INTERVIEW ON THE PRICE OF BUSINESS SHOW, MEDIA PARTNER OF THIS SITE.
Recently Kevin Price, Host of the nationally syndicated Price of Business Show, interviewed Phil Magness.
On a recent Price of Business, Host Kevin Price visited with Dr. Phil Magness of the Independent Institute.
For decades, Republican-aligned think tanks and journals provided the intellectual foundation of conservatism. Today, many of those same institutions are estranged from a GOP increasingly defined by populism, protectionism, and personal loyalty.
The Cato Institute and the Independent Institute, long champions of free markets and small government, are sharply at odds with the party’s embrace of tariffs, immigration restrictions, and record federal spending. The American Enterprise Institute (AEI), once a central architect of conservative economic policy, has grown uneasy with exploding deficits and the erosion of fiscal discipline. The Manhattan Institute, famous for promoting market-based urban reforms, has criticized GOP leaders for embracing subsidies and industrial policy. Even the Heritage Foundation, once the movement’s flagship, is internally divided, with some staff warning that abandoning free trade undermines decades of conservative principles.
On the intellectual front, National Review continues to sound alarms that conservatism has been reduced to grievance politics. The Hoover Institution, with its emphasis on deregulation and market solutions, has distanced itself from the GOP’s populist economic turn.
Foreign policy dissent remains, but it is more narrowly defined. The Hudson Institute and Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) have raised alarms about retreating from NATO and wavering on Ukraine, arguing that “America First” weakens American power rather than securing it.
Together, these institutions reveal a striking picture: traditional allies of the Republican Party — the very voices that once guided its agenda — now function more like a conscience in exile. Where they see principle, the GOP increasingly sees politics.
