When I heard that the National Review was coming out against Donald Trump in its latest edition, I didn’t give it much thought. I was amused by references to it as the conservative movement’s most influential publication, which has readership of about 150,000. I used to be an avid reader of NR with a hard copy subscription, but I became dissatisfied with its direction under Rich Lowry in the late 90s and didn’t renew. I do occasionally read pieces on-line.
Today, however, I noted that while the editors penned the editorial under the cover headline, Against Trump, the magazine also lured some 20 big name conservatives to join it in trying to kill Trump’s chances of gaining the Republican nomination. Included were the likes of Mona Charon, Andrew McCarthy, Michael Medved, Katie Pavlich, John Podhoretz, Michael Mukasey, Cal Thomas, Dana Loesch and Thomas Sowell. Space doesn’t permit me to quote them here, but I recommend you read their comments on-line. Click here.
The NR struck the tone saying, “Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus with the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.” Attempting to make the case that Trump is not a conservative in the lead-up to Iowa and New Hampshire, NR says, “Trump is a menace to American conservatism who would take the work of generations and trample it underfoot in behalf of a populism as heedless and crude as the Donald himself.”
Trump responded by commenting that the National Review is “a dying paper.” I agree, but the conservative views of those mentioned above are valid and shouldn’t be ignored
A different view of the Lott/Daschle book
