Intro

What does the life of William F. Buckley, Jr. reveal about the deeper currents shaping American politics? In this episode, Jacob Heilbrunn speaks with Sam Tanenhaus, a former editor of The New York Times Book Review and the author of the new biography “Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America” (Random House, 2025). Together, they examine how outsider campaigns, cultural backlash, and the performance of political authenticity have reshaped both the right and the left. Is Trump the culmination, or corruption, of Buckley's movement? Has the liberal establishment lost its hold not just on power, but on the language of ideas itself? And in a time of ideological confusion and institutional decay, is today's chaos a break from the past or its inevitable result?

Music by Aleksey Chistilin from Pixabay