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April 25, 2016 $4.99
CLAIRE BERLINSKI: KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON: VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Belgium, Cradle of Terror The Lemonade Menace Art and the Free Man
GETTINGGETTING CRUZ He’s an underestimated but shrewd and RIGHT effective candidate EricaErica GriederGrieder
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APRIL 25, 2016 | VOLUME LXVIII, NO. 7 | www.nationalreview.com
ON THE COVER Page 26 The Underestimated Mr. Cruz Douglas Murray on euthanasia If not for Ted Cruz, Donald Trump would p. 32 inevitably be the 2016 presidential nominee. Yet he’s a weak front-runner, having lost about a dozen contests to Cruz prior to the BOOKS, ARTS Wisconsin primary. The GOP is finally, at & MANNERS long last, taking its Trump problem 36 LEVIATHAN RISING seriously, and its ability to thwart his bid Mario Loyola reviews Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked for the nomination is wholly contingent Expansion of the State, edited by Dean Reuter and John Yoo. on Cruz ’s ongoing success. Erica Grieder 38 ART AND THE FREE MAN COVER: THOMAS REIS Victor Davis Hanson reviews David’s Sling: A History of ARTICLES Democracy in Ten Works of Art, by Victoria C. Gardner Coates. THEIR GEORGE WALLACE—AND OURS by Richard Lowry 16 42 THE STRAIGHT DOPE Donald Trump channels the lurid voice of American populism. Fred Schwarz reviews The War on TRUMP’S COUNTERFEIT MASCULINITY by David French Alcohol: Prohibition and the 19 Rise of the American State, It reinforces every feminist stereotype. by Lisa McGirr. LABOR DODGES A BULLET by Daniel DiSalvo 20 MISREADING PROSPERITY The Supreme Court has spared public-sector unions 45 Amity Shlaes reviews The Great from right-to-work laws, barely. Exception: The New Deal and A VOICE OF AMERICA by Jay Nordlinger the Limits of American Politics, 21 by Jefferson Cowie. Myroslava Gongadze and the importance of the VOA. THE LEMONADE MENACE by Kevin D. Williamson 47 FILM: ANGELIC FLESHPOTS 23 Ross Douthat reviews Knight Armed agents of the state protect us from children everywhere. of Cups.
FEATURES 26 THE UNDERESTIMATED MR. CRUZ by Erica Grieder SECTIONS In the Texas senator, the GOP has an ideal candidate to stop Donald Trump. 2 Letters to the Editor NOURISHING THE VIPER by Claire Berlinski 4 The Week 28 The Long View ...... Rob Long Belgium’s tolerance of terrorists is Europe’s loss and Russia’s gain. 34 35 Athwart ...... James Lileks 32 GRIM REAPER, M.D. by Douglas Murray 45 Poetry ...... Daniel Mark Epstein The Low Countries slide down the euthanasia slippery slope. 48 Happy Warrior ...... Jonah Goldberg
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APRIL 25 ISSUE; PRINTED APRIL 7
EDITOR Richard Lowry Senior Editors Why Banks Hate Bucks Richard Brookhiser / Jonah Goldberg / Jay Nordlinger Ramesh Ponnuru / David Pryce-Jones Managing Editor Jason Lee Steorts Literary Editor Michael Potemra In his piece “The Abolition of Cash” (April 11), Andrew Stuttaford left out Vice President, Editorial Operations Christopher McEvoy Washington Editor Eliana Johnson the “drag” on the economy imposed by the “cut” that the banks and process- Executive Editor Reihan Salam ing houses take on each transaction we make with a credit card. This cut has Roving Correspondent Kevin D. Williamson National Correspondent John J. Miller to be passed on by the merchant to recover the discount cost, which raises Senior Political Correspondent Jim Geraghty Chief Political Correspondent Tim Alberta prices across the board for all goods and services. With cash there is no cut Art Director Luba Kolomytseva Deputy Managing Editors for the banks to take; in fact, cash actually causes them to incur increased Nicholas Frankovich / Fred Schwarz costs because they have to physically handle it while getting no fee for doing Production Editor Katie Hosmer Assistant to the Editor Rachel Ogden so. While credit cards are convenient, using them is not “free,” as people Research Associate Alessandra Trouwborst think it is, even if one pays the balance off each month and gets “no annual Contributing Editors Shannen Coffin / Ross Douthat / Daniel Foster fee” cards. Overall, the banking system is more profitable the less cash there Roman Genn / Arthur L. Herman / Lawrence Kudlow is in circulation. Mark R. Levin / Yuval Levin / Rob Long Mario Loyola / Jim Manzi / Andrew C. McCarthy L. Schworer Kate O’Beirne / Andrew Stuttaford / Robert VerBruggen Via e-mail NATIONALREVIEWONLINE Managing Editors Katherine Connell / Edward John Craig Deputy Managing Editor Nat Brown National-Affairs Columnist John Fund Staff Writers Charles C. W. Cooke / David French ANDREW STUTTAFORD RESPONDS: Our editors, a tough crew, allowed me only Senior Political Reporter Alexis Levinson Political Reporter Brendan Bordelon limited space: I couldn’t include everything! But you make a good point. The Reporter Katherine Timpf increases that vendors make to prices to reflect credit-card transaction fees are, Associate Editors Molly Powell / Nick Tell Digital Director Ericka Anderson as you say, “across the board.” Customers pay these higher prices whether they Assistant Editor Mark Antonio Wright Technical Services Russell Jenkins use credit cards or not, something that may add a “regressive” effect to the Web Editorial Assistant Grant DeArmitt Web Developer Wendy Weihs equation (poor people tend to use cash more as a proportion of their spending). Web Producer Scott McKim At the same time, the profits that banks make from their credit-card businesses
EDITORS- AT- LARGE can (to oversimplify) be used to subsidize “free” banking services, boost lend- Linda Bridges / Kathryn Jean Lopez / John O’Sullivan ing into the economy, or return more money to their shareholders by way of NATIONALREVIEWINSTITUTE dividend. Calculating the net effect on the economy with any precision is not BUCKLEYFELLOWSINPOLITICALJOURNALISM Elaina Plott / Ian Tuttle straightforward. More generally, you are also right to suggest that cash-based Contributors business is less profitable for banks than its electronic equivalent, whether Hadley Arkes / James Bowman / Eliot A. Cohen Dinesh D’Souza / Chester E. Finn Jr. / Neal B. Freeman through credit card or otherwise. Cash handling and storage is expensive, and James Gardner / David Gelernter / George Gilder it’s difficult to attach a fee to it. In Sweden, the banking market is dominated Jeffrey Hart / Kevin A. Hassett / Charles R. Kesler David Klinghoffer / Anthony Lejeune / D. Keith Mano by a few large players: It’s no coincidence that they have played a major part Michael Novak / Alan Reynolds / Tracy Lee Simmons Terry Teachout / Vin Weber in that country’s retreat from cash. Chief Financial Officer James X. Kilbridge Accounting Manager Galina Veygman Accountant Lyudmila Bolotinskaya Business Services Alex Batey Circulation Manager Jason Ng Doing Justice to the Justice Advertising Director Jim Fowler Advertising Manager Kevin Longstreet Assistant to the Publisher Brooke Rogers Director of Revenue Erik Netcher Your symposium on Antonin Scalia (March 14) offered me deeper insights into this unique and noble man. I found myself laughing, crying, mourning, PUBLISHERCHAIRMAN Jack Fowler John Hillen and reflecting. If our politicians had just a portion of Justice Scalia’s mind and
FOUNDER character, our country would be much better led and served. Your magazine William F. Buckley Jr. provided me with some perspectives that I did not find elsewhere, reminding
PATRONSANDBENEFACTORS me again why I look forward to each edition. Thank you. Robert Agostinelli Mr. and Mrs. Michael Conway R. J. Young Mark and Mary Davis Virginia James Inverness, Ill. Christopher M. Lantrip Brian and Deborah Murdock Peter J. Travers
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2 | www.nationalreview.com APRIL 2 5 , 2 0 1 6 base_new_milliken-mar 22.qxd 4/4/2016 2:24 PM Page 1 week_QXP-1127940387.qxp 4/6/2016 2:04 PM Page 4 The Week
n Lindsey Graham has proven he’s willing to do just about anything to stop serving in the Senate alongside Ted Cruz.
n Could Paul Ryan emerge from the Republican convention with the presidential nomination? He has said that he is not in - ter est ed, and that the nominee should be someone who ran the whole race. These comments are being taken to amount to less than a definitive no. We have been behind Ryan his entire ca - reer. But with the caveat that it has been a wild year in poli - tics, a surprise Ryan nomination looks very unlikely. This scenario assumes, plausibly, that no candidate starts the con- vention with a majority of delegates. If Trump has a plurality, the delegates will have good reasons to withhold the nomina- tion anyway: He is unfit for office, and there is strong evidence that he would lose badly and pull down other Re pub li can can- didates with him. But there will be another candidate with a lot of delegates and to whom neither objection applies. In an open convention, the delegates should pick an honorable, capable conservative who has—as Ryan said—campaigned for the job. That’s Ted Cruz.
n Donald Trump used to describe himself as “very pro-choice.” Running as a pro-lifer is not coming naturally to him. He told one interviewer that women who seek an abortion when it is illegal should be punished—contrary to what the vast majority of pro- lifers want, and to the pre–Roe v. Wade American practice. His campaign then backtracked for him. He told another interviewer that the abortion laws should be left unchanged. A spokesman n Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was charged said that he had meant that they would be unchanged until he with simple battery against former Breitbart reporter Michelle became president. Pro-lifers have rightly accepted converts to the Fields. To anyone with even one operational eyeball, Fields’s cause as their allies, but those converts have had to demonstrate claim—that Lewandowski yanked her by the arm when she tried that they have given that cause at least five minutes of thought. to ask Trump a question as he headed for the exit after a March 8 That Trump has no interest in doing any such thing is a clear mes- press conference—was never much in dispute. Washington Post sage that comes through all his muddle. reporter Ben Terris, who was standing beside Fields at the time of the alleged incident, corroborated her story; she tweeted pictures n Trump’s version of The Federalist: 2016 now includes a of the bruises on her arm; there was audio; there was video; and drive-by hit on Heidi Cruz, Ted Cruz’s wife. It began with an the Jupiter, Fla., police department released security-camera ad by an anti-Trump PAC on the eve of the Utah caucuses, footage that clearly shows Lewandowski grabbing Fields. Over showing a racy shot of Melania Trump from her modeling the next 24 hours, Trump accused Fields of changing her story, days, labeled “Your Next First Lady.” This was gutter snark. mused that she had grabbed him, insinuated that Fields’s boy - How did our would-be first gentleman respond? By tweeting, friend was responsible for her bruises, and suggested that perhaps “Be careful, Lyin’ Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!” Fields’s pen was “a little bomb” and that Lewandowski had been Trump added a retweet from one of his followers, which paired protecting him from a perceived threat. The lengths to which an unflattering snap of Mrs. Cruz with a glamour shot of Mrs. some people will go to avoid saying “Sorry.” Trump over the line “The images are worth a thousand words.” Ted Cruz denied any connection with the anti-Trump PAC and n Trump won Louisiana by four points but is likely to walk away its handiwork—believably so, since to have colluded with it from the state with ten fewer delegates than Ted Cruz and no would be a federal offense. Donald Trump has no need for sur- Louisiana supporters on three key convention committees. So he rogates to do his dirty work for him, since he revels in doing it took to Twitter to call the result “unfair” and warn: “Lawsuit himself. Feminists dementedly applied the word “pig” to an coming.” The explanation, predictably, is not nefarious. Marco entire sex, and yet there are pigs among men. Donald Trump Rubio’s five delegates, now that their candidate has suspended ROMAN GENN has made the race his sty. his campaign, are likely to support Cruz, as are Louisiana’s five
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