“President Trump: A Rugged Individualist?” (Podcast) May 19, 2017
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Area 45: President Trump, a “Rugged Individualist”?
The American dream rests on the notion on “rugged individualism”: freedom, liberty, and equality of opportunity and a tradition of conquering physical, economic, social, and political frontiers. David Davenport, coauthor of Rugged Individualism: Dead or Alive?, looks at President Trump’s political philosophy, his record to date and suggests ways the new administration can restore this flickering American tradition.
Podcast and Column on Rugged Individualism March 2, 2017
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The Washington Times has a syndicated column today with a segment on Gordon Lloyd’s and my new book on rugged individualism:
http://images.burrellesluce.com/image/12920AD/12920AD_322
Also, the Conservative Book Club has released a podcast interview I did recently in their Washington, D.C. office about the new book:
Davenport’s & Lloyd’s Book Featured in Pepperdine Magazine January 8, 2014
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A Bit of History Repeating
Two scholars and a student explore why looking back helps move public policy forward.
By Gareen Darakjian
In 1933, in the midst of the nation’s most debilitating economic crisis in history, then newly elected president Franklin Delano Roosevelt enacted a series of domestic economic programs that aimed to pull the American people out of the Great Depression. For the next three years Roosevelt’s “New Deal” focused on relief, recovery, and reform— the “3 Rs” that established the framework for today’s U.S. domestic policy and the ongoing debate between progressives and conservatives.
In their new book, The New Deal & Modern American Conservatism: A Defining Rivalry, authors Gordon Lloyd, professor of public policy at the School of Public Policy, and David Davenport, counselor to the director, Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and former president of Pepperdine University, revisit the debates between Roosevelt and fellow presidential nominee Herbert Hoover prior to the election and those disputes ignited by the New Deal in 1933.
In a conversation moderated by School of Public Policy student Alexander Klemp, the scholars delve deeper into the legacy of the New Deal and consider how the issues of the era remain current in public policy today.
KLEMP: The book presents a perspective of the New Deal that has not been presented in the past—that issues surrounding the era still exist. Why in your opinion has this perspective been overlooked in history?
LLOYD: A very low-ground, practical answer is that history is written by the winners. Look at the way that Hoover has been demonized. He was a hero, one of the whiz kids of the 1920s, and did an incredible amount of philanthropic work. Because of this one event, he gets dismissed, and along with the dismissal of the person goes the dismissal of the argument. And so, that’s one answer: that people—intellectuals in particular— have accepted the New Deal as a march forward in civilization and progress. And to somehow return to the self-interest of Hoover in American individualism is to return America to a world which fortunately has gone.
KLEMP: The book draws many parallels between the campaign rhetoric of the Roosevelt-Hoover debates and that of the liberals and conservatives in 2012. Can you discuss these parallels?
DAVENPORT: The parallels are very strong, indeed. I think what Roosevelt was arguing for was very much what Obama had argued for in 2012. I think he was concerned that the question was no longer liberty in America, but how government would guide policy to take care of people. For Roosevelt, it meant a lot of government planning, it meant bigger government, it meant more government control; it meant more programs to help people via social security, very much like the Obama narrative of adding health care to the agenda of ways that government protects and takes care of people.
Both Roosevelt and Obama argued that it was the role of government to promote income equality. Both Obama and Roosevelt were advocating for income equality and higher taxation on the rich, so in many ways the 2012 debate was an extension, if you will, of the New Deal and of Roosevelt’s arguments in the ’30s.
KLEMP: There are some people in the media who say that, because the national media is so overbearing and so powerful, national candidates don’t have a chance and that conservatives have been successively losing elections in the national front. What is the power of the media during election time?
LLOYD: I think there are all kinds of fallback positions, that there’s some evil force at work that robbed conservatives of the election, whether it’s the liberals blaming Wall Street and the big bankers and big rollers of campaign, to the conservatives blaming the big media.
But, I think media does matter. FDR won, in part, because he took the debate away from Hoover, because he was much better at the use of the radio. Obama has a way, which I think is much more young-friendly than Romney’s. I think the media matters not because it’s left-wing-dominated, but because media matters in a commercial society. Certainly, I think Reagan had an ability with media that the other folks did not. I’m not going to pay as much attention to who owns the media. Yes, the media is powerful, but I don’t think that’s where the problem is.
KLEMP: The book suggests that modern-day politicians must take historical cues from the New Deal era to be a viable part of the current national conversation. Can you discuss how and why you believe this to be true?
DAVENPORT What we were trying to point out in the book is that, in fact, there has now been sort of an 80-year- long paradigm for American domestic, economic, and tax policy. That is the New Deal on one side and modern American conservatism on the other. This, I think, is not widely recognized: that we still basically live in the New Deal and that conservatives are still responding to modern-day expansions of the New Deal. That’s point one: just to recognize the phase that we’re in. And to go back and recover the arguments at the creation of this paradigm, when Roosevelt obviously was developing the New Deal and Hoover was giving the first shocked conservative response, that’s a really fundamental time in any sort of development: to go back and see how those arguments went.
We do think that even conservatives today have gotten caught up in big government in some ways. They, themselves, have succumbed to big government and have lost some of the liberty argument and some of the federalism and constitutional argument of those early days. Our point is that individual liberty should still resonate with the American people. It has become a bit of an abstraction, but conservatives need to make it real again. We think going back, historically, to come back to today’s policy makes a lot of sense and I think those are the key points we were trying to make with this book.
Link to Pepperdine Magazine Article: http://magazine.pepperdine.edu/index.php/2013/12/a-bit-of-history-repeating/
Davenport’s Podcast on “The New Deal and Modern American Conservatism: A Defining Rivalry” (Hoover Press) October 2, 2013
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In a speech to Hoover Institution supporters in Los Angeles, David Davenport discusses ideas from his new book, coauthored with Gordon Lloyd: The New Deal and Modern American Conservatism–A Defining Rivalry. The book was released by Hoover Press on October 1.
Here is a podcast of David’s talk (approximately 30 minutes): https://soundcloud.com/hoover-institution/davenport-the-new-deal-and
Here is a press release about the book: http://www.hoover.org/news/press-releases/157741
Here is a link to the book on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/The-Deal-Modern-American-Conservatism/dp/0817916849/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380738352&sr=8-1&keywords=the+new+deal+and+modern+american+conservatism
National Popular Vote Interview (The John Batchelor Show 77 WABC) November 1, 2011
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David discusses the National Popular Vote movement.
GUESTS: David Davenport, Hoover; Jeff Foust, Space Review; Mark Schroeder, Stratfor; Bob Zimmerman, Behind the Black…
To listen to the podcast please click here: http://www.wabcradio.com/FlashPlayer/default.asp?SPID=33447&ID=2324604
A Central Part of the Palestinian Identity (‘The Frank Gaffney Show’ Secure Freedom Radio) September 27, 2011
Posted by daviddavenport in Radio Interview Podcasts.Tags: International Law
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With JAMES ROCHE, ANDY MCCARTHY, DAVID DAVENPORT
Will the reality of a Russian government run by the admittedly authoritarian Vladimir Putin translate into a hurdle for the Obama administration? Frank opens today’s Secure Freedom radio with his thoughts on the subject. When Putin officially becomes President again, this will be the first time in Moscow since 2000 that Russia will acknowledge that there is no power center besides this one man. The Obama administration, as displayed in the past, is completely helpless in stopping this authoritarian rule from continuing. The current administration’s policy towards the Russian government has been based on appeasement of its leaders. Thus, Russian strategic forces are being upgraded with new weapons, as the United States must downgrade its own. By passing the New START treaty, the Obama administration has stopped any production for new nuclear technology and has only forced the US to cut up our long-range nuclear weapons. Why are we allowing such an atrocity to occur while the Russians are able to keep their short-range missiles?
Contributing Editor for National Review Online and weekly commentator on Secure Freedom Radio, Andy McCarthy discusses his desire and America’s need for a competent President during these trying times. In the words of Ambassador John Bolton, President Obama is the “First Post-American President,” who is rejecting American exceptionalism and innovation. McCarthy fears what Obama will do in the one and a half years that he has at the helm of American leadership. Now, in order to gain more financial backing for his re-election campaign, he is catering his policies more towards the Jewish minority. Hurting the situation, the President maintains an ignorant view of foreign policy in regards to Palestine. His administration believes that most Palestinians are in favor of an Israeli state, whereas data suggests that over 90% of Palestinians in their early teens through early 30s deny that Israel has a right to exist. How can our leaders expect the numbers to be any different when it is as central to the Palestinian identity that Israel needs to be destroyed as the First Amendment is to Americans?
Research Fellow and Counselor to the Director at the Hoover Institution, David Davenport gives us a legal lesson on the qualifications for statehood. Currently in international law, there is no clearly defined test to determine whether a territory is or is not a state. There is also no clear body that has the power to recognize a nation as such. However, there are four traditional criteria that determine the legitimacy of a state. The two most important of these criteria are that the state must have a clearly defined territory and have control over this territory. Palestine does not fulfill either of these requirements; therefore, it cannot be considered for statehood. Davenport thinks that the reason they are asking for statehood now is due to their frustration with the Two-State Agreement failing between the cracks.
To Listen to the Podcast please click: http://www.securefreedomradio.org/2011/09/27/a-central-part-of-the-palestinian-identity/
National Popular Vote Bill & Keeping the Republic (Ronn Owens Show/KGO Newstalk am 810 Radio) April 28, 2011
Posted by daviddavenport in Radio Interview Podcasts.Tags: Public Policy
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Please click on the following link to hear the live interview from this morning’s Ronn Owens Show where David discusses his recent SF Chronicle article on “How to Lose the Republic.”
Audio link: http://vaca.bayradio.com/podcasts/owens042811_10am.mp3
NPR must give up its public money (John Batchelor Show, WABC-AM, New York City) March 13, 2011
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David discusses why NPR must give up its public money. The show was broadcast on Sunday/Mon 1220A: (920 Pacific Time). Other guest interviews include John Loftus and Aaron Klein.
To listen to the audio: http://podfuse-dl.andomedia.com/800185/podfuse-origin.andomedia.com/citadel_origin/pods/WABC/WABC-Batchelor/jbs_031311d.mp3
Why Can’t International Law Stop Pirates (The John Batchelor Show, WABC AM 770 New York) November 22, 2010
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This is a live radio interview with John Batchelor discussing piracy and why international law jurisdiction in today’s environment is difficult.
GUESTS: Landon Thomas, NYT; David Davenport, Hoover; Lauren Goodrich, Stratfor…
To listen to the audio interview: http://www.wabcradio.com/FlashPlayer/default.asp?SPID=33447&ID=2031194
Why Can’t International Law Stop Somali Pirates? (FoxNews.com) November 20, 2010
Posted by daviddavenport in Radio Interview Podcasts.Tags: International Law
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This is a live radio interview with Greg Jarrett on Fox HQ discussing piracy and why international law jurisdiction in today’s environment is difficult.
To listen to David’s recorded podcast: http://rcpt.yousendit.com/1046551069/50c6d7b48255049494cbe427560d7f76
David Davenport 