Posted on 04/25/2019 12:01:21 PM PDT by Starman417
I decided to finally cancel my subscription to National Review. Below is the letter I sent to them requesting my cancellation. I also worked in Customer Service jobs enough to know he will never look at this. Chances are this will get passed around by a few entry level reps who will get a good laugh out if this. The smart ones will take it as a wake up call to look for another job. I sent this via snail mail, so obviously the links below do not appear in my letter to Editor in Chief, Rich Lowry.
Mr. Lowry:
Please cancel my subscription and refund the remaining balance. I've been meaning to send this letter to you for some time, but haven't had the time to get the right words for why I am doing so. I've been a subscriber for a number of years - I'm not sure when I first subscribed, probably around 5-10 years ago. Even though I could access most of your content online for free, I liked the print subscription for its portability, and more importantly, financially helping one of the most important voices in advancing Conservatism. Or, at least, you were.
As the President Trump era has shown, NR seems to have shifted to some anti-Trump Conservatism, Inc. mouthpiece. Just so there's no misunderstanding, I'm not some #MAGA sycophant. I came of age in New Jersey back in the 80s, and had a front row seat to The Rise of Trump. When I was younger I found him to be an an overrated bore, and still have not forgiven him for destroying the USFL. And no, I'm not kidding about that. When 2016 came about I wasn't too happy about Trump being the choice I'd have to settle for after my first two choices, Walker and Cruz fell short of nomination. But once Donald Trump became the Republican nominee... you know the rest. I'm the last one who has to be reminded of our president's character flaws, but I also know that he is the best person to advance Conservative principles. NR seems more about pursuing academic perfection, real world be damned. To give examples:
Travis Kavulla's What Is the Green New Deal? took a bizarre approach to a policy that is the anti-Reece's Peanut Butter Cup - two horrible tastes that are disgusting together. Unlike Obamacare (as in Republicans failing to offer alternatives), which seemed to be the justification for your proposal, how about pushing to educate about the actual destructiveness of The New Deal and using your data and research skills for helping to publicize the seemingly countless wrong predictions about ecological apocalypse that Leftists have been proclaiming to be 5-10 years away for decades?
While I know that Jonah Goldberg has left NR, his tiresome anti-Trump rhetoric became a practically mandatory ingredient in almost every column he wrote. A great example of this was how he almost made it to the end before marring his otherwise excellent column, Everyone a Conscript.
Daniel Foster's Against the Rage Machine tut-tutted the deplatforming of Alex Jones while supporting The New York Times retention of the bigoted Sarah Jeong, because it would be unseemly to demand that Leftists live up to the standards they impose on the rest of the country. Sadly, it seems that National Review has failed to notice how Leftists increasingly use bold, tyrannical and violent means to threaten Conservatives. Do you truly believe that NR will never face the threat of deplatforming, de-monetizing, and now de-banking?
On that note, in one of your roundups in the week, you included a blurb condemning The Proud Boys, and more specifically their use of violence. While they have absolutely crossed the line at times, the only reason that they exist is because of how the press and local governments have either ignored or quietly endorsed the thuggery of various Antifa groups. You are aware of charges being dropped against the majority of the Inauguration Day rioters, Berkeley's "Professor Bikelock" being given probation for his assault, or how Antifa has taken over the streets of Portland. Perhaps if you directed more energy into the funders and enablers of these groups, then the Proud Boys wouldn't be necessary?
Your publication's reactions to The Covingtonn Crucifixion was disgraceful. Without rehashing how various members of NR reacted, there was one takeaway that was truly disturbing. The statements made by NR writers were made not because they were true, but more importantly, because NR writers wanted it to be true. That says far more about the culture of NR than the initial reactions.
David French can't seem to figure out how Evangelical Christians can still support Donald Trump. After a few years one would think that Mr. French would actually try talking to a Conservative outside of one of the NR cruises or some think tank summit. For that matter, it would do most of your writing and editorial staff some good.
(Excerpt) Read more at Floppingaces.net...
Dear National Review:
FU
Have a nice day.
Sincerely,
Bonemaker
Some of the NT crowd appears to believe that participating in a circular firing squad, thereby signalling their anti-Trump virtue to "moderates", will help conservatism in the long run.
It won't. All they'll succeed in doing is alienating the great mass of working/middle class Republicans who celebrate having someone, however flawed, who punches back.
I sent an email to Faux News saying something similar.
“We already have PMSNBC...why do we need you?”
He put it all into words that I would like to have found 12 years ago when I quit NR. NR is an elitist club that has a different facade but is not much different from the Left elite clubs on the same street.
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2016/02/15/conservatives-against-trump/
Screw NR.
He has nearly accomplished that first Great Task of Conservatism.
The second Great Task of Conservatism, packing the courts with judges who are NOT Lefty Democrat ideologues, is proceeding apace.
This is a YUGE bonus brought to us by the President.
After these tasks are accomplished, we can get back to "Muh Principles", for the playing field will be somewhat leveled.
I've maintained for years that wringing our hands about abortion, gay marriage, illegal immigration and the like is pointless without addressing the two Great Tasks.
From the on-going hysterical squealing on the Left, we can see this was correct.
I miss VDH, but he was about the only rational one left.
Good-bye NR - we hardly knew ya'
If DJT doesn’t accomplish another thing, his destruction of corporate conservatism has been worth the price of admission for me..
I got my first copy of NR the week after Reagan won in 1980. I had to go to the ONLY news stand in the Chicago area ( in Evanston) to find it. I had a subscription since then until last year. I just couldn’t take it anymore.
Edit.
The ONLY news stand in the Chicago area that sold it.
National Review once was a great magazine. I subscribed from 1976 to about 1992. Often read it cover to cover.
But after Reagan left office it became a GOP establishment rag pushing amnesty and open borders. A lot of good writers and editors either left on their own or got pushed out.
And that was long before Jonah Goldberg’s mommy inexplicably got him installed there so that he could run it into an iceberg.
Sorry but I have tossed the "Muh Principles" meme until the liberals are dust under my feet.
They want to kill or enslave me. I do not care about "level playing fields". I do not care if "gentlemen do not read other people's mail".
When having an amusing with gentlemen you observe the MoQ rules. (Although what kind of bone head fights for fun?) Only a fool does that when fighting in a bar brawl where they are trying to kill you.
I have a broken pool cue in hand and am going to keep swinging.
They want a piece of me?
Over their dead body.
I dropped them 30 years ago when they decided to have a cover story that would be a “civil discourse” on abortion with baby-killers getting equal time.
National Review started down the drain when Bill Buckley started to become senile. When he died, National Review died with him. As did my subscription.
When you got the Free Republic who the heck needs the National Review? I wouldn’t subscribe even if I couldn’t have the Free Republic.
National Review needs to move their offices to Tulsa Oklahoma. Maybe they could get in touch with the America they’ve forgotten if they lived in it!
Consider: “Franklin Graham and the High Cost of the Lost Evangelical Witness” - https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/franklin-graham-and-the-high-cost-of-the-lost-evangelical-witness/
French’s article could be cut to 2 words: Trump Satan!
I originally took over my father’s subscription that goes back to when it included a newsletter between magazine arrivals. It was my favorite reading when I was in Jr. Hi. T took it for over 10 years until it lost the Buckley essence.
When I finally decided I was a republican/conservative circa 1993, one of the first things I did was start a subscription to NR. Seemed the next logical step in my conversion. Not any longer. I have not looked at an issue for years. As far as I am concerned, NR is a tool of the left. The left gets to point at NR articles as examples of how “even conservatives hate Trump”. ESAD, NR.
A few years back NR posted an idiotic editorial condemning the budget that Ryan and McConnell passed, without naming them. However they managed to work in the name of presidential candidate Trump as a cause for the final budget.
I noted in the comment section that while they could only find one name to mention, a name who had nothing to do with the budget, they failed to name the perpetraitors (spelled this way on purpose) of said budget. They corrected the editorial.
It was one of my proudest days.
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