The American Conservative’s 5^th Annual Crony Capitalism Conference

The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was created to be a lifeline to small businesses struggling to stay afloat as the response to COVID-19 severely restricted their operations and decimated their bottom lines. But funding was quickly distributed to publicly traded companies, including established franchises, while mom and pop operations struggled to get access. Big and small banks alike allocated the lion’s share of monies to their relationship customers first, demonstrating once again that, even in a pandemic, the well-connected always end up at the front of the line.

COVID-19 measures made other parts of the playing field uneven, too, as business operating guidelines gave more latitude to the restaurants and retailers frequented by the elite than to neighborhood diners and corner stores.

What role did government and industry cronyism play in shaping our COVID economy? And how do we make sure all businesses, big and small, are treated fairly in a society still under the corona sun?

Join us for a special discussion on this timely topic.

Welcome: Emile Doak, Executive Director, The American Conservative

Opening Remarks: Ambassador C. Boyden Gray

Keynote Address:James DeMint, Chairman of the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) and former US senator from South Carolina*

Panel Discussion: COVID Cronyism and Its Impact on Small Business

Mark Meadows, Partner at CPI, former White House Chief of Staff and US Congressman from North Carolina

Veronique de Rugy, Senior Research Fellow, The Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Chris Bedford, Senior Editor, The Federalist

Micah Meadowcroft, Managing Editor, The American Conservative (moderator)

Concluding remarks: Emile Doak, Executive Director, The American Conservative

RSVP TODAY!

Continental Breakfast will be provided.

*via Zoom.

Registration is for in-person attendance. The event will also be livecast. No registration needed for livecast; details to be provided the day of the event.

Join The American Conservative for our annual Gala at The Mayflower Hotel.

The gala features a keynote speech from entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel.  

The evening will also showcase the presentation of TAC’s Conservative Mind Award to Journalist Gracy Olmstead and Lifetime Achievement Award to University of Pennsylvania Professor Dr. Walter McDougall.

Evening Program

• VIP Reception: 5:00-6:30 pm
• Cocktail Reception: 6:30 pm-7:30 pm
• Dinner & Keynote Speech: 7:30 pm-9:30 pm

Click Here  for more information about tickets and sponsorship opportunities.

Where does the conservative movement go in the post-Trump era? Does the Trump phenomenon represent an ideological shift for the Right–or does the policy playbook remain the same?

TAC’s “Main Street” conservatism serves as a roadmap for our current moment: Realism & restraint in foreign affairs. A humane economy that prioritizes families and local communities. An immigration system that takes into account the challenges of assimilation and the social fabric of communities already here. A social realm that rejects the poison of idenity politics and licentiousness.

Please join the leadership of The American Conservative for a special dinner on the Saturday evening of the Spring meeting of the Philadelphia Society as they expand on this vision for the magazine the movement.

Click here to register.

Sponorship opportunities are available. To learn more, please visit www.theamericanconservative.com/TXdinner, or contact Shaun Rieley at [email protected]theamericanconservative.com.

The The American Conservative and Texas Public Policy Foundation  invite you to join Rod Dreher, senior editor at The American Conservative, as he discusses his New York Times-bestselling book, Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents, with James Poulos, executive editor of The American Mind. Complimentary refreshments will be provided, and books will be available onsite for purchase.

This event will be hosted simultaneously in the TPPF Theater in Austin and online via livestream. 

RSVP here for an in-person or an online ticket to receive more details, as well as access to the event video if you’re unable to watch live. All health and safety protocols will be followed. 

Did you miss The American Conservative’s Foreign Policy conference last week? No problem! The video for TAC’s 7th Annual Foreign Policy Conference: Beyond 2020: The Future of Realism and Restraint in a Chaotic World is now available.

As we move forward from a presidential election which may ultimately be settled in the court system, where does all this leave restrainers and realists? Is there hope for a noninterventionist foreign policy in the near future?

Whole Life: A Common Sense Agenda for Strengthening The American Family

Stagnant middle class wages, burdensome student loan debt, rising housing costs and delayed family formation have crumbled the building block of our society. For too long politicians have paid lip service to family values but have done very little to support the bedrock institution that undergirds society from the bottom up. If social conservatism is to have a future in American politics, conservatives must become pro-life for the whole of life. As an appetite for a pro-worker, pro-family agenda grows on the Right, it’s worth considering how we might adopt policies to promote strong families, resilient faith communities and a thriving middle class.

On October 14, The American Conservative, American Principles Project and Plough Quarterly  hosted a conference to explore the nature of the crisis and present a winning policy agenda moving forward.

Watch the Full Conference

Agenda

Welcome:Emile Doak, vice president of advancement & programs, The American Conservative

Keynote Address: Pastor J. Heinrich Arnold, the Bruderfhof

Panel 1: Our Cultural Crisis: Why is Pro-Family Policy Needed Now?

Rod Dreher, senior editor, The American Conservative
W. Bradford Wilcox, senior fellow,  The Institute for Family Studies
Ed Lawson, president, Family & Community Engagement Services
Marshall Kosloff , media fellow, Hudson Institute (moderator)

Panel 2: A New Policy Agenda: What Does Pro-Family Policy Look Like in Practice?

Jonathan Schweppe, director of government affairs, American Principles Project
Samuel Hammond, director of policy & welfare study, Niskanen Center
Oren Cass, executive director, American Compass
Catherine Pakaluk, director of social research, Catholic University of America

Concluding Remarks, Emile A. Doak, vice president, advancement & programs, The American Conservative

Healthcare Under Siege: How Industry and Government Colluded to Create a Crisis for Consumers

Panel 1: Middle Men, Mark- Ups & Cronyism in the Age of Covid

• Dr. Robert Graboyes, senior research fellow and health care scholar, Mercatus Center at George Mason University
• Joe Lonsdale, founding partner 8VC and co-founder of Palantir
• Avik Roy, president, Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity
• AnneMarie Schieber, research fellow at The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Healthcare News (moderator)

Panel 2: Beyond Obamacare- Will an Expanded Public Option Curb Cronyism or Make a Bad Situation Worse?

• Michael F. Cannon, director of health policy studies, Cato Institute
• Nick Sorrentino, co-founder and editor of AC2NEWS.com and AgainstCronyCapitalism.org
• Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute
• Leonora Cravotta, director of operations,  The American Conservative (moderator)

Concluding Remarks, Emile A. Doak, vice president, advancement and programs, The American Conservative

The American Conservative and The American Prospect joined for an important discussion about how the left and right can collaborate to confront monopoly power on November 14 at The National Press Club.

The event featured FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra.

TAC & American Prospect Present 11/14/19: Right-Left Convergence Against Monopoly

Other speakers included:

• David Daven, executive editor, The American Prospect
• Robert Kuttner, co-founder and co-editor The American Prospect
• Jim Antle, editor, The American Conservative
• Jonathan Tepper, The American Conservative senior fellow and author of The Myth of Capitalism
• Phillip Longman, managing editor, Open Markets Institute and author of Best Care Anywhere
• Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director, Open Markets Institute
• Guy Rolnik , clinical associate professor of strategic management at the Booth School of Business and senior fellow with the Stigler Center.
• Alan Tonelson , founder of RealityChek, a public policy blog focusing on economics and national security, and the author of The Race to the Bottom.
• Liza Lovdahl Gormsen, director of the Competition Law Forum, British Institute of International and Comparative Law

Till We Have Rebuilt Notre Dame: A Conversation on the Future of Architecture, Faith, and Civilization in the West

presented by The American Conservative and The Westerfield Institute

The wide outcry at the fire at the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris seemed to indicate that many people care about the West’s cultural inheritance from Christendom. Yet with so many Christian traditions threatened by both architectural and religious decay, is there hope for civilization? The French government has insisted it will rebuild, but will it be restored in a way that respects the cathedral’s Christian and Western heritage?

On September 17, 2019, University of Notre Dame Professor of Architecture Duncan G. Stroik, Michael Brendan Dougherty, author of My Father Left Me Ireland., and The American Conservative’s senior editor Rod Dreher participated in a wide-ranging discussion of this watershed moment for Notre Dame, Western civilization, and more.

Watch the full video

The American Conservative was proud to be a co-sponsor of the Committee for Responsible Foreign Policy’s July 19 conference: The Impact of War on Religious Freedom, 9 am-12 pm, The Museum of The Bible.

The event featured a keynote speech from Senator Rick Santorum (Republican-PA)

And a roster of speakers on this important topic including:

W. James Antle III, Editor, The American Conservative
Kristina Arriaga, President, Oxford Society for Law and Religion
Rev. Dr. Andrew P. W. Bennett, Senior Fellow and Director, Religious Freedom Institute
Nadine Maenza, Commissioner, United States Commission on Religious Freedom

Red State=Clean Energy:How Market-Driven Clean Energy Is Transforming the Texas Electrical Grid

 March 8, 2018. Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2045, Washington, DC.

Thanks to past actions by state leaders, Texas is in the midst of a clean energy transition driven primarily by market forces. Over the last 20 years, the deregulation of the Texas electricity market and other initiatives, such as adopting one of the first Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) and investing in the Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ) to bring renewable power to Texas cities, have laid the foundation for today’s market-driven transition away from coal and toward cleaner fuels like natural gas and renewable energy.

What can federal lawmakers learn from the Texas example? TAC co-hosted a discussion of how these trends are playing out in the Texas electric market, how conservative leaders are embracing the economic benefits of clean energy, and what the “Texas story” can teach us about current energy debates in Washington and around the country.

Watch the full discussion here. This event was co-sponsored by the R Street Institute, Texas Clean Energy Coalition (TCEC), and The American Conservative.

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U.S. Foreign Policy in the Trump Era: Can Realism and Restraint Prevail?

November 3, 2017. Jack Morton Auditorium, George Washington University, Washington, DC.

Since its founding in 2002, The American Conservative has advocated for a truly

conservative foreign policy: one that rejects neoconservatism not in favor of “isolationism,” but in the great American traditions of realism, prudence, and restraint.  This fall, TAC convened leading scholars, policy experts, and journalists to make the case for realism and restraint in the Trump era. Speakers included Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), John Mearsheimer, Paul Kennedy, former Ambassador Jack Matlock, Jr. and many more. Read our recap and watch full video of the conference here.

The Curbside Chat: Charles Marohn of Strong Towns on Building Better Places

October 25, 2017. Hillsdale College Kirby Center, Washington, DC.

How can our towns get stronger—not weaker—when our economy changes? How can we repopulate our empty streets and empty storefronts? What can we learn

from the earliest days of city building about building better places tomorrow? And how can active citizens, local officials, and ordinary people make it happen today, no matter how badly we’re starting off? The American Conservative was proud to co-host Charles Marohn’s answers to these questions with Strong Towns and the Congress for the New Urbanism.