National Review Institute’s Ideas Summit took place over the past two days in Washington, DC at the Mandarin Oriental. It occurs biennially, and this year’s theme was “The Case for the American Experiment.”

Michael Brenden Dougherty’s conversation with Tucker Carlson on populism was worthwhile, particularly Carlson’s focus on the necessity of dealing seriously with the problem of suicide and the challenge of ensuring Americans can still achieve a good family and community life. Jim Geraghty, Jonah Goldberg, and Rich Lowry spoke together on “how conservatives should think about nationalism.” And many others spoke too.

James L. Buckley delivered the closing talk on federalism and the revivification of the 10th Amendment, focusing on federal funding to states being necessarily coercive, ranked as probably my favorite of the conference—partly because it struck me as a hopeful, practical response to the growth in the federal administrative state, and partly because Buckley is now 96 years old and continues to bear witness to what public service looks like in a democratic republic.

At a later evening reception, Reihan Salam spoke on what sort of immigration policy Americans might be able to support.