Conservative Conversation and Community
The Editors are back, but temporarily without their fearless leader Ryan Williams. Not to be daunted, the remaining few discuss Lent, the coronavirus, Trump’s personnel changes, drugs, the decadence of Hollywood, and the death drive of the West.
More Our Editors talk about the future of eugenics, the battle of Bloomberg v. Bernie, and an exciting new economic initiative on the Right. Plus: are libertarians coming for your sexual dignity? Our editors talk porn.
More Our editors discuss a bold proposal by Angelo Codevilla to abolish the CIA, coronavirus and its threat to globalism, Pete Buttigieg’s success in the New Hampshire primaries, and the dullness of #NeverTrump conservatism. Finally, our editors are unleashed on the Oscars.
More A #based State of the Union, a Democrat SNAFU in Iowa, and impeachment acquittal: Trump is riding high. Plus: our editors finish an entire bottle of whisky.
Note: heroes and Scotsmen (but I repeat myself) spell whisky without an “e”
More Elites remain out of touch with everyone, our institutions are broken, and some people on the Left and the Right are still in denial about how bad things have gotten. But at least CNN’s Don Lemon is good for a laugh.
More Impeachment is still happening (apparently), Jeffrey Epstein still didn’t kill himself, and we conducted a very scientific poll about how to fix America. Plus: what’s up with the Lamb of Ghent?
More In this podcast, Ryan Williams, our President at Claremont and Publisher of The Claremont Review of Books, is joined by Michael Anton. We thank Mr. Anton for joining us and for his unique insights.
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In this edition of The American Mind podcast, host Ryan Williams sits down with Mollie Hemingway, Senior Editor at The Federalist, and Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network, to discuss their new bestselling book, Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court.
During the conversation, Williams, Hemingway, and Severino discuss the unprecedented partisanship from the Left on the judicial confirmation process; the impact of the Clinton impeachment inquiry on the crusade against Justice Kavanaugh; the over-judicialization of politics and why it has transpired; DOJ malfeasance and the rise of “expertise;” law enforcement and the administrative state; the Kavanaugh confirmation fight as a proxy for the power of identity politics; the politicization of the Supreme Court; what Pumpkin Spice Lattes tell us about the state of American civil society and politics; the criticality of a common understanding of human nature, the Constitution and American identity; and much more.
More Ryan Williams sits down with Ronald “R.J.” Pestritto, Dean of the Graduate School and Professor of Politics at Hillsdale College, to discuss Progressivism: how it came to be, its theoretical and political impact, and what it means for us today.
Since its arrival on the scene at the turn of the 20th Century, Progressivism has transformed American politics. But one cannot fully appreciate this shift without an understanding of the Founders’ view of human nature, government, and justice—and how the Progressive vision for America seeks to unravel it.
More In this special edition of the American Mind podcast, we explore the intellectual roots, political and societal implications of and the antidote to what the Claremont Institute believes is the great threat to America: multiculturalism. The podcast features Claremont Institute President Ryan Williams, Chairman Tom Klingenstein and scholar Charles Kesler, as well as the likes of David Azerrad, Lord Conrad Black, Allen Guelzo, Roger Kimball and Norman Podhoretz. It is narrated by James Poulos, Executive Editor of the American Mind and produced by ChangeUp Media.
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More In a feature for the Spring 2019 issue of the Claremont Review of Books, Christopher Caldwell reported on Viktor Orbán’s leadership of Hungary and the future of Europe. Caldwell joins the American Mind podcast to talk about Orbán’s Hungary and the course he has charted on matters of immigration, culture and economics in contrast with some of his peers. Caldwell also addresses the ongoing battle between illiberal democracy and undemocratic liberalism as caricatured by Italy’s Matteo Salvini and France’s Emmanuel Macron, and elucidates the ties between European populism and American populism. During the conversation, Caldwell and host Ryan Williams also touch on the multiculturalist challenge to America.
Christopher Caldwell was a senior editor at The Weekly Standard and author of Reflections on the Revolution In Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West (Anchor, 2010).
More “Nationalism.” It’s a word getting thrown around a lot these days. Some say it is code for racism and xenophobia. Others contend it is the natural expression of any nation’s people. What does nationalism mean, and how does the concept apply to American politics today? These are the questions at the heart of an essay in the Winter 2019 issue of the Claremont Review of Books titled “Trumpism, Nationalism, and Conservatism.” Its author is Chris DeMuth, who joins host Ben Judge in this episode of The American Mind Podcast.
In this interview, you’ll hear about DeMuth’s move towards appreciating President Trump, as well as a word of warning to conservative organizations dealing with Republican presidents. But at the heart of the conversation is this question: Are Trumpism, Nationalism, and Conservatism synonymous?
More Why, even after electoral triumphs, have conservatives had such a hard time governing? You think this question only applies to today? Twenty years ago, as part of the American Enterprise Institute’s Bradley lecture series, Dr. Charles Kesler gave an answer to why conservatives felt adrift. That lecture is just as relevant now as it was in 1998, and it forms the basis of this episode of The American Mind Podcast.
In this interview, you’ll hear why Dr. Kesler says American conservatism can only feel grounded when it argues policy based on the principles of equality and justice. But, to get there, we have to work our way through different pieces of conservatism’s intellectual heritage. Only then can we see “what’s wrong with conservatism.”
More Since this is the first episode of the American Mind Podcast, we thought we would go back to basics. What is the fundamental problem politics must solve? What does that mean for governments in general? What about for America?
Helping us work through those questions is Mike Anton. He is a Senior Fellow at the Claremont Institute and Lecturer at Hillsdale College’s Kirby Center in Washington DC. He has written for Pete Wilson, Rudy Giuliani, George W. Bush, and most recently he served in Donald Trump‘s National Security Council as Deputy Assistant for Strategic Communications. But many of you know him from an essay he wrote for the Claremont Review of Books titled “The Flight 93 Election.” That essay became the basis for his new book, After the Flight 93 Election: The Vote that Saved America and What We Still Have to Lose. What is his answer to the fundamental problem of politics? And how does that answer lead to his criticism that conservatives are too focused on the accumulation of wealth? Mike Anton explores these questions and many more in the inaugural edition of The American Mind Podcast.
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