Afleveringen

  • Sure, the major news networks had all the "experts", but how many of them opined on what Buckley, Burke, or Kirk would think of the election results? Listen to Saving Elephants' livestream on election night as results come in from another stellar panel of cross-partisan contributors: Josh Lewis, Eric Kohn, Justin Stapley, Calvin Moore, Kent Straith, Mike Taylor, John Giokaris, Elizabeth Doll, and Steve Phelps.

  • Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis flies this election day episode solo to offer his thoughts on how your vote is more likely to impact yourself than it is the races, having grace for those who choose to vote differently than we do, and why conservatives should take courage in a profoundly discouraging time.

    Special Election Night Livestream

    You’re already staying up late to watch the election results. Why not watch them with another august cross-partisan panel brought to you by Saving Elephants? Join us, beginning 9PM CST, as we analyze the results in real time. Sure, the national networks have professional pundits, but how likely are any of them to seriously discuss what Burke, Kirk, or Buckley would think about our political developments?

    Here’s the link for YouTube and another for Facebook where we’ll be livestreaming.

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    Klik hier om de feed te vernieuwen.

  • The most [assuredly not] important election of our lifetime is a little more than two weeks away. The candidates are in the home stretch as each of them make their final pitch to the dwindling undecided voter. Join another venerable group of panelists as we share our thoughts on the state of the race and our hopes and fears with a coming Harris or another Trump administration.

    Panelists include: Brooke Medina, Eric Kohn, Mike Taylor, and Nate HonorĂš

  • Saving Elephants meticulously avoids many cringeworthy tropes in today’s “conservative” media and opts instead for deeper conversations on the conservative worldview and what it can offer Millennials. As such, there is much low-hanging-fruit among the fruitier parts of the Left that isn’t as vigorously explored as it is in the aforementioned “conservative” media. But that doesn’t mean these topics are off limits—just that they’re to be approached with conviction and clarity.

    Josh Lewis welcomes Kimberly Ross back to the podcast for a wide-ranging discussion on what it means to be a woman, the place of feminism in conservatism, how both the Left and Right get the differences in the sexes wrong, and whether Andrew Tate is the “conservative’s” answer to Che Guevara.

    About Kimberly Ross

    Kimberly Ross is a freelance conservative writer. Her work regularly appears in The Washington Examiner, both online and the print magazine, and The Mirror magazine, a monthly publication from Aid to the Church in Need. She is a freelance columnist at The Freemen News-Letter and co-host of The Right Thoughts podcast. Her archive of published work can be found at RedState, Arc Digital, The Bulwark, Rare, and USA Today.

    As a mother of two and self-described "first wave feminist", she is most passionate about the rights of children, women, and the issue of abortion. She considers herself an independent conservative (not to be confused with conservative independent) and is beholden to no politician.

    Kimberly has a B.A. in history with graduate work in political science. You can follow Kimberly on Twitter @SouthernKeeks

  • Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Senator JD Vance square off for the first—and likely only—vice presidential debate that’s sure to leave pundits chattering, social media accounts fighting, and late economists spinning in their graves. The debate begins at 9PM ET. Join us immediately following the debate for another livestream roundtable to restore some inkling of sanity back to this election.

    Panelists include Scott Howard, Jeffery Tyler Syck, and John Giokaris.

  • In a world where both political parties are moving away from free market oriented policy solutions, a robust defense of our international allies, and traditional social norms, where does the conservative go from here?

    Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is joined by special returning guests Cal Davenport, Erik Kohn, and Justin Stapley for a roundtable discussion on what the future holds for the conservative movement.

    This episode first dropped as a livestream on the new Saving Elephants YouTube channel., featuring full-length episodes, exclusive shorts, and even live events! Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/@savingelephants

  • From Eastern Europe to the Middle East to Southeast Asia to so many other places, the world's on fire. Yet neither presidential candidate is offering us a compelling vision to navigate this brave new world. Join another august assembly of panelists as we discuss what a sensible foreign policy might look like.

    You can also watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve3XCgOkHQc&t=3446s

  • The Declaration of Independence audaciously declares certain “truths” to be “self-evident”. And, in so doing, offered a justification for not only a break with Great Britain and Revolutionary War, but the foundation upon which a new nation could be built. But how uniformly were these “truths” held and understood by the Founding Fathers? Were they disparate views that were ultimately incoherent or inconsistent? Did the divergent cultures of the American North and South have fundamentally different ideas of what they conceived of America to be? Were the Founders simply protecting their material interests and reaching for any argument at hand that seemed useful to that end?

    Who was most responsible for the ideas of the American founding? John Locke? Scottish Enlightenment thinkers? Egalitarianism? Modernity? Scientific rationalism? Christian teachings? Joining Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is historian Hans Eicholz who argues it was actually a harmonization of many of these different, but not incompatible, sentiments that lead to the founding of America.

    About Hans Eicholz

    Hans Eicholz is a historian and Senior Fellow at Liberty Fund. Much of his work has been in the history of economic thought, looking initially at the influence of market ideas in the American founding period, but also extending up through the 19th century.

    Hans is the author of Harmonizing Sentiments: The Declaration of Independence and the Jeffersonian Idea of Self-Government (2001; Second Edition, 2024), and a contributor to The Constitutionalism of American States (2008).

  • The stakes were high in the first debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. Did anyone, other than the American people, emerge the loser? Were any pets harmed during the debate? Did some semblance of substance somehow slip through? Saving Elephants presents another livestream cross-partisan panel to debate the debate, featuring:

    Elizabeth Doll

    Mike Taylor

    Cal Davenport

    John Giokaris

  • In this era of polarization and partisan bickering, Americans of all political persuasions are calling for the nation to come together. National unity is certainly in high demand and highly praised. But what is unity? As Yuval Levin argues in his latest book, American Covenant, “unity doesn’t mean agreement
disagreement does not foreclose the possibility of unity. A more unified society would not always disagree less, but it would disagree better—that is, more constructively and with an eye to how different priorities and goals can be accommodated. That we have lost some of our knack for unity in America does not mean that we have forgotten how to agree but that we have forgotten how to disagree
Unity does not mean thinking alike; unity means acting together.”

    Joining Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is Yuval Levin himself who contends that the American Constitution is ideally designed to address our need for unity. And becoming better acquainted with the intentions and insights of those who put our system of government together could bring us together the durable and cohesive unity we lack today.

    About Yuval Levin

    Yuval Levin is a political analyst, public intellectual, academic, and journalist. He is the founding editor of National Affairs, director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a contributing editor of National Review, and co-founder and a senior editor of The New Atlantis. He also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy.


    Yuval served as a member of the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush. He was also executive director of the President’s Council on Bioethics and a congressional staffer at the member, committee, and leadership levels.

    Yuval’s essays and articles have appeared in numerous publications, among them, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary. He is the author of many books which include American Covenant, A Time to Build, and The Great Debate. Yuval discussed the last two books when he was previously on the podcast in Episode 73 – Formative Institutions with Yuval Levin

  • It's the last night of the Democratic National Convention and who better to offer commentary on Kamala Harris' speech than a cross-partisan panel? Join us for a livestream discussion scheduled to take place shortly after Kamala's speech.

  • The great fusionist project of ordered liberty advocated by Frank Meyer, William F. Buckley, and M. Stanton Evans is defended and affirmed today by a group calling themselves Freedom Conservatives, or FreeCons. And as most groups of conservatives are wont to do, they have drafted a Statement of Principles outlining what they hope to affirm. Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is a proud signatory on this statement and welcomes in this episode one of the two originators of the Statement, Avik Roy, for a wide-ranging discussion on fusionism, how FreeCons may compare and contrast with NatCons, the need for conservatism to grapple with issues of equality, and much more.

    About Avik Roy

    Excerpts from https://bipartisanpolicy.org/person/avik-roy/

    Avik Roy is the President of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP.org), a non-partisan, non-profit think tank that conducts original research on expanding opportunity to those who least have it. Roy’s work has been praised widely on both the right and the left. National Review has called him one of the nation’s “sharpest policy minds,” while the New York Times’ Paul Krugman described him as man of “personal and moral courage.”

    Roy has advised three presidential candidates on policy, including Marco Rubio, Rick Perry, and Mitt Romney. Roy also serves as the Opinion Editor at Forbes, where he writes on politics and policy, and manages The Apothecary, the influential Forbes blog on health care policy and entitlement reform. [He] is the author of How Medicaid Fails the Poor, published by Encounter Books in 2013, and Transcending Obamacare: A Patient-Centered Plan for Near-Universal Coverage and Permanent Fiscal Solvency, a second edition of which was published in 2016 by FREOPP. He serves on the advisory board of the National Institute for Health Care Management, is a Senior Advisor to the Bipartisan Policy Center, and co-chaired the Fixing Veterans Health Care Policy Taskforce.

    Roy’s writing has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Atlantic, National Review, The Weekly Standard, and National Affairs, among other publications. He is a frequent guest on television news programs, including appearances on Fox News, Fox Business, NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, Bloomberg, CBS, PBS, and HBO.

    From 2011 to 2016, Roy served as a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, where he conducted research on the Affordable Care Act, entitlement reform, universal coverage, international health systems, and FDA policy. Previously, he served as an analyst and portfolio manager at Bain Capital, J.P. Morgan, and other firms.

    Roy was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied molecular biology, and the Yale University School of Medicine. You can follow Roy on Twitter @Avik

  • Was Abraham Lincoln a racist? Were his efforts at emancipation the mere cold calculations of a politician whose sole aim was to win the Civil War, or do they point to some deeper ideals of America’s first principles? Joining Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is Lincoln historian Dr. Allen C. Guelzo for a wide-ranging conversation on how Lincoln’s efforts at ending slavery and saving the union may provide the clearest example of prudent American statesmanship in practice.

    About Dr. Allen C. Guelzo

    Excerpts from the James Madison Program

    Dr. Allen C. Guelzo is a New York Times best-seller author, American historian and commentator on public issues. He has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Christian Science Monitor, National Affairs, First Things, U.S. News & World Report, The Weekly Standard, Washington Monthly, National Review, the Daily Beast, and the Claremont Review of Books, and has been featured on NPR’s “Weekend Edition Sunday” and “On Point,” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (2008), Meet the Press: Press Pass with David Gregory, The Civil War: The Untold Story (Great Divide Pictures, 2014), Race to the White House: Lincoln vs. Douglas (CNN, 2016), Legends and Lies: The Civil War (Fox, 2018), Reconstruction (PBS, 2019) and Brian Lamb’s “Booknotes.” In 2010, he was nominated for a Grammy Award along with David Straithern and Richard Dreyfuss for their production of the entirety of The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (BBC Audio). In 2018, he was a winner of the Bradley Prize, along with Jason Riley of The Wall Street Journal and Charles Kesler of the Claremont Institute.

    He is Thomas W. Smith Distinguished Research Scholar and Director of the James Madison Program Initiative on Politics and Statesmanship. Previously, he was Senior Research Scholar in the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University, and the Director of Civil War Era Studies and the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era at Gettysburg College. During 2010-11 and again in 2017-18, he served as the WL. Garwood Visiting Professor in the James Madison Program at Princeton University. He holds the MA and PhD in History from the University of Pennsylvania.

    Among his many award-winning publications, he is the author of Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President, which won both the Lincoln Prize and the Abraham Lincoln Institute Prize in 2000; Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America (Simon & Schuster, 2004) which also won the Lincoln Prize and the Abraham Lincoln Institute Prize, for 2005; Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates That Defined America (Simon & Schuster, 2008), on the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858; a volume of essays, Abraham Lincoln as a Man of Ideas (Southern Illinois University Press, 2009) which won a Certificate of Merit from the Illinois State Historical Association in 2010; and Lincoln: A Very Short Introduction (in the Oxford University Press ‘Very Short Introductions’ series. In 2012, he published Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction with Oxford University Press, and in 2013 Alfred Knopf published his book on the battle of Gettysburg (for the 150thanniversary of the battle), Gettysburg: The Last Invasion, which spent eight weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. Gettysburg: The Last Invasion won the Lincoln Prize for 2014, the inaugural Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military History, the Fletcher Pratt Award of the New York City Round Table, and the Richard Harwell Award of the Atlanta Civil War Round Table. His most recent publications are Redeeming the Great Emancipator (Harvard University Press, 2016) which originated as the 2012 Nathan Huggins Lectures at Harvard University, and Reconstruction: A Concise History (Oxford University Press, 2018).

    He is one of Power Line’s 100 “Top Professors” in America. In 2009, he delivered the Commonwealth Fund Lecture at University College, London, on “Lincoln, Cobden and Bright: The Braid of Liberalism in the 19th-Century’s Transatlantic World.” He has been awarded the Lincoln Medal of the Union League Club of New York City, the Lincoln Award of the Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia, and the Lincoln Award of the Union League of Philadelphia, in addition to the James Q. Wilson Award for Distinguished Scholarship on the Nature of a Free Society. In 2018, he was named a Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute. He has been a Fellow of the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University, and currently serves as a Trustee of the Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History.

    Together with Patrick Allitt and Gary W. Gallagher, he team-taught The Teaching Company’s American History series, and as well as courses on Abraham Lincoln (Mr. Lincoln, 2005) on American intellectual history (The American Mind, 2006), the American Revolution (2007), and the Founders (America’s Founding Fathers, 2017). From 2006 to 2013, he served as a member of the National Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

    Dr. Guelzo’s latest book, Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment, which is discussed in this episode is available wherever books are sold.

    He lives in Paoli and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Debra. They have three children and five grandchildren. His website is allenguelzo.com

    Saving Elephants is coming to YouTube!

    We’re thrilled to announce that Saving Elephants will be launching a YouTube channel in August with full-length episodes, exclusive shorts, and even live events! Further details coming soon...

  • In an age of rampant informalities, shoddy attire, and the kind of milieu that makes People of Walmart a possibility, conservatives stand athwart history yelling STOP! Joining Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is the impeccably dressed Samuel Goldman to explore how conservatism informs the world of fashion, why legendary figures on the Right from Russell Kirk to Albert J Nock to Willmoore Kendall wore such questionably lavish accessories, the connective tissues between intellectual conservatism and 90s era punk rock, and much more.

    About Samuel Goldman

    Samuel Goldman is an associate professor of political science at George Washington University, where he is also executive director of the John L. Loeb, Jr. Institute for Religious Freedom and director of the Politics & Values Program.

    Samuel is the Editor of FUSION, an online journal inspired by the belief that Western civilization is defined by intertwined threads of freedom and tradition, innovation and order, rights and duties. In addition to academic work, his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.

    His most recent book, After Nationalism: Being American in a Divided Age was published by University of Pennsylvania Press in spring 2021. His first book God’s Country: Christian Zionism in America was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2018. Samuel received his Ph.D. from Harvard and taught at Harvard and Princeton before coming to GW. You can follow Samuel on Twitter @SWGoldman

    For those interested in learning more about men’s fashion, Samuel recommends the following resources:

    Blogs

    Put This On

    Die, Workwear

    Necktie Salvage

    Books

    Dressing the Man: Mastering the Art of Permanent Fashion

    True Style: The History and Principles of Classic Menswear

    The Casual Style Guide

    Gentleman: A Timeless Guide to Fashion

    Hollywood and the Ivy Look

    Saving Elephants is coming to YouTube!

    We’re thrilled to announce that Saving Elephants will be launching a YouTube channel in August with full-length episodes, exclusive shorts, and even live events! Further details coming soon...

  • In an age where what passes for the archetype conservative are the likes of Candace Owens, Bill Mitchell, Sean Hannity, Matt Gaetz, Tomi Lahren, and Donald Trump, it can be discouraging for those of us who take pride in the rich legacy and colorful history of thinkers on the Right to be associated with such grifters, demagogues, and charlatans.

    Trying to define conservatism is challenging and trying to compile a list of individuals who best exemplify conservatism is problematic. Yet this is becoming increasingly important in a world where “conservatism” is quickly being coopted by reactionary nationalist populists who have little to nothing in common with the namesake.

    In this episode Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis offers his list of conservative thinkers well worthy of your time and attention.

    Disclaimer

    This list is imperfect and incomplete. If I were to revisit the list next year or possibly even next week, I’m sure there are plenty of names I’d believe should supplant the names here. Some of these individuals may even be uncomfortable with the label “conservative”, though they all share aspects of the broader conservative worldview. The names below are not listed in order of preference or importance, but they are all insightful and noteworthy.

    The fifty individuals discussed in this episode are noted below. If you’d like to learn more about each one you can check out the original blog post of Fifty Conservative Thinkers for a brief bio and links.

    Josh’s (Incomplete) List of Fifty Conservative Thinkers Worth Your Time

    Edmund Burke

    Milton Friedman

    Wilhelm Röpke

    David Bahnsen

    F.A. Hayek

    John Adams

    Frederick Douglass

    Thomas Sowell

    James Madison

    Barry Goldwater

    Ronald Reagan

    Bradley J. Birzer

    Russell Kirk

    Matthew Continetti

    David French

    Gertrude Himmelfarb

    George Nash

    Stephen J. Tonsor

    Roger Scruton

    Jacques Ellul

    Whittaker Chambers

    Michael Oakeshott

    Eric Voegelin

    Timothy Carney

    C.S. Lewis

    G.K. Chesterton

    Jonah Goldberg

    Wendell Berry

    T.S. Eliot

    Ross Douthat

    Mary Eberstadt

    M. Stanton Evans

    Irving Kristol

    George Will

    William F. Buckley

    Kristen Soltis Anderson

    Robert Nisbet

    Carly Fiorina

    Arthur Brooks

    Marian Tupy

    Charles Marohn

    Patrick Deneen

    Harry Jaffa

    Walter Williams

    Frank S. Meyer

    Alexis de Tocqueville

    Lord Acton

    Leo Stauss

    Willmoore Kendall

    Yuval Levin

  • In February of 2004 the late Charles Krauthammer delivered the keynote address at AEI’s Annual Dinner. It was a year into the Iraqi war and several years into the War on Terror. Krauthammer’s address—entitled Democratic Realism—lauded much of the Bush administration’s approach to the war, but offered some stern warnings on how the war and rebuilding efforts might go awry. His warnings proved to be profoundly prescient as the following years led to the disillusionment of what broadly (and wrongly) became known as NeoCon foreign policy.

    What had the Right missed in Krauthammer’s warnings? What foreign policy approaches has the United States historically taken, and are any of them still relevant? How might conservatism shed light on the most appropriate foreign policy we could pursue? Joining Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is returning guest Michael Lucchese to think through the lessons learned in American foreign policy.

    About Michael Lucchese

    Michael Lucchese is the founder and CEO of Pipe Creek Consulting, a communications firm based in Washington, D.C., and a visiting scholar at the Liberty Fund. Previously, he was a communications aide to U.S. Senator Ben Sasse.

    He received a BA in American Studies at Hillsdale College and was a Hudson Institute Political Studies fellow and an alumnus of the Röpke-WojtyƂa Fellowship at Catholic University of America's Busch School of Business.


    Michael is an Associate Editor at Law & Liberty and a contributing editor to Providence. His writings have also appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Examiner and National Review, Engelsberg Ideas, and Public Discourse. Michael Lucchese is from Chicago, Illinois.

    Michael was a previous guest on Saving Elephants in episode 143 – The Conservative Mind at 70 with Michael Lucchese

  • How might music point us to the good, the true, and the beautiful? What is the purpose of music, and we are guilty of misusing it? Why are we so obsessed with Taylor Swift? Musician and conservative journalist Barney Quick joins Josh to discuss how conservatism might better inform our approach to music. Also discussed are whether or not the elephants can be saved at all, how an owning-the-libs approach misses the spirit of conservatism, and whether or not Principles First has lost its first principles.

    About Barney Quick

    Barney Quick is a journalist whose work appears in magazine features. He is a frequent contributor to Ordinary Times and a Senior Freelance Contributor for The Freeman News-Letter. He has been maintaining his blog, Late in the Day, since 2012. But you can find the bulk of his writings on his substack Precipice.

    Barney is also a musician and jazz guitarist who could find lucrative gigs, but is well aware he’s chosen a musical life that isn’t going to pay a lot of bills.

    Barney is an adjunct lecturer in jazz history and rock and roll history at his local community college.

    You can follow Barney on Twitter @Penandguitar

  • After a stint of episodes taking deep dives into obscure topics, Josh returns to some conservative first-principles by inviting long-time friend of the podcast Cal Davenport on for a wide-ranging discussion on whether or not the fusionist consensus is truly dead, why all the energy in the Right seems to be going towards the NatCons, what’s leading to the rise of populism, how to repackage conservative ideas into digestible slogans, who belongs on the Mt. Rushmore of conservative thought, and how Edmund Burke factors into all of this. Trigger warning for the Straussian listener: this episode gets a bit Burke-y.

    About Cal Davenport

    Cal Davenport is a veteran podcaster and writer. He has written for The Wasington Examiner, RedState, The Resurgent and more. He has worked in Congress, for political campaigns, for think tanks, and in political consulting. Cal received his M.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Witten/Herdecke University. You can follow Cal on Twitter @jcaldavenport

  • David Bahnsen returns to the podcast to discuss his latest book: Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life. David holds a high view of work and, in an era where self-help gurus are teaching us how to work less to achieve a work/life balance, David wants to shift the paradigm to work/rest and celebrate the productive nature of our being. Also discussed in this episode are what the church gets wrong about work, how each generation brings different challenges and advantages to work culture, universal basic income (UBI), whether the Marxist are right and work under a capitalist system is exploitation, and what the future of retirement might mean for working Americans.

    About David Bahnsen

    From David’s website:

    David L. Bahnsen is the founder, Managing Partner, and Chief Investment Officer of The Bahnsen Group, a bi-coastal private wealth management firm with offices in Newport Beach, CA, New York City, Minneapolis, and Nashville managing over $3.5 billion in client assets. David is consistently named as one of the top financial advisors in America by Barron’s, Forbes, and the Financial Times. He is a frequent guest on CNBC, Bloomberg, and Fox Business and is a regular contributor to National Review and Forbes. He has written his own political viewpoint blog for over a decade.

    David serves on the Board of Directors for the National Review Institute and was the Vice-President of the Lincoln Club of Orange County for eight years. He is a committed donor and activist across all spectrums of national, state, and local politics, and views the cause of Buckley and Reagan as the need of the hour.

    David is passionate about opposition to crony capitalism, and has lectured and written for years about the need for pro-growth economic policy. Every part of his political worldview stems from a desire to see greater freedom as a catalyst to greater human flourishing.

    He is the author of the book, Crisis of Responsibility: Our Cultural Addiction to Blame and How You Can Cure It and his most recent book, There’s No Free Lunch: 250 Economic Truths.

    His ultimate passions are his lovely wife of 18+ years, Joleen, their gorgeous and brilliant children, sons Mitchell and Graham, and daughter Sadie, and the life they’ve created together in Newport Beach, California.

  • Fusionism—the viewpoint advocated by the likes of William F. Buckley and Frank Meyer of order and liberty mutually reinforcing each other—has been the dominant form of conservatism in the United States for a generation. In the era of Trump and the rise of nationalist populism on the Right, however, fusionism has steadily lost influence. Should conservatives double down on what’s worked in the past? Or is it time for a different approach that was advocated by some of the original critics of fusionism on the Right?

    Joining Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is Jeffery Tyler Syck to argue for a conservative alternative to the fusionists and NatCons: humanist conservatism. The humanist conservative is interested in preserving the diverse daily practices of human existence, as advocated by noteworthy thinkers like Michael Oakeshott, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Peter Viereck. It’s a quitter, more moderated form of conservatism that—Syck believes—could offer an antidote to the excess of the nationalist populous radicalism ascendant on the Right.

    About Jeffery Tyler Syck

    From jtylersyck.com

    Jeffery Tyler Syck is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Pikeville.

    Tyler’s academic research focuses on the development of American democracy and the history of political ideologies. He is the editor of the forthcoming book “A Republic of Virtue: The Political Essays of John Quincy Adams” and is completing a second book manuscript entitled “The Untold Origins of American Democracy.” This second book describes how the political debates between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson forever altered the republic created by the American founders – leaving behind an increasingly majoritarian democracy. His essays and articles on politics, philosophy, and history have appeared in several public facing publications including Law and Liberty, Persuasion, and the Louisville Courier-Journal. Tyler’s academic work has recently been published in the journal Pietas.

    A native of Pike County Kentucky, Tyler’s political thought and writing are strongly shaped by the culture of Appalachia. With their tightly knit communities, the mountains of Appalachia have instilled in him a love of all things local. As such his writing most often advocates for a rejuvenation of local democracy and a renaissance of rural culture.

    Tyler received a Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Arts in Government from the University of Virginia. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Government and History from Morehead State University where he graduated with honors.

    You can follow Tyler on Twitter @tylersyck