Podcast Summary: The Realignment – Episode 562 Guest: Oren Cass, Founder of American Compass
Host: Marshall Kosloff
Date: July 24, 2025
Episode Title: Oren Cass: American Compass and the Right's Trump-Era Realignment

Overview

This episode marks the fifth anniversary of American Compass, the think tank at the heart of the conservative movement’s realignment, especially on economic policy, during and after the Trump era. Host Marshall Kosloff interviews Oren Cass, discussing the new book The New Conservatives: Restoring America's Commitment to Family, Community, and Industry and unpacking the ideological, policy, and political transformations on the American right. The conversation ranges from diagnoses of contemporary American malaise to the future of realignment politics and the contrasting relationships between ideology and party on the left and right.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Diagnosing the State of America (00:00–05:53)

• Economic Stagnation and Social Decay:
  • Oren Cass argues that the post-Cold War consensus (“free market will lift all boats”) has unraveled.
  • The venture capital-driven, market-oriented economic model failed to deliver widespread prosperity, especially for non-college-educated workers and their families.
  • Social indicators, like family formation and substance abuse death rates, show the U.S. in a state of “unsettled” and “social decay.”

  “The death rate in the United States now from drug abuse…is as high as it was from alcohol abuse in Russia in the decade after the Soviet Union fell.” — Oren Cass (04:46)

2. The Shift from Market Orthodoxy to Worker Focus (05:53–13:33)

• Conservative Thought Pre- and Post-Trump:
  • Pre-Trump, right-leaning thought denied class politics and considered worker-focused policies “leftist.”
  • Post-2016, new conservatism centers the worker and acknowledges class interests may diverge from capital.
  • The right was bereft of policy options for worker support, defaulting instead to left-leaning proposals until groups like American Compass built a new “policy shelf.”

  “A lot of the conservative muscles just sort of atrophied…there was no either existing policy or real good thinking about, okay, how would you actually apply conservative principles to solving problems?” — Oren Cass (11:13)

  • Cass points to a need for policy rooted in conservative principles but addressing present realities, distinguishing this from both the 1980s playbook and leftist redistribution.

3. Political Realignment: Breaking the Old Paradigms (13:33–20:58)

• The Post-2016 Earthquake:
  • The political “earthquake” of 2016 was a healthy disruption, snapping the old left-right axis and forcing new divisions around economic and cultural issues.
  • The GOP’s former reliance on market orthodoxy failed to secure popular or policy victories—Trump’s disruptive campaign revealed a core voter base left untouched by pre-2016 consensus politics.

  “By a pre-2016 standard, it was an extraordinarily highly qualified…crew. And yet…they were probably closer to the five or six Democrats running than any of those…were to Donald Trump.” — Oren Cass (16:39)

4. The “Deal” That Broke: Policy, Data, and Public Dissatisfaction (20:58–27:34)

• The Limits of “Good” Data:
  • Despite positive economic indicators, the public’s sense of malaise persists—a sign, Cass says, that data must serve reality, not the other way around.
  • The “deal” of the 90s—service economy, college for all, financial compensation via redistribution—has failed large segments of Americans, especially as broad, upward mobility did not materialize.
  • Cass criticizes establishment voices who claim “things haven’t gotten worse” based on technical measures.

  “Data is supposed to help us describe and understand the world. And when we look around at the world and see real problems, and the data isn’t capturing them, the answer cannot be to say, 'Well, therefore, the problems are not real.'" — Oren Cass (21:16)

  • Healthy populism means the public holds failed elites to account; this transitional turbulence is preferable to Europe’s sclerotic politics.

5. Policy vs. Politics: The Interdependence (27:34–32:34)

• Expertise Can’t Be Insulated from Democratic Realities:
  • Cass, with campaign experience, argues that expert-driven policy must heed political legitimacy and popular will.
  • Elites’ continued reliance on college-centric models or service-based economies is mismatched with mass preferences, especially among Gen Z and young men—pointing to a growing disconnect.

6. Ideological Asymmetry: Right vs. Left (32:34–41:03)

• The Conservative Movement vs. The Republican Party:
  • Kosloff observes that the right distinguishes between “conservatism” as a movement and the GOP as a party, whereas the left treats liberalism as synonymous with Democratic Party bureaucracy.
  • The right’s “rough and tumble” intellectual culture allows for internal disagreement and ideological renewal, while the left is more constrained by orthodoxy and centralization.
  • Political realignment is asymmetric: the right attracts a more diverse working-class base, while affluent, educated “old country club Republicans”—the “bulwarkification” of the Democrats—move left.

  "The realignment has very asymmetric effects on the two parties. The realignment is one in which you have a sort of very ideologically and ethnically diverse working class moving to the right..." — Oren Cass (34:16)

  • Democratic donor and consultant classes attempt to manufacture mass appeal (e.g., “find the next Joe Rogan”) rather than developing ideas or narratives with genuine resonance.

7. Policy Development and Substantive Vision (41:03–47:17)

• American Compass vs. The “Empty Shelf” on the Left:
  • The right, through organizations like American Compass, has begun rebuilding substantive policy grounded in shared ends: family formation, strong communities, and meaningful national identity.
  • The left/center-left lacks a clear, coherent foundational vision (e.g., what is the role or goal of immigration policy?) and struggles to bridge internal contradictions between “defending democracy” and promoting unpalatable social progressivism.
  • Kosloff highlights that American Compass’s process—debate, root-cause analysis, and shelf-building—should be emulated across the ideological spectrum.

8. Trump, Implementation, and Messy Progress (47:17–55:50)

• Governing through Realignment: Politics Plus Policy
  • Cass clarifies that Trump-era “reindustrialization” isn’t nostalgia for 1950s assembly lines, but rather accessible, modern manufacturing jobs.
  • The Trump administration’s messaging on industrial policy and tariffs has often been muddled, but Cass values the willingness to depart from failed orthodoxies and experiment.

  “You have to design policy taking into account for the messiness of implementation. And then you have to be involved in that process and be willing to kind of, get your hands dirty…here’s what's good, here’s what's bad, here’s what we think needs to change…” — Oren Cass (53:04)

  • Unlike the old GOP’s rigid ideology, this messy, iterative process—imperfect as it is—offers greater hope for American renewal.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I feel like a lot of the conservative muscles just sort of atrophied…there was no existing policy or real good thinking about…solving problems.” — Oren Cass (11:13)
• “What snapped…I like to use the metaphor of an earthquake…at some point because of the world changes…everything shakes and that's actually an important and healthy reset in a lot of ways.” — Oren Cass (15:07)
• “You have to design policy taking into account for the messiness of implementation…get your hands dirty…and honestly talk about here's what's good, here's what's bad, here's what we think needs to change…” — Oren Cass (53:04)
• “The reindustrialization narrative…has a whole bunch of important benefits. One of them is on the job side. It's not in a return to the 1950s manufacturing job.” — Oren Cass (50:54)
• “It seems to me the fundamental underlying reality of America today is that we are at this very unsettled moment where…our understanding of our place in the world that was established really at the end of the Cold War…has finally come completely undone.” — Oren Cass (02:15)
• “[The Democratic Party’s] brand of social justice progressivism is not broadly popular. Well, what do you do when your two core commitments are defending democracy and advancing a substantive vision that cannot win democratic support? You just sort of end up paralyzed.” — Oren Cass (39:45)

Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00–05:53 – Oren Cass diagnoses America’s economic and cultural malaise
• 06:55–13:33 – Why the right avoided class politics and how American Compass filled the policy gap
• 13:33–16:39 – The political earthquake of 2016 and the realignment of the GOP
• 20:58–27:34 – The “deal” for workers and why elite responses miss the point
• 32:34–41:03 – Differences between the conservative movement/GOP and liberalism/the Democratic Party; the “bulwarkification” of Democrats
• 47:17–55:50 – Assessment of Trump-era policy implementation and lessons for future conservative policymaking

Conclusion

The discussion underscores the intellectual and organizational transformations underway on the American right, as well as the comparative stagnation of liberalism on the left. Cass and Kosloff agree that realignment is messy but necessary, and that substantive vision and rigorous, principle-driven policy development—exemplified by American Compass—can serve as a model across the political spectrum even as its immediate implementation remains fraught. The episode ends with an optimistic note about the country’s ability to renew itself through genuine debate and adaptive policymaking.

Resources

• The New Conservatives: Restoring America's Commitment to Family, Community and Industry (American Compass, 2025)
• Previous Realignment episodes featuring Oren Cass