By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — Donald Trump’s speech in Warsaw to the people of Poland was the most important talk given on foreign soil by a U.S. president since Ronald Reagan in 1987, near the Berlin Wall, called on the head of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to tear down that wall, conservative political activist and radio host Seth Leibsohn suggested to a gathering here.
Trump’s July 6 speech affirmed a number of points in favor of faith, traditional values, and Western civilization that left the Warsaw audience repeatedly chanting his name.
The president said, “And above all, we value the dignity of every human life, protect the rights of every person, and share the hope of every soul to live in freedom. That is who we are. Those are the priceless ties that bind us together as nations, as allies, and as a civilization.”
Leibsohn, who had worked in Washington, D.C., with such national conservative figures as Jack Kemp and Bill Bennett, returned to his hometown of Phoenix after being producer of Bennett’s national Morning in America radio program.
He and another conservative activist, longtime friend Chris Buskirk, co-host a three-hour daily afternoon political talk program here on KKNT (960 AM), the Seth & Chris Show.
They also co-authored a new book, American Greatness (WND Books, Washington, D.C.). Its long subtitle sums up a familiar theme on their program: How Conservatism Inc. Missed the 2016 Election & What the D.C. Establishment Needs to Learn.
Bennett provides the foreword. The cover is dominated by a photo of Trump. A review of the book will appear in a future issue of The Wanderer.
Buskirk and Leibsohn’s program struck an early and strong tone for Trump as a presidential candidate who answered a need being overlooked by the professional political class, including those who practiced what the co-hosts criticized as “checklist conservatism.”
“American Greatness” also is the name of a website they put together, amgreatness.com.
Shortly after they got off the air on July 11, Buskirk and Leibsohn offered some observations to about 130 listeners who’d responded to an invitation to join them at a restaurant close to the mid-rise office building where they broadcast, about three-and-a-half miles west of Phoenix’s landmark Camelback Mountain.
Buskirk told the gathering that “somehow we became divided, we lost an election to Barack Obama. . . . How do we get back to the principles that made this country great?. . .
“We know what the principles are . . . but we have to save ourselves” instead of waiting for rescue by those at the top, Buskirk said. “. . . This has to be a groundswell from the bottom up. . . . It’s about America.”
Leibsohn told the gathering, “Conservatism Inc. has lost their way,” using a term familiar to the program’s listeners to describe inbred, out-of-touch establishment conservatism that couldn’t grasp Trump’s popularity.
Clearly Trump had a campaign message that resonated when “throngs and throngs and throngs of people” turned out for his rallies, Leibsohn said.
An audience member, recalling that Reagan was part of a triumvirate of leaders rounded out by Pope John Paul II and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, working together for the fall of Communism, asked who Trump has as similar notable allies.
Leibsohn offered a few suggestions including the prime minister of Poland, Beata Szydlo, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, and prime minister of India Narendra Modi.
India is “a partaker of Western civilization, too,” Leibsohn said, because of the British influence.
A woman in the Phoenix audience said she had just returned from a visit to the Czech Republic, and a man there, who had grown up under Communism, told her that he was concerned because he’d never seen the U.S., a decisive world influence, so divided.
Obama had thrown the Czech Republic overboard, Leibsohn replied, when he aborted its missile shield that was to have been protection against Russia. Obama’s and George W. Bush’s administrations “made a lot of mistakes,” Leibsohn said.
Although Leibsohn didn’t go into detail recalling the missile shield, it was a pungent reminder of one of the Democrat Party’s relatively recent significant capitulations to Russia’s Vladimir Putin — who today, national Democrats never tire of insisting, is a horrible threat.
Shortly after beginning his remarks, Leibsohn struck a note about intellectual improvement that is touched on during the radio program.
Plato had said all education is “basically unlocking what’s deep within our souls,” Leibsohn said, later adding that “our book is in the tradition, I hope,” of Plato on unlocking knowledge.
America’s founding principles were a historic example, he said: “. . .‘all men are created equal’. . . was a true intellectual shock heard around the world.”
Bullet points on the book’s back cover highlight some of its topics:
“What went wrong for the pundits and what they missed; how ‘America First” is simply common sense; how checklist conservatism failed America; who the media should be listening to; how it’s time to relearn the basics.”
Before Buskirk and Leibsohn spoke, KKNT general manager Jim Ryan told the audience that moving Leibsohn’s evening program forward to 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. and adding Buskirk as co-host was a notable success. “I have never had anywhere close to the positive feedback I’ve had when I put Seth and Chris in afternoon drive (time). . . .
“This is a unique show,” and he couldn’t be prouder to have them, Ryan said.
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