Transcripts For CSPAN APSA - Future Of Conservatism 20171125

Way of introduction. Our mission at the Claremont Institute is to restore the principles of the american founding to their rightful and preeminent authorities in our national light. To startt it fitting coming to the American Political Science Association over 30 years ago to provide a safe space for the serious discussion of political things for academic friends, admirers, and intelligent critics. Political science over the past halfcentury, much like the social sciences in general, has been obsessed with or consumed by often narrow and therefore measurable aspects of Human Affairs. Much of modern Political Science must miss a crucial part of political things by leaving aside questions of value. It is in that sense very unscientific, or can be. We have always made our focus the scholarship of the politics of freedom. That brings me to our panel path topic today, the future of conservatism. The future of conservatism indeed the shape and future of our national politics, generally is an open question in a way that we havent seen in some time. Avenuess opened up new for fresh thinking about the statesmans perennial tasks, the applications of timeless truths, human nature, and political things, and their prudent application to circumstances. Much change from 1030 years ago, let alone the time of the founding. I look forward to our discussion today and comments from panelists. I will introduce them in the order in which they will speak. John marinis parents there a Political Science professor of Political Science. He has written and published over many decades on political philosophy in american politics, and the bureaucracy in the Administrative State, and was an early and incisive trumpstative of donald fascinating rise in american politics over the last 18 months. Thomas g west, paul or mine, don tibbetts potter, where he teaches. He has been writing articles and editing volumes for many years on political philosophy, american political thought, and politics. I encourage you to pick up his new book the political theory of the american Founding National rights Public Policy and the moral conditions of freedom. Stephen bulge is director of the institute for study of western civilization at texas tech university. Before that, he was the founding of scholars, were he served 25 years. He was honored for work in 2007 with the National Humanities medal. Went one hael michael antwan. He is a former manager and Corporate Communications professional, and has worked in speech writing. He was the author last fall of unimportant and intelligently essay of the claremont review books. We have copies in the back, i encourage you to pick up a copy. To point you to his wonderful assets with claremont review books, which has been which he is been writing for many years. California politics, wine, machiavelli, even to the beach boys. With that, we start off with mr. Marini. Future of conservatism, thats our panel. I think we are entitled to ask if contemporary conservative has a future or if it deserves one. Conservatism is most often understood as defensive tradition, however understood against an ongoing and transformative liberalism. Intellectually, it is understood in terms of philosophy of history, in which purposeful change is revealed rationally. Politically, those who oppose change or progress are reactionaries are conservatives. Unlike the liberals will embrace change, conservatives think to a connection is to past. , ofhistorical understanding liberalism and conservatism derived from the peoples brought about in the aftermath of the french revolution. It was an intellectual and political response to the excesses of the revolution that had been justified on behalf of a dogmatic understanding of reasoning. The backlash against revolutionary fervor serves to undermined theoretical or philosophic reason and helped to establish a new defensive tradition, a romantic attachment to the past, a dogmatic philosophy of history. When europes conservative were those opposed to revolution, and the political agenda was understood as a defense mechanism that preceded revolution. Came to be understood as a defense of the old regime. In europe, that required a defense of the tradition of throwing it all. A political defense of the monarchy and established church. American conservatism could not understand itself in this way. America established itself on the grounds of the revolution. It celebrated the revolution as a great good for mankind. That defensive revolution was not a defensive established church, institutionalized asarchy, or the modern state immersed in the 19 century. The American Revolution was understood as a political defense, a regime of civil and religious liberty in which the church could not defend upon government to enforce its claims , nor could government, limited by constitutional restraints, undermine the church or the traditions of the institutions of civil society. Conservatism was not understood as merely a doctorate or even a dogma to be upheld intellectually as the antidote to liberalism. It was taught to be a political defense, the conventional way of life, one that preserved the best of the past as essential to that tradition. Although america established itself on a revolutionary foundation, unlike france, it did not attempt to initiate a new order of things that would obliterate the traditional moral religious and intellectual legacy of the past. In the eyes of the american founders, the revolution and its reconstitution was meant to ,efend the highest intellectual political, and religious thoseions of the past, philosophy, literature, science, and theology. Defense of the past and tradition would subsequently be a common defense of the founding, and those internal soundings which it established itself. The historical ideas that were derived for reasons, nature, and revelations. They incorporated an attempt to reconcile the tension, in the political theological dilemma, thereby defend the way of life derived from each printed the conservative defense of the american regime would require a defensive theoretical principle upon which it was founded. Those First Principles that transcend historical time. The political theory of the american founding is rendered meaningless if it is understood in terms of historical walk. Its not a surprise that the philosophic ground of the American Revolution, and the regime it established, is no longer a living thing. For liberals or conservatives. The lincoln was faced with necessity of confronting this dilemma from understanding what part of the past can be preserved and what must be changed, he had to come to grips with the meaning of conservatism. He did so at a time when not only the understanding, the political meaning of the unchangeable or self evident truths which established the First Principles of revolution that had been denied. Lincoln did not defend himself as a conservative, he had been condemned by his enemies as a revolutionary. The civil noted in cooper union address. ,you say you are conservatives we are revolutionary, destructive or something of the sort. What is conservatism . Itd years to the old and tried against the new and old tried we stand for the identical policy on the point of controversy that was adopted by our fathers who framed the government and under which we live. You with one accord reject and scout and spit on the old policy and insist upon substituting something new. Opponentsted that his were unanimous in their defense, despite the disagreement concerning what the new policy should be. Lincoln noted true, you disagreed among yourselves as to be, you substitute will divided a proposition and plans, but were unanimous in rejecting the old policy of the fathers. Is not the contemporary recognition of politics as made intelligible only in terms of history the modern confirmation of the fact that there is an agreement between liberals and conservatives simply because they have both rejected the policy of the fathers for natural right itself. After attack on metaphysical reason, it becomes almost impossible to establish an objective or nonhistorians is ground of principle. Lincoln was aware that the only defense of the triedandtrue, of tradition, with the defense of the unchanging principles of political right that must be understood in terms of an unchanging human nature. They presuppose the distinction between theoretical and practical reason, which made it possible to distinguish unchanging principles from policies that must change. That understanding was based upon an assumption of the benevolence of nature. Capacity of and the human reason to comprehend and impose those limits on human freedom that are necessary to ensure human happiness. The old can also be defended as the good, that conservatism can remain a living thing. Is the most recent historicists understanding of freedom that revealed nature itself after radical, and has attempted the selfdestruction of philosophic reason by liberating the creative individual from the chains imposed by nature and reason itself. Then it is something that must be freely chosen and selfcreated and expressed by the individual alone. Civilt be defended in society by government and law. Socialist institutions dissent depend have become electric intellectually defensive. In terms of contemporary, social, and political thought, it is the understanding of the old that is no longer defensive. Its political defense has also become precarious, if not attentive. This makes the defense of reasonable conservatism and constitutionalism itself something akin to the defense of a dream. It only masquerades itself is reality and only in the minds of his devotees. History understood is the way in which contemporary man has come to define himself. Consciousessivism was of itself, in understood as providing the light for the way to the glorious future. When progressive intellectuals lost confidence in the idea of and enlightenment rationality, as well as technical or scientific regions, they abandoned the hope of a future good and began to revise the meaning of the task. Posed byas analyzed, the abandonment of its rationality. The excess of historys has attacked the plastic powers of life. It no longer understands how to avail itself of the pasts party harassment. We are dependent upon how we avail ourselves to the past. Whether its hearty nurse meant, or a threatening poison. The postmodern intellectuals pronounced their judgment on americas past, and found it to be morally indefensible. Achievement,uman philosophy, religion, literature, and the humanities themselves, came to be understood as an exploitation of the power. Rather than allowing the past to be viewed in terms of its aspiration, and its a compliment, it has been judged its accomplishment, it has been judged. It is not understood in terms of slavery, racism, and identity politics. That historical judgment made it necessary to be able to take the side of the powers, and made it necessary to condemn the exploiters. Political correctness arose as a practical and necessary means of enforcing that historical judgment. There could be no public defensive task, which can be allowed to live in the present. Instead, public morality of Public Policy would come to be understood in terms of the formerly oppressed. It is not surprising that trumps past american greatness would provoke a political war against the intellectuals. Nonetheless, it is difficult to understand the present situation from the perspective of the most recent socialist or intellectual manifestations of liberalism or conservatism. The contemporary meaning of those terms has been derived from the politics of the recent past. They are the very things that are now in question. In the wake of the 2016 election, the Political Authority of the intellectual leaders of both organized liberalism and conservatism has been under attack. Trump succeeded in supporting parts of the political constituencies of both parties, from their organizations to ideological leadership. Alone,Republican Party and this has caused a civil war between numerous conservative opinion leaders who have opposed trump and their many followers who have embraced you. That the surprising whole of the washington establishment, liberal and conservative leaders alike, have objected to the manner in which he has removed political discourse on their hands by questioning from their hands by questioning legitimacy. Trump mobilized the political constituency by recognizing a political reality that was still visible to the american people, not the intellectuals or the political establishment. It was a reality they experienced in their own lives, in their own communities, but it was in opposition to the socially constructive public war of selfproclaimed narrative established by the ruling elite. That narrative, which the intellectuals themselves have is consistently distinguished from factual reality, is a product of postmodern thought. By political,zed social, economic, and media elites. Dt is dictated what constitute the morally defensible and political and social world. Although he has mobilized the constituents and, propelled him to the forefront of american politics, remains to be seen whether the Political Authority of the people can be restored. It is not some surprising that many wonder if they conserve anything meaningful from the past. They have experienced the wholesale destruction of the regime, civil and religious liberty. It was built upon intellectual and moral tradition and established in the course of a 2000yearold civilization. It may still be possible to preserve a conservative doctrine , but its not unreasonable to ask whether it is possible to live a traditional or conservative life. The intellectual, political, and economic, and social elites have utilized special knowledge derived from social sciences as the ground upon which they have succeeded in transforming the moral foundation of civil society. They did so by undermining the authority. The Traditional Authority of the family church, and other nongovernmental civil associations that made civil and religious liberty a meaningful reality. Although conservatism was once unified in its opposition to big andrnment, the rise consolidation of the Administrative State has established a public purpose for collegeeducated conservatives, as well as liberals. Modern government is necessarily unlimited government. It is meant to solve all of the problems of human life, such an endeavor requires scientific or rational control of the whole society, as well as the economy. Conservatives and liberals have an important date in defense of isir rational rule understood through the professionals that established their authority and. Status the new class is privileged by knowledge, the conservative social or economic agenda may differ from the liberal one, but both are defenders of rational, not political rule. They agree on administrative rule. If it is not possible to defend, or even understand in a meaningful way the principles of the American Revolution, no conservative defense of constitution is politically viable. In analyzing modern revolution since machiavelli. The fact that not only the various revolutions of the 20th century, but all revolution since the french have gone wrong. Ending in either restoration or indicate thatto even those last means of salvation provided by tradition have become inadequate. None of those subsequent revolutions could reconcile the notion of founding with the defense of any kind of tradition. All were destined to consume themselves in the process of founding. One modern revolution. She insisted that of all revolutionary attempts. Only 1 only the American Revolution has been successful. Either liberals nor conservatives can provide a meaningful theoretical defense of the American Revolution. It is now easier politically to defend the postfrench failed,ons that have then it is to defend the one revolution that was once thought to be the only successful modern revolution. Thank you. [applause] conservatism has a future in america only if conservatives engage in a change of orientation. I would suggest the definition and lost two kinds of conserving. One conserving the american nation against invasion, whether violent or nonviolent. Leftconserving what is of american constitutionalism, towards the good of all citizens while providing security for each. This conservatism would aim at the restoration of the rule of law in the pre19 . 60, equal protection of all classes and punishment of all crimes, no matter what the race, sex, or class of the perpetrator or victim. It would also protect the civil rights in all americans, not just women and minorities. Conservatives of the older type would argue a really preferences. Kind,nservatives of this return to the america of 1960 as it was governed outside of the south, would be welcome in comparison to what we have now. , im not saying we need to go back to the findings for conservatism to be genuine. Isthesis is the conservatism mostly gone from American Public life. They call themselves conservatives, but are interested in declaration of independence, constitution, natural rights, and rule of law. I will give some evidence in support of it. Support of that claim, i will talk about why conservatives today seen no longer able to be conservative in the sense that i talk about. Conserving the nation and its constitutional principles requires that the people who live here and you still have some attachment to the older america are not replaced by floods of immigrants. In the 1980s and 1990s, many opposed the massive influx of andle love no experience of no democracy, rule of law, religious freedom, freedom of speech, cultivation of science, for the small republican virtues of moderation and care for the common good of the community. For the small america largely inspired. Conservatives used to take it seriously, today not so much. In the 2016 three, america has a place, no one is written off. Straight from the declaration of independence, that is a republican ideal. Quoting a founding document, it sounds like the kind of conservatism i just spoke of. Restoring the constitution and its principles. What ryan really means by everyone has a place is everyone in the world wants to come to america has a place. He makes that clear almost every day, but here is a quote from the 2013 top of his. Put yourself in another persons shoes, if youre in elected office, thats what you have to do. With take peoples perspectives, the gentleman from india waiting for his green card. The dreamer waiting to begin legal status. We take all of these different perspectives, we processed them through values and morals, and principles. We come up with the answer to try and solve the problem. Thats basically what we do in congress. Ryan is not talking about conservatism in the sense of promoting the prosperity and preserving the constitutional and natural rights of americans, his heart no less than his donor,s money strongly oppose that kind of conservatism. He says the job is to make american policy by processing the desires of these groups of noncitizens. One from india and the other one from mexico. The second example government mandated racial discrimination, is increasingly against asians in the job market and college admissions. Conservatives loudly objected to this discriminatory policy, but not today. Is there any prominent conservative politican working to undo this massively important Public Policy . Ryan, why is government mandated racial determination wrong . If you think its important for government to secure rights, these policies violate the rights of many citizens. If the reply is conservatives care for being mistreated because of their race, the older conservative answer would have been yes, government must outlaw any injury to the life, liberty, or property of any citizen. It did not matter whether the injury occurred because of hate. What mattered to the older conservatism, equal rights conservatism, was equal protection of the laws before i did be provided for everyone. The view is to protect every person equally by prosecuting defenses against the life, liberty, or property of any person. Conservatives have less to say about that kind of the quality today. Another example that conservatives have fallen silent about is in Law Enforcement. Live, the police promptly investigate reports of theft, murder, and the like, and probably prosecute one there is evidence. In detroit. , rape investigations are notoriously so far behind that tens of thousands of prosecutions, even investigations, have been postponed indefinitely. Robbery, assault, child endangerment, there must less often noticed my criminal justice associations. To repeat across america, wherever there is a large minority community, Law Enforcement is more lax. It means people who live in minority areas are proportionately less safe and less protected than people who live in white areas. Denial of the protection of the laws and the older meaning of that phrase. Equal Law Enforcement for everyone, regardless of race, sex, or class. What conservatives have anything much to say about is huge lapse in what conservatives once regarded as governments most important duty, protection of life, liberty, and property. By means of criminal. Prosecutions, violence, theft, rape, and other injuries. A third example, National Defense. The conservatism that favors restoration of constitutional government, also favors a Foreign Policy that considers National Defense as its first, if not sole purpose. Two provide for the common defense was the only Foreign Policy mentioned in the new constitutions preamble. Conservatives during the cold war used to be concerned with the foreignpolicy goal of keeping powerful communist nations like the soviet union and chinese in check, because they had proclaimed themselves enemies of america. 1991,n policy after supported by conservatives, no less than liberals, has largely consisted in interventions in the affairs of other nations when they act for their own citizens in ways that we do not approve of. 2000s, america overthrew the government of afghanistan, originally as a threat to National Security because it hit a terrorist train their. What conservatives today are making the argument that the state of afghanistan now has little impact on american survival. When obama initiated americas thatn libya, he asserted are preserved National Security, he gave no evidence in support of that claim. With the exception of michele bachmann, who was shunned by most other republicans. Warsight argue that these that we are engaged in our necessary to stop the spread of islamic terrorism. How many conservatives are willing to mention the fact that the spread of islamic terrorism is due almost entirely to their visa, refugee, and immigration policies . Conservatives who prioritize. Ational defense par and lets not we are. I conclude with this operation. Today is dying because of its understanding of social justice is incompatible with the moral climate of our time, which is invited by conservatism and the road children in schools and colleges everywhere starting in kindergarten. This morality may change social by serving the disadvantage and transferring resources, honor, and respect and given to those who are considered less advantaged materially or in terms of respect and honor. Used to notget or get. Todays liberalism is sometime called the enemy politics. What is called identity politics is a subset of a larger moral concern, namely the good of equal concern and respect to use the phrase of commodore can. The equalderstand it treatment in the same distribution of goods or opportunities. This requires not only transfer of material benefits from the more invented to the less, but also public seem and respect however degraded the life may be in the point of view of what used to be called bouffant norms. Todays liberalism, it is unjust for anyones conception of a desireable life to be aspired by others. Agrees. Taylor the withholding of recognition can be a form of oppression. Speechnt liberal theory, and publications that disparage or harm the selfesteem of the disadvantaged should be discouraged or punished. This principle is now leading to a consensus that publications that are conservative in the older sense must be banned from the internet, either by the corporate elite, or by government. This moral orientation dominates education at all levels. It dominates movies and television. Integrates popular music, journalism, and their professions. It is no surprise that politicians both liberal and conservative marinated from childhood in this stew of consensus raleigh is him. That is why conservatives today are on the lookout for a way to elevate and celebrate successful women and blacks. Why so many want to adopt nonwhite babies from the third and why military service, which is deeply involved in the agenda of doing good in nonwhite nations around the world, has come to be viewed as a high and noble calling. Isnt that way during the vietnam war, i can personally testify. Todays conservatives want to show that their ideas will lead to results that fit the agenda. As senator ted cruz repeatedly says, conservatives must look at policy three lens through a lens. Or rather because of these principles todays liberalism prevents or encourages the quality in one respect. Social and economic inequalities in wealth and authority are only if they result in benefits for the least advantaged. Although he does not say so explicitly, this principle implies that professors at universities, import and government officials, leaders of major foundations, which promote liberal and social programs, and corporate sponsors all deserve the unequal wealth privileges and honors that they enjoy. Because they are working to transfer the resources to the disadvantaged. Bill the Koch Brothers, gates and carlos slim deserve to be wealthy and honors, but the Koch Brothers do not. The approach requires redistribution of income and prestige from the more demented, not only to those were less advantage, but also to those at the top who are effectively promoting social justice. Thats conservatism today becoming gradually indistinguishable from the liberalism because conservatisms, and especially their spouses and daughters are shaped by those ideas. Until conservatives orient themselves by the alternate approach, constitutional freedoms for all americans, and consensual government by equal laws, conservatism has no future. [applause] good morning. Im delighted to be here. Im never so happy as when i can help to further lower the clouds of gloom. We, as nancy pelosi said, have gathered in this crowded theater to cry wolf. I hope that what we are saying fu really our fat and take and future. I suspect we are ontopic. The existence of free institutions is a historical anomaly. Things like peaceful political contest, the rule of law, due process, secure property rights, and freedom of speech have been rarities throughout history. They are far from the human default position. Time, i donthave think i have the confidence of the other members of the panel, to describe the torturous route that a few parts of the western world followed in going from servitude to freedom. I can assure you that the way back is a lot shorter and much more direct. Against,es with and not the grain of human nature. Todays divides community of conservatives, we all certainly have one thing in common. We desperately want to change the direction in which we see our republican setting, as desperately as did the passengers of flight 93. Questions, two big how can that be done . And can it still be done . This. Sic fact is our political culture, that is to say the political beliefs of our elites, have changed vastly. We go back to the progressives at the beginning of the century, but in the last 50 years during my lifetime, they have changed vastly. The pace of that change. , thew rapidly accelerating ambient attitude is beginning to turn into of the actions on the ground in our streets and on the internet. Came tohy it i finally support donald trump. You dont need to be a weatherman to know which way the hurricane is blowing. Happens, its just about any important storm. I was not originally a trump supporter. , archnt hillary so much miscreant though she may be, who served as the barometer of the storm, it was what was following behind her. The Democratic Party activist base, which is a collection of robot just plans and bigoted sacks. The clear and present danger it poses women hardly less had the would haved been hardly less have been hardly less had they nominated the squeaky clean and personally decent jimmy carter. Pope francis for that matter. Administration, what ever one may think about the nds 0, was utterly cavalier about the nds it sought, was utterly cavalier. Whether it was executive revisions, multiple executive revisions, for the most part for the sake of political convenience of the statutory language of the Affordable Care prosecutorial discretion to grant work permits to illegal immigrants. Or the president ial determination of senatorial recess. Or the circumvention of the treaty clause, which republicans and senate were entirely compliant. Or oblivious to the war powers act, constitutional indifference was one of its defining features. To be sure, obama was building on many president s in prior administrations, our constitutional structure, even just regarding the letter of the constitution has been in terms of just as mechanical provisions , not those broad grants of power it that can be readily stretched. Even that has been rickety for some time. Court more, the supreme exceeded him. Thats to say obama during his own administration most hubrisly as an act of previously unknown in all of human history. Most extraordinary in telling was the reaction to these outrages, or the lack thereof. The overkill fell decision led some kickback and a few peeps of constitutionalist rhetoric from various members of congress for scott, it passed before it was a settled law. Just about universally complied with. No century cities for traditional marriage. Infringements of law did draw some grumbling from the gop leadership, but finding no large residence outside of talk radio, that quickly died away. The rest of americas opinion leadership again to quote nancy pelosi, apparently shared her attitude when asked about the raising of constitutional questions, are you serious, all of this reflects deep changes in our political altar. Theges that go way beyond wins and losses wins and losses on specific policy. And which comprise, the fundamental that is as has been printed out within the conservative movement. Essentially these changes involve a variety of forgetting. The erasure of maxims believed indispensable to free government. Important in are the means by which ends are produced. Is in violence. The political power corrupts. Has been gifted with a precious legacy, not racial, sexual and class oppression. Are left dry parchment to defend us against the encroachments of power we have no defense. Of course much in politics is inertial. The sheer force of habit can sustain institutional practices after most have forgotten their origins or cease to hold them dear. One wonders whether institutions are now in this position, only sustained inertial leave. Whowe like wiley coyote, remains suspended only so long as he doesnt look down. Institutions preserved by inertia constitutes the classic prerevolutionary situation. To what extent is that situation now hours . What has worked to discredit our history . This is or should be a nobrainer. It is first and foremost our educational system. Higher education which confuses other levels of education with its spirit. The most vocal elements have fashioning a new american narrative replacing pride with guilt, common identity with treble grievance, pragmatism with utopian expectation and a fear of power with the conviction that if only the wise and virtuous, the graduates of harvard the williams and their wannabes could have their way all would be made right. How long before they have their way with us . I said in the first instance, because our educational system stands behind our educational intelligentsiand , itich fits it very well has come to the totalitarian temptation. I could talk about why i think that has happened but my time doesnt allow for that. In the discussion. How did american conservatism allow the political culture to change . Change byt allow to listening to me, since i have made my career railing on the points i have advanced here. Apart from that, what . Despite the considerable historical savvy of many conservatives. Took too much of our institutions and principles for granted. As far as the United States was concerned. We thought they were the default setting. That most americans could be expected to understand and via common sense and daily experience what they comprised. Oncell believe americans immersed in their realities of adult life, of job, a family would be cleansed of the classroom and succeed to their rightful republican inheritance. Some of you are old enough as i do to remember the rodgers and hammerstein classic south pacific, which was soaked in american pride. Not without some glitterings of the guilt to come. One of its famous songs was youve got to be carefully taught. The moral, unless you are taught at a young age to hate and fear, you wont, is profoundly wrong if you look at human history. It is hard to come away with any conclusion other than hate and fear are deeply ingrained and you are likely to end up living by them unless you are carefully taught otherwise. What you have to beat her taught are the rarities that we want to preserve. All that counter intuitive tolerance for others, with that genuine sense of extended brotherhood that for so long that the foundations of american life. Involvesur teaching entrenched academic cadres that worstate much of what is in us. In the, closemindedness, narcissistic complaint and moralistic aggression. The bill for that is now coming to. Unfortunately it is easier i think to diagnose our problems than to prescribe remedies for them by given the progress of the disease. I could urge judicial appointments while we have a chance to make them and our naturalization policies. As those important things are, you have heard about them over and over, what we need is a cultural policy. Degree of Cultural Program that we pursue with seriousness. This would contain various facets. The most important of those would aim at reopening education. The discourse of freedom and national pride. Some would involve structural change. Reconsidering the subsidies and credential is him that buttress the system as it is. It would simultaneously require building up private and public support, the institutional positions of those who understand and care about our heritage and freedom. We have had little in the way of serious cultural policy until now. That has to change. We need to. Level itlitical strikes me that we have to take our bearings were the fact we are in a greatly altered position than we were 50 years back. We are not the establishment. We are the outsiders. Aree who disagree with us indeed the establishment and while that is a disadvantage, it does give you a variety of tactics you can take that wouldnt be advisable. One of the things we should do is ramp up our political rhetoric. Civility is important in academic settings. There are limits they place in the public sphere. Think ours, i dont engage inleaders can the kind of tougher rhetoric we need. Said, freeze,e personalize and polarize it. We need to follow that advice. We dont want the system to degenerate but we have to find better ways to psychologically mobilize the body of americans who in their thoughts and lives represent the countrys best ideals and traditions. Im not sure i would cite our president is the best example but at least he understands better directed and more galvanizing is necessary. Freedom and democracy have real and frightening enemies. People who run major cities, and who have honeymooned in havana. People who most got the democratic nomination. When you to find the language and strength of will to call them out. We are sureop radio on leaders willing to do that. If sam adams were among the sea he would recommend civil disobedience. Offers total should be willing to engage when pushed hard enough in the same bring could stash brinksmanship. We simply rolled over. The point isnt to bring the system down but to put a scare by showing to come play the same game. Many elected officials are more opportunistic than ideologues, happy to appease their zealots but capable of thinking twice if they saw their own it positions in danger. Fourth, be ready. The ultimate weakness of our radicalized establishment lies in the nature of so much of what it stands for. Produceseality gap disaster we should take advantage by having a thoughtful and well advertised program a reform and restoration at the ready. Finally, one last word from wiley coyote, dont look down. [applause] let me start by apologizing on behalf of northern california. It is never supposed to be this hot in san francisco. If you think you are suffering your in one of the few airconditioned spacious spaces. It could be worse. My parents are a few blocks from here sweltering and complaining on the phone. I did not grow up your. Family is side of the from here. I think it is relevant in a sense to what we are talking about. Before i got into this stuff, the writings in 2016, i wrote a long piece about san francisco. One of the themes was the fecklessness of conservatives and their chasing of the tech elite as potential donors or conservative think tank institution donors, the star power they could recruit to their side. They always had a way to convince themselves they were one more pitch away from getting these guys on their side. We praise the innovator and the entrepreneur, all of this stuff. It never worked out. I came to break with the conservative intellectuals. Does conservative and deserve to survive . That it didnt in its present form. I can tell a story about that. The claremont review books is where i published a lot. Nothing like publish your friend throwing your friends under the bus. 2015 ig around october started to think donald trump candidatest the best running for the nomination there was intellectual case to be made for it. When i ended up at the white house for one of the people i worked with lyndon with mr. Trump three years asked me how did you get here . She said when did you decide you going to support trump . I said around the fall of 2015. She looked at me and said so, late. Im a conservative intellectual. It took a heroic effort for me to get there that early. I asked the claremont review books at the time, i want to write an article. They said sure. We are interested. So i wrote it. A lengthy debate and did not and publish it. I went to dinner with some follows. One was in a similar position. He wrote another vaguely protract argument in the magazine didnt publish it. Over dinner we complained and complained about the status of conservative magazines and decided we had to do something new. We had to go our own way. There he or failures and should be viewed in the rearview mirror. We started a blog. Andhutdown, and i came back claremont was interested and publish this essay. Had you only published the first piece none of this would have happened. It would have ended their. My answer was no. Three issue areas where i thought trump had the better answer. Then not just the ne other candidates but the intellectualism in the think tanks generally. Immigration, war, Foreign Policy, and trade. I will say a few things about war. Im in iraq war apostate. I was there in the Bush Administration when the iraq war was launched in 2003. Supported it, helped make the case for it. Late butin it until came around to second thoughts and renounce my support and decided i had been wrong. Some people told me at the time i was wrong. We were wrong to do it then and i didnt believe them. Sorry i didnt listen. Issue with what tom said about afghanistan. That evento say, fighting there now is a mistake. I assume he is king that off of the president s address to the nation to mondays ago in which she suggested United States was going to continue the fight strategy. A different there is a Vital National interest in afghanistan. I support what the president said and the policy he rolled out. On precisely the constitutional terms, all of us who believe in the claremont argument, and National Security, the purpose of National Defense. There are terrorists who would love to attack the homeland again. They have been running training camps. Al qaeda is in league with the teleband. Theres a lot of stuff that the United States knows about and with a relatively small force in small commitment with a new strategy that is not repeating the mistakes of the iraq war, about which i agree with, i think we are doing good and will continue to do good. I will give one statistic. It might be wrong. You can write one of those seventh tokyo articles if i get it wrong. Numbers overmy 300,000. In 2016 the took 6700 casualties. The American Force Just Announced it is 11,000. They took 14 casualties. This is not a return to the iraq war or even the afghanistan surge focused on counterinsurgency. This is a different approach. Getting back to my main thread. Drums criticism of the iraq war was right and the Republican Party candidates, and some intellectuals continuing to defend what seems to be an indefensible and obvious mistake. Im not criticizing the people who made it at the time. You had good faith reasons to have been for it in 2003. A not see in hindsight it was mistake and try to correct course after that struck me as so fundamentally misguided that it was a sign conservatism had lost its way. It was departing from principle. One of the principles of conservatism, adherence to the old and tried rather than the new and untried. Democracy nationbuilding agenda of 2002 was a new and untried idea and did it do not it did not work. Yet, here we were in the defending party still it and arguing for policy that would continue it. That seemed to me to be crazy. The other thing was trade. I never felt passionately about trade. I was for it. For 4 four free trade. Wouldr got why anybody feel so passionate about it. Candidate trump had a rich vein of dissatisfaction with communities that had been devastated. The devastation was greatly enteredted after china into the wto in 2001. It did not seem to be working for communities anymore. You can find no shortage of economists to tell you why it was working for the economy. Prospered filter to ordinary people and communities, there seemed to be a disconnect. It was fascinating to me how much of the antitrump either from conservative elected intellectuals was based on this. What you hear now from the mainstream and the left is that trump is the most dangerous rightwinger in the world. The original argument against trump, he was not conservative enough. He was a liberal or a centrist. Things thedefinite conservatives were mad about was his trade policy. I didnt understand where it came from. It seemed to be i could see being passionate about war. I didnt understand why people got passionate about trade. It struck me as an ideological fervor. By god we are going to be for it. I wondered where it came from. I started thinking about this and ended up looking through various old books i had been taught to read to see if i can find a source for where what is the principled case you have to have for free trade . , tariffs, is always morally wrong. I ended up staying up almost all night looking in aristotle and wealth of nations. I did not reread it in one night. The addition i had has an extensive index. I tried to look at every passage i could find. Smith makes the case for trade in increasingful aggregate gdp and so juan. Know where he makes a moral case nations cannot have tariffs. That seals it for me. This is another example as how it has drifted off. It is become a creed that no one knows the reasons for all of these suppose it principles. I think nothing irritated people more about what i wrote in 2016 this, itidea, i said was a cast betrayal. Youre not supposed to use these tools we have given you. Making thesey from cases over here. You cant make them on behalf of donald trump. Youre are misappropriating the weaponry we provided to you. How can you do that . I am just going to close on one anecdote. I think it takes people off more than anything. Debate withs , theres manyk threads to that debate but one she makes the case for the universal homogenous state, which is the globalization. Strauss makes the opposite case. I wrote this and try to explain it. Within american politics i said,he hard fact is in this debate republican establishment and pretty much the entire liberal establishment are on the same side. Person over here standing with strauss is donald trump. The idea you could even glibly associate strauss with donald trump cause such an outrage, i could write my own memoir entitled ask friends ex friends. I miss most of you. I wish it had not come to this. I am sorry. We have some time for questions. If you have questions please come to the microphone. The title is the future of conservatism. I have heard about the past. About where to hear you think things are going to go. I addressed this to michael and tom because he seems to have been the first to have sorted out where the election might go. To the others as well. I never sorted out where the election might go. I just had a thought of where it should go. I am by nature pessimistic. I woke up november 8 seven hillary would win like every pundit assumed. Why is one of the reasons im going to dodge the question on where i think conservatism is going. My answer would be gloomy. I a would tell you where i think it ought to go. Failed, conservatism got good at conserving ideological tenants. , used to joke in my blog conservatism decided the Reagan Campaign platform had to be preserved forever. One of the things i learned or tried to learn is that circumstances can change radically. That isn policy conservative in a given year can be unconservative in a different circumstance. Our conservatives were completely focused on the needs of a certain time and oblivious to the needs of the given time. They were conserving the tenets. I endorse everything john said about the necessity of conservatism making a defense of the foundations of the regime. But what i think spoke to voters this time, neither conservative intellectualism or any politician had delivered on, a defense conserving the actual country, the physical country the way it is with the people who were there. Conservatism had not put any effort into doing that in a few decades. Theoreticalfind intellectual ways to do that which i think are there. They are there for the taking. All of the ideas we need to move conservatism forward exist. We just need to remember them and start applying them rather than what i think was too much reciting of other things. Felt an unaccustomed sense of hope, it was glee on the morning of trumps victory. I had some hopes. I still do, but thus far it has been disappointing. The administration does not seem to be accomplishing much. Low. Popularity is i fear that over the next three and a half years or so this is going to be an opportunity lost. Politicale establishment with all the power it has,s back we may be better off than if we had not won this election. In any event, we will see on that. Under theat it best of circumstances it would be hard to conserve them. With respect to whether we have to go back to our old view of natural rights, i think to a deep extent, that was grounded in a christian worldview, our society has secularized. The alternative is to look at not all revolutions need john locke. There was a revolution in england before that. Of thebased on a sense rights of englishmen. The fight for parliament in the 17th century and for traditional privileges of english people. What a country believes and is grounded in a corporate historical memory and i think ours can conceivably be revived. Terms in which they could be revived. Again, i am pessimistic. I think what we see now is we dont have political rule. That is the real problem of the politics of our time. Drum tries to establish a kind of constituency that has not been taken nobody has paid much attention to. S country has been institution have been taken over by organized interests that have a stake in centralized control of all politics and coulter. The washington establishment is in the hands of the government that cooperates with each other. What trump did in a way was appealed to a part of the electorate that doesnt have a stake. The reason why we dont have political rule, nobody in washington is concerned with common good. I dont see how you can have a isntry in which it will rule established on the basis of the legitimacy of the election, i dont see how you can have a country when you have every interest has a stake in the status quo. Is i reason trump think this is just the start. To reestablish political rule you have to establish the condition of selfgovernment. The people themselves have two adopted habits necessary for their own selfrule. I dont know they are capable but these are the preconditions. Without the possibility of establishing political rather than rational rule, which is what i see establishing authority, all of the ways in which organizations, public, private establish ground of an authority that is not political, it is hard to challenge that. I will stop there. Im not gloomy. I am inclined to the view that facts are the one thing that still remain when you stop believing in them. You have a view of justice. John talks about the rational state, the authority of reason. It prevails in the 1960s and has been mostly replaced by the authority of a certain view of justice, which the semblance of reason that comes down to credentials. Way, doalk the right you understand how things need to be described. From a moral, justice point of view. This is not a , it isf view of justice not a view that is about the common good. It is about the good of the disadvantaged. And of course, the elite that claims to speak on behalf of of the disadvantaged. That is washington. The gays, the blacks, single women, minorities. That together with the elite that runs things. That is what weve got. We dont have political rule because the majority isnt represented by that. View of make my rationality is not reason. It is technical rationality established by scientists. , it is part of the repudiation of genuine theoretical reason that understands politics in terms of practical and theoretical reason. Politics is in the round of practical reason and prudence. Science establishes how to practice politics. , the endf philosophy of politics is the beginning of rational rule. John and i have that difference. There is a substantial part of the American Population dissatisfied with the current order. I think that is growing. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence out there that the very young people in their teens and the are turning against contemporary consensus. I keep running across pieces of evidence on this on the internet and an interesting study by hispanic heritage on this that is quite contrary about the views of young people. The elitesening is, have become more a more aggressive talking about how white people are worthless and need to go way and vanish. Younger people, younger white people are saying i dont want to die. Im going to stick up for myself and my people. A future source of conservativism any future that could be very anticonservative. It could be dangerous. If the elites cant figure out how to harness that sentiment in a way that leads to what i was talking about, toward the public , conservatism has no future. Figure outtives can what these people are ultimately on our side, we need to work with them, conservatism has a future. It doesnt have to necessarily have a natural law explicit foundation. You can call it whatever you want to. People do want to live and want to have their property protected by government. The possibilities of channeling that rising resentment are largely going to hinge on whether we have or do not have a presence in education. Which we do not now. The default position in Human Affairs is tribalism. I worry about you losing control of that process. Picking up on that theme there, i wonder if there is a confluence between the things that motivated the Bernie Sanders supporters and the things that motivated the tea Party Component of the trunk supporters, this antipathy toward corporate rent seeking that might provide the seat for returning to a net natural right of property, or is that too big a not to crack . , speculation, i cant get into that. Sanders voters, the tea party. That link these movements was the sense that voting did not change the government. Institutions would turn from one party to the other. People would run on certain issues. Of 2008. Big same what people saw was a consolidation of the political order. No change at all. More of the same. Im not just blaming the democrats for that. , there was a bipartisan political consensus and bipartisan intellectual parties consensus around certain ideas and it didnt really matter who you voted for, which party was doing this, the direction of policy cap going in the same way. As evidenced by one of president obamas favorite phrases, the wrong side of history. Direction goes in one. Maybe you can derail it and stop it but the fact is it is all inevitable. Opposition is not only futile, there is something morally wrong about opposing the right side of history. If anything that unites the tea andy to Bernie Sanders President Trump supporters, it is a since they are not buying it. If there is they feel like they are on the wrong side of it and not benefiting from it. When john talks about the restoration of political rule, that is what i take it to mean. Voters want to be able to say we are sovereign. When we elect people who say im going to do x and not y, we want to see that happen and not just have the right side of history continue moving whether we like it or not. That heritage on survey i mentioned. High School Students surveyed in this were overwhelmingly supporting nonestablishment candidates. Bernie sanders and donald trump. Meaning, exactly what we just heard. Theres a strong sense of whatever is going on in the establishment class, it is not speaking for me. That is a lot of people having that view. Contrary to their parents. A recent student who just showed up at college was talking about his high school. Somebody asked what were your fellow students supporting. He said im from wisconsin. I did not know a single student not supporting trauma. Every teachable in school is a liberal. Parents are in that wisconsin orientation. But high School Students, that is a sign of a disaffection and alienation from our political order which can be dangerous but also something built on by general genuine conservatives. What are the core elements of conservatism . I have tried to follow some of the arguments of george will land charles as to why they distance themselves from trump and got away from the Republican Party. Radicalp a little too to conservatism in terms of what he brought to the table . Is it that conservatism is it made of that radicalism for want of a better word or is conservatism this gradual evolutionary process where you make change and trump shook things up too much . Im going to go back to a comment i made. The conservative argument was that he was not conservative enough. He was maybe even a democrat. , iinitial support for trump found that to be a feature, not a bug. I think a lot of his supporters broke with the conservative consensus in favor of free trade, certain economic policies that were not benefiting the working class. Heartland communities. Policy, and foreign interventionism was always the right way to go. As president it seems to me centristpursuing policies that would have been considered centrist policies either on the left side of the republican spectrum, only 15 or 20 years ago. Its easy to dig out quotes from various politicians, democrats or liberal republicans. From centrist organizations. That fully support the policies President Trump ran on and is trying to implement now that are considered crazy. Based on the spectrum as i see it, certainly economically, he is the least traditional conservative republican in a long time. To me that is a feature, not a bug but because that in an era of stagnation and 70 marginal tax rates, it is what the country needs now. Almost monopolistic power within Certain Industries and the hollowing out of many communities and the middle class , the reagan Economic Policy is no longer conservatism. Whatever those policies are that conserve those people, they might be different or even the opposite that were needed 30 years ago. That is what conservatism should be looking at rather than ive made that point already. So. Trade, centralon to the trump phenomenon. Michael quoted adam smith. The terra fact. First law passed by congress. Tariffs unnecessary for the support of government and the protection of manufacturing, well understood from the beginning, you have got to understand you have the ability to manufacture the things you need for the support of jobs and National Security. That means tariffs. I think what is different about trump, certainly in the campaign and continuing, was his nationalism, looking at policy like trade from a nationalist perspective. Immigration as well. First of our own. That is something in which he distinguishes himself from most republicans and democrats, and certainly is his strong suit. I do not think the Republican Party no matter who is leading it can live with respect to distribute a policies because they are always going to be outbid by the democrats. There is a problem in the thatre to repeal obamacare is going to lead to lauded dissatisfaction in the base whose votes donald trump received. So, who may fall away in the midterms and later on. So i dont know that a strategy has yet been found by the Trump Administration to prevail over the long haul. Of trumpsin terms being viewed as a nationalist, that is how he is pretrade every president prior to the end of the cold war would not have been subject to that kind of criticism. Everyone understood their office on the point of view of their governor. Their nation. Not asingle president was nationalist because he preferred his own country to any other country. You are president of the United States. President ms to trump seems to understand that. That became hard after the cold war. The west in a way created a situation worse than the cold war in the way in which they try to accommodate to the view america now was this great power that composed order all over the world. T intervened everywhere it try to create conditions of rule everywhere. What it did was lose sight of its own rule. Every government has to look out for its own interests. We are out of time. Very quickly. I will be quick. First, am i right that the fundamental claim you have made is that there are only two groups, the elite and the people . Liberals,ites include democratic intellectuals, democratically leadership, and then there are the people, and the people are those citizens not in the elite, and donald trump is the only one who speaks for the people. The elites are better organized. Is that your claim . And if that is your claim, how to donald trump lose the popular vote, why is he so deeply unpopular now . You were in a new political world. Trump has to be understood in terms of whether he succeeds. The next election will determine more than what Public Opinion now purports to represent. The Public Opinion polls about trump when he was running were wrong. Nobody thought he was going to win. Talks but he lost the popular vote. We have to in the panel. He coulde been have certainly won the popular vote but he could have brought it up if he campaigned in eastern california. In san bernardino. In upstate new york. But it wouldish have been a waste of time and resources. We could have boosted his popular vote enough to get over by top, i dont know but seven figures, absolutely. Had to dodo what he and go to places where he had the chance to win votes. It is that simple. Please join me in thanking our panel. This weekend on them works, former president ial speechwriters for as a to obama. You go to impact her health. Fog, the dailyd callers foundation on his book the art of the donald. 11 00, Rebecca Fraser mayflower. Statepan3, Penn University history answer on the and are in architecture sunday, groundbreaking ceremony at the eisenhower oil in washington dc. This weekend, on cspan networks. Cspan boxes on the his overnd we are delaware is 12 state capitals. The our next stop is tallahassee, lord appeared their own december 6. We will have live in during washington journal. Newt gingrich and ingersoll on the side they about the Trump Presidency you presidency