A Revolution of Common Sense

Trump’s back in the White House and off to the races! To celebrate the return to popular sovereignty, Victor Davis Hanson returns to explain the most extraordinary political comeback in the nation’s history. He identifies the agenda items Trump would do well to prioritize; he makes sense of the quick dissipation of the last decade’s progressive lunacies; and, perhaps most importantly, he offers suggestions of what to look out for when the radicals attempt their comeback.

Plus, Charlie, James and Steve pick through a couple of the noteworthy executive orders and cringe collectively at the reaction to Elon spreading some love at the Capital One Arena.

 

 

 

Sound clip from this week’s open: This week’s opening sound: Donald Trump is sworn in for the second time and AOC goes nuclear over Elon Musk

Subscribe to The Ricochet Podcast 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.

Please Support Our Sponsor!

BambooHR

Now become a Ricochet member for only $5.00 a month! Join and see what you’ve been missing.

There are 10 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. WilliamWarford Coolidge
    WilliamWarford
    @WilliamWarford

    I am a huge Dragnet fan, particularly the Christmas episode, “The Big Little Jesus.” They made it twice, in the 1953 and 1968 versions of the show (and maybe the radio version as well.) The scripts are almost identical, and they used many of the same actors. We watch the two versions every year at Christmastime.

    Speaking of Joe’s narration, in the 1953 version, filmed at the Old Mission Church downtown, Joe gives the history of the church and adds, “…most of the devout Mexicans in town attend Mass there.” The idea that you get most of the devout Mexicans in Los Angeles into one little church is another example of how much things have changed since those days.

    Not sure what your project is, James, but if it involves Dragnet, I certainly will be interested. 

    • #1
  2. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    WilliamWarford (View Comment):
    Not sure what your project is, James, but if it involves Dragnet, I certainly will be interested.

    I’m having fun with the opening narration, the music cues, the sets, the locations, the actors, and other things that catch my eye and ear.  It’ll start Tuesday at the Bleat. It won’t concern the radio show, of which I have heard every single blessed episode.

    Just remembered I did something last Monday in my Black and White feature, a look at the old B&W TV ep, because it had a guest star who looked like Edgar Buchanan’s idiot brother, and had the most remarkable resume you could imagine.

    • #2
  3. Dr.Guido Member
    Dr.Guido
    @DrGuido

    Net-Net Trump had a really rather impressive week but, proving he has NOT lost the Art of the Self-Inflicted Wound, like the pigeon poop on the newly washed & waxed limo drawing your eye to that flaw, he really stupidly decided FIRST on the blanket pardon rather than a selective one and then, SECONDLY, decided another dumb move by pulling the protection from 3 of HIS OWN former aides.

    (He almost relegated the TikTok move into irrelevance, at least for the time…)

    • #3
  4. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Dr.Guido (View Comment):
    SECONDLY decided another dumb move by pulling the protection from 3 of HIS OWN former aides.

    Shouldn’t we want him to be consistent?  If he only removed protection from people like Fauci, he would get dumped on for that.

    • #4
  5. Dr.Guido Member
    Dr.Guido
    @DrGuido

    @kedavis Not sure why Fauci needed protection from Iranian hit squads. That the good Doc had protection at all should mean, if we are consistent, that every government official who ticked off a large segment of the population should get lifetime Secret Service protection. No?

    I could be wrong and I do agree here with Trump that especially in Fauci’s case, since he was, we were told, THE highest paid employee in the Federal government, he could afford his own private protection.

    • #5
  6. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Dr.Guido (View Comment):

    @ kedavis Not sure why Fauci needed protection from Iranian hit squads. That the good Doc had protection at all should mean, if we are consistent, that every government official who ticked off a large segment of the population should get lifetime Secret Service protection. No?

    I could be wrong and I do agree here with Trump that especially in Fauci’s case, since he was, we were told, THE highest paid employee in the Federal government, he could afford his own private protection.

    That too.

    But the main thing is, if the standard is supposed to be that FORMER government employees don’t get protection details – with certain known exceptions such as the president(s) – then it should apply to all of them, including those who worked for Trump in the past.

    • #6
  7. Al Sparks Coolidge
    Al Sparks
    @AlSparks

    So James talked about Dragnet 1967, 1968, and so on (until 1970).

    I’m old enough to have watched those shows when they came out.  At the time, I lived in New Mexico, near West Texas and culturally I might as well have lived there (West Texas).

    And those latter Dragnet shows were a reaction to the cultural changes happening in the latter part of the 1960’s.  I can tell you that the adults I was surrounded by, including my father, agreed with the arguments Jack Webb was making in that show.  West Texas at that time was (small c) conservative including family values and church going.

    I had a 6th grade teacher who occasionally held a morning prayer in her classroom in defiance of the Supreme Court ruling of 1962.

    But James did not talk about the original Dragnet television show which ran from 1951 to 1959 and which can be found on YouTube.

    I’ve watched a few of those episodes.  They’re grainy, but they’re quite good.   In one of the “this is the city” monologues, they show trolly cars in LA, which were gone by the late 1960’s.  With the Dragnet 1967 genre, Jack Webb had an ideological axe to grind, and it doesn’t matter whether the ideology is of the left or right, it’s going to take away from the art.

    Still Webb, or his production company, did go onto produce two more shows of note, Emergency and Adam 12.  Both shows made me interested in careers in fire and police, and while I went into computers in the end, I did end up volunteering in fire for a couple of decades.  I would say that with the original Dragnet and those other two, Webb did steer some people towards careers in those areas of public service.

    Upon his death, the LAPD named an auditorium on the grounds of their academy after him, and there’s a display of the fictional Joe Friday’s badge, including his badge number included there.

    • #7
  8. Al Sparks Coolidge
    Al Sparks
    @AlSparks

    I think that the Trump executive orders will stick if the Republicans can win two more presidential elections including the popular vote.

    And Trump did what Obama and Biden did not.  He picked a capable Vice President, both times, actually, though Vance is more dynamic than Pence.

    The way he picked Vance and seems to be putting him up front, will mitigate his lame duck status.

    Vance will have challengers for the Republican nomination, and one of those challengers may win in the end.  But since Vance is a part of Trump’s administration, and a front runner contender already, it’s Vance who can twist arms in Congress as Trump’s star fades near the end of his remaining term.]

    Trump was criticized for picking Vance at the time, because Ohio was already considered a red state, and not a battleground state.  But running mates don’t have that much influence on the vote anyway, and it’s clear that Trump was thinking about what happens after the election.

    • #8
  9. WilliamWarford Coolidge
    WilliamWarford
    @WilliamWarford

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Dr.Guido (View Comment):
    SECONDLY decided another dumb move by pulling the protection from 3 of HIS OWN former aides.

    Shouldn’t we want him to be consistent? If he only removed protection from people like Fauci, he would get dumped on for that.

    The difference, though, is that unlike Bolton and Pompeo, there is no Iranian hit out on Fauci. They were targeted by Iran for their working in helping Trump take out Suleimani, i.e., in service to their country. They deserve protection. 

    • #9
  10. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Just got this one:

     

    • #10
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.