Donald Trump is "a menace to conservatism" who should not be elected president of the United States, 22 conservative leaders argue in the new issue of National Review.
Essays by the conservative thinkers were
posted online Thursday night and will be included in the conservative journal's Feb. 15 print edition, which goes to press Jan. 27.
The magazine also includes an editorial, titled "Against Trump," that concludes: "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."
The leaders who contributed essays represent "various institutions, traditions, and positions on the conservative spectrum," said Rich Lowry, the magazine's editor.
"This issue of National Review will bring together voices from across the right to warn against the siren song of Donald Trump," he added.
"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."
The conservative contributors d essays are:
- Thomas Sowell, economist.
- Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center.
- Glenn Beck, founder of The Blaze.
- Edwin Meese and Michael Mukasey, former U.S. attorney generals.
- Dana Loesch and Michael Medved, syndicated radio hosts.
- Cal Thomas and Mona Charen, syndicated columnists.
- William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard.
- R. R. Reno, editor of First Things.
- John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary.
- Yuval Levin, editor of National Affairs.
- Mark Helprin, novelist.
- Andrew C. McCarthy, contributing editor, National Review.
- Erick Erickson, founder of The Resurgent.
- David McIntosh, president of the Club for Growth.
- Steven F. Hayward, author and presidential scholar.
- Ben Domenech, publisher of The Federalist.
- David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute.
- Katie Pavlich, editor of Townhall.com editor.
- Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Here are some highlights from the essays:
- 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."
- Bozell: "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."
- 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'?"
- 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."
- 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."
- 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."
- Pavlich: "In short, do our principles still matter? A vote for Trump indicates the answer is 'no.'"
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