NR is an antidote to despair.
National Review found me in the South China Sea during the USS Carl Vinson’s 2017 deployment to Southeast Asia. An enlisted mechanic, I had only just reengaged with politics and was accustomed to the seductive gotcha journalism and defeatism that appears in some of the right’s coverage. But then I stumbled across NR and started poking around. A few more twelve-hour night shifts in, and I found myself returning with increasing frequency and excitement to NRO’s homepage to read accounts such as Charlie Cooke’s on rodent hunting out west, or Ramesh Ponnuru’s on patriotism vs. nationalism, or Rick Brookhiser’s dispatches from Manhattan or the Holy Land. Downloaded episodes of The Editors podcast kept me company in front of the Vinson’s cryogenic equipment. Thousands of gallons of liquid nitrogen and oxygen hissed and spattered into the holding tanks while Charlie and MBD bare-knuckle boxed (rhetorically, presumably) in my ears. A sailor’s salary didn’t have much slack when it came to that year’s fundraising drive, but I made enough to order the magazine to the ship — MBD’s May ’18 cover story (examining the left’s infatuation with grievance) came winging over the waters during an underway replenishment.
Well, I made it off the boat. That boat, anyway. And now I’m writing you from National Review’s frigate — as a member, this time, of its crew, if I may belabor the metaphor — and asking if you’ll contribute to its mission as part of our spring webathon.
NR was there, after all, when I needed it. NR’s writers said that what I was doing out there was valuable, that American might was not only a utilitarian necessity but morally good for the billions who depend on the free flow of goods and ideas that America’s Navy guarantees. The Zinnian scales that grew over the eyes of so many of my generation as we came of age in a time of cynicism sloughed column by column. National Review was one of few publications that balanced intellectual, well-read takes with a lust for life, more specifically American life that I’d had to pause for six years. Less than two years after I disembarked the ship for the last time, I was blessed to join the publication’s ranks.
And that’s what defines this institution — we love this country like no other publication. We love it enough to protect it from attacks from both sides. We love it so much we dedicated a permanent magazine feature, Our Spacious Skies, to exploring its cultural abundance. We look to our history and see lessons and opportunity for improvement, but more than that we appreciate the millions who have in ways small and great preserved this project for us. Whizzbang roller-coaster road trips with 500 hp American muscle have happened at only one publication to date . . . and you’re part of it.
Thank you for your support of American optimism. Conservatism isn’t dead; America isn’t done. We’re 250 years into this beautiful Madisonian mess because those like you and I are grateful enough to preserve what could have succumbed to atrophy during each generation.
To bring this story full circle, an email from sailors aboard a deployed amphibious ship arrived a few weeks back. They had read a piece I’d written defending the steak and lobster provided to our deployed troops, and they were grateful that there was a publication willing to speak on their behalf and give it back to those who scorned their small luxuries earned after months afloat. It’s an email I intend to frame.
Your support for NR isn’t another line item. It’s a celebration of the American way of life, a signal fire to those the world over who can point to us as evidence that surrender is a choice — one we refuse with good humor.
