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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
I agree with this. There are certain people who, having never done anything to earn a living that required working with their hands and whole body, have a great deal of contempt for those who do earn a living with physical work.
Many years ago, I went with my college roommate to her home in SoCal (from our Utah college) to pick up a car her father had bought for her to use. We went downtown to meet him for lunch. I knew he was an attorney, and had just been appointed as a federal district court judge, but I guess I didn’t know what all that meant at age 19. We were there in a little Mexican restaurant, and he turned to me and asked what my father did. I proudly replied that he was a dairy farmer in Wyoming. That man’s utter dismissal with his tone, and his response (I can’t even remember what he said, if anything besides, “Oh.”) was so obvious to me that I immediately lost complete respect for him. Now, I know that I’m probably a snob, too, about my roots. But, after I lived on the East Coast near D.C. for ten years, I met quite a few people who seem to have disdain for working class people.
We won’t hate America. We love American ideals and the concepts that are American. We hate leaders that look down on us, and consider us “less than” because we don’t want America weakened or destroyed by leadership that apparently doesn’t love American ideals and concepts.
(…says the woman who has an MS degree in Educational Psychology…but if I needed to, I could still milk a cow, grow my own food, and cook it!)
Henry,
Many Conservatives are so used to triangulating their way through the political turmoil they forget what having, “So you’re going to have the right hating America and the left hating America”, would actually be like. This society would implode. We have been living with what is the remainder of rational policy that the right has managed to preserve. In a very short order disaster would ensue.
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Jovial John and Joking Jonah had better wake up unless they want to find themselves in a reeducation facility run by senile crazy Joe.
Regards,
Jim
Here me out on this one:
Conservative leaders have sold their soul to the devil by fully embracing capitalism in the absence of a clear moral direction (like Judeo-Christian ethics), leading to hollow consumerism. In the void created by the conservative abdication of moral authority, progressives stepped in and gave us the twisted morality of secular relativism.
So. . .
Modernism: The ascent of science over religion, bringing us a new world of scientific breakthroughs, a revolution in human rights, and economic triumph. But it also gave us a empty hole where God should be, a crisis of emptiness, and meaningless consumerism.
Postmodernism: Attempted to solve the problem meaningless by doubling down on. . .meaninglessness? It mindlessly tears town all that was good about modernism and attempts to replace it with the class based nonsense of Marxism. In the meantime, it does nothing to solve the crisis of meaninglessness, actually making it worse.
What comes next?
I actually think that we are in the death throws of postmodernism. It is lashing out like a wounded animal that knows that inside all the viciousness is pointless. It is a burning building, and we are the helpless victims inside. What comes next has to be some kind of ideology that embraces the material advantages of free markets, the social benefits of free minds, and the spiritual benefits of faith and family. I just don’t know what that is. . .yet.
I don’t think you guys have an accurate view of what’s actually going on. Can you please consider that the games being played are not one dimensional? There are different methods of attack and persuasion. From what I can tell, the Never Trump cognoscenti believe that triggering the MSM is the wrong strategy, always. This stance ultimately results in acquiescence to their demands. That’s what they’ve all been doing, and losing the game very badly.
No it’s not 3 -D chess. It’s just a different approach and strategy. It beat Hillary and it exposed the press and these other fat, fake institutions. To include the intelligence frauds, military political grifters, the fake conservatives like Kristol, and so much more. Maybe you can’t see it, but it’s there. It’s real. Many conservatives disagree with you and they aren’t stupid. They could actually know things you don’t.
Deleted, some kind of error.
If you ease into the dystopia, it doesn’t seem quite that bad. I wonder how far down we have to be on the slippery slope before Americans look around and realize things really are that bad.
How many dire warnings have to come true, before we realize we’ve just become acclimated to what we were warned of decades ago? How long ago was it that crazy, fundamentalist preachers were telling us that women wearing pants would lead to a world where people don’t know which sex they are? Sure, you can say that one thing doesn’t really lead to the other. And I think you’re right. The causal links aren’t really my point. By hook or by crook, we’re here. How much worse can it get? I don’t want to find out by direct experience. Do you?
Double post
I vaguely remember Rothman’s tenure at Hotair…..I was left with the impression that he’s a ‘liberal-tarian’*, whose disdain for most actual conservatives long predates Trump.
*I have libertarian leanings myself, though I don’t consider myself a ‘conservatarian’…..a ‘liberaltarian’ is basically a Progressive who understands basic economics, and most seem to be narcissists with cling to feelings of superiority over the bases of both parties.
I don’t think I have the right or the ability to tell you that things are not really as bad as you seem to think they are.
But let’s say you are right and America is headed toward it’s last days. If you really believed this was the case it seems like you would be packing your bags and moving to Australia or Switzerland or some country that has a better future than the United States.
But you have no such plans or so I would guess. What does that tell you? Maybe things aren’t really that bad.
I am 53 years old. So, I remember when Jimmy Carter was President with a huge Democrat majority Congress. I remember when Bill Clinton was president with a huge Democrat majority Congress. Same with Obama.
I lived through it even though I disagreed with most of what those Democrat presidents did while in office. I think I will live through the Biden-Kamala Harris administration should there be one.
I’m not moving to Australia to get out before America descends into chaos, are you?
Jpod should consider using Twitter.
In the first place, moving elsewhere is not a practical option for most people.
In the second place, we love ‘America’ and are unwilling to give up without a fight to at least salvage something from its ashes-especially since we have no real choice in the matter (see above).
Finally, tell me where in the Carter years you had outspoken members of a political party ‘open’ to the idea of tearing down statues and monuments to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson without so much as a rebuke, major newspapers advocating the same, and major corporations hiring someone who just called July 4th a celebration of ‘white supremacy’? Or for that matter, when speaking out against an Orwellian Marxist hate cult could get you fired from almost any job in the country?
I think your lack of concern says more about you than it does the state of the country.
Some of us do live in New York.
We’re just deep under cover.
Broadly agree with this. One of the biggest frustrations I have with a lot of conservative pundits is their failure to acknowledge the role of a deeply hostile press to the popularity of a President. The President’s worst tweets have always bothered me and still do, but I wonder how much less offensive his behavior would seem if he wasn’t the target of relentless, unbalanced, dishonest, and overtly biased reporting on a daily basis.
Regarding Noah, my impression of him is that he’s young and doesn’t realize how off-putting his default supercilious tone is. He’s obviously bright, and he seems like a nice enough fellow; I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t learn to temper his tone just a little as he grows older.
I’ve never listened to the Commentary podcast. I used to–up until a couple weeks ago–listen to GLoP. I disagreed with a lot of what I heard, and I thought snark was elevated above actual analysis, but whatever.
Then, a couple weeks ago (can’t tell you how many episodes ago, because I’ve written the lot off), Podhoretz made the comment (not a direct quote, but pretty close): Oh, sure, Covid 19 is awful. But c’mon, we all know someone we wish would die from it.
Done.
Maybe it was supposed to be some kind of metropolitan cool.
Maybe it was supposed to be urban droll.
Maybe it was supposed to be a snarky, sarcastic joke-type thing.
Whatever.
Done.
Well, as do I, for that matter. (But not that New York. I live somewhere in the rest of the state.)
kel,
Maybe we should be hearing more from you. How about an undercover intelligence briefing every so often. So you are a Manhattan Mole.
Regards,
Jim
Yes, and I’ve heard worse from others on the program. As I said, his humor is juvenile. That’s actually one of the things I find off-putting about Jonah Goldberg as well. I somehow expect conservatives to be a little stolid, adult to a fault, boring — basically, more like me. I never quite trust the ones who shoot from the hip. Even Mark Steyn, whom I’ve always enjoyed, has a slightly dodgy quality about him.
That’s why I like Richard Epstein and Victor Hanson so much. They never get edgy.
I agree with the first two paragraphs of Henry’s post. I haven’t decided how I feel about the rest of it yet. :-)
I listen to the Commentary podcast regularly and generally enjoy the discussion. John is the most listenable. I have no idea which one is Abe and which one is Noah. I’ve never heard Christine say anything interesting. But apparently it’s compelling enough for me to devote multiple hours per week to it.
(I know this doesn’t have anything to do with the topic at hand, I just wanted to get that off my chest about Abe and Noah.)
Noah is the one who sounds like he’s sneering whenever he speaks. Abe is the one who sounds like a peacemaker.
What a burden, to be so much smarter than most people. I mean gosh, the J-Pod can quote almost any movie, from any time, and tell us plebes who wrote it, produced it, directed it, and starred in it. Whew. Let me catch my breath before I’m overcome.
And, my stars and garters, he’s read the Satyricon. Wow, I stand in awe of this guy who had to overcome no entry barriers because of daddy, has no idea what the term “honest day’s labor” means, and has probably never had a blister on his palm, let alone a callous. A blister caused by some type of inadvertent labor would probably result in a frenzied dash for the nearest emergency room.
Drop me anywhere in NYC, I’d do alright. Drop pod anywhere on the Appalachian Trail, he’d last a day. Maybe. If the weather was really good.
He can kiss my grits. He had a shot at mebbe wielding some influence with me, and blew it.
Thanks for the tip, but they both sound kind of sneery to me.
I am a man without formal education from a family without formal education. I grew up with a couple of chips on my shoulder, things I inherited from my father (who is, by the way, still the best man I’ve ever known, and in every way that matters). For one thing, I harbored a disapproval of fat people that I gradually talked myself out of and avoided passing on to my own children. For another, I looked down on the hyper-educated. That one has been harder to dispel, perhaps because I don’t have that education myself yet probably took it for granted that a bright guy like me inevitably would.
I’ll defend John Podhoretz. He’s a smart, educated man who has chosen a particular kind of urban life of pop culture and activist journalism. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m sure I could beat him arm wrestling, out shoot him, and probably run rings around him in mathematics, the sciences, or any aspect of home repair. I’ve owned a farm: like Cow Girl, I’ve milked cows and could do it again. I can steer a calf, dehorn a goat, and slaughter a chicken.
But John has a wonderful vocabulary and he knows how to use it. He’s the only podcaster who uses words I don’t know with any frequency at all. I have heard, from people who know him, that he’s a loyal friend and a deeply descent, caring man. I believe that. He can’t tell a joke, is a little full of himself, and thinks the world ends at (pick your street on the western edge of NYC; I don’t know the city well enough to do it).
I don’t want to dump on the guy. I just want to observe that, like many of these very well educated intellectual conservatives, he seems not to understand Americans very well.
Here’s my little problem with VDH. When I moved to California 42 years ago, the Democrats were against illegal immigration because it threatened their Black base; at the time Blacks were at war with Latinos (this is no longer true). So who imported all those millions of people he wrote about in Mexifornia?
a. Diehard leftists in lavender jumpsuits waving copies of Das Kapital
b. Cynical union leaders looking to toss their own members out of work
c. 70s-90s Republicans in nice suits and ties who wanted cheap labor and would basically bribe anyone they had to get those fields harvested, those hotel beds made, and those restaurant dishes washed by illegal labor.
I bet you figured it out–the answer is “C”. Of course, the Democrats, not being entirely stupid, figured out how to get the better of us politically. But that wasn’t supposed to happen, VDH’s allies told us, because of social conservatism. Chicanos, to them, were humble, modest, grateful sons of the soil who would be kept in line forever by La Iglesia. How did that work out for us? “Oh, wait’ll they find out what the Democrats really believe!” They found out. They vote Dem anyway. So yeah, VDH is an impressive guy who would be an asset to any country he lived in, but his political judgement is seriously flawed.
Ironic that now he’s on the opposite side from Kristol, who fed us the same line.
I know our resident anti-Trumpers take a lot of flak, but they gamely show up (I know what you are already saying ‘Again, and again, and again, and again!’) to defend what they believe. I give them a lot of respect for that, as I tend to avoid confrontation, and they are guaranteed to be confronted.
I still completely disagree and think they are being numbskulls about it, but I respect them.
Victor Hanson routinely comments on the mistake conservatives have made in assuming that the negative impact of cheap foreign labor on U.S. workers will be made up for by cheaper products and greater economic efficiency for large corporations. It’s a theme of The Case for Trump. Perhaps he’s defended those practices in the past, but I’m not aware of it.
People used to say that in the 60’s, but moving to Australia wouldn’t do any good these days. They are just as bad if not worse than we are in very many respects.
I either missed that podcast (or missed the comment because the doorbell rang.)
I agree that was bad.
Forget about the idea of moving out of country for a minute. The previous “white flight” relocations in the ’70s and ’80s are, increasingly, an economically non-viable option for today’s conservatives. They are already culturally a non-viable option; after all, one can’t “white flight” away from LGBTQI people.
No, generations of conservatives from GenX and younger are going to have to stand and engage. It’s going to look ugly at first, but the fight will be worthwhile.
Let me push back a little on this. The polls do not look good at the moment. It seems to me that we on the right are beginning to look around for targets of future blame. ‘Trump would have won if only you guys were a little more enthusiastic in your support.’ The gist of my response is simply this: if Trump loses, as it looks like he might, he has only himself to blame, John Podhoretz et al notwithstanding.
Interesting discussion, not unlike a lot of them now days. Obviously a lot of us are sensibly bothered about our politics. Is there an out? Look at the size of state and national government bureaucracies. Do they make a net contribution to the nation? Consider the whole thing, not just what they cost in taxes, or opportunity costs, (what those same people could be doing if gainfully employed) they also stand in the way of creative initiatives we can’t know about and probably never will. Trump bothers lots of people, reasonably, but what are the risks of electing any Democrat, not to mention Biden or any of the candidates? Frankly most Republicans aren’t much better, but at least they know why. What are the political economic and opportunity costs of centralized falling cost companies like google? How much do their powerful poorly educated technical people understand about the world, its economy and history? Or consider the threat coming from China. The Chinese want to run the world economy and are making great progress toward that even as we go down hill. Does it make sense to choose to go down hill even faster?