Your Fearless Alternative to the Asphyxiated Media
National Review is bigger than any one of us — writers, subscribers, or readers on the Web. And that’s why we need your help. America is bigger than the narrow orthodoxies of the Left, and National Review is one of the only institutions left where the big ideas about the future of our country are honestly and openly debated.
And this is personal. If you haven’t noticed, I sometimes disagree with my bosses, Charles C. W. Cooke and Rich Lowry. In fact, they invite me to disagree with them almost every week on The Editors podcast. A few years ago National Review ran a cover story by Kevin Williamson accusing me personally of being bitter and angry at the kind of people who work at National Review. A few months later, National Review offered me a job, and I accepted.
It’s a good reminder that, even if the last article you read in NR got your blood boiling, you still have something to contribute to the fight.
Back in 2006, in one of my first published articles, I made a joke at William F. Buckley’s expense. A few weeks later, I got a letter from him, expressing his wish that I would write for National Review one day. And so it has come to pass.
Why? Because this magazine and its mission are more important than any one person. We don’t cancel each other. The magazine’s history is one of big personalities clashing. Frank Meyer, James Burnham, and Russell Kirk didn’t cancel each other. And we intend to carry on that way.
The rest of the media world is asphyxiated, and fearful. It’s choking to death on faddish little orthodoxies that were invented just yesterday, imposed on men and “individuals who have cervixes” alike. Members of the New York Times, the prestigious magazines, and the broadcast media live in open, sweaty fear of their co-workers. They’ve allowed a vindictive Stalinist climate to stifle open debate.
Still sore from 2016, the most powerful and influential people in our culture, people such as Barack Obama, want the Big Tech platforms to throttle, censor, and supervise what you read. They want the tech giants to slowly grind down, down-rank, even block National Review.
We know the playbook by now. They want open borders, and closed minds. Open season on conservatives, closed ranks for the Left. They get to run riot, while they muffle your voice and impose stay-at-home orders on you.
We have been leading the fight for free speech in the courts, in the intellectual sphere, and across the Web. We oppose the imposition of cancel culture, and we’ve refused to practice it ourselves. We held the banner high through the riots of the ’60s and ’70s. We’re holding it still. We’re going to beat them this time, too.
With your help!
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