Libertarian journalist and Reason.com editor Nick Gillespie took issue with the National Review's recent “Against Trump” campaign, which attempts to characterize Donald Trump as a fake conservative. Gillespie argued that Trump “is not at odds with National Review, conservatives, or all the other Republican presidential candidates.”

On January 21, the conservative magazine National Review published a special issue titled "Against Trump," in which 22 prominent conservative media figures questioned whether or not the Republican presidential frontrunner is a real conservative. According to National Review, “If Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination, there will once again be no opposition to an ever-expanding government.” Several other conservative commentators reacted by lashing out at National Review, calling it “irrelevant” and “intellectual snobbery,” and lamenting that the publication has “lost touch with the electorate.”

In a January 25 blog post for Reason.com, Nick Gillespie explained that even though National Review published their “Against Trump” issue, "National Review's editors might at least acknowledge that they helped to create the opportunity [for Trump] in the first place." Gillespie added that Trump's “openly hostile” positions on immigration are “completely in accord with” positions held by many conservatives, and the entire Republican presidential field, all of whom are “at odds with most of the country.” Gillespie concluded his post by arguing that there is no reason to think National Review would not eventually support Trump's presidential ambitions if he succeeds in his run for the Republican nomination. From Reason.com (emphasis added):

Donald Trump's appeal among Republicans is directly related to issues and attitudes that mainstream conservatives and Republicans have been harping on for virtually all of the 21st century, if not longer. Anyone with even passing familiarity with National Review, which rarely misses an opportunity to tout its central role in the post-war conservative movement, knows that the magazine has long been extremely hostile to immigration, extremely bellicose when it comes to foreign policy and projecting American “strength” abroad, and extremely quick to attack any real and perceived slights to “American exceptionalism” (a term more often invoked than defined with any precision) while excoriating any real and perceived concessions to “political correctness.”

These are exactly the grounds upon which Trump has seized the day in the Republican primary season, so if he is in fact “a philosophically unmoored political opportunist”--and I think that's a pretty fair description -- National Review's editors might at least acknowledge that they helped to create the opportunity in the first place. After all (and whatever his past affiliation), Trump isn't running in the Democratic primaries, is he? And despite the editors' claim that since Jesse Jackson entered the 1984 Democratic race “both parties have been infested by candidates who have treated the presidency as an entry-level position,” the plain fact is that it's the GOP and conservatives who regularly trot out and swoon for the likes of Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, and Herman Cain.

[...]

Let's be clear: To the extent that Trump is widely and accurately understood to be openly hostile to immigration and immigrants, especially from Mexico, he is not at odds with National Review, conservatives, or all the other Republican presidential candidates. He is completely in accord with all of them -- and they are all at odds with most of the country.

[...]

I understand and appreciate National Review's interest in dissociating itself and conservatism from Donald Trump, who just might become the nominee of the Republican Party, for which NR is an unofficial cheerleader and powerful agent of influence (before the Trump contretemps, it was going to co-host a party debate). Certainly from a libertarian perspective (a perspective which has been mostly attacked and dismissed in the pages of National Review for virtually all of its run), Trump is bad news on virtually all fronts, and especially those elements that are part and parcel of the modern conservative and National Review catechism.

But let's not pretend also that National Review won't actually support Trump should he actually become the Republican candidate.