This is a good companion piece.
Bill Clinton didn't own the media?
The author shouldn't insult the intelligence of the reader from the very first sentence.
Valueless "analysis."
true words
Most of the prominent pundits actually work for The Cheap Labor Express.
They are paid to convince us that we have no choice but to abandon the rule of law and surrender the country to fraudulently documented foreigners.
How many who do not support Trump will subscribe? Maybe me.
I am the one who sees DT manipulation of the press Nixonian and scary?
Perhaps some of the 70% or so not planning on voting for him do.
Would these so-called "conservatives" include the likes of Linda Graham, Juan McLame, Mitchie (0bama's Bitch) McConnell, Paul Ryno, Cryin' Johnny Boehner, senor (Mama's boy) el Jebbo?
Nancy, you’re the best!
That is ... Exactly ... The case many of us have been making ... And we make it without impugning others’ character. I understand the purist view, I don’t think anyone is stupid for having it .... But it IS interesting to hear them make their case with the traditional Liberal tactics of name calling and insult masquerading as rational disagreement.
Purity in conservative candidates is a must or your not one.
None of this is to debate the place of NR today given the remarkable growth of a lively, broad, and deep intellectual culture on the right. NR now operates in a very crowded marketplace of ideas. That is all to the good. The right is intellectually alive, creative, and capable of self-criticism and change. The left is fossilized, sterile, and corrupt. The issue that is being joined, however, is somewhat different. The project of building a conservative movement and conservative institutions able to compete with the left's stranglehold in academia, government, popular entertainment, and the media has been deliberate and the work of many decades. It is IMPORTANT that conservatives now have well-established venues in print, on talk radio, in think tanks, etc. Trump may not think he needs any of this. He thinks it is irrelevant, because he does not seem interested in ideas and because he is a celebrity superstar leading a cult of personality. But this is a momentary phenomenon. It will disappear the moment Trump steps from the stage. The conservative "movement" is committed to the long struggle. Trump is committed to Trump.
The concerns raised in the current NR issue are being seconded by many other voices in the movement right, all of them warning that Trump has never been "one of us." Has he ever donated the first dime to Heritage, Cato, AEI, or any other idea factory? Has he ever engaged in any controversy of the day when conservatives were trying to hold the line against the latest leftist assault on institutions, values, and personal freedoms? Has he ever worked for, endorsed, and financially supported an embattled conservative candidate or campaign challenging long odds in a worthy cause? Has he ever mentored and encouraged young conservatives, addressed the first conservative forum, or attended the first conservative conference to wave the flag for the movement? Has Trump ever taken a conservative stand when it might cost him something, even something so trivial as his standing on the Manhattan celebrity circuit? When has Donald Trump ever stood with conservatives on Last Stand Hill, and gone down with them on a matter of principle? I think the answers to those questions are No, No, No, No, No, No, No, and Never.
Trump now claims a battlefield conversion on too many issues to count. People are desperate for a winner, and want to believe the conversion is genuine. I hope it is, and if he is the nominee I will vote for him in that hope, as the Democrat will be unequivocally on the wrong side, and with Trump there is at least a chance. But there is nothing in his record that engenders trust on the issues. In his instinctive scorched earth rhetoric, he is savaging good people who have been fighting the good fight for many years, during which Trump was writing checks to Planned Parenthood and Hillary Clinton, pronouncing himself as adamantly pro-choice as he claims today to be pro-life, and behaving just as you would expect a New York crony capitalist liberal to behave. But he wants us to trust him, because he is a winner, and losers are stupid. Most of us here have stood on Last Stand Hill often enough, and lost, because we didn't have enough votes, enough money, enough support, because people like Donald Trump wouldn't rally to the flag. And he calls us stupid for making the fight.
The NR guys, and many others, are the veterans of many battles. They are simply pointing out that Trump has never stood with us in the past, when it counted and when there were risks and costs to taking a stand. He now claims to have converted. Maybe he has. But that is an enormous gamble to take. Yes, I want to win as badly as anyone here. The difference between me and the Trump supporters here is that I would rather support a consistent conservative who has a record of leading in important fights, and some battle scars to show for it.
An afterthought. I have always been interested in conversion stories. Here is what I would recommend that Trump do now, were I whispering in his ear. The day before yesterday, he was a conventional Manhattan liberal espousing the positions one would expect of the type. Today he claims to be a sturdy pro-life conservative. He should speak to this rather remarkable switch. What prompted him to change his mind? This needn't be long. Whitaker Chambers famously recounted the story of the woman who changed her views because "one night she heard the screams." Trump needs something similar. Right now, he is saying essentially that yesterday he held the views that it was convenient for him to hold as a Manhattan socialite. Today he holds the views that it is convenient for him to hold as a Republican presidential primary candidate. And tomorrow ... well, tomorrow he will do great things because he is a pragmatic deal maker. This does not encourage faith that he will hold to a principle when there is a cost involved. He needs to discuss how he came to recognize that he was wrong yesterday, and why he won't renege tomorrow.
Trump should not be insulting Republicans who have been in the trenches for many years fighting losing battles while Trump was partying in New York. He should be apologizing to them. He should be acknowledging that they were right when he was wrong, and that he was missing in action. He should be asking for support with humility, not demanding it as his due. Because it is not his due. Until the day before yesterday, he was on the other side.
National Review told the truth about Trump. Instead of trying to rebut, he simply called them names.
In the last week, Freerepublic has morphed into the National Review. The Elites thank you.