Real Conservative™ Max Boot is very disappointed by what National Review has become

Max Boot is struggling. We assume he’s mad at Resistance hero Justin Amash for exploring a third-party presidential run and throwing a wrench in Real Conservatives’ plan to get Joe Biden elected. He’s always mad at Donald Trump

1/4 @JohnHirschauer of @NRO is at it again.

Previously he employed the language of white supremacists, accusing me of being one of those "self-loathing whites” who "is stoking the flames of race hatred" for denouncing white victimhood.

I wrote about it: https://t.co/Nylc6tRARA

— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) April 29, 2020

2/4 Now @JohnHirschauer attacks my @PostOpinions column on Phyllis Schlafly's pernicious influence–specifically her "irrational, incendiary rhetoric"– on modern conservatism: https://t.co/CaR7Xn2BkZ

His critique falls short in at least 2 major areas….

— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) April 29, 2020

Maybe it’s not so much an attack on Boot’s column as it is a recognition of the stupidity of Boot’s column.

3/4

He fails to address my extensive quotes from Schlafly's crazy, conspiratorial book "A Choice Not an Echo," which claimed that "secret kingmakers" were sabotaging the GOP to help "Communist slavemasters."https://t.co/nTjjFXA9Cu

— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) April 29, 2020

4/4

He dismisses Schlafly's membership in the nutty John Birch Society as "a blemish on the career of an otherwise admirable woman."

I wonder if he would be so forgiving of someone who had been a member of the Communist Party and never renounced that affiliation?

Pathetic.

— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) April 29, 2020

Phyllis Schlafly’s views definitely became more extreme and objectionable as she got older, but Boot’s beef is not so much with Schlafly here as it is with National Review for daring to question his brilliance.

PS I didn’t even get into Schlafly’s racism and xenophobia. She favored an end to legal immigration and bashed Latino immigrants. “The people that Republicans ought to reach out to are white voters,” she said. https://t.co/CHXYWgL4WO

— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) April 30, 2020

PPS Yet another problem with Hirschauer’s critique: He writes Schlafly was right to warn women they wouldn’t get child support or alimony if ERA passed, because RBG advocated “sex neutral language” in alimony. But that simply means men can get it too—not that women are denied!

— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) April 30, 2020

PPPS: Hirschauer also defends Schlafly’s argument the ERA wld have resulted in women being drafted and sent into combat. But (a) it was far from clear the draft would apply and (b) even if women are drafted, as in Israel, that doesn’t necessarily mean into combat units.

— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) April 30, 2020

Someone sounds bitter. Probably because he is.

This is now a 7 part thread.

Big takeaway: @NRO, which supposedly took the lead decades ago in driving wing-nuts out of the conservative movement, continues to embrace many of them. So no surprise it has ended up supporting Trump. https://t.co/Q7KpaytDdb

— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) April 30, 2020

Boot is clearly not familiar with National Review’s numerous writers and contributors who are not, in fact, Trump apologists and regularly criticize the president. What irks Max is that unlike himself, the Bulwark crowd, the Lincoln Project, and the rest of the Real Conservatives™ who Resist Trump, National Review hasn’t turned to deliberately defending and promoting liberalism to conserve conservatism.

Sadly, NR has published some folks who later took a bad turn https://t.co/JcxAhbRbYK https://t.co/n02WI8VF3C

— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) April 30, 2020

Take a bow, Max Boot.

I wrote: “I grew up reading National Review in the 1980s….As an adult, I was thrilled to occasionally appear in its hallowed pages.” https://t.co/Nylc6tRARA

That’s why I am upset about what @NRO has become. Or maybe always was—and I just didn’t see it. https://t.co/2aSfyHRXCp

— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) April 30, 2020

Area Democrat laments conservatism of conservative publication https://t.co/ykDZBh6fqj

— Alexandra DeSanctis (@xan_desanctis) April 30, 2020

I’m not a Democrat and what I lament is that Conservatism has come to mean Trumpism. https://t.co/2KD074PCWZ

— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) April 30, 2020

Conservatism has only come to mean Trumpism in the sense that Resisters like Boot refuse to make a distinction between the two. There are plenty of conservatives who reject Trump’s character and/or many of his policies or are at least skeptical of them but who haven’t conditioned themselves to immediately be against a conservative policy just because Trump happens to support it.