Former National Security Advisor LTG (Ret.) H.R. McMaster delivers a keynote address exploring George Washington’s enduring example of leadership and the role of the military in American democracy. The program features a student-moderated conversation and audience Q&A examining some of today’s most important civil-military relations challenges, including political polarization, social media and apolitical service, the domestic use of force, and the future of the citizen-soldier.
Almost two hundred years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about the promise and peril of the democratic age. By some accounts, the dystopian future he foresaw has come to pass; increasingly, American citizens are alone and look up to the powerful state to supply all of their needs. Since World War II, commentators on American democracy have echoed Tocqueville's warning. This lecture will survey Tocqueville's apprehensions about the future and address the additional temptations with which we are confronted today.
Join us for an engaging talk with political scientist Wilfred Reilly, who argues that the United States faces an important choice on how to think about identity, politics, and citizenship. Intense and divisive public debates over the last decade now make these questions critical. Reflecting on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Reilly invites us to consider what it means to see one another as individuals first rather than members of categories.
College professors from UVA and Hillsdale, and the head of an independent Catholic school for girls, reflect upon the educational pursuit of teaching women -- both as students in their classrooms and historical and literary figures on the page -- as a process of finding exemplars for the good life today.
With populism often described as a symptom of elite failure, the populist wave that crested last year in the 2024 elections raises important questions about its causes and likely consequences. How did America get to a moment few even a year before expected? Veteran political analyst and CNN commentator Scott Jennings will address those points with an insider’s perspective on Donald Trump’s election to a second non-consecutive presidential term.
“The United States Constitution: A Work of Enduring Genius.” The United States has one of the world’s oldest governments in Federal Constitution of 1789. What made that system so enduring? Charles C.W. Cooke argues that the Framers' historical knowledge, willingness to compromise, and keen understanding of human nature, combined with Article V’s amendment process to create a document that is able to meet new circumstances head on. These provisions have made it a work of enduring genius that retains popular legitimacy and holds the American Republic in a stable political order.