Narional Review vs. Trump. Ouch Or....?
The National Review got a bunch of well-known conservative thinkers to trash Donald Trump with the conclusion that, “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.”
Ouch.
The magazine’s editor Rich Lowry was asked the following by The Washington Post:
The Washington Post: What do you hope to accomplish with this issue? So far, Trump seems to be bulletproof when it comes to media criticism.
Rich Lowry: The most important thing is putting a marker down and saying, “He’s not one of us. He’s not a conservative, and he’s not what conservatism is.” Just making that point is important, but obviously we want to persuade people. There are a lot of Trump voters who aren’t going to be persuadable. Maybe some are at the margins, and if we can make a difference with them, we’ll be delighted.
In essence, the National Review is making the Cruz argument against Trump on all cylinders. Will it work? If this were a science experiment using test tubes, the empirical evidence would suggest yes. It should work. But this GOP presidential campaign has never been a perfect science experiment. It’s been more like the science fiction comedy movie, “Honey, I Shrunk The Kids.” where everything goes a bit haywire.
Ouch.
The magazine’s editor Rich Lowry was asked the following by The Washington Post:
The Washington Post: What do you hope to accomplish with this issue? So far, Trump seems to be bulletproof when it comes to media criticism.
Rich Lowry: The most important thing is putting a marker down and saying, “He’s not one of us. He’s not a conservative, and he’s not what conservatism is.” Just making that point is important, but obviously we want to persuade people. There are a lot of Trump voters who aren’t going to be persuadable. Maybe some are at the margins, and if we can make a difference with them, we’ll be delighted.
In essence, the National Review is making the Cruz argument against Trump on all cylinders. Will it work? If this were a science experiment using test tubes, the empirical evidence would suggest yes. It should work. But this GOP presidential campaign has never been a perfect science experiment. It’s been more like the science fiction comedy movie, “Honey, I Shrunk The Kids.” where everything goes a bit haywire.
