>> we have a lot of programs going into congressional offices and will transform them all at the same time. .e get better data watch "the communicators," monday at 8 a.m. eastern on c-span two >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. -- it was created by america's cable television companies. continue to offer coverage of the supreme court and public policy events in washington dc and around the country.

c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. next, conservatism and how it can be defined in the modern era. this is 90 minutes. >> dr. edwards serves for principles an politics. in this known

community and most of us historian of he the conservative movement. the founder and chairman -- and he's written biographies s, related to the conservative movement. an adjunct professor, as well as many other important positions. welcoming dr. in lee edwards. [applause] >> it's a great day to be alive our alk about one of favorite subjects which is conservatism. here we are. what is conservatism? we'll see. have ave tried and few

succeeded in providing an agreeable answer. buckley, for example, politely declined. 478-page irk wrote a book, the conservative mind. up with a new about which nism, i'll have a few things to say a little bit later, and another to ended himself with a laining why he was not conservative. and rand, what did she do? she flashed the sign of the dollar. that was her explanation of what it is. here we are this evening, gnawing at this hold bone trying to answer what is conservatism. thoughts.a few in the forwards to the volume "american conservative thought n the 20th century," the

liberal professor leonard levy conservatismkley's s the following: "vigorously individualistic, in favor of liberty, hostile to egal inism and tolerant. thesistic in character, it nonbelievers though tradition oriented and partial o continuity rather than experiment, it has a deep streak utopianism. mr. buckley beliefs -- profess believes that conservative thought is addressed to shaping or a society, and he to be a 20th century hideously science-centered age thata passion for equality - subverts the ideal

society. berkeley say, which i think we would all agree is a mostly conservative journal america. he praises frank meyer. senior editor of national review for his development of fusionism, a joining of the of freedom and virtue. the core fundamental of conservatism, meyer wrote, is the freedom of the person, the and primary end of political society. only three limited functions. national defense, the of domestic order, and the administration of citizens.tween reflecting the views of the meyer said hers, that freedom and virtue are compatible. correlation is

necessary for the good society. declarationthat the of independence, the federalistn, and the papers demonstrate a simultaneous belief in moral the freedom of the individual. and then i think we could agree the would argue, this is consensus of contemporary conservatism. practiced by barry goldwater and ronald reagan, political icons conservatism, and articulated by bill buckley, its intellectual spokesman. fusionism was not a rhetorical recognition that conservatism was a house of many mansions. fusionism was illogical as well s a prudent resolution -- logical as well as a prunts resolution of a seemingly divide.le political i personally believe that a new usionism is the only solution

for the present discontent of he conservative movement divided as it is between pail owe, neo con-cons, and the 57 other conservatism. in this present crisis, i comeve, conservatisms must together to form a new certain , based upon ideas, a limited constitutional government. enterprise, individual freedom and responsibility, a balance between liberty and law, peace through strength, and a ommitment to virtue, private and public. these are the core ideas bounded constitution on which american conservatism rests and successful leaders like ronald reagan have always sought to govern. the tried and true

ideas that can get america off surfdom and once again on the road to liberty. distinguished panel of analysts, rod -- senior editor of the american conservative, author of the best-selling, the benedict crunchy cons. a editor and historian who edits the american conservative. is books include president mckinley, architect of the american century and where they stand, the american president in of voters and historians. -- is a professor of history and college, the author of the award-winning russell kirk, conservative, and co-founder of the imaginative conservative blog. scholar in residence at the american conservative, to say and pleased to share with you all, is anniversaryits 15th

this week. last.hey said it wouldn't -- [applaus [applause] before i say what i think conserve activism is, i want to one of my countrymen who was once asked, dr. percy, do and he said, i like to drink beer and eat crawl fish. that's despair? that's the spirit in which i heard. remarks to be i'm not optimistic at all or inservatism or anything else our political culture but i'm hopeful, and i hope we can get reasons why later. i'm on the losing side of the deal.nist's the fusionist contract. hich brought together traditionalist, social conservatives, religious conservatives on one side, hat's my tribe with the

libertarians who are more about economics and overeating f the other.n the we did find 50 years ago that we had a lot in common and that's here the modern conservative movement came from. e had more in common than separated us. now, though in 2018, as a conservative, and as a believing christian, i wonder what exactly the conservative conserved, because from my point of view, the heart conservatism is spiritual and indeed religious. i believe it was russell kirk that all political problems are at bottom spiritual because they are problems of authority, and meaning, transcendent meaning. in part because of our own neglect, but also because of our ral forces outside

control, religious conservatives have been routed, and it's hard to see that we have a lot of hope in organized movement conservatism, certainly not in party.publican i think our manor roor has been as long as we took care of the politics and the law, that the culture would take care of itself. culture is basically healthy. that known for a while now this is just not true. i think it was said 20 years that but we failed at the lesson still has yet to be learned by a lot of us on our side. i think that when you look around, you see the christian dying in our country. the numbers don't lie. among the millennials and those faith is collapsing, and the quality of the faith as of notre dame, the sociologist has shown, it's very, very thin. as a conservative, that's

a primary concern because if we on't get that right, all the rest of our freedoms and our virtues probably won't hold. a book called en the benedict option, which we can talk about that later but for shoring up the fragments against our ruin, of building resilient, faithful, orthodox communities in a postchristian society. about our mist political future and our immediate cultural future. paris ll i was in having -- having coffee with a well known french philosopher that were both agreeing the prospects for france and indeed for the west don't look good right now. him, islam is the greatest challenge what they are facing n france, but he also said and i agreed with him here, we're losing our sense of purpose and ultimate meaning in the west. and i asked him where he found hope.

he said, i don't have any hope. being serious, he wasn't glib at all and i said i have hope. i said my hope is not optimism, comes from my religious faith and i told him about that and he said, well, that's good for you here in france we believe that there is nothing beyond this life, that when you're dead. i left that meeting feeling pretty despondent for france, a i love very much and this man, this philosopher, who has moved to the right, he was left uch a man of the early on, but he got mugged by reality and now he's considered he doesn'tright, but see any hope outside of a recovery of transen dent meaning which he thinks is closed off to him. i don't think it's closed off at all. see conservatism for me, the ain cause, to rebuild and to restore and to make resilient time ian culture in this of decline. what does that have to do with conservatism?ment

i recall after the -- ruling in capitol hill.o i was give an speech on capitol with and had a meeting some christian staffers from 2 house and the senate side, all onservatives, republican staffers, i said, okay, we've lost this one with social the rvatives, so what's republican party going to do for religious liberty? which i think is the number one now for social conservatives. to protect the churches and the and individual religious liberty. nothing. so what, do you mean, nothing? turns out there were no plans for the republican party to do anything about religious liberty a loser.hey saw it as they saw it as just a way to be bigots, and they had no way to defend themselves. that that may me realize we conservatives, we grassroots conservatives, religious on our tives really are own but that's no reason to give up. that's only a reason to take the to the local level, to

build our little platoons at the in our churches and the schools we'll found and in local initiatives. i'll close right now by talking about how a source of real hope recently, i just was in prague, the benedict translated into a number of euro languages, most recently in czech and i visited camilla benda. camilla and her late husband dissidents, anti-communist dissidents and the only they are catholics, only christians in their circle. he went to prison for five years for standing up to the government, the communist government, and his wife camilla care of their six kids on her own. but they did it. survived. and today, even though the czech republic is the most atheist all of europe, their children all remain faithful conservatives, and

their children are faithful, too. i asked camilla how they did it, and they had no political power at all. one of the things they did was educated their children about what is true and hat is good and what is beautiful, and conscious awareness that they were living lies.ociety of camilla said something also beautiful to me. she said, every day, i read to kids for two or three hours. every single day, and she's telling me this in their lined with at's books, she said it was important hat we feed their imagination and give them something to stand tolkien was the ig it part of their child, and i asked why, he said we knew moldorf was real. we don't live in a communist thank god but the greatest thing we as onservatives can do is to do what they did in their time of

persecution and darkness. classics, go back to our faith, live lives of reat spirit discipline and lives of joy. camilla and her husband, their apartment was near the secret headquarters in prague, and people knew that they ere -- people who had been interrogated by the government and even tortured by the police. hey knew they were people of integrity and people of goodness and they of light would find their way there to be fed, cared for and restored. that is not only what christians should do but what conservatives can do in this darkness we're now living through. [applause] >> we got in the car and just found parking behind a laundry, that our car g will still be there when we get out. anyway, we're a little -- i we're flustered, we

had a great time, but anyway, we're here. and thank you so much for having us. what an honor, i couldn't help walked in think about how much this place has meant to and the conservatism republic in particular. it's absolutely won't. here and ul for being for putting us up. yesterday i had the chance, and myually, the duty, to finish american heritage class at hillsdale. the semester was over. week.have finals next you can imagine what the mood is on campus like today except the so you've glorious got that strange moment where students are not sure if they be studying or out playing water sports on the lawn of their sororities. interesting thing to watch

and observe yesterday. ere we're at the end of the semester and i always end the american heritage class by ronald reagan and thinking about what happened in reminded, i'm always was born in the summer of 1967, which was summer of love but i kansas, so i'm not sure how much of a summer of love there actually was, but i and lee has heard this story many times, i grew up in a ery, very solid goldwater household. so we had next to the fireplace, goldwater's books and then we had all of the books.nica, great in my mind it was all part of the same thing, and in 1981, month, may 17 of ronald reagan see speak, it was his first public appearance after the near assassination that he went and survived, in the spring of 1981, he spoke at the on may ty of notre dame

17. and i was only in seventh grade then but it was one of those radically just altered my own life thinking did the itics, what soviet union stand for. where did america stand vis-a-vis the soviet union. it really did open up a lot of things for me, so i guess like even though we're in a different generation, i see of lf very much as kind walking in between what is libertarianism and what is i think the and only way that the right, if we want to call it that, has ever successful in american history, is when we've seen right, o aspects of the at least nonideological leftist thinking, come together. to ask,ink we also have then, what is it that we're trying to conserve? and rod has already brought this and brought it up beautifully but if we're conservatives what do we want to conserve? this.worry about a lot. not because of heritage by any means. n fact, quite the opposite but

when i turn on the radio and i'm listening to talk radio, and i being much of what's passed as conservatism, as or er crassness commerciallism, in some way, there is this kind of populism that pervades everything and i it, well, i find it disgusting, frankly. whatesn't strike me at all conservatism was about, when we russ la kirk or the great libertarian friederick hyatt. bring up three points that are important for what we need to conserve. hat matters in our conservatism. hy conservatism matters for us as americans and in western civilization, so these three are, number one, i think we've got in some way undamentally, and the left has stolen our language for this but if you go back and look in the s, whether you're reading lie yacht or kirk or marcel or christian humanists

at the time, they are always thinking about the fundamental dignity of the human person and think there were some people who took it too far. it too far but i don't think others such as hyatt did, had a very good center in personallism was, and whether we call it an individualism or a personalism, nd i realize there are variations, if we're reading, gourdini, his personalism, is not the same individualism, s but in hindsight they have quite a bit in common and there is a understand when think about human dignity and it's hard for me not to think of great figures of the paul ii, who john of gned people with -- one the best definitions i have ever heard. that's better than anything and yet it's so hijackism, in understanding where the person is, the that'sual is, so i think

fundamental, and i think when we go back and we look at the whether we goion, ack to herra crytis or countriescer row or st. agug since they are constantly talking about this understanding will, what do ee we choose? at what point are we determined? point can we make choices? that's fundamental to who we re, whether it's conservative 1953 or 2018. the second thing i think that's -- thist to conserve is is related to the first point, but we have to be able to onserve, and rod put this beautifully talking about little platoons, we have to figure out ow to balance what is universally true for all peoples in all places at all times. it doesn't matter if e're in ancient athens or modern republican rome when he was writing it. here sn't matter if we're in washington, d.c. or hillsdale, michigan, and frankly, it doesn't matter if to last human d

who will ever exist or the third human to exist. there is this continuity. there is something universally true about the human person that justice.nds to it corresponds to knowing our place in the order of existence. not to mike le, this about myself, but thinking why noting born in 167, 1867, why not 2067? questions i'll never be able to fundamentally, they matter for understanding who and what we are. getting into the car today and driving for eight hours. we had a great time. we have six kids. do we get to talk, and i can guarantee you, moment we get wife, she r, my really likes to talk, and she likes me to listen, and there is a place there, there is of justice l aspect in knowing our position, knowing where we are, knowing how do we 20 ond to one another after years of marriage and six kid, it was funny because even d.c., we didn't

get snippy, but we were, we're not urban people. what is this? guy walking across the street right now? these were confusing things and diedra, no, no, this lane, you mean right or left, this lane. idea how to respond to that although i do know my right from left but even after 20 there is that element of justice, something that's universal but in a new situation e had to figure out the particulars, and there we were, we got it worked out, again, as i told you, we're parked behind laundry across the street. i have no idea if the car will be there when we get out at 7:45 praying it will be but we had to work on that and we see that in all times and in all places. universal order to things but there is always a particular manifestation. michigan, believe it or not, is not washington, d.c. and we have to recognize there differences in understanding the place within those things. the final thing that i think we conserve and i take this directly from dr. kirk but also beautifully ght up

about the czech republic, we have an absolute duty as conservatives, this would have been taken for granted a hundred years ago, conservatives, and i this broadly, those who believe in freedom and order, we artists. we were the creators a hundred years ago. 150 years ago. that the left has been able to capture the idea of of tivity, the idea innovation, this is something only in the 20th century, in the postmodern world. russell kirk understood that we conservatives, conserve our tradition, and for us, standing here in washington, sitting here in washington, d.c., that means, and i'll defer to bob on this in because he's just written a beautiful piece on this but it means the western tradition and there is nothing the western tradition. there is nothing knee jerk about it. it's not about white people. it's not about dead people. in fact, one -- it is about dead people, but one of the greatest

persons whoever lived in western north ation was in africa. st. augustine. he may have been the central igure between the ancient and modern world. he may have been the central and europeeen africa and he was certainly not caulk -- caucasian. he may be there though i assume, catholic, i presume he's dancing in heaven at the moment but regardless he's gone from but at the same time one of my great exemplars, certainly not out of central certainly not blonde haired and blue eyed by any means. we have to anchor ourselves in that ind of tradition and tradition, going back to heraclatues and sock cratis, they have dealt with this for the last century, these great being a humanist in the human se, not being a

god ist, being lower than but higher than the creatures. we have to understand this. this is an element of free will. education.of certainly with liberal education it's an element of the imagination. we'll conclude here and i'll turn it over to bob, but again to go back, not just to russell others who i think understood this beautifully, even sock crates on the edge of death, the ultimate thing we can do, when we think about what it we have d to conserve, to conserve what is loving. we have to conserve what is good good, good thing, the common thing. this is our duty as americans, it's also our duty as citizens of the west. we have to be willing to to stand hese things, and say, this is worth preserving. this is not. we have to be prudent. just.e to be we have to be temper rant. fortitude, ave faith, hope and love and it's ritical whether we're in a

libertarian, anarchist society or strict republic. if we're not willing to giver of ourselves to our neighbor or sacrifice something, whether t's teaching, love of the father, whatever it may be, we're nothing. e're nothing at all, and that imagination means nothing. community means nothing, and dignity means nothing, unless e're willing to share those virtues, and ultimately, if we're willing to share and conserve love. highest thing we can conserve. mra [applause] > well, i'm delighted to be here. i'm delighted to have all of you here, thank you very much for coming. i'm delighted to be up here with peoples.ree two colleagues from the american conservative, and lee, i think and i have known each other in this town, i'm going to suggest maybe 35 years or so. at least. >> of mutual respect and regard. pleasure. great

i'm going to see if i can bring every scussion down to day politics. i'm an old political reporter, masquerading as an author and intellectual. to begin would like by taking note of what i truly r to be one of the remarkable 16-year periods in history. political from 1964 to 1980, from the goldwater debacle to the reagan time when om a conservatism seemed finished and to a time when it prevailed as the prevailing i itical force in the land, hink we need to study this, as we ponder where we are today conservatism k today is, as rod has said and many others, is in crisis. it was, one could say

ack in 1965, after that debacle. today it's ill-defined. itself.t war with it's scattered, and it's not clear what is represented by it, you attempt to discern what t is based on what people who call themselves conservatives in the government are actually doing. order of business by way of exploring this question is to ask, what to reaganism? a did reaganism not last as political force in the same way jeffersonegacies of a or a jackson or a lincoln, or the two roosevelts did? two things to re take note of in terms of the here.cal aspects one is that the republican party basically abandoned reaganism. here, and ig to say say this very advisedly because cover these people, when i was

a reporter for the "wall street especially the bushes, george herbert walker and george w., and i have no dowd jed also, he had ever become president. they kicked conservatism to the curb. utterly. has changed the end of the cold war has created what we call the post cold war period. isn't it?g, it has no name for itself. it only has a name for what it s in relation to its previous era. what does that tell you? it tells new my view that we're crisis of the old order. what arthur jr. entitled his his roosevelt series, which is very much true. e're in a crisis of the old order and the woorl is in a crisis of old order, the old world died in 1914 and between 1914 and 1945, replaced it. i think we're in sort of a similar situation. don't believe that in political terms, i'm not talking

about philosophical terms, but conservatismterms, that t come to grips with fundamental reality. f having to adjust, to changed world. g.o.p. i say that the abandoned reaganism, what am i actually abandoned? to understand that i think it's -- it a littleve what i ttention, to consider to be a political development in modern political in america, and that is, reagan ersion of ronald to supply side economics. think that's a key to understanding the history of 1976.vatism since, say, when reagan ran for president in 1976, supply side economics was budding thing.

it was being written about in "wall torial page of the street journal" and jack kemp was talking about it but it point of ignificant view politically, but it was brought to reagan's attention campaign by bob bartley, who was a friend of others, the time, and and he didn't bite. wasn't interested. but he did, by the time he ran in 1980. essentially what that is. -- taxes, marginal cetera.et two things. one thing is it actually worked. it generated significant growth.c after reagan got through the recession of his early presidency, which, by the way, an induced recession. it wasn't one that just happened do. so many it was the federal reserve er saying paul conseco

i'm going to squeeze inflation out of this economy, are you to fight me on it? he said, no that was a remarkable political gamble on and took a huge amount of courage but nevertheless after he got recession, he generated an annual average gdp 3.89%. rate of quite remarkable. the other thing i would note s that it served as an underpinning for a particular brand of what i'm going to call populism. to say, le are going how do you call this populism? i'll try to explain it in a moment. it's not a pitchfork brand of with a lot of venom and anger. at expansive government, and, in many ways, although reagan didn't use this term, what amounts to crony capitalism. a the two foundations were,

faith in the ability of ordinary people to conduct their own affairs without a lot of intrusion from the secondly, a and distrust of economic and governmental, and especially a economic and governmental elites, that control economic matters through tax code and currency own ulations to their benefit. of populism had effects.r political first, it made it possible for draw to his coalition, the so-called reagan democrats, and also, a lot of young people, been voting or interested in the republican party up to that time, and it fortified him against the allegation from the he was just a country club republican who was tool of the special interests

and of the rich and the influential and the privileged. he had an antidote to those attacks. that ttacked him with barrage, and that allegation as they have every republican but it didn't stick with reagan, unlike every republican since, because he had that antidote. i think it's because of that particular brand of populism. of explanation, let me explain how this works. populism, and i'm going to use an analogy from he early part of the republic, or the early decades, when the federal government found itself with a great deal of land in the west, and the question was, how dispose of that land? the federalists and later this sell that land at very high prices because that would bring a lot of money into couffers, all in the

nterest of national greatness, that was henry clay's american system. they had a good purpose, but the democrats, the populists, the jacksonians and jeffersons said no, sell it, or away at low prices so people will flock out there and they will take that land and the land and they will build communities and churches nd they will build up america opposed to the buildts, the elites would up the country from above. george herbert walker bush, and i tell you, i covered those people, i covered early reagan years in congress, the budget and tax got to know all of those people. and i covered the reagan white the 1984 campaign

and i got to know all the bush people. one thing that struck me was really believe in reagan. they didn't understand his success. they didn't understand the core success, and they thought when they got in power, they to do it to know how right. nd so, they basically cast aside both the substance of the to say, the t is tax cuts, no new taxes becomes increases, which led to a significant drag on the economy, but it also, they also abandoned rhetoric populist that made it possible to assault from the pull those former circle.s to the and so when bush threw away threw awaytidote, he

his presidency, and the problem that when he lost it wasn't just viewed as a rejection of bush, t was also viewed by many as a rejection of reagan. and now we have bill clinton, and what's interesting about ill clinton is that notwithstanding this assault on the nism from within republican party reaganism was still exercising a significant pull on american politics clinton, when he got elected, he said my aim is peel reaganism. two years later when he tried to left and had e his -- in off year elections, he said the era of big government over and he very cleverly, brilliantly, actually, craft add getting himself just to the right position left of center, so that he could govern a democrat fairly successfully, and the reason that he did that, and the reason that was because of

reaganism. pull of and then we had george w., and george herbert walker sort of did a job on rd reaganism, george w. just basically attacked it. constitutionalism, grandisement of the executive, spending, and policy, he turned he party over to the neo-cons, to disastrous effects. the result of that, endless wars, middle east chaos, tensions with russia, widespread popular which the neo-cons don't particularly care very much. unlike reagan, by the way, who had to find hat he a way to craft his policies and his narrative d

in a way that resonated with the people. now we have people, elites, unning foreign policy who simply don't care about that. reagan-style ng populism, the republican party trumping populism. it's not a great trade off, in my view. so in practical political terms, notican conservatism offers much of a coherent governing hilosophy with any chance of captu cappinad canadaturing the country right now. back to 1965, when onservatism appeared to be dead. is it not dead now although it appears to be? question.e

i don't really have an answer. i didn't come here to give you but that's my question. thank you. [applause] bob, i know, people want to jump in, but let me say, there, and 5, i was conservatives looked at that of barry efeat goldwater, which a number of us and what did we do? in the face of liberals who said we were through, we were ead, buried, stone cold in the cemetery, that's it, goodbye to conservatism, to we did two things. we decided that we're going to soome politically active and therefore we founded the american conservative union. the political arm,

trying to figure out where do we go from here? we build on the fact that for llion people did vote barry goldwater. meyer said, you know, you can ud a pretty good political movement with a base of 27 million people. n the intellectual side we started the philadelphia society. who was there at the eginnings of it, in chicago, talking about what is conservatism? hat was the topic, what is conservatism? kirkn friedman and russell and coming out of that was the beginnings of where are we? what are the ideas? what can be some kind of philosophical foundation for a olitical movement, because up until that time, we had been intellectual than a political movement. following goldwater and our we were t with that

very fortunate because along came, just as you know, very thereafter in 1966, ronald reagan. and so we were able to transfer that energy and excitement engendered with barry goldwater to ronald reagan, and thing.as certainly a key i think also, one has to say reagan was many things, but one of the reasons why he was so he was a man of intense ambition, we forget that. he really wanted to be president. there has been some recent research on this, which has shown that he was really trying hard to get the nomination in 1968. didn't realize that in my own research. that's now come to light. >> he was closer than a lot of time.e knew at that >> right. right. tom reed and others as well. and f intense ambition, also willing to be pragmatic about things and reaching out to people. we're talking about

leadership for the future, we but charismatic leadership, we also need pragmatic prudential leadership as well. just a few thoughts, i agree with you, those 16 years were 1964 and 1980. please? in.i'll jump >> yes, please. >> i became a conservative because of ronald reagan. entered college in 1985 as a liberal and i left as a large part in because of reagan but i think of all the cause intellectual arguments, and all the best writing was on the right. and i became convinced, i onder, though, today, if a ronald reagan is even possible or if we expect too much, not nly has the media landscape fragmented, the whole idea of authority has fragmented, back 1980, you read national review, you read the american spectator, and there magazines that you

read and people you looked to as authority figures to tell you conservatism meant and what conservatives were to do. that?, do we even have is that even possible? nd i think part of the answer to these questions, about where we go what we might do to conservatism, is asking ourselves what do we have o give up from the reagan era or from what we ideal lies from the reagan era, what do we have conserve in order to what really matters? i don't have the answer to that either, but i think we have to not to be too backward looking, and forget out of a n emerged specific time and a specific place to confront specific he won., and he triumphed, but now we have different problems, and i don't anybody here is suggesting this but i think, do we eally -- it's fair to ask some conservatives, is the problem we ace now really, we need more

tax cuts and we need more foreign wars? i don't see what -- what conservatism has to say much beyond that. believe the conservative tradition does but popular onservatism i'm not seeing a lot more than that or just saying no to whatever the put out there.o i'm happy for that but we need o have more than that finally, when i say that something, bob said reminded me of a speech i senator ben sass last fall. senator sass spoke to a group of evangelical philanthropists. meeting.esent for the it was a good speech. he spoke for 45 minutes and didn't mention politics once unusual for ht was a senator. but what he said to the philanthropists was, we're going into a time, we have entered and we'll continue to go into a time f intense turmoil, likes of which we haven't seen for a long time in this country. need to do, you

speaking to the fill lan poeists, is to devote your time to buildure to helping resilient local communities. he said, social science tells us that there are four things people need to be stable and happy and to thrive. religion or have a a fill loss sophie that explains suffering and death to them and they iles them to that need to have a family. they need to have a core group of good friends they can count on, and they need to have meaningful work. senator sass said we're entering time when all four of those things will be challenged intensely, and if we're going to society, as a culture through that, we've got resilientople to stay in the face of all of those pressures. notice, he didn't mention politics once. politics are important, but i would say that focusing on the culture, facing these problems that senator sass identified, that's the most that ant thing conservatives can do. >> brad? would just -- i love

what's been said and i think there are so many things that in d be said about reagan particular. i'm just try and make two points. 1953, when ack to kirk published the conservative were just ear, there as many divisions if not more than there are now and i think much probably were during of the time, especially after goldwater and prior to reagan. quickly, we had the classical liberalism, the had the an arc kichl. the humanism of babbitt and moore and elliott. i think one of the things that was take ble to do that kind of decentralized aspect of things and give it a at least herent force for a while, and lee can take far better than i could, that kind of agreement for goldwater to rise and ultimately reagan. and cond point would be

'll freely admit, much like rod, reagan was shot when i was in seventh grade. i remember our vice principle coming on and saying he was but that h he was not was the worry. i remember sitting in the hall 1989 and ame in watching the wall fall. reagan will always be that president for me and it's hard or me to think objectively about him, but i will say this, i say this probably more -- than anything else, it strikes whatevereagan gave us, else, he gave us 20 years abroad and he gave us 20 years at home success, the seven fat years. we lived off of that until 2008. abroad. one of the reasons he created the 600 ship navy and the so tary that he did was not that we would become an empire but so that we could end an empire and retrench. i think reagan made a calculation. was, we'll do n

everything possible to -- toward oviet union and hopefully people in the future after that victory will do the right thing. eloquently, they kicked reagan to the curb and i ofnk reagan vision that kind salvation we had, worldly salvation obviously, but that salvation we had in the west and we blew it. we extended, we've got troops now in 150 out of the 200 countries. we've got military bases everywhere. we don't have any coherent foreign policy. go and react. those are all things i think that reagan would have just in every way and i don't think he would have seen what has become of his legacy, certainly not his fault but to ink we have kicked him the curb. >> i would draw one significant igs stings in my view, between 1953 and today. it's not to take anything away brad, totally , apt, but in 1953, we knew what were, because the

rerecreated en through the cataclysm of world war ii and franklin roosevelt americaa new world with at its center. and that was clear to everybody. had the cold war, and that menace, andm, and a it certainly had psychological implications, but we knew what era was. we knew how it was defined. we knew what the issues were. don't.e and i think that that makes a challenge for conservatives and for liberals nd for americans and for anybody in the arena. nd that's one of the reasons why, in my view, politics have so venomous and so poisoned, and that's going to continue until some kind of a emerges to replace the one, and to replace the

transition between the old and we're living through today without really realizing it. > we're going to go to the audience for a q&a. let me just make one point if i may. talking, brad, about wars, and getting involved in them, in the reagan era and the reagan doctrine during the 1980s, if that back and study decade, you will see how very, very careful reagan was in his force. over and over again. problem, in a grenada, yes, he would use force but it was more than adequate to as e that as quickly possible, with a minimal loss of life. and particularly, he said, i'm going to send man to fight in nicaragua, or in afghanistan, what he did was to support ofi-communist forces in both those countries, so he was someone who truly believed in strength.ough

a phrase, by the way, which was first used by dwight david reagan er, and which borrowed, and i remember meeting who was b colonel here trying to pump me for information about the inside hady on ronald reagan, as i written a book about him, and i said, he ng him, i doesn't want war. what he wants is an opportunity, downis early 1980s, to sit and talk with you guys, but, of him.e, you keep dying on so, if you can get a leader who doesn't die, then reagan will talk with him. from strength. and he was saying, no, he's not bomb onabout dropping a moscow, he's talking about sitting down at the bargaining that's f course, precisely what happened. and, by the way, one more little thing. so the last time i met with my buddy, 1985, gorbachev had picked as general

secretary, the communist party grenidi oviet union and looked at me, he leaned forward, said aboutnd, and he gorbachev, he's different. he's different. kgb guy could see that there was something special gorbachev, and that's the way it turned out to be. here tonight so we can go watch the americans. know.on tonight, you >> let's see what our deadline is. the audience.rom are.e have -- yeah, here we >> please. if you would be so kind as to yourself and try to keep your orations down as much as possible. professor, that's difficult. studies, american

conservatism has been described as cultural traditionallism and strong foreign policy. s that a good description of conservatism today and should it be? that.ll be happy to tackle i'm fine with it. problem may my arise is on strong foreign policy. means. know what that but if it means the american policy since george w. bush post 9/11, i'm against it nd so i'm against a strong foreign policy. i'm not against america being in the world, i think we have to be in the world. too much power and too many interests and we have too uch of a role to play towards stability. but going overseas in search of monsters to destroy and to societies in our image, and all of that, is a disaster. has been a disaster and it's

to continue to be a disaster and i suspect we'll continue to do it maybe on a big scale next time so i'm very worried about it. >> about the culture of traditionallism, i think that was a fair description at one point, i it still is at all. and i'm not only talking about faith,lapse of religious but ially among the young, also, the falling apart of the family. one of the most important stories of our time is the of the white working class, the african-american working class has been suffering for a long time and now let's move to the white working class. too,e middle class people, of all races. young people suffering from of a anxieties, a lot sense of purpose. on and on. read lots about this. this is a manifestation of a weak culture. years ago at a few

a conservative christian college, and i was talking to i professors there, and said, well this must be a good place to teach. you must see great things among said, dents and they actually, we worry a lot about these kids because they come cultural background at all. very thin sort of sense of or doctrine or anything like that, and they come from really broken families. of the professors said i really doubt that most of our will be able to form a stable family. shocked. i looked around the table, all the other professors nodded. why not? because they have never seen it. it's pretty ase, deep here. i'm not saying this, to give a about, you know, we have to get back to the bible and all of that. a lot of that 1980s style, religious fundamental political is out of lism

fashion and it's become actually kind of repulsive with what some religious leaders have done under trump. we know that. 'm about a more fundamental traditionallism. tomorrow night, we have a guest speaking at the american conservative gala, he said shocked me.at he wrote a column that got a lot of attention a few years ago talking about his students at notre dame. these are the best and the brightest. hard.come here, they work they are ambitious. they have checked all the boxes blanks. they are they don't know anything about where they came from or where they are going. they know nothing about the culture of their own country and their own civilization, and it scares him, frankly. fault of these kids. adults whoult of the have failed them. >> questions, in the back or front? there.e'll come down

thank you. >> my name is avi. role to speak to the immigration plays in our current conservative crisis, in our obviously havewe a lot of immigration without any effort of assimilation and is it the sustainable to ask question how to conserve what we have if we're allowing a number of people that come in that are of what our culture is or has been? >> i'll be happy to sort of take first stab at that one. i think that the metric to watch the percentageis of foreign born in the country at any given moment. reaching,ercentage is i think it's probably exceeded now, 14%. the last time it hit 14% in our very , there was a significant backlash in the 920s, as a result of the immigration, large ways of immigration, pole from eastern europe, from about

1890 forward. about the rikes me open border people and the care about this and don't see it as anything other than healthy because it's not just a question of bringing people in, it is the question of assimilation. 14% in my view, and i think the american people sense this and they sensed it the last time. that constitutes a challenge of assimilation that they think could be very deleterious to the nation at large. especially as it continues. should it be 18%? is it going to be 27%? at that point, your question becomes very apt, sir.

i think we have reached the point where assimilation and closing off the influx to the extent that assimilation can happen much more normally and naturally is in order. >> is it avi? yeah. it's fascinating to me. i'm probably contrary to a lot of modern conservatives on my own views. historically, to look at how people have moved. we know people's move almost anytime they can when they don't have security. that is just a constant in world history. and the only time they stop is when they don't have the technology. so for example, getting stuck at the atlantic until they can cross the atlantic. or in the pacific and vice versa. we see that constantly. and in the american tradition, we had a very long period, almost 100 years, between john quincy adams being secretary of state, all the way up until 1921, with the exception of the chinese and the gentleman's agreement with the japanese.

we had almost completely free borders. we had free movement of people. we had free movement of capital, we had this incredible motion everywhere in the united states. now, the problems that bob is bringing up our serious issues. our tradition has always been one of allowing people to move pretty freely. we don't see any major restrictions until 1921. then again in 1924. and then we have to wait again until 1964 and 1965 to see major restrictions on immigration. our tradition has been one thing, obviously where we are at in modern america, that's something else. for me, i'm speaking personally here. i missed when the republicans became the party of closed borders. that happened during my lifetime. but i don't remember a moment where it suddenly transitions. i remember talking to people in california who were very upset

about immigration, and texans were happy about it. suddenly it became something different among those conservatives. it became very restrictive. >> i think we must talk about it. i don't see this kind of conversation we are having right here and now being conducted at a national level. i don't see members of congress doing it, i don't see members of the senate doing it, and frankly, i don't see conservatives doing it. we need to get at this and talk about it. i think what brad is saying about what does it mean, do we just ignore those 100 years? or do we say we are in a different period? or do we draw upon that? i don't know what the answer is. but i think we need more talk, more discussion, more debate. there is no more vital issue, it seems to me, then immigration. -- than immigration. point i'd make is,

whatever those policies were during the 100 years, they did not manifest themselves in terms of a foreign-born percentage anything approaching 14%. that was because of the technology back then. the massive influx was not possible. it didn't create that question or that problem, or challenge that i am referring to. but let's point this out. in the first republican debate, in 2016, actually it was 2015. immigration came up. donald trump said you wouldn't even be talking about this if it weren't for me. that's absolutely true. all these politicians wanted to finesse the issue throughout 2016. why? because they can't control it in the middle of a campaign. they can control it more in the legislative setting.

that's what they wanted to do. let's not talk about it. then, trump comes down the escalator and in this very awful manner says what he says about mexican immigration. and it couldn't be ignored anymore. my own view is that because the establishment parties seated the issue to this crude guy as they were trying to finesse it. they should have been addressing it in a responsible manner. >> i used to be on the editorial board at the dallas morning news in the last decade. and of course, in the 2000's, immigration to texas was an enormous issue. our board took a really aggressive stand for immigration reform at the national and state level. and i don't have a particular passion about immigration one way or the other, but i noticed after a while everybody on our board, whether they were

republican or democrat, we had a good mix, we also had white, black, hispanic, everybody thought immigration was a good idea. and we didn't see the people in our own city who suffered from immigration. i actually went out to some of these neighborhoods that were really suffering and were overwhelmed by a legal immigration from mexico. and it was striking. going out and seeing these neighborhoods made me realize that all of us on the editorial board were middle-class people. our impact or our meeting on immigration was in the restaurants. we got great ethnic foot, getting good gardeners, getting good people to work for us. but we didn't have to send our kids to the schools who were overwhelmed by people who didn't

speak english. the schools had to deal with them. we didn't have to use the public hospital, parkland hospital, like poor white and black people, and latino people who are citizens. these were invisible to us. therefore, i came to feel the immigration issue was a chance for us to virtue signal. we're not like those rednecks who cannot stand mexicans. i thought about that a lot when trump came out and was so successful with that. i don't agree with the way he talked about immigrants, it was ugly in many ways, but least he was talking about it. he was not ignoring it. and ignoring the concerns about what middle-class people in the media in dallas did not see. or if we saw it, it was only to put them down for being bigots. and secondly, i want to say it really quick, if you haven't read this new book by a yale law

professor called political tribes, i recommend it. one of the things she says is that history shows us that in policies where there is not one dominant minority, things become really unstable and can turn into violence. she doesn't say this will happen to us. she says we have to be careful about it as america transitions from being a majority white nation to being one in which no particular minority dominates. this history shows us that this could go really bad for us if we are not careful with how we manage it. that i think is probably the best reason to put a cap on immigration right now until we can stabilize things. >> i think we can see from this just how this issue generates some real strong opinions. i just want to throw in myself one thing. and that was an idea in a book,

"the americanization of emily." i'm trying to think where that was. to me, that is a major issue when we start talking about immigration is assimilation but education and the americanization of people who are coming here, particularly, if they are legal, they should --willing to our culture accept our culture, our language , and our ideals and so forth. it's also a part of this greater debate that we need to conduct on immigration. i want to keep on going. yes, please. gentleman in the front row here. >> ok. evaluate the heritage of richard nixon. i will start by giving my own opinion. he was not really a

conservative, but in many ways , he was kind of a much more intelligent and much more world character version of donald trump. he was able to appeal to the same sorts of people. i've given my opinion, but i will leave it with you. >> i'm sorry, i didn't hear. who are we talking about? >> richard nixon. what did you think about him as a character versus trump? [inaudible] >> he was not. i think in many ways he was a brilliant politician, he was also a tragic figure, his own worst enemy. there has been a lot written about him. i think in the most recent book by, um, oh heck. jack? i'm drawing a blank here.

a wonderful book that looking at him from the left attempts to understand what was driving this guy. and ultimately the pressures of the presidency drove him to this sort of tragic little and. in political terms, he was something of a phony. he didn't believe anything. and he certainly was no conservative. he didn't govern as a conservative but he managed to get conservatives behind him. and that was a rather interesting trick. >> isn't that what trump has done? >> to a very large extent. trump has some conservative instincts, but he's not a conservative by any stretch. >> from a conservative point of view, richard nixon was remembered by many conservatives as the man who got alger hiss. and because of that, conservatives forgave richard nixon again and again. and again. being able to do that, that is

-- getting out has, which is such a key issue. if he had survived, that would have done a blow to the cause of anti-communism. and with his conviction, with his going to jail, it showed it was possible to be an anti-communist and to be part of the coalition, which ultimately became the fusionist conservatism. >> yes, i agree. i just want to say. the author was john a farrell, jack farrell, that i was trying to think of. >> thank you for the question. i don't have a great opinion on nixon one way or the other, but i did something when i was working with russell kirk. i found this great letter about a guy from general motors who was raising money for goldwater. he said the problem with raising money for goldwater is you can

-- when he would take goldwater and nixon around to various groups, nixon would say yes, whatever it was the group wanted. and goldwater would lecture them on why they were wrong. they could never raise money for goldwater. i always thought it was a great story to compare them. -- compare those two. [laughter] please? in the back. sorry, then we will get here. >> i just wanted to say, when reagan ran for president, he did not have much conservative infrastructure. there was no washington times, no talk radio, no internet, no leadership institute. so now i'm rather hopeful there is a huge conservative infrastructure in place in the country with a lot of information, you can now research videos on milton friedman and see videos on

youtube. with that in mind, do you have a greater hope that conservatives can do better? >> i loved earlier when rod was saying when you to think about all of this decentralization. part of bob saying you have this kind of populism, i think i would use the term charisma. i understand what you're saying. the good versus the bad. i think that makes a lot of sense. i do see, personally, and i have not had the experience that rod had at this christian school. my students at hillsdale. i won't say that they come in fully formed because they are 18, but it's amazing. they dazzle me every year. i'm humbled by them every year. i find them impressive, now i am in a place that is probably weird and unusual. dr., if you are listening, this is pretty good. [laughter] i do think there is a hunger.

i've seen a lot of great scholars, lauren hall, abby hall, alex salter. i can think of a number of people in their late 20's, early 30's right now who are doing fantastic things in political science, economics, and so forth. i think of somebody on foxnews like cap 10 who is doing really interesting things. but i think there is a lot of possibility. i think this decentralization, while it is always a problem, always has opportunities. as long as we can find someone to find a voice to give us one like reagan did, goldwater in between. i think there is always a possibility of someone coming forward and being able to grab the imagination of a generation. and i don't want to pontificate, but my own experience has been as students contrary to being immoral or being watched, they want stories of truth. they want stories of heroism, they want exemplars.

they want to hear about these things because they are looking for these answers and they are not as subjective as we think they are when we look at them from age 50, or whatever we are. >> i'll say very briefly i have a love-hate relationship with the conservative industrial complex. on the one hand, i absolutely know that institutions are critical for the formation of the next generation. that's one of the reasons i believe so strongly that the republicans have got to fight for religious liberty because we have to protect the ability of our institutions to educate and form the next generation. and that is what is under threat right now. at the same time though, i wonder, having lived in washington and enjoyed working in washington, but also having seen how some young people come to washington very idealistic about conservatism. they become part of the borg.

they lose the idealism that originally brought them here. and they come to be enamored of just holding onto power. this is one of the things the republican party has lost along -- has lost its way. i think a genuine renewal of conservatism will need to have this infrastructure in place. i'm glad we have it. it will need to nurture these ideas outside the imperial city. to bring the renewal in from the outside from outside the system. >> did you say borg from "star trek?" >> i did. >> i just wanted to make sure. >> yes, sir? >> i wonder where you see the challenges for conservatives from rising nationalism.

>> i think it's a huge problem and a huge danger. i don't think naturalism -- outside of poland and ireland, i don't see any good examples of how nationalism could be healthy. i find it very problematic. it's tribal, it's dangerous, exclusive. i think it's anti-liberal, i think it is anti-western traditionally. >> on the other hand, what do nations like poland, hungary and czech republic have to defend themselves against eu and globalism? i don't like nationalism either, but it's all they had at this >> point. it seems to me that the nation's state has been written off and saying saying it is in its last throw. yet it keeps coming back. keeps coming back. so as long as that nationalism is balanced, i think there is a place for it.

after all, we're an exceptional nation. i believe that myself. it seems to me that that is something that should be honored. >> every nation thinks they are an exceptional nation, every nation is right about that. when i go to france, i love france, i want france to be france. i don't want it to be absorbed into this generic shopping mall federation. you know? >> it goes right back to my point that the nationstate -- state is important, whether it's france or america. >> one last question. >> thanks. i've spent my career studying the soviet union and russia. i wanted to ask about the relationship between liberty and virtue, something you had brought up in the discussion. because that's been a very prominent question for me looking at that part of the world. the soviet union was a good example of a country that had neither liberty nor virtue.

and it made it very easy for conservatives to unite around anti-sovietism. russia, a country in the 1990's, have liberty but no virtue. that didn't work out very well. today, i think we have another very specific case of an area where there is a lot of liberty and not very much virtue. and that's silicon valley. a part of our country that seems to believe very much in liberty, but is pairing it with what you might call liberteenism. and this doesn't seem to be working out very well either in a lot of ways. i'm wondering if you can comment about how conservatives can approach that very specific topic of social media, internet freedom, large, almost monopoly business practices, and virtue. how do we approach that vexing problem?

>> i actually think there's a solution to it. i think that if you look at the trajectory of the west, you have to conclude that the west is in decline. and it's in decline in a host of ways. one of those ways has to do with the disciplines of life, the pursuit of virtue that was part impartial of our in an earlier time, and now it isn't. really, through the elite intellectual -- intellectual elites in the 19th century in europe for example. was interesting about that is

that other people look down on ordinary people, on middle classes, emerging middle classes. without any conception that conviction, that someday they will be absorbing all of that and it was going to become part of the popular culture. it's a progressive degradation. so silicon valley, i agree. but it seems to be part of an ongoing trend that rod has been grapping with so brilliantly and i think so helplessly for a long time. [laughter] >> no, you're right. it's really hard to know where we stand. where to stand. because the effect of this technology on everything on the way we live is immense, and it is going to get even more immense. there's a guy i follow on twitter, he used to work for facebook.

he's doing a piece for wired magazine on virtual-reality pornography. he said he went and had a look at it for the story he's doing and said it's over. something to that effect. meaning how in the world do people, once they have given themselves over to this sort of technology, how do they find the strength and them to do anything? and i think it's not really a joke. he was being somewhat snarky about it but it's not really a joke. i don't know how we deal with it. i don't believe silicon valley is in favor of liberty, as much as liberteenism. look at what james do more is doing if you want to know what silicon valley's dedication to liberty. there's a really interesting book by historian noah o'reilly, "homodaeus", that came out last year. he talks with great excitement

about technology and silicon valley, the promised land of the techno-utopian, that the kind of power is going to give us to even reengineer what it means to be a human being. i don't know that there's any way politics can stop this at all. but i think that individually, we don't have to surrender to it. this is why whenever i go give talks about the benedict option, people say what is the first thing we can do as a family? they take smart phones away from your kid. don't get caught up in that, either. because once you go down that road, it's very hard to get out of it. you will lose any sense of virtue. you'll become so disassociated or disconnected with the real world. there may be no coming back. i'm thinking direly about it, because i talked to people in college campuses and elsewhere who are seeing what this is doing to young people and their inability to focus or know of anything beyond their immediate desires.

i say this as someone who makes their living off the internet and who really loves the good things that technology has brought us. but i believe we have to work very hard to be the master of it and not let it become our masters. i don't know this thought occurs to most people. >> it seems to me though, and i had a talk from my own experience. i'm fortunate enough to have been a professor at catholic university for 31 years. in part because the standards were not lowered and i had to work my fanny off to get my degree. i say to my students put away the iphone. put them away. put away the pads and the other things. we're going to have a discussion and lecture for 1.5 hours. that's the way it is.

every now and then i look down and see somebody has their head lowered and are doing this. i know he's cheating a little bit. but there are so many wonderful young people, and i see the interns, 250 of them will come through every single year. because i know the work of isi and the studies institute. the fund for american studies and young americans for freedom and young students for liberty too, not just conservative organizations. also the leadership institute, hundreds, maybe thousands of young people, are being educated and influenced that way. with the good and the true. so i'm an optimist, i have always been. and i will be. if you can capture a little bit of that here this evening, along with some very good, solid, and even brilliant analysis by our three analysts.

-- three panelists. please join me. [applause] >> how do you feel about crawfish and beer? [laughter] >> let's get some right now. [laughter] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> today, a discussion on how to

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