Frank Buckley is foundation professor at George Mason University's Scalia School of Law.

His books, his many writings, include the Republican Workers Party, another book, Progressive Conservatism.

And there's a new book, The Roots of Liberalism, What Faithful Knights and the Little Match Girl taught us about civic virtue.

That is our topic today. Welcome, Professor Buckley.

Well, it's good to be with you.

We jump right in here into the books.

You open by calling critical race theory, quote, a cult of resentment. It's very powerful out there in the institutions, even though maybe we're seeing a little bit of a little bit of defensiveness on

the part of the CRT. but you mean by calling it a cult of

resentment?

Well, it's a, you know, it's a nullity.

It's a nullity culturally and ethically.

People on the right sometimes say the DEI people, the critical race people

are simply no better than communists, or they are communists.

I'm old enough to have known real communists.

They were immensely superior to the rot, the lumpen proletariat on the streets.

They had great culture.

They died defending their country against real fascism.

These guys are so much worse than communists, right? So, you know, but, so what

prompted my book was it was a reaction to what has happened to the left and the abandonment

of liberalism by the left, and also the abandonment of liberalism by some people on the right.

And I think liberalism is America's creed. I think that what I mean by liberalism is fidelity

to the ideas of the founders, to the idea that all men are created equal, that we have a right to life, liberty, and a pursuit

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