  When
the young William F. Buckley Jr. burst onto the American political scene with the founding
of National Review in 1955, it was a gust of fresh air in a
society where — regardless of large-scale social conservatism —
liberalism was regnant in the academy and intellectual and artistic circles.
With the assistance of such figures as Russell Kirk, the author of the huge
bestseller The Conservative Mind (first published in 1953),
and numerous other astute thinkers and writers who filled the pages of the
early National Review, Buckley gave a robust definition to a
serious, intellectual conservatism. Indeed, he was the main inspiration for
the Goldwater candidacy, a candidacy that, although it failed in the short
term, built the foundation for the two-term triumph of Ronald Reagan.
 In
the 1970s, Buckley’s television program, Firing Line, sparkled with
wit and aperçus and incisive analyses of liberalism and the behemoth
state. It was in this fashion, with the creation of a widely circulated public
persona, that large numbers of people would be reached and influenced.
Indeed, as a gauge of the undeniable intellectual gravitas he brought to bear,
even Woody Allen made a memorable reference to Buckley in Allen’s
popular movie Annie Hall.
All of Buckley’s endeavors laid the groundwork for the triumph
of Reagan in 1980. Eventually, though, the triumph turned sour. While Reagan
was spectacularly successful in winning the Cold War against the Soviet
Union, he fared considerably less well in the domestic culture war. This was
the time when the neoconservatives were able to reach increasing positions
of influence in the Reagan administration and the American polity in general.
Their ascendancy came at the expense of what were coming to be called the
paleoconservatives who had expected to share in the Reagan victories. The
signal battle was the conflict over the nomination of M.E. Bradford to the
chairmanship of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Bradford was
accused of holding disrespectful views of Lincoln, and the nomination went to
the neocon favorite and (at the time) little-known William Bennett.
In 1988, the neocons orchestrated the deselection of prominent
conservative political theorist Paul Edward Gottfried from a prestigious
academic posting at the Catholic University of America. Younger paleos
experienced similar processes of exclusion across the conservative
movement, for example, the gutting of the Yale Literary
Magazine and the redirection of major foundation funding away from
core traditionalist concerns.
What was Buckley’s response? He hesitated a little and then
mostly caved in to the neoconservatives. Although National
Review still urged New Hampshire Republicans to vote for Pat
Buchanan in the 1992 primaries, Buckley took pains to defer to neocon
concerns and to show himself sufficiently sensitive to them. Indeed, he
sacked Joe Sobran in 1993, resulting in substantial damage to
Sobran’s future. The firing of Peter Brimelow followed, as well as the
demotion of John O’Sullivan, who had been brought in as a hoped-for
“rescuer” of a flagging National Review.
By the 1990s there was a widespread perception among more astute
observers of the cultural scene that Buckley had virtually become a
caricature of himself. The early Buckley quite likely would have repudiated
most of what the later Buckley was saying.
![[Breaker quote for William F. Buckley: The paradox of William F. Buckley Jr.]](2008breakers/mw080318.gif) For
Buckley in the earlier period, anti-Communism and the decisive
prosecution of the Cold War was often the central principle. Someone could
be consigned to outer darkness because of principled opposition to U.S. wars
and interventions abroad — while being derided as a
“kook” for holding so-called conspiracy theories (for example,
about the less-than-salubrious nature of the U.S. national-security apparatus
and the military-industrial complex).
As the years went on, Buckley appeared to have become ever-more
accepting of big government, as well as willing to continue the tradition of
purging “extremists” from the “official”
conservative movement. In the late 1980s and later, this seemed to dovetail
nicely with the neoconservative agenda. In 1996, National
Review certainly had little good to say about the Buchanan
candidacy, preferring to provide a strong endorsement for the lackluster
Robert Dole.
By today, National Review has become a magazine that
most thoughtful American conservatives and traditionalists see, at best, as
but a very pale shadow of its former robust self.
Buckley was one of the founders of postwar American conservatism.
However, the sociocultural and political shift over the decades — as
well as what seems like an excessive craving of respectability (especially
vis-á-vis his legendary New York dining partners) — appears to have
overwhelmed his once-acute, penetrating mind. The result has been an
increasingly bland conformity with the neoconservative outlook — or,
more generally, of broad acquiescence to it.
Partly because of this conceptual and personal drift of Buckley in his
later years, any more-authentic, serious, and intellectually resilient forms of
conservatism, traditionalism, and libertarianism have grown increasingly
attenuated in 21st-century America. It has become increasingly difficult to
fill the void created when the once-brilliant Buckley and his influential
magazine largely surrendered to the prevalent sociocultural milieu.
Mark Wegierski
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