As a magazine of ideas, National Review has always been torn between deciding whether its primary loyalty was to conservative ideology or the Republican Party, a tension that has grown more acute in the age of Trump. A year ago, during the Republican primary, the magazine released its heralded “Against Trump” issue, a powerful statement that even though the candidate was immensely popular with Republican voters, he had to be resisted. “Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist,” the editors wrote, “who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.” But this stance was always on shaky ground, containing contrary positions that were subject to being falsified by events.

Two major motivations for the Never Trump movement were that few thought he could win a general election—and thus, there was no risk in taking a moral stand against him—and that he was so ideologically unreliable, he might govern as a liberal. Well, Trump won the election and all his early appointments and executive orders point to him governing well to the right of any Republican since Herbert Hoover, if not further. So what happens to Never Trump now that such core arguments have been rendered irrelevant? As National Review’s recent output shows, Never Trump is giving way to a grudging anti-anti-Trump—of not quite giving full support to Trump, but spending more time challenging his liberal foes than the president himself.

This can be seen most clearly on the immigration issue. “Against Trump” contained a symposium, “Conservatives against Trump,” in which several writers made an eloquent case that Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim immigration was a violation of fundamental American values. “Trump launched his campaign talking about Mexican rapists and has gone on to rant about mass deportation, bans on Muslim immigration, shutting down mosques, and building a wall around America,” wrote David Boaz of the Cato Institut. “America is an exceptional nation in large part because we’ve aspired to rise above such prejudices and guarantee life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to everyone.” Southern Baptist luminary Russell Moore argued, “Trump’s willingness to ban Muslims, even temporarily, from entering the country simply because of their religious affiliation would make Jefferson spin in his grave.”

But something strange has happened now that Trump has issued an executive order temporarily blocking immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries—the first step towards a Muslim ban. National Review kind of likes what Trump wants to do, though they might have doubts about the execution. They also know what they don’t like: Liberals criticizing a Republican president. Driven by this partisan logic, they’ve adopted a stance of anti-anti-Trump. They aren’t whole-hearted supporters of the president, but they’re closer to him than to his critics.

“To read the online commentary, one would think that President Trump just fundamentally corrupted the American character,” David French, a staff writer who flirted a third-party challenge in last year’s election, lamented. “You would think that the executive order on refugees he signed yesterday betrayed America’s Founding ideals. You might even think he banned people from an entire faith from American shores.” French argued that “Trump’s order isn’t a betrayal of American values,” but rather is well within the historical norm, and that any innovations were rational solutions to real security problems.