Just as Buckley positioned National Review against the Republican establishment of his day, Krein’s journal, American Affairs, will take aim at today’s conservative establishment — the one Buckley did so much to build.
“We hope not only to encourage a rethinking of the theoretical foundations of ‘conservatism’ but also to promote a broader realignment of American politics,” Krein said. It will launch in both a print and digital version, and a substantial portion of the funding will come from Krein himself. He said donors to traditional conservative institutions have been “surprisingly” receptive to his pitch, though he declined to name the additional contributors.
The various strains of conservatism have historically been anchored in journals and magazines. Buckley’s National Review gave birth to the modern conservative movement; Irving Kristol’s The Public Interest provided a home for neoconservatives in the 1970s and 80s; and Yuval Levin’s National Affairs has incubated reform-conservative policy proposals for the past several years. Krein’s journal marks the first attempt to build an intellectual home for the Trump movement and to generate ideas and policy proposals that the new president can tap. “Not nearly enough of that is happening around the changes we’ve seen in this election,” said Levin.
Some are skeptical of whether it’s possible to make sense, ideologically, of Trump’s ad hoc approach to decision making.
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