The Future of The Right - with Matthew Continetti
Should we be surprised that there seems to be a renewed by bi-partisan consensus in response to Putin’s war? Are we back in a Cold War posture, both in policy terms and in our politics? Speaking of today’s politics, what can the past few decades of Republican politics and conservative ideas tell us about 2022 and 2024? According to Matthew Continetti, quite a lot. Matt Continentti is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, founding editor of The Washington Free Beacon, and a columnist for Commentary Magazine. He’s also the author of several books. He has a new book just out called “The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism”.
Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
[00:00:00] Should we be surprised that there seems to be a renewed bipartisan consensus in response to aggression from Russia? Are we back in a Cold War posture both in policy terms and in our politics? And speaking of today's politics, what can the past few decades of Republican politics and conservative ideas tell us about 2022?
And 2024, according to Matthew Continetti, quite a lot. These are two of some of the big questions we explore with Matt Continetti. Matt's a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He's founding editor of the Washington Free Beacon, and he's a columnist for commentary magazine. He's also the author of several books and he's a new book just out called The Right the Hundred Year War for American [00:01:00] Conservatism.
This is Call Me Back.
And I'm pleased to welcome back to the podcast my friend Matt Continetti from the American Enterprise Institute and the author of the just published Just released a book, fabulous book, called The Right, The Hundred Year War for American Conservatism, which I have been devouring, uh, I am, uh, if, if, if you have been shaped at all by conservative ideas and conservative politics, this book is like a, uh, it's, it's, it's a mixture of, of, uh, education, illumination, therapy, it serves as a good therapist, uh, and, uh, and so, and it's like, also like.
Kind of like candy because there's just a great color and great anecdotes in it that many of which I had like forgotten about or had never heard of. Uh, so it's also actually for a book like this, it's actually kind of like a fun read too. So I don't, [00:02:00] I don't know if you've been hearing that from others too, Matt, but I want to jump into the book, but thanks for, for joining the conversation again.
Thanks for having me, uh, back, Dan. It's a pleasure to be here to talk about, uh, my book. All right, so before we talk about your book, and it actually is related to your book, I just want your reaction to the news and, and the sort of developing what I kind of see as trends in the news around the Russia Ukraine war.
Obviously the human catastrophe is depressing and demoralizing, and I'm struck by the reaction back here in the United States. And, and what I mean by that is we have been being told for the last number of years that America had entered this sort of isolationist moment or isolationist, uh, uh, era, sort of a new, a new version, a new bipartisan version of, you know, McGovern's, you know, America come home, uh, from 1972 and that America was really disengaged from the [00:03:00] world.
And then here you have. Uh, a new land war in Europe, first one of least on this scale in some 70 years. And when you look at the public opinion research on the American reaction to Putin's invasion, there's kind of like a bipartisan consensus on being fully engaged in resisting Putin's aggression and, and, and rolling back this war.
Now, to be clear, it's not public support for deploying us troops and getting American forces directly. You know, in a kinetic situation with Russian forces, I'm not to suggest that, but the degree to which if you look at polls and a number of these political Senate and House races, candidates on the ballot in 2022, support among Republicans, support among Democrats, support among independents, there's again, varying degrees on what to do about it, but it, but definitely a consensus that something must be done.
And. I, I, I feel like we, we're living in through such polarized political [00:04:00] times that we can't find the left and the right agreeing on anything except maybe that the tough line on China and a tough line on big tech, but that's it. And then suddenly. It kind of feels like we're back in Cold War days, where there's some kind of political consensus among the center left and the center right on what to do about a threat from Moscow.
So, you know, you have a whole chapter in the book about the role of the Cold War in American conservatism, and I want to get into that, but before we do, what is your reaction to this phenomenon? Should I be as surprised as I am, pleasantly surprised? I think you should be pleased. I think I would draw a line between The run up to the invasion and the aftermath of the invasion in the run up to the invasion Many of the forces on the right that saw Vladimir Putin as a champion of traditional values of [00:05:00] religiosity against the cultural left were sympathetic to him.
And you saw on the right, uh, arguments being made, uh, justifying his belligerency, saying, Well, you know, America is arming Ukraine. What is Putin supposed to do if you put missiles in Ukraine? If we had missiles on Mexico, wouldn't America be concerned? Um, you had Rhetoric about Zelensky and the corrupt Ukrainian polity didn't hardly mention the fact that Zelensky is a democratically elected leader and Putin is an autocrat.
You had a, I think, a widespread view that Putin wasn't going to invade. That all of this was brinkmanship, that he was simply trying to force a result. Uh, Ukraine to pledge to never join NATO and the EU, uh, maybe topple the [00:06:00] Zelensky government without any actual military intervention. As soon as the invasion happened, those arguments faded away, and the right and the left, in the main, came around to the idea that Zelensky and Ukraine needed to be defended against this naked aggression.
So what's happening here? A few things. One is Can I just jump in before but you still had some provocateurs, at least on the extreme right, who even after the invasion were still They, they were still trying to toe that line, that, you know, what's our interest? It wasn't just a pre invasion thing. For some, again, on the very extreme right, they were still playing that, like, why is this our Why should this be in our interest?
You had, yeah, in the first weeks, you had some people saying, well, we should be more concerned about our border than the Ukrainian border. Right. [00:07:00] But even that has died off. I don't really see that much in the discourse. And I think it's because Americans natural instinct is to defend the little guy against the bully.
And anyone In their right mind can look at what happened here and said, this was an unprovoked assault. There's no reason that he invaded. The Ukrainians went out of their ways in the weeks before the invasion to downplay tensions, right? I think the second thing is that, uh, people reminded of the importance of Democracy.
And if a democracy is facing, uh, an autocracy, uh, Americans are going to side with freedom and democracy. That's still in our political tradition. Thank God. Um, and then, uh, there is, uh, though a reluctance, I think, to become more involved than we already are. So yes, you're right. There are people on the right and the left saying we need to, [00:08:00] I'm one of them saying we need to send heavier weapons faster.
To help the Ukrainians, but there are very few voices calling for the establishment of a no fly zone. Hardly anyone saying that America should commit ground troops say to enforce even a humanitarian. Safe harbor or quarter. So I I am I am pleased with the reaction to this invasion and the realities of The world that the invasion highlights and reminds us of but I would say that there is still a deep reluctance For America to become involved in a in a foreign conflict Okay, so I want to now segue to your book, and again, there's, there's an entire chapter and elements and other chapters that deal with the role that Global affairs and foreign policy and actually the Soviet, uh, the Soviet [00:09:00] played in the evolution of the conservative movement.
But before we do that, I just want to set this conversation up for those of our listeners who aren't familiar with your book. Can you just top line? You know, take us to 1150 17th street where the book opens in Washington, D. C., and why you wrote this book, what the, what the impetus was, what the conceit of the book is, like, just summary, what is this book about?
And then I want to get into some specifics. Sure. I mean, uh, so the book is called The Right, The Hundred Year War for American Conservatism. I've been researching and writing this book for about six years, uh, from inception to publication. Um, and it is this history of the American right over the past century.
And why did I write this book? Well, a couple of reasons. One is I've been teaching this material to college students in various forms for about a decade. And I've never had a [00:10:00] textbook that I could just work off of very easily. There are great books written about conservatism, but they either focus either on politics or on ideas, not both.
And so what this book does is synthesize American politics. And the intellectual life of the American right and put it all in one volume told by someone who identifies as a conservative. The second thing I try to do in the book is most histories of the American conservative movement begin at the end of the Second World War.
They carry on through the Goldwater nomination and defeat in 1964, and they culminate with the rise of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and his presidency. I felt that that didn't tell the whole story, that I wanted to widen the scope of the narrative to include the prehistory of the American right, what the American right looked like prior to the onset of the Cold War in 1946, 1947.
And then what the [00:11:00] American right looked like after Reagan up till the present day. The book ends with Joe Biden's inauguration. So two years have elapsed since the conclusion of the narrative. When you do that, you see a very different picture of the American right, Dan. You see that, um, in many ways.
Politically, the American right and the Republican Party of today resembles pretty closely the American right and the Republican Party of pre New Deal America. And what you also find is that Reagan, Ronald Reagan, despite his historic importance and his consequential presidency, seems more like the exception in the history of the American right.
than the rule. And so it, one of the lessons of the book is that if we focus too much on Reagan, we may actually get a distorted picture of the American right. It's better to just view him as one character among many characters. And what is the, so you said [00:12:00] today's right is a post Reagan right that resembles the right of the, of the early 30s, right?
So can you describe what that right is? of the early thirties look like? Sure, uh, so up, up through, um, World War II, the American right was, uh, it was protectionist. It supported the tariff. And so we see today, uh, the Republican party and the right think about industrial policy, think about decoupling our economy from China, um, supporting the Trump tariffs.
Um, the Republican party and the right prior to World War II was restrictionist on immigration and, um, that, parts of that carried through the entirety of my story, but certainly we can say that the right today is, um, wholeheartedly against illegal immigration and also seeks to have some And reform of legal immigration as well.
Um, and then the Republican Party and the [00:13:00] American right prior to World War II was non interventionist, isolationist. Didn't want to get involved in Europe in particular. Had a different attitude toward the Pacific. And it was the, and that, that view was the dominant strain. Oh, absolutely. In Republican politics, Republican ideas.
As a consequence of, uh, World War I. And the fact that it was a democratic president, Woodrow Wilson, who had plunged America into the great power competition in Europe. Um, presidents like Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, you know, defined themselves against that. Um, and Republican leaders like Senator Robert Taft were very much against alliances, even NATO after the war, because they didn't want to become involved.
And while As we were just saying, Ukraine definitely shows that the right today, uh, along with just mainstream, um, is very supportive of, of, of a democracy under assault from a powerful autocracy. Um, there's still, I think, this reluctance to become directly involved, [00:14:00] uh, in, in that war or in, uh, any war, um, on the American right today.
So, uh, I like to say even though Calvin Coolidge and Donald Trump are very different people. They have very different personalities. Um, They lead, I think, very similar parties. So, now I want to talk about the, the role that the Cold War played in all of this because, because, I mean, you may say that Reagan was an outlier but, What, you know, what led to Reagan was a multi decade globally against communism that, as you write about, had a huge, uh, that, that the right struggled with, in terms of how to engage with it, and then, and then ultimately became definitional.
I, I, just speaking personally, this is the therapy part. So I, so I was an intern on Capitol Hill in the early 90s. It was 1990 or 91, 90. Yeah, uh, for a Democratic congressman from Ohio, Ed Feehan, uh, from Ohio, uh, 19th, 19th district, [00:15:00] and I, when I was doing all this research to write legislative correspondence as an intern, I, I, it was like I was really grappling with a lot of issues around the Cold War and Democratic resistance to policies that were held over, legacy policies of the Reagan administration from the Cold War, and I, I will say as a, And I grew up in a democratic home, and my, you know, I'm the son of a holocaust survivor, and I'm, I'm reading and studying about how much the atrocities of the Soviets, you know, the Soviet Union, the tens of millions of people that were killed in In the Soviet Union, not to mention those killed in Eastern Europe, in China, in Cuba, in North Korea, in Vietnam, in Cambodia.
A lot of, by a lot of regimes created by the, or supported by the Soviet Union, you know, according to Robert Conquest or, or Richard Pipe's total number of victims from communism was something like a hundred million. So, it made communism like the greatest catastrophe in human history, [00:16:00] on par obviously with, And that is what drew me to the Republican Party.
And I'm sure I'm not the only one that was brought into Republican politics and conservative ideas, uh, via America in the world during the Cold War. So That's, that's a little bit about how I first got involved, but I, I just, how, how, how common was that kind of experience? I mean, obviously not being this, being the child of a Holocaust survivor and, and how that makes you think about the world, and totalitarianism may not be as common, but generally speaking, the idea that, you know, this, this was a, A bipolar world, and America was on one side of it, and we were at war, and one party was, was shaping a, a war, a Cold War strategy.
Well, it was incredibly important. Um, the threat of the Soviet Union, uh, Caused a few [00:17:00] major changes on the American right. The first is that the right switches its foreign policy from one of disengagement with the world to one of engagement. So the right, because it perceives this threat of global communism in the Soviet Union, begins supporting alliances like NATO, begins supporting forward deployment of U.
S. forces. Stationing them throughout the world, uh, as tripwires or as deterrents, um, supports, um, military intervention in Korea, Vietnam, elsewhere, uh, as well as support for proxy forces to fight communists, and supports, uh, open trade. In the belief that an open trading system will, um, enrich our democratic allies, many of whose economies were devastated by the Second World War.
And that when they grew rich, that would, that would, um, immunize them against communism, right? So there was, [00:18:00] so there was an engagement in the world and an openness, um, to, uh, to trade, uh, that distinguished, uh, Cold War American right. And the second thing that happened was Anticommunism provided the glue for, for various factions on the right.
Normally wouldn't get along. And so you have, just to take the two major factions, you have libertarians who worry about individual freedom and the power of the state and economic freedom. And then you have traditionalists who worry about individual virtue, the stability of social institutions like the family, like the church, like the community.
They dislike big government. Uh, or in communist government because it goes after those institutions. It tries to re educate people, to transform the family, to transform individuals. It clearly goes against the [00:19:00] church. Soviet Union was, it, it, Union was an atheist society. Marxist Leninism is an atheist philosophy.
So while normally libertarians and traditionalists wouldn't get together, they both now have a common enemy, which they oppose for different reasons, but that's, those reasons are insignificant when compared with the larger threat. And the third thing that happens is, Anticommunism not only provides a bridge between the traditionalists and the libertarians, it provides a bridge between the American right and the American people.
Because the American right had been delegitimized in the eyes of the electorate, first by the Great Depression, which ruined the Republican, um, reputation for delivering prosperity, and then by World War II. which ruined the, uh, idea of isolationism. But now with the, an engaged foreign policy that was anti communist, the right could reconnect with the American public, which was also very anti [00:20:00] communist.
So this really laid the foundations, as you say, for, um, the American right for a good part of my narrative for about, um, about 60, 70 years. So William F. Buckley is an extremely large character in your In your book, the, the founder and editor in chief of National Review and. He, he's like a long, long game character, meaning he's like, he, he, he endures for like decades in these debates and, and in terms of his influence on the right.
And he's like, yeah, he's, he's, it's like, you can't get enough of Buckley when you read your book. So can you, for, for listeners that aren't familiar beyond just a very, you know, surface level, uh, Knowledge of Buckley and you know and his affiliations Can you talk about a little bit about his history and why he played such an instrumental role?
Sure, I could I could talk a lot about it, but I'll try to be pithy [00:21:00] William F Buckley jr. Was born in 1925. He died in February 2008 He was the central figure in the development of the modern Post, uh, World War II conservative movement. He was a journalist and a commentator, um, who mastered several mediums.
He founded National Review in 1955, was its editor, uh, for, uh, 35 years, um, and then still a large part of the magazine up until his death. He was a, uh, syndicated columnist. In fact, he died at his desk working on his next column in 2008. And he was a television personality. Uh, which may have been the key to his appeal.
He hosted one of the longest running shows on television, Firing Line, which was a debate slash interview show about politics and, uh, world affairs, um, which [00:22:00] ironically, when you consider Buckley's, uh, small government leanings, uh, appeared on PBS, appeared on the public broadcasting system. The irony is rich, yeah.
Um, and he wrote many books. He was a prolific author. He was an ecumenical figure on the American right. And he was both very free market and a devout Catholic, and he was a rock ribbed anti communist. So he exemplified all the various characteristics of this Cold War conservatism. Moreover, I call him an insider outsider.
Which is that Buckley came from a wealthy family. He went to Yale. He attended boarding school prior to that. Yeah, quintessential elite. He, yeah, lived, lived in his house, uh, on Wallach's Point in Stamford and then had his masonette on Park Avenue in Manhattan. A quintessential elite. And yet he was an outsider.
Why was he an outsider? Well, he was Catholic. In a world that was still very much dominated by Protestants and he [00:23:00] had these beliefs, uh, these conservative beliefs, which when he came of age in the 1950s were considered very out of the mainstream, very eccentric. And yet it was through his work and the, his charisma and his, um, ability to, uh, to, to charm and to use humor to poke holes in his opponent's positions, uh, that he.
brought those ideas into the center of American politics and helped lay the groundwork, uh, including the institutional groundwork for much of the American right, uh, in the 20th century. And in that sense, he, he also played this role of sort of a Judah adjudicator in chief on the right in terms of determining, uh, who should, who should play an influential role.
Who shouldn't, what ideas were, should be encouraged and what ideas were. unacceptable or intolerable. Uh, he, he through [00:24:00] these institutions and through his own voice and his public intellectualism and advocacy set up guardrails, uh, around the conservative movement so it didn't go totally crazy. Um, so I guess I have two questions.
One, did he, is your sense that he anticipated that the right needed that kind of role and he was going to fill it and then Or create it. And then secondly, who plays that role today in American conservatism? Well, the, the second question is easy to answer. The answer is no one. Uh, and the the right. It was, it was a tee up.
That's a, yeah, that's a layup. Uh, the second, the first question, a little bit more harder to discern the answer to. Um, the thing about Buckley, uh, even as a kid, he grew up in a very large family. He was homeschooled for much of his early education. Uh, he was, uh, kind of a dynamo even as a child. And then when he gets to Yale, he gets to [00:25:00] work in the debating team, he goes to the Yale Daily News, eventually becomes chairman, um, he's always at the center of things.
That's just who he was, constantly in motion. Um, one of his books, one of his memoirs is called Cruising Speed. He's always going. Um, so he was probably going to end up in some It's an amazing book. I mean, it just captures the craziness of his life. I mean, just hour to hour, day to day. Oh, it's a great book.
It's a, it's a book about being William F. Buckley Jr., which a lot of people wanted to be, right? So he was an aspirational figure and he kind of knew this, like people looked at him and they, they saw his style and he saw the way he carried his learning and his his manner, his eloquence, and a lot of young people wanted to be like him.
And so he writes this book called Actually one of two books that it's about just being him and it's quite it's quite good So [00:26:00] he was going to be at the center of things I think but then Really the answer to your question is he also understood that at that period in the mid 20th century He needed his ideas to be taken seriously and not be dismissed out of hand by American, Americans as kind of kooky or, or, uh, weird or just totally off the wall.
So that's why he began building these fences around his definition of American conservatism, saying that you couldn't be a Buckleyite and be a conspiracy theorist. You couldn't be a Buckleyite and be an anti Semite. You couldn't be a Buckleyite and be a fanatic, whether that was a fanatical libertarian or a fanatical traditionalist.
Um, and you couldn't be a Buckleyite And just be an out and right racist. Um, though, you know, I talk at length in the book about his position on civil rights and, [00:27:00] and, uh, the problems that it caused the conservative movement. Nonetheless And you're critical of him on that. I am, yeah. I think it was a big, big flaw, uh, at the origins of the, of the conservative movement.
Um, but it was this idea that in order to be taken seriously, we had to, we had to define ourselves against elements that were on the right. Yeah. And, and, and that would be necessary. So can we just provide a little case study? One that I followed closely, 1991. At the end of 1991, he pens an essay, a long essay for National Review called In Search of Antisemitism, which was like, again, it's hard for conservatives.
These days, I feel like I sound old when I say this, but, uh, you know, in the 80s and, you know, in the early 90s, there was like a debate is, are there, are there rampant elements of anti Semitism in the, within the intellectual right? And you described why that essay was so important. He went about trying to find out if it were true and what to do about it.[00:28:00]
Right, I mean, and it was very personal to him because that essay is really about, uh, one of his protégés, and Buckley had many protégés, and this writer in particular was a man named Joseph Sobrin, who, um, really, beginning in the 1980s, just begins penning articles that, uh, are, are anti Semitic. And then he gets, he goes even further from there, attacking, uh, Israel, attacking the supporters of Israel in the United States, attacking Norman Podhoretz, uh, the editor then of Commentary, and Norman's wife, Mitch Dector, a writer, uh, in her own right and esteem.
And so, Um, it's actually the essay is provoked by Norman Podhoretz telling Buckley, you know, what are you doing employing this guy, Joe Sobern? And it's this question is being raised at the same time as America is launching Operation Desert Shield and then Operation Desert Storm. And figures like Pat [00:29:00] Buchanan are basically saying that Um, he would, he never says it directly, he's very clever in the way he says, says it, but basically saying that, uh, American intervention in Iraq is, um, uh, a Jewish plot, I mean it's, uh, that Jews are pushing us to war in order to benefit Israel.
Um. And he goes after Buchanan in this essay. He does, so Buchanan becomes a second topic in the essay, and, uh, what he finds in this searching essay. Coming from, and he talks about his own experiences being the son of an anti Semite and how in fact he had been raised in an anti Semitic tradition, but it wasn't until his experiences in the military during World War II that he that he kind of began de radicalizing basically and recognizing Jews as his fellow human beings, fellow Americans.
And coming to the conclusion that he could not defend Pat Buchanan against the charge of anti Semitism. Uh, based on what he said, Buchanan's [00:30:00] fixation with Jews in Israel, uh, in his portrait of American politics. And just to be clear, by this point, Buchanan is journalist, columnist, TV personality, public intellectual, worked for And a candidate for president.
Right. Worked for Richard Nixon, worked for Ronald Reagan. He was a major player in, in Republican politics. Yeah, and he, he figures quite heavily in my story too, um, for all those reasons. Right. Uh, and so this begins a real fissure. And, uh, it's an extremely controversial moment, but it is exactly as you say, Dan, one of these examples of Buckley saying, I can't allow this to happen.
Um, uh, you can't have, I, you can't be part of my movement. If you hold this, this position. Okay, so I want to come back to Buchanan in a moment because you write a lot about him and he, for all the obvious reasons, he tells us a lot about the current Republican politics. But before we do, in talking, before we move off of Buckley, one of the great Parts of [00:31:00] Buckley's biography is he was a candidate for mayor of New York City in 1965.
So 1964 just describe what's going on there So 1964 Goldwater has this like landslide loss as the Republican nominee for president and a year later Bill Buckley this this journalist and you know and and and public personality public intellectual Decides he's gonna run for mayor of New York City What, what was that about and what was he trying to accomplish?
Well I think it started almost as a lark. He gave a speech to, uh, an association of police officers, of NYPD officers who were Catholic and in, in that speech he defended policing. Sound familiar? And Right. got a huge response and so when they published the speech in the next issue of National Review, kind of as a joke, um, his sister, the managing editor, put on the cover a headline, Buckley for Mayor?
And you know, usually when you see a [00:32:00] question mark at the end of a headline, the answer is no. But in this case, Buckley was kind of thinking about it and saying, you know what, I'm going to do it. Why? Well, in the aftermath of the Goldwater defeat, Buckley wanted to demonstrate that conservatives had an actual governing vision, that they had ideas that they could be applied, that they could apply everywhere, including America's cities.
The other reason he wanted to do it was the frontrunner for the mayoralty of New York that year was Congressman John Lindsay, who was a liberal Republican. He was a Republican, but he was a liberal in, in ideology. And in Buckley's mind, everything that was wrong with the Republican Party. Absolutely.
Buckley wanted to make the Republican Party a conservative party. Right. And so he wanted to show A, that there was an alternative to Lindsay, and B, maybe knock Lindsay out by, by splitting the Republican vote. That's not what happened. What the irony is that the people most receptive to Buckley's message were not [00:33:00] the Republicans in New York.
It was working class Democrats in the outer boroughs who really responded to Buckley's attacks on the governing establishment in the city, his defense of the police, his defense of traditional values and of competition and choice and economics. And so Buckley wins 13 percent of the vote in 1965. But the 13 percent comes a lot from the democratic base, the working class base.
And so he goes into the race trying to upset John Lizzie. He ends up defeating the Democrat, Abebeem. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, uh, for our listeners, if you want to read a great book, The Unmaking of a Mayor, which is Buckley's book about his run for mayor, which, which was even, I think probably better than following the actual mayoral campaign day to day.
And, uh, And it, it really, it, you, and so many of the issues you read about in that book, as you say Matt, are, as, like I say, this [00:34:00] is someone living in New York City now, are some of the same issues we're dealing with today, I mean it's, you know, it's like the great relearning to, to quote, uh, Tom Wolfe. Okay, so that's 65, so 64 Reagan, I mean, 64 Goldwater gets decimated at the polls, 65 Buckley, Buckley does this sort of, you know, um, quirky run for mayor.
And, and then 66, much to, I think, the political class surprise, a young, not so young, I guess, an actor from California, Ronald Reagan, gets elected in 66 as governor of California, which, which was a surprise. As a conservative, as someone who really Um, had been trending in a, uh, toward the Republican party for many years.
Finally, switches in, uh, 1962, I think is when he switched his res registration when he was 50, but he didn't be 51 years old. He was 51 years old. Right. Um, then he [00:35:00] makes his debut with his famous time for choosing Speech and defense of Goldwater that was televised right before the election. Uh, and it.
Immediately people are like, well, Reagan, you have to go into politics. And he goes, well, I'm going to kind of look toward the state in 1965 and see if there's an audience for my ideas. And of course there was, um, so he wins in a landslide. Uh, and that I think marks, uh, the, uh, real. Wake up call that because now we're moving toward the conservative movement Not only having a set of ideas not only standing for for You know principles that are easily defined and can be easy to communicate but now we actually have political success In Ronald Reagan and, um, and the opportunity to govern.
So he immediately becomes, um, the most famous conservative in America, the [00:36:00] leader of the leader of conservatives. Um, and in fact, and it's interesting to consider some of these. Uh, figures who've won elections recently, uh, Reagan thinks about throwing his hat in the ring for the presidency in 1968. And Nixon, uh, is worried about that, uh, as Nixon plots his comeback from defeat in 1960.
Uh, he And defeat of 19 1960 and 62 when he ran for governor. Right, exactly. Yeah. So Reagan Four years later, Reagan wins. An office that Nixon loses. Yeah, defeats the guy that beat, um, Nixon, Pat Brown, Jerry Brown's dad. Um, Nixon makes sure, heading into 1968, that he has what he calls the Buckleyites. Uh, Buckley and his, his crew, uh, at least on his side, you know, or at least, uh, you know, not hostile to him.
Um, and so, yes, so, so it's a, within a span of three years, as you point out, [00:37:00] things change very quickly for the American right and the conservative movement. Uh, the, another figure that obviously doesn't loom as large as, certainly as Reagan and, and, You know, Buchanan, Buckley, I mean, some of these names were, were, uh, Goldwater that were, were dropping.
But again, back to the memory lane and, and, and therapy session, one figure that had, uh, a lot of influence on my own thinking was, was Jack Kemp, right? So former Buffalo Bills quarterback, the fact that he was NFL quarterback is not the only reason I was fond of Jack Kemp, but 1970, he gets elected to Congress, uh, from Buffalo.
And can you describe the role, what he tried to do, before we get to supply side economics, just his, his, his approach to conservative, you know, he called himself a cold, what is, what is, uh, a bleeding heart, a bleeding heart conservative, right. So what was he trying to do with conservative politics when, when he got in it?
[00:38:00] Uh, Jack Kemp wanted to make the American right forward looking, optimistic, and inclusive. And um, that included the working class, uh, union members, um, from Buffalo, you know, industrial city. Um, it also included, uh, racial and ethnic minorities. You know, coming from professional sports, having many strong relationships with African Americans, Kemp was always interested in broadening the coalition.
And he also had, uh, But in the, sorry, but in the first group, in that first demographic, the working class, he wasn't, it wasn't a politics of resentment. It was, it was a politics of, uh, ideas about opportunity and inclusion, not about, you know, you've been screwed, you know, you should be resentful. And it wasn't politics of rage.
No, it was a, it was a very, um, hopeful populism. So if it was populism in this, but it was populism directed toward, as you [00:39:00] say, opportunity and openness, the idea that actually having an open, uh, economy, having incentives in our economy that will help working class people, right? So it's not about closing off.
It's not about shutting down. Um, it's about. And that was the argument he started making as a congressman. And, uh, then he becomes an advocate of, uh, an across the board tax cut to fight stagflation. Um, and this idea is part of the philosophy that becomes known as supply side economics. And he was very entrepreneurial.
In terms of how he tried to bring that into Republican politics, obviously there was Jude Wininski and Art Laffer and others in the academic and intellectual world who were working with him. So, explain how that philosophy and set of prescriptions got attached to the Reagan agenda. Sure. [00:40:00] Well, so, uh, supply side is the idea that cuts in marginal tax rates are going to incentivize, uh, Production, um, and growth and jobs and but supply sides, not just a economic idea.
It's also, in my view, a political philosophy, which lends itself to populism, basically saying that if we leave individuals to make their own choices. And give them as much of their, uh, hard earned money as possible, that's going to help everybody in the end. It's, it's, and in fact, what government, what Republicans can do, if Democrats are providing entitlements, what Republicans can do is provide growth and opportunity.
So it's not just. A negative message, which was associated with a lot of conservative economics that we have to cut spending. We have to balance the budget. That's it. It's it's a much more positive message, which is well, [00:41:00] we're going to create opportunities for you to, uh, to flourish, right? And so this is a very powerful idea, especially at a time when you have people rebelling against high tax rates against bracket creep, right?
Inflation driving people into higher tax brackets. property tax rates. You have the tax rebellion in California and Howard Jarvis. Um, so there's a growing movement, uh, that, uh, that is pushing against these, these punitive tax rates in our society. Um, and The Kemp idea is, is gaining traction in the late 1970s.
Ronald Reagan was not a supply sider at this point. Um, he actually kind of hewed more closely to the traditional Republican view, which we need to just control the spending and balance the budget and be fiscally prudent and everything else. will take care of itself. Uh, but Reagan [00:42:00] is also a savvy politician.
He understands that, uh, 1980 will really be his last chance at the presidency because at this point, you know, he's in his sixties and that. Jack Kemp is a potential threat. Sorry, that seems like such a young age now. Yeah, yeah Well, so Reagan was the oldest president when he, uh, for his time, because he was 70 when he became president, and then Trump is 71, and then of course we have Biden.
Right. So, Yeah, so Reagan is a spring chicken in comparison. So he, he basically has an arrangement with Kemp that Kemp is going to become Uh, his chief economic surrogate that Reagan will take on the Kemp economic program, the supply side program, and Kemp will support him in the 1980 Republican primary.
And so that's how Ronald Reagan became a supply [00:43:00] sider and carried those ideas into the White House. Okay. So now let's fast forward to this era, the Trump era, and you write a lot about Papu Cannon. And so. Can you talk a little bit about what, what we should have been learning about Pat Buchanan to understand what we were about to head into in 2015 and 2016?
Well, I think, uh, there was a sense, uh, within the Republican establishment and within, uh, the conservative intellectual movement that Pat Buchanan's runs for the presidency in 92, 96, and 2000 showed that His worldview, which is that post Cold War, the American right needed to return to its pre World War II configuration to be America first and unconcerned with foreign involvement [00:44:00] to close ourselves off insulate ourselves from global economic competition as well as immigration The idea was that, that his defeats throughout the 1990s meant that those ideas had a ceiling, that they wouldn't, they would never really become popular within the Republican Party.
But, uh, that was not true. Uh, and what, what really what those races showed was that there will always be A large portion of the American right that believes in these Buchananite or pre World War II American right ideas. And when you get to the Bush, the George W. Bush administration and the war in Iraq, the arguments over immigration reform, those Buchananite ideas start making a big comeback and they play [00:45:00] into the developing, um, antagonism between Republican and conservative elites.
And the populist grassroots. So that's, I think what we should have been paying attention to. And so then Trump comes on the scene and where, where does that find us? Where does that find the conservative movement? Were you, were you, by the way, were you shocked by, by what you learned about the conservative movement when Trump comes on the scene, or not?
No, uh, I, you know, I've been writing about American populism, um, for a while now. My, my last book was about Sarah Palin and the reception of her by the, by the media and by elites of all parties. Um, it's ironic that You know, that book came out 13 years ago and now my, my new book is out and Sarah Palin is back and ready for Congress, you know, perfect time where, yeah, we're, we're [00:46:00] always twin together, uh, she and I.
Um, so I was not surprised by Trump. Uh, I was not surprised that he, uh, Won the nomination. Um, I think I was surprised when he ran the presidency, like a lot of people, um, but it made a certain amount of sense in retrospect. Um, where are we now? We're, I think the easiest way to put it, Dan, is that the people who were at the center of the American right between the years of, you know, 19, just the most recent 30 year period, right?
So if you go from 1992 to 2022, they're now on the outside looking in. And the people who were on the outside for much of that period, people like Buchanan, um, they're now at the center of things. And so the, the people who are at the center of the right, uh, have [00:47:00] changed. And what's interesting now about Buchananite philosophy is for much of its history, it had been unattached to institutions that could support it.
But it, because Trump won the presidency in the years since that happened. There's been a lot of building and infrastructure for those ideas of America First, for, um, economic protection or industrial policy, and for immigration restriction. And so the, this battle that I talk about in my, in my book, um, is almost certainly to, to continue.
And in actuality, um, right now has been decided in favor, I think, of. Of the populist grassroots and and the the more nationalist forces in the party, but when you look at Trump's first year, first two years in office, he was elected clearly in this populist wave that you describe, and [00:48:00] yet the, the legislative agenda that passed was, was led by, you know, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan, it was basically a Federalist Society agenda on the courts and judicial appointments and a, and a mostly, although not entirely, um, Free market tax cutting agenda in terms of fiscal policy that, that Paul Ryan engineered and led in the house.
And it seemed that the white house had to some degree kind of outsourced, uh, policymaking and legislative agenda setting to these two very, uh, pre pre Trump post Buchanan, pre Trump, uh, Republican leaders who you say were, were. On the inside for a while and should have been on the outside, but they actually weren't on the outside They were on the inside and they were they were implementing a policy agenda that Trump owned but was [00:49:00] really the McConnell Ryan Agenda.
Yeah, I mean You're right. I mean in a sense that Trump's lasting accomplishments Will be the tax reform which you know, knock on wood looks like it's safe. Yeah, and this court The, the three justices he put on the Supreme Court. And what he did in the lower courts, too. And all the judges in the lower courts, yeah.
And those are long standing conservative goals. I mean, even in the tax reform, one of its elements was opening up ANWR, you know, to drilling. I mean, conservatives have been for that for 30 years, 40 years. Um, so why is that? Well, Trump has to work within a coalition. Especially at that part of his presidency, those first two years, uh, where you still have the remnants of that conservative governing class, right?
In charge, um, and he, Trump understands the transactionalism in order to get to where he, he was, he had to convince people who cared about judges that he [00:50:00] was going to govern, uh, alongside the federalist society to people who cared about tax cuts. He was bringing all the supply siders in. Even on defense, remember, he plussed up defense, you know, not as much as I would have liked, but he did increase it.
Um, and he talked about rebuilding our military. So for defense hawks, he had something there. Um, it's when, it's when he loses the Congress, or he loses the House first, um, in 2018, uh, that, uh, he, he, he kind of moves toward the Trumpian Side of things and then you have tariff man and then you have the declaration of an emergency so he can begin the wall construction And then you have this kind of Continual debate over.
Well, what what is America first foreign policy mean in practice, right? It definitely it means, you know meeting up with Kim Jong un and becoming besties with him I'm [00:51:00] not sure but the mixed results of that, you know, I meant, you know meant lowering our forces in Europe Um, redeploying them to Eastern Europe in some cases, uh, uh, you know, so it, it, that, that was kind of still unformed.
It meant, it meant taking out Soleimani, uh, which is something I quite welcomed, um, but it also meant that you wouldn't respond after the Iranian proxies attacked the Aramco and attacked these major, uh, shipping, uh, containers, uh, in the, in the Persian Gulf. So. I think in the second half of his presidency, he, he kind of moved away from the more establishment ideas, um, and closer to the Trump one.
But I will say that. I think one of the lessons of my book is that for the right to be successful, it has to be a synthesis now of populism and of a constitutional conservatism. Um, they both [00:52:00] sides need each other. Uh, the constitutional conservatives won't get anywhere without the votes of the populists.
And the populists, if they, if they really want to achieve their goals. If they really want to solve some of the problems that is, that are driving this discontent, they need ideas. They need policy ideas. That the constitutional conservatives can provide them. So when the synthesis, when it is a synthesis, it can be very successful.
I think right now though, um, the, the, it's more conflictual than it is cooperative between the two camps. And what, where does that leave you heading into 2022? The midterms in 2024 in terms of, I mean, obviously the big question, does Trump run or does he not? I'm just struck by some of this polling we've seen where Trump's approval rating among Republican primary voters is very high, you know, mid to high eighties.
And then when questions are asked of Republican primary voters, [00:53:00] who best to continue on the Trump agenda or, you know, to lead going forward the, the make America great agenda. And, you know, should it be Trump or should room be made for. New leaders and the Trump number like drops like in half So what's going on there?
Well a couple things. I mean, so just for 2022 I think things are shaping up to for a massive Republican year and so this question then becomes all the more important which is Do the do the Republicans? know what they want to do when they're in power, and also when they're in power under divided government.
Because the last time this happened during the Obama presidency, the grassroots right got very frustrated very quickly that a Congress could not enact an agenda. Over the president's veto power and that kind of that frustration, I think opened up room for a figure like Trump to come out to come in from outside [00:54:00] the system.
So I think we have to be very wary of that and Republican candidates ought to be prepared for what they would do once they're in power, because I think otherwise, and maybe even if there is an agenda anyway, I think that the the gravity pulling them toward impeaching Biden. Will be huge will be powerful like that will be the agenda on next year and which will be a loss for the country I think because we have big problems and then just briefly on Trump.
Um, I think that polling you mentioned is dead on There is no way that you were going to go anywhere in the Republican Party saying that you oppose Donald Trump That's just the reality but there is a way I think you can go forward in the Republican Party saying You admire Donald Trump, you supported Donald Trump, you continue to support the agenda items that Trump stood for.
However, you think it's time that the [00:55:00] party move on and find a new champion who is in alignment with Trump, but is also talking about the issues people care about. rather than looking back to the 2020 election. I do think there's space for that, and I do think there's going to be several people who are going to run for president in 2024, no matter what Donald Trump chooses.
So if he did decide, if he does decide, and he definitely gives every indication that he's leaning this way, if he does decide to re enter the race in 2024, it won't be uncontested. And, um You believe that? You believe there will be other candidates? I think I agree with you. Yeah, I can think of a few names.
I'm now whether they'll pose a threat to him. Who knows but but he'll have to go through debates Right. I think he would prefer to just get a coronation and just go and see what happens up against Biden or Harris or whomever But I'd think that people will go in and challenge him And the question is can he can he pull [00:56:00] it off again?
I think if he only has to offer His, uh, resentment over losing in 2020. I even think in a Republican primary, that won't be enough, you know? I mean, uh, I just see Well, say what you want about him. In 2016, Yeah. He ran on ideas. He had an agenda. Right. He had Build the wall. Build a wall, confront China, America first, cut taxes, bomb ISIS.
I mean, he had a lot of ideas. Uh, uh, right now he's mainly fixated on 2020. And I think that even Republicans want to focus on inflation, crime, and schools. And, look, Trump's no dummy. He might get that, what happens in some of these primaries actually might communicate to him that it's time to start focusing on other things, if he really wants, uh, to become not only the nominee, but the next president.
And for those who are [00:57:00] Demoralized by the degree to which the party seems to be still, like, in the grip of this, you know, the last four years of Republican presidency. You, you, coming back to your book, I mean, 64, 65, 66, you know, it just shows you, to your point, things can change very quickly. Right. Yeah.
Yeah. Who knows what will happen. I mean, even when we talk about a figure like Ron DeSantis, for example, who is really the start of the, you know, if Trump is the big son, uh, you know, uh, Ron DeSantis is just a smaller son. You know, he's, he's also really exerting an influence over the party right now. Um, his worry ought to be, is he peaking too soon?
Right. Because because these things happen to develop very suddenly and even think about where we were in terms of the 16 cycle now Right, we were all getting ready for for Rubio and Cruz, you know And and Scott Walker, right, right and then here comes Trump, [00:58:00] right? So things can change very quickly and they can change in unexpected ways I would just add with the Santas for what it's worth.
I don't I mean, he's interesting for you I don't think he's speaking too soon. First of all the whole conservative Story these days is about Ron DeSantis. Totally. Follow conservative media. He is, talk about a protagonist. He is the protagonist. It's not just him going on television providing commentary on news of the day.
He is, he is, he is the story. Everyone's going on to talk about him. Yeah, the commentary is about him. Right. Yeah. Right. So he's the guy with the cape and the S on his face. Absolutely. You know what I mean? And so, And you know, it gets under Trump's skin. Of course. And so, and that is, let's just assume that carries through this because he's running for reelection.
So it gets him to at least the fall of 2022, because he's going to continue over the next few months to be stoking these, you know, these very effectively these, these, uh, you know, these debates and what someone called culture wars, whatnot, that that'll keep them front and center in the news. And then you blink.
And it's early [00:59:00] 2023, and the field starts to, you know People start making decisions. Right. Yeah, so Yeah, I mean, this is not, this is not an endorsement of him. I'm just saying, I actually think he's, he's in, he's in decent shape. It's similar to the shape that Chris Christie was in, in 2010 and 2011. And he, you know, should have, you know, had he run for president, he would have been very competitive in a Republican primary.
Yeah, I guess I just, we should hope that there are no traffic jams on any of the bridges in Florida in the coming months. Fair enough. All right, Matt, we will leave it there. Uh, the book is called The Right, The Hundred Year War for American Conservatism. Uh, Basic Books is the publisher. You should order it.
We will plug it again at the end of the podcast. And we only scratched the surface, uh, of this, of this important book. And it is, like I said, chock full of good color and anecdotes and analysis. And I would say su Like real dispassionate analysis for someone who sits so much in the center of the story.
So, uh, [01:00:00] that that's no small feat. So Matt, thanks. Thanks for joining us. We'll have you back. Thank you, Dan. It was a pleasure to be here.
That's our show for today. Be sure to order Matt's new book, The Right, The Hundred Year War for American Conservatism. You can order it at barnesandnoble. com, your favorite independent bookstore, or That other e commerce site, I think they're calling it Amazon. You can also follow him on Twitter at Continetti.
That's at C O N T I N E T T I. Call Me Back is produced by Alain Benatar. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.