I think many folks underestimate the extent to which the apocalyptic, Flight 93 mentality of American conservatism has been with us for decades. Take, for example, Bill Buckley's 1965 read on the Civil Rights Movement.
Buckley saw the Civil Rights Movement, PRE-SELMA BRIDGE, as a movement threatening to "overthrow a vast civilization which we consider to be the faith of our fathers." 
Buckley, cont'd: "Because if it finally does come to a radical confrontation between giving up what we understand to be the best features of the American way of life...then we will fight the issue."
Buckley, cont'd: "And we will fight the issue not just in the Cambridge Union [where the debate was being held], but we will fight it as you were once recnetly called to do on the beaches, and on hills, and on mountains, and on landing grounds." Loved him some Churchill.
After comparing the fight against what he perceived to be the destructive forces of the civil rights movement ca. 1965, Buckley ends by saying he's fighting for the good of African-Americans, just as the English fought Naziism for the sake of Germans as well as themselves.
"just as you won the war against a threat to civilization, you were nevertheless waging a war in favor of & for the benefit of Germans...just as we are convinced that if it should ever come to...a confrontation...[we will] wage a war not only for whites, but also for Negroes."
Shorter Bill Buckley: "look, we white conservatives might have to fight a race war to defeat people like MLK, but if it does come to that, it's only for your own good."
For context, this is 1965 when Buckley is saying this. The Black Panther Party did not exist yet. That summer, a 24-year old Stokely had just begun to use the term "Black Power" in his work in Lowndes County, MS. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 had been passed a few months earlier.
And Bill Buckley was thought of as the voice of "reasonable" conservatism at the time. His brother-in-law, the ghost writer of "Conscience of a Conservative" had just relocated his family to Franco's Spain. By choice. Because he dug Francoism.
Correction: The Buckley/Baldwin debate (October 1965) occurred AFTER the march in Selma (March 1965). The point still stands, however, that it is notable that at this stage of the movement, Buckley regards it as posing a potentially radical threat to US civilization.
