Like many readers of the New Republic, I didn't at first recognize the most recent issue of the magazine. The stark white cover was unlike anything the New Republic ran during my 35 years as the owner. Having read the cover story, I still don't recognize the magazine that I sold in 2012 to the Facebook zillionaire Chris Hughes.So what was that cover story?
"Original Sin," by Sam Tanenhaus, purported to explain "Why the GOP is and will continue to be the party of white people." The provocative theme would not have been unthinkable in the magazine's 99-year history, but the essay's reliance on insinuations of GOP racism ("the inimical 'they' were being targeted by a spurious campaign to pass voter-identification laws, a throwback to Jim Crow") and gross oversimplifications hardly reflected the intellectual traditions of a journal of ideas. What made the "Original Sin" issue unrecognizable to this former owner is that it established as fact what had only been suggested by the magazine in the early days of its new administration: The New Republic has abandoned its liberal but heterodox tradition and embraced a leftist outlook as predictable as that of Mother Jones or the Nation.There's a lot of truth to that. Back in the '80s, TNR featured a lot of writers who are now considered part of the conservative pantheon, most notably Fred Barnes and Charles Krauthammer. They also were the home publication of the late (and much missed) Michael Kelly and libertarian Charles Paul Freund. And although the magazine's editor was Michael Kinsley, who is a standard issue liberal, they also published contrarians like Mickey Kaus as well. I was a regular reader in those days and enjoyed the publication very much.
Those days have been over for a long time now. TNR has been predictably lefty for a lot longer than Peretz wants to admit, especially under the tenure of Franklin Foer. Peretz eventually got rid of Foer, but he's now returned to the helm under the new administration.
Peretz seems to regret that the publisher's voice he once established has left TNR. Well, if there's a market for the 80s era TNR, Peretz ought to start a new journal.
4 comments:
Can't read the whole Peretz piece (not a WSJ subscriber) but based on what you've excerpted here, it frankly doesn't sound like he read the whole New Republic piece.
The headline is certainly provocative (perhaps unfortunately so) but I really think that "rel[ying] on insinuations of GOP racism" is itself a rather gross oversimplification of what Tanenhaus actually wrote in its entirety.
I'll take your word for it, Brian. And as I suspect you know, the only way you can ensure that the right headline goes with anything you right is if you self-publish.
The problem is that Peretz needs to let go. Not his deal any more.
It does seem a bit like sour grapes.
I can't really speak to what TNR was like in the 80's, as I was mostly reading Choose Your Own Adventure books at the time. :)
My sense (and maybe I am oversimplifying, here) is that most ideologically driven magazines have gotten less heterodox and, frankly, less interesting in the last decade and change. Based on what you're saying, that's certainly true of TNR. National Review is pale shadow of its former self (seriously, a lot of its contributors now are just plain hacky). Even Reason seems to me to have gotten rather dull and predictable, because they publish the same pieces from the old timers and then cycle through an endless supply of interns who all sound like Institute for Humane Studies scholars (because almost all of them are).
My sense (and maybe I am oversimplifying, here) is that most ideologically driven magazines have gotten less heterodox and, frankly, less interesting in the last decade and change.
I don't think you're oversimplifying it. I also think you're right. I had subscriptions to NR, TNR and Reason (although not all at the same time) at various times in my life. I let NR lapse around the time that John O'Sullivan took control and Joseph Sobran went wacko -- that would be the early 1990s, if I remember correctly. I hung with TNR for a time, but it got tedious in the 90s. I took Reason off and on for about 10-12 years, but I've let it lapse in recent years. I can usually read the writers I want to read without paying for dead tree, so it didn't make sense to continue.
This actually would be a good topic for a blog post, as I've also read other journals over the years for different reasons.
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