Acton Unwind

This week, Eric, Dylan, and Emily parse former vice president Mike Pence’s speech in New Hampshire, which was aimed at drawing distinctions between his definition of conservatism and the populism of the New Right and Donald Trump. Does Pence’s definition of the two in opposition to each other make sense? Or has populism always existed in American conservatism and on the left? Next, the panel looks...

This week, guest host Dan Hugger is joined by Dylan Pahman and Emily Zanotti to discuss the Georgia election racketeering prosecution of former President Donald Trump. What is this case actually about, and how does it differ from the other Trump indictments? Are mug shots exploitative? Why did President Trump choose this moment to break his long Twitter silence? Then the panel examines last week’s...

This week, Eric and Dan are joined by Sarah Isgur, senior editor of The Dispatch, to examine whether there’s a crisis in masculinity. With the successes of feminism and the shift in gender roles and expectations, how do men grapple with society’s needing less of what they traditionally have provided? How is the internet and social media influencing this supposed crisis? Is it helping in any way, m...

This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan are joined by James M. Patterson, associate professor of politics and chair of the politics department at Ave Maria University, to discuss his essay from the Summer 2023 issue of RELIGION & LIBERTY, “Is the New Right Fascist?” What is fascism, beyond the most common Orwellian definition “that which is not desirable”? How much of the radicalism of the New Right is dr...

This week, Eric is joined by Daniel Baas and Titus Techera, Acton’s premier movie reviewer, to discuss all things cinema, including: the success of Oppenheimer (which Titus liked), the success of Barbie (which Titus did not like), and what it is that’s bringing people back to theaters. Also, is it really a big deal that Dune 2 will bump The Marvels out of IMAX theaters, since The Marvels wasn’t ma...

This week, Eric, Noah, and Emily are joined by Christine Rosen, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of the cover story in the Summer 2023 issue of RELIGION & LIBERTY entitled “The Death of Conservatism Is Greatly Exaggerated.” Why have there been so many attempts to declare American conservatism dead? Why do so many of them, and in particular a recent piece from Jon Askon...

This week, Eric, Dan, and Emily discuss the recent decision in the 303 Creative from the Supreme Court. Is bad journalism the major culprit in people misunderstanding both the holding in the case, as well as the very facts of it? How much does it matter that it’s a First Amendment speech case and not a First Amendment religious case? Next, they tackle the newly announced plan from the Biden admini...

This week, Eric, Dan, and Noah Gould, Acton’s Alumni and Student Programs manager, are joined by Jane Clark Scharl. Jane is the author of the essay “Blood of a Thousand Christs: The Violent Faith of Cormac McCarthy,” which appears in the Summer 2023 issue of RELIGION & LIBERTY. What are we to make of McCarthy’s style and the prevalence of violence in his works? Where is God in McCarthy’s work? How...

This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan discuss the coup attempt in Russia over the weekend, as the Wagner Group paramilitary organization marched from its position in Ukraine toward Moscow before suddenly calling off the revolt. What does this mean for Russian president Vladimir Putin and his war in Ukraine? Do we have reason to believe this was an actual revolt or coup attempt—or something orchestrated...

This week, Jonah Goldberg joins Eric, Dan, and Dylan to discuss his newly released review of Patrick Deneen’s book, "Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future.” Following on the success, or at least the popularity, of his last book, “Why Liberalism Failed,” does Deneen have solutions to the problems he sees in modern society? Does his scholarship hold up under scrutiny? And is that the odor of Ma...

This week, Eric and Dan are joined by Emily Zanotti, a new contributing editor at the Acton Institute, as they tackle the latest indictment of former president Donald Trump. Again we ask: Does the act of indicting a former president and current candidate for president alone render America a banana republic? What’s the difference between this case and cases of other prominent politicians—such as Jo...

This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan talk conservative boycott culture: Bud Light, Target, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and more. If the social responsibility of business is to increase profits, as Milton Friedman said, is there a way we can return to that understanding? Or are we going to be stuck in a political tug-of-war where people on the left and the right want the oars of every institution pulling i...

This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan rummage around a grab bag of topics for this potpourri episode of the podcast. First up: The expiration of Title 42, the pandemic-era border-security measure. Will its going away create new problems at the border? Almost certainly. But the policy can’t stay if the pandemic is, according to the federal government, over. If Congress could find a way to do its job, it...

This week on Acton Unwind, special guest panelist Farah Adeed along with Dan and Dylan discuss two major stories in the majority-Muslim world: the arrest and subsequent release of Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan and Sunday’s election in Turkey.  Farah is an incoming Ph. D. student in the Department of Political Science at Boston University and studies the role of religion in the nation...

This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan discuss the suspension of the Acton Institute’s TikTok account after it shared promotional content for our award-winning documentary feature film, The Hong Konger: Jimmy Lai’s Extraordinary Struggle for Freedom. Is it just a weird coincidence that these kinds of suspensions keep happening to accounts that share content that the Chinese Communist Party would disappro...

This week, Dan, Dylan, and Stephen discuss recent housing policy proposals in Texas. What market-based reforms could lower housing costs? What should policymakers keep in mind when seeking to lower housing costs? What are the biggest political obstacles they face and how might moral arguments help in overcoming them? The panel’s ears then turn to the AI song stylings of “Fake Drake.” Is the music...

This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan discuss Dan’s essay in the Spring 2023 issue of RELIGION & LIBERTY magazine, “National Conservatism One Year Later,” revisiting the National Conservatism movement one year after his essay on his visit to the NatCon2 conference. What, if anything, do we now understand better about the NatCon movement? Does it stand apart from traditional American conservatism, or is...

This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan discuss what we know (and there’s still much we don’t know) about the indictment of former President Donald Trump by New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Was it a wise move to indict Trump? Does indicting a former president for the first time in American history presage the “end of the republic”? Next, the guys discuss the horrible school shooting in Nashvil...

This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan discuss the new legislation in Utah restricting social media access for minors. Will it work? Is it a good idea? Will it even have a chance to take effect, as social media companies are certain to sue over it? Then, continuing on the same theme, the guys take a look at last week’s congressional hearings on TikTok. Did anyone come out of this looking good? Is a ban o...

This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan discuss the protests in France over the move by French president Emmanuel Macron to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. How does France, and other countries facing the realities of math when it comes to their pension programs, navigate the reality that these kinds of reforms are simultaneously necessary and very unpopular? Next, the guys consider the alleged dif...

This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan discuss the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the actions of the federal government in response. How concerned should we be by the moral hazard problem of bailing out the depositors of the bank beyond the $250K that is insured by the FDIC? Does this expose how the Federal Reserve’s efforts to stifle inflation are riskier than many think? Next, they examine the rep...

This week, Dan Hugger, Dan Churchwell, and Dylan Pahman discuss the question of artificial intelligence, particularly the software behind a series of AI chatbots that have become publicly available in the past year. What are the possible uses and abuses, especially when incorporated into search engines like Microsoft’s Bing? And what happens when they stop being polite and start acting as if they...

This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan start with a discussion of President’s Day, a holiday where we’ve collectivized all the Presidents of the United States of America – good, and, and indifferent – into one day of celebration. That means it’s an opportunity for Eric to once again highlight how awful Woodrow Wilson really was. Then, they move on to the horrific shooting at Michigan State University. Wh...

Today Eric, Dan, and Dylan are joined by Terry Mattingly of GetReligion.org to discuss his essay in the Winter 2022 edition of Religion & Liberty, "The Evolving Religion of Journalism.” How has journalism—and its audience—changed, and why? Has the internet transformed broadcasting into narrowcasting? How has a transition from the old bias of liberalism to illiberalism, even “Jacobinism,” remade wh...

This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan try to pump the hot air out of the Chinese surveillance-balloon story. What was China up to? Should we have shot it down earlier? Was the purpose to induce Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to cancel his visit? Then the guys turn their attention to the murder of Tyre Nichols in Memphis. Is this an example of the police department and the city acting appropriately i...