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R.J. Pestritto

Ronald J. Pestritto is Graduate Dean and Professor of Politics at Hillsdale College, where he teaches political philosophy, American political thought, and American politics, and holds the Charles and Lucia Shipley Chair in the American Constitution.

Series

3 Whisky Happy Hour2 episodes

Recent Episodes

3 Whisky Happy Hour
3 Whisky Happy Hour

The Three Whisky Happy Hour: Tackling the Admin. State from Sicily

The end of this week finds the 3WHH crew in situ in Enna, up in the highlands of Sicily, visiting the University of Kore for a conference on, well, everything, though it is hard to tell since half the speakers are speaking in Italian and the rest of us are speaking in English. John Yoo's incoming plane was delayed—again—but it gave us the prompt we needed to have in John's place, R.J. Pestritto, the Dean of graduate education at Hillsdale College, but above all, one of the most trenchant critics of the Progressive revolution of the early 20th century, and the insidious administrative state it birthed. If ever you want to throw down on Woodrow Wilson—and what sensible person doesn't?—R.J. is your man. For this episode we consider R.J.'s recent short monograph for the Claremont Institute's "Provocations" series, Government by the Unelected: How It Happened, and How It Might Be Tamed. Settle in with your favorite Chianti for this one, as "D.J.—R.J.," as I like to call him when he gets rolling on this subject, really gets rolling on this subject with us. For this episode, recorded in a hotel lobby with some visitors wandering by our "field recording studio (which included Michael McConnell listening in for some of it), we decided to keep the "authentic feel" of the background noise, in case you get to wondering. Meanwhile, the full 3WHH crew arms up for the next podcast after they finish sacking Sicily:
Hosts:
'Lucretia'Steve Hayward
Organization
Ricochet

June 2021

3 Whisky Happy Hour
3 Whisky Happy Hour

How Progressives Transformed America, with R.J. Pestritto

As regular listeners know, we never tire of beating up on Progressivism—both the old kind and today's high-octane version—and we especially like to beat up on Woodrow Wilson. Most of what we know about Wilson's perfidy comes from the ur-text of Wilson criticism, Ronald J. Pestritto's Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism from 2005. R.J. (as he is known to his friends), is out this week with a terrific new book that builds on and vastly extends his previous work, America Transformed: The Rise and Legacy of American Progressivism, just out this week from our friends at Encounter Books. This book deserves to take its place as the pre-eminent work that surveys the whole scene, bringing in new themes of the role of the "Social Gospel," imperialism, the lasting effect of Wilsonian internationalism on American foreign policy, and many other worthy threads. In particular, the closing chapters of the book look at the ways in which radical progressive ideology informs the "administrative state" running amok in Washington. Ronald J. Pestritto is Graduate Dean and Professor of Politics at Hillsdale College, where he teaches political philosophy, American political thought, and American politics, and holds the Charles and Lucia Shipley Chair in the American Constitution. And since this episode is about Progressivism, I decided we needed to feature some Progressive rock as the exit bumper music (though some people think "Progressive rock" is actually conservative in some respects), so I chose a deliberately obscure tune to see if anyone recognizes it.
Host:
Steve Hayward
Organization
Ricochet