It's a Numbers Game: The Numbers Behind Conservatism’s Crossroads: Trump, Tradition, and the Future of the Right

Summary

Podcast Summary: "It's a Numbers Game: The Numbers Behind Conservatism’s Crossroads: Trump, Tradition, and the Future of the Right"

Podcast: The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show (iHeartPodcasts)
Host: Ryan Girdusky (guest-hosting)
Guest: Daniel McCarthy (Editor, Modern Age Journal)
Date: December 1, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the internal struggles facing modern American conservatism as the "Trump era" nears its end. Host Ryan Girdusky and guest Daniel McCarthy scrutinize the so-called "Republican civil war," the evolving nature of right-wing identity, the surfacing of anti-Semitism, the lessons from past conservative infighting (notably post-Reagan), and what the future might hold for the conservative movement as it wrestles with populism, tradition, and modern ideological divisions. The conversation is thoughtful, reflective, and at times cautionary—urging young conservatives to consider historical context, personal responsibility, and the broader consequences of the movement’s direction.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Reflections on the State of Conservatism ([02:13] - [12:13])

• Host’s Self-Reflection:
  Ryan starts with personal musings about ambition, time, and end-of-year reflection—sharing how he tracks yearly goals and the importance of priorities evolving.
• On Conservative Infighting:
  He self-identifies as a minor conservative influencer and stresses his conscious decision to avoid the fray in right-wing "civil wars"—preferring to focus on substance over endless personality spats.
• Trump's Imminent Exit and GOP's Future:
  Ryan summarizes a recurring concern among conservatives: "Trump isn't going to be around forever. Where is this party going? Who's going to lead us? What do we believe in?" ([05:23])

2. The Problem of Grievance, the Gravy Train, and the Lure of Negativity ([07:00] - [12:13])

• Media Profiteering:
  He warns that some right-wing commentators exploit Trump-related anxiety for personal profit, often at the cost of constructive discussion.
• Rise of Reactionary Discourse:
  Concern rises over the cynical exploitation of anti-Semitism, with "some commentators... [using] this kind of open question of who we are... to say some genuinely anti-Semitic points."
  He explicitly distinguishes legitimate criticism of Israel and American policy from outright anti-Semitism.
• Detracting from Real Issues:
  Ryan laments that important topics (AI, family formation, economic future) are being crowded out by endless World War II and Holocaust discourse, which he calls, “frankly, stupid… There's no useful reason… no foresight…" ([10:30])

3. A Warning to Young Right-Wingers ([11:35] - [14:00])

• Ryan directly addresses young white conservative men who feel under threat from demographic and cultural shifts and reminds them that idolizing Hitler or flirting with Nazi apologism is both wrong and self-destructive:
  • “You do not need to look up to anyone who praises Hitler. You don't need to have a private conversation about it. You don't need to joke about it. You're not being edgy, you're not being funny.” ([11:56])
  • “Hitler was such a piece of shit person... You shouldn't praise the man… who caused a war that killed 50 million Europeans…” ([12:44])

4. Conservatism’s Crossroads: Infighting is Nothing New ([14:00] - [16:55])

• Ryan:
  Though the conservative split feels existential, he encourages perspective: "What you're seeing is completely healthy. And it's been done before… This is not new."
  The episode sets up an exploration of the 1990s conservative rift after Reagan, as a parallel to today.

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Deep Dive Interview: Daniel McCarthy on Right-Wing History and the Culture War ([19:40] - [43:50])

1. Lessons from Past Right-Wing Civil Wars ([19:54] - [25:20])

• Daniel McCarthy:
  Explains how William F. Buckley and conservative leaders post-Cold War faced similar schisms around foreign policy, immigration, and the definition of "acceptable" conservatism.
  • “Buckley is being sort of pulled in two directions by the neocons… and by basically every other conservative…” ([23:30])
  • The myth of Buckley as ultimate right-wing gatekeeper is exaggerated; he often sought middle ground, pleasing neither faction.

2. Vacuums of Leadership & Policy Successes Turned Liabilities ([26:49] - [29:28])

• After Reagan’s successes, conservatives faced the loss of both “hero and enemy,” setting up a void much like the one now emerging post-Trump.
• McCarthy:
  “The neocons wind up being very successful... they win everything. And yet then they have to live up to what they've promised. When America sees the results... voters say, this is awful. This is not what we want.” ([28:13])

3. The Modern Surge of Online Reactionaries and "Groiperism" ([29:28] - [34:52])

• The current anti-Semitic and anti-establishment fringe (Groipers, Fuentes, etc.) are a product in part of right-wing overcompensation and a constant defensive posture against leftist accusations.
• McCarthy:
  “The right... is trying to prove that it doesn't have all the bad qualities the left accuses it of. So it’s going out of its way to show, ‘We're not racist… We're the most anti-anti-Semitic people on the planet’... This is just the right overplaying its hand... And that whole thing is a dead end.” ([31:38])
• The current moment requires new strategies; the “Mark Levins of the world” are out of touch with the digital age and the nature of today’s critiques.

4. The Victim-Oppressor Narrative, Israel, and the West's Identity Crisis ([34:52] - [39:36])

• McCarthy views progressive liberalism as having secularized religious universalism into a global “victim vs. oppressor” paradigm.
• On Israel:
  “The fact that Israel is based on a people staking a claim to a land… and basically, we might like liberalism or democracy up to a point, but if those things ever come into conflict with our possession of our land, we will reject those things. And that's what makes Israel a very important country right now.” ([38:38])
• Argues that if Americans (and conservatives) lose confidence or moral authority in defending their own national identity in the face of progressive moral bullying, their movement is doomed.

5. Recommended Readings for Young Conservatives ([40:54] - [43:12])

• Daniel McCarthy’s List:

  1. Modern Age Journal - For long-term conservative thought and debates.
  2. Chronicles Magazine - Original paleo-conservative publication, now edited by Paul Gottfried.
  3. The American Conservative - Focus on foreign policy, including critical perspectives on Israel and Venezuela.
  • “Instead of... following the Groypers down to, you know, memes and just nonsense, you could actually ask yourself, well, why did Russell Kirk say that…?” ([41:09])

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Ryan Girdusky:

  • “I want to be very clear right now that not every criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic… But when…commentators…speak about Jewish people in a dehumanizing way…that’s not a useful conversation.” ([08:35])
  • “You do not need to look up to anyone who praises Hitler. You don't need to have a private conversation about it. You don't need to joke about it. You're not being edgy, you're not being funny.” ([11:56])

• Daniel McCarthy:

  • “Success is sometimes its own punishment… The neocons succeed, but then they have to live with the punishment of that success, which is showing everyone what their record actually looks like…” ([28:13])

• On responding to anti-Semitism and internal culture wars:

  • McCarthy: “That whole thing is… not only a dead end, it's counterproductive because the more the center right tries to… play that card, the more ridiculous it looks in the eyes of younger people on the right.” ([32:33])

• On Conservatism’s Identity:

  • “If liberalism or other ideologies from the left are going to attack our position as a people who has possession of our land… we’re simply going to cut off our conversation. We’re not going to allow ourselves to be morally bullied by progressives.” ([39:09])

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Timestamps of Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |------------|-------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:13 | Ryan's year-end reflections, personal priorities | | 05:23 | Trump's looming exit & the "Republican Civil War" | | 07:00 | Grifters and anti-Semitism in conservative media | | 10:30 | Futile focus on WWII/Holocaust vs. future challenges | | 11:35 | Address to young right-wing men; dangers of Nazi apologism | | 14:00 | Perspective on ongoing "civil war" in conservatism | | 19:40 | Interview intro: Daniel McCarthy | | 20:27 | Buckley’s era and 90s right-wing infighting | | 28:13 | Neocon success and unintended fallout | | 29:28 | Anti-Semitism, Groipers, and failed responses by old guard | | 34:52 | Israel as “test case” for the victim/oppressor narrative | | 40:54 | Daniel McCarthy’s reading recommendations | | 43:12 | Interview close-out; where to follow McCarthy |

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Tone & Language Highlights

• Reflective, cautionary, at times blunt: Ryan's guidance to young conservatives is frank and direct, aiming to warn them away from destructive ideological trends.
• Historical and analytical: Daniel McCarthy brings deep context, referencing conservative intellectual history, nuanced takes on figures like Buckley, and the patterns of ideological crisis and renewal.
• No-nonsense, ironic humor: Both speakers highlight the absurdities of modern political posturing, especially when discussing the “edgelords” and social media culture among young activists.

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Conclusion

This episode provides a wide-ranging and historically grounded analysis of the American conservative movement's ongoing identity struggle. Rather than demonize or eulogize any one faction, Ryan Girdusky and Daniel McCarthy urge listeners—especially young conservatives—to study history, resist performative outrage, reject cynicism and bigotry, and continue searching for enduring principles that can guide the right forward after Trump. The wisdom lies in understanding both the perils and promise of crisis and transition.

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For further reading:

• Modern Age Journal
• Chronicles Magazine
• The American Conservative
• Daniel McCarthy’s Syndicated Columns

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Transcript

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[Ryan Graduski]

Welcome back to A Numbers Game with Ryan Graduski. Thank you for being here again. I hope everyone had a very happy Thanksgiving. We are now in December, closing out 2025, which is kind of wild that it's almost over. 2025 has felt like a decade and a month in the same exact time. One of the best parts of December that everyone enjoys is that Spotify and Apple, they get their annual streaming numbers and you find out who your number one artist or band was that you listened to the most, what was your number one song of the year. But you also get to find out which is your number one podcast of the year. And if it's not a numbers game of Ryan Grusky, if that's not in your top five, I hope that you like and subscribe to this podcast on Apple Spotify or YouTube or the iHeartRadio app. So that way next year I might be in your top five. Think about it. I would appreciate my your Christmas gift to me would be subscribing if you haven't yet. As this year's coming to a close, I've been thinking a lot about relationships. One on many different levels. My relationship with family, money, God, friends, work, having a work life balance. I think that it's very important to be reflective at this point of the year and saying to myself, how am I doing making sure I can be the most of a person I am with the time that I have, get the most out of life and achieve the most that I have. I am at, you know, the beginning stages of middle age and I only have a certain amount of time to do everything I want to do. And I hear, I've talked to a therapist about this, I know this is not normal, but I hear the clock ticking of every moment, my life of what do I have left and what can I possibly do? I'm insanely meticulous about not wasting time and it is how I've been able to have a podcast and a pack and a political work and a non profit and all the rest of it. So at the very beginning of the year what I always do is I make a list of 10 to 15 goals that I want to achieve this year. I write them down in my day planner that I carry with me everywhere and then I don't look at it for the entire year and at the end of the year I look back and say what did I achieve of this? What is important to me? What's not important to me? Because some I'll write some things, I'll be like, oh, I want to write a non fiction book about robots. And I don't know why I think these things. I didn't say that actual thing but you know something crazy that I have really no interest in and I'll be like this was not a goal, like this, I did not care and it's not a failure when you don't do everything because your priorities change and your time changes. And certainly in 2024, in the meaning I didn't say I want to have a podcast, but I didn't. This is show's been so great and I've had a decent listenership and people have responded and emailed and I think that that's a really important way to kind of close out the year. And one of the things I've been thinking about as far as relationships goes is how I've, you know, I'm, I know I'm low on the totem pole of conservative quote, unquote influencers or people with large public profiles, but I'm on there. I mean, I'm there and I've managed to very actively stay out of the quote, unquote Republican civil war, which is what I want to talk to you guys about. Because bas every talking head in the conservative movement has had this come to Jesus moment where they say, wow, Trump isn't going to be around forever. Where is this party going? Who's going to lead us? What do we believe in? What's, what's, what's, where's this endpoint and, or where's this moving towards? And there are people who really want the GOP to return to what it was before Trump, right? There are some people who want to take the party into a more populous place than it was before Trump. They want to find the way that true populism should move. Some people are looking at alternatives to Trump, right? Someone with more philosophical consistency, less drama, who's maybe funny. I mean, good luck finding that, that prize, but I'm sure it maybe exists somewhere. I don't know. And then there are some people who have been labeled as being part of the right. I don't know if they all are, who are using the moment to raise their own personal profiles and to continue the gravy train that Donald Trump has presented to conservative commentators. I think people don't understand how much money some people have made from being, from telling Trump supporters everything they want to hear and trying to feed anxiety or hope or anything to these voters. And unfortunately, some of them are using this moment and using this kind of open question of who we are, who we are as a movement, where we're going as a, as a people, as an American public to say some genuinely anti Semitic points. And I want to be very clear right now that not every criticism of Israel is anti Semitic, not every not arguing or arguing over American foreign policy is not anti Semitic. Criticizing Bibi Netanyahu is not anti Semitic. Not even conversations. Every conversation about the, about the war between Israel and Gaza was anti Semitic. You can talk about things and not be anti Semitic. However, when you, when certain people, certain, certain commentators who have been lumped in as part of the right, when they speak about Jewish people in a dehumanizing way and decide that it's important in this moment, in 2025, to reference things that have happened almost a hundred years ago, like the Holocaust, and insist that either it didn't happen or that it was. You know, some commentators have platformed people who said that it was a. Not necessarily a good thing, but a, it was a, it was the best option available, instead of really noticing and noting if you have to talk about it, which you really don't have to talk about it, but if you, if you must talk about it, noting how horrible and cruel and dark that point of humanity was. There are just some people in the commentary class who right now, in this year, in this time, have said talking about the horrors of World War II and talking about the past is more important than talking about the future. Talking about AI and declining fertility rates and family formation and inflation and, you know, the amount of money we're going to see transfer from the baby boomer and silent generation to their children and what, how to ensure that their kids can sit there and get, you know, start to have a family and buy a house and build wealth and generational value. Having real conversations that are very, very important. No, they're not having that. They're talking about World War II for some reason at a. Almost insanely. Like it happens, like, every five minutes. Like, there's not. Like it's, it's, it's a lot of these conversations. I'm sorry, they're just stupid. They're retarded. Like, there is no useful reason. There's no foresight about having this. There's no talking about the future and where we are going and the people who are doing that. Some of them I know, some I don't. Some of my, like, as people, it's incredibly frustrating because it's all negative and it doesn't lead to anything positive towards 2026, towards where we're going, both as a party and as a people and what we should really be talking about and concerned of. I have to say, I. There's a lot of things that keep me up at night. I have a lot of anxieties. I'm completely unmedicated for all of them, but I have a lot of anxieties. And the things that keep me up, around, up at night don't involve global Jewry or the Holocaust or, I mean, they don't make my top 10 top 100, top 1000. And the, the things that do, the things that are important are being missed in this last year. The, the things that will affect and shape our future. Those conversations are not even happening, even though the country is moving forward on that. And we as conservatives are missing out on navigating where those, that stuff should go, where those policies should go. People, other people are going to sit there and create the framework, mold our future, because we're arguing things that don't, frankly, matter and make us look crazy, make us look anti Semitic, make us all look like we have a problem that I think is completely, completely made up just for people who want to make sure that they continue to get clicks all the time to feed either their bottom line or their ego. And I want to just bring something to the attention of young right wingers right now, mostly young white men. I was one of you not so long ago. I guess it's getting further and further by the day. But those who look at the trends of the world and say, wow, people who look like me are being targeted for identity. And countries that my ancestors built all over the world are increasingly turning against me. And I'm worried about this. I am worried about the way the world is working and, and the way that I'm not going to have a future in it. And the language that the left has used, especially against white people. I get it. I fully and completely get it. I understand. And you feel like the right doesn't speak to those issues well enough either. But to those who are too young to have read enough history books or lived through enough history, you're hearing a ton of noise, an absolute ton of noise. And I have to tell you right now, you do not need to look up to anyone who praises Hitler. You don't need to have a private conversation about it. You don't need to joke about it. You're not being edgy, you're not being funny. You know, put the Holocaust aside for a second, and it was horrific and dark and terrible, but put that aside for a second. Let's say you are someone, one of these young men who say, wow, the world that my ancestors built is completely gone. And the identity of European Americans, of European people are being wiped away by mass migration, all the rest of it. And I, you know, you will have data to back it up 100%. You shouldn't praise the man who. Or look up to the man, or look up to anyone who's praising the man that caused a war that killed 50 million Europeans. And if that war had never happened, there probably be 100 million 100. I looked this up. 110. 120 million more Europeans alive today had that war never started. Right. 120 million more Europeans alive today have World War II never happened, including 75 million in Eastern Europe and 30 to 40 million in Western Europe. Hitler was such a piece of shit person. And I, I know that seems like redundant, like, why are you bothering saying that?

[Daniel McCarthy]

Everyone knows it.

[Ryan Graduski]

Because it's. As World War II's living history is going away as older people pass away and the lived memories of those experiences go with them. People, it's becoming a meme, it's becoming a joke. And I get that 9, 11 is the same thing. Everything in history kind of is less attached to you as you don't live through it. But I know you may not have experienced that. I know you may not have cared about this, but the ideas and the world that you live in have manifested greatly because of those actions. Right? You can understand and you can make fun of it, but it's not worth ever praising someone like that. And in this last year, so many young right wingers have lost jobs, they've lost careers because they have sat there and said, let's be edgy, let's be edge lords. Let's sit there and have some fun. Let's say Hitler was great. I'm giving you professional advice. I'm giving you life advice. As a man who's not that old, but who has walked through your shoes, you don't have to be like this. You don't have to look up to this person, and you shouldn't look up to anybody who sat there and praised him. They're all grifting, they're all lying to you right now, and they're leading you to profit themselves and harm you because it doesn't matter to them if you do well or not. And that's just the truth of the matter. And I have to. I wanted to bring it up. I hate lecture. I'm not trying to lecture anybody. I just, I, I'm around a lot of younger people a lot through work and through other things. And I, I always say to myself, as somebody who lived in my early 20s, wanting to work in politics, really ambitious, really hungry for everything. I see so many people who are in those steps that I was in, who are being told information that will never help them get to a place where I am not in place where I am, but a good job, a stable life, a career. They're turning you into ideas and thoughts that are not helpful for you. And I, I always look out for especially people who I relate to. As far as, you know, they walked in the shoots that I walked in. Anyway, sorry for going on a tangent. I don't want to. I don't want to sit there and make this whole lecture, but I have to sit there and say that in this point, because anyone telling you that Hitler was a good guy, he wasn't, and they're turning you into a stray. You don't look edgy, you don't look cool, you look like an idiot, and it's going to bite you in the ass. So if you can learn anything from other people's experiences here, don't be that person. And also, half of them are so overweight they would never be able to survive in Hitler's army. I don't know where these overweight people think they would survive in fascism. It's you. You say that because you've never lived in authoritarianism. Like, half of you would never survive a single war, let alone, you know, Nazi training to camps like. Give me a break. Anyway, back to the Republican civil war. Don't mean to go into a lecture, but I think there are some people who are having really legitimate arguments about the future of the MAGA movement and how to move it forward. And what does that look like? Does it. Does it exist after? Does it exist in three years? Some who are arguing this because they want to stay relevant, but some people are really trying to have good ideas, solid ideas about where the Trump experiment moves and what is the next evolution of it when he retires, you know, and God willing, lives a long life and a happy life. I'm not, you know, I'm not going to name names on this fight, infighting, but I think that. I think I know you most. You know, I'm talking about. But I want to talk about how you said understanding one, understanding the moment, understanding that this, this chaos and this quote, unquote, Republican civil war that has had a lot of my friends who are influencers feeling very kind of not. Conflict is not the right word, but very stressed about. It's normal. Part of this is normal. Part of what you're seeing is completely healthy. And it's been done before. Right. This is not new. Where the right, or I'm sure the left, but definitely on the right, where we see our leaders changing, where we see our, our the issues changing and we don't know where to go from it. And so people squabble, especially the commentary class. Even before the Internet, this was happening. Here's the good news for everybody, you know, and you may be sitting there like James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause or screaming, you're tearing me apart, but here's the good news. There will be a way, there will be a forward, and it won't include a lot of the ugliness, it won't include a lot of the anti Semitism, and it won't include a lot of what the old, you know, old right is sitting there. The Bush right wants to sit there and bring us back to we're going to figure it out. But my next guest is probably the smartest person when it comes to the history of the right, the history of the conservative movement and this conflict that came before and how it may help provide and navigate us into how it will sort itself out in the future. That's coming up next.

[Jacob Goldstein]

Jacob this is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out Odoo at o d o o.com that's o d o o.com the.

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[Ryan Graduski]

Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age Journal and he's written for so many outlets. Simon Funny, the New York Times, American conservative, American mind, first things, just an overall brilliant, brilliant guy. Daniel McCarthy, thank you for being here.

[Daniel McCarthy]

Oh, thanks for having me on, Ryan.

[Ryan Graduski]

So you wrote an article and I want to start with two of your pieces, but one of the main ones is for first things. It's called the rights 30 year war. And you draw the comparison of how kind of the right wing is having an internal conflict now and comparing that to the 90s and what happened after the Cold War ended, because there was a real rift. And I think part of the rift right now is the kind of coming to Jesus moment, like Trump's not going to be around forever as the main central arc. Everyone together. Can you just, can you expand on that, what you wrote?

[Daniel McCarthy]

Yeah. So, you know, if you go on social media, you'll often see conservatives of the baby boomer generation say, wouldn't it be great if Bill Buckley were still with us? He would be able to lay down the law on exactly what the limits of conservative discourse should be. And he would throw out anyone who was, you know, too extreme on the right and would basically create a sense of harmony and unity. And so I decided to go back and look at one of the sort of well known conflicts that Buckley was involved in in the late 80s and early 1990s. So just as the Cold War is wrapping up. You have this real conservative crack up. And it actually, it really starts, you know, even during the Reagan years. But then once Reagan leaves office, you have George H.W. bush come in, and there's this real question of whether Bush is carrying on the Reagan legacy. The Cold War is coming to an end. So there's the question of what happens to US Foreign policy after this. And related to that, there's also the question of what happens to trade. You know, immigration is in the mix as well. And already in the late 90s is. You have a number of conservatives who are starting to question the sort of complacence that you. You find complacency you find in the conservative movement about things like immigration. So Chronicles magazine, for example, comes out in 1989 with an issue that says we really need to crack down on immigration. And that becomes quite scandalous. Richard John Newhouse, who eventually goes on to found the magazine First Things, he is an editor or is involved with the think tank that's publishing Chronicles. And he's outraged by this and says, well, we have to, we have to banish these people who are criticizing mass immigration. They're racists, they're xenophobes, they're nativists. So all these issues are bubbling up in the late 1980s and early 1990s. And then, of course, you know, foreign policy comes into focus with the rush to war, with the, with Iraq and the Persian Gulf crisis. And Bill Buckley's called into this. And in the, in the course of criticizing the idea that America is going to fight a war in the Middle East, Pat Buchanan goes on television, he goes on the McLaughlin group and says a number of things that indicate that, you know, maybe this war is being pushed by people who have Israel's interests in mind and not America's interests. And that becomes a massive, massive media flap in the New York Times and elsewhere with these attacks on Buchanan calling him an anti Semite. And so Bill Buckley gets called upon to adjudicate and to declare whether or not he thinks Pat Buchanan is an anti Semite.

[Ryan Graduski]

Yeah, And I think that, you know, the funny thing is, is there's a young guy who I follow who's, you know, a nice enough person. But the problem with, like, problem with most people is they haven't, haven't read enough. The problem with young people is they really haven't read enough, nor do they have, like, the living memory of anything. And Buckley has kind of become. I'm reading the Buckley biography right now, which is super long but very good but the thing is, Buckley has become a villain in the minds of a lot of MAGA types who are super young, live on the Internet a lot, and they kind of show him in adversity to Pat Buchanan. But that wasn't. I mean, they weren't close, but that wasn't the relationship at all. And you write, you know, that he in 1992, endorsed Pat against George H.W. bush in the New Hampshire primary.

[Daniel McCarthy]

That's right. So the real history is actually more interesting and more complicated than what the sort of mythology that's been retroactively constructed would have you think. And it's ironic because both Buckley's, some of Buckley's biggest fans and also some of his biggest critics, they both have a reason for endorsing the myth of Buckley as the guy who's, you know, purging the right, the guy who is sort of leading what might be called a right wing version of cancel culture. The reason this myth gets established. Now, admittedly, there are episodes earlier in Buckley's career involving the John Birch Society and others where Buckley, you know, is criticizing various figures, including the Birch Society itself and its founder, and, you know, is playing this role of kind of drawing the lines. But what's interesting, if you go back and look at the book that buckley writes in 1992 called In Search of Anti Semitism, which is based on an essay he published in late 1991 on the same topic, and you see what Buckley is actually trying to do there, it's kind of clear that Buckley is being sort of pulled in two directions. So instead of being the decisive figure who's laying down the law for every conservative to follow, Buckley, in fact, feels that he's being pulled in opposite directions by the neocons who are saying that Pat Buchanan is an anti Semite, you've got to denounce him. And by basically every other conservative who's saying, well, no, Pat Buchanan is not an anti Semite, maybe he went too far in what he said. But he's definitely not someone who hates Jews. And they're saying, you can't possibly, you know, consider denouncing Pat McCann over this. So there's already this. And the great thing about Buckley's book, In Search of Anti Semitism, Buckley's own, you know, material in there isn't of the highest, you know, order, the highest caliber, I would say. But it has this wonderful collection of the correspondence that Buckley receives from it. So you have neocons writing to him, you have Paleo conservatives and others writing to him, basically weighing in and giving their perspectives on what's happening. And that's, I think, the most interesting part of the book. So Buckley is pulled in opposite directions and he actually tries to like, try to find a middle ground, which of course winds up satisfying no one and leads to, you know, a lot of the misunderstandings we have today.

[Ryan Graduski]

Typical. Yeah, I think the John Birch Society, Buckley coming out of opposition them decades. Decades. And that a lot of that had to do with Eisenhower. Kind of created this myth that he was always doing that throughout his entire life, which he wasn't. And the most depressing part of your piece from first things I was reading was, I mean, on one side you have Buchanan and you have Norman, you have Murray Rothbard and Robert Novak, and then you have Henry Kissinger and Charles Krauthammer and Norm Padorwitz. And they're these just giants, these intellectual giants, one after the other, really arguing over ideas. And I think right now a lot of it is about personalities in a certain way. But I think that the overlapping of Reagan was leaving and the Cold War was changing. So we were losing the right was losing its hero and its enemy at the same exact time. And now at the same time you have, I guess the media is the end, but you don't have a commonality opposition that links people together. And Donald Trump is in his last term, although it's the first year. His last term or closing first year, last term. But that vacancy, that vacuum is where I think the change happens. And although the neocons, I think were very successful throughout the 90s and 2000 certainly of crafting the policies that generate America, I feel like right now they may feel like we're on the back bench on a number of issues, but let's put Israel as the forefront because it's where we have the most sympathy or most, you know, I guess, currency with the average Republican.

[Daniel McCarthy]

I think that's right. You know, one of the problems is that success is sometimes its own punishment. So the whole point of the conservative movement for, you know, decades was to elect someone like Ronald Reagan. Well, they succeed. And then Ronald Reagan, you know, does guide the Cold War to a successful conclusion. He does, you know, at least bring down on non defense discretionary spending in domestic politics. And while that's, you know, perhaps not the thing that people would most want to see in terms of shrinking government, it is something. And he, you know, keeps tax rates down as well. I mean, there's some taxes that go up, but he generally, you know, keeps taxes on most Americans fairly low. So you Know, you have this fairly successful Reagan presidency, but then the question is, where do you go from there? Especially when you have this complete change in the world security, strategic environment with the end of the Cold War, which then, you know, really does raise questions about economics as well. If you think about Richard Nixon opening up the United States to China, the whole point of that was to play a Cold War card. It was to, you know, make sure that you could break apart the Soviet Union and the Communist China and make Communist China more economically involved with the United States and the west in order to weaken the Soviet Union. Well, that succeeded. But then, of course, once the Soviet Union's not a factor anymore, what do you do? Do you continue pursuing integration with China for its own sake in the hopes that that's going to liberalize China? Or do you say, hey, now, this is actually strengthening the most powerful communist state that's still around and the one that's perhaps the biggest threat all across the board. You're quite right. The neocons wind up being very successful in the early 90s and really throughout the 90s and into the George W. Bush years. And as a result, you know, on immigration, the right is very weak when it comes to free trade. The right is pursuing, you know, the conservative movement, I should say, is pursuing integration with China. It's generally not taking a hard line against China. And then, of course, in foreign policy, the United States is getting involved in all, you know, a number of foreign conflicts, especially in the Middle East. So the neoconservatives wind up being successful. They win everything. And yet then they have to live up to, you know, what they've promised. Right. And when. When America sees the results of what the neocon policy is delivering in terms of our industrial base, in terms of our workforce, in terms of mass immigration, and then also in terms of foreign policy, American voters say, this is awful. This is not what we want. So the neocons succeed, but then they have to live with the punishment of their own success, which is showing everyone, showing the whole world what their record actually looks like when it's put into practice. So now it's the turn of populace to have, you know, a share of power and to try to, you know, do things the way we want them done. And people will judge basically whether we're being successful or not. And, of course, the Trump administration, it's doing some great stuff, but also some things like Venezuela look pretty questionable from a paleo conservative perspective.

[Ryan Graduski]

Yeah. And, you know, and the big. I think the big elephant in the room is the question of the, of not just the question of Israel, but the questioning of Jews as, as a people entirely. There is, there are legitimate conversations over Israel happening and then there are just anti Semitism and there is a difference between the two and they're being kind of meshed together and the transformation of young people around the idea of groipers or what that is or you know, who that is. You had a fascinating piece in the American Mind called defeating Groiperism on a conservative terms. And I thought it was so valid and important because what the, I think the response to the rise of this genuine anti Semitism has been is very outdated. Right. It is like the Mark Levins of the world, I'm trying not to name people's names, but like the Mark Levins of the world, who's no friend of mine and no, nor has I agree with him on most policy issues, but he has his defense and his deflection of why. What you should do when you're response or the right's response should be wouldn't it doesn't work in the Internet world and it doesn't work to the criticisms that are happening. And I think that your opinion of it was very, very, very intelligent. And it's not just to sit there and boil things down to a liberal response. Could you delve into that? Could you talk about that?

[Daniel McCarthy]

Yeah. So I mean, you know, the right throughout the 20th century, basically you had such a enormous amount of cultural dominance by progressives and by left liberalism to the point where the conservative movement was only like a halfway rebellion against it. Right. So the conservative movement says, well, we don't like the economics of this left and we don't like some of what they're doing, you know, in terms of states rights or in terms of, you know, kind of national civil rights bills and whatever. So the right was talking about those things and of course it loses those battles, you know, over, you know, questions of civil rights and the Voting Rights act and things like that. So you wind up with a kind of shell shocked American conservative movement in the late 20th century and the early 21st century, which basically, you know, is trying to prove that it doesn't have all the bad qualities that the left is accusing it of being. So it's going out of its way to show, you know, we're not racist. You're the real racist. It says to the Democrats. And you know, we're the, we're the most anti anti semitic people on the planet. We love Israel more than anyone else. We are therefore, look at how much we love the victim groups and you know, we are def, don't call us oppressors. You know, if anything, you know, we love, you know, everyone who's, you know, you claim to be standing for more than you do. And this is, this is, you know, it's, psychologically, it's very interesting because this is like, you know, it's, it's like a battered spouse syndrome or something. Right? I mean, this is, this is just the right overplaying its hand and trying, you know, to be more, you know, more Catholic than the Pope or in this case, more progressive and liberal than Al Sharpton or something. Now, you know, obviously Sharpton has some, some Israel problems, I imagine, but yeah, at, go beyond that, but more, more, more, you know, sort of anti, anti defamation than the ADL. In the, the limited media environment of the late 20th century and early 21st century, maybe that was fine, but now, you know, where people are free to, you know, kind of see just how clownish these people look when they're making these arguments. It doesn't work at all. And that's, that's one of the things that feeds into the griper movement because I think the griper movement and Nick Fuentes, these guys poke fun at and satirize and mercilessly mock this kind of attitude from the right, which is this, you know, sort of constant defensive crouch and this constant attempt to show that they are more progressive than the progressives. And, and so I mean, that, that whole thing is, is a dead end. That is not only a dead end, it's counterproductive because the more that the center right tries to, you know, play that card, the more ridiculous it looks in, in the eyes of younger people on the right. Right.

[Ryan Graduski]

And, and just to like, add onto that point, it's like in the 2008 election or 2016 election when they were attacking Hillary for being too hard on crying, and you're like, what, who are, who are these voters all of a sudden that are appealing to it? And there are, I would say that that worldview is still a majority of members of, of Congress or senators. There's a bill in, in the Defense Authorization act which will force suburbs to like, take massive Section 8 housing increases. And like, because we, you know, we haven't, we don't have enough opportunity zones and enough welfare programs for certain minority groups. And it's always about how do you appease the people who vote against you at the cost of the people who vote for you? And that's what the right was doing. And that's why Donald Trump was such a, you know, shock, not necessarily on all his policies, but at least in his rhetoric, a shock to the guardrails, let's say the Bill Crystals of the world have you and you write, and this is why I think this piece was very, very thoughtful and thought provoking. Is your solution to griperism? Not necessarily everything that everybody says, because you could find something that you agree with almost anybody, no matter where they are on political scale. But their main contention, which is the true anti Semitism and dehumanization of Jewish people, especially in the vitriol towards Israel. You write, in recent centuries, liberalism has caused the west to lose its sense of the duty the universalist owes to the particular. Israel, however, reminds us of it. Just what does that mean to the, it's very eloquently written. What does that mean to like the average person?

[Daniel McCarthy]

Well, you know, I'll, I'll kind of start from a fairly abstract position and then come down to something more concrete. So in a lot of ways, progressive liberalism is an attempt to secularize and replace Christianity. And just as Christianity, you know, is a religion that is universal and that, you know, applies everywhere. God, you know, loves all of mankind, liberalism has this view that, you know, liberal institutions are meant to serve the entire planet. If you say that, well, no institutions like our own government, our own nation state are meant to serve us as a people and not serve the entire, you know, the liberal faith all around the globe that is seen by liberals, by progressive liberals as being, it's a heresy. I mean, it's really a, a terribly immoral thing for anyone to say in their eyes. And so, and this, this, you know, a big part of liberalism as it has evolved over the last century is this emphasis on this sort of two tiered humanity where you have the good part of humanity who are victims and who have been oppressed and the bad part of humanity who are like demons, you know, in the flesh, who are the oppressors and are always the source of wickedness. And so justice, you know, in this liberal mythology is precisely raising up and empowering and even allowing the use of violence to those who are victims or oppressed and then tearing down those who are considered part of the oppressor class. And you know, you, we can point to some of the parallels this has with Marxism and its view of economic class, but this is applying it to, to races and social groups, which is kind of ironic because of course, progressives insist that race is, you know, far from their minds, but it's not I mean, race is really the core of this. Yeah, it's funny even to go.

[Ryan Graduski]

It's just a construct. It's all, it's just imagination.

[Daniel McCarthy]

Exactly. But it's, but it's the construct that apparently determines who's a good person, who's a bad person, who gets the law on their side and who gets, you know, a knife in the neck. So, and this, this critique of, or this worldview that depends on victims and oppressors, this is one of the things that you see, you know, a lot of defenders of Israel actually playing into because they'll say, hey, Israel is actually a victim. Jews, you know, historically have been victims in reality. So, you know, they should have victim class status. And that means they should be part of the top of the totem pole and not only in progressive rankings, but also those of conservatives who go along with this and that, it just seems to me is suicidal for, for Jews, for Israel. And it's just a terrible thing overall because of course, the left has long since decided that no Jews are actually oppressors. If you look at what, you know, left wing radicals in America say about not just Israel, but Jews in general, they will go along with, you know, black radicals who want to say, hey, you know, the Jews are stealing our rappers, you know, revenue from the, the record companies, just the whole thing. And there's a great Sopranos episode, you probably know, that's, that's all about this. And it, one of the great things, you know, when the Sopranos was at its best, it was able to touch on these topics that everybody knows and that everyone talks about in these communities. But of course, you know, that generally are not openly admitted.

[Ryan Graduski]

Right.

[Daniel McCarthy]

In polite television shows. So anyway, the Jews are actually now positioned as an oppressor group. And in fact, you know, because they're an oppressor group, but they are a small group and Israel is a small country. So they're really a test case right now for whether this ideology of assembling all the victims against the oppressors can succeed in, you know, really crushing an oppressor group. In some ways, they're a test case. And that, that's one reason why it's very important to make sure that that test case doesn't succeed where these progressives are trying to attempt it. Now, again, I'm not so much talking about direct policies towards Israel, whether giving them aid or not. I'm actually very critical of giving them, you know, lots of American money, but just on principle, the fact that Israel is based on a people staking a claim to a land. They're saying, you know, this is our land as a people. We have a, you know, religious reason as much as anything for making this claim. And basically, you know, we might like liberalism or democracy up to a point, but if those things ever come into conflict with our possession of our land, we will reject those things. And that's what makes Israel a very important country right now. And if you think about how the same oppressor victim narrative is applied to the United States as a supposedly settler colonial state, it's the same thing on a much bigger scale. And we Americans have to be prepared to say, you know what, maybe trade is good up to a point. Maybe, you know, we have a humanitarian concern for other people in various ways. But fundamentally, if liberalism or other ideologies from the left are going to attack our position as a people who has possession of our land, if you claim that's unjust, we're simply going to cut off our, our conversation. We're not going to allow ourselves to be morally bullied by progressives into having this sense of guilt about our land and our people.

[Ryan Graduski]

Right? And you know, it's so funny that some countries which are quote unquote colonial colonizer countries like Brazil, which is completely, you know, a made up country of Portuguese former colonies and the countries half white, half mercisos and black, they don't have this kind of identity crisis that the United States has. It's very strange how that, how certain countries are plagued with this. And I think part of it is, you know, deeper into anti Semitism, but also the fact that Jews are considered white and whites are the ultimate enemy and so forth. There is no escaping that parallel. And I have a very good friend who's a convert from being a liberal Jew to a conservative Jew and she always says we just made all the wrong friends. And I'm like, yeah, you picked a lot of the wrong battles. Dina, why have you. I don't have any more questions about your articles, but you're just so well thoughtful and read on everything. If you were talking to a young conservative, an 18 year old, 20 year old, whatever, 22 year old or someone just interested in politics young. What are two or three sources that they should go to that are that to you sit there and say this is really one of the more intelligent, thought provoking, interesting things of what the basic principles and the first principles of conservatism really are?

[Daniel McCarthy]

Well, I do edit this journal, Modern Age, which talks about these issues. And you know, I think a young person coming to Modern Age for the first time might be a little perplexed because we'll talk about some of these older issues as well, and we tap into our archives, which go all the way back to 1957. But if they came to it on a regular basis, they would actually find an interesting sort of conversation across generations on the right, both from the new material. We publish, the podcast that I do for Modern Age every week, and also this older material from Russell Kirk and Richard Weaver and others, by the way, they'd be interested to find out, I think, that many of these, you know, sort of old, these conservatives like, I mean, Russell Kirk, for example, says in 1989, I think it is, that not seldom have certain neoconservatives mistaken Tel Aviv for the capital of the United States. So I think, you know, instead of, you know, following the groipers down to, you know, memes and just nonsense, you could actually ask yourself, well, why did Russell Kirk say that? And what was going on here? And what were the neocons actually trying to get up to back then? You could look at, you know, I mean, people like Richard Weaver and Robert Nisbet. They also had very conservative views, very right wing views that I think would still appeal to a lot of younger. A lot of the younger generation. Yeah, I'd also say. Another source that I recommend is Chronicles magazine. So Chronicles was sort of the original paleo conservative publication. It was involved in a lot of these conflicts back in the late 80s and early 90s. And today the editor of Chronicles is himself Jewish. It's Paul Gottfried. And so he's a good refutation both of these claims that the Paleos are anti Semitic. And he's got, you know, his own views which are quite, I think, well thought through on Israel. I mean, he's pro Israel, but he's not pro neocon. And I think separating those things is actually very important. And Paul is a great example of that. And then another magazine that I've been involved with for a long time is of course, the American Conservative. And I know you've written there as well. And, you know, that's a great magazine for, you know, some pretty strong criticisms of US foreign policy across the board. People are focusing right now. You know, they get a lot of flack for what they see about the Israel relationship, but they're also focusing a lot on what's happening with Venezuela. And that, I think, is that's where we're really being drawn into, you know, a conflict that I think would be, you know, this, this decade's Iraq war or this decade's Libya crisis. So I think that's an important thing to keep an eye on.

[Ryan Graduski]

Yeah, I like Paul Godfrey's writing. It's just always whenever has a book out, it's, you know, 13, 000 words, 13, 000 pages. And you're like, I, I, Paul, this is very, this is too highbrow for me. But Dina McCarthy, thank you so much for coming on this podcast where people go to read more of your stuff.

[Daniel McCarthy]

Well, you can find my podcast and a lot of my other [e-mail] so that's modernagejournal.com and you can also find my syndicated column. I write a column every week for Creator Syndicate. The New York Post usually runs it. And so I can be found there also in Chronicles. And, and I write a fortnightly column for the Spectator World. So those are the places to find my writing.

[Ryan Graduski]

And Daniel is one of the people on the New York Times. And they'll be like, how did this debate performance go? And it's like seven cycle liberals being like, I think Joe Biden looked like the peak of health. And Daniel's like, now he's in mental decline. Which I always love watching your reaction compared to like, you know, some of the very far left other commentators. So, Dino, thank you for coming on this podcast. I appreciate it.

[Daniel McCarthy]

Thanks, Ryan.

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[Ryan Graduski]

Now it's time for Ask Me Anything. If you want to be part of the Ask Me Anything segment, email me ryan numbers game podcast.com it's ryan@numbers plural numbers game podcast.com I love you guys. Emails I have a bunch is sitting in the doc right now So I will get to them and we'll have a, we'll maybe have a final end of the year episode where I really go into all them. I would do a drinking game, but I've that would I've got so few brain cells left to work with and I'm not going to sit there and be able to drink through a ask me anything segment. So. But we'll have fun. We'll. I'm going to get through as many as possible for the end of the year and make sure we close off and start 2026 fresh. This question comes from John from Connecticut. John, you've emailed me before and he says thanks for answering my primary question on DeSantis's prospects going forward. Is this only realistic path to the presidency to have JD lose in 2028 and then run in 2032. And any thoughts on the Atlas poll that had a 10.2 of a 10.24 that said Sears was the within 1 point. I'll say on October 24th that said SE1 point MERS was going to win by 7. Okay, so first on the poll. Yeah, Atlas had a great year last year and then it didn't have this year. Good this year and good, good, good numbers this year. And I think that part of the problem with a lot of pollsters is they're building universes of who they expect to turn out. And I think that for Atlas, they were probably over sampling Republicans, Republican, independents or people who just didn't show up. Now, Virginia had a huge turnout. So what my guess is is that they didn't have enough low propensity Democrats who would show up. Kind of put into the the numbers on how they weighted them kind of just didn't work out. I mean, it happens with all pollsters. So if it happens year after year after year after year, you can kind of put those posters inside and say this is, you know, garbage. But if it happens once in a blue moon, everyone gets it wrong sometimes. So I'm not gonna hold them to it. Atlas is a fairly new firm and they've had a lot of big wins. So I want to sit there and give them more time to see their record before I judge them as a good pollster or a bad poster. And I've emailed them so many times asking them to the podcast. I would love to have them and talk about their the way they do polls. Okay. On DeSantis, I want you to remember 1960. You may not have been alive. I wasn't. But in 1960 there was a very close presidential election between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. And Nixon goes on to lose by a smidge in 1964. Nixon sits out of that election for Barry, and Barry Gold, War's nominee goes down in flames. But, but goal. But, but Nixon actually campaigned harder for Goldwater than anybody did. Nixon was completely still on the ticket. He was like, I'm going to campaign for my party. Goldwater loses, I think all but six states or seven states, the deep south in Arizona. And then we go to 68. And Nixon goes on to win. He runs again, wins after this long break. And then he goes on to have this landslide 49 state victory in 1972. I think if I was consulting Desantis, which I'm not, I would sit there and say, you know, build your coffers up for your packs and hit the ground running across the country and be on the team. And if J.D. vance is the nominee or Marco Ruby's nominee or whoever's nominee, hit the ground running for them, campaign harder for them than anybody else you could possibly imagine. Like, make that your full time job to be part of the party and build that loyalty back up. Because that loyalty, you know, some residue loyalty is there with the average Joe Republican who remembers Covid and all the great things DeSantis has done as governor besides Covid. I mean, Covid was only the biggest part of his governorship, but it, when you look at all the things he's done, it's really a footnote. I mean, he's done amazing, amazing things in Florida. Finish out your term strong, be the biggest campaigner for the Republican Party across the country. Go to every swing state, raise money for them, build loyalty, show you're part of the team, campaign for whoever, the nominee for president, 2028. And then if they lose in 2032, take another look at it, go on television and remind voters. I am, you know, the advocate. I'm, I'm the guy who turned Florida into the deepest red state possible. And I think that that is, I think that would be the game plan. If he, if he doesn't run in 2028, which I think he probably shouldn't, and if he still, if the Republicans win in 2028 and 2032 comes around at that point, call it a day like history is littered with men who would have made great presidents. It is what it is. You don't win. And running for office is like a window. And sometimes when it shuts, it shuts for good. Ask Chris Christie, right? He had his chance in 2012. And that was his only chance. Ron DeSantis Unless Trump would have made him his VP, which in 2024, which is no telling, he would have. Unless he would have then probably 2024 was the only time he could have ran for president. And if he didn't win, he didn't win. It happens. So happens to the best of them. Anyway, thank you for listening to this episode of the podcast. I hope you like it. Please like and subscribe in the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts and I will see you guys on Thursday.

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