Why can't leading conservative magazine understand freedom?

Found this  mysterious transmission on a robot named R2D2 Twitter from  joshuafoust: "National Review Online endorses authoritarian capitalism. Help us, Obi Wan @bill_easterly, you're our only hope!" I won't let you down, Leia&Luke AKA @joshuafoust...  The bizarre article in question is titled China Teaches the U.S. Lessons about Economic Freedom. The argument seems roughly to be that China's rapid growth is explained by its positive change in economic freedom after 1978. Throw in a few qualifiers, and I would agree. Then things get bizarre: the article notes that after 2003, there was negative change in Chinese economic freedom, but says it had no effect on China's growth. Next it argues there was a negative change in freedom under Obama, which WILL have a devastating effect on the US growth rate, which for unexplained reasons responds differently than China's. The punchline:

Where economic freedom expands, growth follows. Where economic freedom is stifled, economies stagnate. Sadly, China’s former leaders understood this better than do its current leaders, or America’s.

--or better than the author, one might add. And should we maybe give 1 or 2 Brownie points to America's leaders for not shooting and imprisoning peaceful dissidents? And maybe America's leaders understand better than the leading conservative magazine the indispensable link between political and economic freedom understood by Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek (perhaps this is why the latter wrote an essay "why I am not a conservative?").

Sorry, leading conservative magazine, as long as you are dishonest or incoherent about the f-word, you're not making any converts in these parts.