What Good Is Bill Buckley Anymore?
16th October 2019
David Bahr is not afraid to ask the hard questions.
And so I made an inventory unique to WFB (though I encourage you to choose a Minor Prophet at random and try this experiment for yourself). I catalogued his intellectual and practical toolkit to see if I could think through whether or not it would have been sufficient to address our problems in 2019—and, say, the next few decades. Without going through the laundry list, let’s agree that Buckley was a master of the medium of his time. He understood television and print, and wielded both to great effect. He mastered the use of those tools and used them in specific ways. So did each of the Minor Prophets.
But how would they fare today, in a world of new modes and orders? A world of half-baked integralists, Bronze Age Perverts, and Lord knows who else? Do Buckley and Kristol and Reagan still matter to young conservatives, and therewith to the future of intellectual conservatism, as they once did? Are the next conservative intellectuals—serious intellectuals, mind you—stressing about AEI and WSJ internships? Do they have an online subscription to National Review? Do Jonah Goldberg, Ross Douthat, or David Brooks move them any which way? Can they name a Founding Father?