Gottfried was an editor of Alternative Right - again, in the sack with Richard Spencer. If you don't want to be called a white nationalist, it's not smart to work with and for a pretty flagrant white nationalist.
I've read many things written by Gottfried. I have listened to many interviews. I have listened to and read many of those who follow in his foot steps today. This is an out and out dishonest accusation. He has never advocated for anything like white nationalism that I have heard. Spencer before he turned racist was a paleocon and Gottfried was a kind of mentor. AlternativeRight.com started in 2010 before Spencer turned and then he left in 2012. This is a case of a younger guy following Gottfried's thought for a while and then going off his own way later. This isn't an indictment of Gottfried at all. But it is indicative of the kind of tactics Buckley used.
The left doesn't kick out its fringes now. When Buckley was doing most of his purging, they did. In addition, the right and left are not on equal footing. If the left has a nut on its team, the media will ignore the nut. If the right has a nut on its team, the media will ignore everyone but the nut. Makes them a lot more harmful to us.
And do you actually believe this? If some N-bomb dropping weirdo or a David Duke starts trying to latch onto the GOP, would you really just let him do it? Don't you see how that would be counterproductive?
Maybe. I haven't read of leftist purgings. But I do know the New Left of the 60s was radical, violent, and tyrannical. Nothing bad happened to those guys. Most of them ended up college professors where they trained this generations radicals. Even those who were arrested and even murdered people. They are lionized today. I just don't see any purges. The Left has been pushing drug use, sexual immorality, violent revolution; attacking nuclear families and natural rights with no punishment.
I honestly don't care about the media's reaction to a conservative. They should be ignored and I don't care how they portray anyone. They are liars and super immoral people. If conservatives decades ago would have been more courageous and wouldn't have genuflected to the leftist media we wouldn't be in this mess. Again. This is the problem that Buckley created or at least participated in.
At the same time, I am not for racists. I am an individualist. But I am also not for punishing people for things on my team that won't get punished on the other team. The left is full of racists who have said racist things publicly for years. I think fair is fair. I am not going to play the left's game. Behind the scenes I tell them to knock it off though. I move them down the ranks some until they can reform their rhetoric and attitudes. But let's be clear David Duke isn't a conservative. He is a big government guy. And racism isn't a property of conservatism that its thought leaders to need to be afraid of. Racism is a form of collectivism which has been implemented by those pushing for strong central governments.
But that's a very, very different thing from claiming that Ike was a Communist agent, and that was their claim. Their allegation wasn't just wrong. It badly damaged their credibility and was an embarrassment. We need to do better than that.
Sure. But they should have been used as bird dogs to go find the actual Communist agents. Spank them hard behind the scenes and help put them on the right scent. After WW2 the US WAS infiltrated by communists through out the government, industry, and academia.
If you think he generally punched right and extended his hand to the left, then you didn't read his magazine. 98 percent of what's in NR punches solidly to the left.
Good point. I did read it everyday for more than a decade. I would say he gatekept what could be said when NR had a lot of power over conservativism. He made sure that conservatism was presented to the public as a specific thing and if anyone colored outside the lines he marginalized them. This affected industry, academia, and politics.
WFB and NR didn't agree with leftists and progressives rhetorically. IOW they weren't pushing for a leftist agenda. But he/they did welcome people who came out of the left to be a part of their team. That is who the neoconservatives are/were. Ex-trotskyites. Then they clipped off the right side, moving the discussion ever leftward. He also clipped off those whom the left saw as distasteful. If the left disapproved of the stance or rhetoric too much WFB got rid of them. That is clarification on what I mean.
Two facts that I don't think can be denied. First, WFB and NR controlled conservatism for decades, more or less until Trump. As an aside, David French was writing for NR until Trump won the primary. Now he sings the praises of drag queen story hour. Second, while NR controlled conservatism, conservatives lost the country and now we have a growing totalitarianism made up of a one-party state that has set up a two tiered legal system.