The American Conservative (
TAC) is a monthly (formerly biweekly)
U.S.The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
opinion magazine published by
Ron UnzRonald Keeva Unz, is a former businessman and political activist, best known for an unsuccessful race in 1994 for the governorship of California, and for sponsoring propositions promoting structured English immersion education. In March 2007, The American Conservative named him its new publisher...
. Its first editor was
Scott McConnellScott McConnell is an American journalist best known as a founding editor of The American Conservative.In 1968, as a student at a New Hampshire boarding school, McConnell canvassed for Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy. After receiving a Ph.D in history at Columbia University, McConnell returned...
, his successors being Kara Hopkins and the present incumbent, Daniel McCarthy.
In general,
TAC represents an
anti-warAn anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many...
and
Old RightThe Old Right was a conservative faction in the United States that opposed both New Deal domestic programs and U.S. entry into World War II. Many members of this faction were associated with the Republicans of the interwar years led by Robert Taft, but some were Democrats...
voice against the dominance of what it sees as a
neoconservativeNeoconservatism in the United States is a branch of American conservatism. Since 2001, neoconservatism has been associated with democracy promotion, that is with assisting movements for democracy, in some cases by economic sanctions or military action....
media establishment. It also has ties with anti-war libertarians, although individual
TAC columnists such as Stuart Reid and
Robert LockeRobert Locke is a former editor for FrontPage Magazine. A conservative American nationalist, he is critical of liberals, libertarians, and some "compassionate conservatives", including George W. Bush. He is an admirer of conservative scholar Leo Strauss , architect Robert A.M...
have been sharply critical of libertarianism.
In 2009
Reihan SalamReihan Morshed Salam is an American non-fiction writer and policy analyst. He is a columnist for The Daily and lead writer of National Reviews "The Agenda" blog, as well as a policy adviser at e21 and a contributing editor at National Affairs...
wrote that the publication had "gained a devoted following as a sharp
critic of the conservative mainstream."
The magazine's editorial stance differs from most other "
conservativeConservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
" and "neoconservative" publications in its opposition to
George W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
's
interventionistInterventionism is a term for a policy of non-defensive activity undertaken by a nation-state, or other geo-political jurisdiction of a lesser or greater nature, to manipulate an economy or society...
foreign policyA country's foreign policy, also called the foreign relations policy, consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve its goals within international relations milieu. The approaches are strategically employed to interact with other countries...
as well as his
immigrationImmigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
and
tradeTrade is the transfer of ownership of goods and services from one person or entity to another. Trade is sometimes loosely called commerce or financial transaction or barter. A network that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and...
policies.
TAC also holds a decidedly more positive view of Europe than, for example,
The Weekly StandardThe Weekly Standard is an American neoconservative opinion magazine published 48 times per year. Its founding publisher, News Corporation, debuted the title September 18, 1995. Currently edited by founder William Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Standard has been described as a "redoubt of...
,
National ReviewNational Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
, or
The New RepublicThe magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
.
History
In 2002
The American Conservative was founded by a triumvirate, which consisted of the aforementioned Scott McConnell, Patrick Buchanan, and
Taki TheodoracopulosTaki Theodoracopulos , originally named Panagiotis Theodoracopulos is a Greek/American journalist, socialite, and political commentator.Better known as Taki, diminutive for Panagiotis, he is a Greek-born journalist and writer living in New York City, London and Switzerland...
. It endorsed no single candidate in the
2004 presidential campaignThe United States presidential election of 2004 was the United States' 55th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 2, 2004. Republican Party candidate and incumbent President George W. Bush defeated Democratic Party candidate John Kerry, the then-junior U.S. Senator...
, but instead offered the conservative case for six different choices. These included Buchanan for Bush, McConnell for
John KerryJohn Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
,
Justin RaimondoJustin Raimondo is an American author and the editorial director of the website Antiwar.com. He describes himself as a "conservative-paleo-libertarian."-Background:...
for
Ralph NaderRalph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government....
, and Kara Hopkins for not voting, as well as arguments for
third partyThe term third party is used in the United States for any and all political parties in the United States other than one of the two major parties . The term can also refer to independent politicians not affiliated with any party at all and to write-in candidates.The United States has had a...
candidates. The magazine did the same thing for the 2008 presidential election.
Before the midterm elections of 2006,
The American Conservative urged its readers to vote for Democrats, saying, "It should surprise few readers that we think a vote that is seen—in America and the world at large—as a decisive “No” vote on the Bush presidency is the best outcome."
As of 2007, Buchanan and Taki ceased to be formally affiliated with
The American Conservative (although
TAC continued to run numerous syndicated op-eds by Buchanan, and the occasional Taki column).
Ron UnzRonald Keeva Unz, is a former businessman and political activist, best known for an unsuccessful race in 1994 for the governorship of California, and for sponsoring propositions promoting structured English immersion education. In March 2007, The American Conservative named him its new publisher...
was named publisher in 2007. Some paleoconservatives regard him as a proponent of mass immigration.
In 2008 and 2009 the magazine began hosting several blogs on its website: the group blogs
@TAC and
Post Right, Daniel Larison's blog
Eunomia, Daniel McCarthy's
Tory Anarchist, and John Schwenkler and J.L. Wall's
Upturned Earth.
In its April 20, 2009 issue
TAC announced that "[t]he economic crisis is exacting a toll on the publishing world, and
The American Conservative has not been spared" and that without "a major new infusion of capital," it would print its final edition on May 7, 2009. It subsequently returned to publication, but as a monthly.
Little more than a year later, the magazine ceased print publication with its August 2010 issue, and laid off most of its staff. Nevertheless the website continued to be updated each day by the remaining staff members, and publication of the print version began again with the December 2010 issue's appearance during the last days of October.
Notable contributors
- Uri Avnery
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement.A member of the Irgun as a teenager, Avnery sat in the Knesset from 1965–74 and 1979–81...
- Doug Bandow
Douglas Bandow is a former columnist with Copley News Service and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He resigned from Cato in 2005 due a scandal involving payments for columns from lobbyist Jack Abramoff and wrote about it in the Los Angeles Times. As of March 2009, Bandow is again working at...
- James Bovard
James Bovard is a libertarian author and lecturer whose political commentary targets examples of waste, failures, corruption, cronyism and abuses of power in government. He is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy, and eight other books...
- Peter Brimelow
Peter Brimelow is a British American financial journalist, author, and founder of VDARE. Brimelow has been the editor of many publications, including Forbes, the Financial Post, and National Review...
- Allan Carlson
- John Derbyshire
John Derbyshire is a British-American writer. His columns in National Review and cover a broad range of political-cultural topics, including immigration, China, history, mathematics, and race. Derbyshire's 1996 novel, Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream, was a New York Times "Notable Book of the...
- Byron Dorgan
Byron Leslie Dorgan is a former United States Senator from North Dakota and is now a senior policy advisor for a Washington, DC law firm. He is a member of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party, the North Dakota affiliate of the Democratic Party. In the Senate, he was Chairman of the Democratic...
- Rod Dreher
Rod Dreher is an American writer and editor. He was a conservative editorial writer and a columnist for The Dallas Morning News, but departed that newspaper in late 2009 to affiliate with the John Templeton Foundation. He has also contributed in the past to The American Conservative and National...
- Robert Dreyfuss
Robert Dreyfuss is a freelance investigative journalist whose work has appeared in The Nation, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, The American Prospect, and other progressive publications. His work also appears on line at TomPaine.com....
- Philip Giraldi
Philip Giraldi is a former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer of the United States Central Intelligence Agency and a columnist and television commentator who is the Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a group that advocates for more even handed...
- Paul Gottfried
Paul Edward Gottfried is Horace Raffensperger Professor of Humanities at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, and a Guggenheim recipient...
- Charles Goyette
Charles Goyette is an American talk show host and writer. He is a libertarian-conservative commentator, who is noted for his outspoken anti-war views, his opposition to the war in Iraq, and his economic commentary...
- Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald is an American lawyer, columnist, blogger, and author. Greenwald worked as a constitutional and civil rights litigator before becoming a contributor to Salon.com, where he focuses on political and legal topics...
- Leon Hadar
Leon Hadar, is a global affairs analyst, journalist, blogger and author. A long-time critic of American policy in the Middle East, and a former research fellow with the Cato Institute, Hadar is a contributing editor for the American Conservative and a regular contributor to Chronicles and Reason...
- Jeffrey Hart
Jeffrey Peter Hart and raised in New York, New York, is a cultural critic, professor emeritus of English at Dartmouth College, essayist, and columnist who lives in New Hampshire, United States. After two years as an undergraduate at Dartmouth, he transferred to Columbia University, where he...
- Jacob Heilbrunn
Jacob Heilbrunn is an American writer who has written for Commentary, the Atlantic Monthly, and World Affairs, among other publications. He is a senior editor at The National Interest. His book They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons explores the neoconservative movement and its...
- Peter Hitchens
Peter Jonathan Hitchens is an award-winning British columnist and author, noted for his traditionalist conservative stance. He has published five books, including The Abolition of Britain, A Brief History of Crime, The Broken Compass and most recently The Rage Against God. Hitchens writes for...
- Samuel P. Huntington
Samuel Phillips Huntington was an influential American political scientist who wrote highly-regarded books in a half-dozen sub-fields of political science, starting in 1957...
- Philip Jenkins
Philip Jenkins is as of 2010 the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Humanities at Pennsylvania State University . He was Professor and a Distinguished Professor of History and Religious studies at the same institution; and also assistant, associate and then full professor of Criminal Justice and...
- Bill Kauffman
Bill Kauffman is an American political writer generally aligned with the paleoconservative movement. He was born in Batavia, New York, and currently resides in Elba, New York, with his wife and daughter....
- James Howard Kunstler
James Howard Kunstler is an American author, social critic, public speaker, and blogger. He is best known for his books The Geography of Nowhere , a history of American suburbia and urban development, and the more recent The Long Emergency , where he argues that declining oil production is likely...
- James Kurth
James Kurth is the Claude Smith Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College, where he teaches defense policy, foreign policy, and international politics. In 2004 Kurth also became the editor of Orbis, a professional journal on international relations and U.S...
- John Laughland
John Laughland is a British eurosceptic conservative journalist, academic and author who writes on international affairs and political philosophy.-Career:...
- William S. Lind
William S. Lind is an American expert on military affairs and a pundit on cultural conservatism.-Education:Lind graduated from Dartmouth College in 1969 and from Princeton University in 1971, where he received a Master's Degree in history.-Military expertise:Alongside several U.S. officers, Lind...
- John Lukacs
John Adalbert Lukacs is a Hungarian-born American historian who has written more than thirty books, including Five Days in London, May 1940 and A New Republic...
- John Buffalo Mailer
John Buffalo Mailer is an American author, playwright, actor, producer, and journalist.-Life and career:Mailer was born in Brooklyn, the youngest child of novelist Norman Mailer and author Norris Church Mailer. Mailer is a graduate of Wesleyan University. He has written several screenplays and...
- Eric Margolis
Eric S. Margolis is an American-born journalist and writer. For 27 years, ending in 2010, he was a contributing editor to the Toronto Sun chain of newspapers, writing mainly about the Middle East, South Asia and Islam. He contributes to the Huffington Post and appears frequently on Canadian...
- John Mearsheimer
John J. Mearsheimer is an American professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He is an international relations theorist. Known for his book on offensive realism, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, more recently Mearsheimer has attracted attention for co-authoring and publishing...
- Ilana Mercer
Ilana Mercer is a writer, born in South Africa to Rabbi Ben Isaacson and raised in Israel, where the family decided to move after Rabbi Ben Isaacson's anti-apartheid preaching and activism led to their harassment by South African security forces...
- Robert Novak
Robert David Sanders "Bob" Novak was an American syndicated columnist, journalist, television personality, author, and conservative political commentator. After working for two newspapers before serving for the U.S. Army in the Korean War, he became a reporter for the Associated Press and then for...
- Brendan O'Neill
- John O'Sullivan
John O'Sullivan CBE is a leading British conservative political commentator and journalist and currently Vice President and executive editor of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty....
- William Pfaff
William Pfaff is an American author, op-ed columnist for the International Herald Tribune and frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books. He was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and is of German, English, and Irish origin...
- Kevin Phillips
Kevin Price Phillips is an American writer and commentator on politics, economics, and history. Formerly a Republican Party strategist, Phillips has become disaffected with his former party over the last two decades, and is now one of its most scathing critics...
- Tom Piatak
- James Pinkerton
James Pinkerton is a columnist, author, and political analyst. A graduate of Peter Vanleslie High School and Stanford University, he served on the White House staff under both Ronald Reagan and George H.W...
- Justin Raimondo
Justin Raimondo is an American author and the editorial director of the website Antiwar.com. He describes himself as a "conservative-paleo-libertarian."-Background:...
- Fred Reed
Fred Reed is a technology columnist for The Washington Times and the author of Fred on Everything, a weekly independent column. He also writes books and other material. He has also written for The American Conservative and LewRockwell.com...
- Sheldon Richman
Sheldon Richman is an American political writer and academic, best known for his advocacy of libertarianism.He is the editor of The Freeman, a magazine published by The Foundation for Economic Education, a Senior Fellow at the Future of Freedom Foundation, a Research Fellow at The Independent...
- Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts is an American economist and a columnist for Creators Syndicate. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration earning fame as a co-founder of Reaganomics. He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and...
- Lew Rockwell
Llewellyn Harrison "Lew" Rockwell, Jr. is an American libertarian political commentator, activist, proponent of the Austrian School of economics, and chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.-Life and work:...
- Claes G. Ryn
Dr. Claes Gösta Ryn is a Swedish-born, American academic and educator.-Background:Ryn was born and raised in Norrköping in Sweden. He attended the Latin Gymnasium, Norrköpings Högre Allmänna Läroverk' . He was an undergraduate and a doctoral student at Uppsala University...
- Steve Sailer
Steven Ernest Sailer is an American journalist and movie critic for The American Conservative, a blogger, a VDARE.com columnist, and a former correspondent for UPI. He writes about race relations, gender issues, politics, immigration, IQ, genetics, movies, and sports.-Personal life:Sailer grew up...
- Kirkpatrick Sale
Kirkpatrick Sale is an independent scholar and author who has written prolifically about political decentralism, environmentalism, luddism and technology...
- Michael Scheuer
Michael F. Scheuer is a former CIA intelligence officer, American blogger, historian, foreign policy critic, and political analyst. He is currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Center for Peace and Security Studies...
- Paul W. Schroeder
Paul W. Schroeder is an American historian and professor emeritus of history at the University of Illinois, specializing in the late sixteenth- to twentieth-century European international politics, Central Europe, and the theory of history...
- Richard Spencer
- R. J. Stove
Robert James Stove is an Australian writer, editor, composer and organist.-Biography:Born in 1961 in Sydney, but later resident in Melbourne, Stove graduated from Sydney University in 1985...
- Tom Tancredo
Thomas Gerard "Tom" Tancredo is an American politician from Colorado, who represented the state's sixth congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1999 to 2009, as a Republican...
- Ralph de Toledano
Ralph de Toledano was a major figure in the conservative movement in the United States throughout the second half of the 20th century.-Early years:...
- Martin van Creveld
Martin Levi van Creveld is an Israeli military historian and theorist.Van Creveld was born in the Netherlands in the city of Rotterdam, and has lived in Israel since shortly after his birth. He holds degrees from the London School of Economics and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he has...
- Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
- Alexander Waugh
Alexander Waugh is an English writer, critic, composer, cartoonist, record producer and television presenter. He is most known for his biography of Paul Wittgenstein published in 2009....
- Jim Webb
James Henry "Jim" Webb, Jr. is the senior United States Senator from Virginia. He is also an author and a former Secretary of the Navy. He is a member of the Democratic Party....
- Philip Weiss
Philip Weiss is an American journalist who co-edits Mondoweiss, which he describes as a "news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective," with Adam Horowitz...
- Paul Weyrich
Paul M. Weyrich was an American conservativepolitical activist and commentator, most notable as a figurehead of the New Right. He co-founded the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank and the Free Congress Foundation, another conservative think tank...
- Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Geoffrey Albert Wheatcroft is a British journalist and writer.- Education :He was educated at University College School, London, and at New College Oxford, where he read Modern History.- Publishing and journalism :...
- Thomas Woods
Thomas E. "Tom" Woods, Jr. is an American historian, economist, political analyst, and New York Times-bestselling author. He has written extensively on the subjects of American history, contemporary politics, and economic theory...
- Peregrine Worsthorne
Sir Peregrine Gerard Worsthorne is a British journalist, writer and broadcaster. He was educated at Stowe School, Peterhouse, Cambridge and Magdalen College, Oxford. Worsthorne spent the largest part of his career at the Telegraph newspaper titles, eventually becoming editor of The Sunday Telegraph...
Selected articles
- "Death of Manufacturing", By Patrick J. Buchanan, August 11, 2003.
- "Whose War?", by Patrick J. Buchanan, March 24, 2003.
- "Conservative Crack-Up" by W. James Antle III, November 17, 2003.
- "Big Brother Watches Britain", by Peter Hitchens
Peter Jonathan Hitchens is an award-winning British columnist and author, noted for his traditionalist conservative stance. He has published five books, including The Abolition of Britain, A Brief History of Crime, The Broken Compass and most recently The Rage Against God. Hitchens writes for...
, May 8, 2006.
- "End of the Rainbow", by Roger D. McGrath, December 19, 2005.
- "Among the Neocons", by Scott McConnell, April 11, 2003.
- "Americans First", by Steve Sailer
Steven Ernest Sailer is an American journalist and movie critic for The American Conservative, a blogger, a VDARE.com columnist, and a former correspondent for UPI. He writes about race relations, gender issues, politics, immigration, IQ, genetics, movies, and sports.-Personal life:Sailer grew up...
, February 13, 2006.
- "America the Abstraction", by J. P. Zmirak, 'January 13, 2003.
- "The Islamic Way of War", by Andrew J. Bacevich, September 11, 2006.
- "In Defense of Freedom" by Daniel McCarthy, March 14, 2005.
- "What is Left? What is Right? (Does it Matter?)", by various authors,
- "Marxism of the Right" by Robert Locke, March 14, 2005.
Articles about The American Conservative
- "Buchanan's Takeoff" By Murray Polner, Columbia Journalism Review
The Columbia Journalism Review is an American magazine for professional journalists published bimonthly by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961....
, January/February 2003.
- "Paleocon's Revenge" by Whitney Joiner. Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, 1 September 2002.
- The American Conservative Crackup: Why I quit Pat Buchanan’s magazine by Alexander Konetzki, The Washington Monthly
The Washington Monthly is a bimonthly nonprofit magazine of United States politics and government that is based in Washington, D.C.The magazine's founder is Charles Peters, who started the magazine in 1969 and continues to write the "Tilting at Windmills" column in each issue. Paul Glastris, former...