The Close Read Podcast

The U.S. Military is the mightiest fighting force in history. Yet its evolution has been long and complex, and today it is suffering from the damage done by decades of social justice initiatives. Continuing a celebration the U.S.’s 250th year, American Military Project Director Will Thibeau joins Spencer Klavan to examine the pre-revolutionary origins of the Army and consider Donald Trump's efforts to correct Civil Rights-era deviations from its founding design. Plus: the significance of decorum, the often-overlooked implications of the second amendment, and more!

A Distant Trumpet

The Soldier and the State

Associate Editor Spencer Klavan his piece, “The Renegade Academy,” featured in the spring 2026 issue.

As America continues to celebrate its 250th year in existence, Glenn Ellmers, Salvatori Research Fellow in the American Founding, sits down with host Spencer Klavan to illuminate the life, teaching, and significance of Harry Jaffa, godfather of the Claremont Institute. Jaffa gave new life to, among other things, Abraham Lincoln’s rich understanding of Declaration’s principles. Ellmers and Klavan contrast Lincoln’s statesmanship with the Marxism of John C. Calhoun, discuss the continuity of ancient and modern political thought as represented by the U.S., and consider what must be done to weed out corrupted political thought from higher education. Plus: the significance of Straussian teaching.

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The Soul of Politics

A New Birth of Freedom

Crisis of the House Divided

Editor Charles Kesler hails the arrival of the Spring 2026 issue with Associate Editor Spencer Klavan. The issue, which went to press just after war broke out in Iran, features Charles's editor's note about Reagan's Cold War strategy and Trump's high-stakes new venture in the Middle East. Can he avoid recycling past mistakes? Elsewhere in the pages, the New Criterion’s Sam Schneider kicks off a new wine column, uncorking the favorite drinks of the founders. Plus, Harvey Mansfield and the realignment of the Ivies in Ralph Hancock's review; the rise of competing, renegade academies in Spencer's; Michael Anton on the Left’s misinterpretation of the Right—and more!

Associate Editor Spencer Klavan reads “The Founders’ Cups,” Sam Schneider’s piece featured in the spring 2026 issue.

To inaugurate a special podcast series celebrating the American Founding’s 250th anniversary, host Spencer Klavan and professor of politics at Washington and Lee University Lucas Morel discuss Abraham Lincoln’s history-making interpretation of the Declaration of Independence. All men are created equal. Drawing on a tradition that went right back to the founding, but making it vitally urgent for a moment of crisis, Lincoln made equality the golden life-source of the nation from which all other things must proceed. Now, Americans must endeavor to keep that principle alive through future generations. Plus: Frederick Douglass’s comments on Lincoln and the criticisms he faced from radical abolitionists.

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Lincoln and the American Founding

Measuring the Man

John Quincy Adams and the Fourth of July

An Oration: John Quincy Adams’ Christian America

Lane Scott, author of the Substack Matriarch Goals, and editor Spencer Klavan sit down to discuss the Netflix hit, Stranger Things, one of the biggest television sensations in the last decade. In an era of “despair porn," the show illustrated why good defeats evil and gave viewers a way to reflect on the bittersweet significance of growing up. Its analog, 1980s world stands in contrast to our muted, digital one: the men are confident, the mainstream culture proud, American heroes permissible. What does this say of us now?

Matriarch Goals

Analog Kids

Associate Editor Spencer Klavan reads “Never Trump After 2024,” William Voegeli’s review of Never Trump: The Revolt of the Conservative Elites and Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign, featured in the Fall 2025-Winter 2026 double issue.

President of the American Main Street Initiative Jeffery H. Anderson joins associate editor Spencer Klavan to address a little-noticed assault on the Founding, the country, and its great men: the Woke takeover of our national parks. At hallowed ground across the U.S., activist curators have rebranded Washington and the Founders as “enslavers” and condemned America's icons—the Liberty Bell included—in a melodramatic racial reckoning. But ahead of America’s 250th anniversary, Trump and the Right stand to beat back the false narrative, and revive the spirit of the nation.

Hijacking America’s Story

Associate Editor Spencer Klavan reads “Palace Intrigues,” Barry Strauss’s review of Kant: A Revolution in Thinking, featured in the Fall 2025-Winter 2026 double issue.