According to Frank Lavin in “National Review,” Donald Trump was no Ronald Reagan. But if Reagan had been forced to deal with frequent attacks and calls for assaults from adversaries like Trump’s, wouldn’t his approval rating and his temper have taken a hit too? National Review has found yet another reason to hate Trump, whom [...]
The depth of George Washington’s Christian beliefs is totally irrelevant to his vision of the country he helped found. It is only our American obsession with personal authenticity that would cause us to worry about whether Washington was inwardly Christian. One of the most illogical historical debates I’ve ever tried to follow concerns the personal [...]
The nexus between the Straussians and neoconservatives has been overstated for partisan ends, but it is still nonetheless there. Sociologically and culturally, the two movements are largely indistinguishable… The Truth About Leo Strauss by Catherine and Michael Zuckert (University of Chicago Press, 2006). In The Truth About Leo Strauss, Catherine and Michael Zuckert, both professors holding [...]
What does “moderate” mean when we talk about political, cultural, or moral matters? Is it like the Aristotelian Golden Mean, the middle path between two presumed extremes?… Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics from the Founding to Today by David S. Brown. (University of North Carolina Press, 2016) A prolific historian and my successor as Raffensperger Professor [...]
The “conservative wars” between neoconservatives and the Old Right became particularly bitter after a stormy session at the Philadelphia Society in 1986. Mr. Gleaves Whitney, the president of the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies and a Senior Contributor to this journal, has written about an event that I remember well.* I was involved in it, [...]
One of the most illogical historical debates I’ve ever tried to follow concerns the personal religious conviction of our founding father George Washington. Presently there seem to be two opposing schools of propagandists. They can be divided more or less into Beckites and Obamaites, and both seem obsessed with Washington’s theological leanings. The generally leftist [...]
Listening to George Will pontificate recently on Fox News about his “conservative” principles, I had to ask for the millionth time what Mr. Will and his likeminded friends mean by “conservative.” And I don’t ask this question as a neophyte, having published more on the subject of conservatism than probably anyone else on the planet. But [...]
The death of Harry V. Jaffa at age ninety-six was met by exuberant detailed tributes in sources extending from the New York Times and Washington Post to the major organs of the Murdoch media. Jaffa was hailed as an influential conservative theorist, the founder and driving force behind the heavily endowed Claremont Institute, and the author of [...]
George Will In what for me illustrates the use of confusing labels, George Will recently complained about attacks of “cognitive dissonance” in trying to understand our political terms. Although Americans identify overwhelmingly as “conservatives,” many of them vote differently from the way they describe themselves. They lean theoretically toward Thomas Jefferson, who advocated very limited [...]
In recent years a heated debate has erupted about American foreign policy and about what moral purpose should inform our conduct of international relations. While analysts Robert Kagan, Michael Mandelbaum, and Stephen Schwartz insist the United States should use its power, where possible, on behalf of “democracy,” other commentators have rejected this approach. James Kurth, [...]
One might think that I’m being sarcastic but I’m only trying to illustrate my contention that the term conservatism has become so free-floating that it means whatever journalists and politicians want it to mean. “Conservative,” as it is now being used to describe Republican ward-heelers and neo-Wilsonian social democrats, is an arbitrary designation. Equally [...]