The return of unpatriotic conservatives

Why conservatives' defense of Trump sure sounds like a defense of treason

President Trump.
(Image credit: Illustration | Wikimedia Commons)

Former CIA Director John Brennan rages that, "Donald Trump's press conference performance in Helsinki … was … treasonous. … He is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???"Well, as Patrick Henry said long ago, "If this be treason, make the most of it!" [Patrick Buchanan, in The American Conservative]

In 2003, during the run-up to the Iraq War, David Frum penned a cover story for National Review entitled "Unpatriotic Conservatives." Now justly infamous, it was an excommunication of so-called paleo-conservatives like Pat Buchanan, claiming their opposition to that war was not driven merely by a profound difference of opinion about the best way to protect American interests, but by a deep-seated disgust for the America that actually existed, and a desire to see their country defeated.

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Noah Millman

Noah Millman is a screenwriter and filmmaker, a political columnist and a critic. From 2012 through 2017 he was a senior editor and featured blogger at The American Conservative. His work has also appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Politico, USA Today, The New Republic, The Weekly Standard, Foreign Policy, Modern Age, First Things, and the Jewish Review of Books, among other publications. Noah lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.