William F. Buckley kept the gate. Today, the rank-and-file must
- National Review's founding mission of 'gatekeeping' conservatism is declared dead, a casualty of the digital age's hyper-democratized information bazaar.
- The 2015 populist surge is blamed for converting erstwhile intellectual leaders into sheep following the loudest bleaters in the conservative flock.
- The article's remedy: a radical democratization of thought itself, where 'every man is a philosopher' and 'how to think' replaces 'what to think'.
- Blames the failure specifically on the rise of 'irresponsible' populism that jettisoned the old movement's clear precepts for explicit ideological incoherence.
Brief Summary
In a eulogy for the old conservative guard, author Justin Stapley laments that the intellectual heirs of William F. Buckley have traded their gatekeeper keys for participation trophies. He argues that the modern digital landscape—a booming confirmation-bias economy—has made the old model of a few authoritative voices steering the masses obsolete. The 2015 populist wave, he contends, wasn't just a change in leadership but a wholesale surrender by those who knew better, resulting in a movement begging for coherence but refusing to take the medicine. Stapley's proposed cure is not a return to elite rule, but a populist intellectualism: a rank-and-file armed with reason and rhetoric to defend against the very politicians and grifters who currently deign to lead them.
Why This Matters
This is essentially a white flag from the conservative intelligentsia, a formal declaration that the war for the movement's soul has been lost to the mob—so why not just arm the mob? For the average reader, it confirms that the ideological gate has been flattened into a freeway, with no toll booth, no highway patrol, and absolutely no speed limit. It explains the chaotic, terminally online state of American conservatism, where a television host with a grudge holds more sway than a think tank fellow with a doctorate. More depressingly, it signals that the resolution isn't a return to sanity but an arms race of rhetoric, where every citizen is expected to be their own Buckley, a prospect that is both deeply American and utterly exhausting.