At ‘The Forum,’ a Bruised Right Gets Back in the Fight

This past week, just outside the nation’s capital, a gathering of some of the conservative movement’s most influential voices met to present a vision for the country’s direction. Held Nov. 10-12 at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, The Forum was hosted by several of the country’s largest conservative political organizations, including the Heritage Foundation. The goal was to think through and strategize on some of the biggest issues facing the republic today.

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“The Forum is the premier meeting week of a broad swath of the conservative movement to get together and think about strategies and communication and how we can reach the American people,” Derrick Morgan, executive vice president of the Heritage Foundation, told The American Spectator. “You always have to [listen to the American people]. What are they concerned about, and how we can connect with them with our ideas that we know are going to lead to human flourishing.” (READ NEXT: The White Pill After the Red Wedding)

The Forum 2026 convened just one week after Republicans lost by bigger-than-expected margins in the midterm elections. Democrats gained comfortable majorities in both chambers of Congress, flipping over 40 seats in the House of Representatives and seven seats in the Senate. For the first time in nearly 40 years, the Democratic Party flipped Texas blue, electing both a Democratic senator and governor, landing a gut punch to Republicans heading into the 2028 presidential elections. One of the panel moderators at The Forum, himself a native Texan, said the election was so shocking that he felt like a kid whose parents had just told him they were getting a divorce. (READ NEXT: Golden Lessons and Silver Linings After a Well-Deserved Cataclysm)

The results have left many conservatives both on and off Capitol Hill shaken about the current state of the conservative movement and where it goes from here. While The Forum was being planned well before the midterms, according to Genevieve Wood, vice president of development at the Heritage Foundation, the timing could not be more perfect. “This was a great, great time to bring the whole conservative movement together,” Wood told The American Spectator. When asked about the overall mood of the event, Wood said people are being realistic. “People are very realistic about what happened. They took it in; they didn’t say, ‘Oh, that was a fluke.’ They saw it, but they are ready to get back to work.”

On the plus side, Wood added: “People are eager to get back in the fight.”

That indeed seemed to be the mood, even as the GOP was licking its wounds.

For the occasion, the Heritage Foundation released three special reports, which were discussed and distributed at The Forum: Lessons from the Founding Fathers and the Old American Tradition on Muslim Immigration, The Patient Islamification of the West, and Liberty and Justice Without Illusions or Appeasement. The authors spoke about their work. That included the likes of Raymond Ibrahim, author of the recent book, The Two Swords of Christ: Five Centuries of War between Islam and the Warrior Monks of Christendom, who was interviewed by Jay Richards. (READ NEXT: The West Is Now Happy to Live With Terrorism)

Richards is vice president of social and domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation. He explained the impetus behind these studies. “Several months ago we realized that what we call ‘Islamification’ is a very, very crucial civilizational issue, both for the United States and for Europe,” Richards told The American Spectator. “France and the U.K. provide clear examples of what happens when you don’t know how to handle this, and we think it’s time for people who love this country to figure out what to do and figure out how we handle this and stop it using the constitutional means that are at our disposal.”

The first report, by the Claremont Institute’s Dr. Samuel T. Lair, explores how the Founding Fathers understood and applied immigration policies when it came to the question of Muslim immigration, arguing that mass migration from the Islamic world would have been viewed as a threat to America’s cultural and political heritage. The second report distills the work of Dr. Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, a French anthropologist and research fellow at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), examining the Muslim Brotherhood’s operations in the United States. The third report, a collaboration by several officials at the Heritage Foundation, explores how the United States can address the threat of Islamification while still being consistent with the Constitution. “The Constitution is not a suicide pact,” notes Richards, “but we need to get serious, and we need to act quickly if we’re going to prevent happening here what is already happening in the U.K. and France.”

Apart from examining the Islamic threat facing the West, The Forum had a number of guest speakers to discuss everything from economic deregulation to the rise of socialism in America to ongoing debates over immigration. Notable speakers included Congressman Chip Roy, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, dean of the Van Andel Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale College, Dr. Matthew Spalding, CNN Commentator Scott Jennings, Anduril Industries founder Palmer Luckey, and The American Spectator’s own Dr. Paul Kengor.

Four men seated on a stage during a panel discussion.

The Heritage Foundation’s Allen Mendenhall moderates a panel on democratic socialism with James Braid, The American Spectator’s Paul Kengor, and Will Ruger (Photo by Zach Wilson)

According to one attendee, Palmer Luckey’s talk stuck out the most: “His whole entire thesis about what a defense contractor should be — actually delivering stuff on time to the federal government and actually wanting to be penalized when you don’t fulfill your contract — it’s a revolutionary concept.” For this attendee, the biggest takeaway from The Forum was about how conservatives need to take action to improve the everyday lives of the American people rather than attacking the other side. “We know the other side is crazy,” said the attendee, “but what is the plan to actually appeal to the folks that want to buy a house or [who are] paying $8 for beef?”

That view was expressed by several speakers as well, including Scott Jennings. Jennings, who spoke at The American Spectator’s 2025 gala, emphasized that Republican candidates need to offer voters something positive to vote for rather than simply attack the Left. (LISTEN FOR MORE: The Spectacle Ep. 287: Excellence and Independence — Scott Jennings at The American Spectator’s Gala)

Such were the issues and problems and challenges that The Forum tried to address and offer listeners the tools to fix them. As the nation begins to prepare for the 120th Congress, it remains to be seen whether this past week’s event will mark the start of the conservative movement’s efforts to win the battle of ideas going into the 2028 elections. One thing above all was clear at The Forum: the bruised right is ready to get back in the fight.

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Zach Wilson is a member of The American Spectator development team and has spent several years working on Capitol Hill. He is currently a graduate student at Hillsdale College’s Van Andel School of Government in Washington, D.C., and earned his bachelor’s degree in History and Political Science from Grove City College.