Conservatives at a Crossroads (or Crack-up?)

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Tucker Carlson's lovey-dovey interview with a Holocaust-denying white supremacist named Nick Fuentes caused long-simmering tensions on the far right to boil over into a factional civil war. Is the conservative movement that once elected Ronald Reagan now overrun with charlatans, cranks, racists, grifters, and conspiracy theorists in the Age of Trump? In this episode, the political theorist Damon Linker (Notes From the Middleground) and National Review senior writer Dan McLaughlin trace the history of the conservative movement from William F. Buckley to Ronald Reagan, to Pat Buchanan and Donald Trump.

Book suggestions:

Damon Linker recommends Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right by Laura Field

Dan McLaughlin recommends The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism by Matthew Continetti

Martin Di Caro recommends The Age of Reagan by Sean Wilentz and Reagan: His Life and Legend by Max Boot

Further reading:

Trumpism Will Be With Us For a Very Long Time by Damon Linker (New York Times)

Buckley's Hopes for Populism by Dan McLaughlin (National Review)