How often have you heard someone say of a Republican politician that they don’t necessarily approve of everything they do or say, but at least they fight? What exactly do we mean when we say—often approvingly—that someone is a fighter? Why is the Right so concerned with whether or not someone is fighting? Who are they supposed to be fighting, and what does it mean to fight? What is the role of civility in public discourse, and is it possible to maintain an appropriate amount of civility while still fighting? If we grant that the Right seems to be on the losing end of the culture wars, what is the best course of action? Does fighting mean we develop our own form of cancel-culture and work to produce as many liberal tears as we can? Or does it mean we work to rebuild our own cultural values? Can both be done at the same time? Is it even possible to make cultural gains through political means?

Bob Burch joins Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis to hash out these questions and more in a conversation where they—ironically—have more to fight about than usual.

You would cry too if it happened to you

Anne Applebaum begins and ends her book Twilight of Democracy by describing two parties she and her husband had thrown. As members of the elite class in both Europe and North America, the couple’s guest lists could double as a who’s who in the upper echelons of the political center-Right.

The first gathering was a New Year’s party in 1999 and the second came twenty years later in August of 2019. Yet in that two-decade timespan so much had transpired in global politics that the collective moods and invitees at both parties seem fitting they took place in different centuries. For in that twenty-year span old friendships had been torn asunder and ideological differences had become so pronounced that many of the attendees considered one another enemies, let alone someone they could engage in civil conversation.

This phenomenon is hardly isolated to Anne Applebaum’s transitioning friendships, nor is she the only one to make such observations. The political realignment—particularly on the Right—has taken a toll on professional partners, friendships, whole communities, and even families. Here in the United States the rise of the alt-Right, nationalism, populism, and Trumpism has rendered the Republican party virtually unrecognizable from the party of Lincoln, Reagan, or even the Rush Limbaugh of the 90s. And while Anne Applebaum bemoans the shattered friendships from her dinner parties of yesteryear, I feel a similar alienation to my political party.

Saving Elephants is not a project in self-indulgent airing of grievances but, from time to time, I think it can be helpful to take stock of the damage done in the wake of the political advents over the past several years at a local level because it can be difficult to appreciate the true scope of the problem if we miss the trees for the forest, to invert an old metaphor. While the GOP’s descent into madness began to take shape years before Trump’s descent down the escalator, it has been punctuated by ever-increasing instances of insanity that culminated into the January 6 insurrection on the Capitol. And there appear to be no signs of stopping on its journey towards electoral oblivion.

Earlier this week, Oklahomans witnessed yet another example of political maleficence as former State Representative John Bennett was elected chair of the Oklahoma Republican Party. Bennett has quite a reputation for anti-Islamic rhetoric, claiming the Islamic faith “is a cancer in our nation that needs to be cut out”. He’s required Muslims to answer several written questions--such as “Do you beat your wife?”—prior to meeting with him. An Oklahoma Imam claims, “John Bennett looked me in the eye and told me that he was going to demolish my mosque and every mosque in town.”

Yet Bennett’s vindictive language has not been limited to the Islamic community. During the bruising state budget battles of former Governor Mary Fallin’s second term (in which many state agencies saw their budgets cut multiple times year after year), Bennett took great umbrage at those agencies who dared to suggest further cuts would have an impact on their ability to perform the same level of services. He complained that these state agencies were engaging in “terrorism” and “extortion”.

“We should not be negotiating with terrorists, period.” Bennett continued. He went on to ask when the last time a performance audit had been done on any agency and noted that two agencies had recently been caught misappropriating funds. His conclusion? “All these agencies are doing it; they just haven’t been caught yet.”

As an auditor with over a decade’s experience in the State Auditor’s Office—an Oklahoma state agency, no less—I feel particularly qualified in saying Bennett’s rhetoric on state budgets are about as informed as Matt Gaetz on…well, pick your subject matter. It is true that some state agencies were misappropriating funds, but the assertion that they’re all doing it, or that none of them had been audited, or that they all represent some endless reservoir of resources from which the legislators could continuously cut funding with no real consequences is so stupendously silly it doesn’t warrant a good-faith response.

I feel compelled to offer a brief aside on the matter of state agency budgets as I recognize my position with the state produces a certain amount of bias on my part. Reasonable people can disagree on budgetary questions. But during the budget battles of this era Bennett and some of his colleagues were engaged in dishonest rhetoric that claimed taxes didn’t need to be increased to cover the state’s budget deficits and that—somehow—state agencies could continue performing at the same level with significantly fewer resources. This well-worn sleight of hand is a favored tactic of legislators who prefer bumper-sticker philosophy rather than doing the actual work of legislating. By pointing to isolated cases of mishandled funds they ignore the far larger issue of hundreds of millions in budget shortfalls. If they were serious about reducing the size of government, they could have identified functions of government that could be reduced or eliminated. Instead, they peddled the lie that all that was necessary was for greedy, corrupt, and fraudulent state agencies to just get the same job done with fewer resources.

It is true that the politics of state and local parties are more fraught with unpredictable waves of extremism than is typical for those elected to public office. After all, the Chair of the Oklahoma Republican Party is elected by the small minority of registered Republicans who take the time to travel to the state’s convention. While some of Oklahoma’s finest civic-minded citizens participate, so too do those whose social life primarily consists of trying to save the world from their local party precinct.

Around the time I began to involve myself more in the local Republican party, the office of Chair of the Oklahoma Republican Party was held by Gary Jones who went on to become my former boss when he was elected State Auditor. Jones was succeeded by Matt Pinnell, Oklahoma’s current Lieutenant Governor who, at the time he served as Chair at the age of 29, was the youngest party chair in the country.

While I don’t share all of Jones or Pinnell’s views, they have my respect. Both of these men have an impressive résumé of service with the party both before and after serving as chair. At the time of their tenures, the GOP was filled with aspiring young leaders like Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio (before he went all “Common Good Capitalist”). Today it’s permeated with the likes of Bennett, Gaetz, and various other Trump-wannabes.

In my brief stint as Treasurer of the Tulsa Republican Party I became acquainted with fellow Republicans who selflessly devoted their time, talents, and treasurers to the betterment of the community. We had our disagreements, but most of us welcomed good faith debates over our differences and felt we were better off for them. Sure, there were kooks among us, but you never got the impression the inmates were running the asylum.

But that seems like a lifetime ago now. One of those members judged my activities on Twitter to be insufficiently Trumpy and contacted my employer in hopes of getting me reprimand or fired. A party that once welcomed vigorous debate can no longer tolerate the smallest signs of disloyalty to the man who spent much of the 2016 election and his presidency bad mouthing his fellow Republicans. Men like Bennett are less the outsiders they once were and are quickly becoming the new face of the GOP. It’s may party and I’ll cry if I want to. You would cry too if it happened to you.

“There's a well-worn tale about modern American conservatism,” writes Stephanie Slade in her piece for Reason entitle Is There a Future for Fusionism? “It says that the movement as we know it came into being during the mid–20th century as a ‘fusionist’ coalition of economic libertarians and religious traditionalists. These groups, whose goals and priorities differed from the start, were held together mainly by two things: the sheer charisma of National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr., and the shared enemy of global communism. As long as the Cold War endured, the story goes, each wing was willing to cede some ground to the other…But the fall of the USSR meant the collapse of the common foe that had sustained the fusionist partnership. It was able to trundle on for a while, powered by a reservoir of goodwill, but it has long been running on fumes. In the last few years, the alliance's inherent tensions have come to a head.”

The problem with this “well-worn tale”, Stephanie contends, is that it isn’t true. Fusionism, as developed by conservative thinkers from William F. Buckley Jr. to Frank Meyer, was a philosophical orientation that sought to advance both virtue and liberty as societal ends whereas the coalition on the Right that formed to combat global Communism was born out of political expediency. As such, fusionism is just as relevant in a world where Communism is no longer the global menace it was in the prior century, in spite of competing voices on the Right calling for a realignment of market-skeptical Common-Good Conservatism, nationalism, and populism.

Stephanie joins Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis to discuss the true history of fusionism, what it became the dominant consensus on the Right, and why it still remains relevant today. Also discussed are some common objections to fusionism, how fusionism can fit within the broader worldviews of libertarians, conservatives, and classical liberals, what is meant by “liberty” and “virtue”, and the seductive dangers of the post-liberal movement.

About Stephanie Slade

Stephanie Slade is managing editor at Reason, the libertarian magazine of "free minds and free markets." Prior to joining Reason, Stephanie worked as a speechwriter, a pollster, and a regular contributor to U.S. News and World Report. In 2013, she was named a finalist for the Bastiat Prize for Journalism. In 2016–2017, she was selected as a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow. She's a proud graduate of the University of Florida, where she earned a B.A. in economics. She also has an M.A. from American University. You can find her on Twitter @sladesr

The Saving Elephants podcast turns three years old today—no joke! To celebrate Saving Elephants is releasing a bonus episode: a re-podcast from the Conservative Minds podcast where Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis joined Corey Astill and Kyle Sammin to discuss Frank Meyer’s classic book What Is Conservatism?

About Conservative Minds

Conservative Minds is a podcast about conservative ideas and thinkers. Hosts Corey and Kyle explore what it means to call yourself a conservative, where conservatism has been, and where it's going. Each week, they select readings and conduct a discussion to share with you our investigation. You can join the conversation by liking them on Facebook or following them on Twitter at @consminds.

The book What Is Conservatism? contains multiple essays from twelve prominent conservative intellectuals compiled by the father of conservative fusionism himself, Frank Meyer. Just what is conservatism? Many people are groping for answers, especially as conservatives seem to retreat into factions—Tea Partiers, traditionalists, libertarians, social conservatives, neoconservatives, and on and on. But this illuminating book shows what unites conservatives even as it explores conservatism’s rich internal debate.

What Is Conservatism? features brilliant essays by such leading lights as:

• F. A. Hayek, Nobel Prize–winning economist and author of The Road to Serfdom
• William F. Buckley Jr., founder of National Review and the man perhaps most responsible for the rise of modern conservatism
• Russell Kirk, whose seminal book The Conservative Mind gave the conservative movement its name
• M. Stanton Evans, author of the conservative movement’s central credo, the “Sharon Statement” (1960)

It also includes a foreword by #1 New York Times bestselling author and The Dispatch founder Jonah Goldberg explaining the influence of What Is Conservatism? on conservative thought and the book’s relevance today.