So who are the DSA politicians that we should be worried about? I spoke to Danny McCarthy from the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, to find out.

It's dismaying to see Abdul El-Sayed go to the United States Senate.

This is a guy who has historically sort of flirted with radicalism, to say the very least.

And yet, you know, he was someone who went out there and talked about not only economic issues, but also things like flock cameras.

And, you know, I don't know if he focused on data centers, but I know many Democrats did.

And these were grassroots concerns that, unfortunately, Republicans tended to neglect.

Republicans, I think, were framed as being the party of big tech and of data centers.

It's like their ideas are the ones that are actually animating people.

Dan, it's your turn.

So, you know, Stephanie mentioned the beginnings of the postwar conservative movement in the 1950s.

I think she's quite mistaken, actually, to say that there was an immediate consensus about liberty as the primary thing around which the conservative movement would coalesce.

This is in part because there were actually fierce debates, as Stephanie is well aware, between those who emphasized virtue and those who emphasized liberty.

And even from the beginning, there was quite a sharp distinction between those like Russell Kirk, who were defenders of what they thought of as a traditionalist conservatism that was more religious, that was more about community, and a basically prototype libertarian movement.

which already had, you know, champions like F.A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, and others.

And it took a lot of effort to bring those two sides together, but they did indeed have points of overlap during the 20th century, especially during the Cold War.

Why not go closer?

I think

there are two other elements in play here.

One of them is just historical, right? So classical liberalism in the 19th century is sort of born, at least in the British context, you get a liberal party ultimately out of a split in the conservative party when the Peelites, who are free traders, wind up sort of losing an internal battle in the party.

This is over the corn laws.

The corn laws are ultimately repealed by a conservative government, by Robert Peel's government.

Repeal and Peel, that's just the way it worked out.

And this caused a split in the conservative party.

That's going to make us

So, you know, where is the real pickup path in your mind and where do you think the media is just like wish casting?

The polling so far is pretty hard to read.

First of all, polls have been relatively inaccurate in the last several cycles.

So to begin with, we're not even sure the data is any good.

Second, if you look at the picture that the polls are painting, it's rather surprising because on the one hand, states which often are held by Democrats, places like Michigan, for example, are looking fairly weak for them.

So there's a good chance that El Saeed, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Michigan, He leads, but he doesn't lead by very much.

He leads by maybe two points in most polls.

So what does the post-Trump Republican Party look like? Can anybody take up the mantle? And do you think Trump, his ego would allow him to hand off the party?

Mm-hmm.

... pointing out that Thomas Jefferson actually was kind of pro-riot, that Thomas Jefferson said, "You need to have, uh, you know, the people kind of go out there and challenge their government in a very direct way, uh, not just at the ballot box, but actually getting in the faces of, you know, judges and elected officials." Uh, he said, "You need that in order to, you know, continue to have this strong sense of liberty upon which America was founded." Now, I also point out in, in my new article for you that, um, you know, we are about a month away right now in June from the, uh, celebration of America's birthday on the 4th of July, and then we're a year away from a, a bigger celebration of 250 years since the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Uh, and the American Revolution, for those who actually know their history, it begins with riots.

It begins with, you know, uh, people who are smugglers, who are, uh, defying, you know, British authority, uh, who are literally, like, throwing bricks at, at soldiers and at police, and, uh, are just defying, you know, defying the British courts, defying, uh, Britain's lawful authority.

Uh, so they're, they're having riots and they're saying, "We're having a riot, and we are having a riot because we want to assert our own government over ourselves.

We no longer want to be, uh, under British law.

We think that we are a people of our own, and, uh, we already have, uh, you know, our own legislatures in the colonies.

Yeah.