Once Dismissed as a Kook, SCOTUS Now Embraces Him

Ever since Donald Trump’s ascension in the GOP, a kind of intellectual treasure hunt has taken place to try and identify the true source of the political right’s embrace of radicalism.

One prominent candidate is the Claremont Institute, where Michael Anton, author of the notorious “Flight 93” essay, essentially kick-started the national conservative movement on behalf of Trump. Other frequently mentioned conservative stalwarts are Samuel Francis, author of the posthumously published Leviathan and Its Enemies who was fired from the Washington Times as a columnist in 1995 for espousing white supremacy, and Robert Welch, the founder of the John Birch Society. Then there is Pat Buchanan, who set the stage for Trump with his own run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1992 on a populist-nationalist platform. And all along, much attention has focused on the significance of William F. Buckley Jr., the founder of National Review, as well as regular contributors to the magazine such as Willmoore Kendall and James Burnham, both of whom left a deep imprint on the modern right.

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