An Elephant and Its Trump: Populism, Nationalism and Conservatism

I'll bet you didn't know you need a federal disaster management plan for your pet rabbit if you use your pet rabbit as part of a magic act for birthday parties. Well, you did, until the U.S. Department of Agriculture got embarrassed by the adverse publicity for this abject stupidity, but it is of a piece with the proposed European Union regulation on the proper length and curvature of bananas offered up by European grocers, because of course consumers are incompetent to judge bananas for themselves in the produce section. No wonder Britain voted for Brexit.

In this episode Steve Hayward offers up another of his lectures from his ongoing series for the William F. Buckley Jr. Program at Yale, and explains that what is deplored as populism is partly a healthy reaction to the overweening governance of the modern administrative state. This lecture makes a grand tour from Max Weber through the American Progressives and culminates with the late Christopher Lasch, who foresaw our current populist moment in many ways.

Yes, Steve uses a different opening bumper tune this week, "Mexico" from moe, an interlude that you'll have to guess about, and a contemporary Prog Rock tune from Big Big Train with an ironically conservative title, "The Permanent Way." Prog Rock that Russell Kirk might approve!