Charles Sykes, political commentator, author How the Right Lost Its Mind, and founder and editor-at-large of The Bulwark, will speak on “How America Lost Its Mind” as Occidental College’s 2021 Jack Kemp ’57 Distinguished Lecturer.
Charles Sykes, political commentator, author How the Right Lost Its Mind, and founder and editor-at-large of The Bulwark, will speak on “How America Lost Its Mind” at 4:30 p.m. on October 6 as Occidental College’s 2021 Jack Kemp ’57 Distinguished Lecturer.
Sykes is an NBC and MSNBC contributor, a contributing editor at the Weekly Standard, and the host of the magazine’s Daily Standard podcast. He is an outspoken critic of the Trump Administration and of what he calls the conservative “alternative reality” media. He is also the author of nine books, including How the Right Lost Its Mind, A Nation of Victims, Dumbing Down Our Kids, Profscam, The Hollow Men, The End of Privacy, 50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School, A Nation of Moochers and Fail U: The False Promise of Higher Education. He was co-editor of the National Review College Guide.
Charles Sykes has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Politico, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Time.com, Salon, USA Today, National Review, The New York Review of Books, the New York Daily News, The Weekly Standard, and other national publications. He has appeared on Meet the Press, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, State of the Union with Jake Tapper, the Today Show, ABC, NBC, Fox News, CNN, PBS, the BBC, and has been profiled on NPR. Until he stepped down in December 2016 after 23 years, Sykes was one of Wisconsin’s top-rated and most influential conservative talk show hosts. In 2017, he was co-host of the national public radio show, Indivisible, which originated from WNYC. Charles Sykes is currently a member of the Knight Commission on Trust, Media and Democracy; he is on the advisory board of the Democracy Fund and is a member of the board of Stand Up Republic.
Copies of Sykes’ book, How the Right Lost Its Mind, will be available for purchase at Choi Auditorium and there will be a book signing following the lecture.
This event is open to current students, faculty and staff. Registration is required. Oxy alumni and families can register to watch the livestream of the event, registration is required to receive the link.
THE JACK KEMP ‘57 DISTINGUISHED LECTURE SERIES
Jack Kemp ’57, NFL quarterback, congressman, Housing and Urban Development secretary, and 1996 GOP vice presidential candidate, built a game plan for life around his passions: family, football, and the future of his country. By the time he was 6, he had decided that he wanted to be a professional quarterback. Occidental not only helped Kemp realize that dream, it opened his eyes to a bigger world of ideas. His lifelong love of learning, his ability to reach out across the aisle, and his eloquence as a speaker and writer all reflect the liberal arts education he received at Oxy.
The Jack Kemp ‘57 Distinguished Lecture Series, made possible by the Jack Kemp ‘57 Scholars Endowment, strives to engage Occidental students and faculty in dialogue on important issues of public policy such as the political economy, economic growth in the context of a market system, communitarian values, and bipartisan relations.
Previous Kemp Distinguished Lecturers include former U.S. Senator Jeff Flake; Tal Becker, one of Israel’s top peace negotiators and senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem; former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; and journalist, political commentator and Kemp biographer Morton Kondracke.
