Keen On

The troubling thing about William F. Buckley, the media savvy founder of modern American conservatism, isn’t so much his politics, but his likability. How could such an overtly reactionary racist and homophobe (even if he was himself gay), be such a charming fellow beloved by all who knew him? That’s one of the central questions which Sam Tanenhaus addresses in his massive new biography Buckley. Tanenhaus reveals shocking new details about the Buckley family's secret funding of segregationist newspapers and White Citizens Councils—information that even appalled Buckley's own son Christopher. Buckley explores how someone could be genuinely charitable and philanthropic in his personal affairs while promoting such corrosive politics. Tanenhaus argues we live in a moment when it seems "almost impossible to disentangle those personas," yet Buckley embodied both simultaneously. This wasn't just genteel bigotry—it was a foundational contradiction that changed the United States and now helps define the theatrical tox