Conservative intellectuals remain unimpressed with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, notwithstanding his continued dominance of the polls. And tonight, the longtime flagship magazine of conservative thought, National Review, is planting its flag firmly against the GOP frontrunner.
Here’s National Review’s cover trying to hold the line against Trump
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Here’s what the cover looks like:
The main editorial opens with the line, “Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.”
The overall package features a very broad spectrum of conservative writers, ranging from old Reagan-era warhorses like Ed Meese and Thomas Sowell to relative new kids on the block like Ben Domenech and Erick Erickson. This group is also a good representation of the range of conservative ideology. You’ve got libertarian David Boaz, neoconservative Bill Kristol, social conservative Brent Bozell, reformer Yuval Levin, and whatever it is that Glenn Beck is.
Thus far, the 2016 campaign has offered zero evidence that either Trump or his supporters among the GOP rank and file care even slightly about the content of conservative ideological theory as opposed to the general sentiments of nationalism, white ethnocentricity, and disdain for America’s current political leaders. But who knows? Maybe this will be the magazine cover package that finally does Trump in.
