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.
In this episode, Jonah continues the great Remnant tradition of allowing senior National Review political correspondent Jim Geraghty to dispense genuinely unique and fascinating observations about current global issues.
And what better time could there be for that than right now? During a moment in which even Americans’ feelings about a global health crisis break down along partisan lines rather than facts on the ground, Geraghty’s brand of succinct investigative reporting is a breath of fresh air.
Show Notes:
–Jim’s newsletter, The Morning Jolt
–Latest updates on the lies that China has told
–Tom Cotton talks about China re-closing movie theaters
–Shortage of chemical reagents required to make COVID tests
–Jonah’s column about Booker’s “moral imagination”
–Yamiche Alcindor/Trump weirdness
For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in Apple Podcasts or by RSS feed.
Man, whoever posts these dispatch podcasts to Ricochet needs to learn to check their work. Download is a link to a json file and the file does not play (again). I’m fine with the m4a files though.
I thought it was just me.
I can’t stand Trump. But there is NO POINT in talking about his character flaws right now.
Right, wait until just before the election to start that again, so Biden can win.
I like Jonah, and I like Jim. But honestly, for all his many … eccentricities, Trump’s performance has exceeded my expectations the last three+ years. After reading John Ringo’s The Last Centurion, the idea of Hillary Clinton’s America from 2017 to now turns me from an Evan McMullin refugee to a near-enthusiastic Trump voter.
I don’t know why, but the following quote came to mind.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
I just don’t want to talk about politics at all. I would like us to focus on getting through this as Americans. I’m not voting for Biden or Trump. I’m leaving the top of the ticket blank. All of you passionate Trump and Biden supporters can fight it out between yourselves.
Ever since the Trump phenomenon Jonah has acted a bit like a martyr. The friends he’s lost, the money he’s lost (less TV appearances), the people calling him names on Twitter, and how brave he is to sticking to his guns.
I’ve watched some of his sparring with, for example, Sebastian Gorka, who yes can be a bit of a jerk in the way he acts towards people.
But Richard Epstein? (Jonah was “surprised” he’s a “truther”). I’ve been listening to Richard Epstein on lots of podcasts, and reading him too. I’ve heard him sharply disagree with people and argue on the merits. I’ve never heard him engage in name calling.
If only you could get President Biden for yourself, while the rest of us can have Trump for another four years. It might be a valuable lesson. But the rest of us don’t need to learn it the hard way.
Well bless your heart. You want to give me valuable lessons. No thanks. I don’t want either of them! If Trump would just go away, we could get somebody halfway decent. But you with your binary choices made that impossible. Just keep on feeding Trump’s ego. Maybe make him President for life! You’d probably love that too!
Now you have me talking about politics and I don’t want to do that. We are stuck with Trump for now and either Trump or Biden next. Great job.
What you “want” is irrelevant. And I voted for Cruz in the primaries, although I can now see that he probably wouldn’t have done as well in the real world. But taking your ball, or your marbles – or your vote – and going/staying home, doesn’t help at all. It’s not going to get you President Some Republican Other Than Trump. If anything, not cancelling out someone else’s foolish vote for Biden, could actually lead to President Biden. That you didn’t vote “for” Biden doesn’t change the outcome. Or the responsibility, for that matter.
If “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good [people] to do nothing,” then not voting might be at the top of the list of “do nothing.”
What you “want” is irrelevant to me. Cruz would have been a thousand times better. Voting for neither is what is right for me. It is none of your business. Voting for Trump has plenty of evil consequences. You won’t change my mind. Trump could. But he continues to convince me that I could not, in good conscience, vote for him. At least I’m not voting for Biden. It is the best that I can do.
You people never let up. I was trying to tell Jonah to lay off Trump during this crisis, but you are not happy until you get total submission.
Nothing to do with submission. This isn’t islam.
So, if the coronavirus situation is seen to be a “calamity” by enough people, their solution is to elect Calamity Joe?
Brilliant.
You know, as unseemly as Trump going after the media when they ask garbage gotcha questions can be, he’s doing exactly what I yearned for, for decades. I’d watch WH press conferences where Donaldson, Helen Thomas, and “look at me, I’m” Jim Acosta would endlessly hector the press secretary or the President, note how much flack the official would take from even the mildest rebuke, and think “someone should give these people back in full, call them on their garbage, and dismiss them like the hacks they are.” (note: I do have some fondness for Donaldson, but it depended on the day.)
In those moments Trump doesn’t seem to lose his temper; he slaps back, cuts down, and then moves on. His tone doesn’t change much at all; he says it like he’s stating the obvious. Yeah, it’s not Marquess of Queensberry rules, not every smackdown rings true, and he’ll bodyslam anyone who strikes out at him regardless of party…but it’s always a quoteworthy prebuttal to whatever they later write. Which is worse: a hundred “Trump stokes fear by …” articles or a single “Trump stokes fear” and a thousand Tweets about “Trump slams reporter for suggesting he stokes fear”? The focus turns from the headline to the author. People pay more attention to the source, and to the exchange that prompted it.
Not every crisis can be insulted to resolution, but those attempting to spin a narrative like they always have can be derailed and to an extent defanged by becoming the story. It’s not going to please everyone, perhaps not even a majority, but there is a substantial group that’s been begging for someone who fights the culture as hard as they fought the Communists.
Trump is nowhere near as deft and genial with his humor as Reagan was, but he uses it to similar effect: rallying the base and tweaking the other side. Reagan had a more midwestern (onstage) Johnny Carson demeanor; Trump is Jeff “Roastmaster General” Ross. If anything, Trump compares with the trash talk of Obama (and his “anger translator,” Luther). How often did the Left complain about the juvenile schoolyard taunts from their hero?
In an era when we communicate online with snarky memes and zinger tweets, Trump is the master of the moment’s art. “But is it art?” That’s a question for another day.
{"message":"Missing Authentication Token"}
is what i get.
This was not the week to go after Hoft who broke the CBS using Italian hospital footage and pretending to be New York
not a big gateway fan but jonah’s petulance is approaching Charlie Sykes levels
Can he go an episode without putting down a pundit who likes Trump
Apparently not.
Yeah, I can’t download it in this form.
I downloaded it from here as a M4A file. Scroll down to find the podcast.
Sigh. The ignorance on this podcast is astounding.
It’s “Ain’t nobody got time for that!”, and it has nothing to do with Jesse Ventura, who ain’t got time to bleed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGxwbhkDjZM
Why settle for halfway decent? With Trump, I figure we’ve got about 90% decent. (I take 10% off for some of his less-effectual tweeting.)
I recall one time last year listening to the Remnant, and Jonah made a few snarky comments about a person that I believe is doing great things, very dynamic, reaching out and bringing a lot of people to the conservative fold and toward a disciplined way of thinking. I was confused, until I later realized that this person was recently seen praising Trump at an event, and thanking him for standing up for America. “Ahhhh”, I thought. “NOW it is clear why Jonah was so upset.”
Indeed. I don’t get why some people seem to think the election is for Tweeter-In-Chief or something.
It bothers me when people don’t explain their terms. Like when they started saying “COVID Truthers” without explaining what that position means. I don’t follow Richard Epstein close enough to automatically know his position.
Trying to work back from the name to the premise I note that this virus is primarily affecting (1) New York City, and (2) the Boomer generation. All of a sudden I’m more inclined to think this whole story is overblown.
Thing is, even if “only” a few thousand people die, nobody can make a credible argument that it was always a nothing-burger and the results would have been the same without all the self-isolation etc.
Jonah is obsessed with rump, and obsessed in a way that has affected his reasoning. Does he listen to himself? When he starts to talk about Trump, his voice changes pitch and he begins to use emotion laden words. Jonah does not even talk about Hillary that way. Jeebus.
Geraghty spends five minutes explaining that covid-19 is a China story, and an economic and public health story, but NOT a Trump story. Jonah agrees, then goes on and on about how it is all Trump’s fault.
It is crazy.
I’m trying to remember if it was Henry Olson or someone else Jonah had on The Remnant late last year during the House impeachment efforts who turned out to be not so much an enthusiastic Trump supporter, but someone who had a few nice words to say about Trump, in comparison to Adam Schiff and his group. You could hear the enthusiasm lessen and they simply switched to a different subject, because it wasn’t going to be any fun to continue on that topic if rank punditry involving Trump shots was going to be met with responses of qualified support of the job he was doing.
Trump makes gaffes and says intemperate or outright stupid things at times. I didn’t vote for him or Hillary because I agreed with Jonah in 2016 that Trump’s past history of flipping from right to left and back meant he couldn’t be counted on to hold firm on conservative issues if the swing voters started moving back towards the Democrats. But they did in 2018 and he didn’t — you can say he didn’t because the Democrats were out for blood and he had no choice but to stay with the right, but to say as Jonah did back in February that all the bad things Trump was supposed to do, but hasn’t, for conservatism in his first term he’d do in his second term, because he won’t have to face the voters again is an attitude looking for a justification.
It seems one of Jonah’s concerns with the Wu Flu is that people will turn away from trade with China. He was still doing his condescending gloooobalists on the GLoP podcast and here he said something about what will happen to free trade when this is over. Shouldn’t this be a wake-up call or at least give one pause? Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to send it manufacturing to a hostile country.
Don’t let it get to ya. These days he’s saying it because it’s fun to say a funny word funny. Not that I have any proof of that proposition.
But on the subject of questionably appropriate childlike glee:
He he he…