Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
John Podhoretz
Based on years of listening to him, and on everything I’ve heard about him, John Podhoretz is a gentle, humane, and thoroughly decent man. I envy him his ability to pluck precisely the right word from his obviously vast vocabulary, and to speak, when he chooses, with extraordinary nuance and precision.
Sure, he’s prone to outrageous hyperbole (a quality hardly unique to him in this, the Age of Trump), is unduly proud of his Judaic morosity, and has a sense of humor that resonates with 12-year-old boys and Jonah Goldberg (but I repeat myself). But still, I enjoy listening to him.
But he often lands a clinker, as he did in the June 6 podcast (here) when he averred, at about 1:10:00, that, should the Democrats win in 2020, the right is “certainly going to turn anti-patriotic in the event of his defeat. … So you’re going to have the right hating America and the left hating America.”
I’ve mentioned this before about our own Rob Long, and I’ll say it now about John: I think too many conservative intellectuals have a poor idea of what actual conservatives are like, and of who makes up “the right” out in that vast unexplored and boring portion of America that people who don’t live in New York, Washington, or Los Angeles call home.
Thank G-d we still have VDH.
Published in Culture
Indeed we do, and I have often expressed my appreciation of James.
I honestly don’t understand how you have that opinion from listening to Podhoretz. He isn’t a fan of Trump, that much is true. But the description above is wildly at odds with the things I have heard him say. I have mostly listened to GLoP, so perhaps he is different in the Commentary podcasts. I’m a Southerner, too (born and bred) and I have heard him drop a few clinkers. But I really don’t see the “hatred and contempt” that you seem to find.
I think, and fear, that if Trump loses, there will not be any opposing party anymore.
If Trump loses, and especially if America gives one or both houses of Congress into the hands of the enemy, I’ll still love America. I will hate that we have been occupied by America-hating foreigners that happen to be citizens.
Actually, if you listen to the Ricochet podcast and GLoP, Rob has come to have a grudging respect for Trump and has acknowledged the positive things Trump has done. He still comments on the not-so-great stuff from Trump – but after all, Trump does say a lot of not-so-great stuff.
That won’t keep me from voting for him, but the fact is – he does make me wince on a fairly regular basis. That’s why I try to concentrate on what Trump actually does and just avoid listening to the day-to-day blather.
John Podhoretz along with all (amazing how universal this is) never Trumpers, do not understand America and Americans.
It’s a cartoon world for them. They have huge blind spots. Why should John have to understand ordinary Americans? John is concerned exclusively with extraordinary people, people ‘like’ him. How can he mingle with ‘ordinary’ Americans? He simply can’t.
Someone like VDH, who lives in rural California and has actually studied ‘ordinary’ people throughout history, respects ordinary people enough to try to learn about them.
But I don’t think JPod respects anyone who isn’t already ‘accomplished’.
Ok, fine. Except, he’s punditing on things (people) he is smugly incurious about. He doesn’t even want to know. Or, he already thinks he knows.
As intellectually and educationally inferior to J Pod, Donald Trump would tweet….Sad!
Since 2014 or so, I probably have listened to every Ricochet, GLoP and Commentary podcast. Almost all the criticisms I’ve heard of Trump from the likes of Rob Long and John Podhoretz have been deserved. From the moment he descended the escalator we’ve been told that he is a smart fellow who will learn. Donald Trump even promised us that he could be “presidential” if need be. And yet ever since he took office he keeps stepping on rakes that he himself has placed in his way. Sure he ‘fights,’ but he fights ineptly. His presidency has been one long string of unforced errors interspersed with the occasional sensible policy move. I hope Trump wins in November but if he doesn’t it won’t be because critics on the right have spent the last three years trying to talk sense to the guy. He will simply have tweeted himself out of office. (Or maybe it will be because we just didn’t vote hard enough.)
How about one long string of of sensible policy moves interspersed with the occasional unforced error?
Also, the comment is misattributed to @eb
While I largely agree with that, it seems to me to be a bit beside the point of the post.
I don’t know what happened when you commented, but the quote above is NOT from me. @franzdrumlin
I don’t know what happened when Franz commented, but the quote above is NOT from me. @hoyacon
I don’t know what happened when Franz commented, but the quote above is NOT from me. @henryracette
I stopped listening to the Commentary podcast four years ago, not because of J-Pod, but due to Noah Rothman (?). J-Pod strikes me as an insular but generally decent fellow who mostly tries to contain his smugness, sometimes unsuccessfully. Noah was insufferable in his hatred, disdain and condescension toward anyone who supported Trump, or even who hated Trump supporters less than Noah did.
I can deal with anyone who criticizes Trump. He’s a politician — we’re supposed to criticize him. I do grow weary of those who can’t seem to talk about anything else (hello, Jonah). The “Never Trumpers” that I’ve written off are those who displayed a loud and proud derision toward Trump supporters. Jonah tried hard to avoid that, as did J-Pod, and so I can still listen to and read them on occasion if it’s not just another tired anti-Trump screed. Noah, Kevin Williamson, Mona Charon, etc., I ignore completely.
Note that I was very far from being a Trump supporter, so this wasn’t personal. I just found it so tasteless and arrogant that I lost all respect for them.
Yes, it’s that annoying misquoting thing that Ricochet sometimes does, when selecting one person from a nested conversation. It happens often enough, perhaps Ricochet should add an option for the person linked in a comment to remove his/her name — a la Facebook’s “untag” feature — while leaving the link back to the originating comment. Let’s have Max get right on that.
The Commentary Podcast opens with Mel Brooks’ song from “The Twelve Chairs” and makes a joke about its own crushing morosity for a reason, in that JPod is prone to overreacting to expecting the worst whenever Trump takes a mis-step (and where the negativity towards Trump within the New York City media market, which dates back at least to 1979, also takes its toll).
I’d say overall on the podcast, Abe Greenwald is the most Trump-supportive, but Podhoretz is probably No. 2, and where it’s not so much that he hates Trump on a personal and uncontrollable level, but his pessimism causes him to think Trump’s going to screw everything up when his latest action causes the media to become outrageously outraged. On GLoP in recent months, he and Rob have taken turns at trying to keep Jonah tethered to reality.
In the other direction on the Commentary Podcast, Noah Rothman’s probably less Trump-phobic than he was a year or two ago, not so much because he’s warmed to the guy, but because the Democrats have been such a cynical dumpster fire of pandering and hypocrisy in the run-up to the election. They’ve sort of forced him towards Trump by being an untenable alternative this November (as opposed to someone like Bill Kristol, who’s made it his mission to convince the world True Conservatives can only vote for Joe Biden this fall). But Noah still doesn’t like the guy, and Christine Rosen isn’t a big fan, either, and when Trump has a bad news cycle day, JPod lurches in their direction, then lurches back towards Greenwald 24-48 hours later (the main thing here right now is you’d think John would have learned the news cycle moves so fast that today’s unbelievable media outrage is forgotten 24-48 hours later, since everything is about sending up anti-Trump trial balloons, to see if something sticks with the voters. If you focus on each one, you’re not going to avoid being infected with crushing morosity).
I stopped listening. Most of their voiced disagreements are petty in comparison to the full-frontal, unfair, and often entirely false attacks from the media. Imagine “Bush lied people died” and Katrina, Katrina, Katrina scandal on hyper-meth, and the Glops are joking about “Mission Accomplished” and Bush’s marbled syntax.
They are stomping on him – only because he’s effective, by the way – and these guys are off sniggering like schoolgirls.
There have been unforced errors, certainly. But there were many amazing revelations Trumps very existence being President caused. He didn’t do those things, he revealed them.
Policywise, staunchly conservative pundits and politicians say he’s doing just about everything right. I see it that way too.
The great things he’s done far surpass anything 12 years of the Bush clan.
The fact is, Trump is more conservative than these guys! That’s the problem.
Or, to take it off the left-right spectrum ( always a crude interpretation anyway) these guys are essentially globalists. They want the world to work for everyone and coincidentally, they remain entirely unaffected by their solutions. Those affected by their ideas are then held in contempt. Kinda despicable.
I understand Republicans fear of going directly at the press, now especially. This is what they will do. They are fully capable of using their platforms to propagandize for themselves and their wishes. We are too much in their thrall.
The break has happened.
He fights very well. We all would love to step back and pretend we could have said something better, but to do this with Trump skips some steps. Because he had to win. He’s performative. He’s not trying to convince people by logic. Because he knows most people aren’t logical. I love to hear Ted Cruz argue. A lot of people are totally uninterested or couldn’t follow, many people are too busy to get into the political weeds like we here.
No other Republican came close to the ability to expose the press as frauds. Newt Gingrich came close. But the same people who disliked Trump and made fun of the Tea Party scuttled him.
The press, as they are currently constituted as PR agents for giant media corporations pushing an economic and political agenda that directly benefits their bottom line, need to be held in absolute contempt.
Hillary Clinton needed to be taken on directly and no other GOP candidate could have done that better than DJT. It was masterful. There are other effective methods to deal with media and our opponents than just arguing against their worldview. Listen, the people who are listening to an open debate are not who we need to convert to conservatism. This unfortunately is an esoteric pursuit.
There’s this funny thing that happens that if I highlight a portion of one person’s comment, forget, and hit reply to another comment, it copies my selection and attributes it to the commenter I’m replying to.
It’s a fun little trick… like putting words in someone’s mouth…
Sorry. I must have inadvertently highlighted the above from @eb’s comment. Apologies to all.
Regardless of the outcome in 2020, we picked the best of the field in 2016 (at least the best of the field that stuck with it).
I enjoy the Commentary podcasts. They don’t go into NT mode very often, and in fact, have been known to praise him. Jonah is a different story. He doesn’t seem to be able to get through a Remnant podcast without going into extreme NT mode. He gets shrill. At that point, I quit listening.
He is a barbarian. “He thinks the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.” And by “tribe” I don’t mean Jews.
And taught a bunch of them at California State University, Fresno.
Commentary Magazine is the Seinfeld of conservative punditry: too NY and too Jewish.
I’m half serious, half kidding.
Amen. Mr. Podhoretz and Mr. Long generally make me cringe with some their comments. Mr. Goldberg can make me retch.
I am a huge fan of the Commentary podcast. The four of them, Podhoretz, Rothman, Rosen and Greenwald are all highly intelligent and interesting. They now do a podcast every day and I enjoy listening to it every afternoon.
What I like is that they are willing to praise Trump when they believe he has acted correctly but are also willing to criticize Trump when they think Trump has done wrong.
In other words, they aren’t responding to the Left-wing propaganda produced by CNN, the New York Times and MSNBC by engaging in Right-wing propaganda. There isn’t a hint of any John Birch Society style conspiracy theory in their podcasts. It’s just good, insightful commentary.
As for the question Gary asked: How will conservatives respond if Trump loses?
Every time a presidential election happens the losing party goes through a period of time where they think that the country is irredeemable. If a Republican wins, we hear stories of about various Hollywood actors are planning on moving to France or Sweden. If a Democrat wins, we hear stories of how we are nearing the last days of the Republic.
Things are never as great as we would like them to be when Republicans win and things are never as bad as we fear when Democrats win.
Well, I heard it loud and clear on a GLOP. He was berating those of us angry at the GOP. He was saying of course they lie. Hiw stupid are you to be angry. That’s no reason to vote for Trump.
Nothing he has said since has changed the view. It is clear he is Mr. Intellectual New Yorker, and the rest of us are rubes. Contempt.
I form one am tired of being looked down on by people from NYC. NYC is a cesspool of failure, with the most provincial people I have ever had the misfortune to meet.
So true. Nearly every day Trump steps on a rake and the propagandists tell us that Trump is just playing 3 dimensional chess.
I don’t dislike the man for what he has said about Trump. It isnwhat he has said about Trump supporters.
See, he has been far worse on us than on Democrat voters.
He just like Goldberg can be extremely condescending when they don’t have someone on the other side calling out his BS.Its just the nature of talking for a living and being smarter than most people.
Granted I can be too when I don’t shut up. That is why I love people debating me and calling me out on my B.S. I become a better person for it. He sort of needs the same but everyone works for him on his Podcast and are in the same Bubble, so the dynamics suck because of that.
From comments others have made about his wife. She might be a better co-host.