This was written in 2010. Note the bemused surprise that Glenn Beck was bringing back the good old charge that Democrats were "socialists" and his followers were eating it up. And also the author's prescient dismay that the GOP was cosigning Beck's conspiracy theory BS. 
This is from the opening of this essay which I admittedly link to quite a lot here, but only because it strikes me as an excellent example of how an understanding of history can help someone identify current trends that will likely carry into the future. newyorker.com/magazine/2010/…
One great detail from the article is that Dizzy Gillespie (whose name was John Birks Gillespie) "made a humorous run for the Presidency in 1964, organizing John Birks Societies in twenty-five states."
And also, the Democrats have always been illegally selling uranium to the Russians. [Narrator: the Democrats have NOT, actually, been illegally selling uranium to the Russians.]
Oh, hey look. It's right wing conspiracy theorist W. C. Skousen in 1971 advocating what would basically emerge as the GOP platform from the 1980s up through today!
Here's what Skousen's conservative compatriots thought of him in 1971. They thought he had almost become a Nazi. Super cool that at the same time he was sketching the outlines of what was not yet, but would soon become GOP dogma.
And what a shocker to see the Koch Brothers promoting Skousen's writings in 2018.
Skousen's ludicrous historical work would likely be long forgotten if Glenn Beck had not so aggressively promoted it and put it at the center of the ideology of the Tea Party movement in 2010. Tell me again how the Tea Party was about fiscal responsibility?
Democrats are Socialists and it's time for the real Americans to take their country back?
Left: Glenn Beck, ca. 2010
Right: Team Trump, ca. 2019
Left: Glenn Beck, ca. 2010
Right: Team Trump, ca. 2019
And also, there's a shadowy group of Jewish financiers who are undermining America? You don't say Glenn. I wonder if a GOP president should use that messaging to appeal to his base that looks remarkably like the Tea Party demographic?
In 2007 Beck, who was then on CNN, had a John Bircher on his show to explain how there was a leftist open border plot that threatened the integrity of the American nation. Gosh, "open borders." A candidate should really pick up on that talking point, dontcha think?
Narrator: Neither Buckley nor Reagan succeeded in keeping "extremist elements far from the centers of power."
Remember, these sentences were written in 2010, before Trump was even a glint in Steve Bannon's eye.
Remember, these sentences were written in 2010, before Trump was even a glint in Steve Bannon's eye.
In part because Buckley didn't really try that hard.
Again, this was written in 2010. We are truly living in the worst timeline.
Though Wilentz could not have known this in 2010, the story of the coming decade would, indeed, be the failure of the GOP establishment to rein in the far right extremists in their midst. We are now living with the consequences.
I remember reading this conclusion in 2010 and thinking "man, I hope Wilentz is wrong about this." Sadly, he was not wrong.
But luckily, in 2009 and 2010, one of the people who inherited Buckley's National Review wrote a book that really had its eyes on the prize...the fascist threat posed by....liberals.
