[Wallace T.]

William Buckley welcomed the ex-liberals like Norman Podherotz, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and others who were styled neo-conservatives into conservative ranks. They were anti-Communist and repulsed at the cultural revolution of third wave feminism, homosexual activism, and other cultural Marxist actions. However, they never fully converted to the limited government, free market, and skepticism about nation building as was unsuccessfully tried in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. They became the dominant influence at National Review.

William Buckley was for several decades the leading light of American conservatism. While he "excommunicated" people who he saw as antithetical to responsible conservatism, e.g., isolationists, Birchers, Objectivists, he recognized that there were three pillars to conservatism: economic, cultural, and defense. Buckley tried to balance these factions. The liberal converts were anti-Communist but also closer to a Theodore Roosevelt or Richard Nixon model of big government activism than to Buckley style conservatism. Their view became dominant at National Review.

By the time Trump announced his Presidential campaign in 2015, the National Review writers thought the old methods would shut down the former liberal from New York. They failed and the more alert never Trumpers like Glenn Beck defected to MAGA.

[cgbg]

Buckley was “ex” CIA.

His job was to be part of controlling the narrative (gatekeeping) on the right side of the political spectrum.

“Full spectrum dominance”

The CIA understood that they could be destroyed at some point if they did not control both political parties.