Trump is obviously not a liberty minded individual but it is very enjoyable to watch the political establishment lose complete control and relentlessly attack the front runner of the Republican presidential field. The neocon dominated National Review has taken out all the stops to attack Trump. In its upcoming issue “The National Review issue features anti-Trump essays from more than 20 conservative thinkers” with its cover screaming “Against Trump”. WOW! Where was the National Review when the Republican party was nominating boring moderates like Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney? What is there obsession with Trump? Why the deep hatred of the man? The answer is simple, both parties are controlled by powerful interest groups and opinion makers. Both parties hate populism because all opinions supposed to be delicately molded by New York intellectuals. Trump’s candidacy appears to be some sort of divine justice, as the National Review has always been dominated by moderates and “former” leftists that have spent much of their history purging the right of anyone who questions the Bill Buckley foreign policy. Tom Woods has an excellent podcast episode here and Murry Rothbard has written about this as well.
I believe that the new National Review article reveals how desperate the establishment is and how much they are losing control of the narrative. For all of Trump’s faults, he appears to be his own man, un-owned by the powerful Washington special interests. This is extremely rare in national politics. The only examples of this kind of populism subverting the political establishment in the last century have William Jennings Bryan and Barry Goldwater. The Republican establishment has spent the last 50 years trying to prevent something like this happening again. Now it happening. It reminds me of an old Klingon proverb, “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”