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Yep, it another run through the cultural landscape with your podcast pals Jonah Goldberg, Rob Long, and John Podhoretz. This week, the guys jog through a preview of The Dispatch, Jonah’s new media venture, sprint through some thoughts on The Joker (a movie the guy at Rob’s UPS store insists that he sees ASAP), and examine the various controversies it has spawned, and finally, a fast walk through why it’s just fine for Ellen Degeneres and George W. Bush to be friends.
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As long as we’re dumping on Jon, let’s throw in the remark at ~14:40 that the country didn’t have a tradition of partisan journalism between the Era of Good Feelings and the 1980s. That’s just funny, right there. In the 2nd Party System (Jackson on) the post office functioned both as a source of patronage and the delivery mechanism* for partisan papers. Newspapers were indispensable for the parties, being–if you think about it–the only way to communicate with a wide audience. Warren Harding was a newspaper editor/owner (his daily was billed as nonpartisan, his weekly as moderate Republican). Colonel McCormick fought FDR with the Chicago Tribune. Pretty sure Time magazine was seriously Republican from founding into the 50’s at least. I’m guessing 1945 to the 1980s was a brief period when nonpartisan pretense was the fashion. Which is probably indicates they’d ceased to have much influence.
*Except for abolitionist literature to the South. Jackson’s rule was you couldn’t destroy it, but then no one said you had to deliver it either. A whole lot of it never got out of a mail bag.
Best line in Sky High: “I’m not Wonder Woman, you know!”
Hmmn, the certainty behind the statements… JPod? Is that you?
Yeah, Yellow Journalism, anyone?
Fair enough.
That was back when UPS had the ad slogan “What Can Brown Do For You?”
The big problem I see with the Ellen DeGeneres situation is that she says “be kind to everyone” but to her “be kind” probably means “support same-sex marriage,” etc. I don’t think “kindness” extends that far.
Classic Monty Python.
Old version:
https://memes.yarn.co/yarn-clip/a421c712-bdee-42c4-9a0b-5e5c30a05c58
New Chinese version (translated for your convenience):
“To boost the Chinese economy, we will oppress all foreigners living abroad.”
Original full version:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ogsqu
JPod, ~43:40:
Isn’t that the business model of The Bulwark?
Will it be the raison d’etre of The Dispatch?
As for “the cycle never ends,” it seems to have ended for The Weekly Standard, so there’s hope.
But now that I think about it, first there’s this:
Glass houses, GLoPsters?
And second, especially as to the mission of The Dispatch, Jonah said, beginning ~9:55:
So the first thing you do is snatch from National Review World Class Olympic Gold Medalist Hall of Fame anti-Trumper David French.
But you don’t see yourselves as ant-Trump. Riiiiiiight.
Okay, let’s say Jonah is being disingenuous about the nature of the platform he is launching (an idea that shows little understanding of Jonah’s character, history and values, but let’s just say) — why would he and his partner stake out a plot of media real estate already claimed (and 15 minutes ago, practically!) by The Bulwark??
So you don’t see Jonah and Steve Hayes’ baby The Dispatch as anti-Trump?
Based on what?
Well for one thing, it’s not like real estate in that only one person/whatever can own it at a time. Also, Weekly Standard at least supposedly was not shut down because it was anti-Trump, so that/its segment of the market could still exist. Case in point: Gary Rollins has publicly stated (here on Ricochet) that he supports The Bulwark and is also a ground-floor supporter of The Dispatch. It’s clear that anti-Trumpers don’t feel that one place is enough. And even if it’s not a good long-term business model, all Jonah and the others need to do is keep it rolling long enough to convince someone to buy it from them for a few mil. (Which also supposedly could have happened with The Weekly Standard, and indeed what I read is that the owners had promised to sell it rather than close it. But apparently they wanted the subscription base and mailing lists etc, more than the money and to keep their promise.)
Sigh, as I have already explained to you in another thread the economics and realistic exit possibilities for companies like ours (and Jonah’s) are extremely limited. Did you not read it? That’s why many of our competitors aren’t businesses at all — they are 501.c3 non-profits.
Also, while @garyrobbins is a lovely person and we are forever grateful that he supports us and others, there are very, very few people like him. Not enough to run a media business off of, at least.
As I recall, The Weekly Standard was not profitable, and yet there were willing buyers, if the owners had followed through on their promise rather than shutting it down and rolling the subscriptions and mailing lists etc into the Free Beacon.
They don’t all have to be willing and able to kick in $1500 per. Although it’s one reason why I don’t expect Jonah’s “no ads” pledge to last very long.
Based on Goldberg’s treatment of Trump since 2016. Goldberg despises Trump personally, tears him a new you-know-what when he screws up, takes his side when he is unjustifiably criticized, and rips Left and Right in equal measure based on merit.
In other words, Goldberg does what every American should be doing.
Goldberg sure as hell ain’t no Lou Dobbs or Kurt Schlicter. Nor is he another Jay Nordlinger or Mona Charen. He’s a fair umpire.
Something the country could use a lot more of.
I think you’re being very selective with the evidence, and you’re interpreting the evidence you select more generously than Jonah deserves.
I’ve not seen or heard since 2016 any praise from the “pseudo-intellectual demi-Jew from the Upper West Side” for such things as
inter alia – all actions that previous Republican presidents could have taken, but chose not to.
Oh, and did anyone mention that the first hire by The Dispatch was World Class Olympic Gold Medalist Hall of Fame anti-Trumper David French?
I’m not about to type each item you listed into Google followed by Jonah’s full name to see if he was appropriately complimentary to Trump or not. Life’s too short, and I don’t want to spend 45 minutes or an hour of it on what amounts to “comments section homework.”
So I just did it on the first item you mentioned — the one about Israel relocating the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.
And I found this:
https://mobile.twitter.com/JonahDispatch/status/938471028338122752
So maybe you want to fact check the other items on your own, to see if you were being unfair to Jonah or not.
…But you probably won’t. In my experience, the people who refuse to admit error in political arguments are Social Justice zealots on the Left (for whom “wokeness” is a de facto religion), and die-hard Trumpers on the Right.
People in both camps are intractable. People in both camps are impervious to Reason. And people in both camps are unwilling to revise their beliefs even when new facts which may contradict those beliefs come their way.
Instead what they tend to do — incredibly — unbelievably— is double down.
And that’s what I expect to happen here.
Except for you.
I’ve spoken to Jonah in person about these issues.
Again, you’re cherry-picking. Granted, I was mildly hyperbolic to claim I’ve seen no praise from Jonah about my partial list of praise-worthy Trump actions (do you agree with me that they deserve praise?).
But does a single Google hit accurately reflect Jonah’s net commentary, even on a cherry-picked single issue?
“You’ve got the thinking of the average Joe!”
Based on the evidence before us, i.e., her being kind to and spending a lovely day out with President Bush, I’d have to say you’re mistaken.
Of the items you listed, only two fit this description: the two that involve Israel.
All of the others are either:
First of all, my own opinion on these issues is irrelevant since the person we are discussing here is Jonah, right? Questions like “How fair-minded is Jonah?” and “Will Jonah’s new platform be reflexively anti-Trump a la The Bulwark or will he be calling ‘balls and strikes’”?
Jonah is the object of this exercise, but if it matters to you (and it shouldn’t), I think most of the items you listed there are praiseworthy.
But getting back to our conversation about Jonah for a moment …
“Cherry picking”?? Are you kidding me? All I did was Google the first item on your list, and I said as much.
I also said you probably won’t be fact-checking the other items to see if Jonah was appropriately complimentary — and naturally you didn’t.
And you know what else? I half expected (naively, as it turns out) that my anticipating you won’t be fact-checking your assertions — and my saying as much in writing — would prompt you to go ahead and fact-check your assertions — but no such luck.
He didn’t say “no ads,” he said no pop-up, pop-under, overlay type ads, especially on mobile. We have the same policy here.
I volunteer to Google the second item.
(Thirty seconds later…)
Here you go: Jonah mentions deregulation in a list of good things Trump has done at https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/donald-trump-don-mcgahn-republicans-must-pick-side/.
And @LibertyDefender may find a number of familiar items in the rest of the list…
Perhaps. But do we know what W’s current position on same-sex marriage is? For that matter, his personal attitude may have been very different than his presidential position.
The single biggest problem I have with Jonah in this area is that his opposition to Trump is at least mostly – if not entirely – personal. He describes Trump as “loathsome,” not just as “in over his head” or whatever. So even when Trump does something that Jonah agrees with, it’s coming from a “loathsome” person which taints the act. If a loathsome person moves the US embassy to Jerusalem, it’s easy to paint that act as “loathsome” too. As with the Supreme Court nominees, etc. Which means that any “support” Jonah gives to any particular thing Trump does that Jonah happens to agree with, is greatly outweighed by Trump’s (according to Jonah) loathsomeness.
See my previous post. Jonah’s overall attitude toward and depiction of Trump does not get him off the hook by supporting individual acts. Since Jonah believes that Trump is at least loathsome and possibly/probably mentally ill, the implication is that anything Trump does that Jonah happens to agree with, is at least some kind of accident of mental illness – or e.g., a stopped Trump is right twice a day – or – what could be claimed by the left – actually loathsome acts themselves since they were done by a loathsome person.
Is the belief that Trump is a loathsome person beyond the pale, then? Because I certainly believe that somebody who brags about cheating on his wives and committing sexual assault, lies constantly, stiffs his contractors, and is so insensitive to the suffering of others that he brags on 9/11 that his building is now the tallest one in New York… is a pretty gosh-darned loathsome person, regardless of which aspects of his politics I might agree with.
And I’d love to hear a good explanation as to why you think those actions don’t make him a loathsome person.
His words are loathsome. His actions as the President are actually pretty good. He is making it easier for America to exist as a free and prosperous country for another generation. Actions matter more than words.
I think a fair assessment of Jonah’s commentary re Trump is that Jonah is reflexively Trump-negative. He’s no Bill Kristol or David French, but I think it’s fair to place him substantially closer to the Jennifer Rubinesque (<—see what I did there?) anti-Trump end of the spectrum than the say, Sean Hannity pro-Trump end of the spectrum.
The way you describe Jonah seems to me to apply better to Ben Shapiro, though I confess I’ve listened to less so Ben in the past 18 months than I’ve listened to Jonah in that time.
I think the fact that Jonah’s first hire was David French is an elephant-in-the-room piece of evidence for predicting the editorial bent of The Dispatch.
I admit that I, like Victor Davis Hanson, don’t understand anti-Trumpism from the right. Trump has been more effective at implementing conservative political policy than any President since Reagan, and Reagan was no swamp drainer. Granted, it’s surprising, given that until his election Trump was a New York Democrat, but the results are real.
Totally agree. And how can any thinking person not think of Donald Trump as loathesome? That’s the part that confuses me. I may agree with some of the things he’s done, but as a human being, the man’s a dumpster fire.
Now, I can see how Jonah might be correctly labeled disingenuous if — like Jay Nordlinger and Mona Charen during the last 12 months of Need To Know or like the folks at The Bulwark constantly— Jonah spent most of his time emphasizing Trump’s mistakes and de-emphasizing those of the Democrats.
But Jonah doesn’t do that. Ever. In fact, I think his head might explode if he tried it. He is that true to his own principles.
In short, Jonah is resolutely objective when it comes to Trump’s actions and policies.
But how — how! — can we expect Jonah to just switch his critical faculties to the “off” position where Trump’s character is concerned? What do people expect him to do, go into denial mode? How can anybody do that with anybody?? I’m not sure such a thing is even possible … or advisable even if it is.
Some of his actions have been good. Others have been counterproductive at best… and loathsome at worst. Abandoning the Kurds to be slaughtered is loathsome; setting precedents on Executive Orders for the next Democratic President to take full advantage of is counterproductive. Pressuring foreign governments to help him get reelected is loathsome; tariffs and withdrawing from the TPP are counterproductive. And so on.
Furthermore, I would not discount the importance of words. It’s his words that are turning two full generations Americans away from conservatism. Nothing Trump could possibly accomplish in four years would be worth the twenty straight years of Democratic presidents to come after him.