Free Republic

While movement conservatives would like to blame the Republican establishment for the rise of Donald Trump and the attendant political problems he has created for the national Republican Party, as our friend Rick Manning, President of Americans for Limited Government, pointed out in a recent article for Breitbart, those whom we call “establishment conservatives” bear just as much responsibility for Trump’s rise.  And there is no better example of how DC’s snide elitist “conservatives” have helped create Trump than a recent cover article in National Review by one Kevin D. Williamson.   Mr. Williamson, who has apparently never done anything in conservative politics except pontificate for various elite journals, took to...

While Donald Trump has called on the GOP to become a “worker’s party”— a development Sen. Jeff Sessions called for two years ago, ironically, in the pages of the National Review— French has defended the idea that white working-class communities “deserve to die.”

“The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget all your cheap theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory towns and your conspiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs. Forget your goddamned gypsum, and, if he has a problem with that, forget Ed Burke, too. The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump’s speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin. What they need...

There’s been a growing sense of desperation among the #NeverTrump forces for a few weeks now, and as we move closer to largely winner take all states in the primary line-up it was inevitable that full blown panic would set in. One side effect of this increased feeling of urgency is that critics of The Donald have increasingly given up on critiquing the business mogul’s record and frequently mystifying comments, choosing to focus their attacks on his supporters instead. While a seemingly self-defeating strategy, that movement has hit its full stride this weekend with National Review’s endless fountain of Trump...

National Review’s Kevin Williamson believes Donald Trump’s appeals to the white working class is “immoral” because that demographic’s way of life deserves to die out. In a featured article for the prestigious conservative journal entitled “The Father-Fuhrer,” Williamson seeks to rebut criticism that he and other conservatives don’t articulate any policies that would appeal to Trump’s blue collar supporters. Williamson, a long-time critic of The Donald, essentially agrees that he doesn’t support any policies or rhetoric directly tailored to the working-class — particularly about jobs being taken by outsourcing and immigration — because it would be wrong to do so....

Trump to American Workers: Drop Dead by MARK KRIKORIAN March 4, 2016 Any time Donald Trump has to talk about any aspect of immigration other than his border wall – the one Mexico’s going to pay for, in case you hadn’t heard – he falls back on his donor-class, crony-corporatist instincts. In the October CNBC debate, he essentially embraced Marco Rubio’s support for increased “skilled” worker visas and praised Mark Zuckerberg, both positions diametrically opposed to his published immigration platform. Then in the debate late last month, he embraced the Chuck Schumer/Marco Rubio position that there are Jobs Americans Won’t...

It may be difficult to believe in this enlightened age but there was a time not so long ago when the National Review was the intellectual heart of America's conservative movement. Its writers were sharp, gifted and irreverent. Their appearances on Fox News and other TV outlets made them rock stars. All that ended on January 22, 2016, when the magazine posted online its "Against Trump" issue. Once again, the editors proudly chose to stand athwart history rather than make it. They chose to lose with what they consider honor rather than win. 22 writers signed on, each penning...