High Noon
144 episodes - English - Latest episode: 11 days ago - ★★★★★ - 148 ratingsHigh Noon is an intellectual download featuring conversations that make possible a free society. The podcast features interesting thinkers from all parts of the political spectrum to discuss the most controversial subjects of the day in a way that hopes to advance our common American future.
Hosted by Inez Stepman of Independent Women’s Forum.
You can listen to the latest High Noon episode(s) here or wherever you get your podcasts. Then subscribe, rate, and share with your friends. If you are already caught up and want more, join our online community at iwf.org/connect.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
Boris Ryvkin – On the Invasion of Ukraine, Putin’s Understanding of the World, and the Future of the U.S.-Led Order
March 02, 2022 17:00 - 1 hour - 131 MBThis week on High Noon with Inez Stepman, Inez is joined by Boris Ryvkin, former national security advisor to Senator Ted Cruz and an indispensable voice of explanation on the Russian invasion of Ukraine that is putting the world into crisis. Combining Russian, Ukrainian, and English sources with his own prodigious knowledge of history and foreign relations, Boris talks listeners through the intertwined historical roots of Russia and Ukraine, the likely differences in thinking and national c...
After Dark: On Whether the Mounting Backlash Can Succeed and What the Western Crisis of Meaning is Doing to Kids' Mental Health
February 23, 2022 17:00 - 59 minutes - 54.7 MBAs always, the last week of the month is reserved for High Noon: After Dark with Emily Jashinsky. On the docket this month were some pieces and topics from writers such as Robert Pondiscio in Commentary and Richard Hanania, including the reasons why the current cross-ideological backlash has a long way to go in terms of dislodging or deterring the woke revolution, and what we can expect from the feminization of both the halls of power and the public discourse. Jashinsky and Stepman also disc...
Dave Rubin – On the Ideological Diversity of Woke Pushback and Whether "Build Your Own Internet" Can Succeed
February 16, 2022 17:00 - 49 minutes - 87 MBThis week’s High Noon guest is popular author and commentator Dave Rubin of The Rubin Report. Given his own journey from the left, Stepman asked Rubin about whether the different parts of the non-left — classical liberals, traditionalists, the new right, etc. — could fit together into a cohesive pushback movement. The two also chatted about the ongoing attempts to cancel Joe Rogan, and how the anti-woke can build parallel institutions, as well as the potential dangers to an integrated societ...
David Azerrad – On Tribalism, Oligarchy, and Reviving the Manly Spirit of America
February 09, 2022 17:00 - 48 minutes - 44.1 MBOn this episode of High Noon, Inez Stepman interviews David Azerrad, Assistant Professor and Research Fellow at Hillsdale College’s Van Andel Graduate School of Government. Azerrad and Stepman discuss how to deal realistically with man’s inherent tribalism, how to balance the increasingly oligarchic power of our credentialed elites, and whether we need more democracy or better elites. They also dive into the role of manly spiritedness in building civilization, and how to revive the American...
Andy McCarthy – On the Degeneration of Institutions of Law and the Pipelines of Power
February 02, 2022 17:00 - 49 minutes - 84.7 MBOn High Noon this week: Andy McCarthy, senior fellow at National Review Institute, contributing editor, and author of Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency. McCarthy served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and as a legal analyst on many of the controversies that have burst into mainstream news in the last decade. Stepman and McCarthy discuss how a veteran of the law feels about how institutions of justice have performed in...
After Dark: Emily Jashinsky and Inez Stepman Talk Shifting Coalitions, a Race Against the Clock, and How Self-Definition and Hypernovelity Make Us All Insane
January 26, 2022 17:00 - 1 hour - 92.7 MBIt’s the last Wednesday of the month, which means another episode of High Noon: After Dark with Inez Stepman and The Federalist Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky. From the Federalist studio, Jashinsky and Stepman chat about how the GOP could blow the chance voters are giving them and consign us to a continued decline under incompetent and woke institutions. They also discuss a key moment in the shifting coalitions of left and right, predatory universities, and finally, meaning and identity in ...
Jeremy Wayne Tate – On How Classical Education Actually Prepares Us for "Adulting"
January 19, 2022 17:00 - 43 minutes - 68.9 MBTo celebrate National School Choice Week, High Noon welcomes Jeremy Wayne Tate to sketch out the contours of what is possible outside the current education system. Tate is the CEO of Classical Learning Test, an alternative to the SAT, and has become a hub for the increasing swell of families interested in returning to the classical idea of education. Stepman and Tate discussed what the purpose of a good education actually is (hint: not “college and career”), and how our lack of serious educ...
John Wood, Jr. – On Honest Conversations About Race and the Possibility of Redemption
January 12, 2022 17:00 - 1 hour - 109 MBThe first High Noon guest of the new year is John Wood, Jr. Wood is a national ambassador for Braver Angels. He’s also a former congressional candidate, a musician, and a writer, speaker, and thinker. John and Inez talk about finding a balance between a constrained vision of human nature and the possibility of genuine reconciliation despite America’s very real racial divisions. Woods and Stepman have an honest conversation about the unique struggles, as well as the unique contributions, of ...
After Dark: Emily Jashinsky and Inez Stepman Talk the “Media Variant,” Political Power of Brooklyn vs. West Virginia, and the Demise of Friendship
December 29, 2021 17:00 - 1 hour - 69.1 MBAt the end of every month, The Federalist Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky joins Inez Stepman to discuss a docket of stories. This month, they discuss the class dynamics of the Omicron wave that is sweeping the nation, and who really has more political power in 2021, West Virginia because of a powerful Senator, or AOC’s Brooklyn, NY district. Emily and Inez also delve into disturbing surveys showing Millennials and Gen Z have given up on friendship. -- High Noon is an intellectual download...
Rod Dreher – On How to Live with Dignity in a Pre-Totalitarian Society
December 22, 2021 17:00 - 55 minutes - 90.7 MBThis week on High Noon, Inez Stepman interviews Rod Dreher, senior editor at The American Conservative and author of the book Live Not By Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents. Live Not By Lies is all about preparing yourself — mentally, spiritually, practically — for the possibility of living as a dissident in a hostile and totalitarian society. Each of Dreher’s points is buttressed by his many interviews with people who have “lived it” under communism in Eastern Europe and Russia. Dreh...
Aaron Sibarium – On the Bureaucratic Mechanisms of Wokeness and How to Deinstitutionalize It
December 15, 2021 17:00 - 59 minutes - 98.5 MBThis week on High Noon, Inez Stepman interviews Aaron Sibarium, associate editor at Washington Free Beacon and the reporter behind breaking the latest Yale Law School controversies. Stepman questions Sibarium about his focus on the bureaucratic mechanisms of implementing wokeness in institutions, how it became as ubiquitous as it seems to be, and what his reporting suggests about how it might be deinstitutionalized. Aaron and Inez also discuss potential unintended consequences of the Civil ...
Seth Barron – On Urban Decay and the Last Days of New York
December 08, 2021 17:00 - 56 minutes - 91.8 MBThis week on High Noon, Inez Stepman does a deep dive with The American Mind’s Seth Barron into the problems most urban Americans are increasingly contending with: rising crime, mentally ill and aggressive homeless people, intermittently closed schools, and more. Barron is a lifelong New Yorker and the author of the book The Last Days of New York: A Reporter’s True Tale. Seth and Inez also discuss the role of the city in American life, and what it would take to turn the downward spiral most...
Madeleine Kearns – On the State of Womanhood in 2021
December 01, 2021 17:00 - 41 minutes - 66.5 MBOn this episode of High Noon, Inez Stepman interviews Madeleine Kearns, National Review columnist and contributor at The Spectator. Madeleine and Inez discuss a range of topics related to the female experience in 2021, from Gen Z’s waning enthusiasm for sex-positivity to generational fragility and the regrettable sunset of the womanly slap. The discussion also delves into how women and relationships are portrayed in narrative and literature, from Anna Karenina to "The Sex Lives of College G...
After Dark: Emily Jashinsky and Inez Stepman Talk Moral Responsibility in the Wake of Rittenhouse Acquittal
November 24, 2021 17:01 - 1 hour - 67.9 MBOn this episode of High Noon, Inez Stepman formally introduces a new segment, After Dark, with The Federalist Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky. The last week of every month, Emily and Inez will be chatting about the most under-covered stories of the month. This month, they talk about where moral responsibility for the disaster in Kenosha lies, and the duplicity of an establishment elite that is happy to abandon rule of law but chooses to heap the consequences of doing so on 17-year-old Kyle R...
Batya Ungar-Sargon – On Woke Media and Working Class Dignity
November 17, 2021 17:00 - 1 hour - 103 MBOn this episode of High Noon, Inez Stepman interviews Batya Ungar-Sargon, author of the new book Bad News: How Woke Media is Undermining Democracy. The Newsweek opinion editor outlines how journalism as a profession has transformed from the domain of the working-class hero to the credentialed bubble denizen. Stepman and Ungar-Sargon discuss the possibility of a left-right alliance against a woke managerial elite, as well as the importance of working-class dignity and participation in democr...
Tony Kinnett – On How Schools Are Gaslighting Parents about CRT
November 10, 2021 17:00 - 41 minutes - 68.7 MBOn this episode of High Noon, Inez Stepman interviews Tony Kinnett, the Indianapolis teacher and curriculum coordinator behind a viral video explaining how critical race theory makes its way into public school lessons. Kinnett is one of the founders behind the heterodox teacher hub Chalkboard Review, as well as a guest columnist in a variety of outlets. Kinnett debunks the post-Virginia election gaslighting about CRT not being part of what is taught in public schools, and blows the whistle ...
David Harsanyi – On Busting the Myth of European Superiority
November 03, 2021 16:00 - 52 minutes - 53 MBOn this episode of High Noon, Inez Stepman interviews National Review senior writer David Harsanyi, author of the new book Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. Harsanyi busts some common American myths about the superiority of European healthcare systems, welfare state payments, and tolerance of diverse newcomers with hard facts that compare apples to apples, warning that America risks not only its success but the heart of its distinctive culture if it f...
Mary Eberstadt – On Family Breakdown and the Human Animal
October 27, 2021 16:00 - 41 minutes - 38.3 MBOn this episode of High Noon, Inez Stepman interviews Mary Eberstadt, novelist, playwright, essayist, columnist, and author of several books, including her most recent, Primal Screams: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics. Eberstadt urges compassion for the “woke,” arguing essentially that many of us have been denied the natural family “habitat” to become psychologically healthy members of the species by family breakdown and abandonment of religion. She weaves together thread...
Robby Soave – On Some Good News About Big Tech and Modernity
October 20, 2021 16:00 - 47 minutes - 43.1 MBOn this episode of High Noon, Inez Stepman interviews Robby Soave, author of the new book Tech Panic: Why We Shouldn't Fear Facebook or the Future. Robby is also senior editor at Reason magazine, where he has been at the forefront of reporting the truth about stories like the Covington protestors incident and the UVA rape hoax. Robby and Inez discuss concerns about our emerging technological landscape, social media censorship, and the relationship between tech companies and the government....
Emily Jashinsky – On the Cultural Impact of Government Spending and Gen Z’s Sex-Negative Turn
October 13, 2021 16:00 - 56 minutes - 86.6 MBThe Federalist Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky returns to the podcast to talk through the most important issues of the month that might have flown under your radar. The ladies discuss how some of the policies inserted into budget-busting bills like the infrastructure package have huge culture war impacts that are not immediately clear from the normal dollars-and-cents analysis. Emily and Inez also discuss a major concession from The New York Times: that there’s a backlash against sex-positiv...
Robert P. George – On Truth, Human Dignity, and Creating “Infrastructure” for Free Speech
October 06, 2021 16:00 - 51 minutes - 87.5 MBIn this episode of High Noon with Inez Stepman, Inez interviews Professor Robbie P. George of Princeton University. Professor George outlines why he hasn’t given up on the academy, and how he and an ideologically diverse group of professors are fighting back against cancel culture. Stepman and Professor George also discuss the importance of seeking truth over victory, and the courage necessary to jump into the fray in censorious times. Professor George is the sixth McCormick Professor of Ju...
Helen Raleigh – On Confronting the CCP and the Possibility of a Cultural Revolution in America
September 29, 2021 16:00 - 52 minutes - 44.7 MBIn this episode of High Noon with Inez Stepman, Helen Raleigh joins the podcast to offer her firsthand account of living under the Chinese Communist system before immigrating to America. Author of Confucius Never Said and Backlash: How Communist China’s Aggression Has Backfired, Helen mingles lessons learned from her unique background with research and strategy to chart a possible course to maintain American dominance in the world, and liberty at home. In addition to authoring several books...
Timothy Carney – On American Alienation and How to Bootstrap Community in a Modern World
September 22, 2021 16:00 - 48 minutes - 80.3 MBIn this episode of High Noon with Inez Stepman, Inez interviews Timothy Carney, author of Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse, a book about the sociological contours of the crisis of meaning and loneliness that drives our politics. Carney is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the senior columnist at The Washington Examiner, as well as being published and interviewed everywhere from The Atlantic, New York Times, and MSNBC to The Wall Street Jo...
Rebeccah Heinrichs – On the Impact of Incompetence and Forging a Uniquely American Foreign Policy
September 15, 2021 16:00 - 53 minutes - 49.3 MBIn this episode of High Noon with Inez Stepman, Inez interviews Rebeccah Heinrichs. Heinrichs is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and an adjunct professor at the Institute of World Politics, a graduate school for national affairs. She specializes in national security, international relations, arms control, and missile defense, and she has served as an expert in that capacity in the U.S. House of Representatives. Heinrichs and Stepman discuss the impact of our incompetent withdrawal f...
Ben Shapiro – On the Dangers of the Authoritarian Left and Why A Bigger Welfare State Won’t Solve our Atomization Crisis
September 08, 2021 16:00 - 28 minutes - 26.4 MBIn this episode of High Noon with Inez Stepman, Inez interviews Ben Shapiro, host of the popular podcast and radio program “The Ben Shapiro Show,” Editor Emeritus of Daily Wire, and author of numerous books, including The Authoritarian Moment: How the Left Weaponized America’s Institutions Against Dissent. Inez and Ben discuss how the authoritarian left has garnered the institutional backing their counterparts on the far right could never dream of, and how that fact stands as a rebuttal to ...
Special Episode: On Catastrophic Elite Failure and the Domestic Consequences of Afghanistan
September 01, 2021 16:00 - 54 minutes - 89.3 MBIn this episode of High Noon with Inez Stepman, IWF fellow and The Federalist Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky rejoins the podcast to do a requiem on the domestic impact of the Afghanistan debacle. Inez and Emily lay out the dire (but well-deserved) situation with regard to institutional trust and how this international failure will impact the way that Americans think of their government and especially their leadership class. If Americans on both the left and the right clearly see that their...
Joey Jones – On Betrayal and Chaos in Afghanistan
August 25, 2021 16:00 - 45 minutes - 63.2 MBIn this episode of High Noon, Inez Stepman speaks with combat-wounded retired Marine bomb tech Johnny Joey Jones about the ongoing situation in Afghanistan. Joey Jones provides listeners with an overview of the real situation on the ground mid-pullout, and a look at the politicization of the military higher brass. He also gives voice to the betrayal many veterans feel about the way the Biden administration has left Afghanistan, as well as critiques of politicians from both parties about how...
John Daniel Davidson – On the Border Crisis and the State of U.S.-Mexico Relations
August 18, 2021 16:00 - 50 minutes - 46.7 MBIn this episode of High Noon, John Daniel Davidson joins the podcast to take a deep dive into the crisis unfolding on our Southern border and U.S.-Mexico relations going all the way back into the nineteenth century and beyond. Davidson and Stepman detail the worsening catastrophe at the border, as well as adding historical context to the entanglement between the American West and Mexico going back centuries, and the divergent fates of the two nations. Davidson is the Political Editor at Th...
Katie Herzog – On Woke Medicine and Moral Panic
August 11, 2021 16:00 - 53 minutes - 87 MBIn this episode, Katie Herzog, co-host of the popular podcast Blocked and Reported, joins High Noon. Herzog is a frequent contributor to Bari Weiss’ Substack page, where she has published a series of reported pieces on how ideology is infecting medical schools and hospitals, including the elimination of teaching about biological sex and pressure on medical researchers to stay away from “controversial” topics. Katie and Inez also discuss and debate the relative dangers of the woke left and a...
David Marcus – On the Failure of Expertise and How to Revive the Arts
August 04, 2021 16:00 - 50 minutes - 46.6 MBIn this episode of High Noon, David Marcus joins the podcast. Marcus is the political reporter for the New York Post and the author of Charade: The COVID Lies That Crushed a Nation. Before becoming a political writer, he was an actor and the co-founder of a theater company. David and Inez discuss the failure of expertise and institutional actors during the course of the coronavirus pandemic, and the erosion of public trust resulting from unclear instruction and political bias. Additionally...
Special Episode: Journalists' Stories and Warnings from Cuba and Belarus
July 21, 2021 16:00 - 54 minutes - 74.7 MBIn the thirteenth episode of High Noon, Inez Stepman speaks with Barbara Estrada and Hanna Liubakova, two journalists fighting to get the word out about the Cuban protests for libertad and the year-long struggle in Belarus to peacefully oust “the last dictator in Europe.” Each has played a critical role in getting news from the Cuban and Belarusian protests out, respectively. They share which stories of courage or brutality have touched them the most, and offer suggestions for what those of...
Mike Gonzalez – On the Formation of Political “Identities” and the Right Way to Fight Critical Race Theory
July 14, 2021 16:00 - 51 minutes - 20.6 MBIn the twelfth episode of High Noon, Inez Stepman speaks with Mike Gonzalez of the Heritage Foundation, author of The Plot to Change America: How Identity Politics is Dividing the Land of the Free. Before entering the think tank world, Gonzalez worked as an international journalist for many years, including covering the Mujahideen in Afghanistan and being jailed by a dictator in Panama, and ultimately landing as a columnist for the Wall Street Journal for many years. He has another book sla...
Michael Knowles On the Necessity of Bringing Back Politics and the Limitations of Being Speechless
July 07, 2021 16:00 - 50 minutes - 46.3 MBIn the eleventh episode of High Noon, Inez Stepman speaks with Michael Knowles. Knowles is the Author of Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds, as well as the satirical Reasons to Vote for Democrats. He’s the host of The Michael Knowles Show at The Daily Wire, “The Book Club” at PragerU, and the popular podcast Verdict with Ted Cruz. Stepman and Knowles dig deeper into the specifics of our heritage, beyond some of the dueling buzzwords in our time about free speech and cancel cul...
Robert Pondiscio – On How the Education System Went from Shaping Patriots to Indoctrinating Revolutionaries
June 30, 2021 16:00 - 54 minutes - 65.5 MBIn the tenth episode of High Noon, Inez Stepman speaks with Robert Pondiscio of the American Enterprise Institute. Pondiscio has spent more than two decades in the education system, both as a civics teacher and as a writer and reformer. He is the author of numerous books, most recently How the Other Half Learns: Equality, Excellence, and the Battle Over School Choice. Robert and Inez discuss the purpose of a public education system in a self-governing republic, as well as the tension betwee...
Emily Jashinsky – On New Media and the Primacy of Culture Over Economics
June 23, 2021 16:00 - 1 hour - 68.5 MBIn the ninth episode of High Noon, Inez Stepman speaks with Emily Jashinsky. Emily wears many hats, from culture editor at The Federalist to educating young journalists at the Young America’s Foundation’s internship program. More recently, she's taken the helm of The Hill’s Rising, a popular independent news program that pairs populist right and populist left perspectives. Which came first: culture or economics? And is the concentration of economic power leading to a cultural monopoly? What...
Ben Domenech – On the Future of the Right and Left in America
June 16, 2021 16:00 - 56 minutes - 51.6 MBIn the eighth episode of High Noon, Inez Stepman speaks with Fox News contributor and podcast host Ben Domenech. Domenech is the publisher and co-founder of The Federalist, as well as a host for Fox News Primetime. In this conversation, Stepman and Domenech explore the futures of the left and right, the failures of America’s elite class, and the responses of the two parties to shifting political coalitions and the potential realignment of working-class and Hispanic voters. They discuss the...
Spencer Klavan on the Classics, Confronting Death, and Kim Kardashian
June 09, 2021 16:00 - 1 hour - 63.5 MBIn the seventh episode of High Noon, Inez Stepman speaks with Spencer Klavan. Klavan is the associate editor of the Claremont Review of Books and the Claremont Institute’s online publication, The American Mind. He’s also the author of an academic publication, Music in Ancient Greece, as well as a translation of the Book of Isaiah. Klavan hosts a popular podcast, Young Heretics, where he explores, through the lens of the Western canon, “truth, beauty, and the stuff that matters.” Stepman and...
Vivek Ramaswamy and Rachel Bovard – On Protecting Democracy from Big Tech and Woke Capitalism
June 02, 2021 16:00 - 50 minutes - 46.5 MBIn the sixth episode of High Noon, Inez Stepman speaks with two guests uniquely situated to enlighten listeners on the increasingly pressing problems posed by Big Tech companies and corporate America going “woke.” Vivek Ramaswamy is an entrepreneur and author with incredible insights from the belly of the beast on political discrimination, “shareholder” capitalism, and how big business is invading what was once rightly considered the domain of democracy and self-government. Rachel Bovard is...
Heather Mac Donald – On Uncomfortable Truths about Policing and Crime
May 26, 2021 16:00 - 49 minutes - 45.3 MBIn the fifth episode of High Noon, Inez Stepman speaks with Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute, who almost certainly has more police community meetings under her belt than any reporter at The New York Times, about rising crime in America’s cities. Stepman and Mac Donald discuss the reality of who is most often victimized by high crime rates, lay out a defense of meritocracy, and address critiques of the Enlightenment from the left and right. -- High Noon is an intellectual down...
John McWhorter – On the Evolution of Language and How Identity Has Become Our New Religion
May 19, 2021 16:00 - 38 minutes - 35.5 MBIn the fourth episode of High Noon, Inez Stepman talks with Professor John McWhorter, a professor of linguistics at Columbia University and host of a podcast on his subject of expertise called Lexicon Valley. He is also a co-host of the popular Glenn Show, along with Glenn Loury on Bloggingheads TV, as well as an important and valued commentator on matters of race and identity. Stepman and McWhorter discuss the subjects of two different books he has out right now. The first, on the history ...
Christopher Rufo - On Critical Race Theory and Fighting Back
May 12, 2021 16:00 - 53 minutes - 48.7 MBIn the third episode of High Noon, Inez Stepman talks with Christopher Rufo, an investigative journalist and filmmaker whose work has become the tip of the spear for those with concerns about critical race theory and how it’s sweeping classrooms, government agencies, and corporate board rooms. Stepman and Rufo talk about the extent of CRT’s penetration of various important institutions, as well as how people from the right, center, and liberal left are banding together to push back against ...
Melissa Chen - On the Strengths and Weaknesses of an Open Society
May 05, 2021 16:00 - 57 minutes - 78.3 MBIn the second episode of High Noon, Inez Stepman talks with Melissa Chen about how to grapple with a geopolitically rising China, and about how the country goes into this civilizational clash hobbled by domestic insecurities about our open society. Chen and Stepman also discuss the balance between individualism and community, and how many are now seeking or actively creating political identities to replace more traditional ones. -- High Noon is an intellectual download featuring conversati...
Dr. Debra Soh - On Sex Differences and Woke “Science”
April 28, 2021 16:00 - 52 minutes - 48 MBInez Stepman talks to Dr. Debra Soh about the biology of sex differences, how to tell if the science you’re relying on has been infected with politics, and the courage it takes to stand up for scientific truth in a world gone woke. -- High Noon is an intellectual download featuring conversations that make possible a free society. Inviting interesting thinkers from all parts of the political spectrum to discuss the most controversial subjects of the day in a way that hopes to advance our co...
Welcome to High Noon
March 05, 2021 14:00 - 3 minutes - 3.66 MBIn this introductory episode, host Inez Stepman lays out the need for debate on controversial subjects in a democracy and sets the stage for future discussions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.