SHORT SYNOPSIS
SHORT SYNOPSIS
Greenfield skillfully stitches together the commentaries of 23 renowned scholars and cultural critics into a clear and compelling exploration of the divisive political and cultural agendas that are subverting Western values and individual rights.
The documentary’s underlying question deserves serious thought: How long can a nation survive when its younger generations hold its founding principles in contempt?
“Civilization in the Danger Zone” gathers many of the nation’s top academics and experts to examine the aftermath of the left’s attempts to destabilize and delegitimize three of America’s most essential building blocks . . . faith, family, and freedom.
An exceedingly honorable cast of cutting-edge thinkers . . . who have both gravitas and grace. They are, perhaps, Western civilization’s front-line defenders.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
During a conversation I had with the journalist Mark Tapson, an expert on popular culture, he remarked that the “fundamental transformation” former President Obama had called for no longer describes sufficiently the accelerating chaos in our country. What underlies the chaos is the culmination of a concerted war of attrition on the three foundational pillars that keep a society grounded and stable: family, faith, and nation. Tapson hit the nail on the head.
Under the escalating embrace of Marxist-Leninist ideology, the three foundational pillars are demonized. As Judeo-Christian values are scorned, woke ideology rises as a new godless religion. The nation-state is falsely characterized as an imperialist, colonialist construct, while globalist fantasies are popularized. And calls for the abolition of the family proliferate while birthrates drop drastically.
Civilization in the Danger Zone reminds us of the critical importance of these foundational pillars and their relationship to the sustainability of our freedoms and liberties. It exposes the ideologies and movements that are purposefully attacking them.
I made this documentary to remind us of our responsibility to protect these bedrocks of our civilization. We must do this for the sake of our children and grandchildren, and for all future generations.
SCREENINGS
Civilization In The Danger Zone is a powerful and effective educational resource. Sponsor a screening for your university, community, conference, organization, classroom, church or synagogue. For details on acquiring permission and scheduling a public screening, contact us here.
FILM FESTIVALS
• Official Selection, Santa Clarita International Film Festival, 2022
• Remi Bronze Award, Documentary Feature, Houston International Film Festival, 2023
• Nominee, Best Documentary, Faith in Film, 2023
• Recognition Award Winner, Impact DOCs Awards, 2023
• Outstanding Excellence Award, Religion Faith International Film Festival, 2024
FEATURING (in order of appearance)
KENNETH L. MARCUS | ERIC COHEN | ROD DREHER | PETER W. WOOD | DAVID BROG | VICTOR DAVIS HANSON | MOSHE KOPPEL | RUTH R. WISSE | RICH LOWRY | JOHN HINDERAKER | NICOLE NEILY | HEATHER MAC DONALD | JASON D. HILL | ROBERT PAQUETTE | LARRY P. ARNN | CHRISTOPHER RUFO| MARK TAPSON | CAROL M. SWAIN | DAVE RUBIN | BEN WEINGARTEN | FRANK GAFFNEY | RACHELLE PETERSON | MICHAEL MEDVED
DETAILS
TRT: 65 MINUTES| COLOR | 2022
FILMMAKERS
Executive Producer
GEORGE VIOLIN
Producer and Director
GLORIA Z. GREENFIELD
Director of Photography
RICHARD CHISOLM
Editor
GOLDIE SCHWARTZ
Original Music and Arrangement
JEAN MICHEL GUIRAO
AVAILABILITY
DVD (NTSC, PAL)
SalemNOW
FEATURED COMMENTATORS
Kenneth L. Marcus
Kenneth L. Marcus is founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law; Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Center for Liberty & Law at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School; and author of The Definition of Anti-Semitism (Oxford University Press) and Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America (Cambridge University Press).
During his public service career, Marcus served as Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education for Civil Rights; Staff Director at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; and General Deputy Assistant U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.
In academia, he formerly held the Lillie and Nathan Ackerman Chair in Equality and Justice in America at the City University of New York’s Bernard M. Baruch College School of Public Affairs and served as Visiting Research Professor of Political Science at Yeshiva University. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism and previously served as Associate Editor of the Journal for the Study of Anti-Semitism.
Earlier in his career, Kenneth Marcus was a litigation partner in two major law firms, where he conducted complex commercial and constitutional litigation. He also currently chairs the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Civil Rights Practice Group.
He has published widely in academic journals as well as in more popular venues such as The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, USA Today, and Politico. Marcus is a graduate of Williams College, magna cum laude, and the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.
Kenneth L. Marcus
Eric Cohen
Eric Cohen has been the Executive Director of the Tikvah Fund since 2007. He was the founder and remains editor-at-large of the New Atlantis, and he serves as the publisher of the Jewish Review of Books and Mosaic.
Mr. Cohen has published in numerous academic and popular journals, magazines, and newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Weekly Standard, Commentary, The New Republic, First Things, and numerous others.
He is the author of In the Shadow of Progress: Being Human in the Age of Technology (2008) and co-editor of The Future is Now: America Confronts the New Genetics (2002). He was previously managing editor of the Public Interest and served as a senior consultant to the President’s Council on Bioethics.
Eric Cohen currently serves on the board of directors of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Witherspoon Institute, and National Affairs and on the Editorial Advisory Board of First Things.
Eric Cohen
Rod Dreher
Rod Dreher is a writer of non-fiction books and is a senior editor at The American Conservative magazine. His writing focuses on the intersections among religion, culture, and politics. Dreher has written and edited for the New York Post, the Dallas Morning News, and National Review, among other publications. His commentary has been published in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. He is the bestselling author of Live Not by Lies, The Benedict Option, The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, Crunchy Cons, and How Dante Can Save Your Life; as well as volumes on traditional conservatism in the modern world. He is currently living in Hungary as a Fellow at the Danube Institute.
Rod Dreher
Peter Wood
Peter Wood is the President of the National Association of Scholars. He is an anthropologist and former provost. He was appointed president of the NAS in January 2009. Before that, he served as NAS’s executive director (2007-2008), and as provost of The King’s College in New York City (2005-2007).
Peter Wood was a tenured member of the Anthropology Department at Boston University, where he also held a variety of administrative positions, including associate provost and president’s chief of staff. He also oversaw the university’s scholarly publications and served as acting university librarian.
He received his Ph.D. in anthropology in 1987 from the University of Rochester. His dissertation, Quoting Heaven, examined the emergence of an American folk religion and pilgrimage center in rural Wisconsin. His undergraduate degree is from Haverford College (1975) and he has a master’s degree in library science from Rutgers University (1977).
Peter Wood is the author of 1620: A Critical Response to the 1619 Project (Encounter Books, 2020), A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Now (Encounter Books, 2007), and of Diversity: The Invention of a Concept (Encounter Books, 2003), which won the Caldwell Award for Leadership in Higher Education from the John Locke Foundation. These books extend his anthropological interest in examining emergent themes in modern American culture.
In addition to his scholarly work, Peter Wood has published several hundred articles in print and online journals, such as Wall Street Journal, The Spectator, Partisan Review and National Review Online, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Peter Wood
David Brog
David Brog executive director of the Maccabee Task Force, an effort launched in 2015 to combat the anti-Israel BDS movement. He also serves as president of the Edmund Burke Foundation, a public affairs institute founded in January 2019 with the aim of strengthening the principles of national conservatism in Western and other democratic countries.
Brog previously sat on the Board of Directors of Christians United for Israel (CUFI). Before joining CUFI, he worked in the United States Senate for seven years, rising to be chief of staff to Senator Arlen Specter and staff director of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He has also worked as an executive at America Online and practiced corporate law in Tel Aviv and Philadelphia.
Brog is the author of Reclaiming Israel’s History: Roots, Rights, and the Struggle for Peace, In Defense of Faith: the Judeo-Christian Idea and the Struggle for Humanity, and Standing with Israel: Why Christians Support the Jewish State.
David Brog
Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution; his focus is classics and military history.
Hanson was a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California (1992–93), a visiting professor of classics at Stanford University (1991–92), the annual Wayne and Marcia Buske Distinguished Visiting Fellow in History at Hillsdale College (2004–), the Visiting Shifron Professor of Military History at the US Naval Academy (2002–3),and the William Simon Visiting Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University (2010). In 1991 he was awarded an American Philological Association Excellence in Teaching Award. He received the Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism (2002), presented the Manhattan’s Institute’s Wriston Lecture (2004), and was awarded the National Humanities Medal (2007) and the Bradley Prize (2008).
Hanson is the author of hundreds of articles, book reviews, and newspaper editorials on Greek, agrarian, and military history and essays on contemporary culture. He has written or edited twenty-four books, the latest of which is The Case for Trump (Basic Books, 2019). His other books include The Second World Wars (Basic Books, 2017); The Savior Generals: How Five Great Commanders Saved Wars That Were Lost – from Ancient Greece to Iraq (Bloomsbury 2013); The End of Sparta (Bloomsbury, 2011); The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern (Bloomsbury, 2010); Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome (ed.) (Princeton, 2010); The Other Greeks (California, 1998); The Soul of Battle (Free Press, 1999); Carnage and Culture (Doubleday, 2001); Ripples of Battle (Doubleday, 2003); A War Like No Other (Random House, 2005); The Western Way of War (Alfred Knopf, 1989; 2nd paperback ed., University of California Press, 2000); The Wars of the Ancient Greeks (Cassell, 1999; paperback ed., 2001); and Mexifornia: A State of Becoming (Encounter, 2003), as well as two books on family farming, Fields without Dreams (Free Press, 1995) and The Land Was Everything (Free Press, 1998). Currently, he is a syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services and a weekly columnist for the National Review Online.
Hanson received a BA in classics at the University of California, Santa Cruz (1975), was a fellow at the American School of Classical Studies, Athens (1977–78), and received his PhD in classics from Stanford University (1980).
Victor Davis Hanson
Moshe Koppel
Professor Moshe Koppel founded the Kohelet Policy Forum, a nonprofit Israeli think tank in January 2012, which strives to secure Israel’s future as the nation-state of the Jewish people, to strengthen representative democracy, and to broaden individual liberty and free-market principles in Israel. He currently serves as Chairman.
Koppel is a member of the department of Computer Science at Bar-Ilan University. He received his PhD in mathematics from Courant Institute and did post-doctoral work in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
Koppel’s main areas of research in computer science include machine learning and social choice theory. His work on authorship attribution is used widely in commercial, legal and security applications.
Koppel has also published two books, Judaism Straight Up: Why Real Religion Endures, and Meta-Halakhah: Logic, Intuition, and the Unfolding of Jewish Law, and many articles on Rabbinic literature with special emphasis on logic and probability. He also co-founded and co-edited the journal Higayon, which is devoted to these topics.
Koppel’s political activity includes co-drafting two proposed constitutions for Israel, including a joint proposal with Michael Eitan, formerly chairman of the Knesset’s Constitution and Law committee. Several laws that Koppel drafted have been passed by the Knesset.
Moshe Koppel
Ruth R. Wisse
Ruth Wisse is the Martin Peretz Professor Emerita of Yiddish Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard. She is also a noted scholar of Jewish history and culture. Wisse currently serves as Distinguished Senior Fellow at Tikvah, a non-profit ideas institution committed to supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish State.
Wisse’s books on literary subjects include an edition of Jacob Glatstein’s two-volume fictional memoir, The Glatstein Chronicles (2010), The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey through Literature and Culture (2003), and A Little Love in Big Manhattan (1988). She is also the author of two political studies, If I Am Not for Myself: The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews (1992) and Jews and Power (2007). Her book, No Joke: Making Jewish Humor, is a volume in the Tikvah-sponsored Library of Jewish Ideas, published by Princeton University Press. Her memoir, Free as a Jew: A Personal Memoir of National Self-Liberation, was published in 2021.
Ruth R. Wisse
Rich Lowry
Rich Lowry is the editor in chief of National Review. He writes for Politico, and often appears on such public-affairs programs as Meet the Press. He is a regular panelist on the KCRW program Left, Right & Center.
He is the author of Lincoln Unbound; The Case for Nationalism: How It Made Us Powerful, United, and Free; and the New York Times bestseller, Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years.
Lowry began his career as a research assistant for Charles Krauthammer. In 1997 he was selected by William F. Buckley to lead National Review.
Rich Lowry
John Hinderaker
John Hinderaker is president of the Center of the American Experiment, Minnesota’s leading public policy organization.
He spent 41 years as a litigator with Faegre & Benson and its successor Faegre Baker Daniels, during which time he tried 100 jury cases and appeared in courts in 19 states. Upon his retirement from the legal profession at the end of 2015, he became president of the Center of the American Experiment. John has had a long association with the Center, including co-authoring several papers published by the Center and serving on the organization’s Board of Directors. John was Chairman of the Center’s board in 1998-2000.
In addition to his legal career, John is a long-time commentator and activist. He founded the web site Power Line in 2002 and has been a prominent voice on the internet and elsewhere since that time. He has appeared as a commentator on NBC, CBS, Fox News, CNN, CNBC and Sky News Australia, and is a frequent guest and guest host on national radio programs. John has lectured at Dartmouth College, Harvard Law School, Carleton College, St. Olaf College, Macalester College and the University of Minnesota.
He received his AB from Dartmouth College and his JD from Harvard Law School.
John Hinderaker
Nicole Neily
Nicole Neily is the president and founder of Parents Defending Education, a national grassroots organization working to reclaim our schools from activists promoting harmful agendas. She is also the president of Speech First, a national campus free speech organization, and has worked at the Independent Women’s Forum and the Cato Institute.
Prior to launching Speech First, she served as the president of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, an investigative journalism nonprofit focused on highlighting abuses of power, cronyism, and government overreach in the states at Watchdog.org.
Neily holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Illinois and a master’s of public policy from Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy.
Nicole Neily
Heather Mac Donald
Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and a New York Times bestselling author. She is a recipient of the 2005 Bradley Prize. Mac Donald’s work at City Journal has covered a range of topics, including higher education, immigration, policing, homelessness and homeless advocacy, criminal-justice reform, and race relations. Her writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, and The New Criterion. Mac Donald’s newest book, The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture (2018), argues that toxic ideas first spread by higher education have undermined humanistic values, fueled intolerance, and widened divisions in our larger culture.
Mac Donald’s The War on Cops (2016), a New York Times bestseller, warns that raced-based attacks on the criminal-justice system, from the White House on down, are eroding the authority of law and putting lives at risk. Other previous works include The Burden of Bad Ideas (2001), a collection of Mac Donald’s City Journal essays, details the effects of the 1960s counterculture’s destructive march through America’s institutions. In The Immigration Solution: A Better Plan than Today’s (2007), coauthored with Victor Davis Hanson and Steven Malanga, she chronicles the effects of broken immigration laws and proposes a practical solution to securing the country’s porous borders. In Are Cops Racist? (2010), another City Journal anthology, Mac Donald investigates the workings of the police, the controversy over so-called racial profiling, and the anti-profiling lobby’s harmful effects on black Americans.
A nonpracticing lawyer, Mac Donald clerked for the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and was an attorney-advisor in the Office of the General Counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and a volunteer with the Natural Resources Defense Council. She has frequently testified before U.S. House and Senate Committees. In 1998, Mac Donald was appointed to Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s task force on the City University of New York.
A frequent guest on Fox News and other TV and radio programs, Mac Donald holds a B.A. in English from Yale University, graduating with a Mellon Fellowship to Cambridge University, where she earned an M.A. in English and studied in Italy through a Clare College study grant. She holds a J.D. from Stanford University Law School.
At the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation’s 2018 annual meeting in downtown Los Angeles, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions called Mac Donald, “the greatest thinker on criminal justice in America today.”
Heather Mac Donald
Jason D. Hill
He has lectured and taught extensively on the subject in the United States, Europe and Asia. From 2010-2012, a consortium of four universities in England held a series of conferences devoted to Dr. Hill’s post-human cosmopolitanism and adopted the moral vision contained therein as part of their mission statements. His scholarly articles have been published in anthologies and journals in Germany, the Czech Republic and The Netherlands. In addition, he has written for various magazines and newspapers in which he has brought the tenets of cosmopolitanism to a wide audience. He is also a well-respected motivational speaker. He has been interviewed regularly in various media outlets, including NBC’s Today Show, The Daily Caller Show, Fox News, Fox Business, Billy O’Reilly’s ‘NO Spin News’, NPR, NRATV and several other mainstream media. He is deeply committed to Moral Foundationalism, Moral Universalism and the absolutism of reason.
Jason came to this country at the age of twenty from Jamaica and has thrived beyond his wildest dreams. He remains incredibly grateful to this country for its bountiful opportunities.
Jason D. Hill
Robert L. Paquette
Robert L. Paquette is president and executive director of the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization. He received his B. A. cum laude in 1973 from Bowling Green State University; he received his Ph. D. with honors in 1982 from the University of Rochester. He has published extensively on the history of slavery. His Sugar Is Made with Blood (Wesleyan University Press, 1988) won the Elsa Goveia Prize, given every three years by the Association of Caribbean Historians for the best book in Caribbean history. His essay “Of Facts and Fables: New Light on the Denmark Vesey Affair” (co-authored with Douglas Egerton) won the Malcolm C. Clark Award, given by the South Carolina Historical Society. He has co-edited (with Stanley Engerman) The Lesser Antilles in the Age of European Expansion (University Press of Florida, 1996); (with Louis A. Ferleger) Slavery, Secession, and Southern History (University Press of Virginia, 2000); (with Stanley Engerman and Seymour Drescher) Slavery (Oxford University Press, 2001); (with Mark M. Smith) The Oxford Handbook of Slavery in the Americas (Oxford University Press, 2010); (with Rebecca J. Fox) “Unbought Grace”: An Elizabeth Fox-Genovese Reader” (University of South Carolina Press, 2011); (with Douglas Egerton) The Denmark Vesey Affair: A Documentary History (University Press of Florida, 2017), which received a Choice Outstanding Title Award. In 2005, Paquette returned to his alma mater to receive the Mary Young Award for distinguished achievement.
Paquette has received grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, American Historical Association, the National Endowment for the Humanities, VERITAS, Thomas W. Smith Foundation, Watson-Brown Foundation, Armstrong Foundation, Apgar Foundation, Jack Miller Center, and Charles G. Koch Foundation. In 2008, President George W. Bush forwarded Paquette’s nomination to the Senate for a seat on the National Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2012, the American Freedom Alliance awarded him the Heroes of Conscience Award. In 2014, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and the American Conservative Union Foundation awarded him the Jeane Jordan Kirkpatrick Prize for Academic Freedom.
Paquette taught at Hamilton College for thirty-seven years, from 1981 to 2018. He held the Publius Virgilius Rogers Chair in American History for seventeen years until January 2011, when he resigned the title in protest of the academic direction of the College.
He co-founded the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization in 2007 with Douglas Ambrose and James Bradfield.
Robert L. Paquette
Larry P. Arnn
Larry P. Arnn is the 12th president of Hillsdale College, where he is also a professor of politics and history. He received his B.A. from Arkansas State University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from the Claremont Graduate School. He also studied at Worcester College, Oxford University, where he served as director of research for Sir Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill. From 1985 to 2000, he served as president of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. In 1996, he was the founding chairman of the California Civil Rights Initiative, which prohibited racial preferences in state hiring, contracting, and admissions.
Dr. Arnn is on the board of directors of The Heritage Foundation, the Henry Salvatori Center of Claremont McKenna College, the Philadelphia Society, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and the Claremont Institute. He served on the U.S. Army War College Board of Visitors for two years, for which he earned the Department of the Army’s “Outstanding Civilian Service Medal.” In 2015, he received the Bradley Prize from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.
Dr. Arnn is the author of three books: Liberty and Learning: The Evolution of American Education; The Founders’ Key: The Divine and Natural Connection Between the Declaration and the Constitution and What We Risk by Losing It; and Churchill’s Trial: Winston Churchill and the Salvation of Free Government.
Larry P. Arnn
Christopher Rufo
Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow and director of the initiative on critical race theory at Manhattan Institute. He is also a contributing editor of City Journal, where his writing explores a range of issues, including critical race theory, gender ideology, homelessness, addiction, crime, and the decline of American cities.
In recent years, Christopher has led the fight against critical race theory in American institutions. His research and activism inspired a presidential order and legislation in 15 states, where he has worked closely with lawmakers to craft successful public policy. As a filmmaker, Christopher has directed four documentaries for PBS, Netflix, and international television, including America Lost, which tells the story of three “forgotten American cities.”
Christopher holds a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown and a master’s degree from Harvard. He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and three sons.
Christopher Rufo
Mark Tapson
Mark Tapson is a writer, screenwriter, culture critic, and political commentator. He is the host of an original podcast on Frontpage, “The Right Take with Mark Tapson.”
The Shillman Fellow on Popular Culture for the David Horowitz Freedom Center, Mark has written nearly a thousand articles about the intersection of culture and politics for FrontPage Magazine, Acculturated, Intellectual Takeout, Breitbart, Time, The Federalist, National Review, The New Criterion, and elsewhere.
Mark has appeared on CNN, Glenn Beck, and other TV and internet outlets to discuss culture and politics, as well as making many radio and public appearances. He has also been interviewed about his political conversion in the documentary Blocking the Path to 9/11, and about the crisis of masculinity in the Doc Emet Productions documentary The Fight of Our Lives. For the Freedom Center, Mark has appeared on or led many panel discussions on topics ranging from cultural Marxism to religious liberty to Islamic terrorism. And he has interviewed notable figures, before live audiences, such as defense attorney Alan Dershowitz, Clinton prosecutor Kenneth Starr, Benghazi warrior Mark “Oz” Geist, historian Ron Radosh, award-winning author Lela Gilbert, and conservative intellectual David Horowitz.
As a screenwriter, among the numerous films Mark has worked on are the controversial ABC miniseries The Path to 9/11 and the award-winning documentary Jihad in America: The Grand Deception, co-written with terrorism expert Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism. He is currently adapting Peter Schweizer and Caspar Weinberger’s book The Next War for the big screen. Mark is also the author of a forthcoming book on chivalry and the war on masculinity from Templeton Press.
Mark Tapson
Carol M. Swain
Carol M. Swain is an award-winning political scientist, former tenured professor at Princeton and Vanderbilt Universities, and is a Distinguished Senior Fellow for Constitutional Studies with the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
She has served on the Tennessee Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the 1776 Commission.
Dr. Swain is the author or editor of 11 books, including the bestseller, Black Eye for America: How Critical Race Theory is Burning Down the House (co-authored Christopher Schorr). Her latest book is Countercultural Living: What Jesus Has to Say About Life, Marriage, Race, Gender, and Materialism.
She is an expert on critical race theory, American politics, and race relations. Her television appearances include ABC’s Headline News, BBC Radio and TV, NPR, CNN’s AC360, Fox and Friends, Judge Jeanine, The Ingraham Angle, and Tucker Carson.
Dr. Swain has published opinion pieces in New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Epoch Times, Financial Times, and USA Today.
She holds five degrees, including a Ph.D. from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an M.S.L. from Yale University.
Carol M. Swain
Dave Rubin
Dave Rubin is an author, comedian, and TV personality best known for his political commentary. He is the host of The Rubin Report, a top-ranking talk show recognized as one of the most influential spaces for candid conversations about complex issues and current events. Dave is known for his iconoclastic and honest approach to big ideas and his unwavering support for free speech.
Rubin began his career as a stand-up comedian and continues to perform throughout the United States utilizing his voice to highlight the absurdities of the country’s increasingly polarized political landscape. He accompanied Jordan Peterson on an international speaking tour where they addressed hundreds of thousands of people across three continents.
In an effort to combat Big Tech censorship, Rubin founded Locals.com, a subscription based digital platform that empowers creators to be independent by giving them control over their content and data.
Dave’s first book, Don’t Burn This Book: Thinking for Yourself in an Age of Unreason, is a New York Times Best Seller. His second book, Don’t Burn This Country: Surviving and Thriving in Our Woke Dystopia, was released by Penguin Random House in April 2022.
Dave Rubin
Benjamin Weingarten
Benjamin Weingarten is the Founder & CEO of ChangeUp Media, a media consulting and publication services firm he launched in 2015 to help like-minded individuals, organizations and institutions achieve their strategic goals and objectives — namely advancing principles of individual liberty, limited government and a strong national defense. Since launching the firm, Mr. Weingarten has worked with a variety of clients on tasks and initiatives including conducting extensive research on economics, foreign policy and politics in connection with the research and/or ghostwriting of several books on behalf of New York Times bestselling authors in the political space, leading the editorial and research effort for Speaker Newt Gingrich’s “Defending America” on-demand educational video series, writing for CRTV’s “Wilkow!” program, creating compelling digital content including launching and hosting a podcast and video series for Encounter Books, as well as the Claremont Institute’s “American Mind” podcast, crafting talking points and ghostwriting op-eds for several prominent public figures including Amb. Georgette Mosbacher, and conducting market research for one of Wall Street’s leading and longest-running investment publications, among other engagements.
Prior to forming ChangeUp Media, Mr. Weingarten was an Editor and Publishing Manager at TheBlaze. At TheBlaze, he wrote editorials on subjects such as economics, defense, politics and history; developed, launched and independently operated TheBlaze Books, TheBlaze’s books and ideas vertical; created, hosted and produced TheBlaze Books Podcast, featuring interviews with leading conservative and libertarian thinkers; drafted a nightly briefing memo incorporated into Glenn Beck’s programs; served as a frequent guest on the Glenn Beck Program, Pat & Stu and Pure Opelka shows; and assisted in all aspects of TheBlaze/Mercury Radio Arts’ publishing operations. Prior to joining TheBlaze, Mr. Weingarten spent several years in investment banking at a leading New York-based boutique, Centerview Partners, where he specialized in bankruptcies & restructurings.
Mr. Weingarten is a Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research, and a Fellow at the Claremont Institute. He writes and speaks extensively on matters of national security/foreign policy and politics. In February 2020, he published his first book, American Ingrate: Ilhan Omar and the Progressive-Islamist Takeover of the Democratic Party (Bombardier Books, 2020). Ben is a 2019 recipient of The Fund for American Studies’ Robert Novak Journalism Fellowship, under the auspices of which he is currently working on a book on U.S.-China policy and its bold transformation under the Trump administration. He is a Senior Contributor at The Federalist and has contributed to outlets both in print and on camera including City Journal, The Claremont Review of Books, Conservative Review, Gatestone Institute, The Hill, Library of Law & Liberty, National Review, Newsmax, OAN, PJ Media, Washington Examiner and Zero Hedge. Ben has seen his work highlighted at, and/or appeared on Algemeiner, America with Eric Bolling, American Thinker, The Andrew Klavan Show, The Ben Shapiro Show, BoldTV, The Buck Sexton Show, Clearcut with Michelle Makori, Conservative HQ, The Daily Caller, The Daily Wire, The Drudge Report, The Ezra Levant Show, Fox News Channel’s “Fox @ Night,” The Hill’s “Rising’”, HotAir, The Ingraham Angle, Instapundit, The Jeff Katz Show, Jihad Watch, The Lars Larson Show, Legal Insurrection, The Ledger Report, Library of Law & Liberty, The Mark Levin Show, Mark Steyn Online, Mosaic Magazine, The New Criterion, Newsmax Now, Off the Cuff Declassified with John Cadillo, Overlawyered, Powerline, RealClearBooks, RealClearMarkets, Real ClearPolitics, The Rush Limbaugh Show, The Savage Nation, The Sam Sorbo Show, Stacy on the Right, Steve Deace Show, Tipping Point with Liz Wheeler, Townhall, Washington Examiner, Washington Free Beacon, Wilkow!, The Wilkow Majority and elsewhere.
Mr. Weingarten received a B.A. in Economics-Political Science from Columbia University.
Benjamin Weingarten
Frank Gaffney
Frank J. Gaffney is the Founder and Executive Chairman of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., a not-for-profit, non-partisan educational corporation established in 1988. Under Mr. Gaffney’s leadership, the Center has been nationally and internationally recognized as a resource for timely, informed and penetrating analyses of foreign and defense policy matters.
Mr. Gaffney is the host of Secure Freedom Radio, a nationally-syndicated radio program heard weeknights throughout the country. He is an associate author of highly acclaimed Shariah: The Threat to America and the publisher of over a dozen other books and monographs from the Center for Security Policy Press.
In April 1987, Mr. Gaffney was nominated by President Reagan to become the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, the senior position in the Defense Department with responsibility for policies involving U.S.-USSR relations, nuclear forces, arms control, missile defense policy and U.S.-European defense ties. He acted in that capacity for seven months during which time, he was the Chairman of the prestigious High Level Group, NATO’s senior politico-military committee. He also represented the Secretary of Defense in key U.S.-Soviet negotiations and ministerial meetings.
From August 1983 until November 1987, Mr. Gaffney was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy under Assistant Secretary Richard Perle.
From February 1981 to August 1983, Mr. Gaffney was a Professional Staff Member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by the late Senator John Tower (R-Texas). And, in the latter 1970’s, Mr. Gaffney served as an aide to the late Senator Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson (D-Washington) in the areas of defense and foreign policy.
Mr. Gaffney holds a Master of Arts degree in International Studies from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.
Mr. Gaffney’s leadership has been recognized by numerous organizations including: the Department of Defense Distinguished Public Service Award (1987), the U.S. Business and Industry Council’s Defender of the National Interest Award (1994), the Navy League of the United States’ Alfred Thayer Mahan Literary Achievement Award (1999), and the Zionist Organization of America’s “Louis Brandeis Award” (2003), the Western Conservative Summit’s Stephen H. Long Award (2015), the Council for National Policy’s George Washington Military Leadership Award (2016) and the IMPACT Award from Ginni Thomas and United in Purpose (2017).
Frank Gaffney
Rachelle Peterson
Rachelle Peterson is coauthor of After Confucius Institutes: China’s Enduring Influence on American Higher Education, published by the National Association of Scholars. She has written six reports for the National Association of Scholars, including three on Confucius Institutes and the Chinese government’s efforts to subvert American educational institutions.
Rachelle spent nine years at the National Association of Scholars researching, writing, and advocating for public policy to protect the integrity of American higher education. Her 2017 report, Outsourced to China: Confucius Institutes and Soft Power in American Higher Education, helped spark a national movement to protect colleges from undue Chinese government interference. As a result, two bills were signed into law and both federal and state agencies launched multiple regulatory reforms.
Rachelle’s writing has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Commentary, Foreign Policy, and elsewhere. She has spoken and debated on college campuses, at national conferences, and at the U.S. Department of State. Rachelle graduated with a bachelor’s degree in politics, philosophy, and economics from The King’s College in New York City.
Rachelle Peterson
Michael Medved
Michael Medved attended public schools in San Diego and Los Angeles before starting Yale at age 16 as a National Merit Scholar. He majored in American History and graduated with honors, before attending Yale Law School, where his classmates included Bill and Hillary Clinton.
After several years as a campaign speechwriter and political consultant, Michael wrote his first bestseller at age 26—What Really Happened to the Class of ’65, a skeptical reconsideration of the “counterculture” of the 1960s that became a weekly TV series on NBC. Michael’s subsequent 12 books include The Shadow Presidents, hailed as the definitive history of White House chiefs of staff; Hollywood vs America, a stinging indictment of the entertainment industry; and Right Turns, which tells the story of Michael’s transformation from “punk liberal activist to lovable conservative curmudgeon.” The 10 Big Lies About America (2008) and The 5 Big Lies About American Business (2010) confront the most common smears against the United States and its free market system.
Medved’s most recent books, The American Miracle: Divine Providence in the Rise of the Republic and God’s Hand on America: Divine Providence in the Modern Era describe astonishing incidents in which luck, nature or some higher power seemed to intervene on behalf the United States. In the books, Michael argues that a “pattern of happy accidents” is still a pattern, and sides with the Founders in seeing America as “fortune’s favorite” and “destiny’s darling.”
Michael’s columns on politics and media appear frequently in USA Today, where he is a member of the Board of Contributors. His work as a film critic, based on short-lived experience as a Hollywood screen writer, featured positions at CNN (1980-84), Great Britain’s Channel 4 Network (1984), and PBS (1985-96) where he served as co-host of the popular weekly show Sneak Previews. He was also Chief Film Critic of the New York Post for five years before launching his daily radio show in 1996.
Michael Medved
For us, truth matters. It matters tremendously. And that’s why we call ourselves Doc Emet Productions. Emet means truth in Hebrew. We are all about truth in film.
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