Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values

We stayed up late to discuss the results of the 2026 midterm elections.   The panelists included: Lura Forcum ( We Made This Political ) Corey Nathan ( Talkin' Politics & Religion Without Killin' Each Other ) John Giokaris (undisclosed law firm in Chicago) Mike Taylor ( The Political Mike ) Eric Kohn ( America's Future ) Steve Phelps ( Leading Questions with Calvin Moore ) Kent Straith ( Leading Q...

What's up with the kids these days?   Since even the youngest of the Millennials are entering their thirties, Saving Elephants host (and geriatric Millennial) Josh Lewis welcomes a couple of Gen Zers—Mason Laney and Will Johnson—to gain perspective on the world inhabited by younger Americans.   Who are the voices young conservatives are listening to?   What explains the rise of dissident Right and...

Was Abraham Lincoln a racist?   Were his efforts at emancipation the mere cold calculations of a politician whose sole aim was to win the Civil War, or do they point to some deeper ideals of America's first principles?   Joining Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is Lincoln historian Dr. Allen C. Guelzo for a wide-ranging conversation on how Lincoln's efforts at ending slavery and saving the union m...

Mike Warren has been on a mission to uncover what awaits conservatives, the Republican party, and the Right as the Trump administration begins to wind down.   Who will control Congress after the midterms?   Is Trumpism finished and everything will go back to the way it was prior to 2016?   Does MAGA produce another cult leader who controls the GOP for the foreseeable future?   Does Trump find a wa...

Sure, most of us are aware that John Quincy Adams was the son of Founding Father John Adams and the sixth POTUS with a long and illustrative career in public service and diplomacy.   Some might even recall that he was the brains behind the Monroe Doctrine, or that he nearly drowned during one of his many multi-hour swims in the Potomac River, or that he is undoubtedly the former president American...

Whether it's Zohran Mamdani's win in NYC last year or the slew of Democratic Socialists of America electoral victories this year, the DSA is having a moment. Is this the beginning of the socialist utopia displacing the patriarchal/capitalist system in the United States or the latest ill-fated iteration of a party out of power attempting to redefine itself? Saving Elephants assembled another august...

Former President George W. Bush was wrong when he iconically stated "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?" Actually, it's asked all the time (dubious grammatical structuring aside). Politicians and social influencers are quick to bemoan the state of education, but thoughtful conversations on how we might meaningfully change things for the better are few and far between. Saving E...

In recent weeks conservative social media has been aflurry debating that nebulous phrase, the Common Good. Does the New Right have a monopoly on the concept of the common good? If we can agree on the common good, does that alone grant us the political authority to impose it? What is the relationship between liberty and the common good? Saving Elephants welcomes two guests to set the record straigh...

Fellow Millennial, Stephanie Slade, has been in the trenches of various factions on the dissident Right lo these past several years to share with the uninitiated normies just how unhinged the Right has become in certain quarters.   She joined Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis earlier this year ( back in episode 193 ) to explore this phenomenon.   But since that time she's written a book, Fusionism:...

Patrick Deneen's 2018 book, Why Liberalism Failed , was by the standards of most academic works of political philosophy, wildly successful.   It struck a chord with some of the broader Right and gave a voice to a growing movement skeptical of the promises of classical liberalism and looking for an alternative.   This burgeoning New Right, however, is anything but new.   The kind of postliberalism...

What does it mean to love your country?   Is that nationalism?   And isn't nationalism—you know—bad?   And how should our allegiance and love of country be weighed against our duties and affections to family and faith?   Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is joined by John Wilsey to discuss his latest book, God and Country: Upholding Faith, History, and National Identity , the origins of nationalism...

The immortal words of the Declaration of Independence — We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness —are etched upon the hearts of American patriots today and knit us together with patriots down through the ages.   Saving Elephants hos...

Whether you call it the Semiquincentennial or the Sestercentennial; whether you're on team Red, Blue, or politically homeless; whether you believe Die Hard is a movie about Independence Day; America's 250th birthday is something worth celebrating. So how best to ring in this once-in-a-lifetime advent? Saving Elephants has assembled a panel to reflect on what it means for America to turn the big 25...

Richard Weaver was a twentieth century American scholar and rhetorician whose writings were praised by the likes of Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley, Willmoore Kendall, and Frank Meyer.   But nowadays Weaver is either derided as a racially charged Southern sympathizer or accused of preparing the way for the MAGA movement and authoritarianism .   If he's discussed at all. Joining Saving Elephants h...

What if we can agree on the political solution, but we disagree on whose side is most likely to benefit? Congress is broken.   On this we can all agree.   One of the more interesting reform ideas to emerge is the call to expand the number of Representatives in the United States House, thereby making it more likely Representatives could actually, you know, represent their constituents. This idea se...

In 1976 historian George H. Nash wrote The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 , a celebrated historical accounting that established much of the narrative for how we think about the development of modern conservatism even today.   But much has changed since the seventies.   What can the history of conservatism tell us about this present moment, and what can it tell us about wh...

Persuasion seems conspicuously absent from our politics.   Not shouting, denouncing, or trying to convince the "other side" that they're wrong, evil, or both.   But the good faithed attempt to reach the hearts, minds, and emotions of others and persuade them to our point of view.   Why?   Why is persuasion so hard?   And is it even possible to persuade in an era of political polarization?   Saving...

Sometimes the best way to understand one's culture is to compare it with something entirely different.   In this episode Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis take a deep dive into China with Chinese dissident Lu of the YouTube channel All Things China with Lu . Lu demystifies what the Communist Chinese Party (CCP) wants, why they fear Taiwan, how they view the ethnic Han population, why they work so h...

This month marks eight years of Saving Elephants tirelessly calling the GOP back to its classical conservative roots instead of the cult-of-personality nationalist populism to which the party has succumbed. And over these past eight years...things have only gotten worse. Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis assembles an all-star panel to answer the question: is the GOP worth saving?   Meet the Panelis...

Friendship is one of the last words you might associate with politics these days.   Yet John von Heyking believes recovering a proper, classical understanding of friendship is precisely what our civic order needs to function.   Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis and John discuss the differences in how the ancients and medievals viewed friendship and how it's been undervalued by us moderns.   They al...

It's been nearly a month since Supreme Leader Khamenei and his gathered Legion of Doom were killed in the Trump administration's "special military operation" in Iran. So, are we at war with Iran now? If so, what's the objective? Isn't Congress supposed to declare a war before a president takes things this far? What are the necessary and practical limits on a president's wartime powers? We covered...

Ever since Leo Strauss published his magnum opus  Natural Right and History , which ends by heavily implying Edmund Burke opened the door for the evils of historicism in the modern world, a great fissure in conservative nerddom erupted between those who align with either titan. Were Strauss' criticism of Burke warranted? Did Burke disavow natural rights and pave the way for the evils of authoritar...

While Saving Elephants is dedicated to offering the conservative intellectual tradition in mercifully modern vernacular, fellow podcaster Nic Dunn has been on a similar mission: making the work of policy institutions more digestible.   Nic joins Josh for a conversation around the important role policy can play in defusing political tension, alleviating poverty, and expanding the freedom and opport...

For good or ill, the post World War II era built by the Baby Boomers seems to be rapidly coming to an end.   But what will replace it?   What might be done to prevent global conflicts and bloodshed as the old order begins to break down?   And what should younger conservatives seek to conserve in this era of chaotic change?   Joining Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is Director of Research at the D...

In a world of exhaustive binary thinking sometimes complexity offers relief.   Lauren Hall joins the show to offer her alternative living in 4D she calls "radical moderation".   In the latter half of the conversation Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis happily takes Lauren up on her offer to geek out on Edmund Burke.   About Lauren Hall Excerpts from laurenkhall.com   Lauren Hall is an author and pro...