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The Living Legacy of Norman Podhoretz

On The Time of Monsters: David Klion and Ronnie Grinberg on a founding father of neo-conservatism.

Jeet Heer

December 22, 2025

American neoconservative theorist and writer Norman Podhoretz at home in New York City.(David Howells/Corbis via Getty Images)

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The Living Legacy of Norman Podhoretz w/ David Klion and Ronnie Grinberg | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
byThe Nation Magazine

Norman Podhoretz, one of the founding fathers of neoconservatism, died on December 16 at

age 95. His legacy is a complex one, since in recent decades neoconservatism has been

supplanted in many ways by American First conservatism. But many aspects of Podhoretz’s

influence still play a shaping role on right. I take up Podhoretz’s career with David Klion (who

wrote an obituary for the pundit for The Nation) and the historian Ronnie Grinberg, who had

discussed Podhoretz in her book Write Like a Man.

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Norman Podhoretz, one of the founding fathers of neoconservatism, died on December 16 at age 95. His legacy is a complex one, since in recent decades neoconservatism has been supplanted in many ways by American First conservatism. But many aspects of Podhoretz’sinfluence still play a shaping role on right. I take up Podhoretz’s career with David Klion (who wrote an obituary for the pundit for The Nation) and the historian Ronnie Grinberg, who had discussed Podhoretz in her book Write Like a Man.

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The Nation Podcasts

Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.

The Return of McCarthyism w/ Chris Lehmann / The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
byThe Nation Magazine

Republicans are plummeting in the polls in the lead-up to the midterm thanks to the unpopularity of the Iran War and the attendant inflation. As my Nation colleague Chris Lehmann has noted, in an attempt to shore up their fracturing base, the GOP has decided to label all Democrats as communist, a weird rhetorical move now being made by Donald Trump and his supporters. I talk to Chris about this strange and dangerous development.

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Jeet HeerTwitterJeet Heer is a national affairs correspondent for The Nation and host of the weekly Nation podcast, The Time of Monsters. He also pens the monthly column “Morbid Symptoms.” The author of In Love with Art: Francoise Mouly’s Adventures in Comics with Art Spiegelman (2013) and Sweet Lechery: Reviews, Essays and Profiles (2014), Heer has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The American Prospect, The GuardianThe New Republic, and The Boston Globe.


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