My Understanding of Conservativism has changed as Life revealed itself

[TwilightZone]

2. Today's conservatives are a different animal.

Nixon would be a liberal on the scale of present-day conservatism. So would George HW Bush, to some degree.

Even W has been labeled a RINO, and he's on record being highly critical of the fear tactics and the direction the party has taken. It's funny in hindsight how conservative we thought he was, and he's not even in the same ballpark as people like Cruz or Trump or anyone on the Freedom Caucus.

Speaking of Buckley, the National Review has gone completely off the deep end. It used to be held up as the standard of modern conservatism (even while often loaded with hackery), but it's now jam-packed with intentional ignorance, Trump apologists, overt bigotry, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theorists.