National Review
“We live in an
era of superstition and lies.
You might think that at a time when scientific understanding is at its apex, when the level of education is higher than ever before, when technological tools allow for the rapid dissemination of information that we’d be in a golden age of knowledge.
To the contrary, ideological malice and political cowardice have combined to make contemporary America a cauldron of poisonous and obvious falsehoods.
We’ve somehow managed to forget what biological sex is, or we pretend to have forgotten.
We have no idea what Roe v. Wade really was, or what the brute facts of abortion are.
We make up fictions about guns, both the legal regime around them and the nature of widely available firearms.
Some of this is conscious deception driven by activists and fanatics; some of it is what might be called “learned ignorance” by people who don’t dare buck a politically correct consensus; and, finally, some of it is old-fashioned ignorance on the part of people who believe what the so-called experts say, or what they read or hear in the legacy media.
There is an antidote to all of this, of course (and you may be able to guess what I’m about to say), called NATIONAL REVIEW.
When the great and the good maintained that anyone who thought Covid might have emanated from a Chinese lab was a conspiracy theorist and hater, Jim Geraghty blew through the guardrails and wrote compellingly about why the natural-origins theory didn’t add up. He beat the Energy Department to it.
When the legacy media wanted to bury the Hunter Biden laptop story and (this still holds true) discount the evidence of Biden-family corruption, Andy McCarthy would have none of it and, as usual, knew the case chapter and verse.
This was a follow-up to his exemplary work on the Russia hoax. The former New York Times journalist Jeff Gerth did a massive rundown of the media failures covering Russia-gate in Columbia Journalism Review a few weeks ago, and I mean no disrespect to Gerth when I say I’m hard-pressed to cite anything that I didn’t already know from reading Andy.
I mentioned the trans-insanity, abortion, and guns above, and we’ve had you covered on all that as well.
If you think this work is important, again, please consider ponying up a little bit to help keep it happening.
Perhaps the worst example of contemporary misinformation is the 1619 Project, which constitutes a libel against our own history.
A different take on our history is one thing; different schools of thought and new interpretations based on new evidence emerge all the time.
It’s another thing entirely, though, to set out an ideological goal in advance, and then twist or manufacture the evidence to try to back it up without regard to logic or facts. That’s what the 1619 Project has done, and it hasn’t paid a price for it — rather, it has been celebrated in verse and song, and now has its own Hulu series.
While, depressingly, the project’s lies about our history and country have been widely accepted in certain quarters of America, we’ve taken the approach that they can’t be allowed to stand.
We’ve dismantled the Hulu series, which is crude and propagandistic even compared to the original set of essays in the New York Times.
And we’ve attacked the premises of the project root and branch in pieces that Nikole Hannah-Jones has felt compelled to respond to (while never addressing the substantive points, of course).
I’m biased, but as far as I’m concerned, Dan McLaughlin’s big, authoritative essay on the history of slavery is worth generous contributions on its own. I’m privileged to have some insight into our editorial process, and I assure you, that piece was not the work of a weekend or even a couple of weeks — rather, months of research, and thought, and care.
You’re not going to find that at many other places.
Now, it should be mentioned that at NR we are also willing to call out untruths emanating from our own side. Needless to say, this subjects us to abuse and derision, but we consider it our responsibility regardless.
The folks who apparently believe it’s a high principle to follow the party line even if it’s outlandish and dumb should consider, if nothing else, the instrumental value of the truth. If Republicans had never gone down the rabbit hole of 2020 conspiracy theories, they’d probably have a comfortable majority in the House right now and a Senate majority — and Joe Biden would be running scared (or at least walking stiffly in the other direction).
I believe the truth sets you free; even if it doesn’t, it can convince fence-sitting voters that it’s okay to vote for your candidates.
If you think this independence of thought is refreshing and essential to creating a conservatism that can win, well, I’m going to make myself a bore — please, chip in if you can.
As a serious magazine of opinion that does not let business considerations affect its editorial line or its commitment to the truth, NR has always depended on the generosity of its readers to keep it afloat — for more than 67 years now.
I’m honored that you’ve read this missive this far, and can’t express my gratitude if you are able to give something and join the great chain of multigenerational effort that has kept NR battling for truth, justice, and the American way.
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