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Victor Davis Hanson: Why I Left National Review
Real Clear Politics ^ | October 5, 2021 | By Tim Hains

Posted on 10/05/2021 4:07:00 PM PDT by lasereye

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.

TUCKER CARLSON: People at NR 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.

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: NR wasn't on that?

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: No. No. An "armed insurrection." There were no weapons found on the people they arrested.

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.

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.

I thought they would be champions of the middle class, but I don't think they were.

(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...


TOPICS: Free Republic; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: andrewmccarthy; charlescwcooke; nationalreview; nevertrumpers; richlowry; trump; vdh; vdhinterview
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To: lasereye

Bailed on NR when they tossed Mark Steyn under the bus; I didn’t demand 100% agreement with me from them on every issue (that’s not going to happen with anybody), but it was clear that after Buckley’s death they had lost both direction and a spine.


41 posted on 10/05/2021 5:24:11 PM PDT by Stosh
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To: HKMk23
You CANNOT credibly argue that the one guy who stuck to his guns and consistently, unflinchingly spoke up for America — the type of for-real President and leader that Americans had been GASPING for since Reagan left office — LOST votes for sticking to his guns and consistently, unflinchingly speaking up for America. That DEFIES all Logic and Reason. It simply DID. NOT. HAPPEN.

True enough -- even the election results showed that Trump gained a lot of votes from 2016 to 2020. So of course, it would be foolish to argue that he lost votes overall.

But if you don't know any people who generally voted Republican, but were turned off by Trump's demeanor and so voted for Biden, then you need to get out more. I knew a lot of those people - especially women who seemed to value demeanor over policy. It might be stupid, it might be irrational, and it might not make any sense to someone like you. But it absolutely did happen.

Was there fraud in the election? Of course -- any election with that many absentee ballots is inherently untrustworthy. But if you don't think there are tens of millions of minorities, leftits, millenials, feminists, teachers/government employees, etc., etc. etc. who just loved getting a chance to vote against Trump...again, you need to get out more.

We don't do ourselves any favors by lying to ourselves about how prevalent leftist sentiment has become among our fellow citizens.

42 posted on 10/05/2021 5:34:23 PM PDT by Bruce Campbells Chin
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To: BookmanTheJanitor

Only at the Trump inauguration. They were much happier when Biden came in.


43 posted on 10/05/2021 5:49:05 PM PDT by Bruce Campbells Chin
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To: lasereye

Good for Victor. He’s ten times the man any of those geldings are over at NR.


44 posted on 10/05/2021 5:53:20 PM PDT by LongWayHome
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To: abb

I just call them “Kapos”


45 posted on 10/05/2021 5:58:17 PM PDT by The Unknown Republican
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To: lasereye

VDH now has a site of his own called www.victorhanson.com

Very nice and I really enjoy it. Let’s support him. He is one of the only clear talking conservative voices around.


46 posted on 10/05/2021 5:58:41 PM PDT by Chickensoup ( Leftists totalitarian fascists are eradicating conservatives)
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To: BookmanTheJanitor

LOL...perfect.


47 posted on 10/05/2021 6:00:11 PM PDT by Jane Long (What we were told was a “conspiracy theory” in 2020 is now fact. 🙏🏻 Ps 33:12 )
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To: Chickensoup

Thanks for the heads up about the VDH site.


48 posted on 10/05/2021 6:00:31 PM PDT by Jane Long (What we were told was a “conspiracy theory” in 2020 is now fact. 🙏🏻 Ps 33:12 )
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To: lasereye

I used to read NR. Thay were always sort of elitists, snobbish and self centered.
There writings were very similar to the snobbish, elitists, self centered leftists, just with conservative slant.


49 posted on 10/05/2021 6:02:07 PM PDT by AZJeep (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0AHGreco RomNQkryIIs)
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To: humblegunner

Mrs Beasley! Lol


50 posted on 10/05/2021 6:10:50 PM PDT by NWFree (Somebody has to say it)
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To: lasereye
"“We are a cause with a business, not a business with a cause, and that’s a big distinction,” --E. Garrett Bewkes IV, Publisher of National Review


51 posted on 10/05/2021 6:17:04 PM PDT by aspasia
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To: LongWayHome

Yeah, VDH nailed it. They just weren’t who he/many of us thought they were. They decided that maintaining their membership in good standing in “the Club” was more important than the policies and actions that will determine the future of the country.


52 posted on 10/05/2021 6:24:53 PM PDT by Bruce Campbells Chin
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To: lasereye
Jason Steorts is the managing editor that always shows up at these departures. With John Derbyshire, the NR cause was race, with Mark Steyn the NR cause was sex.
53 posted on 10/05/2021 6:31:13 PM PDT by aspasia
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To: lasereye

They had their club. They had all their seminars and internships and cruises, and they didn’t like new people coming along and spoiling what they thought they had. If you’re on the inside with them, you’d instinctively reject outsiders as well. You had to be on the outside and not a fully paid up club member to want things to be different.


54 posted on 10/05/2021 6:50:27 PM PDT by x
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To: Bruce Campbells Chin

That “Never Trump” cover of NR was putrid. WFB left his magazine to toxic children.


55 posted on 10/05/2021 7:05:14 PM PDT by LongWayHome
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To: Bruce Campbells Chin

“...who seemed to value demeanor over policy.”

Should’ve seen THAT coming. How many dead, formerly-beaten wives has the Earth witnessed?

Battered wife stays with the guy who has the homicidal Jekyl & Hyde thing going on, because the OTHER guy who’d actually protect her and treat her right is frequently uncouth.


56 posted on 10/05/2021 7:42:36 PM PDT by HKMk23 (The right of freedom of religion shall not be derogated even if the life of the nation is at stake.)
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To: marktwain

Yeah, my mother subscribed to the JBS newsletters when I was in high school. I mocked them back then. Yet, as you say, much of it was prophetic and continues to be. Wish I could take back the mocking.


57 posted on 10/05/2021 8:04:33 PM PDT by steve86 (Prophecies of Maelmhaedhoc O'Morgair (Latin form: Malachy))
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To: LongWayHome

The only one of the people on that putrid cover to publicly do a mea culpa is Glenn Beck, correct?

Katie Pavlich?

Brent Bozell?

Any of them?


58 posted on 10/05/2021 8:04:57 PM PDT by Lurkinanloomin ( (Natural born citizens are born here of citizen parents)(Know Islam, No Peace-No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: Bruce Campbells Chin; HKMk23

>But if you don’t know any people who generally voted Republican, but were turned off by Trump’s demeanor and so voted for Biden, then you need to get out more. I knew a lot of those people - especially women who seemed to value demeanor over policy. It might be stupid, it might be irrational, and it might not make any sense to someone like you. But it absolutely did happen.

A reason why Hillary lost was because she was unlikeable, was it not? Biden came off as the genial grandfatherly type.


59 posted on 10/05/2021 8:36:57 PM PDT by Jacob Kell (Saint Pinochet, deliver us from communists. Send unto us your avenging angels with rotary wings.)
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To: Lurkinanloomin

I think Beck was it. That cover enlightened a lot of people just who & what the uniparty was all about.


60 posted on 10/05/2021 8:44:51 PM PDT by LongWayHome
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