Michael Lucchese on Understanding Reagan's Conservatism and Buchanan's Populism
A conversation with Michael Lucchese about the '90s political fallout and how it came to shape conservative thinking 30 years later.
In this episode of Civitas Conversations, Richard M. Reinsch II interviews Michael Lucchese about his recent Civitas Outlook article "Not-So-Beautiful Losers: How Conservatism Won the Cold War – and Lost the Peace." In it, Lucchese argues that figures like Samuel T. Francis and Pat Buchanan abandoned Reagan's principled conservatism in the 1990s, embracing what he calls "right-wing Marxism," which focuses on class warfare and grievances rather than the principles of the American Founding. He contends this shift toward populist extremism planted the seeds for today's polarized politics and calls for a return to Reagan's approach that appealed to Americans' better angels rather than their fears and resentments.
Michael Lucchese is the founder of Pipe Creek Consulting, an associate editor of Law & Liberty, and a contributing editor to Providence.
Mamdani’s Baseless Invocation of International Law
The entire left-wing establishment is completely defenseless against Mamdani’s invocations of international law and the vague insinuation that Zionist Jews are doing something wrong.
The Future of ESG and DEI
Though things will likely not become as radical as the Covid hysteria of 2020 and 2021, there is still plenty of institutional “muscle memory” for ESG that will make its re-emergence all too easy.
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