They actually represent about half the country, 80% of the military, 95% of middle America. They aren’t hiding, they’re just busy keeping America operational doing their jobs. They aren’t career activists, they’re raising their families, building and creating things. They are just deplatformed, hidden and ostracized by the media, elites, Hollywood, professorial crowds and the woke warriors.
You appear to be confusing Buckley with Trump/Fox-level folks—not the same group. Buckley and his ilk were educated elites and intellectually-oriented, at least on the surface. We lost a lot when they were overrun with the current mainstream "conservative" folks.
Look up the John Birch Society and George Wallace for example. National Review was able to discredit that similar level of discourse back in the day.
