Know Your Enemy
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Frank Meyer, Inventor of Conservatism (w/ Daniel J. Flynn)
🕑 Added 2025-08-28 10:30:02 +0000 UTCDevoted Know Your Enemy listeners will recall that, in November 2021, we released a fairly dense, theory-driven episode on Frank Meyer, the Communist from New Jersey whose exploits on behalf of the Party in the UK got him kicked out of the country and back to the United States, where he eventually turned right and became a key figure in the post-war U.S. conservative movement, both as an editor at National Review and an architect of institutions like the American Conservative Union, Young Americans for Freedom, and the Conservative Party of New York. Of course, we had more to say about Meyer, and we're devoting another episode to him, this time focused on the details of his incredible life, thanks to the publication of an extraordinary new biography of Meyer, Daniel J. Flynn's The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer. Flynn discovered a trove of never-before-seen papers of Meyer's that range from personal documents (tax returns, Christmas cards from Joan Didion, his dance card from college) to his correspondence with nearly every conservative writer and intellectual of note in the 1950s and 60s. Armed with these files, Flynn offers a vivid portrait of a brilliant, eccentric political life and mind.
Listen again: "Frank Meyer: Father of Fusionism" (November 10, 2021)
Sources:
Daniel J. Flynn, The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer (2025)
Frank S. Meyer, In Defense of Freedom: A Conservative Credo (Regnery, 1962)
F.A. Hayek, "Why I am Not a Conservative," from The Constitution of Liberty: The Definitive Edition (2011)
George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 (Basic Books, 1976)
Garry Wills, Confessions of a Conservative (Doubleday, 1979)
"Against the Dead Consensus," First Things, March 21, 2019
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Comments
JimJim5122
I haven’t gone back and relistened to the Fetterman episode, but I have a dim memory of one of you acknowledging his imperfections - and listing his staunchly pro-Israel stance as being among them.
James Neimeister
Keep thinking about how we should bring back Browderism after this app
Aaron Deveson
I’m always so happy when you lads take us back to the Europe-haunted American twentieth century. It’s one of the nightmares from which we can’t awake. But, also, it tastes good. Perfect that Auden makes a cameo (as well as Bob).
Joel
Great ep! I wasn't expecting the Dylan cameo lol
