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.
This week’s Ruminant sees Jonah reach his final form, as he begins with post-election punditry before seamlessly transitioning into a brand of deep-cut, Grade A political-nerd eggheadery the likes of which are rarely seen even on this vaunted podcast. Listen as Jonah effortlessly bounces in a positively pinball-esque manner between Whittaker Chambers, Orwell, AOC, Joe Manchin, James Burham, Cicero, and obscure Italian Communist Party intellectuals, in a display that will both amaze and delight.
Show Notes:
–This week’s Wednesday “news”letter
–The genuine Friday G-File for this week
–“Second Thoughts on James Burnham”
–This week’s Remnant with Kevin Williamson
–Jonah’s column on Joe Manchin
–Jim Geraghty: “Trump was not stabbed in the back”
–The Bureaucratisation of the World by Bruno Rizzi
–Charles Murray’s By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Subscribe to The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg in Apple Podcasts (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in Apple Podcasts or by RSS feed.
There are 8 comments.
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
Thanks Jonah for directing me to Orwell’s essay. I found this statement (below) by Orwell prescient.
from
SECOND THOUGHTS ON JAMES BURNHAM
If one examines the people who, having some idea of what the Russian régime is like, are strongly russophile, one finds that, on the whole, they belong to the ‘managerial’ class of which Burnham writes. That is, they are not managers in the narrow sense, but scientists, technicians, teachers, journalists, broadcasters, bureaucrats, professional politicians: in general, middling people who feel themselves cramped by a system that is still partly aristocratic, and are hungry for more power and more prestige. These people look towards the U.S.S.R. and see in it, or think they see, a system which eliminates the upper class, keeps the working class in its place, and hands unlimited power to people very similar to themselves. It was only after the Soviet régime became unmistakably totalitarian that English intellectuals, in large numbers, began to show an interest in it. Burnham, although the English russophile intelligentsia would repudiate him, is really voicing their secret wish: the wish to destroy the old, equalitarian version of Socialism and usher in a hierarchical society where the intellectual can at last get his hands on the whip.
As part of Burnham’s “managerial class” – (I’m a teacher) – I see colleagues eager to use cancel culture, identity politics and Covid overreach to “at last get [their] hands on the whip.”
These ain’t your father’s Democrats, Jonah. I wonder when you will realize that.
Chances are that no one who has not yet realized that will ever realize that.
Prior to the 2016 election, some morning panel on Fox news stipulated that they viewed both candidates as poor selections to represent our nation for the next four years. They didn’t say why, but kept nodding heads and agreeing with one another that the choices the voters had were abysmal.
Not quite understanding what the problem could be, as at that point I was giving up totally on politics, I waited it out hoping one of these 5 people would explain.
Finally a day or two later, the panel was on TV again, and they offered up the explanation. They expressed great relief that Hillary Clinton had taken a moment from her busy life to phone up the panel members and clarify that unlike Donald Trump, she would indeed be enthusiastically embracing any and all trade deals.
A listener could conclude she was meaning the Trans Pacific Plan. This was yet another trade deal that onerously ripped away any advantages the US might have, for the opportunities for the upper One Percent to continue to glean advantages from having even more third world nations to park their manufacturing and service call centers.
This was, as is now, the all important criteria by which our Elite choose their candidates. They float back and forth between both parties, little caring about the particular banners either party continually waves. Nor do they care about any candidates’ past histories, as long as their financial interests are served.
I notice on liberal boards, the progressive crowds are so pleased that these neo con RINO’s have embraced Biden and Kamala. Little do they understand the reason for neo cons supporting the Dem Presidential candidates – they think that the Democrat banners are believable and that all will be well once the party of peace, love and tolerance is ensconced in the white House.
If you ever find yourself nodding along to Jonah’s punditry, remember that he was wrong about the Iraq War, that Jonah continues to believe that the Chinese are on their way to becoming a democracy, that he predicted a Hillary blowout in 2016, that Jonah thought that the Mueller investigation had a solid foundation, and, most recently, on his Remnant podcast of a few weeks ago, was confidant that the polls showing a Biden blow out were correct.
On the left, you can be flat out wrong, over and over, and pay no price in accountability.
I hope that it is different on the right.
It’s not.
But actually, it’s more like the elitist beltway class can be wrong over and over and pay no price. The citizen class has no such protections. Heck, the beltway class can commit blatant crimes and never face consequences.
Listen as Jonah effortlessly bounces in a positively pinball-esque manner between Whittaker Chambers, Orwell, AOC, Joe Manchin, James Burham, Cicero, and obscure Italian Communist Party intellectuals, in a display that will both amaze and delight.
I have assume the author of the above is being ironic, like one might be amazed and delighted by someone dancing in this manner: