Today, the American right is in a moment of profound chaos and dysfunction. Many conservatives are alarmed by the antisemitic rhetoric coming from Gen Z commentator Nick Fuentes and his nihilistic Groyper movement. At the same time, Candace Owens is floating conspiracy theories suggesting Israeli involvement in the assassination of Charlie Kirk. And Tucker Carlson—perhaps the most influential right-wing broadcaster—has taken a dark and conspiratorial turn. Even Marjorie Taylor Greene has broken publicly with President Trump over the Epstein files, attacking him on X and across cable news. There is infighting, division, mudslinging, and a general sense of disorientation.
To help make sense of all of this, I was joined on the most recent Free Press livestream by journalist and historian Sam Tanenhaus. His work traces the origins and evolution of the modern conservative movement, including in his recent biography of William F. Buckley, titled Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America.
The following transcript has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Will Rahn: I want to start with your broad thoughts on the uproar on the right that has broken out since Charlie Kirk’s murder. Tucker and Candace on one side, Ben Shapiro on the other, Megyn Kelly and J.D. Vance somewhere in the middle. These fights have been bubbling for a long time. What do you make of it?
Sam Tanenhaus: The Trump era is coming to a close, so now there’s a kind of soul-searching over what comes next. So much of the past decade has been the result of Trump’s personal conquest of the Republican Party that it’s hard to imagine what the right looks like without Trump at the center.
I’ve been writing, as you know, for a long time about the rise of the right and the conservative movement and its intersection of great figures: intellectuals like Buckley or Fordham, Whittaker Chambers. Their ideology and worldview fit itself into a more traditional Republican Party.
Well, that Republican Party feels so empty at this point that it’s these outside media figures who seem to dominate it more than the elected officials do.
