My favorite forgotten President in American history is James Buchanan, who in defending really robust and sharp-elbowed debates said, "I like the noise of democracy. I like the sound of people in the streets making noise."

There are real radical Muslim groups out there that really are pretty villainous. You don't have to make them up.

Fundamentalism is a 20th-century phenomenon, but that kind of religious fervor actually has not always been associated with conservative goals.

Liberalism doesn't speak to ideals. Radicalism does.

Elite fundamentalism has always going to be involved with a certain set of conservative interests, but certainly not exclusively Republican.

The Cold War was really the great struggle of the 20th Century and it shaped American political life from top to bottom.

What the Cold War did was provide a fairly clearly defined enemy and it's easy to organize around that.