An odd criticism was leveled at National Review during the 2016 presidential election: How could the magazine in good conscience refuse to support the duly elected nominee of the Republican party? One wonders what magazine they thought they were reading.
National Review was founded in 1955 for the purpose of giving hell to a Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower. As William F. Buckley Jr. put it at the time: “Our principles are round, and Eisenhower is square.” From the point of view of anno Domini 2016, Eisenhower looks quite conservative indeed, but his conservatism was temperamental rather than ideological. He gave serious thought to running as a Democrat and until about ten minutes before he announced his candidacy was not quite sure which party he preferred. He had no intention of rolling back the New Deal and believed that social insurance was not only necessary but obviously necessary. He declared that the Republican party would be progressive or it would disappear and insisted that no one save a “few Texas oil millionaires” took seriously the prospect of eliminating Social Security or farm subsidies. “Their numbers are negligible, and they are stupid,” he wrote in a letter to his brother.
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