National Review’s Unfortunate Attack On Phyllis Schlafly Gets Conservative History All Wrong

The Federalist ^ | October 31, 2025 | Mark Hemingway

[E. Pluribus Unum]

In the publication’s 70th anniversary issue, the magazine undercut its own important legacy by attacking one of the right’s biggest icons.

National Review is turning 70. The legacy of that publication is hard to sum up, but suffice it to say, its impact on American politics has been enormous, and it’s one I certainly feel personally. I worked there for a couple of years, and I was very grateful for the job and the experience it gave me. My tenure at NR only overlapped with the last few months of William F. Buckley’s life, though I had met him once earlier in my career — he presented me with an award in front of my parents, who flew out to D.C. for the occasion — and for a long time, merely having a photograph with me and WFB was enough to hoodwink people into thinking I had a career in political journalism.

Anyway, my longstanding appreciation for the institution is why I am so perplexed that in NR’s 70th Anniversary issue, there’s an article attacking the legacy of conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly. The attack on a beloved icon of the right is bad enough on its own, but what makes the whole thing especially intolerable is that it is ultimately an attack on the legacy of National Review itself.

The headline on Rachel Lu’s piece, “The Rise of a Populist Influencer in the Age of Print Media,” seems benign enough. But in the first two paragraphs, Rachel Lu launches straight into a jeremiad against Schlafly’s hugely influential book, A Choice Not An Echo:

Schlafly had a wonderful knack for the pithy phrase, the savvy slur, the damning detail. Mean-spirited and conspiratorial, she trained her guns on fellow Republicans, eager for factional conflict. It’s shameless propaganda. And yet, from a comfortable...

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I wonder what William F. Buckley, Jr. would think of National Review now?

[hinckley buzzard]

I don’t know what WFB would say about NR today; but having lived through the era, I can say with confidence that Phyllis Schlafly had far more public impact than NR ever did. I used to like reading NR back then, but I recall how it had minimal subscription numbers and had mostly an elite Heritage Foundation-type readership; iow, movement conservatives who only ever really talked to each other and not the public.

[escapefromboston]

There is no one currently working at national review worthy of even carrying Phyllis’s bags

[HYPOCRACY]

I just remember her hating Kissinger and keeping him away from Reagan. Good enough for me.

[x]

Schlafly was much less “mean-spirited and confrontational” than the average internet poster today. She was less likely to slur and less savvy about slurs than anybody online. She was more confrontational than most Republicans 60 years ago, but Republicans needed people who were more combative than the usual Eisenhower era Republicans. I don't think she ever went as far as the Birchers or other groups of that day. Rachel Lu is sort of a David French or George Will type, trying to bring a sententious moralism or a love of decorum to politics, where it has little place nowadays.

[Verginius Rufus]

If it were not for Phyllis Schlafly, the Equal Rights Amendment would have been ratified...giving even greater freedom to leftist judges to wreak havoc on America.

[Dr. Sivana]

Phyllis Schlafley was a great, great woman. When she was near her end, when her own children innocently misread Trump, and she stood behind him, her wisdom was proven after Trump took office.

Without her, we would have had ERA and men in the ladies’ room and fake homosexual “marriages” 30 years earlier, and a new rationale for abortion -on-demand.

Thank God for that great woman!

[KC Burke]

I know you are rarely posting, but ifyou want to tell us first hand about the lies in National Review about our old friends.

[packrat35]

Barry Goldwater was sabotaged by the Republican elites as much as the Democrats.

Phyllis Schlafly & Anita Bryant were two women who stopped many of the social ills that now plague us now. National Review has fallen so low. I used to love reading it in the 80s-90’s but I gave up on it more than 30 years ago. I see it keeps getting worse.

[Rummyfan]

Rachel Lu would have to stand on her mother's shoulders to kiss Phyllis Schefly's rear. And WFB would be ashamed of NR today.

Schafly self published A Choice Not an Echo.in her garage and hundreds of thousands of copies were sold. She was also invited to attend Harvard Law (I believe she would have been the first woman to do so) but declined.

[Henry Hnyellar]

I figured, even before I read it, that this Lu creature was steeped in Trump hatred. And here it is,

“Does this sound familiar? Is it at all surprising that Schlafly’s last significant political act, just before her death in 2016, was to give her blessing to Donald Trump?”

Her (I guess) screed goes on to rage about the horrors and misdeeds of Trump. So unoriginal, so predictable.