Bonus Episode – Millennials and the GOP with Kristen Soltis Anderson

The incomparable Kristen Soltis Anderson joins Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis to discuss a plethora of topics from the GOP’s branding problem with young Americans, what messaging might appeal to Millennials, whether Millennials are Leftists, and the value of polling.

Kristen is a pollster, speaker, commentator, and author of The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (And How Republicans Can Keep Up).

Kristen is co-founder of Echelon Insights, an opinion research and analytics firm that serves brands, trade associations, nonprofits, and political clients. Through her work at Echelon, she regularly advises corporate and government leaders on polling and messaging strategy, and has become one of the foremost experts on the Millennial generation. Kristen is also a frequent speaker to corporate and political audiences about emerging public opinion trends.

Kristen is a regular presence on television news and has served as an ABC News political analyst, participating in their election night coverage in 2016. She regularly appears on programs such as MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Fox News’ Fox News Sunday, CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper and HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher.

Kristen is the host of SiriusXM’s “The Trendline with Kristen Soltis Anderson,” airing weekly on their POTUS politics channel. She also co-hosts the bipartisan weekly podcast, “The Pollsters,” featuring Democratic pollster Margie Omero. She is a regular columnist for The Washington Examiner and has written for The Washington Post, The New York Times and more.

In 2016, Kristen was named one of ELLE’s “Most Compelling Women in Washington,” and in 2013 she was named one of TIME’s “30 Under 30 Changing the World”. She has been featured in Marie Claire’s “New Guard”, Cosmopolitan, and Glamour.

Kristen served as a Resident Fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics in 2014 and has been an invited speaker at many colleges and universities. She received her Master’s Degree in Government from Johns Hopkins University (with “Best Thesis in the Area of Democratic Processes” honors) and her Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from the University of Florida.

Kristen is currently a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She serves on the advisory boards of a variety of companies as well as a number of nonprofit organizations including ClearPath, Service Year Alliance, the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, and Winning for Women.

Originally from Orlando, Florida, Kristen now resides in Washington, DC with her husband Chris and her golden retriever Wally. In her free time, she enjoys growing chili peppers and cheering for the Florida Gators.

LISTEN HERE

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Episode 42 - Media Bias with Peter Pischke

Is the media biased? Has media bias always been a problem in the United States, or is it a more recent development? Does the mainstream media have a Leftwing bias? Does bias exist on the Right? Saving Elephant’s host Josh Lewis welcomes Peter Pischke to the show to discuss all things media bias.

Peter Pischke is an aspiring journalist and host of The Happy Warrior podcast, a journalistic and intellectual Conservatarian commentary on the news of the day from a more positive perspective.

Peter earned his Master’s in journalism from South Dakota State University, but a chronic illness known as Chronic Pancreatitis causing intractable pain and disability has made it challenging for him to fully pursue his passion in journalism. He attributes his interest in journalism, politics, and news-making to his chronic condition. When he became sick in 2007 there weren’t any streaming media services to keep him occupies. Instead, he discovered Glenn Beck while educating himself on the topic of global warming, and turned to talk radio as a way to pass the time. This inspired him to research the topic more closely and voraciously consume books about media bias and journalism by John Stossel, Bernard Goldberg, Jonah Goldberg, and others.

Peter has run for school board twice (and lost), got a South Dakota representative re-elected, and worked on a successful mayoral campaign. My second run for school board is what got him into podcasting. The rancor he experienced from his fellow citizens was so very bad that it made him want to create something to share news and help bridge the gap between the political tribes.

In addition to podcasting, journalism, and politics, Peter’s passions include patient advocacy for those suffering from chronic conditions, particularly chronic pain. He’s recently begun doing charitable patient advocacy with chronic pain patients (primarily with social media). This year, due to struggling with untreated intractable pain and an article he wrote on the topic for The Federalist, he decided to get involved with providing comfort and advice to chronic pain patients. He believes this is a population under enormous stress and health problems, but society has ignored their suffering almost completely, and the despondency is so very bad. Specifically, Peter has become very passionate and vocal about the chronic pain aspect of the opioid crisis.

The following stats and links were referenced in the show:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/25/media-bubble-real-journalism-jobs-east-coast-215048

https://www.cjr.org/innovations/measure-media-bias-partisan.php

https://www.journalism.org/2019/06/05/many-americans-say-made-up-news-is-a-critical-problem-that-needs-to-be-fixed/

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/media-bias-left-study/

https://datausa.io/profile/soc/news-analysts-reporters-correspondents

https://www.adfontesmedia.com/static-mbc/

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/magazine/the-aspiring-novelist-who-became-obamas-foreign-policy-guru.html

LISTEN HERE

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Episode 41 - Why Beauty Matters with Bryan Baise

Does beauty matter? Very much so! But why does it matter? What does beauty do for us? For that matter, what is beauty? Bryan Baise—Saving Elephant’s first out-of-state guest to make a repeat appearance of the podcast—joins host Josh Lewis to attempt to untangle why beauty matters.

How we think about beauty can impact how we think about nearly everything. St. Thomas Aquinas taught that, for something to be beautiful, it must have integrity, proportionality, and brightness, clarity, and texture. Beauty was portrayed by classical and Christian thinkers as something that involved both the intellectual and moral parts of humanity. But in modern times people began to question this notion of beauty. They began to ask why beauty might do for them, and originality and utility became more important than mere beauty in the arts.

In focusing on originality, art became unoriginal in that all it had left to say was that some people like looking at some things and other people like looking at other things and that, in the end, nothing really matters. In focusing on utility, art became useful but void of the beauty that enriches lives. When everything has to have a use we lose the ability to look outside of ourselves because we’re always asking “what’s in it for me?”.

Bryan Baise is a professor of philosophy and apologetics at Boyce College. Bryan is the program director of philosophy, politics, and economics and the program director of the Christian worldview and apologetics. Bryan is currently working on two book proposals, one about beauty and another about introducing the conservative worldview to a non-academic audience.

Be sure and check out Andrew Snyder’s blog Josh mentions in the conversation and his post The Reality of Beauty, which argues that beauty can better portray reality than even material objects.

LISTEN HERE

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