
The Federalist
The Federalist's Self-Proclaimed Bias
In September 2013, co-founder Ben Domenech, a conservative writer and TV commentator, wrote that The Federalist was inspired by the worldview of the original TIME magazine, which he described as "[leaning] to the political right, with a small-c conservatism equipped with a populist respect for the middle class reader outside of New York and Washington, and an abiding love for America at a time when snark and cynicism were not considered substitutes for smart analysis."
Domenech wrote that The Federalist would be informed by TIME's 1920s “list of prejudices” for the magazine, which included principles such as:
- A belief that the world is round and an admiration of the statesman’s view of all the world.
- A general distrust of the present tendency toward increasing interference by government.
- A prejudice against the rising cost of government.
- Faith in the things which money cannot buy.
- A respect for the old, particularly in manners.
- An interest in the new, particularly in ideas.
Hitler’s Nazi regime is almost universally regarded as a fully evil enterprise, with only scattered and marginalized outcasts who deny the monstrosity of the Holocaust or claim that the doctrine of Aryan racial superiority is a positive good. The Soviet Union and its seven-decade run elicit less unanimity among those who would call its reign evil — or an evil made necessary by the effort to bring communism to life. The People’s Republic of China was once seen as evil. But then, for a time, it was a partner in...