Sam Tannenhaus

You know, he says these things and he means them.

Well, then I'm going through the correspondence, you know, the letters as you do when you write these books.

And I see that Buckley had an exchange with another one of his many proteges, brilliant writer, Michael Lind, who's still out there, pretty close to J.D.

Vance is my understanding, but out there in politics.

and Mike Lynn said to Bill Buckley, you know, Buchanan's gonna turn this into a real culture war.

And Buckley said, yeah, I know.

He said, that's what we want.

He said, if you believe the things Pat Buchanan does and I, Bill Buckley, agree with them too, then you expect somebody to come out and make the case, to state it in an aggressive way and take the battle to the other side.

So here we are in Minneapolis and I'm thinking,

Yeah, we're kind of seeing it.

At last, everybody on both sides is saying it.

We're going to have a fight about what the identity of this country is.

I see where my friend David Brooks, leaving the New York Times, he says, well, you know, I've got to help people figure out who we are as Americans.

And I'll add one more thing and let you get a word in edgewise here, Steve.

I was surprised when I wrote a profile of Pat Buchanan a number of years ago, not long after the first Trump victory.

I went down to Langley, Virginia, and interviewed Pat Buchanan, did a long story on him for Esquire magazine, which he loved, by the way.

And in that piece, I quote David Brooks saying, Pat Buchanan's the most influential conservative intellectual in America.

They weren't saying that back in 92.

100%.

Absolutely.