Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values

Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is joined once more by veteran guest Bob Burch as they attempt to demystify words and concepts used in political conversations

 

There are few subjects as likely to lead to a heated disagreement than politics.  And, while there are many reasons for this, chief among them is the difficulty in coming up with words to accurately describe different viewpoints.  For example, what does conservative really mean?  Are we talking about an ideology?  Some would say conservatism negates ideology.  Is it a political party?  That is, would it be fair to call the Republican party the conservative party?  But if that’s all there is to it, would it make any difference if the party completely reversed their platform?

 

Is conservatism just an impulse—a desire to keep things as they are or to return to the past?  Surely it must be more than that.  And what are we to make of so many people who call themselves conservatives disagreeing with others who call themselves conservatives?  When we say conservative are we just talking about a phenomenon in the United States or does the same concept apply overseas?  Is an American conservative the same thing as a Russian conservative or a German conservative or even a British conservative?  Do all conservatives share the same worldview, philosophy, or political platform?  If not, what connects conservatives across the world in any meaningful sense?

 

Josh and Bob attempt to answer these questions and more, delving into what it means to be a nationalist, liberal, radical, populist, Trumplican, and many other viewpoints.  They end with a discussion unique to American conservatism in attempting to understand the term neoconservatism which, while it is often used as a pejorative against war hawks and the Republican establishment, is much more nuanced than first meets the eye.

What are the prospects of the United States Supreme Court taking up an abortion-related case in the near future?  What methodologies do the justices use in deciding cases?  Why does President Trump pick his nominees for the Supreme Court from a list provided by the Federalist Society?  Who better to ask than Ilya Shapiro of the Federalist Society?  Shapiro came to Tulsa to deliver a lecture to the Tulsa Federalist Society and Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis took the opportunity when Shapiro was in town to pick his brain over a slew of Supreme Court questions such as these.

 

Ilya Shapiro is the director of the Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. Shapiro is the co-author of Religious Liberties for Corporations? Hobby Lobby, the Affordable Care Act, and the Constitution (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and New York Times Online. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, including CNN, Fox News, ABC, CBS, NBC, Univision and Telemundo, the Colbert Report, PBS NewsHour, and NPR.

 

Shapiro has testified before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 300 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court, including one that The Green Bag selected for its “Exemplary Legal Writing” collection. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute and a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, and has been an adjunct professor at the George Washington University Law School. He is also the chairman of the board of advisors of the Mississippi Justice Institute, and a member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. In 2015, National Law Journalnamed him to its 40 under 40 list of “rising stars.”

 

Before entering private practice, Shapiro clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School (where he became a Tony Patiño Fellow).

Saving Elephants has got your summer reading list covered!  In this episode Josh walks through classic, foundational books that every conservative should read, as well as some great books that speak to Millennials in particular.  Ranging from pithy and digestible to massive, complex, and dry, Josh gives a brief outline of the book and shares why it’s important to understanding conservatism.

 

While summer is traditionally reserved for light reading, it can also be the perfect time of year to tear into something quite challenging.  Reading hard books—if they’re good books—can sharpen our minds and develop our character.  Even reading of people with strong character can develop our character.  As Russell Kirk put it, “Reading of great lives does something to make decent lives.”

 

Here is the list of the books and authors referenced throughout the episode

 

Edmund Burke, British statesman and the “Father of Conservatism”:

Reflections on the Revolution in France

 

Russell Kirk, political theorist, moralist, historian, social critic, and literary critic:

The Conservative Mind

Concise Guide to Conservatism

Ten Conservative Principles

 

Barry Goldwater, Senator and 1964 Republican nominee for president:

Conscience of a Conservative

 

Roger Scruton, English philosopher:

How to be a Conservative

 

Irving Kristol, journalist and the “Godfather of Neoconservatism”:

Neo-Conservatism

 

Patrick Deneen, political theorist:

Why Liberalism Failed

 

Thomas Sowell, economist and social theorist:

Black Rednecks and White Liberals

A Conflict of Visions

Basic Economics

 

Jonah Goldberg, columnist, author, commentator, podcaster:

Suicide of the West

 

Timothy Carney, journalist and editor:

Alienated America

 

Ben Sasse, Senator:

Them

 

Joseph Sternberg, journalist:

The Theft of a Decade

 

1. S. Lewis, author, theologian, professor:

The Abolition of Man

 

And here are some other great books that I didn’t have time to get through in the podcast but are still worth a read:

 

The Essential Russell Kirk arranged by George Panichas

 

The Great Debate by Yuval Levin

 

The Price of Greatness by Jay Cost

 

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

 

John Adams by David McCullough

 

The Selfie Vote by Kristen Soltis Anderson

“There are burglaries and heists and capers and robberies, but few thefts in history can match what Baby Boomers have done to Millennials since 2008: they stole their children’s economic futures right out from under them.”  So says Joseph Sternberg, editorialist and columnist for the Wall Street Journal and author of the new book The Theft of a Decade: How the Baby Boomers Stole the Millennials’ Economic Future.

 

One generation looking down on another is all to common these days.  Yet, in spite of the book’s provocative title, Joseph’s arguments are surprisingly nuanced and even sympathetic to Boomers.  Both Millennials and Boomers came of age and entered the workforce at a time when the economy was suffering.  However, Boomers learned all the wrong economic lessons of their childhood by mistaking economic outputs (rising wages, an explosion in home ownership, pensions, healthcare, etc.) with economic inputs (investing in the equipment, labor, and knowledge that drove the economy).

 

As a result, Boomers have largely been pursuing economic policies designed to re-create the robust economy of their youth.  But because they’ve been focused on the wrong end of the spectrum (outputs instead of inputs) much of their efforts have led to distortions in the market that have had a profoundly negative impact on their children—the Millennial generation.

 

Joseph contends that one of the more surprising aspects of the political battles over the past few decades is not how much had changed but how much stayed the same.  Our past four presidents have been Boomers and three of them (Clinton, Bush, and Trump) were even all born in the same year of 1946.  Boomers held enormous power—both as the largest voting block and as our leaders—and regardless of what party or president was in charge, much of the economic policies of “investing” in things like education and cutting taxes to spur the economy remained relatively the same.

 

Millennials are anxious to break outside of the narrow lane created by the Boomer generation as we perceive we aren’t doing that well economically.  And Joseph would definitely agree Millennials have a real beef.  Lurching to the Left—as we’ve seen with the rise of socialism and candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren—is one way to break outside of that lane.  But Joseph is hopeful Millennials will find more market-friendly and pro-capitalist means of breaking outside of the narrow lane created by our parents’ generation.  And he invites us to engage in the generation-wide conversation of what economic policies make sense for us today.  And that conversation begins with a better understanding of what our parents got wrong in the first place.

Josh and Bob continue their conversation on the national interests of the United States that drives the nation’s foreign policy in part two of this two-part discussion.

 

To the casual observer, American foreign policy over the past 240 years can come across as sporadic at best.  We’ve gone from Washingtonian noninterventionism to the territorial expansions of the nineteenth century to gearing up a massive military industrial complex for two world wars to Soviet containment to democratic nation-building to a series of non-specific military engagements with rogue terrorist groups.

 

Some conservatives have argued the best thing we could do as a nation would be to heed George Washington’s warning of no entangling alliances with foreign powers and stop meddling in the affairs of other nations.  Other conservatives argue for a strong military presence around the globe needed to keep world peace and free markets operating.  Which view is truly “conservative” and which view represents the best course of action?

 

Irving Kristol—the father of Neoconservatism—spoke of the challenge of developing universal foreign policy principles.  Although Neocons usually get a bad rap for being war hawkish, Kristol’s observations argued for constraint and contemplation:

 

“Western political thought has very little to say about foreign policy.  From Thucydides to our own time, political philosophy has seen foreign affairs so radically affected by contingency, fortune, and fate as to leave little room for speculative enlightenment.  John Locke was fertile in suggestions for the establishment and maintenance of good government, but when it came to foreign affairs he pretty much threw up his hands: ‘What is to be done in reference to foreigners, depending much upon their actions and the variation of designs and interests, must be left in great part to the prudence of those who have this power committed to them, to be managed by the best of their skill for the advantage of the Commonwealth.’”

 

While the best foreign policy may change depending on how the pieces on the chess board are arranged, one thing that does not change are a nation’s national interests.  And American interests are an excellent gauge for evaluating American foreign policy.  What are those national interests?  Bob Burch joins the conversation with Josh once more to walk through American foreign policy.

To the casual observer, American foreign policy over the past 240 years can come across as sporadic at best.  We’ve gone from Washingtonian noninterventionism to the territorial expansions of the nineteenth century to gearing up a massive military industrial complex for two world wars to Soviet containment to democratic nation-building to a series of non-specific military engagements with rogue terrorist groups.

 

Some conservatives have argued the best thing we could do as a nation would be to heed George Washington’s warning of no entangling alliances with foreign powers and stop meddling in the affairs of other nations.  Other conservatives argue for a strong military presence around the globe needed to keep world peace and free markets operating.  Which view is truly “conservative” and which view represents the best course of action?

 

Irving Kristol—the father of Neoconservatism—spoke of the challenge of developing universal foreign policy principles.  Although Neocons usually get a bad rap for being war hawkish, Kristol’s observations argued for constraint and contemplation:

 

“Western political thought has very little to say about foreign policy.  From Thucydides to our own time, political philosophy has seen foreign affairs so radically affected by contingency, fortune, and fate as to leave little room for speculative enlightenment.  John Locke was fertile in suggestions for the establishment and maintenance of good government, but when it came to foreign affairs he pretty much threw up his hands: ‘What is to be done in reference to foreigners, depending much upon their actions and the variation of designs and interests, must be left in great part to the prudence of those who have this power committed to them, to be managed by the best of their skill for the advantage of the Commonwealth.’”

 

While the best foreign policy may change depending on how the pieces on the chess board are arranged, one thing that does not change are a nation’s national interests.  And American interests are an excellent gauge for evaluating American foreign policy.  What are those national interests?  Bob Burch joins the conversation with Josh once more to walk through American foreign policy in part one of this two-part series.

In an age where much of the Right is embracing nationalism, populism, and the cult of personality that is Trumpism, some are beginning to ask themselves what being a conservative even means anymore?  But few have gone further to reinforce the idea that conservatism is about putting principles over party loyalty or allegiance to any one individual than Heath Mayo.  Heath joins Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis to discuss the #PrinciplesFirst movement and how it’s shaping what it means to be a conservative by developing a vision for the future without abandoning the principles of the past.   Heath Mayo is a native of East Texas and currently a management consultant at Bain & Company where he helps some of the country's largest companies solve their strategic challenges.  He did his undergraduate work at Brown University where he pitched on the baseball team and graduated from Yale Law School this past May.  Politically, Heath is a self-described conservative activist and most recently traveled to New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida volunteering for Marco Rubio's presidential campaign.   During the build-up to the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Heath became frustrated over the line-up of speakers who did not represent the conservative movement he was immersed in during college but instead embodied a group who did not tolerate competing ideas or calls to principles over party.  Heath tweeted—jokingly—that conservatives who were still interested in putting principles first should meet separately during CPAC and the tweet went viral.  Ever since then Heath has been facilitating meetings with conservatives across the U.S. who are interested in restoring the movement.  These sessions are held under the banner #PrinciplesFirst.   #PrinciplesFirst sessions are designed to be 2-hour brainstorming sessions that bring together the most energized folks with the goal of (1) determining what a modern definition of conservatism is—what its principles are and how those principles might map onto a modern conservative agenda, and (2) developing a plan of action that can actually elevate those principles back into the national discussion which have fallen out of favor on the right as personalities have gotten bigger and crowded out an idea-driven discourse.   You can follow Heath on Twitter @HeathMayo

Politicians are fond of talking about “the people.”  But who are “the people”?  That might sound like a nonsensical question but—it turns out—there are a lot of presuppositions baked into the concept of “the people” and much of the divide between the Right and the Left begins here.  Identifying “the people” leads us to other important questions, such as: Who speaks on behalf of “the people”?  And what system of government or society can best represent their interests and protect their rights?

 

In much of our political rhetoric today we are told that the most democratic expressions best represent “the people”.  But what lurks behind the belief a direct, popular vote is somehow in the best interest of “the people” is the assumption is that “the people” can best be defined as a simple headcount.

 

They can’t.

 

“The people” is not a simple headcount. It is a recognition of sub-groups loosely bound to a larger group, of various interest groups within a nation-state, of factions that voluntarily choose to live in civil harmony with those with whom they don’t always agree and sometimes despise.  Simply blending these sub-groups into one mass doesn’t provide clarity, it only makes our understanding of these collective interests harder to untangle.

 

One ought to be suspect of any political system which defines who speaks on behalf of “the people” either too narrowly or too broadly. Circumstance coupled with prudence dictates whether the polling of the majority, or the voice of the perceived “leaders” within each faction, or some truck driver who happened to call into a local radio talk show to weigh in on the matter, or some other means of discerning what “the people” have to say best represents what “the people” have to say. In practice, this means we should be suspect of the politician who seems wholly disinterested in “the people” just as we should be suspect of the politician who seems absolutely and consistently convinced they speak on behalf of “the people.”

The emergence of the modern conservative movement came about in the twentieth century with the fusion of multiple groups that found they not only had common interests, but they shared common foundational beliefs.  Free market advocates, libertarians, Burkean traditionalists, the religious Right, and foreign policy hawks found common ground that led to the high watermark of the conservative movement culminating with the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s.

 

What led to this?  Why do conservative interest groups today seem far more splintered?  Why is the conservative movement devolving into so much infighting when we were once more unified?  And how might we chart a course forward that reunites the shared interests of the various factions under the conservative umbrella?

 

Joining Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is Justin Stapley, a freelance advocacy journalist whose writing has typically centered around federalism and classical liberalism.  Justin’s first political writings appeared in 2016 on his NeverTyranny blog which was revamped as The Millennial Federalist in 2017 and today his blog is entitled Unpopular Dissent.  He has written extensively on behalf of the Federalist Coalition and has also been published in the American Legislative Exchange Council website, featured at NOQ Report, and will soon be featured as a contributing opinion columnist at Porter Medium.  Justin’s writings have even been featured on the Saving Elephants blog.

 

While Justin is certainly a conservative, he describes himself as a federalist and a classical liberal, firmly in the camp of Jefferson and Madison and their view of a government of ordered liberty.  This will be evident in the conversation as Justin describes the special tension between order and liberty that has run throughout all American conservative movements.

 

A composite of Justin’s writings can be found at justinstapley.com.  His writings extend beyond politics and touch on philosophy, religion, and the great outdoors.  He was born and raised in the state of Utah and currently resides in Bluffdale.

“Welcome to Conservative Minds – a podcast dedicated to examining conservative intellectual history to determine the core values of American conservatism.  What does it mean to call yourself a conservative?  What did it mean in prior times and how did we get where we are today?  We explore these questions and more by turning to conservative political thinkers from the past and present.  Each episode we select readings and conduct a discussion to share with you our investigation.”

 

Thus begins each episode of the Conservative Minds podcast.  In a dizzying weekly release, cohosts Corey Astillck and Kyle Sammin read a notable work of a conservative intellectual leader and hold a discussion summarizing the reading and comparing/contrasting what they’ve found to previous readings.  The result is an interesting and in-depth approach to examining the many nuances of the conservative worldview. 

 

Since conservatism isn’t a rigid ideology that can be traced back to a single godfather, it can be notoriously difficult to define.  What’s more, there are inherent tensions throughout the worldview that create interesting paradoxes.  Sometimes conservative thinkers will emphasize one aspect of conservatism over another and the seeming contradictions may take considerably time and effort to work through.  Part of Saving Elephant’s mission is to help clarify and define the conservative worldview—no easy task—and Corey and Kyle have made much progress in this endeavor.

 

Thus far their podcast has included examining the writings of:

 

Barry Goldwater

Richard Weaver

John Locke

George Will

Robert Bork

Edmund Burke

Milton Friedman

Robert Nisbet

Irving Kristol

William F Buckley

Patrick Buchanan

Friedrich Hayek

Alexis de Tocqueville

Antonin Scalia

 

In this episode of Saving Elephants, Kyle Sammin joins host Josh Lewis to offer a summary of the discussions he’s had in season one of Conservative Minds.  Kyle lives in Pennsylvania where he practices law and writes.  His contributions have appeared in The Federalist, National Review Online, Hardball Times, University Bookman, and the Weekly Standard.  You can listen to the Conservative Minds podcast here.