Last week, I asked “why all the hate for National Review?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, responded:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nI had a subscription to National Review for decades. I let it lapse when I realized O’Sullivan’s Law applied to his own magazine. The writers I admired – who stated my views better than I could – were no longer welcome there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Samuel Francis. John Derbyshire. Mark Steyn. Conrad Black. Theodore Dalrymple. Victor Davis Hanson. Some of their names still appear on the website but they haven’t had an article published in years. The views of the magazine have shifted. Look at the articles in the last few issues, the most conservative guy is . . . James Lileks. I love his writing but he’s not the successor to William F. that I would have chosen to write insightful political commentary. I didn’t leave the magazine, the magazine left me but it’s worse than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“National Review is now run by a nest of never-Trumpers,” said Francis Sempa in 2021, and his comment is still on-point today. The man who is far and away the most popular candidate for the Republican nomination for President isn’t classy enough for National Review. He’s a boor. He doesn’t lose gracefully. And those tweets! He’d never get invited to one of National Review’s cruises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Neither will I. My views are too extreme, too conservative. Like their former columnists and the former President, and the 80 million people who voted for Trump last time and the 120 million who will vote for him this time, I’m not good enough enough for National Review. Which puts me in mind of Grocho Marx: “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Joe Doakes, former National Review subscriber, no longer in Como Park<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Well, I do subscribe to the National Review. Some of my favorites are gone – Derb, Kevin WIlliamson – and others like Charles CW Cooke and Andrew McCarthy remain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Never Trump?” Some are. Some are, like me, Trump skeptics, or from the “what have you done lately<\/em>?” crowd. Not sure if Trump isn’t classy enough for the NR, but I’ve never gelled with his personality, even back when he was a Democrat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn’t vote for Trump in 2016. I did in 2020, although his behavior between the election and Biden’s coronation was almost as stupid as, well, the system he fought. I’ll be in Team Ron ’til the bitter end, but I won’t be voting, directly or indirectly, for a fourth Obama term. Make of that what you will. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the Trump era is going to end – next summer, next November, or perhaps in January of 2029. And I want the GOP that picks up at the end of all that to be more like the GOP of 1994 than the Matt Gaetz clown car of 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the National Review, whatever else you say about them, is about the same thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I hear what Joe’s saying. I understand it. I even agree to a point. I’m also a conservative before I”m a Republican. There will be a post-Trump era, sooner or later. I’d like whatever replaces Trump to reflect beliefs I can get behind. Love Trump, hate him, or fall somewhere in the middle, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last week, I asked “why all the hate for National Review?” Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, responded: I had a subscription to National Review for decades. I let it lapse when I realized O’Sullivan’s Law applied to his own magazine. The writers I admired – who stated my views better than I could – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,16,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-center-right-altmedia","category-conservatism","category-republicans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86778,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86772\/revisions\/86778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}