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131 – Witnessing Whittaker with Sam Tanenhaus

Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values

Release Date: 05/16/2023

195 – Geeking Out with Lauren Hall show art 195 – Geeking Out with Lauren Hall

Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values

In a world of exhaustive binary thinking sometimes complexity offers relief.  Lauren Hall joins the show to offer her alternative living in 4D she calls “radical moderation”.  In the latter half of the conversation Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis happily takes Lauren up on her offer to geek out on Edmund Burke.   About Lauren Hall Excerpts from   Lauren Hall is an author and professor helping people combat overwhelm in an age of extremes. Her writing rejects binary and black-and-white thinking to help people lead more balanced lives, build stronger relationships, and...

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194 – Conversing Across the Pond with Daniel Pitt show art 194 – Conversing Across the Pond with Daniel Pitt

Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values

Dr. Daniel Pitt and his imposing mustache joins Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis to explore the similarities and differences between American and British conservatism, proto-Burkean “conservative” thinkers, Pitt’s personal relationship with Sir Roger Scruton, and the importance of unchosen obligations in a free society, all offered up in a wonderfully meandering conversation that nonetheless stays within the broader parameters of some conceivable structure analogous to the conservative vision of ordered liberty.  Undoubtedly, Michael Oakeshott would have been proud.   About...

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193 – Dissenting the Dissident Right with Stephanie Slade show art 193 – Dissenting the Dissident Right with Stephanie Slade

Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values

While Saving Elephants defends the classical conservative position, the loudest voices on the Right today coalesce around different policies, priorities, and goals.  Those that form the dissident Right are comprised of multiple sub-groups with overlapping and, at times, incompatible views.  So who is this disparate group of dissidents?  What holds them together, and how do they differ from conservatives?  Joining Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is Stephanie Slade to explore the contours of the dissident Right.   About Stephanie Slade From Stephanie Slade is a senior...

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Roundtable - What Lieth Ahead show art Roundtable - What Lieth Ahead

Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values

Does the fractious stupidity of our politics, the rapid advancement of AI, and the release of the final season of Stranger Things portend making America great again or the coming apocalypse? Join our panelists for a (definitive, obviously) glimpse into what's in store for us all in 2026. Panelists include:  - VP of Comms with the   - Host of   - Host of   - Host of 

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192 – Remnant Redux with Jonah Goldberg show art 192 – Remnant Redux with Jonah Goldberg

Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values

Jonah Goldberg makes his triumphal return to Saving Elephants where host Josh Lewis peppers him with unyielding questions on what his fourth and forthcoming book will be about, the practicality of setting lottery winnings as a life-goal, what a post-Trump GOP might look like, whether it makes sense to even “save” the elephants, and whether we should welcome human enslavement to our future AI overlords.   Remnant fans, have your bingo cards at the ready!   About Jonah Goldberg From   Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief and co-founder of , based in Washington, D.C. Prior to...

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191 – Canceling Caylan with Caylan Ford show art 191 – Canceling Caylan with Caylan Ford

Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values

In 2019 Caylan Ford resigned her political candidacy in Canada after controversy over allegations of her echoing white nationalist rhetoric.  In spite of her resignation—and continual insistence she held no such views—the mobs of cancel culture demanded “justice”.  She was blacklisted from employers, unable to continue work with organizations that seek to liberate people living under the yoke of totalitarianism, ostracized by friends and colleagues, attacked and trolled online, and shunned by her community.   Caylan joins Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis to share her...

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Roundtable - Buckley Turns 100 show art Roundtable - Buckley Turns 100

Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values

William F Buckley was one of the most important figures in the conservative movement over the past century. His posthumous 100th birthday is Monday, November 24. Come celebrate the life and legacy of Buckley as our Saving Elephant panelists pay tribute to a conservative life well lived. Panelists include:  - CEO of  Michael Lucchese - Founder and CEO of  - Podcaster, professor, ect.

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Roundtable - Taking Federalism Seriously show art Roundtable - Taking Federalism Seriously

Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values

Returning to the Founders' blueprint for dividing power across federal, state, and local governments may be the greatest weapon we have to reverse the appalling state of our politic divisiveness. What is federalism? And what would a recommitment to federalism look like? Saving Elephants welcomes panelists from the State Policy Network and the Acton Institute to discuss what it means to take federalism seriously again.  The panelists include: Brooke Medina - VP of Comms with the State Policy Network Jenn Butler - Sr Policy Advisor with the State Policy Network Dan Hugger - Librarian and...

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190 – Biographizing Buckley with Sam Tanenhaus show art 190 – Biographizing Buckley with Sam Tanenhaus

Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values

There are four faces on the Saving Elephants’ Mount Rushmore of great conservatives: Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, Thomas Sowell, and William F. Buckley.  While the first three have each had fully episodes dedicated to their life and works, William F. Buckley has yet to be explored at length.  And with Buckley’s posthumous 100th birthday happening later this month, now is the perfect time to reflect on his long and remarkable life.   Sam Tanehaus’ decades-in-the-making biography of Buckley was published earlier this year and he joins Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis to cover...

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189 – Rescuing the American Project with Nathan Brown and Robert Haglund show art 189 – Rescuing the American Project with Nathan Brown and Robert Haglund

Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values

Those who identify as pro-immigration and pro-nationalist are often at odds with one another.  But what if a healthy dose of nationalism is the very thing that could bolster our immigration?  Nathan Brown and Robert Haglund argue in their new book that “much of the dysfunction in contemporary American politics is a consequence of the failure by our elites to understand the crucial relationship between immigration and nationalism.”   Nathan and Robert join Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis to explore the history and controversy of immigration in America, what the Left and the...

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In 1948 Whittaker Chambers shocked the nation when, while testifying before Congress, he gave the names of individuals he claimed were working within the United States government as Communist spies for the Soviet Union.  Among those named was Alger Hiss, Chamber’s close friend and former Communist comrade.  The ensuing trial quickly divided the nation into competing narratives.  Who was lying and who was telling the truth?  Was Chambers insane or, perhaps, seeking to destroy Hiss due to some personal grievance?  Was this merely a pretext to the coming Communist “purges” under the McCarthy hearings that took place a few years later?  Or had Chambers alerted the nation to the fact there were Soviet spies deep within the government and the prevailing liberal elite of that era had failed completely to respond to the threat?

 

Sam Tanenhaus, American historian, biographer, and journalist joins Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis to take a deep dive into the remarkable life of Whittaker Chambers, including how Chambers came to break with Communism, whether Hiss was truly guilty, the real threat of Communism of that era, what the Chambers/Hiss trial came to represent for the nation as a whole, Chamber’s association with William F. Buckley and the burgeoning conservative movement, and his lasting impact on the Right.

 

About Sam Tanenhaus

Sam Tanenhaus is the US Writer at Large for Prospect and the editor of both The New York Times Book Review and the Week in Review section of the Times.  From 1999 to 2004 he was a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, where he wrote often on politics.  His work has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, and many other publications.  Tanenhaus’s book, Whittaker Chambers: A Biography, won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.  His books also include The Death of Conservatism and a soon-to-be-released biography of William F. Buckley Jr. and is the US Writer at Large for Prospect.