Bill Buckley’s vision of the conservative movement as a loosely-held coalition of libertarians, traditionalists, and anti-Communists — three groups who shared certain tangential concerns but held very little else in common — has endured in some form or another all the way through our current political moment.
Family farmers, religious fundamentalists, commodities traders and oil rig workers are all represented under the GOP tent, despite the fact that these groups often share little in the way of common values or life experiences. Appealing to factions within a coalitional party often leads to the pursuit of individual policy prerogatives that are relatively unpopular but nevertheless help band together a viable electoral coalition.
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