Twitter, Musk and the GOP: Can money salvage losing arguments?

It’s not easy being conservative.

Aside from a few detours into various Dark Ages, progress always wins in the long run, and conservatives are usually cast as the speedbump along the way, if not the outright villain.

“It stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it,” said William F. Buckley Jr. in the mission statement for National Review, the conservative magazine that, to its immense credit, has recently been yelling Stop to the GOP’s excesses as well.

Buckley’s mistake was that he wrote from a fairly narrow ivory-tower perspective before the ivory tower toppled over to the left. But we could use more Buckley-style “conservatives” today, casting critical but sympathetic eyes toward progressive reform like a good editor casting an eye on someone’s rough draft. Even the best arguments need some sharpening, and Buckley’s iron can provide it.

It’s also not easy running a public discussion forum. If you tighten restrictions, you’re going to be accused of bias, and people will head toward more open pastures to shit — I mean, graze. If you take the laissez-faire approach, you have no bulwark against misinformation (see COVID and cryptocurrency) or abuse.