Tilting at Windmills

In 1955, when Bill Buckley launched National Review magazine, he began a conservative revolution. At that time in history, it seemed that conservatism was dead. Yes, Eisenhower was President, but Ike was no conservative. The Republican party (what was left of it after the New Deal) was in ideological shambles. It quietly embraced Rooseveltian government and no longer railed against statism. Yes, the average person was still basically conservative in the 1950's, but among the elite there had been a drastic shift leftward since the early 1930's. In academia, leftist philosophy had won the hearts and minds of most intellectuals who understood socialism as the next phase in our economic & social evolution. Those who would be teaching our future leaders in prestigious universities were indoctrinating their students with existentialism, relativism, & socialism. To begin a political and social magazine promoting true conservative thought in that milieu seemed to be an exercise in tilting at windmills. Buckley described his efforts as standing "athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it."

Yet within a decade, the movement that was spawned in the pages of National Review had its own presidential candidate heading a major party: Barry Goldwater.

Goldwater was crushed by LBJ in 1964, but the movement lived on and eventually lead to the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

I have no delusions that what I'm doing here is some sort of Buckliean feat. However, I do know that there are millions of Americans who long for the American Conservative movement to once again exert itself strongly in politics and culture. They long to take back their schools, churches, and public squares away from the doubters and cynics.

I just want to do my part.