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Civitas Outlook
Topic
Constitutionalism
Published on
Feb 10, 2025
Contributors
Richard M. Reinsch II
Mount Rushmore National Memorial; Photo by John Bakator on Unsplash

Charles Kesler’s Struggle for the Founders’ Constitution

Contributors
Richard M. Reinsch II
Richard M. Reinsch II
Editor-in-Chief, Civitas Outlook
Richard M. Reinsch II
Summary
Charles Kesler’s defense of the American Founding from its critics on the left and right alike can help us recover our most cherished principles.
Summary
Charles Kesler’s defense of the American Founding from its critics on the left and right alike can help us recover our most cherished principles.
Listen to this article

American conservatism finds itself in a strange place. A resounding electoral victory was achieved in the 2024 election by a Republican party that, while modified from its Goldwater-Reagan standard, remains comprehensible to the conservative temperament. Conservatism is the form of the Republican party, or the party ceases to exist. Yet, conservatism has never agreed on the measuring rod of its activity. What precisely does it want to achieve, such that it knows the truth of its strategies and tactics?

One thinker who has been teaching, writing, and editing in ways that help us answer these essential questions is Charles Kesler, the founding editor of The Claremont Review of Books and a Dengler-Dykema Distinguished Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College. His political essays and editorship of the CRB are widely known across conservatism. Kesler has also formed the minds of graduate students who have assumed leading roles in academia, politics, journalism, and non-profit work. A new book of essays, titled Leisure with Dignity, by former Kesler students bids us to consider Kesler’s career because his teaching and writing bear close study for the conservative cause and our constitutional republic.

We live in a season of thoughtful and, at times, highly contested grappling with the question of how conservatives recover an America paralyzed, if not broken, by progressive ideology. I interviewed Kesler and read his scholarly output to better understand his political thinking and what it means in this period of national tumult. Kesler’s distinctiveness is best understood through those who influenced him and shaped him to be a thinker capable of political writing who joins foundational principles with current events and circumstances to produce essays that enlighten our understanding, helping us understand pitfalls and opportunities.

Continue reading at Law  &  Liberty

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