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A Thought from Tonight’s Editor Podcast
First, I invite you all to join the Edit This! podcast hosted by our editors, Jon Gabriel and Bethany Mandel at a closely guarded time every Monday evening. It’s a lot of fun and a Ricochet podcast in which you can actually speak and badger the hosts, unlike the fru-fru flagship podcast that only the true bluebloods can attend.
Secondly, during tonight’s podcast, I had a thought that maybe hadn’t occurred to me before. We all know that the media and what I call the opinion-shaping elite (Hollywood, the universities, the newsrooms, etc.) tilt left. That’s something we’ve been battling for decades, and proof — I assert — that our 50/50 divided America is in fact much more intrinsically conservative than many believe.
But tonight’s discussion touched on issues of the Bulwark and the Never-Trump elite, people like Bill Kristol, and other nuevo-leftist former presumed-conservative commentators. Bethany asked, reasonably, if Bill Kristol and his ilk had ever really been conservative. That’s a fair question.
And that’s when it occurred to me that we have a potential problem having to do with the nature of the media and opinion-shaping classes, a problem that could apply as much to Ricochet (though I hope it doesn’t) as to any other (new-)media outlet.
The people who write their opinions for a living, conservative or liberal, have a lot in common with each other.
I want the post-Trump Republican party to be more muscular, more working-class, more cross-cultural (because I believe that the working class is cross-cultural), more rural, more masculine, and, frankly, less educated and credentialed than it has been in the recent past. I want this because I think the conceits of the current opinion-shaping elite are proving themselves to be unworkable and bad for America, and I want a resurgence of a simpler, more common sense, more visceral, and less erudite ‘merica!
Once upon a time, back before j-school, journalists were drawn from that population. Is it possible to build something similar on the internet today, something ruddy and rough and matter-of-fact that harkens back to a simpler time of clarity and rugged self-confidence?
Can we find journalists and pundits who, unlike the sissies at The Bulwark, CNN, NBC, etc., actually have balls?
I think that’s what we’re going to need if we’re going to restore America.
Because right now these clowns are tripping over their pronouns. And that’s no way to run a great country.
Published in Journalism
Hank, what do you mean by cross-cultural?
Multi-ethnic. It was a poor choice of words. I’ll probably have to fix it.
I mean appealing to black Americans, brown Americans, Americans with Latin American heritage, Asian Americans, etc.
Americans. Of all colors and ethnicities. Because most of us have in common a desire to earn a living and take care of our families and be free.
Are you talking about Republican voters or the Republican Party proper? The first part of the paragraph made me think the former; the last part, the latter. Are you imaging elite opinion-shapers to be replaced with man-on-the-street types? If so, is that practical? If so, how do you think that happens?
I think conservatives and Republicans need each other. The Party must learn to embrace a broader world of conservatives.
Good post!
I am always irked by terms like “working class” that come straight out of Marx.
Has Jon Gabriel apologized for his January screed? I’ll consider listening to him when I know that has happened.
He voted for Trump. I’ve moved on.
I’m going to wait for an apology.
An apology is appropriate, but even with that I doubt I’ll ever follow this podcast. I also stopped paying attention to… whatever his podcast’s real name was, before it became “King Of Stuff.” He’s just too erratic.
I like this one because I think Jon and Bethany make a good pair, and I like our ability to be involved. This is the only one of Jon’s podcasts I’ve listened to in years. I’m enjoying it, and looking forward to seeing where it goes. I can see it being a much more interactive production than any other podcast here, and that’s kind of exciting.
Very! So far it’s mostly millennials on YouTube, but the attention goes to those wont to veer comedic. (Jon Stewart set the tone.)
I don’t think I’m misreading you when I say I think you’re right, there’s an opportunity for Ricochet here.
I like the way you think! I can abide a Racette infestation if this is what we get more of….
I have yet to catch the podcast because I work afternoons into the night, but so far they’ve been great. So without being privy to the discussion, I think you bring up a very good point. Just because Biden is president, and the corporate & sanctimonious media wish to vilify anyone not voting for him, doesn’t mean we don’t exist. Rather it solidifies a belief our voices aren’t being heard. I know it’s not directly related, as they were columnists central to NYC, but a very, very good documentary on the old-school beat reporting by Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill. It’s an HBO production from 2020: https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/breslin-and-hamill-deadline-artists
I can’t imagine neither Bill Kristol nor Jim Acosta in a world like this.
While I love this post and the Edit This podcast, I do feel it is my solemn duty to point out that anyone can attend the recordings of the Ricochet Podcast, no matter what color their blood is.
I almost never pre-announce guests, but I’ll make an exception here, to defend against the charge of Fru-Fru-ism: This week we’ve got a good one — Niall Ferguson on his new book, DOOM and Steven Meyers brings the mysticism and makes the case for Intelligent Design from his new book, Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe. Should be a mind-bending podcast. Friday at (new time) 11AM PT.
Whoa! Do you mean we can unmute during the flagship podcast?
Because that’s what I particularly like about this one.
But yes, I do like the fact that we can chat on the Ricochet podcast as well. Even if I think it throws off Peter, and makes it three times harder for James to finish his sponsor spots at the end (my favorite part, obviously).
This is going to be good! (Not to diminish in any way previous guests) And with regard to power couples from Lucy & Desi to
Bill & Melinda, Bill & Hillary, Jared & Ivanka(?) Niall & Ayaan are two to be admired and respected. I’m so very glad they both have a voice here on Ricochet.😂😂😂
So true. I believe the biggest thing they have in common is they want their readers to agree with them. I believe the never-Trumpers lost it when almost all of their readers rejected their assessment of Trump – or agreed with their assessment yet still supported him.
I love Mona Charon, but I stopped listening to her podcasts and reading her columns because of her never-ending, never-Trump tirades. I went a long time not listening to the GLoP podcast for the same reason – it got tiresome listening to why I should hate Trump.
We still subscribe to National Review and long for another NR Cruise. If I come across an article with negative words about Trump, I just skip the NT stuff to find out if there are nuggets of wisdom lurking around.
But yes, opinion writers of all political stripes have a lot in common . . .
Thanks for coming out!
Uh . . . oh, for the Zoom podcast!
Sounds like a good line up BY. I loved the Common Knowledge with Steve Meyers and Berlinski and the other guy whose name I’m forgetting. And, of course, always a upvote for Niall Ferguson. First, he’s not that Ferguson who screwed up the vid stats (in more ways than one). Second he married Hayan Hirsi Ali which shows fantastic taste.
Well, that too.
Jenna Stocker knows how to spell better than moi. Ayaan Hirsi Ali. (At least I got 2 out of 3 parts of her name!)
She had four columns in a row like that that were published here. They were a complete mess. I have no idea who would find them cogent. NYU and a professional speech writer.
The people we are talking about either have a lot to lose personally (psychic, credibility, socially or money) or they just can’t make a decent argument in light of what is actually happening.
I think I can make a pro MAGA argument the vast majority of time regardless of who I am dealing with.
I think the GOP is becoming the party of the normals, however reluctantly. Democrats, the super-rich, academics, Rachel Maddow and the weird NeverTrump GOP rump faction are driving us normals all together and making themselves an unlikely minority.
Normals are mostly but not necessarily heterosexuals who favor monogamous relationships but whatever their sexual proclivities, normals do not require the rest of the world to change its thinking to approve of such.
Normals can be of any race or ethnicity and, as Americans believe that citizenship and common humanity always trumps tribal identity and history.
Normals celebrate the ongoing national achievement of equal justice and political and legal equality despite being saddled from the start with old-world injustices.
Normals don’t begrudge success or wealth but resent the hell out of it being used for unfair economic or political advantage or destructive ideological goals or as a platform to lecture the rest of us.
Normals believe in opportunity, fairness, science, math, and human rights, not class or race warfare, centralized government, nor bogus revolutionary cant.
Normals hate crime and destruction and those who seek to absolve or even profit from it.
Normals love America, western culture, freedom, and material progress but accept the reality of human frailty and that there are few solutions but many tradeoffs.
Well put, and yes, I hope that’s what’s happening.
I thought that maybe we could repel Appletini-sipping millennials by leaving bottles of bourbon here and there around the site. And it worked well.
Except for the resulting Racette infestation. Oops…
I highly recommend this fun podcast for Monday nights. Jon and Bethany have a wonderful sense of humor, and I think people would enjoy their perspective on how politics and real life intersect. :-)
I didn’t know they were married to each other! What an absolutely epic power couple.
Hank, due to your recommendation, I did listen to this podcast. I have been boycotting Jon, essentially, since his intemperate post of January 6 calling for President Trump to be immediately removed under the 25th Amendment, then impeached, convicted, and barred from office (here).
On January 8, I responded with a post (here), initially titled “Deranged,” though this was changed upon promotion to “The Immediate Calls to Remove Trump Were Irresponsible.” I had to include Jon, most sadly — and I used those exact words, “most sadly” — in the list of conservative or Republican commentators who had overreacted in a way that I found “well past unwarranted, and beyond irresponsible.” I concluded my post with:
This was
I did appreciate Jon’s comment, in the podcast, in which he said (essentially) that he welcomed the push-back against his initial reaction. But I’ve yet to see or hear an apology.
Jon, here’s your chance. I think that you should acknowledge that you overreacted.
What exactly should he apologize for? Expressing his sincerely held opinion? We don’t ask anyone here to do that and there are opinions posted every day that someone thinks is deranged.