Conservative Crossroads with Henry Olsen
Oct 28, 2026 · 59 min · 10 segments
How can conservatives - who are dividing themselves into warring tribes - reunite and in fact fuse themselves to defeat the Left? Stephanie Slade from…
Stephanie SladeGuestDan McCarthyGuest
Henry OlsenHost
So I guess I'm actually a little bit less interested in the question of what is best for uniting various tribes, warring tribes.
I'm much more interested, as my book, I think, focuses on much more what should be the first principles that we believe in.
I think the commitment to liberty is customarily and historically how conservatives in the American context have understood themselves, a sort of defining principle or commitment.
I mean, the conservative movement in the United States emerged and coalesced quite explicitly as a reaction against and opposition to the New Deal at home and socialism abroad, right? And conservatives traditionally argued that this sort of belief that...
It was a left progressive belief that the government could manage the economy from the top down in order to bring about outcomes that were better than the ones that the free markets would produce on their own.
Also that it was a sort of left progressive thing to desire to use government power to impose value.
And in fact, Right now, if you go, at least last time I checked, I went over to the website for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Dan's former employer, and right there on the homepage in big letters is the words, Educating for Liberty.
If you go to Heritage Foundation, where Dan is now, the Heritage Foundation's mission is, quote, to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.
And I was just working on a chapter the other day where I had a chance to revisit some history of the Philadelphia Society, which has always been a sort of forum where various factions that were part of the American right could come together and debate and hash out what it meant to be a conservative in the American context, which, of course, has always been important.
somewhat different than what conservatism has meant in other times and places.
And I found this interview with Ed Fulner, who's one of the founders of the Philadelphia Society, where he said that the point was to facilitate, quote, the coming together of all believers in liberty, end quote.
In other words, this is the distinguishing feature of the American conservative as understood by the sort of leading lights of the movement as it emerged in the 20th century and up until about – probably about 10 years ago when I would say this consensus began to break down, is that conservatives were defenders of individual liberty and that that was a – You could debate about what that means, how that should cash out in practice, but that there was a fairly widespread consensus about this fact.
They believed that because they believed that they were carrying the torch of the founders, of our founding fathers as a country, where the United States was founded as a project that was meant to be an experiment in liberty.
It was about protecting individual rights and staving off government tyranny.
Um, and, and so this was what the conservative movement, this is why conservatism has always, um, met something different here than it might mean in other places.
Because if you go to France, let's say, um, the conservative might've been the defender of the monarchy, the aristocracy, the ancient regime, the established church.
So I guess I'm actually a little bit less interested in the question of what is best for uniting various tribes, warring tribes.
I'm much more interested, as my book, I think, focuses on much more what should be the first principles that we believe in.
I think the commitment to liberty is customarily and historically how conservatives in the American context have understood themselves, a sort of defining principle or commitment.
I mean, the conservative movement in the United States emerged and coalesced quite explicitly as a reaction against and opposition to the New Deal at home and socialism abroad, right? And conservatives traditionally argued that this sort of belief that...
It was a left progressive belief that the government could manage the economy from the top down in order to bring about outcomes that were better than the ones that the free markets would produce on their own.
Also that it was a sort of left progressive thing to desire to use government power to impose value.
And in fact, Right now, if you go, at least last time I checked, I went over to the website for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Dan's former employer, and right there on the homepage in big letters is the words, Educating for Liberty.
If you go to Heritage Foundation, where Dan is now, the Heritage Foundation's mission is, quote, to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.
And I was just working on a chapter the other day where I had a chance to revisit some history of the Philadelphia Society, which has always been a sort of forum where various factions that were part of the American right could come together and debate and hash out what it meant to be a conservative in the American context, which, of course, has always been important.
somewhat different than what conservatism has meant in other times and places.
And I found this interview with Ed Fulner, who's one of the founders of the Philadelphia Society, where he said that the point was to facilitate, quote, the coming together of all believers in liberty, end quote.
In other words, this is the distinguishing feature of the American conservative as understood by the sort of leading lights of the movement as it emerged in the 20th century and up until about – probably about 10 years ago when I would say this consensus began to break down, is that conservatives were defenders of individual liberty and that that was a – You could debate about what that means, how that should cash out in practice, but that there was a fairly widespread consensus about this fact.
They believed that because they believed that they were carrying the torch of the founders, of our founding fathers as a country, where the United States was founded as a project that was meant to be an experiment in liberty.
It was about protecting individual rights and staving off government tyranny.
Um, and, and so this was what the conservative movement, this is why conservatism has always, um, met something different here than it might mean in other places.
Because if you go to France, let's say, um, the conservative might've been the defender of the monarchy, the aristocracy, the ancient regime, the established church.
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