function and occupational calling in the new order was tondelegitimize the ideas and institutions of conservatism andnprovide legitimization for the new regime, and its power andnrewards as a class depended upon the very bureaucratizedncultural organizations that conservatives attacked. Only ifnconservatism were “renovated” to the point that it no longernrejected the cultural apparatus of the revolution could verynmany intellectuals be expected to sign up.nMoreover, by focusing its efforts in Manhattan, Washington,nand the major centers of the intelligentsia and othernsectors of the new elite, Buckley and his conservativencolleagues isolated themselves from their natural allies in then”grass roots.” While there was clearly a need for intellectualnsophistication on the right, the result of Buckley’s tactic wasnto generate a schism between Old Right intellectual cadresnand the body of conservative supporters outside its Northeasternnurban and academic headquarters. Among thesensupporters in the 1950’s and 1960’s there flourished annincreasingly bizarre and deracinated wilderness of extremist,nconspiratorialist, racialist, and even occultist ideologues whonloudly rejected both the Old Right mainstream and the OldnRight’s new friends in the intellectual and cultural elite, butnwho failed to attract any but the most marginal andnpathological elements in the country and exerted no culturalnor political influence at all. At various times in its history,nNational Review has found it necessary to “purge” itself ofnsuch adherents, and each catharsis, no matter how prudent,nhas rendered its “renovated” conservatism less and lessnpalatable to ordinary Americans and more and more acceptablento the Manhattanite intelligentsia NR has always soughtnto attract.nIn any case, the Old Right intellectuals for the most partnhad few links with the “grass roots,” the popular, middleclass,nand WSP nucleus of traditional American culture.nNational Review itself was not only Manhattanite but alsonIvy League and Roman Catholic in its orientation, as well asnex-Communist and ethnic in its editorial composition, andnnot a few of its brightest stars in the 1950’s were personallyneccentric, if not outright neurotic. Moreover, few of themnreflected the “Protestant Establishment” that by the end ofnWorid War II had largely made its peace with the newnregime and was scurrying to secure its own future within thenmanagerial state, economy, and culture. Of the 25 conservativenintellectuals whose photographs appear on the dustnjacket of George H. Nash’s The Conservative IntellectualnMovement in America Since J 945, four are Roman Catholic,nseven are Jewish, another seven (including three Jews)nare foreign-born, two are Southern or Western in origin, andnonly five are in any respect representative of the Anglo-nSaxon (or at least Anglo-Celtic) Protestant strain in Americannhistory and culture (three of the five later converted tonRoman Catholicism). Theological meditation competednwith free market economic theory as the main interest ofnmany Old Right intellectuals to a far larger degree than hadnbeen the case with such pre-World War II skeptics ofnProgressivism as Albert Jay Nock, H.L. Mencken, or then”America First” opponents of foreign intervention.nThe religious, ideological, and ethnic differentiation ofnthe Old Right from the country’s Protestant Establishmentnmay have helped push the right’s leaders in a more radicalndirection than they were inclined to go, but it probably alson16/CHRONICLESnnnserved to cut them off from both the Establishment’sndeclining leadership as well as from the rank and file ofnAmericans outside it. The Old Right could not help butnremain an isolated circle of intellectuals and journalists,nabsorbed in rather esoteric theory, despised by the intellectualnelite they hoped to impress and convert, and ignored bynmost Americans and their political leaders.nThe Old Right’s political aspirations were no lessngrotesque than its desire to win acceptance among thenintellectuals and followed much the same strategy. Althoughnthe remnants of the bourgeois elite retained an importantnpolitical base in congressional districts remote from thencenters of the new regime, they could serve only as a brakenon the regime’s power and were unable to control eithernCongress or the presidency. Their inability to do so wasndirectly related to their lack of cultural power, and evennwhen Old Right forces were able to capture the RepublicannParty in 1964, the disastrous result of Barry Goldwater’sncandidacy was in large part due to his supporters’ lack ofnaccess to the national organs of culture and opinion.nSubsequent Old Right political efforts concentrated onnattempts to gain influence within the political domain of thenelite by means of endless searches for suitable presidentialncandidates who could seize national power at a single blownand through a kind of Fabian tactic of permeating the federalnbureaucracy. As a result, there has now emerged an entirengeneration of what might be called “court conservatives”nwho devote their careers to place-seeking in the federalngovernment and favor-currying with whatever President ornsatrap is able to hire them and who have long sincenabandoned any serious intention of challenging the bureaucraticnorganism they have infected with their presence.nIn the absence of a significant cultural base, such politicalnefforts not only were bound to fail but also had the effect ofndrawing the right further into the institutional and conceptualnframework of the liberal regime. Political maneuver bynits nature is a process of bargaining, and the more conservativesnhave engaged in political action, the more they havenfound themselves bargaining and compromising with theirnopponents, who often do not need to bargain at all. Sincentheir opponents on the left, in Congress or the executivenbranch, have ready access to and sympathy from the massnmedia, they are able to discredit the men and measures ofnthe right that will not bend to their manipulation. Moreover,nthe right’s preoccupation with the presidency also forces it tonseek acceptance by the national media and the dominantnculture of the left and focuses its efforts on an institution thatnis far less susceptible to grass roots influence than Congress.nThe modern presidency, as the lesson of the hapless Reagannadministration shows, is less the master of the bureaucraticnelite than its servant, and while a powerful President couldnsubdue and circumvent his own bureaucracy, he could do sonconsistently only if he were able and willing to mobilizenmass support against it from outside the elite.nThe political weakness of the Old Right and its failure tonunderstand that it really represented a subordinate andndisplaced elite rather than a dominant incumbent one wereninstrumental in its gradual assimilation by the liberal regime.nThe crucial episode in the assimilation occurred during thenVietnam War, which the Old Right in general supported onn