Jonah Goldberg explains and defends the NR Against Trump Issue, somehow hilairously (IMO), and very well:
http://link.nationalreview.com/view/547f9de03b35d0210c8bb89f3jsqf.3lfa/698a2add
Here's part of it (it's rather long):
The Many Rooms in the Mansion of Wrong
I should be clear: I don’t think everyone who supports Donald Trump is dross. Some are even friends of mine. But I do think they, collectively, are wrong. But they are wrong for different reasons. Indeed, there’s a remarkable diversity of wrongness out there.
Some people believe there are no gradations of wrong; that wrong is an
absolute state. Not so. There are whole hierarchies of wrong. If you think 2+2 is 5, you’re a little wrong. If you think 2+2 is a 100-foot lizard destroying downtown Tokyo, you’re very wrong.
Similarly, there are errors based on different kinds of thinking. Many of the people lambasting
National Review are arguing
ad populum. The people -- here defined as a plurality of GOP poll respondents or talk-radio listeners -- are for Trump, therefore Trump is not only the right candidate, but he must be a conservative, too.
As I mentioned above, my favorite form of this fallacious argument is that
National Review -- or me personally -- is required (
required!) to support the GOP frontrunner. When Donald Trump signed that
pledge to support the GOP nominee a few months ago, scads of people asked whether I would do likewise. Can they really not see the category error here? My job --
our job -- is to write and say the truth as I see it. That’s it. Of course we can be wrong. It’s happened plenty of times. But to think we should be wrong
on purpose is to confuse
National Review for a press release or a bit of direct mail marketing.
But the real irony of this “support the front-runner” nonsense is that it runs completely counter to the usual gripe we get -- that we’re too supportive of the GOP. Which is it? Are we “GOPe” hacks carrying water for the party? Or are we fools and traitors for not backing the party front-runner just because he’s the front-runner? Trump is a hero “because he fights.” We are knaves and traitors because we fight back.
I have another question: Now that the establishment is rallying to Trump, can I be anti-establishment again if I stay critical of Trump? That’d be nice.
The point here is that “anti-establishment” is not a synonym for “conservative,”
as I wrote the other day in the Corner. One of the reasons I can’t stand the use and abuse of the term “establishment” is that it’s like a three-legged pack mule carrying the load for an entire wagon train of assumptions.
“Anti-establishment” is almost entirely devoid of any ideological content whatsoever. An ideological category that can include Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Occupy Wall Street, the tea parties, Ted Cruz, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, and Ben Carson is not a particularly meaningful one.
Some reply, oh no, it shows that the people are angry! I hear this all the time. And I agree. And I’m angry too. But you know what? Being angry is not a frick’n argument. I’m angry that Washington has drowned the country in debt. I’m angry that Obama has been a failure. I’m also angry that broccoli doesn’t taste like chicken and that Fox cancelled
Firefly. Being angry is probably a necessary condition for fixing a lot of problems, but it isn’t sufficient to the task. And it isn’t a particularly powerful defense of Donald Trump.
