Why I Left National Review

Victor Davis Hanson discusses his decision to leave National Review with Tucker Carlson, and his ideas about a conservatism that respects and seeks to preserve America’s middle class.

By Victor Davis Hanson

October 6, 2021

The following is a transcript of Victor Davis Hanson, author of The Dying Citizen, speaking with Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson about why he no longer writes for the National Review. American Greatness is proud that Hanson is now a Distinguished Fellow of the Center for American Greatness and appears regularly on these pages. 

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: I didn’t know much about Donald Trump, I wasn’t a supporter of his in the primaries, but I knew he was going to win. I just knew it, because he was saying things I could not believe. And, you know, we’re going to redo Youngstown, Ohio.  And then he came to California, I talked to a bunch of farmers and asked if he had come here, and did he have the straw in the mouth and the Caterpillar cap.

No, he had this black suit, it was 105 degrees, he had a Queens accent. So I said, in other words, he wasn’t Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden, “put you all in chains.” He didn’t change his act. I said he is authentic and he’s representing the middle class, so I thought he had a very good chance.  As far as your other question, yeah, I lost all those friends.

TUCKER CARLSON: Really?

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: I left the National Review this year after 20 years and I think they were happy to see me leave too.

TUCKER CARLSON: Why did you leave National Review?

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Because there were certain issues that would pop up occasionally, and I could predict what the answer was going to be. The Covington kids. I just sensed that before we knew anything, people would come and condemn them. Or the Access Hollywood tape—

TUCKER CARLSON: People at National Review condemned the Covington kids?

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: I think there were certain people in the Republican movement, or establishment, who felt it is their duty to internally police their own, and that’s kind of a virtue signal to the Left. We are just part of your class, we share the same values as you do, and we keep our crazies. And they are not empirical.  You saw it on January 6. We all condemn that buffoonish riot. But within two weeks, I said to myself Ashli Babbitt was shot unarmed and we don’t know anything about the policeman, we don’t know anything about the report. When a policeman shoots somebody unarmed, there are pictures everywhere.

TUCKER CARLSON: No warning, by the way.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: They’re having Officer Sicknik lie in state, but I want to know where is the evidence is that he was killed? He wasn’t killed, he died of a stroke—

TUCKER CARLSON: National Review wasn’t on that?

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: No. No. An “armed insurrection.” There were no weapons found on the people they arrested.  They are not even being charged and tried with dispatch. They are sitting in purgatory.  So these issues, I would get angry about, and I would try to convey that anger, but I think . . . a lot of them felt it was their duty as Republican establishmentarians to tell the world they didn’t approve of Donald Trump’s tweets or his crudity.  My message was always: But, it’s good for the middle class.

He’s kind of like a Shane or “Magnificent Seven” or “High Noon,” he’s a gunslinger we hired and we are the townspeople that are impotent and he came in with certain skills. And he started to have success and now we have the luxury of saying we don’t like the fact that he has a six-gun. But he has to ride off into the sunset.  But they didn’t—there were other issues I think they felt were more important, so I think it was a good parting for both of us.

TUCKER CARLSON: What issues did they think were important?

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: I don’t know, I think there’s an image that a lot of Republicans have, both in politics and they sort of represent a sober and judicious way of looking at the world, and we are the adults in the room.  And it’s more about a culture than it is an ideology.

The original Republican conservative movement, I thought, was going to go back and look at the Constitution, when Jefferson said it won’t work if you pile up everybody in the cities because they will be subject to mass hysteria. Or de Tocqueville, and you look at certain ideas, I thought that’s what we were.  I thought they would be champions of the middle class, but I don’t think they were. I don’t think they wanted to be.

Editor’s Note:  This transcript originally appeared at RealClear Politics. 

The National Review Would Like You to Stop Upsetting the Left

The strategy of polite surrender isn’t working.

Tue May 11, 2021 Daniel Greenfield 20 comments

In 1867, Karl Marx published Das Kapital. And it was Trump’s fault.

Or as Jim Geraghty at the National Review argues that the "the most lasting legacy of the Trump presidency will be a culturally dominant progressive left." Geraghty blames President Trump for undermining a strategy of polite surrender that is exactly the reason why the Left dominates our culture (as it has for 70 years), our politics, and now even corporations. 

The culturally dominant progressive left that the National Review was built to fight against, before it decided to instead fight against Trump, was around long before Trump was born. 

The Left began consolidating its control over the Democrats with the convention riots in Chicago in ‘68: decimating anti-Communist liberals, and paving the way for Carter, Clinton, and Obama. And it had dominated the entertainment industry, the media, and academia long before that.

If a “culturally dominant progressive left” is President Trump’s legacy, then why was William F. Buckley Jr., the founder of the National Review, standing “athwart history, yelling ‘Stop’”? 

And since standing athwart and yelling at history was the National Review’s mission statement, why did it ever come into being back when Donald J. Trump was all of 9 years old?

In 1955, Buckley wrote in that same mission statement that “conservatives in this country... are non-licensed nonconformists; and this is dangerous business in a Liberal world.”............The National Review would like you to stop upsetting the Left. But maybe it should instead reread its mission statement and ask when was the last time it stood athwart history instead of standing in the way of conservatives who want to win, and stop upsetting the war on the Left.............To Read More....

Michael Mann Loses Again

March 19, 2021 by John Hinderaker in Climate @ Powerline

Climate pseudo-scientist Michael Mann is litigious, but his track record is poor. Nearly nine years ago, he sued National Review, Mark Steyn and the Competitive Enterprise Institute over a post that Mark did at The Corner, which read in part:

Michael Mann was the man behind the fraudulent climate-change “hockey-stick” graph, the very ringmaster of the tree-ring circus. And, when the East Anglia emails came out, Penn State felt obliged to “investigate” Professor Mann. Graham Spanier, the Penn State president forced to resign over Sandusky, was the same cove who investigated Mann. And, as with Sandusky and Paterno, the college declined to find one of its star names guilty of any wrongdoing.

If an institution is prepared to cover up systemic statutory rape of minors, what won’t it cover up? Whether or not he’s “the Jerry Sandusky of climate change”, he remains the Michael Mann of climate change, in part because his “investigation” by a deeply corrupt administration was a joke.

Mann sued for defamation. His case is obviously ill-founded, as Mark’s post was a statement of opinion on a subject of great public interest. It is a scandal that Mark Steyn and National Review have spent millions defending themselves against a frivolous lawsuit for nearly a decade.

After years of procedural machinations, the D.C. court has finally dismissed Mann’s case against National Review, on the ground that any “actual malice” on the part of Mark Steyn, a non-employee, cannot be attributed to National Review. No kidding. That ruling should have been available eight years ago.

Mann’s frivolous, harassing lawsuit continues against Steyn and CEI. Those claims, too, should have been dismissed long ago. As Mark has often said, the process is the punishment. The only way this litigation can end with any semblance of justice is if the court assesses many millions of dollars in costs against the appalling Michael Mann.

National Review and All its Many Ways of Insulting Conservatives

January 25, 2021  By Christopher Skeet

The writers and columnists at National Review just had a great week.  Joe Biden was inaugurated, President Trump is gone, and their writers can scratch off their calendars the upcoming rush week at the Lincoln Project frat house and get back to pretending they are conservatives.  It's been four years since they last parroted the Paul Ryan/Mitch McConnell if-only-we-were-in-power shtick, and they made up much lost ground with a slew of articles critical of Biden's first days in office. 

But prior to that, they collectively unloaded on the Trump presidency in a manner that dropped all pretense of detached objectivism (implausible as it was) and chortled with unrestrained glee. 

Here is a recap of some of last week's articles:.............To Read More....

Message To My Readers Regarding National Review and William Barr

I received an e-mail yesterday from Rich Lowry, Editor of National Review, probably as did all the on-line subscribers to their daily reports, asking for financial support.

Here's the request:

Anyone interested in a tax-deductible contribution to support the work of National Review Institute, our charitable, 501(c)(3) non-profit sister organization that advances the conservative principles championed by our mutual founder, William F. Buckley Jr., should visit www.nrinstitute.org for more information.  (Note: Here's a link to the "Donate Now" button for those interested.  RK)

Good for them! That's how it has to be done in the news market today, especially for news magazines, however, on more than one occasion I've wondered if Bill Buckley would turn over in his grave for some of the views they've espoused these days.  But I've also often wondered just how conservative Bill Buckley would be considered these days, although I think he was brilliant and would have been where conservatives needed him in this battle.  When you read about Buckley you begin to realize he had unique relationships with some strange people, and it would be my bet he would have loved Trump.  But....who knows? 

However, in this case, National Review is driving on the "right" side of the road.  They've justified their request by citing their support of Attorney General William Barr, which is impressive.  As proof they've linked articles in their e-mail from May to December.   I've taken the liberty of posting them below.  Some of my favorite writers are listed.

I will not be donating as I have misgivings about National Review.  It appears to me they have too many people, like Jonah Goldberg, who remind me of George Will, and John McCain, all of whom have the tendency to define conservatism as they see fit.  Even if it means driving on the left side of the road and calling it a conservative position.

However, you should choose for yourself. 

Best wishes,

Rich Kozlovich

May 15
1. Jonah Goldberg: Holding Barr in Contempt Is a Case of Dirty Politics
May 10
2. Michael McConnell: William Barr vs. Eric Holder: A Tale of Two Attorneys General
3. Deroy Murdock: Democrats Bully Barr
4. Rich Lowry: "Lock Them Up!"
May 9
5. Editorial: Constitutional Crisis as Absurdist Theater
6. Victor Davis Hanson: Progressives Face a Bleak Post-Mueller Landscape
7. David French: Against the Persecution of Bill Barr
May 8
8. The McCarthy Report podcast: Contempt and Contradiction
9. John McCormack: On Contempt, It's Nadler versus Barr
10. Ordered Liberty podcast: The Strange Hatred for Bill Barr
May 7
11. Rich Lowry “5 Points” Video: Why the Anti-Barr Campaign Is Ridiculous
May 6
12. Ordered Liberty podcast: From Biden to Barr to South Bend
May 4
13. Matthew Continetti: William Barr: The New Cheney
May 3
14. Andrew McCarthy: The Big Lie that Barr Lied
15. Rich Lowry: The Farcical Bill Barr Scandal
16. The Editors podcast: All Barr . . . What?
May 2
17. The McCarthy Report podcast: Apr's la Lettre
May 1
18. Rich Lowry: No, Bill Barr Didn't Lie or Mislead
19. David French: Three Thoughts on Barrgate
20. Editorial: The Incredibly Dumb Bill Barr Scandal
April 25
21. The McCarthy Report podcast: Let the Fighting Commence
April 20
22. Victor Davis Hanson: Why the Effort to Demonize Attorney General Barr?
April 19
23. Andrew McCarthy: The Mueller Report Vindicates Bill Barr
April 18
24. Andrew McCarthy: The Barr Press Conference: No Obstruction on the Facts of the Case
25. Rich Lowry: The Worst Executed Cover-up of All Time
April 16
26. Conrad Black: A Reckoning Is in Store for Democrats
April 12
27. Editorial: The Anti-Bill Barr Smear Campaign
28. Rich Lowry: Yes, Investigate the Investigators
April 11
29. The McCarthy Report podcast: Indictments, Testimonies, and Arrests
April 5
30. Andrew McCarthy: Court Ruling Implies that Barr Must Redact Grand-Jury Info from Mueller Report
April 4
31. Rich Lowry: Barr Has Done Nothing Wrong
January 16
32. Ramesh Ponnuru: Bullying Barr
January 10
33. Carrie Severino: Bill Barr: An Independent Voice and Bipartisan Choice for Attorney General
December 23
34. Andrew McCarthy: A Weak Attack on William Barr's Nomination to Be Attorney General
December 8
35. Andrew McCarthy: The Barr Nomination: A Home Run by Trump

 

The Compromising Background of Jamal Khashoggi’s Work

By Jim Geraghty

Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi speaks at an event hosted by Middle East Monitor in London, England, September 29, 2018. (Middle East Monitor via Reuters ) Making the click-through worthwhile: how customs and border-patrol agents can make the argument for a security fence, three easily overlooked comments from President Trump’s visit in Iraq, and some surprising revelations about Jamal Khashoggi that complicate the initial narrative about his work. Finally, Trump Will Make His Fencing Argument at the Border.............Three Observations about Trump in Iraq...........

Once the Senate works through a deal to reopen the government, it has a huge pile of work to get to: confirmation hearings for at least five cabinet officials; about 30 judges awaiting a confirmation vote; 45 nominees to be ambassadors; and about 150 other nominees for positions throughout the executive branch, including director of the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Marshals Service, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and inspector generals for the Departments of Energy, Homeland Security, HUD, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and White House director of National Drug Control Policy.

Oh, and the debt ceiling is reinstated March 2, meaning that they need to raise it sometime in the months after that..........To Read More...

Dear Jonah Still Doesn't Get It

By Christopher Chantrill December 12, 2017

I feel for Jonah Goldberg and the rest of the #NeverTrumpers at Conservatism Inc. The awful truth is that their Resistance to the leftward ratchet has failed, and the world has moved on.

So last week Jonah’s G-File is “ Against One-Thingism complaining that we are becoming like our lefty friends for whom politics is everything, what with Republican and Trump support for Roy Moore, candidate for United States Senator in Alabama and all.

Okay, Jonah, so what is Baldrick’s cunning plan for dishing the left?

Let’s do the Eisenhower thing and make the problem bigger. What do you do when you are faced with a millennarian movement for which politics and power and cultural hegemony is indeed the holy One Thing.

The truth is that you have to come pretty close to your own One Thing. Otherwise you just go under the knout and bend the knee to the One Thingers and their political and cultural commissars, and your children go with the New World Order, as taught by regime thugs in the schools and in entertainment.

That is why the Reformation inspired a Counterreformation, the French Revolution inspired various anti-French Coalitions, the Bolshevik Revolution inspired a movement of anti-Communism, and it wasn’t pretty.

And that is why lefty progressivism has inspired Trumpism. It is no use complaining about life narrowing down to One Thing. We are in another big fight with the left, whether we like it or not........To Read More....

My Take - Tomorrow I'm posting an article about what's wrong with National Review.  Goldberg is an example of what's transpired there.  I read a couple of his books and was thoroughly impressed.  As the years have gone by - not so much any longer - to the point I no longer read his G-File.