House historian of the conservative movement, Lee Edwards, has been rescuing “Unsung Conservative Heroes” from obscurity. His aim? “To give proper place and praise to the unsung heroes without whom there would be no conservative movement in America.” Having worked on the history of conservatism and the conservative movement, I…

For the longest time, the right believed originalism to be synonymous with a respect for the Constitution. Adrian Vermeule wants to change that. — There’s a wolf among us. And according to legal thinker Randy Barnett, evoking conservative icon Antonin Scalia, “this wolf comes as a wolf.” Barnett means Adrian Vermeule, an increasingly prominent Catholic legal thinker, who went the intellectual equivalent of viral with a splashy essay in the Atlantic.

Checking in on how libertarians are grappling with the largely state-powered response to the coronavirus outbreak — “Depending on the time of day that you catch me, I’m either depressed or thinking, ‘Wow, this is a great opportunity here.’” So says Dr. Jeffrey Singer, a gregarious Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, on the prospects of libertarianism during the COVID-19 pandemic. Governments worldwide have responded to the…

The funny thing about liberalism is its optimism — With enough education, any problem can be solved; with enough good will, any conflict resolved. In the marketplace of ideas, the most truthful, most rational, most effective ideas will rise to the top. At least that was the idea. Liberalism’s optimism extended to its political foes. As the patron saint…

Rush on COVID-19 versus Rush on Ebola. What it means for the right. — On Wednesday, Donald Trump called into Fox News’s Hannity. Based on a “hunch,” the president downplayed the threat of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, in what Vox’s Aaron Rupar called “a blizzard of dangerous, irresponsible misinformation, all delivered within a span of just over two minutes.” It’s not much of a…

The American right is divided on porn. Ironically, it may be our Playboy-cover-donning, affair-with-a-porn-star-having president who bolsters the anti-porn side. — Conservatives are coming for porn. Late last year, four congresspersons wrote to Attorney General Bill Barr. They asked the Department of Justice to enforce obscenity laws and reduce access to pornography. The letter, signed by Brian Babin (R-Texas), Jim Banks (R-Ind.), Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.), and Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) claimed, “The…

What Jerry Falwell Jr. and Charlie Kirk’s new venture says about conservative evangelicals — Late last year, Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. joined forces—and names—with the young conservative organizer Charlie Kirk to found the Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty. Its mission: “to equip courageous champions to proclaim the truth of Jesus Christ, to advance his kingdom and American freedom.”

Examining the movement to reclaim a political slur — It’s hard to think of a word with a bigger image problem than “neoliberalism.” For one thing, it’s vague. When the intellectual historian Daniel Rodgers heroically defined it, he teased out four distinct meanings. But in spite of its vagaries, neoliberalism seems to stand for something unpopular. “In the wake…

Searching for the highest conservative value — It’s a sign of changing times when conservatives need to spell out what it means to be a conservative. As a typically defensive outlook, conservatives tend not articulate conservatism as an active philosophy (or feel the need to) unless their world is challenged. And when they do articulate their values…