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What Would Buckley Say?
National Review is not only the birthplace of the Never Trump movement, but also the “Reagan, Never Again” Reform Conservative movement. National Review without William F. Buckley isn’t National Review.
I don’t blame NR for publishing its famous “Against Trump” issue. They thought, with good reason, that Trump would push the Republican Party to further to the left than even another Bush. At the time of that issue, Trump might have actually been further to the left than he was by the time he became President.
When Trump governed as a conservative, some of the writers at NR became more sanguine about the Trump Presidency. Just like many of us at Ricochet, they changed their minds. Rich Lowry even expressed regret at having published the “Against Trump” issue.
Now, National Review contracted TDS in a big way. You won’t find a kind word about Trump anywhere unless it’s from a guest writer like VDH or Conrad Black.
Also, they have been silent on the voter fraud issue, which ought to matter even if there wasn’t enough to change the result. Maybe they think they will be mistaken for capital building rioters. They should relax.
I can only guess at what Buckley would think about Trump, and would likely guess wrong.
Buckley was a bit of an intellectual bad-a** in his day, and was friends with Reagan and Limbaugh when they weren’t socially acceptable. How would he have reacted to Trump? Your guess is as good as mine.
Also, what would he think of National Review today? Athwart history, anyone?
Published in General
No. It is not about Trump. It is the anti-Trumpists (sic) who have to make everything about Trump (it is like a coping mechanism, or something). The lack of virtues of NR is positively correlated with 100% enthusiastic support of the homosexual agenda. Google (no, duckduckgo) Jason Steorts.
Clearly you knew Buckley and all of the rest of us here are wrapping ourselves with a Buckley blanket and using him to articulate our own belief. Kind of like some do with President Reagan. President Reagan could be brawler with the Left. He was a gentlemanly brawler whereas Trump was a barroom brawler. I think Reagan would have appreciated the brawling either way. This exchange also reminds me of a VP debate.
Exactly. And Bill Buckley would have stood up for his Church and Catholicism and its teaching that homosexuality is a disordered sexuality. The problems at NR started with the intolerance of Jason Steorts being made the philosophy of all NR. Mark Steyn reports.
“Forklifted.” Excellent.
President Biden is like a turtle on a fencepost. You may not be aware of exactly how he got there, but you know for certain that he didn’t get there without significant intervention.
Would he have sat on his hands while Russian Collusion Hoax was being perpetrated? Would he have joined in?
What means, “dropped the leak?”
I mean investigating and prosecuting it. Gary likes it.
What drives me nuts are the constant accusations that NR or anyone else who believes Trump has behaved badly since the election is “selling out” or has a “conflict of interest” or is more interested in “Georgetown cocktail parties” than in helping everyday Americans.
You think a guy like Charles C. W. Cooke is in the bag for the “Koch Brothers?” No. Some people just disagree with you for principled reasons. Even conservative ones. Get over it, stop assigning blame, and make a substantive argument, not an emotional one. Some here have done that, but mostly it’s like a hothouse of resentment in here lately. It’s getting so tiresome.
One thing Buckley would not have done with the past few weeks is emote daily about how angry he is with populists, or how angry he is with the Republican Party, or how angry he is with Democrats. He’d have marshaled facts to his case on policy issues and presented them in words we had to look up.
I am for this. 100%.
This comment is just one example of a few in this thread where people are projecting. Did I speak approvingly of Trump’s behavior after the election? Nope. Did I criticize NR for not backing everything Trump does? Nope. In fact, most of us know that his behavior might have cost us the Senate.
I criticized NR for contracting full Trump Derangement Syndrome. That they have ceased separating the good from the bad. They also dropped all discussion of election fraud and tech censorship. (Ok, I forgot to mention tech censorship in the post.)
Criticizing National Review for TDS doesn’t automatically mean one has Trump Worship Syndrome. Read the actual words.
As for Buckley, I think he would have kept his head through this.
I don’t know or understand what many at National Review, The Bulwark or The Dispatch believe or the conservative policies they hold and wish to implement but I do know that that Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris are a far greater threat to our Liberty than Donald J. Trump could even imagine to be in his most hubristic musings and that doesn’t seem to concern them in the least.
The inability of these three publications to precieve this threat makes them irrelevant in the near future. I suspect the financial backers of The Bulwark and the Dispatch will divest now that their mission is accomplished. There isn’t alternative funding source and no audience for their ravings.
I subscribe to both National Review and when it existed the Weekly Standard. My conservative bonafides are such that half of my family stop talking to me for two years after criticizing Trump in the 2016 primary. I loathe the entire concept of any elected official or government employee being given unquestioned compliance and obedience because their position makes them the Welt Geist. Biden the evergreen ninny of the Senate is treated in same manner as Obama, yet another messianic figure. Another point of irritation is how every group (Left and Right) that opposed Trump considers themselves a member of a Elite. Shouldn’t you succeed at something before you can anoint yourself as better than your fellows.
If the classical reading of the Riot Act followed by the judicious application of deadly overwhelming force and mass imprisonment of Rioters was applied early in the unrest of 2020 it is unlikely that it would have continued to the steps of the Capitol.
I was responding as much to the tone of comments as to your original post. In any event, it took me about 15 seconds to find this in the latest issue of NR: Trump’s Environmental Progress
Most of the writers at NR currently disagree with most of the people at Ricochet about what happened with the election. Not because they are sell outs or have TDS, but because they came to a different conclusion. But NR continues to publish a wide range of opinions on a wide array of subjects – just not in the ratio that many here find satisfactory
The fact that you use the phrase “Trump Derangement Syndrome” as if it has a precise meaning and supports the reasonableness of your argument is is symptomatic of what’s happening around here lately.
I think it’s wrong to lump NR in with The Bulwark. I’m undecided on The Dispatch. Their opinion stuff is mostly Bulwark-like. But the concept is good and I have some respect for Jonah Goldberg (although the reserves dwindled throughout the last four years). I think the jury is out on it.
I just do not see any indication that NR is squishy on Biden. They’re going to hammer him, and they’ll do it from a position of not having acceded to the most Trumpist factions of the Right. And of course I’m under no illusion that this buys them any goodwill from the media Left, it will allow them to be heard by some people at the margins who might otherwise dismiss them out of hand. And policy arguments are won at the margins over long periods of time.
These comments exist. They are far from “constant.” They are considerably less prevalent than those that restrict themselves to questioning the lack of balance at NRO on matters Trump.
I think Rich Lowery and the NR editorial board made the same error in judgement of the situation as Liz Cheney seems to have done, in thinking that the Jan. 6 protests were the moment to strike at disqualifying Trump from future participation in Republican politics at the candidate level, and that was because they thought there would be more long-term groundswell of GOP opposition to Trump during the run-up to Biden’s inauguration.
On Cheney, Jonah’s frequent “Special Report” sparring partner and ex-Ricochetite Molly Hemmingway made the point over at The Federalist this morning:
The same I think is true for NR — they don’t have a leadership role in Congress to lose. But they have now in the eyes of a lot of conservatives lumped themselves in with The Bulwark and other outlets that Lowery had spent three years trying to distance NR from, to where they’ll have to fight to refute the idea that they were happy to see Biden win.
I should have been more clear. I was speaking of NRO at which all balance seems to have disappeared.
Thinking that “Trump has behaved badly since the election”, whatever that actually means, isn’t what gets the reaction you describe; there are valid points to consider about Trump’s personality and performance. What gets the reaction you describe is a failure to account for five years of around the clock propaganda, censorship, Resistance, BAMN, evidence of election irregularities and failures, and The Establishment Strikes Back.
This is just a rational attempt to make sense of things that otherwise aren’t rational. A reaction to those calling, yet again, to die on some other glorious hill in some worthy future battle – right here and right now are definitely not that hill even though things are looking seriously grim to a lot of us. A reaction to those who don’t understand what the real battle is or how to prosecute it. A reaction to those who are adding smoke to the field rather than clearing it; a reaction to people elevating appearance above substance.
When they’re not busy with that fight, they will also now have to fight to convince conservatives that they have anything of value to offer concerning reportage, analysis, or vision. To me they’ve been whiffing mightily on all counts. To be fair it’s been awhile since I’ve read NR or visited NRO; since well before the Never Trump issue. I’m sure no one cares whether I am won back or not, but it would take extraordinary turn of events and ideas, and I get the feeling that I’m not alone in that.
They could paper over the differences over the next couple of years simply via shared opposition to the Biden agenda, at least until people have to start focusing on the 2024 election, and which candidates the various outlets and writers prefer.
Also, with Trump currently being pretty quiet after leaving Washington, rebuilding bridges would include NR not joining others in attempting to drag Trump back into the spotlight next month if Senate Democrats go ahead with their impeachment trial, especially since any trial would not be officiated by John Roberts, but by Kamala Harris. NR showing support for a procedure that the notably-cautious Chief Justice seems to have indicated isn’t constitutional would lock them into being seen as part of The Bulwark-Lincoln Project types, no matter how many negative pieces they ran on Biden’s administration.
Amen.
That didn’t sound like a compliment.
Instead of speaking in generalities about this post and people here at Ricochet, say specifically with what in the post you disagree and why it’s wrong. I haven’t heard it yet. If “Trump Derangement Syndrome” (TDS as it says in the post) were removed from the post, would the meaning of the post change? What part of the post acquired a veneer of “reasonableness” by the use of that phrase?
Maybe you should develop a higher opinion of your fellow Ricochetti.
Just out of curiosity, regarding comment #52, how does he get to post a 1,325-word comment?
Reagan membership is a get out of jail free card for wasting bandwidth.
Eh, hem.
I am a Reagan Level member and pay $500.00 a year for that privilege. Being able to comment in more than 500 words is a small side benefit to the $500.00 a year. I hope that counting 1,325 words was not too taxing. I hope that you will join me as a Reagan Level member.
FIFY. I invite you to join me as a Reagan Level membership. You are an attorney and you frequently post and comment. To those to whom much is given, much is expected.
Based on the specific example, “wasting” is a far more appropriate term.
You’ve already told us that your membership subsidizes the scribblings of us plebes, so I’ll continue to take advantage of that.
You do realize that the length of my Comment #52 was directly related to a toxic and misleading Comment #39. No Comment #39, no long response in Comment #52
How about my challenge for you to up your game from being a member to being a Coolidge, Thatcher or Reagan level member?
You do realize that the “toxic and misleading” comment at #39 was related to my toxic and misleading comment at #38, which was a response to your own toxic and misleading comment at #36. No comment #36, no responses, and no need for your 1300 word comment, which was probably longer than all of the other ones put together.
Asked and answered above.
The Court: Mr. Hoyacon, the question was asked, but not answered. Answer the question.