Is there any reason to believe that the National Review doesn't write this stuff because they want Trump back? I'm sorry that sounds political, but it seems like a pertinent question.
NR was a bastion, IIRC, of the largely failed and now also largely purged anti-Trump Republican faction, so its probably not that they want Trump. Though it could be virtue signaling to help get back in the good graces of the Trump-aligned faction, for whom opposition to COVID control measures has become a central issue of factional identity.
> NR was a bastion, IIRC, of the largely failed and now also largely purged anti-Trump Republican faction
As you say: Was a bastion.
And if the anti-Trump Republican faction is, as you also say, "largely failed and now also largely purged", then it seems at least plausible that it may be purged from the NR too nowadays.
