After the Theocons (w/ Damon Linker)

Damon Linker is an idiosyncratic figure among political writers—trained by Straussians as a political philosopher, he's a former editor of First Things, the flagship publication for intellectual religious conservatives, who broke with that publication over the Iraq War (among other things) and is now a self-described centrist. He's also a longtime friend of the podcast, who recently started his own attempt to grapple with what's happening in the GOP and among conservatives, a Substack newsletter he titled Eyes on the Right . In this conversation, Matt and Sam talk with Linker about what his own trajectory can teach us about the Right: his experiences working at First Things while the Bush administration was gearing up to invade Iraq; why thinks Sarah Palin marked a turning point on the Right; and his case for understanding Donald Trump as a political, rather than legal, problem. Sources: " The End of Democracy? The Judicial Usurpation of Politics ," First Things , November 1996 Damon Linker, " There is No Happy Ending to America's Trump Problem ," New York Times , Aug 21, 2022 " A Giving of Intellectual Accounts ," Eyes on the Right, Sept 9, 2022 " How Do You Solve a Problem Like D…