Dirty Moderate with Adam Epstein
Dirty Moderate showcases the people who cut through the nails-on-a-chalkboard din of the modern-day American political scene. We promote rigorous analysis and lively debate with individuals on both sides of the aisle and beyond.
Our host, Adam Epstein, is a 12 time, Tony Award-winning former Broadway powerhouse producer turned political provocateur. Adam can go toe-to-toe with anyone on politics as he did on Trish Regan Primetime every Thursday night in 2019 as the lone non-conservative panelist, delivering his centrist perspective with grit, intellectual prowess, and undeniable charm.
Guests of the podcast range in perspective by design, and no two conversations are alike, but the one vitally important thing all of our guests have in common is they fight like hell for Democracy. Do you?
Executive Producer Dawn Sorokin, End House Media • Theme Song by @brettgarrisonepstein • Subscribe to the Dirty Moderate Nation Substack at www.dirtymoderate.com • Tweet the Show: @dirty_moderate
Dirty Moderate with Adam Epstein
Mona Charen
Mona Charen is a conservative American journalist, columnist, commentator and best selling author. She is the Policy Editor of The Bulwark, and host of the Beg to Differ podcast, which you need to subscribe to immediately.
Mona fell hard for William F. Buckley as a teenager, and her first job was as editorial assistant at his National Review. She went on to write speeches for first lady Nancy Reagan and then for the Gipper himself. Looking toward the 1988 race, Vice President George H.W. Bush wasn’t conservative enough for her. Fast forward through 4 best selling books (see below for links) and much prestige to CPAC-2018, where she got booed and seemingly harassed enough by the MAGA crowd for her views that security chose to escort her out of the building for her own safety.
Folks, this is NOT Lincoln's, Reagan's or Mona's Republican party.
Adam talks to Mona about her career as a conservative thinker, what being a “Never Trumper” means and about whether or not a new center right party might emerge and what that would mean for a potential post-Trump era conservative movement.
Mona's books:
Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First (2003)
Do-Gooders: How Liberals Hurt Those They Claim to Help (and the Rest of Us) (2005), Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense (2018)
Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism (2023)
Mona's New York Times Op-Ed about her CPAC experience: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/opinion/im-glad-i-got-booed-at-cpac.html
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