The central thesis of Kirk’s philosophy was that “the conservative abhors all forms of ideology” and subscribes to principles “arrived at by convention and compromise” instead of “fanatic ideological dogmata.” Six decades of Republican overreach and corrosive causes have instead led to the rise of Donald Trump and a foreign policy run by John Bolton, an economy guided by Larry Kudlow and a legal team led by conspiracy theorist Joseph DiGenova.

Bolton’s elevation to the position of national security adviser is a fitting coda for a movement whose adherents spent decades throwing themselves on an endless array of ideological barricades while vilifying opponents whose responses to Soviet Russia or Islamic fundamentalism were deemed insufficiently harsh. Bolton’s selection will not disappoint these same GOP militants whom Kirk battled until his death in 1994. Trump’s third national security adviser in 14 months has called for the preemptive bombing of North Korea and Iran, while defending his role in the worst U.S. foreign policy disaster since Vietnam. Of the United States’ military misadventure in Iraq, Bolton pleads innocence on all counts while shamelessly calling Barack Obama’s 2011 decision to bring U.S. troops home “the worst decision” made in that debacle.