DOCSLIB.ORG

Ferguson Conversations Transcript

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Ferguson Conversations Transcript Conversations with Bill Kristol Guest: Andrew Ferguson, Senior Editor, The Weekly Standard Table of Contents I: A Career in Writing 0:15 – 28:22 II: Revenge of the Baby Boomers 28:22 – 44:58 III: Conservatism and Journalism 44:58– 53:31 IV: “Crazy U” 53:31– 1:18:51 I: (0:15 – 28:22 ) A Career in Writing KRISTOL: Hi. Welcome to CONVERSATIONS, I’m Bill Kristol. I’m very pleased to be joined today by my colleague Andy Ferguson from The Weekly Standard, author of many, many brilliant articles over the years. FERGUSON: Three. KRISTOL: Three or four. I was going to say four. And three books: most recently, Crazy U, which we will talk about a little later, on current system of higher education; Land of Lincoln, and then a book of essays from 1996, I think, Fools’ Names, Fools’ Faces. Where did that title come from? FERGUSON: Well, it was imposed on me by my publisher through the agency of P.J. O’Rourke, who wrote the introduction. I’ve never quite figured out what it means. It was my idea, actually! KRISTOL: It’s deep, there are many levels to it. FERGUSON: Yes, I just don’t know what they are. I’m sure there are many levels. The phrase is from an aphorism. It goes, “Fools’ names, fools’ faces are often seen in public places.” The idea being that I think there are a lot of idiots in the world. And the conceit of the book was that it was a series of semi-profiles or discussions of individuals – Newt Gingrich, Bill Bennett, Donald Trump, and a number of other people – who were kind of known for their ridiculousness. I wouldn’t say that about Bill Bennett, I should take that back. KRISTOL: I picked it up just a little while ago. I hadn’t looked at it in a while. I guess it came out, what, just after The Weekly Standard began, as I recall. In ’96, yeah. I had forgotten that there was an essay on Donald Trump, which makes it very topical. Written in 1990, I think? FERGUSON: Probably, ’90 or ’91. It was a book review, and it was written – If anybody who has read a good Trump book – that is where he’s had somebody [ghostwrite it] who tries to mimic his tone and his cadence and everything – you start reading it and you just get caught up in the rhythms of these, you know, his bombastic phrasing of everything. Everything is an exaggeration; everything is to the extreme. So when I wrote the review, I thought probably the easiest way to make fun of it was just to use his tone and his conversational pacing, and so on. And so I did, and I thought it was one of the meanest things I’d ever written – up to that point. But apparently, he loved it. He called up – 350 WEST 42ND STREET, SUITE 37C, NEW YORK, NY 10036 KRISTOL: Is that right? Did he call you or did he call the [Wall Street] Journal? FERGUSON: No, no, [the Journal]. Loved it. Saying, “Good review; fair.” And I said, “Oh God, I didn’t do it then.” If he liked it, then I didn’t achieve my objective. KRISTOL: I re-read it a couple of weeks ago and it’s obvious you’re mimicking him or mocking him. But you do so in sort of a gentle way, in a somewhat kind way. The book cheered me up a lot because these are all essays from 20-25 years ago about how ridiculous our public life is. And I’ve been sitting around all year this year – it’s the end of September now, 2016 – thinking we’ve gone totally downhill from some height in the past to this new low in our politics. And reading your books made me think maybe we’ve always been this way. FERGUSON: I think you can go to any particular era, certainly in American history – you go back to the 1840s and there are people laminating the decline – I mean, Thomas Jefferson, before he died, was lamenting “the decline of character,” and so on. That was sort of the theme of this book 20 years ago, and if anything, it’s just gotten worse. I don’t think that the fact that it’s a common trope among social observers that, “things used to be better and they’re worse now,” invalidates the point. So, it’s not really an argument against saying, “God, things are really going to hell,” by saying, “people said that in 1840, and they said it in 1950,” and so on. It just may be the fact that things are always going to hell in a hand basket. KRISTOL: Let’s talk about that. Is it worse, and in what particular way – is there one thing that jumps out to you? You’ve been writing about this your whole adult life. FERGUSON: There are lots of different things that are going on that I think weren’t going on even 25 years ago. Trump is the perfect embodiment of a kind of decline. I remember Ronald Reagan running in 1980 and people said, “My God, this is the end of American politics; you got a guy who is a bad actor and in bad movies, and superficial, clearly doesn’t know anything. By God, back in the days of Ike or Roosevelt, you could never tolerate a man like this.” Of course, he turned out to be a fine president, and actually quite intelligent person, and well-read, and so on. I don’t think that’s going to happen with Trump. I mean, if, God forbid, he was actually the President of the United States. I don’t think that we will find that, you know, back of him, as it was back of Reagan, a long trail of books read and ideas gone through. KRISTOL: Handwritten radio addresses, which he himself edited. FERGUSON: And which are very well written. I just don’t think that that’s going to be the case with Trump. Reagan was a creature of fame, obviously. He wouldn’t have gotten to politics, or he couldn’t have achieved what he achieved in California politics if he had not already been famous, and very good looking, and well-spoken, and so on. But Trump has taken pure fame, which is to say, well-known-ness, fame without any particular achievement behind it. It’s almost as though there is nothing behind the celebrity. That’s different from the way it used to be. KRISTOL: I guess that became, though, a theme of critics in the ’60s, ’50s. I want to say, “famous for being famous.” Didn’t Daniel Boorstin write something on celebrity? A book or an essay? FERGUSON: Yes, he has a wonderful essay on celebrity. KRISTOL: I should go back and look at that. I haven’t thought about that until this minute. 2 FERGUSON: Actually, he wrote some amazing things anticipating what was going to happen. You know, he coined the term pseudo-event, too. KRISTOL: This is Daniel Boorstin, the great American historian – FERGUSON: And then became Librarian of Congress; Reagan appointed him, in fact. KRISTOL: Died about 10 or 15 years ago. FERGUSON: A really very impressive guy. Wonderful, wonderful writer and, I guess, a good historian, if I were able to judge that. He coined this term, pseudo-event, because he noticed in the late ’50s that the press conference, for example, was a new thing. That is an event totally manufactured just to create news. It was done with, of course, the cooperation of reporters and people in the journalism business. So, he thought, isn’t it odd that they can actually create an event that is an event just to be covered? For the sole purpose of getting publicity. Of course, now we are so far beyond that. There are layers upon layers of falsity that have gone on top of the pseudo-event. Now we are at the stage of pseudo, pseudo, pseudo, pseudo-events, I think. KRISTOL: Was TV really the break? We hadn’t really thought about this again until now, but you do think that somehow the television and mass televisions was a moment where democracy went to a whole other level of – FERGUSON: It was truly a mass phenomenon unlike anything. There was – movies, of course, were visual, but to see a movie you had to get up, go the movie theater, and then you had to leave, and so on. The TV was something that came right into your home. KRISTOL: And was live. Could be live. FERGUSON: I’m very interested, in fact, I was thinking about this the other day: Even now – with, of course, the saturation of the Internet in everybody’s lives and its ability to convey information, which has just really taken over everything else – I still believe that TV trumps, if you’ll excuse the phrase, everything. TV fame is unlike Internet fame, with all due respect to the medium. You can’t get famous as quickly and as enduringly as you can on television. There are all these YouTube celebrities and so on, but to achieve a fame that will last, say, maybe three weeks as opposed to 48 hours – television is still, you just can’t beat it. KRISTOL: I guess movies before that were extremely big but that was, again, you’d see a movie by someone every six to nine months, television’s every week or every day, if you’re a newscaster.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Periodicalspov.Pdf
    “Consider the Source” A Resource Guide to Liberal, Conservative and Nonpartisan Periodicals 30 East Lake Street ∙ Chicago, IL 60601 HWC Library – Room 501 312.553.5760 ver heard the saying “consider the source” in response to something that was questioned? Well, the same advice applies to what you read – consider the source. When conducting research, bear in mind that periodicals (journals, magazines, newspapers) may have varying points-of-view, biases, and/or E political leanings. Here are some questions to ask when considering using a periodical source: Is there a bias in the publication or is it non-partisan? Who is the sponsor (publisher or benefactor) of the publication? What is the agenda of the sponsor – to simply share information or to influence social or political change? Some publications have specific political perspectives and outright state what they are, as in Dissent Magazine (self-described as “a magazine of the left”) or National Review’s boost of, “we give you the right view and back it up.” Still, there are other publications that do not clearly state their political leanings; but over time have been deemed as left- or right-leaning based on such factors as the points- of-view of their opinion columnists, the make-up of their editorial staff, and/or their endorsements of politicians. Many newspapers fall into this rather opaque category. A good rule of thumb to use in determining whether a publication is liberal or conservative has been provided by Media Research Center’s L. Brent Bozell III: “if the paper never met a conservative cause it didn’t like, it’s conservative, and if it never met a liberal cause it didn’t like, it’s liberal.” Outlined in the following pages is an annotated listing of publications that have been categorized as conservative, liberal, non-partisan and religious.
    [Show full text]
  • Charlie Sykes
    CHARLIE SYKES EDITOR-AT-LARGE, THE BULWARK Quick Summary Life in Brief Former conservative radio host and Wisconsin Hometown: Seattle, WA Republican kingmaker who gained national prominence as a leading voice in the Never Trump Current Residence: Mequon, WI movement and created the Bulwark website as a messaging arm for like-minded conservatives Education: • BA, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, • Love for journalism and politics heavily influenced 1975 by his father • Self-described “recovering liberal” who criticizes Family: both political parties for inflexibility and for • Married to Janet Riordan alienating those who reject status quo • Three children, two grandchildren • As conservative radio host, cultivated significant influence in Wisconsin GOP politics – quickly Work History: becoming a go-to stop for Republican candidates; • Editor-at-Large, The Bulwark, 2019- drew significant attention to issues like school Present choice • Host, The Daily Standard, 2018 • Became national figure after refusing to support • Contributing editor, The Weekly Donald Trump Standard • Co-founded the Bulwark with Bill Kristol, which • Contributor, NBC/MSNBC, 2016-present has become a leading mouthpiece of the Never • Host, Indivisible WNYC, 2017 Trump conservative movement • Editor-in-Chief, Right Wisconsin • Considers himself a “political orphan” in the era of • Radio show host, WTMJ, 1999-2016 Trump after exile from conservative movement • Radio host, WISN, 1989-93 whose political identity has changed many times • PR for Dave Schulz, Milwaukee
    [Show full text]
  • Conversations with Bill Kristol Guest: Charles Murray, Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
    Conversations with Bill Kristol Guest: Charles Murray, scholar, American Enterprise Institute Table of Contents I: 0:00 – 5:55 II: I: (0:15 –) KRISTOL: Hi, I’m Bill Kristol. Welcome back to CONVERSATIONS. I’m very pleased to be joined today again by Charles Murray, scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, author of many important books: Losing Ground – when was that? 1984? – The Bell Curve in the mid-90s, and Coming Apart, about four years ago. I would say, I’m not sure there’s a social commentator who’s written as many important books over the last few decades as Charles so it is a great pleasure and honor to have you here. And you’re going to explain the current moment, right? MURRAY: With that kind of introduction I suppose I’m obligated to. KRISTOL: Exactly right. So what – this is the very beginning of August of 2016. People are – someone wrote something in the New York Times yesterday giving you credit for presciently seeing that Trump or Trumpism, I guess, was going to happen. Did you see it, and what do you make of it? MURRAY: I knew that we were going to have a problem with the white working class, and actually, I guess I’ll blow my own horn and say in 1993 for The Wall Street Journal, I had a long article called “The Coming White Underclass.” If you go back and read that – but this is not rocket science, it simply was the trend lines for out-of-wedlock births among working-class whites at that point had been spiking upward.
    [Show full text]
  • August Sunday Talk Shows Data
    August Sunday Talk Shows Data August 1, 2010 21 men and 6 women NBC's Meet the Press with David Gregory: 5 men and 1 woman Admiral Michael Mullen (M) Mayor Michael Bloomberg (M) Alan Greenspan (M) Gov. Ed Rendell (M) Doris Kearns Goodwin (F) Mark Halperin (M) CBS's Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: 4 men and 0 women Admiral Michael Mullen (M) Sen. Jon Kyl (M) Richard Haass (M) Thomas Saenz (M) ABC's This Week with Jake Tapper: 4 men and 2 women Sen. Nancy Pelosi (F) Robert Gates (M) George Will (M) Paul Krugman (M) Donna Brazile (F) Ahmed Rashid (M) CNN's State of the Union with Candy Crowley: 4 men and 0 women Sen. Carl Levin (M) Sen. Lindsey Graham (M) Dan Balz (M) Peter Baker (M) Fox News' Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace: 4 men and 3 women Sarah Palin (F) Sen. Mitch McConnell (M) Rep. John Boehner (M) Bill Kristol (M) Ceci Connolly (F) Liz Cheney (F) Juan Williams (M) August 8, 2010 20 men and 7 women NBC's Meet the Press with David Gregory: 4 men and 2 women Carol Browner (F) Rep. John Boehner (M) Rep. Mike Pence (M) former Rep. Harold Ford (M) Andrea Mitchell (F) Todd S. Purdum (M) CBS's Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: 4 men and 1 woman Admiral Thad Allen (M) David Boies (M) Tony Perkins (M) Dan Balz (M) Jan Crawford (F) ABC's This Week with Jake Tapper: 5 men and 1 woman General Ray Odierno (M) Gen.
    [Show full text]
  • By Philip Roth
    The Best of the 60s Articles March 1961 Writing American Fiction Philip Roth December 1961 Eichmann’s Victims and the Unheard Testimony Elie Weisel September 1961 Is New York City Ungovernable? Nathan Glazer May 1962 Yiddish: Past, Present, and Perfect By Lucy S. Dawidowicz August 1962 Edmund Wilson’s Civil War By Robert Penn Warren January 1963 Jewish & Other Nationalisms By H.R. Trevor-Roper February 1963 My Negro Problem—and Ours By Norman Podhoretz August 1964 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 By Alexander M. Bickel October 1964 On Becoming a Writer By Ralph Ellison November 1964 ‘I’m Sorry, Dear’ By Leslie H. Farber August 1965 American Catholicism after the Council By Michael Novak March 1966 Modes and Mutations: Quick Comments on the Modern American Novel By Norman Mailer May 1966 Young in the Thirties By Lionel Trilling November 1966 Koufax the Incomparable By Mordecai Richler June 1967 Jerusalem and Athens: Some Introductory Reflections By Leo Strauss November 1967 The American Left & Israel By Martin Peretz August 1968 Jewish Faith and the Holocaust: A Fragment By Emil L. Fackenheim October 1968 The New York Intellectuals: A Chronicle & a Critique By Irving Howe March 1961 Writing American Fiction By Philip Roth EVERAL winters back, while I was living in Chicago, the city was shocked and mystified by the death of two teenage girls. So far as I know the popu- lace is mystified still; as for the shock, Chicago is Chicago, and one week’s dismemberment fades into the next’s. The victims this particular year were sisters. They went off one December night to see an Elvis Presley movie, for the sixth or seventh time we are told, and never came home.
    [Show full text]
  • SAY NO to the LIBERAL MEDIA: CONSERVATIVES and CRITICISM of the NEWS MEDIA in the 1970S William Gillis Submitted to the Faculty
    SAY NO TO THE LIBERAL MEDIA: CONSERVATIVES AND CRITICISM OF THE NEWS MEDIA IN THE 1970S William Gillis Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Journalism, Indiana University June 2013 ii Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Doctoral Committee David Paul Nord, Ph.D. Mike Conway, Ph.D. Tony Fargo, Ph.D. Khalil Muhammad, Ph.D. May 10, 2013 iii Copyright © 2013 William Gillis iv Acknowledgments I would like to thank the helpful staff members at the Brigham Young University Harold B. Lee Library, the Detroit Public Library, Indiana University Libraries, the University of Kansas Kenneth Spencer Research Library, the University of Louisville Archives and Records Center, the University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library, the Wayne State University Walter P. Reuther Library, and the West Virginia State Archives and History Library. Since 2010 I have been employed as an editorial assistant at the Journal of American History, and I want to thank everyone at the Journal and the Organization of American Historians. I thank the following friends and colleagues: Jacob Groshek, Andrew J. Huebner, Michael Kapellas, Gerry Lanosga, J. Michael Lyons, Beth Marsh, Kevin Marsh, Eric Petenbrink, Sarah Rowley, and Cynthia Yaudes. I also thank the members of my dissertation committee: Mike Conway, Tony Fargo, and Khalil Muhammad. Simply put, my adviser and dissertation chair David Paul Nord has been great. Thanks, Dave. I would also like to thank my family, especially my parents, who have provided me with so much support in so many ways over the years.
    [Show full text]
  • 9 B BOR0617.Pdf
    SOUTH DAKOTA BOARD OF REGENTS Academic and Student Affairs AGENDA ITEM: 9 – B DATE: June 27-29, 2017 ****************************************************************************** SUBJECT: Institutional Items of Information Attached please find a copy of the Institutional Items of Information submitted by Black Hills State University, Dakota State University, Northern State University, South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, South Dakota State University, the University of South Dakota, the South Dakota School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and the South Dakota School for the Deaf. Table of Contents for Attachment I Black Hills State University 2 – 6 Dakota State University 7 – 18 Northern State University 19 – 24 SD School for the Blind and Visually Impaired 25 – 26 South Dakota School for the Deaf 27 – 31 South Dakota School of Mines and Technology 32 – 40 South Dakota State University 41 – 51 University of South Dakota 52 – 59 ****************************************************************************** INFORMATIONAL ITEM Board of Regents June 27, 2017 | Aberdeen Black Hills State University honors 50-year class during spring commencement Members of the graduating Class of 1967 were honored during spring commencement for the 50-year anniversary of their graduation. Also in attendance was Berdelle Johanna Johnson Christiansen of the Class of 1930. Berdelle is believed to be the oldest living BHSU alum. Pictured left to in the photo, members of the Class of 1967 in attendance included: Myrna (Dayton) Nikont from Lemmon; Elaine (Glaeseman) Burns from Mesa, Ariz.; Duane K. Berke from Rapid City; Bonita (Mohler) Ley from Rapid City; Marion (Wilson) Case from Lead; Dixie (Kendrick) Boyd from Springs Branch, Texas; Michael T. Foley from Weston, Wisc.; Roger D.
    [Show full text]
  • Unpresidential
    1 UNPRESIDENTIAL f we are going to be honest with ourselves in assigning blame for the unhinged assault on Donald Trump, we must start with the vil- I lainy of Never-Trump Republicans who opposed Trump’s nomina- tion, disapproved of his campaign and, in many cases, still resist his presidency. This includes a vast array of prominent party figures, establishment conservatives, and moderates: • Two former presidents (both Bushes) • Five GOP presidential primary candidates • Twenty-two former cabinet-level officials • Twenty current and former governors • Seventeen current and former U.S. senators • Sixty-two current and former members of the House of Representatives 9 10 ALL OUT WAR • Twenty-eight former State Department officials • Sixteen former Defense Department officials • Twenty-five former national security officials • Fifty-seven conservative academics, commentators, and journalists The editors of National Review, the granddaddy of conservative publications, devoted an entire issue at the beginning of 2016 headlined “Against Trump.” “We sympathize with many of the complaints of Trump supporters about the GOP, but that doesn’t make the mogul any less flawed a ves- sel for them,” the editors of the magazine wrote. “Some conservatives have made it their business to make excuses for Trump and duly get pats on the head from him. Count us out. Donald Trump is a menace to American conservatism who would take the work of generations and trample it underfoot in behalf of a populism as heedless and crude as the Donald himself.” The Weekly Standard, the voice of the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party, was equally harsh in its assessment of Trump.
    [Show full text]
  • Conversations with Bill Kristol
    Conversations with Bill Kristol Guest: Ronald Brownstein, Senior Editor, The Atlantic Senior Political Analyst, CNN Taped June 27, 2018 Table of Contents I: Red America and Blue America 0:15 – 47:07 II: 2018 and 2020 47:07– 1:24:19 I: Red America and Blue America (0:15 – 47:07) KRISTOL: Hi, I’m Bill Kristol. Welcome to CONVERSATIONS. I’m joined today by Ron Brownstein, senior editor at The Atlantic, senior political analyst at CNN. In my opinion, one of the best analysts of American politics. BROWNSTEIN: Thank you, Bill, good to be here. KRISTOL: A rare combination of detailed, granular understanding of electoral matters and the big historical sweep. So, I’ve now put a big burden on you here… BROWNSTEIN: Thank you, thank you. Well, we are living in a big – we are in a big sweep right now, right. KRISTOL: …to live up to this introduction. BROWNSTEIN: Yes. KRISTOL: So, I think we talked a year ago. Now we’re – what? – more than a year and a half out from the election. BROWNSTEIN: Yeah. KRISTOL: Only four or five months till November 2018. What’s changed over the last year? We analyzed 2016 a little bit last time. So, where are we now, here in June-July of 2018? 2017 – what are we in? 2018. BROWNSTEIN: 2018. I feel like every crevice, every fissure that we talked about in 2017 and that we saw in 2016 may be even deeper in 2018. To me, the Trump presidency has said more about the country than about him.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter One: Postwar Resentment and the Invention of Middle America 10
    MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School Certificate for Approving the Dissertation We hereby approve the Dissertation of Jeffrey Christopher Bickerstaff Doctor of Philosophy ________________________________________ Timothy Melley, Director ________________________________________ C. Barry Chabot, Reader ________________________________________ Whitney Womack Smith, Reader ________________________________________ Marguerite S. Shaffer, Graduate School Representative ABSTRACT TALES FROM THE SILENT MAJORITY: CONSERVATIVE POPULISM AND THE INVENTION OF MIDDLE AMERICA by Jeffrey Christopher Bickerstaff In this dissertation I show how the conservative movement lured the white working class out of the Democratic New Deal Coalition and into the Republican Majority. I argue that this political transformation was accomplished in part by what I call the "invention" of Middle America. Using such cultural representations as mainstream print media, literature, and film, conservatives successfully exploited what came to be known as the Social Issue and constructed "Liberalism" as effeminate, impractical, and elitist. Chapter One charts the rise of conservative populism and Middle America against the backdrop of 1960s social upheaval. I stress the importance of backlash and resentment to Richard Nixon's ascendancy to the Presidency, describe strategies employed by the conservative movement to win majority status for the GOP, and explore the conflict between this goal and the will to ideological purity. In Chapter Two I read Rabbit Redux as John Updike's attempt to model the racial education of a conservative Middle American, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, in "teach-in" scenes that reflect the conflict between the social conservative and Eastern Liberal within the author's psyche. I conclude that this conflict undermines the project and, despite laudable intentions, Updike perpetuates caricatures of the Left and hastens Middle America's rejection of Liberalism.
    [Show full text]
  • “Benevolent Global Hegemony”: William Kristol and the Politics of American Empire
    Gary Dorrien “Benevolent Global Hegemony”: William Kristol and the Politics of American Empire by Gary Dorrien ear the end of the Cold War a group of neo-conservative intellectuals and Npolicy makers began to argue that instead of cutting back on America’s vast military system, the United States needed to use its unmatched power to create a global Pax Americana. Some of them called it the unipolarist imperative. The goal of American foreign policy, they argued, should be to maintain and extend America’s unrivaled global dominance. The early advocates of unipolar dominance were familiar figures: Norman Podhoretz, Midge Decter, Charles Krauthammer, Paul Wolfowitz, Joshua Muravchik, and Ben Wattenberg. Their ranks did not include the godfather of neo-conservatism, Irving Kristol, who had no interest in global police work or crusading for world democracy. Though he later clarified that he was all for enhancing America’s economic and military preeminence, Irving Kristol thought that America’s overseas commitments should be determined by a classically realist calculus. His son William Kristol had a greater ambition for America, which he called “benevolent global hegemony.” In 1992, the New York Times revealed that Wolfowitz, then an undersecretary for defense, was drafting a new policy plan for the Pentagon that sought to prevent any nation or group of nations from challenging America’s global supremacy. President George Bush disavowed the controversial plan, and for the rest of the 1990s establishment Republicans did not speak of grand new strategies. But the neo-cons continued to argue for “American Greatness,” founded new institutions, and made alliances with hard-line conservatives such as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
    [Show full text]
  • The Other Side of Campus Indiana University’S Student Right and the Rise of National Conservatism
    The Other Side of Campus Indiana University’s Student Right and the Rise of National Conservatism JASON S. LANTZER n a brisk spring day in March 1965, an estimated 300 Indiana 0University students assembled in Dunn Meadow, the green oasis beside the Indiana Memorial Union where students often relaxed between classes or met to play games. This day was different, however, as these students gathered not to enjoy the atmosphere, but to speak their minds about the war in Vietnam. They carried signs, chanted slogans, and generally behaved, according to the campus newspaper, the Indiana Daily Student (IDS), in a manner not unlike that of an additional 650 students and locals who had also assembled in the meadow to hear speeches about the civil rights move- ment in the wake of the recent march on Selma, Alabama.‘ This convergence of civil rights and Vietnam demonstrations may sound like a typical episode of 1960s campus activism, but it was not. A good half of the students attending the Vietnam rally marched in support of the United States’ commitment to halting the advance of communism in Southeast Asia. While such a show of support was hardly uncommon, either at IU or at other college campuses nationwide, subsequent studies of 1960s Jason S. Lantzer is a visiting lecturer in history at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. For reading of and assistance with this essay, he extends his thanks to Prof. Nick Cullather, Chad Parker, and the IMH staff. ‘Indiana Daily Student, March 10, 11, 12, 13, 1965; hereafter cited as IDS INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY, 101 (June 2005) 0 2005, Trustees of Indiana University.
    [Show full text]