Conclusion

Abstract

Abstract The conclusion traces the culmination of National Review’s efforts to institute conservative counter-circuits during the presidency of Donald Trump. These efforts led to the triumph of Fox News and the Federalist Society, the conservative law society that recommended most of Trump’s federal judges. National Review’s promotion of conservative counter-circuits also culminated in the magazine’s near obsolescence; today, the magazine is increasingly cut off from the Republican Party because of its eschewal of far-right conspiracy theory. This obsolescence is dramatized by the career of Christopher Buckley, William F. Buckley, Jr.’s son, who broke with the Republican Party and conservative movement in 2008. Focusing on Make Russia Great Again (2020), Christopher Buckley’s satire of the Trump administration, I argue that his work distils the aesthetic that National Review’s literary network cultivated in the 1960s and 1970s. At the same time, it shows how that aesthetic is no longer compatible with conservative politics.