Post by @tzimmer_history@mastodon.social

2026-04-29 13:31 UTC

And so, we are at this point again where today’s intellectual vanguard of the Conservative Movement finds itself unable to steer the extremist forces whose rise to power they have fueled by laundering and legitimizing them, by refusing to draw a line against the extremist fringe.

Replies (2)

@tzimmer_history@mastodon.social 2026-04-29 13:49

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.

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@wesdym@mastodon.social 2026-04-29 15:05

@tzimmer_history@mastodon.social What happened -- and Buckley and Goldwater were both a part of this -- was that the post-FDR Right got desperate, and wooed extremists to their cause, to tap that deep well of emotional vigour. And it worked in the short term. But it also had predictable longer-term costs. (And Goldwater DID predict them, and warn against this.) If you hand your weapon to an extremist, you risk becoming their prisoner. And that's what's happened to the GOP. Today's GOP is run by those nuts.

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