Steve Hayward had his mojo working for his appearance on C-SPAN 2’s In Depth series yesterday. C-SPAN’s John McArdle interviewed Steve in a well-produced two-hour show reviewing Steve’s career and the books he has written including, most recently, M. Stanton Evans: Conservative Wit, Apostle of Freedom and Patriotism Is Not Enough: Harry Jaffa, Walter Berns, and the Arguments That Redefined American Conservatism.
McArdle was well prepared with good questions. The questions prompted Steve to look back on his upbringing, his career, and his books. The callers drew Steve out as well, though their questions may not have emulated McArdle’s concision. If you are at leisure today, I can’t imagine a much better use of the holiday than taking in the interview. The C-SPAN video is posted here.
The interview seems to me to frame the crisis of conservatism today. Steve has me wondering.
Who is to carry on the Reagan legacy in the Republican Party — the fusion of free enterprise, strong American foreign policy, and opposition to the domestic variant of Marxism staring us in the teeth today? We shall see.
Yet the crisis of conservatism today is an intellectual crisis. Who are today’s conservative intellectual leaders? In addition to Thomas Sowell and others cited by Steve, I would add Victor Davis Hanson, Wilfred McClay, [update: Charles Kesler], and Steve himself.
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