Donald Trump And 'National Review' Are Not Friends

Another group from the conservative side has thrown its support behind pretty much any GOP candidate who is not Donald Trump. The difference, this time, is that the diss is hitting Trump pretty hard. It's common knowledge that the norm for Trump is to not be a fan of anyone who's not a fan of him. So, when the politically conservative magazine National Review published a scathing editorial against Trump, the burning of bridges wasn't so simple. Here's how Donald Trump blasted National Review , but not before the GOP front-runner suffered a major hit himself.

The editorial, written by the magazine's team of editors, is far from kind. The authors don't shy away from stating plainly that, regardless of their understanding Trump's current popularity among a large group of Americans, he is not deserving of GOP support come caucus time.

Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.

Then, they take their sweet time in taking down every one of Trump's stated political platforms on the major issues. My personal favorite is when they get to foreign policy, and holding back any sass gets tossed out the window.

All in all, Trump knows approximately as much about national security as he does about the nuclear triad — which is to say, almost nothing.

That's the kind of talk readers would be expecting with a harsh title like, "Against Trump," is it not? And in response, Trump did what he does best: tweeted the crap out of the situation. First, he went after the legitimacy of the publication itself.

And just to make sure, he unleashed another tweet on how National Review is read by basically no one, according to Trump.

Then came the evidence that this particular affront dug a bit deeper than the others.

Ah, yes. Trump's beloved William F. Buckley founded National Review, so how could he not be disgusted by the writers presently representing the organization choosing not to endorse a candidate with equally great qualities and those same "New York values" as Buckley himself?

While Trump's tweets don't really showcase much of anything other than indications that they were actually written by a disgruntled teen, the piece by National Review displays a classic example of what's currently going on within the GOP. The battle between Republicans of the establishment and those affiliated with, say, the more extreme-right Tea Party movement is not new. Members of the GOP have been arguing with renewed vigor about whether putting support behind safer, middle-of-the-line candidates is traitorous since Obama's win in 2008.

But with the start of the Iowa electoral caucuses creeping ever so close, the scramble to dismantle the campaigns of any and all candidates who might not be the right fit for the Republican nomination is becoming a real trend. Ted Cruz understands all this.

When mass confusion about the best route to a Republican White House arises, the shots go flying. And it appears no one will make it to the other side of the caucuses unscathed.