Organizations magazine asking the question, what is american conservatism. Tell me about this project . Mr. Burtka thank you so much for having me on, susan. I conceived of the project because there is a lot going on in our country right now and it is unsettling times for a number of americans. Everything having to do with the covid crisis, to the lockdowns, to the killing of george floyd and subsequent protests and riots, and the president ial election. So a lot of people are taking the opportunity to really reexamine first principles, and trying to figure out where we stand as a nation. And people on the right at the end of the president s term as the end of the president s term comes into focus are asking themselves what is conservatism . Has the president made an impact on the overall trajectory of the conservative movement and the Republican Party . So i want to take this opportunity to reexamine those fundamental questions. Back in 1964, there was a seminal book called the federalist papers which examined the federalist papers of conservatism which examined the definition of conservatism. That was put together by frank meyer, bill f. Buckley, a lot of conservative luminaries. And it came out in 1964, about six months before the president ial election when Barry Goldwater was a republican candidate. And it designed to really be a book to pull together disparate strands on the right and hopefully bring them into one camp that would eventually coalesce into a vibrant Political Movement. It did not succeed in 1964, but they did succeed at least at the ballot box with the election of Ronald Reagan. So i feel like we are in a time of transition on the right right now and we are figuring out where we are going to go. And it might not translate into an electoral victory in november, but really what we are doing is looking at the Bigger Picture in sort of examining the roots of where america should go as a country and what conservatism has to say about that. Susan if one searches top conservative magazines on the internet, there is a group called thought company, which ranks your public agent number three and wrote this description. It is the magazine for the disenfranchised conservative, the one who was uncomfortable with the rash of false conservatives who have come to dominate the movement. Does that definition square with how you think of yourself . Mr. Burtka i think that is pretty accurate. We were founded i n2002 as a group of conservatives opposed to the war in iraq he wanted to advocate for realism and debt that wanted to advocate for realism and restraint in American Foreign policy. And at the time that went against the grain of republicans in d. C. , specifically those connected to the bush and ministration. The focus is even broader than Foreign Policy. It was to reexamine the questions that we believe have been ignored by elites in both parties since the end of the cold war. Theres a confidence, a hubris after the end of the cold war, so we wanted to examine questions not only relating to Foreign Policy, but also relating to the economic structures in our country. We wanted to essentially advocate for conservatism in an america that promotes a healthy middleclass and strong and vibrant local communities and families. So we continue to do that. I would say that with the election of donald trump in 2016, we have then been able to shift from being off on the side, sort of critical of where things are, to being more of a major player in terms of participating in the national conversation. Because with the election of donald trump, interestingly enough, at least in the conservative intellectual world, reopened a host of new questions. It has allowed us a real opportunity to shape the future of the right. Susan how are you organized and funded . Mr. Burtka we are funded by donorsupported predominantly. 92 of revenue comes from donors. We have a 2. 5 million budget. We produced a print magazine six times a year. We have about 30 stories a week on the website. Then we also do a number of educational programs. We have about 10 conferences and panel events a year across the country on different issues that we focus on in the magazine. And we also have a constitutional follows Program Fellows program that we host for young, midcareer professionals on the hill. Susan and who are some of the people that our viewers would recognize that are associated with the american conservative . Mr. Burtka that is a great question. In terms of our advisory board, we have fox news host Tucker Carlsen on the advisory board. We have a scholar at the American Enterprise institute. Erad from hills oak college. We have a nice mix. We have our founders, pat buchanan, and a number of other voices that we have pulled on along the way. Susan in your essay and contribute into this seminar, you go through a brief history of the modern conservative, American Conservative Movement. And i want to do some of that with you during our hour together. You wrote, and it caught my attention, before we can understand the nature of american conservatism and its relevance for today, we must first define what we mean by america and what we mean by conservatism. Ok, so i will bite. Lets start with conservatism. What is it . Mr. Burtka to me, conservatism is an active thing, it is a practice more than it is an idea. From my perspective, conservatism is the practice of conservation and cultivation. So then the question is what course are we conserving . As americans, i think it is conserving the great traditions throughout our countrys history. That goes back to the founders. Even before that to the first settlers that came to this country. It also goes back to the great statesman. There has been a tendency within conservatism to say that conservatism or america is only an idea, and it is an idea it we can replicate and export all over the world. Unfortunately we have attempted to do that through our Foreign Policy quite often and it has gone awry. So i think conservatism is more than just an idea. It is really the stories and the people that have taken part in the wonderful history that we have here in america. And it also stretches back to the judeochristian foundations of western thought, and grecoroman traditions going all the way back to aristotle to thomas aquinas, all the way throughout the medieval tradition and culminating in america. Susan and how do you define america . Mr. Burtka how do i define america . Well, i think it is important to understand that america, as i said, it is not only an idea, it is a place. It is a place that we call home in a place that we love. And there are basically, its a place and its an experiment in ordered liberty and virtue. And we have had successes and failures throughout our history. We have seen the scope of government grow, and contractor small periods of time. The important thing when we are looking at america from a conservative perspective is the goal is to really take the best of our traditions and apply them to the future. So its not only a backwardslooking exercise, it is a forwardlooking exercise trying to cultivate ideas from the past and implement them now in order to have a more just, equitable, virtuous, and free society. Susan on that note, you wrote the first task of conservatives is to take stock as it is, not as they imagine it to be. What are you saying there . Mr. Burtka what i am getting at there is much of the conservative movement had the goal of dismantling the new deal programs that were started under fdr, because they inevitably led to what conservatives like to more inclusive. When i was reaching out to people to write for the symposium, i initially gravitated toward those who are the editors of magazines and publications on the rights today or those who lead think tanks or institutions. Tend tous on the right be males and tend to be older. , in terms of a successful longterm project, i think conservatism would do well to cultivate more voices from more diverse backgrounds. I think that is definitely something to work on. How does that happen . How does that happen . That is a good question. I think it comes down to ultimately, it comes down to relationships. Anis less a result of intentional effort to exclude hispanics in the conservative movement. It really comes down to relationships and people tend to congregate with people who act like they do and travel in similar social circles as they do. It really probably sprung up more organically in that respect. Best place to start is by being intentional about cultivating lake jiujitsu people that might not be in the Current Group of conservative intellectual thinkers and bring them on board that way. As you did in the magazine, i wanted to mention a brief history of some of the stages of american conservativism in the United States during the 20th century. It had its roots in the mid20th century. Tell me how it got started. As anservatism really intellectual and Political Movement really began as a pushback against collectivism and against the new deal, seeing it as a violating constitutional principles and sort of an overgrowth of government. Then it began to morph with the challenge that we had against communism overseas and seeing the influence of communist thought, particularly on american intellectuals and american publications. So it really started off as sort of a quirky intellectual movement, with a few political figures pushing back against collectivism at home and abroad. And really some of the seminal moments were the publication of Russell Kirks the conservative mind, which famously tried to not pigeonhole an ideological definition of conservatism, but took examples of servant of conservative statesman throughout history and basically painted more of a conservative disposition than an ideology. Then, of course how the founding of National Review magazine back in 1955 by william f. Buckley jr. , which really began to sort of bring these diverse camps into play. And it wasnt only those pushing back against Big Government or the soviet union. You also had traditional and religious conservatives that tended to have not only social conservatism, but also many of them were catholic, so they had a sense of piety for the great saints and teachers throughout church history. So you have the economic conservatives in one camp, you have the social and traditional conservatives in another camp, and then you had the Foreign Policy hawks that were concerned about the soviet union and in another camp. And then you also had a disaffected people from the left who were concerned particularly about the soviet union and the calledr, who are now neoconservatives. A commentary magazine when that was founded, fusing into the conservative movement that really coalesced around the reagan presidency. Susan you mentioned some of the founding lights of american conservatism. I want to show people two of them that you just mentioned so we can see and hear some of these people and hear their thinking. Lets begin with a clip from russell kirk later on in his life, june 4, 1980. This is from the cspan archives. Lets watch. American intellectual renewal of conservative ideas beginning around 1950 was typically unorganized and undirected, with isolated individual scholars and men of letters only slightly acquainted with one anothers work, let alone enjoying personal acquaintance. Take the names of men whose books who obtained some attention shortly before 1950. Francis wilson, william buckley. When i published my book, the conservative mind, in 1953, i did not know any of these gentlemen except weaver. No one had met one another, but with two exceptions. No two of them agreed perfectly about anything not even the word , conservative. Susan talking about how this movement got its start. He essentially thought people on the right trying to dismantle or do away with things like Social Security or other government programs, he thought that they were utopian in their outlook. Mostly because he said these are programs that your ordinary americans, middleclass americans, workingclass americans, they like them. They provide an extra degree of security and support. They have been embraced in the american consciousness, and it would be political suicide for no matter the, orty, to try to remove dismantle those programs. I think, while eisenhower was certainly he said he was the latter. So i think the relationship between those two president s and the formalized conservative movement was a bit tenuous. At best. Susan how important was senator robert taft to the conservative movement in the 1950s . Mr. Burtka he was very important. He was held up as a model, an ideal statesman, pushing back aggressiveore approach to morgan policy. He was a staunch defender of individual liberties, constitutional government. So i think to many people in the conservative movement, and certainly to many people at the american conservative, hes a model that we have held in high esteem. Susan you mentioned william f. Buckley, and we have a clip from him from 2002. Lets listen and we will talk about his legacy in the conservative movement. Liberal istally, a less anchored than the conservative. In what we like to think of as central and fixed ideas. Having to do with liberty and with order, with transcendence. The liberal fancies himself a more empirical, less tied down to any orthodoxy. And very hospitable of the idea of the state being used as an instrument by which to make human progress. Susan first of all on his point, liberals are less anchored than conservatives, do you agree . Mr. Burtka i do not agree with that sentiment in one sense. I dont agree because at least liberals today maybe at the time, i think this statement ld be true, but today [indiscernible] a neutral Public Square where Diverse Voices can engage in free speech and debate. I think the very positive ideological component driving liberalism today in america. And i think whether it comes to sexual ethics, or a view of americas history and founding, i do not think it is liberal in the classical sense anymore. I think there actually is an anchor of positive ideology. It is one i disagree with, and i think it is one that is counter to a conservatism that really anchors itself in history and tradition, but i certainly think that there is an anchor behind how the left sees the world today. Susan and what is william f. Buckleys legacy to the movement . Mr. Burtka well, his legacy is that he ran and founded the most influential conservative publication of the 20th century that exerted a great deal of influence on republican politics. So in that sense, i think it is a positive legacy. But at the same time, i think there are some pitfalls. I think he over emphasized the importance of politics and electoral victories at the expense of other cultural concerns. I think the magazine, National Review, towards the end of its life, i know that buckley came to regret supporting the war in iraq. But he and his magazine in some sense led the charge of leading the United States, or encouraging the United States to pursue a regime change in iraq. They may not have been as unified in their support of the iraq war as bill kristol and the weekly standard, but i think they were certainly complicit in that, and also complicit in sidelining dissenting conservative voices throughout the history of the conservative movement. And i think if they were slightly less ideological and had been open both more intellectually and also in terms of dissenting voices, buckleys legacy would be more positive today. I think you can see in some sense the election of donald trump as a repudiation of the defusionist synthesis that buckley championed at National Review. You see today on the right, a shift away from especially from free trade in terms of especially visavis china, supporting more of an economic nationalism or economic patriotism. You see a greater skepticism of foreign interventionism. And you seem more concerned not only about Big Government but also about big business. And those, in many respects, run counter to buckleys legacy at National Review. At the same time, i think he was also a brilliant intellectual and a scholar and a writer. So if he were around today, i also think he would adapt to the times and the new challenges. And i hope he would be less perhaps ideologically rigid than some people would like to think. Susan you mentioned his emphasis on the ballot box. The conservative movement got his first run at the white house in 1964 with the campaign of senator Barry Goldwater of arizona. We have a much wellknown clip from his acceptance speech in 1964. Lets listen and we will come back to you. Let our republicanism so focused and dedicated not be made fuzzy and frugal by unthinking and stupid labels. [applause] i would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no right. [cheers and applause] thank you. And let me remind you also, that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. Susan people followed Richard Nixon as he gave that speech. What does that mean to you today . Mr. Burtka yeah. That certainly is a powerful quote. I think there are some flaws with it, though. I think the mindset first, i think the flaw from a conservative perspective is that prudence is really the pinnacle of virtues when it comes to conservatism. And so, extremism, you know, in pursuit of liberty, is a bit of an oxymoron. I think it is important to have strong convictions, to have a clear sense of where you want to go as a culture and as a society. But i think ultimately, extremism, as he describes it, needs to be tempered with prudence, and also what is actually politically possible. And obviously in terms of winning the election, that message did not quite work for him. At the same time, it did spur an intellectual and Political Movement that was later taken up by Ronald Reagan, who i think was a far more effective messenger in terms o