In an unprecedented editorial effort by the magazine that founded the modern conservative movement, National Review is bringing together 22 prominent leaders to make the case that Donald Trump is a mistake for conservatives. The 22 leaders---including Glenn Beck---represent various institutions, traditions and positions on the conservative spectrum. However, they hold one common belief: Donald Trump is a menace to American conservatism.
Editor Rich Lowry says, “This issue of National Review will bring together voices from across the right to warn against the siren song of Donald Trump. These contributors have many differences of opinion among themselves, but all agree that Trump is not a conservative, he is a mistake for the Republican Party, and he is the wrong man to pick up the pieces after the wreckage of the Obama years.”
Participants in the symposium include economist Thomas Sowell, Media Research Center president L. Brent Bozell III, TheBlaze founder Glenn Beck, former US Attorneys General Edwin Meese III and Michael B. Mukasey, syndicated radio hosts Dana Loesch and Michael Medved, syndicated columnists Cal Thomas and Mona Charen, The Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, First Things editor R. R. Reno, Commentary editor John Podhoretz, National Affairs editor Yuval Levin, novelist Mark Helprin, National Review contributing editor Andrew C. McCarthy, The Resurgent founder Erick Erickson, Club for Growth president David M. McIntosh, author and presidential scholar Steven F. Hayward, The Federalist publisher Ben Domenech, Cato Institute executive vice president David Boaz, Townhall.com news editor Katie Pavlich, and Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention.
The symposium will be available at 10 PM ET on January 21 at National Review online.
In addition to the symposium, National Review will publish an editorial in the February 15 issue titled, “Against Trump.” It concludes with, “Donald Trump is a menace to American conservatism who would take the work of generations and trample it underfoot in behalf of a populism as heedless and crude as The Donald himself.”
Here are a few highlights from several contributors:
Glenn Beck: “Sure, Trump’s potential primary victory would provide Hillary Clinton with the easiest imaginable path to the White House. But it’s far worse than that. If Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination, there will once again be no opposition to an ever-expanding government. This is a crisis for conservatism.”
L. Brent Bozell III: “The GOP base is clearly disgusted and looking for new leadership. Enter Donald Trump, not just with policy prescriptions that challenge the cynical GOP leadership but with an attitude of disdain for that leadership—precisely in line with the sentiment of the base. Many conservatives are relishing this, but ah, the rub. Trump might be the greatest charlatan of them all.”
William Kristol: “Isn’t Trumpism a two-bit Caesarism of a kind that American conservatives have always disdained? Isn’t the task of conservatives today to stand athwart Trumpism, yelling Stop?”
Dana Loesch: “Just a few years ago, I and many others were receiving threats for promoting conservative policies and conservative principles—neither of which Donald Trump seems to care about. Yet he’s leading.”
David McIntosh: “These are not the ideas of a small-government conservative who understands markets. They are, instead, the ramblings of a liberal wannabe strongman who will use and abuse the power of the federal government to impose his ideas on the country.”
Russell Moore: “Trump can win only in the sort of celebrity-focused mobocracy that Neil Postman warned us about years ago, in which sound moral judgments are displaced by a narcissistic pursuit of power combined with promises of ‘winning’ for the masses.”
Katie Pavlich: “In short, do our principles still matter? A vote for Trump indicates the answer is ‘no.’”
Featured Image: The February 15, 2016 cover of National Review