The number of groups vying for dominance of the Republican Party and conservative movement has more than doubled. In addition to the traditionalists, libertarians, and defense hawks, we have neocons, theocons, paleocons, Tea Partiers, Trump supporters, alt-righters, and reformicons. “I have never observed as much dissension on the right as there is at present,” Nash says. There are two ways to look at this. Debate and competition can be signs of health. But chaotic squabbling is also a sign of collapse.
Reading about Buckley and conservatism, one can’t help noticing how libertarian sentiments have become attenuated in the GOP and popular conservative movement. Buckley’s idol was Albert Jay Nock, whose works include Our Enemy, the State. He was a critic not only of the Great Society but also the New Deal. “I will not cede more power to the state,” he wrote in a famous passage in Up From Liberalism (1959). “I will not willingly cede more power to anyone, not to the state, not to General Motors, not to the CIO. I will hoard my power like a miser, resisting every effort to drain it away from me.”
Buckley’s key political alliances were with the libertarian Barry Goldwater and with Reagan, who once said, “If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.” Buckley opposed the drug war. Individualism was not only a political philosophy but a personal one. His very life was an expression of the principle that one can live on one’s own terms. Read Cruising Speed and Overdrive if you think I’m kidding.
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