Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values

Julie Mastrine of AllSides joins Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis in a freewheeling conversation about the media. Conservatives love to complain of the liberal media bias, but are their complaints founded or over exaggerated? Do "both sides" have a bias problem? How do they differ and how are they similar? Are there times when bias is acceptable and even welcome? Is bias the same as inaccuracy or dishonesty? How might you identify media bias and what can we do about it?

About Julie Mastrine

Julie Mastrine is a writer and online marketing professional who is passionate about being a responsible member of the media. She believes in promoting critical thinking and traditional values.

Julie creates engaging online content to help brands communicate, tell their stories, and get attention. Her content has earned millions of online impressions. As Director of Marketing and Media Bias Ratings at AllSides, Julie oversaw a 1,684% increase in total social media impressions for AllSides in just three years and a 1,656% increase in website traffic. Julie created the AllSides Media Bias Chart™, which has been viewed and shared tens of millions of times and published in numerous academic textbooks. She frequently conducts media bias research to bolster AllSide's media bias ratings, and wrote the highly trafficked guide, 12 Types of Media Bias.

Julie is also a frequent writer and editor, writing regularly for AllSides and Evie Magazine on topics such as politics, culture and relationships. And her work has also appeared in The Epoch Times, USA Today, The Federalist, and other publications.

When she's not immersed in media, Julie is also a fire dancer and performance artist.

You can learn more about Julie on her website and follow her on Twitter @juliewrites

About AllSides

Is a web-based organization dedicated to strengthening our democratic society with balanced news, diverse perspectives, and real conversation. AllSides exposes people to information and ideas from all sides of the political spectrum so they can better understand the world—and each other. Their balanced news coverage, media bias ratings, civil dialogue opportunities, and technology platform are available for everyone and can be integrated by schools, nonprofits, media companies, and more.

AllSides displays the day's top news stories from the Left, Center, and Right of the political spectrum—side-by-side so you can see the full picture.

AllSides also provides Media Bias Ratings for over 800 media outlets and writers, so you can easily identify different perspectives.

Josh engages in a Cannonball Run conversation with Bo Winegard across a wide variety of subjects from how Bo found himself migrating from the political Left to the Right, whether Edmund Burke believed in natural rights, how one might approach Burke from both a religious and secular angle, the curious tendency of the academic Left to erect strawman versions of conservatism, the limitations of Thomas Sowell's constrained vs. unconstrained visions paradigm, how the GOP might chart a course between throwback Reaganism and MAGA Trumpism, and whether religion is necessary to sustain ordered liberty.

About Bo Winegard

Bo Winegard obtained his PhD in social psychology from Florida State University, under the tutelage of Roy Baumeister. Formerly a professor at a small college in the Midwest, Bo is now an independent scholar interested in human evolution, human variation, the rise of political order, and political conservatism. He also enjoys literature, film, sports, and mediocre detective fiction.

Bo has many peer-reviewed publications on motley topics and often writes for the online media publication Quillette. He is currently working on the first of several books on human nature and political ideology.

Visit Bo's website:

https://www.bmwinegard.com/

And his YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8mHb9VLBbrlvzRRwwGgL5w

You can also find Bo on Twitter @EPoe187

In this re-podcast episode Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis joins his committed liberal friend David Blatt on Andrea Klunder’s show The Creative Impostor to discuss the differences between the Right and the Left, why we’re so polarized, and how civil dialogue might be restored.

About Andrea Klunder

Andrea Klunder is the Creative Director, Media Strategist and Podcast Producer behind The Creative Impostor Studios.  Andrea works with organizations, companies, and leaders who want to use audio content to tell stories, create movements, and change culture.  She calls upon her myriad experiences as a singer, actor, director, business owner, yoga, and meditation teacher to produce and edit podcasts for social impact organizations and entrepreneurs.  She consults on strategy and coaches podcasters to go deeper into the craft and culture of making their show.

Andrea boasts of four podcasts:

Podcast Envy: elevating the craft and culture of podcasting

The Creative Impostor: featuring creative thought leaders who take bold action in life and work, despite the little voice in their heads that says, “Who do you think you are?!”

Improve With Auntie: A round table for aunties like us to come together to share our brilliant ideas, sharp wit, and A+ advice, and

Power Your Story: produced by her high school mentees who attend a Chicago public school for diverse learners

Andrea has developed podcasts with the Santa Fe Opera, New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, Del Norte Credit Union, Institute for Justice, Chicago Reader, the NARM Training Institute, and more.  She has been a featured speaker and trainer for Podcast Movement, Podfest, She Podcasts Live, the University of Florida, The Wing, Next Door Chicago, Chicago Public Schools, and many, many podcasts.  Andrea believes in the power of podcasting to immerse your followers in an authentic brand experience through engaging, entertaining, and educational audio media. Her mission is to help your voice to shine!

About David Blatt

David Blatt, Ph.D., has worked for more than two decades in the public policy field.  Blatt founded the Oklahoma Policy Institute, a state policy think-tank that aims to expand opportunity for all Oklahomans through nonpartisan research, analysis and advocacy.  He served as its executive director for 10 years.  Now, he brings this expertise to students in the Master of Public Administration program at OU-Tulsa as the George Kaiser Family Foundation Endowed Professor of Practice.

Blatt previously served as director of public policy for Community Action Project of Tulsa County, as a budget analyst for the Oklahoma State Senate and as a parliamentary intern for the Canadian House of Commons.  He earned his doctorate in political science from Cornell University, his master of arts degree from McGill University and his bachelor of arts degree from the University of Alberta.

The British theologian and philosopher G. K. Chesterton observed that “religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion.  In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it.”  When we talk openly about political or religious matters, we risk endangering relationships.  Yet politics and religion are immensely important topics that ought not to be ignored for the sake of avoiding awkward conversations.  Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is joined by Corey Nathan as they discuss how we might talk politics and religion without killing each other.

About Corey Nathan

Corey Nathan was raised in an observant Jewish household attending an Orthodox synagogue.  His family is mostly from Brooklyn, NY; but Corey grew up on the Jersey side—Bruce Springsteen country!  In his late 20s, much to the family's chagrin, Corey became a Born-again Christian.  Not long after this epiphany, the new believer began to find many of the default social and political positions of contemporary American Evangelicalism to be at odds with the very Scriptures that are supposed to be Christians’ authority for how to engage in the world.  Vocationally, Corey started out as a stockbroker (Series 7, Series 63) during the day while he was studying at a theatre conservatory at night.  Since then, he’s been an entrepreneur with one foot in business and one foot in creative pursuits having built and managed such endeavors as a specialty headhunting firm, a theatre and film ministry, a residential and commercial service company, a 501c3 to help folks during the pandemic, and, most recently, a new media/content company.

Corey continues to be a student of theology, politics and culture and enjoys sharing invigorating conversations with world-renowned experts of these subjects on the podcast he produces and hosts, Talkin’ Politics & Religion Without Killin’ Each Other.  He can also be caught having these same kinds of discussions with friends and family over a good whiskey or glass of wine with the music of Monk, Coltrane or Louis Armstrong setting the mood.  Corey has been married to Lisa for 24 years and has 3 kids, along with the family pooches, Bailey and Charles Mingus the 3rd.  You can follow Corey on Twitter @coreysnathan.

How secure and reliable are elections in the United States?

The Left and Right are both replete with voices warning of the dire consequences of the “other side” getting their way.  And nowhere is this more evident than with concerns about the legitimacy of elections.  Whether it’s the Right’s concerns with voter fraud and election theft or the Left’s apprehensions about voter suppression and disenfranchisement, Americans are growing increasingly concerned that their votes don’t, or won’t, or eventually will not count.

What’s more, the leaders of each party, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, have used increasingly alarmist language in claiming our democratic institutions have been undermined.  Trump continues to assert that the 2020 election was “stolen” and that it was a “fraud on the American people”.  Meanwhile, Biden has warned that those who do not share his views on election reform are interested in instituting “Jim Crow 2.0” and that they are akin to the likes of George Wallace, Bull Connor, and Jefferson Davis.

In this episode Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis takes a deep dive into the various allegations made by Trump and Biden and offers some thoughts on whether Americans can have faith in their democratic institutions.

Saving Elephants officially hits 100 episodes!  Host Josh Lewis is joined by Alan Wolan to discuss their mutual admiration for the writings and ideas of Thomas Sowell.

Thomas Sowell, along with Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, and William F. Buckley, comprise the Mt. Rushmore of thinkers who best exemplify the conservatism espoused by Saving Elephants.  Sowell is an American economist, social theorist, and researcher whose nine decades of life and forty-five books covering topics as far reaching as social policy on race, ethnic groups, education, and decision-making, to classical and Marxian economics, to the problems of children perceived as having disabilities.

About Alan Wolan

Alan Wolan is a business owner, entrepreneur, investor, homeschool dad with five kids and host of The Genius of Thomas Sowell podcast, a venue for discussing the books and ideas of Thomas Sowell.  That's it.  Nothing else.  You can check out a brief summary of Sowell prepared by Alan at TomSowell.com

Alan earned his BA in Intellectual History from the University of Pennsylvania and MBA in Marketing from New York University.  He lives in California.  You can follow Alan on Twitter @AlanWolan

Few individuals have had as deep an impact on modern conservative thought, yet remain in relative obscurity, as Willmoore Kendall.  The conservative English professor Jeffrey Hart said of Kendall that he was "the most important political theorist to have emerged in the twenty-odd years since the end of World War II."  Kendall’s writings are thought-provoking, challenging, contentious, scrupulous, and, often, innovative.  His analysis and critiques took no prisoners on both the Right and Left, and his prickly personality shattered relationships with friends, family, and spouses alike.  Founding editor of National Review and early mentor to William F. Buckley, Kendall was on the forefront of conservative thought.  His ideas don’t entirely fit squarely within the broader warring camps on the Right today, but they are nonetheless instructive, and we ignore his arguments at our own peril.

Joining Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis to discuss the life and ideas of this important yet often neglected thinker on the Right is historian Chris Owen whose new book Heaven Can Indeed Fall: The Life of Willmoore Kendall offers the definitive biography of Kendall’s life and work.

Per the book’s description: “Willmoore Kendall was a man against the world, a "maverick," an "iconoclast."  His thoughts were profound, his countless enemies powerful, his personal life full of drama.  Heaven Can Indeed Fall is the first full-length biography of Kendall and integrates the man with the teacher, thinker, and cold warrior.  Once a Marxist, Kendall became a fearsome foe of global communism.  He never apologized for supporting Joseph McCarthy.  As the co-founder of National Review he helped turn the word liberal into an insult.  A "stormy petrel," Kendall was a man “who never lost an argument or kept a friend.”  Yet he was one of the most effective and sensitive teachers of his age.  His ideas shaped Cold War practices of intelligence analysis and psychological warfare.  As an academic he became the premier American theorist for conservative populism.  The recent reemergence of populist ideas among American conservatives makes understanding Kendall ever more imperative.  This book shows how a child prodigy and bucolic boy scout became an ambitious intelligence analyst, razor-tongued polemicist and profound student of American politics.  By knowing Kendall one can better understand Cold War America, and contemporary America as well.”

About Chris Owen

Dr. Christopher Owen is a historian and recently retired Professor of English within the Department of Languages and Literature at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.  Dr. Owen earned his PhD in history at Emory University in 1991.  His previous book includes The Sacred Flame of Love: Methodism and Society in Nineteenth-Century Georgia.

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat joins Josh Lewis to talk about his recent memoir The Deep Places.  His book tells of his recent journey in battling chronic Lyme disease and his reflections on illness, discovery, and hope.

Ross’ story begins prior to the illness in which he was attempting to build the life he’d always dreamed of.  “At that moment in my life I only really believed in upside…I wrote my share of words on the problem of evil…usually making the case that much of American Christianity offers people the wrong answers, encouraging them to believe that actually bad things shouldn’t happen if you’re good, that the American Dream should be yours if you just stay in God’s good graces and follow the paths that He’s marked out.”

“I had a similar critique of the secular meritocracy in which I had been educated: that because it asked its climbers to work so hard and jump so high, it encouraged an idea that we had somehow earned all our privileges, that our SAT scores and extracurricular accomplishments meant that we genuinely deserved to rule.”

“But despite these critiques, there was still a sense in which I believed exactly these ideas myself—or at least for myself—as I passed through college into adulthood, achieved the career as a writer that I wanted, won the wife I wanted, the job I wanted, the kids I wanted, and now the house and country life I wanted, too.”

Yet life had other plans for Ross as he’s spent the past six years battling an invisible enemy that’s robbed much of the life he’d built.  His book offers profound insights into what we can make of our sufferings and how to keep hope in hopeless situations.

About Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat joined The New York Times as an opinion columnist in April 2009.  His column appears every Tuesday and Sunday.  Previously, he was a senior editor at The Atlantic and a blogger on its website.  He is also a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies American politics, culture, religion, and family life.

A prolific writer, Ross has written for The Atlantic and National Review and has been published widely in the popular press.  In addition to The Deep Places, he is also the author of five other books: “The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success”; “To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism”; “Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics”; “Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream”, which he coauthored with Reihan Salam; and “Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class”.

Ross has a BA in history from Harvard University.  He lives with his wife and four children in New Haven.  You can follow Ross on Twitter @DouthatNYT

Christmastime is here, a season of joy and merriment, happy gatherings of family and friends, peace on earth and goodwill to all.  Both tradition and pop culture remind us that all is merry and bright this time of year.  And yet for some who are grieving the holiday season only amplifies sorrow.  As the rest of the world is making merry the pains of suffering and loss seem unbearable and profoundly alienating.

The British statesman Edmund Burke believed that “beings made for suffering should suffer well.”  What are we to do with grief in a season that exacerbates misery?  Should we lean into it or flee from it?  What are we to do with our grief when it subsides into the background but never truly leaves us alone?  What possible good is there in our grief?  How do we grieve well and avoid the many pitfalls of grief?  And how might we find joy in the midst of grieving?

Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is joined by two guests—Jimmy Humphrey and Andrew Snyder—to wrestle with the challenging topic of grieving well.

About Jimmy Humphrey

Jimmy Humphrey is host of the Jimmy’s Table Podcast, a show about the intersection of faith, life, and culture.  Jimmy describes himself as curiously evangelical, politically homeless, and a dreamer of small things.

Jimmy went to Bible college and seminary to study theology and prepare for ministry at Lee University and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.  But “life happened” and he ended up with a career in the mortgage industry at one of the nations’ largest banks as a high-level underwriter and analyst.

You can follow Jimmy on Twitter @TableJimmys

About Andrew Snyder

Andrew Snyder is a philosopher-theologian with an interest in the intersection between stories and life, neither of which—he would argue—can be properly understood apart from the other.

Andrew recently finished writing his doctoral dissertation on Søren Kierkegaard's understanding of anxiety's educative role in developing one's self and has been releasing digital content focused on the paths of myth and meaning.  The flagship of this content can be found on the recently launched podcast, Mythic Mind.  The first series walks through Kierkegaard's The Concept of Anxiety and The Sickness unto Death.  The next series will focus on stories.

You can find Andrew’s writings and videos at https://www.andrewnsnyder.com/

You can follow Andrew on Twitter @Andrewnsnyder

Hosts of the Conservative Minds podcast Kyle Sammin and Corey Astill join Josh to discuss the timeless questions of what conservatism actually means, how the Left more utopian than they often admit, whether they actually read all eight hundred pages of Whittaker Chambers’ Witness, and which tomes and authors are indispensable to the serious conservative thinker.

About Conservative Minds

A podcast about conservative ideas and thinkers.  Hosts Kyle and Corey explore what it means to call yourself a conservative, where conservatism has been, and where it's going.  Each week, they select readings and conduct a discussion to share with you their investigation.

You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @consminds

About Kyle Sammin

Kyle Sammin is a Senior Editor at Philadelphia Weekly who covers politics, history, law, and sports.  He is also a senior contributor to The Federalist and writes regularly for Broad + Liberty.  You can find many of his writings at https://kylesammin.com/

You can follow Kyle on Twitter @KyleSammin

About Corey Astill

Corey Astill has over 15 years of experience in Congress, government relations, and law.  He is Vice President at Business Roundtable, an Association of CEOs of leading U.S. companies working to promote a thriving economy, where he leads the Health & Retirement Committee and Smart Regulation Committee.

Before joining Business Roundtable, Corey served for a decade as a senior advisor in the U.S. Senate.  Most recently, he served as Legislative Director for Senator Deb Fischer, managing the Senator’s legislative staff and coordinating her leadership activities in her capacity as a Deputy Whip.  Earlier in his career, Corey served as Staff Director of a subcommittee on the Senate Finance Committee, Staff Director and Chief Counsel of the Joint Economic Committee, and Counsel for former Senators Dan Coats and Bob Bennett.  He began his career as a legislative aide to former Senator Jon Kyl.