What Progressives Can Learn from William F. Buckley

With William F. Buckley's passing yesterday, perhaps the time has come for progressives to stop fearing him and learn from him. Not from his ideas, of course, but from his tactics.

Buckley came of age in an America guided by a liberal consensus. Rather than trim his sails to the prevailing winds, Buckley stuck to his principles. He staked out unfashionable positions and thought long-term, building a movement that came to fruition over decades not election cycles.

In the mainstream media's obituaries, much has been made of the far-right positions Buckley advocated that never went anywhere -- disenfranchising the uneducated, for example. But more important are the far-right ideas of his that actually were implemented -- ideas that often don't seem far-right at all since we're living under them. Buckley's political genius was to broaden the debate by contesting the seemingly uncontestable.

Dismantling progressive taxation is a good example. In young William F. Buckley's America, steeply progressive taxation was a given. In the 1955, when a young Buckley founded National Review, a Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, was presiding over a nation with a 91% top tax rate for the independently wealthy young heirs like Buckley. Today, the top rate is 35% and the Bush tax cuts will eliminate the inheritance tax on wealthy heirs and heiresses altogether.

To affect this kind of sea-change, Buckley and the conservatives he inspired had to think long-term. It was Buckley who organized the young conservatives attracted to Barry Goldwater's ill-fated presidential campaign into the Young Americans for Freedom. The group was actually founded at a meeting held at Buckley's family estate, Great Elm, in Sharon, Connecticut. And the connections formed there lasted decades, creating an intricate web of conservatives in the business, media, and political worlds that would push the country to the right.

The good news is progressives seem to be learning some of these lessons. Faced with an era of one-party rule in Washington, progressives got organized. Howard Dean's ill-fated presidential campaign led to the creation of local progressive groups from coast to coast. And true progressive movement of labor and environmental groups, bloggers and think tank staffers, pundits and activists, finally exists.

Still, the timidity of the left has not been entirely exorcized. There's still no equivalent of a William F. Buckley on the left, consistently staking out progressive positions regardless of their current popularity in order to broaden the political debate. And there's no one on the left with Buckley's sense of humor for skewering the opposition which is a real mystery since conservatives provide such great material.

Comments

[singletaxonland]

W.F. Buckley brought civility to the debate unlike the current crop of hate-radio types. Though I disagreed with most of his ideas I would listen to him. I did admire him for his stance on the stupid war on drugs which to this day has to be one of the most paranoid, repulsive, and costliest government edicts.

What I find most intriguing is what conservatives did not learn from W.F. Buckley. If the conservative movement adopted his position on taxation they would have been a juggernaut to contend with. W.F. was an advocate of Henry George who proposed the Single Tax on Land. It was a capitalist concept that conservatives to this day refuse to accept. They rebuked W.F. and remain a party of privilege. A credit card mentality remains to this day.

What is ironic, if one researches Laissez Faire/Laissez Passer the free market term Republicans embrace one would find the origination of the land tax.

[SamThornton]

Do "progressives" need their own Bill Buckley? It's a little like asking if liberals need their own Joe McCarthy.

Buckley hitched his wagon to the stars of billionaires with extreme right wing ideologies, ideologies that just happened to advance their own economic interests. That's really all one needs to know about Bill Buckley. All the rest, including his own circuitous rants, are mere window-dressing.

One might aspire to ideals that are just a tad less self-serving.

[SEQUOIABISON]

I always enjoyed watching Buckleys show Firing Line he always gave equal time to the liberal point of view unlike the Fox News folks.

But in the final analysis he was a superb articulate eloquent advocate of greed and avarice and managed to justify and rationalize suppressing or eliminating social safety net programs that would make our society more civilized and more egalitarian.

Yet despite his Republican pedigree his Libertarian stance on so many issues that differed from his extremist colleagues made him a person that could almost be admired.

[Dandy12]

Buckley was entetaining, although he came across as an overly verbose effete snob lost in a genre theme... It's easy to be critical when you live an ivory tower existence in Connecticut. He lacked understanding and compassion for the common people (being quite uncommon himself)...

[TommyMcCarthy]

Perhaps I'm feeling a little cynical about my lefty bretheren this morning .........if so, forgive me.


I'm keeping a sharp eye out for posters to agree with Daniel Brook's imminently logical assertion that the left needs a Buckley-like figure that will stand for progressive principles consistently over time, even when they are unpopular, and......at the same time.......... call Ralph Nader ugly names ("gasbag" is a particular favorite, as in: "that gasbag should just shut up and go away")......and complain that Nader is simultaneously "irrelevant" and a "spoiler" (which is not logically possible).

Regards...­..........­..........­..........­..........­..........­..........­..........­..........­......tm

[Plowboy]

I found Bill Bucklet to be an amusing fellow. He was full of himself and knew it. He let it show. That made him great fun. And he was assured of a hearing because he spoke for privilege and snobbery. The rich control many things, onne being what gets heard.
But Bill Buckley's lovers have harmed America. The great acomplishment of eliminating the progressive tax is one example. As they whittled it down, did our economic position improve or not?

And to quote Lord Rothschild: when he was asked how best to finance a nation's debt, he said, "There are many with excess wealth that tyyhey could give up without feeling any harm. That is what shouldff be taaken to finance the debt, but that is not going to happen, because those with that excess wealth control such things, and THEIR PATRIOTISM DOESN'T REACH AS FAR AS THEIR POCKETBOOK."

Moreover, in fairness we should note that, in spite of right wing BS, the wealthy are the beneficiaries of most governmental action. In fact, when the right beghan its great attack on welfare, by the government's own figures, more funds were taaken in from people below the poverty line in income taxes alone than was spent on all the welfare programs. (And, of that expenditutre, only some 20% actually reached poor people in any way! The rest went to companies supposedly doing beneficial things.) So my proposal to improve things would be to stop taxing the poor. Let Bill Buckley's friends pay for the government that does their bidding for their benefit mainly.

But, of course, Lord Rothschild, that great genius of national finance, was right.
And Buckley's friends have got their way.

And the haughty one, in his stilted locution, might have determined that development to be merely the consequence of the dominance over the nation's polity by those most endowed with the wherewithal to command performance harmonious with the cupidity of their class. Except that he would have thrown in a few multisyllabic puns of Roman origo.

[texanna]

While I disagreed with just about everything that Mr. Buckley advocated, I did value the civility of the arguments he had. It's unfortunate that the NeoCons took over his party and tossed civility aside to create an us-or-them, all-or-nothing climate in our government. When you can't just shout over or shut up entirely the opposing view, actual listening can occur. When that happens compromise can occur, and that's the art of politics and representative government, isn't it?

[OSUMercutio]

I know very little about Buckley other than what I've just read, but it sounds like Barach Obama has similar traits. He's accused of being the most liberal senator, yet he has widespread independent and Republican support. And he's maintained a sense of humor despite this bitter contest. I also share the belief that we need to create a movement that lasts more than one election cycle. I believe that the DLC and the Clintons have been slowly eroding the liberal progressive movement. I will not vote for Hillary Clinton under any circumstances. I believe that if she is elected, not only will we lose house and senate seats as Bill did in 1994, but it will lead to the end of the Democratic Party.

[lovethesinner]

It's interesting, if you look at Buckley from different perspectives, his libertarian conservatisim was more like a progressive philosophy than what we call conservative. He was violently opposed to the Republican's use of the evangelical movement, and he his mostly responsible for purging the rascists from the party in the fifties. (which is probably why he wasn't to happy with the pandering to the churh folk in the 80's) I wouldn't toss out all of Buckley's ideas, really. One of them that might find resonance here is his courageous stand on legalizing drugs.

[Deidroni]

It's time the Dems/Progressives strike back at the Right Wing Attack Machine. Their three pillars of power are national security, tax cuts and small government. It's time to crush the myth of these pillars. We aren't any safer with the neocon agenda of pre-emptive attack. The tax cuts have proven to be the reason for our huge national debt which the interest on could pay for all of homeland security. And last, their small government only exists in their feeble minds while they spy on all Americans, destroy our Judicial System, limit women's right to reproductive choice, and limit homosexual freedoms.

Could Michael Moore qualify as the left's Buckley?

[sdskelton03]

Look at tax revenues going back to President Kennedy.

You will find our deficit is caused by a spending problem, not a revenue problem.

[research]

Raygun Bush1 Bush2 all grew the debt more then anyone in history. All part of Newts plan to Bankrupt the USA "till you can drowned in a bathtub" as you rethugs so gleefully say.

yet in each case they increased military spending, cut social services and cut top tax rates. No one believes the rethugs are the fiscally responsible party anymore.

The rethugs are the party of borrow and steal for your war profiteering buddies.

The dems are the party of fiscal responsibility and balanced budget.

Balanced: that's when spending equals revenue.

[NCGigi]

I agree. WFB, and his conservatives, focused on building infrastructure: think tanks, publications, internships, fellowships, etc. Now that school of thought is in favor. He absolutely stuck to his principles and argued his side of things every chance he got. And we progressives must do the same thing. Learn. Grow. Change.

[jmpurser]

So, born half way to home base and sure that the world owed him more he actually got it. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

[research]

It helps that corporatist conservatives have spent millions on their propaganda machines.

Buckley promoted the corporatist fascist conservative agenda.

The conservative agenda is and always has been the agenda of wannabe robber barons and despot kings, at least as far back a Hooverville.

The glorious fruit of that conservative agenda was BushCo when he was popular. BushCo is Corporatist fascist.

[DontImmanentizeEschaton]

research,

Is your comment real? It looks like what a conservative would type if he were making fun of liberals that try to sound smart but have no idea what they are talking about.

corporatist fascist? Do you know what fascist means?

[research]

Aw, hit a nerve?

"Franklin D. Roosevelt in an April 29, 1938 message to Congress warned that the growth of private power could lead to fascism:

The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power."

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