In these emails, I've done my fair share of handwringing about politics. A lot of what I've written and linked to reflected headlines, not underlying reality. (The emails from 2015-6 reflected my very slow realization that it was time to find a real job, outside of politics.) A few of the blog archives hold up: Romney went from mainstream villain to hero, the gender divide in politics makes the right more male than ever, and my little first-hand glimpse of whatever it was, now over a decade old, still comes to mind when I read the news. Something has happened, or is happening, on the American right.
Or has it? In the reading this week, I have a few articles about the "old" conservative politics: William F. Buckley and The American Spectator. Many of the folks saying "it used to be different" point back to the era when such people and institutions dominated the right. In these essays, though, we see how rooted they were in a thruline of reactionary politics—Buckley from the America First movements opposing US involvement in World War II and the Spectator agitating in campus politics against the cultural left. The third essay, about the current bogey, the "woke" right, read alongside the recent histories, makes one think that the right has been the same all along.
We're back to an old theme: rightwing politics. And we're back to an old filter: these are deftly-written, highly-readable pieces. Byron York for The Atlantic; Sam Adler-Bell reviewing Sam Tanenhaus for The Ideas Letter; and Jonathan Rauch for Persuasion. Enjoy the reading.
Reading
A Practical Fanatic
For much of his life, Buckley and American conservatism were synonymous, and both benefited from the association. But the years since his death, in 2008, have strained the reputation of the movement he built, causing many to question whether it ever deserved the respectability Buckley claimed on its behalf.
The Life and Death of The American Spectator
The conservative magazine survived and prospered for twenty-five years before Bill Clinton came into its sights. Now the former President is rich and smiling, and the Spectator is dead.
The Woke Right Stands At the Door
Whence comes this uncanniest of all guests?