This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, September 24th, 2019.

I'm Keel of Brown.

Too many conservatives are a little too comfortable or silent in the face of anti-Semites,

bigots, and actual Nazis counting themselves among their ranks.

So says David Bowes, Executive Vice President of the Cato Est Institute, he argues that having a big tent doesn't mean

tolerating illiberal views.

It's never a fun thing to call out people who are in your tribe as Arnold Kling and others would call it, but a lot of times

it's necessary. So why do you suspect, aside from the obvious, why do you suspect that

conservatives are having such a hard time calling out those in their ranks who represent pretty substantially illiberal ideas.

Well, the first thing I want to say is if I were a conservative,

I would insist that these people are not in fact in my tribe they're not my

allies people who are racist people who are conspiracy theorists people who are

literal Nazis I don't think conservatives believe that such people are in

their tribe, which makes your question a little more difficult to answer, why aren't they saying these are not our people as it

seems to me conservatives used to do? I believe one answer to that might be that the Republican president seems to have

welcomed people's support that previous Republican politicians would not have

welcomed. He has retweeted tweets from people who most Republicans traditionally tried to stay away from and that may make it difficult

for any other conservative organization, whether it's Bright Bart or Fox News or even National Review. Bright or

even National Review to say those people over there are beyond a line

that we think the conservative movement ends long before.

There are a lot of people who call themselves conservatives who are aligned with

Donald Trump who are effectively peddling conspiracy theories, including people who

...