Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values Josh Lewis

In an age of rampant informalities, shoddy attire, and the kind of milieu that makes People of Walmart a possibility, conservatives stand athwart history yelling STOP!  Joining Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is the impeccably dressed Samuel Goldman to explore how conservatism informs the world of fashion, why legendary figures on the Right from Russell Kirk to Albert J Nock to Willmoore Kendall wore such questionably lavish accessories, the connective tissues between intellectual conservatism and 90s era punk rock, and much more.
 
About Samuel Goldman
Samuel Goldman is an associate professor of political science at George Washington University, where he is also executive director of the John L. Loeb, Jr. Institute for Religious Freedom and director of the Politics & Values Program.
 
Samuel is the Editor of FUSION, an online journal inspired by the belief that Western civilization is defined by intertwined threads of freedom and tradition, innovation and order, rights and duties.  In addition to academic work, his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.
 
His most recent book, After Nationalism: Being American in a Divided Age was published by University of Pennsylvania Press in spring 2021.  His first book God’s Country: Christian Zionism in America was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2018.  Samuel received his Ph.D. from Harvard and taught at Harvard and Princeton before coming to GW.  You can follow Samuel on Twitter @SWGoldman
 
For those interested in learning more about men’s fashion, Samuel recommends the following resources:
 
Blogs
 
Put This On
 
Die, Workwear
 
Necktie Salvage
 
Books
 
Dressing the Man: Mastering the Art of Permanent Fashion
 
True Style: The History and Principles of Classic Menswear
 
The Casual Style Guide
 
Gentleman: A Timeless Guide to Fashion
 
Hollywood and the Ivy Look
 
Saving Elephants is coming to YouTube!
We’re thrilled to announce that Saving Elephants will be launching a YouTube channel in August with full-length episodes, exclusive shorts, and even live events!  Further details coming soon...
 

In an age where what passes for the archetype conservative are the likes of Candace Owens, Bill Mitchell, Sean Hannity, Matt Gaetz, Tomi Lahren, and Donald Trump, it can be discouraging for those of us who take pride in the rich legacy and colorful history of thinkers on the Right to be associated with such grifters, demagogues, and charlatans.
 
Trying to define conservatism is challenging and trying to compile a list of individuals who best exemplify conservatism is problematic.  Yet this is becoming increasingly important in a world where “conservatism” is quickly being coopted by reactionary nationalist populists who have little to nothing in common with the namesake.
 
In this episode Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis offers his list of conservative thinkers well worthy of your time and attention. 
 
Disclaimer
This list is imperfect and incomplete.  If I were to revisit the list next year or possibly even next week, I’m sure there are plenty of names I’d believe should supplant the names here.  Some of these individuals may even be uncomfortable with the label “conservative”, though they all share aspects of the broader conservative worldview.  The names below are not listed in order of preference or importance, but they are all insightful and noteworthy.
 
The fifty individuals discussed in this episode are noted below.  If you’d like to learn more about each one you can check out the original blog post of Fifty Conservative Thinkers for a brief bio and links.
 
Josh’s (Incomplete) List of Fifty Conservative Thinkers Worth Your Time
Edmund Burke
Milton Friedman
Wilhelm Röpke
David Bahnsen
F.A. Hayek
John Adams
Frederick Douglass
Thomas Sowell
James Madison
Barry Goldwater
Ronald Reagan
Bradley J. Birzer
Russell Kirk
Matthew Continetti
David French
Gertrude Himmelfarb
George Nash
Stephen J. Tonsor
Roger Scruton
Jacques Ellul
Whittaker Chambers
Michael Oakeshott
Eric Voegelin
Timothy Carney
C.S. Lewis
G.K. Chesterton
Jonah Goldberg
Wendell Berry
T.S. Eliot
Ross Douthat
Mary Eberstadt
M. Stanton Evans
Irving Kristol
George Will
William F. Buckley
Kristen Soltis Anderson
Robert Nisbet
Carly Fiorina
Arthur Brooks
Marian Tupy
Charles Marohn
Patrick Deneen
Harry Jaffa
Walter Williams
Frank S. Meyer
Alexis de Tocqueville
Lord Acton
Leo Stauss
Willmoore Kendall
Yuval Levin

In February of 2004 the late Charles Krauthammer delivered the keynote address at AEI’s Annual Dinner.  It was a year into the Iraqi war and several years into the War on Terror.  Krauthammer’s address—entitled Democratic Realism—lauded much of the Bush administration’s approach to the war, but offered some stern warnings on how the war and rebuilding efforts might go awry.  His warnings proved to be profoundly prescient as the following years led to the disillusionment of what broadly (and wrongly) became known as NeoCon foreign policy.
 
What had the Right missed in Krauthammer’s warnings?  What foreign policy approaches has the United States historically taken, and are any of them still relevant?  How might conservatism shed light on the most appropriate foreign policy we could pursue?  Joining Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is returning guest Michael Lucchese to think through the lessons learned in American foreign policy.
 
About Michael Lucchese
Michael Lucchese is the founder and CEO of Pipe Creek Consulting, a communications firm based in Washington, D.C., and a visiting scholar at the Liberty Fund.  Previously, he was a communications aide to U.S. Senator Ben Sasse.
 
He received a BA in American Studies at Hillsdale College and was a Hudson Institute Political Studies fellow and an alumnus of the Röpke-Wojtyła Fellowship at Catholic University of America's Busch School of Business.

Michael is an Associate Editor at Law & Liberty and a contributing editor to Providence.  His writings have also appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Examiner and National Review, Engelsberg Ideas, and Public Discourse. Michael Lucchese is from Chicago, Illinois.
 
Michael was a previous guest on Saving Elephants in episode 143 – The Conservative Mind at 70 with Michael Lucchese
 

How might music point us to the good, the true, and the beautiful?  What is the purpose of music, and we are guilty of misusing it?  Why are we so obsessed with Taylor Swift?  Musician and conservative journalist Barney Quick joins Josh to discuss how conservatism might better inform our approach to music.  Also discussed are whether or not the elephants can be saved at all, how an owning-the-libs approach misses the spirit of conservatism, and whether or not Principles First has lost its first principles.
 
About Barney Quick
Barney Quick is a journalist whose work appears in magazine features.  He is a frequent contributor to Ordinary Times and a Senior Freelance Contributor for The Freeman News-Letter.  He has been maintaining his blog, Late in the Day, since 2012.  But you can find the bulk of his writings on his substack Precipice.
 
Barney is also a musician and jazz guitarist who could find lucrative gigs, but is well aware he’s chosen a musical life that isn’t going to pay a lot of bills.
 
Barney is an adjunct lecturer in jazz history and rock and roll history at his local community college.
 
You can follow Barney on Twitter @Penandguitar
 

After a stint of episodes taking deep dives into obscure topics, Josh returns to some conservative first-principles by inviting long-time friend of the podcast Cal Davenport on for a wide-ranging discussion on whether or not the fusionist consensus is truly dead, why all the energy in the Right seems to be going towards the NatCons, what’s leading to the rise of populism, how to repackage conservative ideas into digestible slogans, who belongs on the Mt. Rushmore of conservative thought, and how Edmund Burke factors into all of this.  Trigger warning for the Straussian listener: this episode gets a bit Burke-y.
 
About Cal Davenport
Cal Davenport is a veteran podcaster and writer.  He has written for The Wasington Examiner, RedState, The Resurgent and more.  He has worked in Congress, for political campaigns, for think tanks, and in political consulting.  Cal received his M.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Witten/Herdecke University.  You can follow Cal on Twitter @jcaldavenport
 

David Bahnsen returns to the podcast to discuss his latest book: Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life.  David holds a high view of work and, in an era where self-help gurus are teaching us how to work less to achieve a work/life balance, David wants to shift the paradigm to work/rest and celebrate the productive nature of our being.  Also discussed in this episode are what the church gets wrong about work, how each generation brings different challenges and advantages to work culture, universal basic income (UBI), whether the Marxist are right and work under a capitalist system is exploitation, and what the future of retirement might mean for working Americans.
 
About David Bahnsen
From David’s website:
 
David L. Bahnsen is the founder, Managing Partner, and Chief Investment Officer of The Bahnsen Group, a bi-coastal private wealth management firm with offices in Newport Beach, CA, New York City, Minneapolis, and Nashville managing over $3.5 billion in client assets.  David is consistently named as one of the top financial advisors in America by Barron’s, Forbes, and the Financial Times.  He is a frequent guest on CNBC, Bloomberg, and Fox Business and is a regular contributor to National Review and Forbes.  He has written his own political viewpoint blog for over a decade.
 
David serves on the Board of Directors for the National Review Institute and was the Vice-President of the Lincoln Club of Orange County for eight years.  He is a committed donor and activist across all spectrums of national, state, and local politics, and views the cause of Buckley and Reagan as the need of the hour.
 
David is passionate about opposition to crony capitalism, and has lectured and written for years about the need for pro-growth economic policy.  Every part of his political worldview stems from a desire to see greater freedom as a catalyst to greater human flourishing.
 
He is the author of the book, Crisis of Responsibility: Our Cultural Addiction to Blame and How You Can Cure It and his most recent book, There’s No Free Lunch: 250 Economic Truths.
 
His ultimate passions are his lovely wife of 18+ years, Joleen, their gorgeous and brilliant children, sons Mitchell and Graham, and daughter Sadie, and the life they’ve created together in Newport Beach, California.