The FRONTLINE Interviews
Marshall Kosloff
The Realignment Podcast
Marshall Kosloff is a media fellow at the Hudson Institute. He co-hosts The Realignment podcast which focuses on political realignment in the United States.
The following interview was conducted by Gabrielle Schonder for FRONTLINE on August 1, 2024. It has been edited for clarity and length.
This interview appears in:
TOP
Marshall Kosloff
Chapters
Text Interview:
Highlight text to share it
Political Realignment in the U.S.
Your podcast, <i>The Realignment</i>, looks at the ideological shifts happening in the U.S.right now.Can you set up that shift in a couple sentences?
Yeah.So 2015 was supposed to be the coronation of Hillary Clinton against a Jeb Bush-style candidate.Instead, we saw a Democratic primary where obviously Bernie [Sanders] didn't get anywhere close to winning, but he really comes out of nowhere to do incredibly well in the Democratic primary.You also saw Brexit, which really blew apart our conception of what Europe and the West probably looked like.And then also, and critically, we had Donald Trump come out of nowhere to not only win the Republican primary against more traditional Republican candidates, but then actually beat Hillary Clinton.That opened up all this space about different ideologies, different sets of ideas.Trump said things like, “Hey, the Iraq War was a bad idea”; “Hey, actually, unlike Paul Ryan, we're not going to cut Social Security and entitlement programs.” So that got me really interested in the idea that we're living this moment where, obviously including the Democratic side, you have Democratic socialism, this new space, and the moment could open up new sets of ideas.
And where does the New Right fit into that new alignment?
So the New Right is a really interesting idea, coalition—you could pick a bunch of different ways of describing it.So let's start by describing what the Old Right was, and we should also note there have been a couple of different New Rights.We're talking about the New Right circa, let's say, 2017, 2018, 2019.So the Old Right, think of the Reaganite three stools of the conservative movement.You have the fiscal and economic conservatives.They are supply-side tax cutters; they talk about the budget and deficits.That's one leg of the stool.The second leg of the stool is social conservatism: pro-life, anti-gay marriage, etc., etc., etc.And then finally you have the foreign policy hawks, aggressive, forward-deployed United States, defense budget, etc., etc., etc.
The New Right basically not only critiques the three planks of those stools in different ways, except for maybe the socially conservative one.It critiques fiscal conservatism as being ultimately uninterested in things like the family, workers who are left behind, different parts of American society that may not see the rising tide lifting all boats.That's the critique of the fiscal side.You then see the critique of the foreign policy side.It's all about the war in Iraq; the “forever war,” the war in Afghanistan; America's time overseas doesn't benefit the whole country, and it's basically this giant globalist enterprise that wastes blood and treasure.
Critically on the social conservative front, the New Right is socially conservative, but it argues that at a political level, the Old Right completely failed to actually deliver for social conservatives.They talked about getting rid of abortion for 30 or 40 years, but nothing actually happened until you get a candidate like Donald Trump, who not just on paper but literally is like the last person that anyone would suggest as the spokesman for the social conservative movement, but he actually wins an election and then appoints the Supreme Court justices necessary.
So the New Right would say, unlike the Old Right, they're much more interested in power, who can actually wield it and who could actually win in contrast to, let's say, the Old Right, which was socially conservative, but let's say, in the telling of the New Right, much more comfortable not winning actual battles.
Let me follow up with you on something there.Is that part of the willingness also to bend the old tenets and the old ideologies?Is it because—“Let's make this a little bit more palatable for a voting bloc”?
Yeah.So this is my obsession with the space.People try to start the story in the year 2015, but it actually should really start 2005, 2006, 2007.Ross Douthat, <i>New York Times</i> columnist, and his then co-author Reihan Salam wrote this amazing essay in <i>The Weekly Standard</i> called “The Party of Sam's Club,” and the whole point of this essay was if you actually poll the GOP-based voters on economic policy questions, tax cuts for the wealthy, is that our number one priority?What do we think of Social Security?What do we think of entitlement programs?Republican working-class-based voters, aka people who shop at Sam's Club, actually preferred the Democratic Party's position on that issue.They then wrote a book in 2008 called <i>Grand New Party</i> that was arguing that the Republican Party should transition much more into that more working-class-oriented economic side of things.Immigration was what we talked about.So what we then see happening over the next seven years or so is you see different movements like the reform conservatives.
The way they articulated this, and they aren't quite in the New Right, what they said was the three stools of the Republican Party, of the conservative movement, those are all great; those are all fine if the year is 1980.If Ronald Reagan was alive today, he wouldn't talk about, let's say, the budget because the budget's in a different place.He wouldn't talk about a giant tax cut as his number one priority because actually, it turns out, the economy and the tax situation is in a way different place.Reagan was cutting FDR, New Deal-era tax cuts, not already on top of the situation where you had George W.Bush passing tax cuts in the first place, too.
So you saw all these different strains of Republican Party and conservative movement ideology thinking, OK, we're not winning the popular vote in elections.All of the polling suggests the base isn't interested in this.Maybe there's a path for us to create something new that fulfills the tradition of what Reaganism was, which was an ideology that could win the popular vote and the electoral vote.
Vance Publishes <i>Hillbilly Elegy</i>
Let me ask you about JD Vance, because that's obviously why we're here today.So he's entering the public consciousness as the author of <i>Hillbilly Elegy</i>.He's developing his political consciousness around kind of the same time as he's working on the book.The first public record that we have of his writing is under the pseudonym for Frum Forum.Can you tell me—can you characterize his writing for David Frum at the time?
Yeah.So people should understand what Frum Forum was.Frum Forum also comes out of this era post-2008 where, like Reihan and Ross, like I mentioned earlier, <i>Grand New Party</i>, David Frum writes this book called <i>Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again</i>.It's this broad question of how do—and once again, all of these reformist efforts on the right are trying to answer a basic question of—how does the GOP actually win elections during the era of Obama?After David left the American Enterprise Institute for a variety of reasons we won't get into, he started Frum Forum as sort of like the central clearinghouse for young conservatives who are interested in actually not only reforming the right, but actually answering this question of how do we actually win?So JD's writing is interesting because he's writing this around the time before he's gone off to law school.He is sort of all over the place in the way you think he would be.He writes a piece that's sort of defending the war in Iraq.He writes a piece that's talking about actually we should be open to cutting entitlement programs, which very much doesn't fit in New Right ideology.He also, though, is writing about how levels of immigration are probably too high and we should think about the immigration issue through an economic lens.So I think at that time we should understand that JD is actually using Frum Forum as a place to figure out his thinking and answer a broad set of questions that don't always track perfectly for where he ended up.
Can you talk a little bit about the reception to the book when it comes out?
Yeah.The book had—I had this told to me—the book had just the greatest timing ever.It's obviously commissioned way before Trump is on stage, way before Hillary Clinton's getting checked by Bernie in the primary.So it came out June 2016.So even if Trump hadn't won in 2016, the book still would have hit, because clearly it was speaking to this idea that, OK—and this is why I brought up Brexit earlier.We had one conception of the world.Things are going pretty well.We're in the late stages of the Obama years.We are going to elect Hillary Clinton and move on.But that obviously didn't work.And you saw these vulnerabilities during the Republican and Democratic primaries.So the book just came out at the perfect time when people were looking to sort of say to themselves—“What are we not getting about our country and the way people within our country look at the world we're building here?”—to really understand that.
You meet him around this time period?
Yeah.I just met JD in New York, just at a book event, just talking about these sort of ideas, because once again, I was one of those people who was just like, I think the most important story in 2016 really was, what is happening with the right?Where is it going?And at this point, no one thought that Donald Trump was going to win.But critically, even if Donald Trump had lost to Hillary Clinton, the fact that he beat Jeb, that he beat Sen.Rubio, that he beat Sen.Cruz, who were supposed to be leading the next generation, that meant something no matter what.
Vance’s Political Evolution
The book doesn't really get into policy solutions.Where are Vance's politics at the time?
This is something that I'm absolutely fascinated by because I think there's a big mischaracterization of JD's politics.It's that people focus on the fact that he clearly in 2016 was a Never Trumper.But we should understand that there are different types of Never Trumpers.There are Never Trumpers whose politics I'll sum up as “Make America 2013 Again” or “Make the Republican Party the Republican Party of 2013 Again,” because 2013, that's right after Mitt Romney is destroyed by Barack Obama, so that's when the RNC is writing this big report saying, “Hey, America's changing.” We need to moderate on immigration.Sean Hannity's endorsing immigration reform.We need to moderate on social issues.We need to present a new Republican Party to the world.This is a Republican Party in 2013, which seems to be up for grabs for the Marco Rubios of the world.
JD was not in that category even when he was saying, “I don't like Donald Trump.I don't think he should be president of the United States.” Most people who were traditional Never Trumpers were in that category.What was interesting about JD's thinking, which was still developing, but it was clear even at the time, and you see this in him writing about immigration at Frum Forum, the Republican Party that JD clearly wanted after what everyone expected to be a Trump loss would not have been the Republican Party of the Lincoln Project.So you really have to understand these are actually two—they came to the same conclusion about Donald Trump's fitness for the presidency, but without even having to assume anyone's assumptions or worldviews, they were clearly going in different directions.
Is the New Right an answer to some of that years later?
The New Right is fascinating because the New Right is an answer that no one in the RNC wanted to be the answer, because think about it this way: When the GOP was thinking about reconceptualizing itself in 2013, the autopsy isn't talking about, “Hey, turns out our voters aren't a huge fan of big tax cuts.Hey, actually, Paul Ryan is running as the person who's going to reform Medicare and Medicaid.” Paul Ryan is talking about Social Security.Actually our voters don't want any of that.They basically just want things maintained, and they're also incredibly immigration-skeptical.
… The problem for the RNC is that the New Right answers the question of how can Republicans win elections in a totally different way than any of the autopsy assumed.It doesn't require moderating on social issues; it doesn't require moderating immigration; and critically, it doesn't require presenting a different set of faces when it comes to racial representation.
When you think about early 2017, who is JD Vance politically?
Politically, I'd say JD is in a weird place at the time.At a career level, he is on the Aspen circuit, as he will literally tell you, explaining Trump voters, explaining parts of the country that have been left behind. … What's interesting about JD's political evolution is, at a certain point, though, the explaining project is a dead end, because clearly, when it's come to a variety of different policy areas, JD's quite a bit more friendly with Trump than the venture capitalists, the people who work in finance, who he's explaining these things to.So at a certain point, he's explained all he can about Trump.
And also, let's be clear here: JD didn't predict Trump.He didn't endorse Trump.So even he—I think he's been pretty frank about, there are serious explanatory limits to what he's doing.He was working on the book project before he was even doing Trump, so I think he finds himself in 2017, 2018, he's completed a book project, he's completed the tour, where does he go from there?… And if my primary objection to Trump was that he couldn't be commander in chief, say what you want about Trump, Trump has been commander in chief for a couple years now.That contradiction has become less and less over time.
Is this when he's starting to sort of fixate a little bit on culture wars?
What's interesting here is that there are different versions of the Trump presidency.And by 2017, 2018, you're starting to see the real polarizing time for choosing “You’re with us or against us” moments: Kavanaugh hearings, the multiple impeachments of Donald Trump, the firings, the scandals, the <i>Washington Post</i> fact checker.Those circumstances, I think, start to become more of an orienting experience for many conservatives.In fact, many conservatives who weren't friendly to Trump in the first place clearly start aligning more with him once he starts seeing these culture war-adjacent, either-or style decisions.
What is it about the pillars of Catholicism that align with the New Right positions?
… During the Trump years, Catholicism, I think, on a variety of very straightforward, I think, really interesting levels, tradition, returned to a certain style of institutionalism, really appealed to members of the right.So you will notice on the New Right, especially, there's a disproportionate representation of Catholics, and especially Catholic converts.…
When I've spoken to folks who converted to Catholicism, what they've been really enchanted by, I think that's a fair way to put it, is the intellectual nature of the Catholicism they are adopting.So this isn't a Catholicism of, “I was born in Texas, and this is my faith, and this is what I just do at a family level.” It's very framed around intellect and different orders and that very specific articulation of it, so the style of person who is interested in big ideas or exploring the nature of the way the country worked right now or even the world was also attracted to a certain type of Catholic conversion.
Trump Picks Vance for VP
I'm just going to go to today because I want to stay in the contemporary moment for a bit.Why did Trump pick Vance, in your mind?
Clearly we were in a different race in July, and Trump was deciding between his VPs up until the last second, but my understanding of how Trump and the parts of Trump's world that are aligned with JD thought of the VP choice was within this lens, as I discussed earlier, where a decent portion of the people on the right thought that the Trump presidency was basically kind of hijacked.You had the impeachment hearings; you had the chaos of the hirings and firings; you had the first six months get wasted when they adopted traditional Republican policies that Trump didn't really care that much about.So the thought is, let's actually just lean in; this is going to be our presidency; this is the do-over.We're not going to pick Mike Pence because even Mike Pence doesn't agree with anything with us.We need to make a concession to the base that's skeptical.I think they see the base as captured, on board, etc., and they want to really go for broke with the VP they're picking.Also, let's remember, too, traditionally speaking, VPs aren't expected to have much of an impact on the actual result, so the thinking is it's not going to make much of a difference whether it's Doug Burgum or Sen.Rubio or Sen.Vance.Let's just pick the one which is most aligned with our actual ideology and what we're trying to actually do here.
When you say “go for broke with Vance,” what does that mean?
It means that if a 2024-elected President Trump wakes up in February 2025 and says, “I'm going to get out of NATO, no ifs, ands or buts,” I don't think then VP Vance is going to contradict, argue beyond, let's say, private conversation.I'm not saying he would just literally say yes, but if President Trump says it's going to happen, it would happen under Sen.Vance.I think if someone like Sen.Rubio—who I like a lot; I've interviewed him a bunch of times—I think there's always going to be a suspicion that in the back of his mind, he's going to return to his traditional Republican orientation on these issues.
There's been a lot made of—and this is you and I talking now in August; this is obviously going to air in October—but at the moment we're in, there's been a lot of talk about Vance and Project 2025.To what extent does he agree with the policies outlined in Heritage's vision, and can we expect him to carry those principles out?
Yeah.So you said two things there.You said “policies” and “principles,” and that distinction isn't nitpicking.It actually really matters, because Project 2025 is actually three different things.Firstly, it's a 900-page document going into the minutiae of every single imaginable policy area.This is a long-running Heritage Foundation tradition going back to the Mandate for Leadership in 1988 for Ronald Reagan's administration.So there are the policy wonkery bits, 900 pages of policy.I'm sure there are things JD agrees with; there are things JD doesn't agree with.Broadly speaking, there's a lot of stuff there.Two, what I would say, though, is in areas where JD is most interested, I'd say foreign policy; I'd say culture, orientation.I would almost certainly bet that JD is in agreement with those specific areas, even if it gets wonky.Two, statement of principles: I think JD is 100% within the statement of principles that actually Project 2025 is trying to put forward, because Project 2025 is a thesis.
The thesis is D.C.is broken.The old conservative movement is not up to the task of fixing it.We are going to build the next conservative movement that can actually change Washington, change the conservative movement, change the country.This is Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, going on TV saying that there's going to be a potentially bloody revolution over these things.I think that JD endorses that set of principles and that theory of the case when it comes to what D.C.is.
And then lastly, Project 2025 is also a staffing outfit.It's an effort to help staff the over 4,000 individuals who are going to be political appointees.Critically, JD is a person who has both endorsed the idea through board memberships on an organization like American Moment, that the Trump presidency was undermined by the fact that they didn't have a list of young, ambitious conservative staffers who would be aligned with the principles of the movement.
There were plenty of people in 2015 who had interned at the American Enterprise Institute, had worked as staff assistants for traditional conservative senators, who then were put into the Trump presidency, which on a variety of different levels didn't work because there was a gap.Project 2025 is all about making sure at a literal staffing level, there's a list of people who are vetted, who are on board and fit into that.So we should re-understand Project 2025 in those three different buckets.
The phrase “Make America Great Again” is something that sends signals to a lot of people.It sounds like we're harkening back to an earlier period in which maybe there wasn't justice around some of these social issues we're talking about today.How does JD view this?
I think JD sees his entire political life and so much of his ideology through the lens of the Rust Belt.So in many ways, when he's talking about making America great again, at his best, I think he'd refer to the side that Bernie Sanders talks about, which is the 1950s, you had factories that functioned; GM is seen as aligned with the country.This gets a little controversial, but obviously it was possible for a single wage earner, usually a father, to support an entire family and have access to the American dream.So I think the JD Vance response is that so much of what was available in the ’50s, ’60s, and then going to the ’70s went away in the Rust Belt has nothing to do with questions of race, identity, those other issues.
And so much of his critique of modern elites … is about breaking the supposed deal that was made [with] places like the Rust Belt in the 1990s.That's why he's talking about NAFTA.That's why he's talking about bad trade deals.That's why he's talking about China.That's why he's talking about letting China into the WTO.So I think from his perspective, there are definitely huge parts of the New Right that are much more interested in the culturally conservative part of the “Make America Great Again.”
But JD's framing was always very, very, very economical.And as you see with the answer around single-earner households, you see that the line between economics and culture gets thin very, very, very quickly.
He has gotten a lot of coverage lately about the women issue and gender roles and things like that.When you see those headlines, what do you think of them?What do you think of them?
It should be remembered that despite JD's wealth, despite its success, the whole point of the <i>Hillbilly Elegy</i> book was this is a person who does not come from this coastal elite, meritocratic world.He doesn't do well in high school, goes into the Marine Corps, goes to Ohio State, and then gets into Yale and enters into that world.And clearly, if we look at an America that is increasingly divided along the lines of class, identity and education especially, I think the “cat lady” comments are a real, just perfect encapsulation of the fights within JD's identity, which is, I think in many ways, when he refers to cat ladies, he's talking about upper-income, graduate school-educated, professionally oriented people who are from the Yale world that he's from, who work in venture capital, who live in that coastal divide area.And at a very experiential level, there's a gap between, I think, that identity and that grouping and the one where he orients his own self around.
But isn't he in that grouping?
So he's very frank about having access to money and power and all those things.And the funny thing is, oftentimes, because the New Right is so clearly on the higher-educated side of the diploma divide, they're very frank about this.Sen.Josh Hawley's in this category as well, too.They just look back to the tradition of there are lots of class traitors in American history.Both Roosevelt presidents were obviously incredibly wealthy and successful, but in many ways were seen as the enemies of capital.So within their own story and the way they conceive of themselves, like Josh Hawley writes a book about Theodore Roosevelt and antitrust and capitalism.
Within their own ideology themselves, they don't suffer any contradiction because they think they're within a tradition of seeing power, seeing how the world works, and then speaking for other people to reorient it in a different direction.
Latest Interviews
Latest Interviews
Policies
Teacher Center
Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation
Koo and Patricia Yuen
FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation. Web Site Copyright ©1995-2025 WGBH Educational Foundation. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.
Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; Park Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen. FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation. Web Site Copyright ©1995-2025 WGBH Educational Foundation. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.
