An Open Letter to Victor Davis Hanson

[1]1,069 words

Dear Dr. Hanson,

I will spare you the honest flattery and get straight to the point. Don’t you think it’s time you cut ties with National Review? Is your stomach not turned by the recent events in which your publication acted no differently than the social media lynch mob that is the Left? Did you not read Nicholas Frankovich’s unwarranted hit piece [2] on the innocent boys from Covington High School? Did you not read his peevish non-apology [3] for his “overheated” post and for his “high-handedness”? Really? “High-handedness”? How could this apology be any more out of touch with the suffering that has been inflicted on those poor boys and their families these past few days? I have a feeling that those Covington boys now have a lot more to worry about than your colleague’s “high-handedness.”

Frankovich piled on when these kids and their families were getting death threats from Leftist lunatics. Antifa terrorists are now showing up [4] at their high school, thanks in part to people like Frankovich, who condemned those boys so comprehensively as to tacitly justify all sorts of abuse to be heaped upon them. And for what? Because they wore MAGA hats in public and smiled? This is tantamount to spitting on the cross?

As a principled and respected scholar, Dr. Hanson, couldn’t you see what a dishonest smear job Frankovich’s piece was? Are you not embarrassed to be associated with an outfit that produces such hysterical nonsense? Furthermore, Frankovich didn’t even wait for more information. He just reflexively lashed out. It’s as if the Duke Three hoax and the UVA rape hoax and the very recent Buzzfeed Trump-told-Cohen-to-lie hoax never even happened. Does Frankovich not work in the political media? Isn’t it his job to be aware of such tomfoolery from the Left?

Lashing out is what you do against enemies, not friends. Nick Frankovich revealed his true colors when he put on his high-handed brass knuckles and punched right with only the slightest provocation. These were conservative, Catholic, pro-life high school kids he vilified. How many of their parents read National Review? I don’t know the answer, but I have a feeling that if National Review even has a readership these days, it consists of conservative, Catholic, pro-life people – just like the moms and dads of those innocent boys. Please pardon the vulgarity here, Dr. Hanson, but why shit on your base? Furthermore, why write for an organization that shits on its base?

Did you not also read how your editors so lamely attempted to defuse the situation [5]? A “more complicated picture has emerged”? Yeah, no. That is a lie. “Complicated” is the adjective a girl uses to describe her feelings for a boy when she wants to dump him. There is nothing complicated about that, and there was nothing complicated about what happened at the March for Life rally in Washington, DC last Saturday. Non-white adults were bullying and harassing [6] white children, and got cover for it [7] from the lying, anti-white Left [8]. That’s it. That’s the story. Obviously so. Yet the editors of your publication either completely missed that like a bunch of clueless rubes, or are in fact part of the lying, anti-white Left themselves. Pick one.

And then your editors have the unmitigated gall to talk about errors being forgiven? Do you really think they will have a shred of credibility if they frame “the Covington Affair” as just another hiccup, and then continue writing about the government shutdown, the state of the economy, and the Mueller investigation like nothing ever happened? In order to be forgiven, one must demonstrate that one wants to be forgiven, yes? If Frankovich were really sorry, he would resign and start raising money for the physical protection those kids are going to need – probably for the rest of their lives. He would travel to their homes in Kentucky and profusely apologize to them and their families in person. He would do everything possible in the here and now to make it up to them. Then he would spend some much-needed time in the wilderness relearning what it means to be a writer, and reemerge a year or two later a better man. Is he going to do this? Those poor kids he maligned deserve nothing less. Wouldn’t you agree?

Further, if your editor Rich Lowry were really interested in forgiveness, he’d fire Frankovich (Lord knows, John Derbyshire got fired for a lot less) and then shutter the place for a month while he cleans house. The so-called “Covington Affair” was nothing less than a fiasco for your operation on multiple levels. It shows incompetence. It shows viciousness. And it shows a transparent lack of contrition. Further, it reveals something ugly about the character of the people who run National Review. Rich Lowry fired Derbyshire pretty quickly after being pressured by the Left. Yet the Right has been pressuring [9] him about Frankovich for days now and he has done nothing but offer terse, insincere apologies.

What does this tell you?

How can anyone pretend that National Review is at all conservative or Right-wing when it dances to the tune set by the Left?

You know this. You must know this.

Although I am writing to you from a White Nationalist platform, I am not asking you to become a White Nationalist (although I would fall on my knees and praise heaven with piercing cries if you did). I’m not even asking you to be a race-realist. I am simply asking you to recognize that your brand and your reputation are being tainted every day you stick with these dishonest losers. You are better than they are. Mexifornia is a good book. Carnage and Culture [10] is a good book. I read you. I learn from you. No matter how far one is to the Right, if that person reads you, they will respect you for your knowledge, your equanimity, and your intellect. If VDARE publishes Michelle Malkin, they will definitely publish you, and the Right will love you for it forever.

Please live up to the high standards you have set for yourself and abandon the sinking ship that is National Review. Either that, or insist that the editors go full Patton on their candy-assed staff and insist that any writer who does not live up one hundred percent to the conservative, Right-wing, and anti-Left principles of National Review will be skinned [11].

Yours truly,

Spencer J. Quinn

Spencer J. Quinn is a frequent contributor to Counter-Currents and the author of the novel White Like You [12].