Joshua Cohen on William F. Buckley and the Lost Art of Friendship Across Difference

Will and Josh welcome Joshua Cohen, author of William F. Buckley Jr.’s Guide to Friendship in a Polarized Era, to explore what one of the most influential conservative thinkers can teach us about civility, humor, gratitude, and cross-ideological friendship. Cohen explains why Buckley’s Catholic faith shaped his approach to public life, how his friendships with liberals reveal a blueprint for healthier political engagement, and why long-form conversations matter more now than ever. The episode covers Firing Line, the Buckley–Vidal clashes, truth-seeking, and what it means to disagree without becoming disagreeable.

Additional Resources
Book: William F. Buckley Jr.’s Guide to Friendship in a Polarized Era https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9781956454925
Joshua Cohen’s podcast: Eyewitness History https://www.historyonthenet.com/eyewitness-history

Guest Bio
Joshua Cohen is a writer, interviewer, and host of the podcast Eyewitness History, where he speaks with people who lived through major historical events. His book on William F. Buckley Jr. examines how the legendary conservative icon modeled civility, curiosity, and deep friendship across ideological divides. Cohen’s work blends history, ethics, and public life with a focus on how ideas shape real-world choices.

Transcript

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Well, hi there, Faithful Politics listeners and viewers, if you're joining us on YouTube, I am your faithful host, Josh Bertram, and thanks for coming on for another episode of the Faithful Politics podcast. Of course, I'm here joined by our political host, Will Wright. Will, it's always good to see you. Do you have any fun shirts on today, Will? Oh, Seattle Seahawks. Well, I am, I am wearing my official hold on. I'm not trying to like, you know, undress, but I'm wearing my official vault 111 shirt from fallout for those that um are interested. nice, nice. Well, that's awesome, Will. And of course, thank you for being here, Will, and being here with our viewers and to come and join us every week or two times a week to dig in depth on issues of faith and politics and to get new perspectives. And that's what we want. And today we're actually really excited. Oh wait, before they do that, like, subscribe, do that stuff. Come on. You need to say it in the first 30 seconds or people don't do it. Like, subscribe, I don't know, we need to have those buttons, Will, where I can point to them. Here, here, maybe you can do that now. Look, I'm doing it for you. Here, here, you can put the buttons up, like and subscribe, so we can hack this algorithm. And today, we're actually super excited to have Josh Cohen on the show today with us. He's a thoughtful analyst and conversation partner working at the intersection of ideas, public life, and everyday ethics. He's known for his clear thinking, generous debate. He focuses on how beliefs translate into real world choices at home, at work, in civic spaces. His work centers on curiosity over combat, bridging data, history, and lived experience into honest, humane divide. He's also the host of the Eyewitness History podcast. So you want to find that wherever podcasts are sold, as he so eloquently said before. No, he said where they're downloaded. And today we're actually talking to him about his book. William F. Buckley Jr.' guide to friendship in a polarized era, lessons in civility from a Catholic conservative icon. Josh, thanks so much for joining us on the Faithful Politics Podcast. I'm thrilled to be here, fellas. You guys are doing great work. I think I told you guys before you hit record there, Josh, that when I saw a progressive Democrat and conservative pastor just talking through the issues in a civil, no screaming, allowed session, ah that seemed like just the match fit for the book. And I just could not be more excited to be here. So thank you for having me. Absolutely, thank you for joining us. let's just get right down into it. Who's William F. Buckley? Why should people care about William F. Bucky? Bucky? We're not gonna call him Bucky, dude. That's actually a great... um Have you ever been to a Bucky's? It's a... Yeah, dude, it's... There you go, dude. But no, we're not talking about Bucky's. We're talking about William F. Buckley. And who is he? I've heard of him. but there are many people who probably haven't. So, level step for us. Who's William F. Buckley? Why should we care about what he said? Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. So William F. Buckley Jr. was the spearhead of the new conservative movement that began in the mid 1950s and persists through to today. All three of us probably agree in somewhat devolved and mutated form. He uh founded a conservative mainstay magazine, which is still around today called the National Review. I think his most lasting legacy in terms of his public persona public image is he created a wonderful show called The Firing Line, which was on public broadcasting, which ran for over 30 years and holds the unique distinction of being the longest running show with a single host ever. And on that, he would invite people, typically liberal, but not always, of the liberal persuasion, I mean to say on, and they would hash out the issues for an hour. And they were almost unfailingly polite. which is something we might want to just take a pause and think about for a moment. Why should we care about him in today's context um is though he was this incredible conservative icon and certainly full of his opinions, not all of them popular, uh which we can certainly get into, uh he had an incredible gift for friendship as Murray Kempton puts it, who I can also talk about. uh with people of the liberal persuasion. Almost all of his friends were liberals, which I thought was fascinating given his conservative uh agenda and his conservative seriousness. So when I was thinking through how to write about him, because I've been wanting to write about him for a long time and he's someone, he's a subject that's been done to death. He himself has two autobiographies to give you a sense of the scale at which he's been written on. He had a lot to say about himself, he? had a lot to say about himself, but in fairness to him, there was a lot to say, right? uh And um yeah, and uh I thought a good device to mix into the book was the idea of how polarized we are today. And so what I do in the book, uh Josh and Will, is I basically examine a friendship that he had with a liberal person. And then I pull out of that friendship a value, a value that can be easily assimilable uh at scale in today's society. So there's one chapter that deals with uh finding our sense of humor again. How great of a society would we live in if we all just learned to laugh a little bit easier. Finding our gratitude, which we can talk about. We have a lot to say about that, in fact. Becoming a truth seeker in... the way I phrase it in the book, this will interest you, Pastor, is becoming a truth seeker of Christ. So that might be a long answer to a short question, but that was the impetus for the book and that's what I'm trying to get across. And I should probably add in that Bill Buckley uh does did um advocate for Christianity in our society. He was by no means a Christian nationalist as far as I could see. Funny enough, we were talking about that before we hit record here. What he did was he asserted, as he put it in an interview back in 1997, universal utility of the Christian ideal. Gratitude, kindness, know, so on and so forth. Forgiveness. So yes, this was the impetus for the book. Yeah, I'm looking forward to chatting about it a bit more. Hopefully that was an okay answer. Yeah, it was great. And I do want to kind of zero in on his uh friendships with people that think differently than him because I, uh you know, through circumstance or coincidence, like most of the people that I interact with on a daily basis are not liberals or not Democrats, my wife probably being the only exception. uh And I think if there's something to that, and I don't know, and I'd to get your thoughts on, was Buckley's ability to interact with people on the other side of the political aisle, uh like a result of just the time he was living in, or was there something kind of unique about him that sort of like... made him, I don't know, like not threatening or made his approach to interconversations, you know, just very welcoming. Yeah, great question. So if he was here with us on this podcast and I asked him directly, what is it exactly that entices you to be so friendly and so kind and so welcoming, um unless you're Gore Vidal, which we can talk about if we want. He would absolutely say his faith. He would absolutely say his faith. His son, Christopher Buckley, who as a probably irrelevant aside, wrote the great book, Thank You for Smoking, which is made into the movie. um said that Buckley's, yes, one of my all-time favorites, great movie, um said that his father's faith was the, I'm quoting him correctly when he says, the molten core of him. And Matthew Contenetti, who I've interviewed, who founded uh the Washington Free Beacon, sharpened that by saying that uh out of that ethic of faith sprang everything else about him. That was the north star of his existence, if that doesn't sound too. artsy to say. uh And yeah, from that that ethic spraying the idea of being kind and being civil. oh As far as being non-threatening, I think I might agree with that. um If one goes on, I don't know if you guys follow Piers Morgan Uncensored, but if someone goes on Piers Morgan, they know that they're going to be in for a bit of a tussle. m They'll be dealing with a host that wants to show off and isn't shy about giving his own opinion, which is fine, but on a panel of six people that can get quite messy quite quickly, right? um So everyone's sort of ready for a fight. And as it turns out, if you have six people on a panel that are looking for a fight, a fight tends to materialize. Funny how that works. um So yeah, his civility, his kindness. um He just set the tone. Certainly in Fire In Line, he had on a governor. Alabama governor named George Wallace, m who, long story short, he was extremely critical of for many, reasons. And it certainly wasn't a good-spirited... Well, I should put it this way. They didn't shout at each other. There was plenty of talking over, and it wasn't the most sugar-coated episode of Firing Line that one could find, but... um They didn't scream at each other. No one called anyone a Nazi. No one called anyone a racist. No one called anyone a sheeple. Barring from my conservative friends, a common slur, right? So yeah, out of his faith came all this. A sign of the times? Perhaps. Perhaps. I mean, if I was to poll my grandparents, my grandfather now, at the time of the 60s would you say that was more or less polarized than we live in now? I bet he'd probably say it was less polarized Which actually is quite a statement because the late 50s early 60s. They were quite turbulent themselves so Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know much about the 60s, although I've done some kind of research and thinking and reading on the Vietnam War. And you have examples there, something like Kent State, where basically the National Guard opens fire and kills college students. That's pretty bad. That's pretty un-American. College students protesting a war and they open fire on them. So in one sense, it does seem like we're more polarized, but it's almost like, that the recency bias em in our minds? Go ahead. Did you ever thought on that? I don't even think the issue is being polarized, because I make the point in the book that in a country of over 300 million people, is it really realistic to expect us to not be polarized to an extent, right? It's a big world with lots of different people, lots of different beliefs and reasons to think how they think and feel, right? Here's the problem, disagreement's not the problem. It's disagreeability that's the problem, yeah? You know, what's that? I was just saying, come on somebody, it was just something I say when someone says something I agree with. It's just a funny thing. I love it. I'll take it. I hope to hear it more. yeah, so the issue isn't being disagreeing. It's disagreeability. um I have, as a Jewish person, as you could probably tell from something about my last name, when I voice a uh pro-conservative stance on let's say gun control, for instance. In Minneapolis, I've been called a Nazi. um And you haven't quite lived until you're a Jewish person who gets called a Nazi. That's a very interesting feeling indeed. So yeah, I actually do think it's more a of the times than anything else. Yeah. And I bet I would guess that either of you probably have some similar stories about if it wasn't you, someone you know that got called something that they didn't need to get called just for having an opinion. absolutely. That's happened to me specifically on more than one occasion. um thinking about this show that he did, right? And the kind of arguments that were presented on this show. I'm assuming they weren't fluff, right? They were something more substantial. um And it was so successful for so long. Do you think that kind of show could last today? Do you think the people have the adequate critical thinking skills, not ability, not potential, the trained critical thinking skills overall in the culture to actually have that kind of appetite? I mean, I've heard things like, well, what about the Lincoln Douglas debates? Those things lasted six hours and they went, you know, and people talk about how people sat there. I don't know, I wasn't there. I'm not sure how much someone followed the argument. every single point by point there, right? I don't know what that says about the culture. And I'm wondering what you think about that right now. Would our culture be able, would it even succeed in our culture? In my opinion, yes is the quick answer. I think in our culture, there is a sort of emaciation lurking beneath the surface for intellectual conversation like that. In my opinion, I think that's why podcasts have become so successful. mean, podcasts have revivified the idea of long-form conversation. It used to be... Yeah, it used to be mainstream political punditry, ironically enough, spearheaded by the Buckley-Vidal debates, that gave, think, the illusion, the hallucination that what people wanted was five minutes, you know, a five-minute frame. Josh, 30 seconds to you, Will, 30 seconds uh following, and we want very quick answers here. Again, with a host that wants to show off, also trying to hurry you off the air to cut to commercial, et cetera. And I think people want the long form. mean, Joe Rogan, know, we had to get, all podcasts lead to Joe Rogan, right? um You know, some of his episodes have lasted five fricking hours. You know, it's, it's insane. um So no, I... that guy who did like mad history or something like that? It was like this podcast called like mad history. Yes. And those things were like literally four hours long or longer. Anyway, hardcore history. Yes. Yes. Yeah, but people do want that. whether they have, they may want it, whether they have the critical thinking to parse through the content, I suppose I'd have to leave that to the individual person to determine. I will say, like, um I think we've lost a lot of our intellectual orientation because we have certain... Sorry to use the word again, uh certain hallucinations that have cropped up in society that prevent us from debating and arguing at our highest level. So not to go down this rabbit hole too far, but just to make the point, if we as a society can't agree on what a woman is, for instance, then how can we possibly discuss abortion, let's say, in a serious manner that doesn't have all of this intellectual creep? that coming in does that does that make sense or am i floundering It makes sense to me. Yes, it does. it actually makes a lot of sense. And it's something that we've talked about um a few times in the show. know, like sometimes a lot of our debates are somewhat grounded on the wrong question, right? Like when we talk about abortion, uh you know, the real question we should be asking is like, where do you think life begins? You know, where do you think life begins? Oh, we both believe that life begins at two different points. So like in order to argue abortion, we need to at least be in agreement where life begins. Otherwise, we're never going to find any sort of compromise whatsoever. I totally agree. We are. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm curious just learn a little bit more about who Buckley is, like as a person. When the microphones are turned off, the cameras are turned off, who is this person that started National Review? And then also like like how much of his personality made its way into its uh into his interviews with people. Because I'm assuming that if, you know, if friends of mine that watch or listen to the show that know me on a personal level will say, yeah, that that's totally Will right there. You know, like the way he approached it, asked it, you know, stuttered, whatever, you know, like that's Will. So I'd love to just hear like who was Buckley and then who did Buckley bring into each of his interviews? Yeah, absolutely. So William Buckley was a Connecticut man. He was actually He actually didn't move to Sharon, Connecticut until he was seven. He started off actually in Mexico. His father was an oil baron, William F. Buckley Sr., a man who's actually had books written about himself. um And then they moved to Paris where he learned French. One of my favorite little fun facts about Buckley to point out to people is that English, this master of English diction and vernacular, et cetera, English was his third language. That's something I never tire of pointing out to people. Yep. Yep, Spanish and French were uh technically his primary because he started off schooling in Mexico and then over to Paris. Yeah, Josh, that was my reaction when I read that. Like, God, I don't have to worry about being smarter than William F. Buckley because I'm absolutely not, you know. And he was, if I haven't said it by this point, I'll say it again, an ardent Catholic. His Catholicism meant everything to him. um He was known by all accounts, and this is again a big impetus for the book, as an uncommonly kind, gracious, and decent person, uh whether the cameras were rolling or whether the cameras were off. um Ira Glasser, the former head of the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union, who I know you guys are familiar with, um who I have a chapter about in the book, he pointed out how Buckley tended to be a great deal quieter, almost shy, in private. gatherings when the cameras were off. And one thing that Buckley pointed out when he was uh on C-SPAN, being interviewed by the great Brian Lamb, and uh he was fielding a criticism by another conservative named R. Emmett Terrell, who's also in the book, about why he has so many liberal friends. That was the criticism directed at him. And Buckley said, why don't spend my time talking politics? And in another part of the book, he says he doesn't spend time talking about religion unless specifically asked or if accidental turns in conversation lurch in that direction as they do. He goes, yes, yes, I have Firing Line, I have National Review, I have my speaking engagements, I have my books. Basically, I don't talk about it unless it's in uh a professional capacity, which I think is something that maybe we, another value that we can all bear in mind. Did I answer your question, Will, or was there more to it? did. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You know, like you did mention about, um you know, how he engaged with his guests when he's interviewing them. So, yeah, yeah, you did. Excellent. Yeah, and I guess my question, my follow up on that, well, it's not really a follow up on Will's actually, because he just keeps saying, I've heard you say a couple times, you don't keep saying it a couple times, the gore, not gore, Gore Vidal, what is, that, was it a Gore Vidal, was that his name? Gore Vidal? Anyway, the Vidal and Buckley, talk to me about that, because you're like, this is the first time he despised someone or something along those lines, like he was really. Maybe not despise, but he was really, wasn't quite as kind maybe? Or I don't know, what do you think? Go ahead, talk to us about that, because I gotta hear about it. Yeah, absolutely. I love talking about it only because it's such a poll. I like anomalies, right? If you have someone who's kind in 999 interactions out of a thousand, you don't really care about those 999, do you? You kind of want to just find out about that one. Seems to me. Okay, so Gore Vidal was, is a very famous writer, incredible writer, wrote a book, I think it was in the 50s. called Myra Breckenridge. This is in the 50s, fellas, that deals with the idea of transgenderism. So incredibly ahead of its time. Excuse me. Yeah. And I think the word he used was despise there, pastor. That's the word to use. Buckley despised of it all, and believe you me, the feeling was mutual. So the 1968 election crops up. ABC, which is the most fledgling of the networks at the time, didn't have the budget to give gavel-to-gavel coverage of those events like CBS and NBC and so on. So what they did instead was they said, okay, let's not cover those per se, but let's have on two intellectuals, one from the left and one from the right, to discuss what was talked about in the conventions. and do it that way. So they conscripted from the right William F. Buckley and they conscripted from the left Gore Vidal. One of my favorite little things to point out about this was Buckley was once asked, is there anyone he would never debate? Good question. He said, well, I would never debate a communist. He despised communism and I would never debate Gore Vidal. So then ABC of course immediately phoned Gore Vidal. So they were met for a series of debates. They had 10 in total, just to discuss the issues. And the entire, in all 10 debates, can sense that they're having something more than just a political disagreement. There's always that energy that you can just pick up on, know? But the most famous meme or moment that was exported out of those debates was the ninth one. ah I don't know if I can swear on your show, so I'm not going to. uh What's that? Okay, it's in context, it's a direct quote. can. Drop the f-bomb if you'd like. yeah, go ahead. Okay, so um the ninth debate took place in Chicago, and the night prior there were riots about the Vietnam War. And uh I guess a bunch of the rioters uh took the Viet Cong flag and raised it in the park in Chicago during these riots. to make a long story short, which is obviously too late at this point, Gore Vidal uh called Buckley a crypto-Nazi. As far as we're concerned, the only pro or crypto-Nazi I can think of is yourself. Now, number one, keep in mind that we're not too far removed from World War II at this point. We're about 20 years out. And Buckley himself was an army captain. So I don't think he saw actual combat. I may be wrong about that. There hasn't been a lot said about his army career before Sam Tannenhaus's book that came out earlier this year. But it... But basically it cropped up at a time when being called a Nazi really meant something and they were fighting words as I think they should be. So Buckley calls him a crypto Nazi and then and then Buckley says, now listen you queer, stop calling me a crypto Nazi or I'll sock you in the goddamn face and you'll stay plastered. It's a, it's a famous, famous clip. Yes, which you can find on YouTube. And it's, it's there, there's a wonderful documentary about it called best of enemies, which I quote, uh in the book as well. um And from that uh sprang a series of lawsuits, some unkind articles that they wrote about each other in Esquire. um And I think I'm right in saying that they didn't speak since. um They hated each other. um And I point them out a couple times, not at great length because it's not a Buckley-Vidal bio, but I point out a few times in the book just to say, hey, just in case you got it twisted, William Buckley was human. He was very capable of anger and so on. One thing I do want to say, kind of as an aside, a lot of people pick him up on, you call this guy a queer and this is back when that was really a slur. I think now that that word has changed. um Basically, you know, is he homophobic and so on? He was also very friendly. He's not in the book, um perhaps to my shame. If there's a second edition that crops up, maybe I can type up an edition. But Marvin Liebman was a conservative gay uh activist who was friends with Buckley for decades. He considered Buckley a mentor. So, you know, if Buckley was homophobic, he was a pretty bad one, it seems to me. So... Yeah, since she asked, that is Buckley and Vidal. So I love that and I just want to press a little bit more into it. what was it, and I know you were uh bringing this out, but I want to go into deeper into why, what was it about Gore Vidal that was so difficult for Buckley, so reprehensible for him? and vice versa. Was it just that they were strong personalities on different sides that just got into fighting words or was there something deeper and more ideological? Yeah, it's a great question, pastor, which I think demands kind of a boring answer, I'm sorry to say, because I thought through that myself. I honestly think it was just a personality clash. think both were hyper intelligent. Both had great senses of humor. Yeah, both had great senses of humor, which is great, but if you don't like someone, you can weaponize that very quickly. So yeah, I think it was. strong personalities with senses of humor that got into a shouting match and it just happened to be in front of a national audience. I'm curious on what you think um Buckley would think about a lot of this Christian nationalism stuff we see in the country. we don't have to parse all the different veins of Christian nationalism, so we can just kind of keep it focused. So as a person of deep faith, what would he make of, I don't know, like 10 commandments in the classrooms? uh you know, teachers having to teach the Bible in public schools or just the anti-Christian bias task force that the White House put together. Yes. I interviewed um Rich Lowry, who is the editor-in-chief of National Review Now and a Buckley protege for the book. And I asked him a little bit about, um you know, what would he think about more Christianity in the country? was, I think, how I phrased it. And he said that, um he told me that anything to do with Buckley would be nuanced and perhaps even somewhat idiosyncratic. uh He thought deeply about a number of issues. He took them very seriously and... He didn't have just a one sentence answer to these things, right? know, solve the problem of religion in the country and do it in a paragraph, right? But to answer your question, he advocated for Christian ethics in society. He would certainly want more Christianity in the country. um I personally don't think he would want it enforced, as I think you're implying with your question, rightly so. I think he would want it to be, let's take the Ten Commandments just as a hyper-specific example. If there was a school that wanted to showcase the Ten Commandments on their lawn, which has certainly come up, I think he'd have been all for that. I have a feeling, and this is now just me talking because he's not here to answer for it, but I bet he would say, um but here a gentleman crops up a problem. If you're going to allow the school of the right to put the Ten Commandments out, how are you going to deny the Church of Satanism to do the same thing? As happened, by the way, and I think it was Belle Plains in my own fair state of Minnesota here. Or Islam, or any of these things. Scientologists, while we're at it, throw them in the mix. If we do it for one, it seems that you have to do it for all. um And I think Buckley would have advocated for that, because one thing he was not... to get to the Christian nationalism point. I don't believe he was a Christian nationalist in that sense. I think if you were to ask him about imposing Christianity, then he would say that would defeat the entire purpose. Because people have to find it, I'm sure that the good pastor will agree with me, people have to find it by their own journey and their own struggle and their own witnessing. It can't quite be enforced uh in quite that way. uh Any kind of enforcement strategy is simply wallpaper on a person's religious beliefs. I'd love to, not to return a question, but I'd love to get your thoughts on that, Pastor. em Yeah, no, it's totally appropriate. I've had people ask me that actually several times. Sometimes people will ask, not that specific thing, but ask questions back, people were interviewing. They've asked Will, because someone's like, just wondering like, how can a liberal be a Christian? You know, they'll ask Will and he'll be like, well, I love Jesus, you know, I guess that's how. And they're like, but what about LGBT and abortion? And so anyway, it's always kind of, you know, the same kinds of things. And those are worth talking about and of course examining in depth. I do think, so my answer is becoming more complicated. as I research and study more about American history and the history of Christianity in America. Because em not to get too long winded, but the colonial times were certainly, em there was what we would consider them by today's standard of Christian nationalist, they were Christian nationalist um without a doubt in my mind. uh And again, I'm not trying to simplify that too much, right? You have Rhode Island. where the Baptists went and it became free, more free, at least they, but you have, even when the Constitution was written for the first, em I don't know, probably several decades after, you still had em colonies enforcing religion, em or not colonies, states enforcing religion. Yeah, I mean, you have quite a bit of those kinds of things, because why? Well, because that's the kind, that was the cultural milieu that they, were raised in and they lived life in and they had to navigate in. And so I think that like even thinking about the way that the constitution was written and the people that wrote it, it was very controversial to a lot of people because it didn't put God in it. I think that, I think that, and what am I trying to say? It's very complicated is what I'm trying to say. We try to flatten history and make it very, very, um easy to interpret, and I get why we do that. We have to put a story to it, we have to make sense of it, and I think there is a story to it. But of course, we're picking and choosing things out of that, these sub-narratives or these maybe larger narratives that aren't the same thing, right? You have rational enlightenment thinking, Scottish common sense philosophy, that's deeply, deeply influential on the thinkers that created our country, this nation. And then you have uh Puritan theology and holiness and culture that is equally deeply influential. And so trying to neatly separate them, I think is a fool's errand, personally. I don't think they're neatly separated. Just like you can't neatly separate me as a Christian from like a post-enlightenment way of viewing the world, right? right. viewing science and weather, right? mean, it's like, you know, in how many ways am I a enlightenment, rationalist thinker just by being an American in quite a few ways? I mean, my trust in science, my trust in medicine, my trust, you know, the way I explain phenomenon and all that, that is all, that's scientific, that's stuff that has come out. So what I'm trying to say is that, Christians, we can't separate it neatly. We try to. The question I think we have now, I even think the question was America, Christian nation. I think that's a bit of a red herring to be honest with you because I think that we can't, by some definitions, absolutely it was a Christian nation. By other definitions, uh no. Didn't you notice they didn't put God in the Constitution, that deists were very much uh part of the people that actually wrote it? and put it down, right? But then again, they had to get it approved and ratified by a bunch of Puritan Christians and then a bunch of other Christians and people. So it's like, how do we separate these things? You can't. So I think the question for us is what kind of country do we want now? And even the way that people talk about going back and... Well, we got to get back to the, you can't, you literally have so much precedent of history and legal precedent alone that we can't. And like you said, 300 million people, I'm sorry, we can't go back to colonial times where there was like less than a million for the, and it grew rapidly, no doubt. But it's like, we can't go back to those times. They didn't have Muslims. They didn't have to deal with Hindus, Muslims. um All these other religions, right, is what I mean outside of Christianity except for maybe Jewish, Judaism, and then of course Catholicism, which they essentially considered almost non-Christian, or least rivals in their minds, right? So, and a lot of distrust. so it's like, sorry, again, long answer to short question, but it's like, but that's the reality, isn't it? We package these questions in small little things and then as we unpack them, there's so much... uh so much controversy and complication in it. And I think for us now, we have to look at the current uh manifestation of Christian nationalism, whatever we want to call it. And we've got to ask ourselves, is it creating the kind of country that we want for our children and for our neighbors, including our neighbors that are not Christians? So if we don't answer that question, we are not being faithful stewards, I think, of what God has given us. in its providence. That's my thoughts. I'd love to hear your reaction to that. Yeah, uh my first reaction, you said you want to build the country, the culture that we want, not just for Christians, but our non-Christian brothers uh and sisters, of course. This is one of reasons why John Rawls' Veiled Thought experiment was so wonderful. Basically, I think he was a political scientist. And what he said was, you know, uh imagine you're building a society where you don't know what kinds of people are going to inhabit it. You don't know what percentage are going to be Muslim, Hindu, Catholic, and the rest of it. uh So what happens when you take that way of thinking about it is you're solving for human factors. You're not solving for Catholic factors or Muslim factors or, not to pick on the Scientologist again, but Tom Cruise factors. You're only solving for what do human beings need to... to self-realize and self-actualize. So I think, in my opinion, I think an orientation of Christian nationalism in the impositional sense that we were talking about doesn't solve for that. How can it? Almost by definition, it doesn't solve for it. um That's why I think religious pluralism is so important and certainly a decent amount of secularism. um Because what... One thing that I like to point out, um somewhat contrary to the book, but I think it's just interesting, is I think one thing that secularism does is it allows other religions to thrive because you don't have a uh theocratic uh hierarchy, if that makes sense. If you're in a country that's uh ruled by Christian nationalism, I have to wonder how comfortable you might feel if you were a Muslim, for instance. um I feel like I brought us very much off course, so I apologize for that. Yeah, probably not comfortable. No you didn't, I asked you the question, dude. This is exactly the kind of stuff we talk about all the time, because we're trying to figure out how are we going to do this? We still have to live together. We are not going to ship out everyone we don't agree with out of the country. That is not only morally reprehensible, it's morally reprehensible, it's illogical and foolish. So anyway, I'm getting, I'm passionate about it because I feel like a lot of my Christian brothers and sisters are deceived, to be honest with you. They're not thinking it through. em They're stopping at, I want to be cared for and I want someone on my side, full stop there. And they're not digging deeper into the implications of what's happening and the precedents that it's setting. It's absolutely terrifying, the precedents that are being set right now. And just wait till Gavin Newsom, beats whoever they're putting up in 2028, including Trump, if he tries to do it again. And I truly think that another three years of what we've had, people are going to be sick of it. And someone like Gavin Newsom or someone that's actually a candidate that people are going to vote for, instead of the mess that happened last time with the Democratic Party of switching in the middle of the summer and all this, I mean, they they shot themselves in the foot. And we've talked about that before on here. And they essentially handed Donald Trump the election, in my opinion. And okay, there you go. Anyway, sorry. I sent it over to Will and then I jumped in and interrupted, sorry Will. Well, real quick if I may will. a, I do that. Yeah, go ahead. Yes, yes, sorry, I'll be so quick. If I haven't said it already, I want to make crystal clear here. uh William Buckley was not, as far as I could tell, a Christian nationalist. He was a Catholic who advocated for Christian ethics in society. um And this is exportable and can be emulated in the secular world too. More kindness, more gratitude. um He does not mean to say everyone in this country needs to be a Christian. Far from it. I think he'd be upset by that because it would give him less to debate if you really want to the truth. So I just wanted to put that health warning out regarding how I thought about Buckley. All right, sorry Will, go ahead. No, no, it's fine. And I think it might be important also just to kind of get a little bit more clarification on just his politics. uh I think you mentioned earlier that he was a conservative uh and I would venture to guess you'd probably agree with me that his brand of conservatism when he was alive looks a lot different than probably what modern day uh manifestations of conservatism look like. So, you know, so I'd love to kind of just Get your thoughts on if he were alive today, would he be welcome with open arms in the current Trump Republican Party, or would he be cast or be viewed as an outcast of some Uhhh... Interesting. So I think I'm going to do that tackle that in reverse order Will so as far as would he be welcome with open arms into what has essentially become the party of Trump? Let's just be honest here. uh I would say Probably not one thing. I like to point out I was wondering before I came on would we venture into Trump territory and here we are um so back in 2000 uh William Buckley, all roads lead to Trump. It's true, Joe Rogan and Trump. Back in 2000, Buckley wrote for cigar aficionado his analysis of Donald Trump. And the article, you guys will love this, it was on demagoguery. Uh, he talks about, I think he talked about how, you know, Trump has never seen a greater sight than himself in a mirror. And if he were shaped differently, he would almost certainly apply for Miss America. Uh, basically hinting at various, various less than great personality traits that, that, that Trump has sometimes shown, right? only once or twice has shown them. Uh, so I don't think he'd be welcome because I think the Overton window has shifted just that far out, right? In the book, actually, one of the things, one of the values I draw out, is basically advocating against fanaticism. And fanaticism in this context is, excuse me, seeing the person that's in front of you. If you're talking about, let's say abortion. seeing them only in that moment as just your intellectual foil. Just this person that is disagreeing with you about this one topic and not the person who's also that terrible golfer, you know, or the poker player that you like to take money from, you know, that kind of thing. You don't see them as a fully fleshed person, in other words, you just see them as that, your intellectual foil in the moment. That's fanaticism. And actually, sorry to drone on here, uh but... In that same chapter, I reference a speech he gave where he himself cites Oliver Wendell Holmes, the great Scottish judge, the one who famously said that, shouting fire in a crowded theater, we all know the rest. Basically, he said, everyone will agree as just a matter of common sense that any homeowner owns the space above their roof. Right? to extent that their neighbor couldn't construct an object perpendicularly to extend over it. The fanatic, will reason from their ownership of the space above their roof that they have claims to this uh shaft that ascends into the heavenly spheres so much that uh no plane can fly through it, no child's kite can fly around it without express written consent by the homeowner. I think that's a good demarcation of what a fanatic might be. um And then finally, your first point, actually, uh Pastor, about what kind of conservative he was. So one of the big... achievements of National Review when he found it in 1955 was discerning for a large audience what a conservative was and most, would argue perhaps even more importantly, what a conservative was not. Okay, so at the time the conservative movement was very fractious, very schismatic. No one could quite agree on a set definition, which is very important in a movement. What the hell are we? And so one of his great accomplishments, in my opinion, was keeping the fanatics of his movement in check. uh Specifically, the John Birch Society is what I'm thinking of, the JBS, a wacko schismatic fundamentalist sect who preached, among other things, that Eisenhower was a communist uh and such craziness. It was founded by uh Robert Welch, the candy tycoon. uh excuse me, so he was against fanaticism and he was also against, in many ways, populism. This is what led him to criticize so vociferously the Alabama governor, George Wallace, who I think I mentioned a little bit earlier, for his segregationist stances. um And he discerned for, as I say, for a large audience what a conservative was. And this is classic gatekeeping, but this is how you keep the fanatics. and the rebels and so on in Czech and define what a movement really is. So if you would have asked me what might be his greatest, his single greatest contribution to conservatism, it would be that. You know, just just one just one comment. Sorry, Josh. The I will say um like I think National Review does a pretty good job um as far as, you know, reporting, sort of looking at the facts. uh Obviously, like every news media organization is going to have their their one offs. But I mean, like I read a lot of National Review and I listen to a lot of their podcasts. I mean, I'm I'm addicted to uh to the McCarthy report, even though I don't necessarily care for the 10 minutes of talk about baseball at the front. I do find it very, very informative. It's a conservative legal take on what's happening in the news. And uh I loved Rich Lari when he was on, I think it was Left Right Center um when that was going on. So yeah, I definitely think that National Review has done a pretty good job at carrying the torch of Buckley. Yeah, I would agree with that too. You mentioned this, I think we're kind of skating around the idea, not in an intentional way, but almost it's like not quite hitting it of this idea of the boundary lines that Buckley might draw or that almost like what's the bridge versus the boundary? Like one thing that you said, um was that when he was debating, right, he was either called a Nazi or called someone, I'm forgetting which one, but he called someone a Nazi. He was called a Nazi, sorry. So he was called a Nazi, right? So, and that was, right, a real insult, which it should be, you're right, those are fighting words, and we're throwing it around way too, way too easily. um But do you think that, um He would have had a Nazi on to talk about ideological issues, or would he have had someone um from communist, Stalinist Russia, or um I'm forgetting the Russian presidents or whatever they were called at that time, premiers after that. But like, I guess you get my point, like were there places and ideologies he wasn't even going to platform? Do you think? Yeah, awesome question. I have a few comments on this. So, uh in the book, I talk about um moral last ditches. And this is where it doesn't matter how kind you are or how gracious and tolerant of other ideas, et cetera. You have to have a moral last ditch. I think I also call it a moral tripwire. where if someone crosses that boundary, that's when you throw your hands up and go, even I can't reconcile this, which he did. um So in my opinion, um it's gonna be Nazism and anti-communism, excuse me, Nazism and communism will be those moral tripwires. He famously fired a writer from National Review who was on the masthead originally named Joseph Silbrand. uh And he fired him for what he called, if I'm quoting him correctly, contextually anti-Semitic prose. So he fired him for that. um So that's on that. um And he also broke with a friend of his named uh Revello Oliver, who wrote for National Review and will go on to become one of the co-founders of The John Birch Society. uh Excuse me. um And then, forgive me, what was the second part of your question, Josh? Well, you know, really this is about, guess I'm getting to, so he would, there were certain moral trip wires and then really it's, I'm thinking applying it today. Like for instance, right, we would, we have platform people that some people would be, are absolutely horrified that we did that. And would we platform say someone who is pro, I don't think we would, but someone pro pedophilia or pro something reprehensible to us? right? But they want to make an argument. This is the kind of what, what are the lines and then how does what he did help us today? I have it now, I have it now. And think one of your questions was, what do you have a Nazi on? um So he had on the famous leftist linguist Noam Chomsky, whose name I would imagine you know. Yeah. And at the beginning of their conversation, they started talking about um the ethics of debating Auschwitz. Ethics of debating Auschwitz. And Chomsky says, well, If we had the debate early on and by having the conversation one could have done something to perhaps prevent Auschwitz, then not only should we, but we have a moral mandate to at that point. Buckley, for his part, I think they also ventured into the idea of Holocaust deniers. He said he hasn't had any representative of pro-Auschwitz person on the show, nor does he ever intend to. So I think that might be the answer on that. uh And as far as I can, I will have to admit over 30 years on the show, of the show, thousands of episodes, I haven't watched them all. As far as I'm aware, he has not had any Nazi or representative of Nazism on. um I don't... One thing I'm struggling with a little bit is as I suppose his biographer in some sense, mean his full biographer is Sam Tannenhaus, uh but as his biographer in some sense, I try to stay away a little bit when someone says, well, what would Buckley think of this? And if I don't have any primary source to go on with regards to how he might answer, I'm just a slave to speculation, right? I'm happy to tell you what I think he might say, but uh I wouldn't have to, I couldn't claim any authority to say so. I hope that's a fair response. Yeah, it is. m Our last question for you. um So I'd imagine, ah out of all the hours, days, weeks, years that you've put into this book, not everything that you wanted made it into the book. So what's something that didn't make it into the book that you feel the reader would benefit from knowing? Thank you for asking. Yeah, and I have actually thought of that. Yeah, so one person who I would have liked to have included in the book, but ended up not including because, and the reason by the way, is because this gentleman and William of Buckley were actually quite close ideologically. And after the first two or three, after I got the first two or three people in the book, Christopher Hitchens, who by the way, I think I'm the only person to write about in the context of Buckley. uh Norman Mailer, Adler Lowenstein, and so on. Well, once I got to a bunch of liberal atheists, I wanted to kind of keep that device throughout, and this person would have disturbed it. And the answer is, there was a gentleman named Malcolm Muggeridge. Malcolm Muggeridge was a British journalist, humorist, uh was at one point an atheist, but then became an extremely devout Catholic. And it was because he was so devout of a Catholic that I thought maybe I'll leave that for the re-release. Malcolm Muggeridge just as an interesting aside, he's the reason that the three of us and all of our friends and all of our friends' friends know the name Mother Teresa. um Because the reason Mother Teresa got popular was because there was a documentary that sort of profiled her and there was a, whether you believe her or not, was claims of um a miracle on the footage, on the film. I think it had to do with it was like brighter than, brighter than it was supposed to be. I'm flubbing that up somewhat. But that was the story that was sort of exported and sort of what skyrocketed Mother Teresa. And Malcolm Muggeridge was the producer of that documentary. So that was his brainchild. if you value Mother Teresa and her life and so on, you have Mr. Muggeridge to thank for it. So he's someone who I would have included. um I would have had a thought through what the value might have been other than, you hey, you can actually also be friends with people you agree with, which I don't think people need me to tell them that, right? You'd be surprised the things that people need to be reminded of. We should just make YouTube real of you just saying that. It's like a 30-second, like you can be friends with people you don't agree with. can be friends with people you don't agree with. But Josh, this has been a phenomenal. interview I've learned so much about William Buckley and I'm hungry to learn more. So I just really appreciate you spending the time putting in the legwork and yeah, writing this book. Well, that's my pleasure, guys. Thank you so much. I was really pleased to receive an invitation. And maybe as just my final shameless plug, if I may, readers can go to Amazon.com, William F. Buckley Jr.'s Guide to Friendship in a Polarized Era. And then they can also go to my publisher's bookstore that's called FaithfulText.com. And then they can receive a discount. There's a discount code on there as well. That's awesome. Tell us a little bit about your podcast. No, yeah, sure, thank you. A day where I can plug the book and a podcast is a good day. So yeah, so the podcast is called Eyewitness History, um and on it I've interviewed people that were, as you might imagine, eyewitnesses to historical events. So I've interviewed Holocaust survivors, World War II veterans. um I would interview a Nazi, by the way. And I've tried because I... would just be interested to hear what their thoughts are, particularly in retrospect. uh I've interviewed the inventor of the cell phone. I interviewed a Saturday Night Live writer, the guy who wrote Chris Farley's last comedy sketch. That's a bit of history. um Oscar winners, Pulitzer Prize winners. I have absolutely no business. I just uploaded, actually just the other day, I interviewed the guy who created Final Destination, the film franchise, you know. um He's still alive? still, Jeffrey Reddick. yeah, sure. I mean, they only came out in the early aughts. But yeah, I have no business having talked to the people I've had the honor of speaking with. um So yeah, that's Eyewitness History, that's on Spotify, Apple Podcasts. I think I made a crack at the beginning wherever fine podcasts can be downloaded. And that still rings true an hour later. uh That's really awesome. Well, uh thank you so much, Josh. This has been an amazing conversation. uh We will make sure that we put all those links to include the link to your podcast in the show notes. Make sure everybody go out, check out the book, check out the podcast, learn more about William Buckley. uh Thanks for joining us this weekend. always, make sure you keep your conversations not right or left, but up. We'll see you next time. Take care.