Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values

The 18th century British statesman Edmund Burke is often credited as being the father of modern conservatism.  His most famous work—Reflections on the Revolution in France—is heralded as the most eloquent counter-revolutionary political text ever written and lays much of the foundation for the conservative mindset of the West.  Yet Burke is challenging to read and comprehend.  His 18th century prose and deeply complex arguments seem otherworldly in an era of bumper-sticker political slogans and surface-level philosophy.

Russell Kirk—perhaps Burke’s greatest American disciple—wrote of Burke: “If conservatives would know what they defend, Burke is their touchstone; and if radicals wish to test the temper of their opposition, they should turn to Burke.  Having done this, some conservatives may find that their previous footing was insecure; while some radicals may acknowledge that the position of traditionalists is tenable, or that Burke, too, was a liberal—if liberalism be in any degree associated with ordered freedom.”

In this episode, Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is joined by Wes Siler to introduce the audience to Burke’s teachings and attempt to demystify his complex and foundational thoughts.

Wes Siler is the founder and Director of The Burkean Conservative, a website, social media presence, and video platform that produces content focused on educating and expanding the conservative movement on the basis of Edmund Burke's principles.  You can follow The Burkean Conservative on Twitter @TheBurkeanCon

Saving Elephants’ own Josh Lewis hosts an election night panel to discuss the incoming results of the race and what it may mean for the future of the country, Republican and Democratic parties, and conservative movement.

Meet the panelists:

Brooke Medina:

Brooke Medina is a homeschool mother of four and the Director of Communications at Civitas Institute where she manages Civitas’ outward facing platforms, oversees messaging strategy, and handles all press relationships. The North Carolina based Civitas Instituted is a nonprofit policy organization dedicated to removing barriers to freedom so that all North Carolinians can enjoy a better life. Brooke also co-hosts Civitas’ podcast Civitalk, which focuses on drawing connections between civics and culture.

Brooke is a graduate of Regent University, holding a B.A. in Government and a minor in English. She has also completed several programs with the Charles Koch Institute, including the Koch Leaders Program and Koch Communications Fellowship, focusing on the philosophical underpinnings of market-based management and classical liberalism. She also sits on the board of directors for ReCity Network, a Durham-based non-profit committed to empowering civil society in combating poverty-related problems. Brooke’s writings have been published in outlets such as The Hill, Entrepreneur, Washington Examiner, Daily Signal, FEE, and Intellectual Takeout.

But most importantly, Brooke’s hot takes, insights, and shenanigans on social media are worth following so be sure and check her out on Twitter @Brooke_Medina_

Justin Stapley:

A prolific writer and thoughtful tweeter, Justin began working on projects not at all dissimilar to Saving Elephant’s mission to fight for a restoration of political principles in the American political process shortly after the 2016 election. And during the past several years, Justin has launched multiple websites and written for many affiliate groups.

His flagship website is the apply named justinstapley.com which links to his various endeavors, including a contributing advocate and writer for the Federalist Coalition, an advocacy journalist at NOQ Report, an opinion columnist at Porter Medium, the founder and editor of The Liberty Hawk, and the Shooting Editor at Spencer Durrant Outdoors and will be a co-host for the up-and-coming Spencer Durrant Outdoors Podcast. Earlier this year Justin launched his own podcast called The New Centrist which features his original commentary and highlights of worthwhile speeches. In addition to politics, his writings include recreational shooting, hunting, fishing, and self-defense.  His most current work includes the near-weakly newsletter Self-Evident.

Justin described himself as a “liberty-minded conservative and member of the Republican Party” whose “principles and beliefs are grounded in the idea of ordered liberty as expressed in the traditions of classical liberalism, federalism, and modern conservatism.” While much of that remains the same, he no longer feels he can be a card-caring member of the Republican party and hold to those values, as he explains at length in the episode.

You can find Justin on Twitter @JustinWStapley.

JB Shreve:

Veteran podcaster JB Shreve conducted a series of interviews of Christians of various political persuasions to ask about their expectations and recommendations in the upcoming 2020 election. JB had invited Josh to join as the “conservative” participant in the interviews. And Josh was happy to return the favor in having JB on the show to share his insights.

JB Shreve is the founder of The End of History, a blog and podcast for Christians dedicated to helping believers make sense of the chaos of the world around them. JB has been producing podcasts and articles since 2012.

After more than 200 podcast episodes, his listeners have come to expect well researched, fact-based backgrounders on a wide variety of topics to help them better understand the world around them. These backgrounders range from the history of the Middle East to the true story of economic inequality. Episodes and posts frequently expose myths and false paradigms we have come to believe. JB is adamant he is not pushing a political agenda. Rather, JB’s mission is to:

• Help believers in crafting their own response to world affairs and current events
• Provide a faith-based, values-centered voice in the face of current global issues
• Ease the tension between a Biblical worldview and the world we live in
• Provide reasonable, intelligent perspectives empowered with Biblical values and faith
• Remove the yelling, outrage, and debate from our worldviews to find facts and seek the truth

You can learn more about JB’s work and podcast on his website, The End of History. JB can be found on Twitter @JB_Shreve

Calvin Moore:

Calvin Moore is the host of Leading Questions with Calvin Moore, a weekly moderated roundtable discussion about ongoing issues in our culture. The podcast brings together disparate voices on a particular issue, discusses disagreements, considers one another's positions and, at the very least, leaves the table with a measure of respect for the person on the other side of the debate as they strive to create a space for passionate, yet healthy dialogue.

Always the inquisitive, skeptical member of his family, Calvin has consistently pushed the boundaries of accepted conventions in his search for truth and understanding. With the rise of new media, he noticed the degradation of dialogue between disparate viewpoints, which led to the creation of this program.

Calvin earned his Bachelor of Science in History Education at Rochester University in Rochester Hills, Michigan. His focus is on the African-American experience in the Early American Republic and Presidential History.

Calvin resides in Michigan with his wife, Jennifer.

It’s finally here!  It’s Election Day.  After what feels like the longest year of our lives, the campaign season is over.

While voting and elections are still fresh in our minds, now’s as good a time as any to reflect on the voting process.  Yes, you may have already voted, but the act of voting is about so much more than checking a box once every four years.  It’s about the life-long process of becoming the sort of people fit to live in a free republic.

It’s easy to get tripped up right out of the gate if you’re fuzzy on the purpose for voting in the first place.  As citizens of a constitutional republic, one of the ways in which we “participate” in governing ourselves is by electing representatives to—literally—represent us.  We are far too encumbered with our own busy lives to fully take the time to understand the nuances of tax policy, foreign diplomacy, or a myriad of other issues.  Therefore, we rely on others to fully immerse themselves in these issues in a manner that best represents our interests and values.

Perhaps this sounds so pedantic or straightforward you find it odd to even mention it.  But it is quite easy for other competing notions of the purpose of voting to swim about in our heads and, unless we take the time to think them through, we may fall victim to these subconscious biases.  It is quite easy for us to quickly turn the idea that we are voting on people to represent our interests and values in a political sense to a broader notion of representation.  We may come to believe it is important that we be able to “relate” to the person we vote for, or that we need to find them more likeable than their opponents.

The purpose of voting is to communicate our values, ideas, and concerns, not to make a political statement.  It’s to find leaders who will represent our interests and protect our rights, not to express our anger at political frustrations.

Voting should not be viewed as the central duty of fulfilling one’s civic responsibilities when called upon, but one of the many ways we perform our civic duty.  Serving in the military, paying your taxes, voting in elections, and obeying the speed limit fall under the rubric of civic duty; but so too does educating yourself, honest dealings in business, staying true to your personal commitments, and flossing your teeth.

Part of what it means to participate in a society of self-governance is to govern oneself.  That does not mean we must be perfect, but it does mean that we create a greater need for governmental intervention each time we fail to govern our own affairs.  It also does not mean who we vote for is unimportant, but it does mean how we conduct ourselves in our personal and professional relationships is far more important to the health of our nation.  A nation is no greater than the sum of the individuals and sub-groups within the nation.

In this bonus episode, Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is interviewed by Wes Siler, director and founder of The Burkean Conservative.  This conversation was originally broadcast on Facebook Live under The Burkean Conservative’s weekly video series Conservatism on Tap LIVE.  The conversation centers around how Saving Elephants came to be and the ongoing project to reignite conservatism for Millennials in hopes of restoring the Republican party.

The Burkean Conservative is a website, social media presence, and series of frequently updated videos focused on educating and expanding the conservative movement on the basis of Edmund Burke's principles.  They define a “Burkean Conservative” one who ascribes to conservative political philosophy in the tradition of Edmund Burke, an 18th century philosopher and statesman widely credited for developing classical conservatism.

According to The Burkean Conservative website, Edmund Burke took strong stances against the violence and progressivism of the French Revolution while also taking a position of sympathy and leniency towards the more justified impulses of the American Revolution.  Today the ideas, speeches, and political stances of Edmund Burke serve to philosophically differentiate conservatism from other beliefs.  However, Burke's ideas are still too often ignored and disregarded by leading American intellectuals today.  Far too many conflate conservatism with libertarianism or simple nostalgia, and in doing so they ignore the true intellectual roots and maturity of the conservative perspective.

Can we all just admit that 2020 sucks?  This year has been a disaster on so many fronts it’s hard to keep track.  What feels like a decade’s worth of news stories pass from one week to the next with no end in sight.  But just how bad is 2020?  Compared to what?  How are we doing as a nation, world, or species in the grand scheme of things?  Is the future bleak or bright?  And how do we maintain perspective so that we can clearly see what needs to change without overlooking genuine progress quietly taking place elsewhere?

Long-time guest Bob Burch is back after a long hiatus to join host Josh Lewis in parsing through the good, the bad, and the ugly truths about 2020 and to share how the conservative mindset can help keep hope alive in the midst difficult times.

Hardly anyone disagrees Americans are divided, or that our divisions are problematic.  But could continual political partisanship and polarization actually fracture the United States into multiple nations?  What is the likely outcome or potential risks if we do not find a way to reverse the negative polarization?  What are the preconditions for state secessions, and how close are we to meeting those preconditions?  Is the United States facing another civil war, acrimonious divorce, or eventual reconciliation?

Those are precisely the questions David French sets out to answer in his new book Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.  David joins Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis to discuss the threats political polarization represent for the United States, what our history can tell us about the likelihood of these dangers, and how returning to the Madisonian blueprint of the extended republic may offer the solutions to many of the controversial political battles today.

David French is an Iraqi war veteran, attorney, free speech and religious liberties advocate, political commentator, and author who has been at the center of some of the hottest political battles over the past four years.  His name was used to coin the term Frenchism to describe a deference to classical liberalism and opposition to the new nationalism and authoritarianism on the Right (see the Saving Elephants article on Frenchism for more information).

French has served as a senior counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice and the Alliance Defending Freedom, has lectured at Cornell Law School, and spent much of his career working on religious-rights issues.  He served as president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).  He retired from FIRE in 2005, citing plans to serve in the United States Army Reserve as a judge advocate general officer.  He was a staff writer for National Review from 2015 to 2019, and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.  In 2019 French left National Review to join the conservative news site The Dispatch as a senior editor.

Many Evangelicals and conservatives share an embattlement mindset.  Somehow we’re always losing the culture wars despite political gains and cultural acceptance, and even when we’re in the majority politically or enjoy unprecedented influence we can’t shake the feeling that the other shoe is about to drop.  No majority, position, or gain is ever secure and we’re just one election away from losing everything.

But where does this embattlement mindset come from?  Is it simply crackpot paranoia?  Is there something embedded in the histories of the Right and Evangelicalism that gives this mindset an air of legitimacy?  Or is it a little bit of both?

Paul Matzko joins Josh to answer these questions by exploring the murky histories of the radio Right in the 1960s, Kennedy’s successful efforts at censoring opposition, and the cultural significance of Evangelicals’ evolution from The Painter of Light Thomas Kinkade to The Painter of Trump Jon McNaughton.

Paul Matzko is a historian (PhD, Penn State) specializing in the intersection of politics and religion in twentieth century America.  His work also draws from media studies, public choice economics, gender studies, and social movement theory.

Paul’s book The Radio Right, was published earlier this year, which tells the story of the 1960s far Right, who were frustrated by what they perceived to be liberal bias in the national media, particularly the media's sycophantic relationship with the John F. Kennedy administration.  His book provides the essential pre-history for the last four decades of conservative activism, as well as the historical context for current issues of political bias and censorship in the media.

Paul has taught multiple courses at Penn State, both on campus and online, and worked as an adjunct at Princeton University.  He is currently the Assistant Editor for Tech and Innovation at Libertarianism.org, an outreach of the Cato Institute, where he runs a regular column and also hosts a podcast on emerging technology called Building Tomorrow.  He cohosts the Impolitic podcast dedicated to friendly conversations on politics, culture, and history from the standpoint of his own libertarian views and the socialists views of his friend Sean Trainor.

Paul can be found on Twitter @PMatzko

Stephanie Kelton’s book The Deficit Myth released in June was just the latest in a series of books, blogs, articles, podcasts, and videos extoling the virtue of Modern Monetary Theory (or “MMT”).  We’re told that governments that have sovereignty over their currency can afford a wide array of social programs from entitlement expansion to generous welfare benefits to the Green New Deal.  Leftist are ecstatic that they finally have an answer to the Right’s persistent question “how are you going to pay for all this stuff?”

But is MMT sound monetary policy?  For that matter, what is monetary policy?  What did famous economists like Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes have to say about monetary policy?  Was it a mistake for America to get off the gold standard?  What is the Federal Reserve, and why can’t they seem to leave the interest rate alone?  Do deficits matter?  If so, how?

For most, monetary policy may sound like a subject that’s dreadfully complicated or—far worse—boring.  Yet this opaque subject matter is very important to our economic wellbeing.  In fact, bad monetary policy greatly exacerbated economic downturns to the point of creating The Great Depression and The Great Recession.  Sound monetary policy benefits us all, and it’s imperative we understand what sound—and not so sound—monetary policy looks like.

Returning guest and friend to the podcast Joseph Sternberg joins Josh in a discussion on monetary policy that’s both digestible and engaging.  We last heard from Joseph in episode 35 when he dropped by to discuss his book The Theft of a Decade: How the Baby Boomers Stole the Millennials’ Economic Future.

Joseph is a member of the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal, where he writes the Political Economics column. He joined the Journal in 2006 as an editorial writer in Hong Kong, where he also edited the Business Asia column.  He currently lives in London.  He graduated from The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia with an economics major.

With everything else going on, it’s easy to forget 2020 is still a presidential election year.  To help us navigate the coming election, Josh welcomes Sarah Isgur to talk about national elections, money in politics, how much gender and race is a factor in elections, and how much influence campaigns really have in determining the outcome of an election.

Sarah Isgur is a writer and podcast host at The Dispatch where she specializes in legal and political matters.

Sarah graduated from Harvard University with a degree in law.  She has extensive experience in political campaigns, including working in both John Corbyn and Ted Cruz’s campaigns for U.S. Senate and Mitt Romney’s presidential race in 2012.  In 2013 and 2014 she served as Deputy Communications Director to the Republican National Committee.  In 2016 Sarah was Deputy Campaign Manager in Carly Fiorina’s presidential campaign.  During Jeff Session’s stint as Attorney General she served as his Senior Counsel as well as Director of the Office of Public Affairs for the Department of Justice.  Prior to joining The Dispatch, Sarah worked for CNN as a political editor.

You can follow Sarah on Twitter @whignewtons

School districts across America are faced with unprecedented challenges as they weigh their options in reopening classrooms in the midst of a global pandemic.  But could these challenges point the way to interesting opportunities to find innovative ways to educate and even allow for a healthy debate on the purpose of education in the first place?

Perennial optimist and returning guest Brooke Medina believes this is the case and she shares how empowering parents and local governments to make their own choices is not only the best way to deal with the lasting effects of COVID-19, it also happens to be the best policy for educating our kids overall.  Brooke joined Josh earlier this year in episode 58 in a discussion over the philosophy and purpose of education.  However, Josh got so wound up reminiscing about his homeschool upbringing that there wasn’t time left to cover school choice, vouchers, and education policy.  This episode picks things up where episode 58 left off in moving beyond the philosophical to the more practical elements of conservatism as applied to education policy.

Brooke Medina is a homeschool mother of four and the Director of Communications at Civitas Institute where she manages Civitas’ outward facing platforms, oversees messaging strategy, and handles all press relationships. The North Carolina based Civitas Instituted is a nonprofit policy organization dedicated to removing barriers to freedom so that all North Carolinians can enjoy a better life. Brooke also co-hosts Civitas’ podcast Civitalk, which focuses on drawing connections between civics and culture.

Brooke is a graduate of Regent University, holding a B.A. in Government and a minor in English. She has also completed several programs with the Charles Koch Institute, including the Koch Leaders Program and Koch Communications Fellowship, focusing on the philosophical underpinnings of market-based management and classical liberalism. She also sits on the board of directors for ReCity Network, a Durham-based non-profit committed to empowering civil society in combating poverty-related problems. Brooke’s writings have been published in outlets such as The Hill, Entrepreneur, Washington Examiner, Daily Signal, FEE, and Intellectual Takeout.

But most importantly, Brooke’s hot takes, insights, and shenanigans on social media are worth following so be sure and check her out on Twitter @Brooke_Medina_