Friday, October 7, 2016

AmRen - Linda Preston: The Decline of 'The American Conservative' magazine - Once implicitly pro-white, now irrelevant - Image: TAC at its finest


TAC at its finest.

TAC at its finest.

Once implicitly pro-white, now irrelevant.

Over the years, American Renaissance has kept an eye on what the nation tells itself about race. This includes remembering the forgotten stalwarts of the American Right, following the historiography of Paul Gottfried, noting the promising half-truths of figures such as David Horowitz, chronicling the periodic “purges” of the Right, and considering the descent into political correctness of publications such as National Review. In keeping with this tradition, I examine The American Conservative (TAC), and consider how a once promising voice for white interests lost its way.
TAC had an encouraging beginning. Founded at the end of 2002 by Taki Theodoracopulos (who later started Taki’s Magazine), Pat Buchanan, and the paleoconservative journalist Scott McConnell (who had been fired from the New York Post for opposing Puerto Rican statehood), it was to be a high-toned right-wing magazine that opposed the then-looming invasion of Iraq. While Chronicles magazine had long held its position as the anti-war, immigration-control publication, it seemed to have lost its way after the unsuccessful candidacies of Pat Buchanan. Once the electoral prospects of his political program flickered outChronicles wandered into opaque examinations of Catholic philosophers and theologians. It also parted ways with its one-time libertarian allies at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and became steadily more isolated at its base of operations in Rockford, Illinois. '''