"Buckley used the pages of his magazine, National Review, to excoriate Robert Welch, the society's leader, as a ham-fisted operator who was unable to understand nuance."
"Buckley's diatribe is credited with limiting the influence of the Birchers, as they were known, in mainstream politics."
"In 2017, as Donald Trump's MAGA movement was consuming the right, the respected conservative columnist George Will wrote that conservatism had been 'hijacked' by 'vulgarians'."
"In October, Politico published racist and misogynistic group-chat logs from members of the New York Young Republicans Club."
In 1961, William F. Buckley Jr. faced a challenge from the John Birch Society, which claimed Communist infiltration in the U.S. government. By 1962, Buckley criticized the society's leader, Robert Welch, in National Review, limiting the Birchers' influence in mainstream politics. This pattern of high-brow conservatives confronting extremist elements has recurred, as seen with Norman Podhoretz's opposition to Pat Buchanan in the 1990s and George Will's critique of Donald Trump's MAGA movement in 2017. Recently, conservative figures expressed discontent with extremist behavior within their ranks.
Read at The Atlantic
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