Thirty years ago, Garry Wills was a rising star of the Right, a celebrity in the constellation of William F. Buckley, Jr. and National Review. His essay on “The Convenient State,” originally published in 1964 in What Is Conservatism?, a volume edited by the late Frank Meyer, was reprinted in 1970 in the first (but not in the second) edition of Buckley”s American Conservative Thought in the Twentieth Century. Taking its inspi­ration from John C. Calhoun, that essay is still looked upon as being nearly canonical by a number of conservatives. But some years ago, Wills switched sides, from Right to Left. . . .