BUCKLEY: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America.
The revolution that William F. Buckley, Jr., set into motion itself remains far from complete. In truth, and in Buckley’s mind, the main idea was actually to create a counter-establishment that would eventually produce not a revolution, but a “counter-revolution.”
—Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America, by Sam Tanenhaus (1018 pages, Random House, 2025)
An accounting of the “life and revolution that changed America” might well have justified nearly 900 pages of text, but that was not the life of William F. Buckley, Jr. To be sure, his was a very consequential life, as well as an entirely fascinating life, not to mention a very full, if sometimes frustrating life to boot.
The result here is itself thoroughly fascinating, quite full, but occasionally frustrating as well. The phrase “if only” seems to apply, as in “if only” Buckley’s had actually been a revolutionary life….
To be sure, this is the life of a brash thirty-year-old conservative who founded a magazine that insisted that it was time to “stand athwart history yelling stop.” And yet here we are seventy years later, conservatives of all ages, still standing—or reeling—against history, while still yelling—or at least pleading—stop.
For that matter, Buckleyite conservatives are still waiting for, and working toward, the peaceful revolution that is both very much needed and might yet come, or the revolution that might well change America and renew and restore America all at the same time.
Did Buckley himself think that his had been a revolutionary life? If so, he either didn’t tell Sam Tanenhaus or Tanenhaus prefers to remain silent on the subject. Does Tanenhaus think so? Once again silence reigns. Would Tanenhaus have approved of such a revolution? Silence still reigns.
Regarding that last question, James Piereson’s review of Tanenhaus’ 2009 book, The Death of Conservatism, has some answers:
Like the liberal writers of the 1950s, Tanenhaus wants to see a conservative movement that accommodates rather than opposes liberalism, and thus one that will accept its role as subordinate to the dominant liberal tradition in American life. He acknowledges that there is an important role for conservatism, but it must be a “genuine” conservatism that preserves but does not seek to overturn liberal gains. In any event, he says, conservatives will have little choice but to accommodate to liberal leadership because the election of 2008 has effectively ended the era of conservative dominance in American politics. Much as liberals had to accommodate to conservatives after Reagan’s election in 1980, conservatives will now have to accept the newly dominant status of reform liberalism, or else accept the consequences of being turned into “the exhumed figures of Pompeii, trapped in postures of frozen flight.”
Incidentally, reading Piereson’s review, written during the heady Tea Party era, really does feel a bit Pompeii-like these days, particularly after seeing the Harris campaign aggressively courting Mitt Romney, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush last year.