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Posted on 08/31/2026 8:08:52 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd
Elitist, establishment Republicans like to throw the late William F. Buckley Jr.’s name around as someone who allegedly would not approve of President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. Considered the intellectual dean of modern conservatism, Buckley founded National Review in 1955, the nation’s premier conservative magazine for many years, and hosted the PBS political talk show “Firing Line” for 33 years. Well, as someone who started a website to carry on his legacy, Intellectual Conservative, I can tell you the critics are flat out wrong.
Buckley got a bad rap in his later years due to National Review turning somewhat RINO after he left as editor-in-chief in 1990. But the shift had nothing to do with him; he remained a principled conservative until the end, writing a regular column until he died in 2008. I attended his memorial service in New York City.
Proponents of this silly theory point to a remark Buckley made about Trump in 2000, when Trump was considering running for president on the Reform Party platform. Buckley called him a narcissist. Well, I never liked Trump either until he secured the GOP presidential nomination in 2016 (let’s not forget Trump was a Democrat from 2001 to 2009), so criticism of Trump before he became MAGA is like criticizing President Ronald Reagan for previously being a Democrat.
I would go so far as to argue that Buckley was MAGA before MAGA. MAGA brought together various factions — most notably taking back the working class from the Democrats. Similarly, Buckley and President Ronald Reagan brought together social and religious conservatives with economic business conservatives and libertarians.
MAGA is nothing more than principled conservatism, despite the left and its comrades in the fake news claiming it is populist. Populism resents the elite and their wealth — it’s pretty clear from the Trump family’s massive wealth and tax cuts for all that there is a symbiotic relationship with wealthy capitalists. Trump is back on good terms with Elon Musk. Populism views the political parties as a uniparty — there is no evidence Trump or MAGA has given up on the GOP.
Now, did Buckley have a different style than Trump? Of course. Buckley was the epitome of class and elegance; Trump is brass. But they both shared a wicked sense of humor and enjoyed debating others. Buckley wasn’t an elitist; he famously said he would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty.
Politics has changed since the days of Buckley. People are more aggressive and vicious, like Trump. The rise of lawfare would have changed Buckley’s trust in the judiciary and legal system. Buckley would have adapted to this trend because he was forward-thinking.
While Buckley opposed tariffs (he occasionally referred to himself as a libertarian), I believe he might have even come around on them once he saw how uncompetitive the U.S. was becoming due to the unfair policies of other countries. And while libertarian-leaning, he was always strongly against illegal immigration. A significant aspect of National Review when Buckley founded it was anti-communist — which has become a significant part of Trump’s platform.
Like Trump, Buckley always tried to work with the loud, strange people in the party, but when they went too far, he dismissed them. Since National Review was the premier conservative magazine in the 1960s, it held a lot of sway. Buckley famously kicked the John Birchers out of the GOP during that decade, denouncing them in his magazine and telling his readers not to associate with them. He said his greatest accomplishment was the “absolute exclusion of anything antisemitic or kooky” from the conservative movement.
He would have been thrilled to discover now that the Birchers no longer have antisemites leading the organization and they actively denounce antisemitism. Their publication, The New American, reads like a standard conservative site.
Buckley also denounced Ayn Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism, due to its emphasis on self-interest and lack of belief in God. He viewed Rand’s book, “The Virtue of Selfishness," as contradictory to Biblical teachings.
Similarly, Trump has denounced Republicans whom he perceived as becoming too fringe for the GOP, including Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Alex Jones.
Buckley’s only child, Christopher Buckley, claimed that his father would have disliked Trump today. However, he split from his father’s conservatism in 2008, endorsing Barack Obama for president and ending his column at National Review. He intervened to stop awards in his father’s name from going to Trump supporters, but was unsuccessful in stopping one going to Rush Limbaugh. This contradicts his father, since his father was a big supporter of Limbaugh.
I would argue that Trump is the modern Buckley of today, the conservative we all look up to. Today’s vicious political culture calls for someone aggressive, and Buckley would have understood that. Many of us conservatives view Trump as one of the greatest presidents, even surpassing Reagan. Buckley would have been amazed to see how much more Trump accomplished for conservatives than Reagan. Also, in 2016, only 63 percent of Republicans identified as conservatives. By 2024, that had sharply increased to 77 percent.
It’s frankly incredible that the most powerful man in the world is a staunch conservative. After Barack Obama, I thought there was no way we’d ever have a real conservative as president again. The fact that Trump pulled it off would draw immense respect from Buckley.
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Nope. I agree with him - and I’m drug-free other than a cup of coffee.
I thank you for this posting and also the fact that as usual, you are completely..WRONG.
This writer is spot on, have you ever read or listened to Victor Davis Hanson?
He would have been thrilled to discover now that the Birchers no longer have antisemites leading the organization and they actively denounce antisemitism. Their publication, The New American, reads like a standard conservative site.
How can an "intellectual conservative" make such an idiotic statement?
The JBS is run by the same people who have always run it: Rushdoonyan Calvinists and Sedevacantist/Feeneyite Catholics, all of whom are fanatically anti-Zionist (and why in the world should conservatives be opposed to the oldest and most mystical blood-and-soil, throne-and-altar nationalism in history?). Although it didn't always make it into print all the Birch leadership were anti-Israel despite the Communist world's attack on Zionism. JBS founder Robert Welch even believed in a "Zionist conspiracy" which had birthed the Communist conspiracy to begin with!
The last time I looked at The New American online it had devolved into an Israel-hating rag whose heroes were Ron Paul, Tucker Carlson, and Thomas Massie. It ranted and raved about Trump's "unconstitutional" war against Iran while still promoting Rhodesia as the quintessential victim of Communist anti-nationalism.
The JBS is repulsive and always has been. They suckered me in by never mentioning their opposition to Israel at that time and by attacking Israel's Third World enemies as Communist. But that didn't stop them from hating Israel even more. This is something for which I will never forgive them.
I agree with the author.
Its really quite impossible to take a man out of his time, and judge him by the situation decades (or centuries) later.
Having said that, I always wonder what Christopher Hitchens would think of Trump.
Wm Buckley was flummoxed by Milton Freidman and his campaign for small gov’t except military and more individual freedom. Buckley just didn’t get it.
I don’t think Wm. Buckley is the benchmark for MAGA. Neither is Trump for that mattter. Trump loves America but he also loves big gov’t.
We need someone/people who will dismantle the 80%+, $3+ trillion unconstitutional size of the federal gov’t excepting possibly social securty. Unconstitutitional gov’t heathcare MUST GO.
Many of our woes would be resolved and individual freedom would MAGA!!!
While I agree with your position completely, such a person would never be elected; and such an agenda would never be passed by congress. There is fantasy. And there is reality.
I am not on drugs and I agree with the author. The Republican base held our noses with the Bush’s. They did not represent our views but they were our only choice. Trump is now moving the country in the right direction.If his successors can continue this direction we will eventually return to where we need to be.
Does Trump really like big government or did he inherit big government? Isn’t he actively trying to reduce the size of government? That is a big task and cannot be accomplished in one or two terms.
“ I would argue that Trump is the modern Buckley of today, the conservative we all look up to. Today’s vicious political culture calls for someone aggressive, and Buckley would have understood that. Many of us conservatives view Trump as one of the greatest presidents, even surpassing Reagan. Buckley would have been amazed to see how much more Trump accomplished for conservatives than Reagan. Also, in 2016, only 63 percent of Republicans identified as conservatives. By 2024, that had sharply increased to 77 percent.
It’s frankly incredible that the most powerful man in the world is a staunch conservative. After Barack Obama, I thought there was no way we’d ever have a real conservative as president again. The fact that Trump pulled it off would draw immense respect from Buckley.”
That’s quite sensible in my view
Seriously? No
Where the Buckley style of conservatism failed was in its inability to recognize that the long, multi-generational strategy of the Left in infiltrating society resulted in universities and later affluent Americans shifting to advocacy of cultural Marxism. The focus of the Democratic Party's strength was no longer the shop floor, but the faculty lounge. Once Republican communities like Fairfield County, Connecticut, Lake County, Illinois, and Fairfax County, Virginia became Democratic strongholds as the upper middle class largely aligned with the Left on social issues.
While others recognized that fact and the alienation of former Democratic strongholds like the Rust Belt and Appalachia was alienating the residents against the party of the New Deal and Great Society, Trump recognized that alienated, lower and middle income whites could be moved to the Republican Party. To that end, MAGA abandoned laissez faire economics and reverted to actively supporting the social safety net constructed by FDR and LBJ and to tariffs and re-shoring American manufacturing. In short, Trump replaced the laissez faire leg of Buckley's conservatism with a reversion to a more Hamiltonian view of economics, which BTW was the GOP's policy from Lincoln to Hoover.
Good post.👍
DeSantis?
Things the John Bitch Society was wrong about: Partialy on Civil Rights. Things it was right about; basicly, everything else. And no one wanted to listen. That is why the hour is so late.
DeSantis?
****************
He’ll definitely have an opening among disgruntled conservatives who aren’t happy with the current trajectory of Trump’s 2nd term.
Being disgruntled at Trump now is like being made at the chef because the food is still cooking.
On Immigration, President Trump is killing it.
Yeah well, 20 years ago Trump was a fantasy also. With God, anything can happen and I have faith it will happen.
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