10. Aside from Buckley's sex fantasies, post-war American conservatism of the National Review variety was a fount of monarchism. Again, the Cold War context is key. European, Middle Eastern & Asian kings seen as bulwark against communism and socialism.
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11. One of National Review's columnist was Erik Maria Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, an ardent monarchist. In 1960s, Kuehnelt-Leddihn told George Wallace, "Governor, what you need in America is a king." Wallace wasn't sure the people of Alabama were ready for that.pic.twitter.com/xSvYVYpvEw
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12. Another National Review contributor was Otto von Habsburg, then the pretender to the Austrian throne. Von Habsburg insisted that National Review was the only magazine that spoke sense to the American people.
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13. Buckley's brother-in-law L. Brent Bozell, Jr. moved to Spain in early 1960s (because he thought the fascist regime was the ideal Christian society) and became heavily involved in Carlist movement, a dynasty vying for the throne.
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14. Bozell's neo-Carlist movement should not be dismissed as fringe weirdos. They had a real importance on Catholic right in creating the model of fighting reproductive freedom by harassing clinics.pic.twitter.com/P1DeSIQ8CY
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15. To be fair, idea of using monarchs as USA Cold War allies was not just confined to the far right. USA Middle East policy and Japan policy had similar impetus.
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16. In 1976, the same year William F. Buckley wrote about wanting to spank and fuck the Queen, Jack Kirby created an allegory about a neo-aristocratic American elite that wanted to destroy democracy by fomenting racism and culture war.
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17. Kirby's Madbomb story (Captain America 193-200, 1976) is a bicentennial epic about a plot to turn Americans into raving mobs fighting each other. The villain turns out to be a plutocrat named Malcolm Taurey (i.e. Tory) who wants to restore aristocracy.pic.twitter.com/8Cn3LGdDOZ
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18. I wouldn't want to make too much of a claim for Kirby's Madbomb story except that it does map well with the emergence of an American right that is explicitly nostalgic for aristocracy and can succeed only by divide-and-conquer race war.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
I wonder how much this was also influenced by The Crazies (also known as Code Name: Trixie), a 1973 American science fiction horror film written and directed by George A. Romero.
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Likely. Kirby was a big movie watcher and worked those plots into his stories.
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