Scott McConnell

Scott McConnell (born 1952) is an American journalist best known as a founding editor of The American Conservative.

Life and career

In 1968, as a student at Phillips Exeter Academy, a New Hampshire boarding school, McConnell canvassed for Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy.^[1] McConnell earned a bachelor’s degree in 1975 and, after working on the 1976 presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter, a Ph.D in history in 1987 at Columbia University.^[2] During this time he became attracted to the neoconservative movement, and began writing for publications such as Commentary and National Review. In 1989, McConnell became an editorial writer and later columnist for the New York Post and served as editorial page editor in 1997. McConnell was fired from the Post later that year.

McConnell has since emerged as one of the leading figures in the broadly defined paleoconservative movement, although he explicitly disavowed using the term "paleoconservative" to define his beliefs.^[3]

McConnell also became a prominent supporter of Pat Buchanan. After spending many years as a columnist for the New York Press and Antiwar.com, in 2002 he collaborated with Buchanan and Taki Theodoracopolous in founding The American Conservative, a magazine which has served as a voice for traditionalist conservatives opposed to both liberalism and the policies of George W. Bush.^[4]

At the end of 2004, McConnell became the sole editor of TAC; during the year he had written forcefully in favor of John Kerry's candidacy for President, although adding that "If Kerry wins, this magazine will be in opposition from inauguration day forward."^[5] He was succeeded as editor by Kara Hopkins and then Daniel McCarthy (in 2010).

McConnell publicly reported on the C-SPAN program Washington Journal on November 13, 2016 that he voted for Barack Obama two times because he believed that both John McCain and Mitt Romney would "start a war with Iran".

McConnell is an heir to the Avon fortune and stepson of actor Sterling Hayden.^[6]

McConnell is also an author, writing books such as Leftward Journey: The Education of Vietnamese Students in France, 1919–1939, which argues that French paternalistic attitudes led to the rejection of liberalism by Vietnamese students, whose nationalism subsequently radicalized along Marxism lines.^[7]

References