Oftentimes on the Right, there is a tendency to see a tension between being strategic and being principled. Primarily, this is because many of the people who often speak of strategy have evinced a willingness to jettison principle too readily. But is there necessarily a conflict between these two objectives? Not really.

One person who understands this point very well is W. James Antle III, the author of a new book called Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped? There have been many books written in recent years pondering the question of what conservatives can do to better succeed in the political marketplace, Jim’s work is one of the few that provides a high-level look at what has worked in the past for the Right and puts it into a broader strategic framework for today’s challenges. I had the pleasure of discussing it with him at length recently. A transcript of our conversation follows.