is the actual issue.