What Is the Future for Conservatism? A Debate

Charles C. W. Cooke is the editor of NationalReview.com, cohost of the Mad Dogs and Englishmen podcast, and author of The Conservatarian Manifesto. He is a frequent guest on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher and has broadcast for the BBC, MSNBC, Fox News, and Fox Business.

Ross Douthat joined the New York Times as an op-ed columnist in 2009, becoming the youngest regular op-ed writer in the paper’s history. He cohosts the Times op-ed podcast, The Argument, and serves as film critic at National Review. Douthat is the bestselling author of several books, including, most recently, The Decadent Society. He was an active ISI student as an undergraduate at Harvard.

William Kristol is founding director of Defending Democracy Together, an organization dedicated to defending America’s liberal democratic norms, principles, and institutions. The founder of the Weekly Standard, he is now editor at large of The Bulwark. Having served in senior positions in the Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, Kristol understands government from the inside; as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University, he has studied American politics and society from the outside. Kristol frequently appears on major television talk shows, and he is the host of the highly regarded video series and podcast Conversations with Bill Kristol.

Katherine Mangu-Ward is editor in chief of Reason, overseeing all of Reason’s print, digital, and video journalism. Her writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and numerous other publications. She is a frequent commentator on radio and television networks such as National Public Radio, CNBC, C-SPAN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC.

Daniel McCarthy is editor of ISI’s Modern Age: A Conservative Review. He served as editor of the American Conservative from 2010 through 2016. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, USA Today, The Spectator, the National Interest, Reason, and other publications. NPR, the BBC, and many other outlets seek out McCarthy for his commentary.

John A. Burtka, IV, is president of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Previously he served as executive director and acting editor of the American Conservative magazine. Johnny has appeared on Fox News and Fox Business and written for the Washington Post, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, First Things, the American Mind, and the Intercollegiate Review, among other publications. He has been a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute and has participated in academic fellowships at Washington College and the Trinity Forum.