Curtain Call

This week on the podcast, silly political controversies, a good old fashioned smear campaign, some expert analysis from Millennial voter expert Kristin Soltis Anderson, we visit New Hampshire’s 1st District to check in on Republican candidate Eddie Edwards, CBS CEO Les Moonves gets #MeToo’d, and guess which podcast host actually defends the President in this podcast? The answer will surprise you.

Music from this week’s podcast: A Mighty Wind is Blowin’ – New Main Street Singers, The Folksmen and Mitch & Mickey (From the movie The Mighty Wind)

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!

Boll & Branch

Use Code: RICOCHET

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

There are 31 comments.

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

    Sure, Rob.  All the Democrats would have to do to get the votes of moderates who don’t like the boorishness of Donald Trump is to get away from their nutty, Lefty primal screaming.  

    But that’s way too much to ask for them.  They already thought that Hillary Clinton was too conservative and Obama was a disappointment for the Left as well.  

    It’s a bridge too far for the Democrats to act sane for more than a few minutes at a time.

    • #1
  2. Rightfromthestart Coolidge
    Rightfromthestart
    @Rightfromthestart

    ‘Speaking of craven…..introduce our next guest’.       Hahaha

    • #2
  3. Bishop Wash Member
    Bishop Wash
    @BishopWash

    My non-woke five year old was in the room as James did his first commercial. She heard “comfortable, comfortable, and comfortable” and said those aren’t three words; it should be comfortable, warm, and goodnight sleep. I guess she wanted three different words. 

    • #3
  4. John Russell Coolidge
    John Russell
    @JohnRussell

    Between time stamps 24 and 25 minutes Kristen Soltis Anderson argues persuasively that the right has not made its case to millennials and that millennials have been credulous to socialist politics by default.  That remark made me remember my own transition—during the Carter administration when I was in my twenties—from adolescent infatuation with progressivism to the time (abut my thirtieth birthday) when I became an avowed conservative. Milton Friedman was the biggest influence on me during that period. Why do we not hear more about Friedman nowadays? Or see more links to his many great riffs that debunk so many premises of progressive economics?   I realize Friedman is no longer with us but, then again, neither is Hayek and we hear plenty about Hayek these days.

    Possible answer to my own question: Friedman’s riffs are available at lengths as short as, say, two to three minutes on YouTube. Could it be that such a duration qualifies as long form compared to a tweet?  Is the attention span of a millennial really so short that a two to three minute riff by Friedman is too long to endure?

    • #4
  5. J Ro Member
    J Ro
    @JRo

    Somebody sent me a letter, which I’m leaking to you now, in which it is claimed, that at a high school party, when Senator Diane Feinstein was 17, she behaved like a mean girl. But nobody can be sure for certain, because it was 1950, and everyone who might have been there, except for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has died of old age.

    It would be interesting to know what percentage of Feinstein’s constituency have had her as their representative throughout their entire adulthood.

    • #5
  6. Annefy Member
    Annefy
    @Annefy

    John Russell (View Comment):

    Between time stamps 24 and 25 minutes Kristen Soltis Anderson argues persuasively that the right has not made its case to millennials and that millennials have been credulous to socialist politics by default. That remark made me remember my own transition—during the Carter administration when I was in my twenties—from adolescent infatuation with progressivism to the time (abut my thirtieth birthday) when I became an avowed conservative. Milton Friedman was the biggest influence on me during that period. Why do we not hear more about Friedman nowadays? Or see more links to his many great riffs that debunk so many premises of progressive economics? I realize Friedman is no longer with us but, then again, neither is Hayek and we hear plenty about Hayek these days.

    Possible answer to my own question: Friedman’s riffs are available at lengths as short as, say, two to three minutes on YouTube. Could it be that such a duration qualifies as long form compared to a tweet? Is the attention span of a millennial really so short that a two to three minute riff by Friedman is too long to endure?

    Not going by the popularity of Joe Rogan, Dave Ruben, Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson 

    • #6
  7. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    The reason people don’t like markets is because we haven’t had markets for decades. There is simply too much central bank and government intervention to make this case with any efficacy. The whole system is set up to steal from each other: government graft or transfer payments. The interest in socialism is simply playing defense against a bad system. Same thing with voting for Trump.

    Monetary Policy and Inequality | Karl-Friedrich Israel

    Money, Markets, and Democracy: Politically Skewed Financial Markets and How to Fix Them.

    We’re Living in the Age of Capital Consumption

    Outside of actual “public goods”, government creates negative value, but good luck explaining it to anyone at this point.

    If central banks do anything except back up the financial system in a punitive way, what they end up doing is nothing but easing decade after decade until the monetary system blows up. Conservatism can’t work or sell under this regime. Even Tom Sowell flat out recommends that the Fed be abolished. “Yellen recommends Fed should inflate assets even more in order to make up for major busts.”

    I’ve seen some very compelling arguments by a hedge fund guy that one day we will have “net worth taxes’.

    The other thing is all of that Frankfurt School, critical theory, and  Alinsky stuff is real and it works. Identity politics etc. The ACA is a text book Cloward and Piven strategy and it’s working perfectly. David Horowitz, Michael Walsh, Angelo Codivilla etc all those guys are right about this stuff.

    There are far too many Republicans that have a model of centralized government actually working ‘conservatively’ and they want everyone to be nice and behave civilly. That era is over. So we get Trump and Bernie. We have idiot socialists whose only talent is spewing out hackneyed democrat talking points and critical theory. The DSA website is insane. Roy Moore. Everything’s going haywire for actual reasons.

    A Modest Proposal for the US Economy

    Ep. 843 The Roots of Political Correctness, with Angelo Codevilla

    The best interviews of Michael Walsh were on Hugh Hewitt. There were about five of them. I don’t know if there’s a single good one anywhere. David Horwitz is all over the place, of course.

    • #7
  8. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Government Is How We Steal From Each Other™

    “Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.” – H. L. Mencken

    Democracy, the God That’s Failing

    • #8
  9. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    If you don’t like Trump-ism or socialism: fix the price of education or the value of it, get the cost of health insurance down (we have to switch to universal multi payer, ie. The Avik Roy plan) get the cost of shelter down (no one is going to care about robots or cheap labor overseas if they get purchasing power instead) and let people get some freaking interest on their money.

    In this era when the Fed tries to create 2% CPI inflation all the time, all it does is help Democrats.

    • #9
  10. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Some might say that Rob was “man-splaining.”

    And I’m less concerned about Norm MacDonald’s other work, than in his continuing to voice Yaphit the gelatinous alien crew member of “The Orville.”

    • #10
  11. Bishop Wash Member
    Bishop Wash
    @BishopWash

    I found it odd that Peter was so incredulous that the New York Times (a former newspaper) would run a story like that. That’s who they are. As people on Twitter mentioned, they accomplished their mission (the one James explained).

    • #11
  12. Freesmith Member
    Freesmith
    @

    Rob pontificates that the American people vote for gridlock. No sooner than they install one party in power – 1992, 2008 – than they turn around and empower the other – 1994, 2010. 

    I guess California, with one-eighth the total population of the US, isn’t filled with Americans then, because they keep voting in more and more left-wing Democrats. There’s no reaction, no desire for gridlock at all. In fact, Governor Moonbeam is considered a moderate in that state. 

    Of course, if I were to say that California isn’t filled with Americans I’d be violating the “fruitcake clause” of the C of C. 

    Go figure. 

    • #12
  13. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Freesmith (View Comment):

    Rob pontificates that the American people vote for gridlock. No sooner than they install one party in power – 1992, 2008 – than they turn around and empower the other – 1994, 2010.

    I guess California, with one-eighth the total population of the US, isn’t filled with Americans then, because they keep voting in more and more left-wing Democrats. There’s no reaction, no desire for gridlock at all. In fact, Governor Moonbeam is considered a moderate in that state.

    Of course, if I were to say that California isn’t filled with Americans I’d be violating the “fruitcake clause” of the C of C.

    Go figure.

    Poor people

    Government unions 

    Insanely wealthy people

    Stupid people

    …dominate over normal, productive types. So they vote Democrat. It’s hard to leave because of the good weather etc. That is the dynamic. 

    • #13
  14. Freesmith Member
    Freesmith
    @

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    Freesmith (View Comment):

    Rob pontificates that the American people vote for gridlock. No sooner than they install one party in power – 1992, 2008 – than they turn around and empower the other – 1994, 2010.

    I guess California, with one-eighth the total population of the US, isn’t filled with Americans then, because they keep voting in more and more left-wing Democrats. There’s no reaction, no desire for gridlock at all. In fact, Governor Moonbeam is considered a moderate in that state.

    Of course, if I were to say that California isn’t filled with Americans I’d be violating the “fruitcake clause” of the C of C.

    Go figure.

    Poor people

    Government unions

    Insanely wealthy people

    Stupid people

    …dominate over normal, productive types. So they vote Democrat. It’s hard to leave because of the good weather etc. That is the dynamic.

    California was not filled with poor people a couple of decades ago. Mass poverty in the Golden State ended after World War II.

    The unions weren’t so strong. They didn’t dominate politics.

    There have always been very rich folks in California. Movies have been made around their fabled wealth.

    The people who lived there weren’t stupid. They had Republican governors in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.

    What caused the change to the way you describe it today, Rufus?

    • #14
  15. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Freesmith (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    Freesmith (View Comment):

    Rob pontificates that the American people vote for gridlock. No sooner than they install one party in power – 1992, 2008 – than they turn around and empower the other – 1994, 2010.

    I guess California, with one-eighth the total population of the US, isn’t filled with Americans then, because they keep voting in more and more left-wing Democrats. There’s no reaction, no desire for gridlock at all. In fact, Governor Moonbeam is considered a moderate in that state.

    Of course, if I were to say that California isn’t filled with Americans I’d be violating the “fruitcake clause” of the C of C.

    Go figure.

    Poor people

    Government unions

    Insanely wealthy people

    Stupid people

    …dominate over normal, productive types. So they vote Democrat. It’s hard to leave because of the good weather etc. That is the dynamic.

    California was not filled with poor people a couple of decades ago. Mass poverty in the Golden State ended after World War II.

    The unions weren’t so strong. They didn’t dominate politics.

    There have always been very rich folks in California. Movies have been made around their fabled wealth.

    The people who lived there weren’t stupid. They had Republican governors in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.

    What caused the change to the way you describe it today, Rufus?

    LOL

    Illegal aliens , but also government largess, and …

    It’s hard to leave because of the good weather etc. That is the dynamic.

    There is an actual political science term for this, but I forget what it is. The same thing goes on in Minnesota. 

    When all of the pensions collapse and the Fed is paying for everything to keep granny alive, things will improve, politically. 

    • #15
  16. HeavyWater Inactive
    HeavyWater
    @HeavyWater

    Freesmith (View Comment):

    Rob pontificates that the American people vote for gridlock. No sooner than they install one party in power – 1992, 2008 – than they turn around and empower the other – 1994, 2010.

    I guess California, with one-eighth the total population of the US, isn’t filled with Americans then, because they keep voting in more and more left-wing Democrats. There’s no reaction, no desire for gridlock at all. In fact, Governor Moonbeam is considered a moderate in that state.

    Of course, if I were to say that California isn’t filled with Americans I’d be violating the “fruitcake clause” of the C of C.

    Go figure.

    I think there are certain states where they don’t want gridlock, but prefer one party over the other on a consistent basis.  California is an example on the Left; Texas is an example on the Right.  

    But a significant percentage of the voting population (perhaps 10 or 20 percent) might use their vote as a counter-weight, a check, on which ever party is in power.  Whether they do this consciously or unconsciously isn’t clear. 

    Still, a deep red state and a deep blue state can keep one party in power despite “wave” elections that cause gridlock at the national level.  

     

     

    • #16
  17. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    HeavyWater (View Comment):

    Freesmith (View Comment):

    Rob pontificates that the American people vote for gridlock. No sooner than they install one party in power – 1992, 2008 – than they turn around and empower the other – 1994, 2010.

    I guess California, with one-eighth the total population of the US, isn’t filled with Americans then, because they keep voting in more and more left-wing Democrats. There’s no reaction, no desire for gridlock at all. In fact, Governor Moonbeam is considered a moderate in that state.

    Of course, if I were to say that California isn’t filled with Americans I’d be violating the “fruitcake clause” of the C of C.

    Go figure.

    I think there are certain states where they don’t want gridlock, but prefer one party over the other on a consistent basis. California is an example on the Left; Texas is an example on the Right.

    But a significant percentage of the voting population (perhaps 10 or 20 percent) might use their vote as a counter-weight, a check, on which ever party is in power. Whether they do this consciously or unconsciously isn’t clear.

    Still, a deep red state and a deep blue state can keep one party in power despite “wave” elections that cause gridlock at the national level.

     

     

    I say it’s government graft, gated community liberals that want to appease the riffraff, poor people wanting  transfer payments, and good weather. 

    I’d love to see the CATO guy debate Victor Davis Hansen. 

    • #17
  18. Freesmith Member
    Freesmith
    @

    HeavyWater (View Comment):

    I think there are certain states where they don’t want gridlock, but prefer one party over the other on a consistent basis. California is an example on the Left; Texas is an example on the Right.

    Texas Democrats have a plan to end the current preference. They are very explicit about their plan and are determined to bring it about.

    Ted Cruz is experiencing the potency of the Democrats’ strategy, as both the candidacy of “Beto” O’Rourke and a look at a map showing the deep blue voting patterns of all of the Texas counties close to the Mexican border, make painfully evident.

    But conservatives prefer to ignore that creeping blue tide coming from the Rio Grande and approve of continuing legal immigration. Like dopes.

    So we know what the Democrats’ plan is to turn Texas blue. It’s the same one that worked in California, New Mexico and other places. 

    The big question to me, Heavy Water, is what is the conservative plan to turn California even slightly purple, let alone occasionally red? What’s the political strategy to bring a little balance – gridlock, in Rob’s formulation – to the Golden State?

    Because if there isn’t one, except to keep doing what conservatives have been doing, then there’s an old sporting maxim I recommend you dwell upon:

    “You can’t beat something with nothing.”

    • #18
  19. Freesmith Member
    Freesmith
    @

    RufusRJones (View Comment):
    When all of the pensions collapse and the Fed is paying for everything to keep granny alive, things will improve, politically.

    Because conservatives are unwilling to do what they know they need to do, friends of liberty are reduced to rooting for disaster – or worse – as a political corrective.

    Very inspiring.

    • #19
  20. Freesmith Member
    Freesmith
    @

    A little visual aid from the 2016 Presidential election vote.

    • #20
  21. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Freesmith (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):
    When all of the pensions collapse and the Fed is paying for everything to keep granny alive, things will improve, politically.

    Because conservatives are unwilling to do what they know they need to do, friends of liberty are reduced to rooting for disaster – or worse – as a political corrective.

    Very inspiring.

    Conservatism can’t work or sell under this Fed regime and financial system. That is my opinion. Having said that, go ahead and criticize me some more.

    • #21
  22. HeavyWater Inactive
    HeavyWater
    @HeavyWater

    Freesmith (View Comment):

    The big question to me, Heavy Water, is what is the conservative plan to turn California even slightly purple, let alone occasionally red? What’s the political strategy to bring a little balance – gridlock, in Rob’s formulation – to the Golden State?

    In 2010 Scott Walker and the GOP took over not only the governor’s office, but the state house of representatives and the state senate also.

    But that was a midterm election in which the Democrats held the White House and, as was fairly typical, the party that held the White House lost most contested races in the midterm election.

    As for immigration turning the nation blue, we’ve had tons of immigration for decades now and a large percentage of our population is foreign born.  But the Democrats currently don’t have much political power compared to 1977 when we had fewer foreign born Americans and the Democrats held the White House, huge majorities in the US Senate and US House and most of the governor’s offices.

    Now, I do think that too much immigration (especially too much unskilled immigration) is bad for the country and bad for the GOP’s electoral prospects.

    I would support a more skills based immigration policy, similar to Australia’s.  It’s just I am not a determinist when it comes to politics.  If the Democrats win in 2020 (the US Senate, the US House and the White House) and we end up with double digit inflation, long gas lines, sort of like what we had in the Carter years, demographics won’t save the Democrats.

    • #22
  23. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Illegal immigration does not net out for this country in any way unless you are a Democrat parasite or you  are stupid. Bringing children illegally over the border is a huge problem; it isn’t manageable in it’s current size. 

    We need to slow way the hell down on people from (colloquialism) countries. 

    • #23
  24. Freesmith Member
    Freesmith
    @

    HeavyWater (View Comment):

    Freesmith (View Comment):

    The big question, Heavy Water, is what is the political strategy to bring a little balance to the Golden State?

    Now, I do think that too much immigration (especially too much unskilled immigration) is bad for the country and bad for the GOP’s electoral prospects.

    I would support a more skills based immigration policy, similar to Australia’s. It’s just I am not a determinist when it comes to politics. If the Democrats win in 2020 (the US Senate, the US House and the White House) and we end up with double digit inflation, long gas lines, sort of like what we had in the Carter years, demographics won’t say the Democrats.

    No plan. No strategy. No problem.

    No mention of California, either.

    Just keep doing what we’re doing, maybe with less unskilled and more skilled immigration.

    Let American business cherry-pick talent from the rest of the world, with the cost-free (to them) perk of future American citizenship thrown in. Great idea. Conservatives love that one. Because they’re morons.

    Not me. After all, could there be a better formula for helping American business ignore the needs and struggles of our fellow Americans, an easier method to allow major corporations to pay no attention to the crises of American education, crime and societal dysfunction, than letting our leading companies bypass the people of the US – their fellow citizens! – in recruiting their human capital?

    With that plan who cares if there aren’t enough qualified Americans to do the work business needs to do in America? Business can just import qualified labor from wherever and proceed merrily along. I’m sure the “new Americans” brought into this country, where the predominant high school history text is Howard Zinn’s, will have no trouble forming a deep personal attachment to what both the educated and one of the two major political parties say is a citadel of institutional racism and white supremacy.

    And I’ll bet the same Democrats who so nonchalantly accepted their loss in the presidential election two years ago, won’t, if they regain power in 2020, do anything to rig the system to maximize their chances in the following years. Plus, I’m certain they’ll be absolutely copacetic about surrendering that power if things don’t work out well for the country, as you imply. Democrats always put the country first.

    They won’t look for scapegoats or anything, will they, you treasonous Trump voters? They won’t use bureaucratic and judicial power to hound their opposition into passivity. Not them.

    And even if Democrats don’t accept responsibility for the failures of their policies, well, just like in the 1970s the media will surely hold the Democrats to account by what they cover, what they say about what they cover, and what they don’t cover.

    Right?

    Sorry, Heavy Water. To paraphrase the sheriff in “Jaws,” “We’re going to need a better plan.”

    • #24
  25. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Freesmith (View Comment):

    Just keep doing what we’re doing, maybe with less unskilled and more skilled immigration.

    Let American business cherry-pick talent from the rest of the world, with the cost-free (to them) perk of future American citizenship thrown in. Great idea. Conservatives love that one. Because they’re morons.

    H1B visa abuse is real. I’m not arguing that.

    The reality is, as long as it’s governed the right way, more people and capital coming to this country is going to benefit everyone.

    The big problem is, we aren’t being realistic about what robots and globalized labor are doing to us.

    We need to stop shoving multiculturalism down everyone’s throats. 

    The government in the Fed have to Focus on the cost-of-living. They aren’t going to do this for a bunch of complicated reasons.

    • #25
  26. SParker Member
    SParker
    @SParker

    John Russell (View Comment):
    Possible answer to my own question: Friedman’s riffs are available at lengths as short as, say, two to three minutes on YouTube. Could it be that such a duration qualifies as long form compared to a tweet? Is the attention span of a millennial really so short that a two to three minute riff by Friedman is too long to endure?

    Ave, Brother.  I have the same story from the same time period.  In my case, after having avoided fulfillment of the Political Science requirement for graduation until the last second and finding the pass-by-examination option temporarily foreclosed for some never-explained bureaucratic reason, I found myself taking the damned course in goddamned summer school.  Bitter about it to this day, but the upside is the instructor showed the Negative Income Tax episode of Free to Choose during it.  Scales fell.  Smoldering resentment of bureaucracies, truth be told, probably did something to enhance my receptivity.

     So that’s part of the problem, someone has to get your butt in a seat, always a difficult proposition.  Also, as magnificent as Friedman was as a communicator, you probably have to watch at least an episode of Free to Choose (and possibly the whole series) to get an appreciation of the ideas.  Finally, we most of us think today’s problems arose yesterday, and if someone’s wearing a suit from the late 70s, it’s easy to miss the relevance of his arguments.  I think someone (maybe the foundation) should do an annotated version of the show.  If, of course, they choose to.

    BTW, he gets quoted and linked a lot.  It’s just that not that many people hang out at Cafe Hayek.  They should.  But they don’t.

    • #26
  27. Lazy_Millennial Inactive
    Lazy_Millennial
    @LazyMillennial

    Some thoughts on Anderson’s commentary on millennials:

    Millennials like big-government welfare-statism, not socialism

    Outside of the usual far-left activists, truth. Millennials switch jobs a lot, so having healthcare tied to a job is precarious. College is expensive, and so are non-bankruptable college loans. Housing is expensive because of zoning regulations, but Millennials aren’t aware of the “because” portion of that statement. 

    Millennials were taught about the cold war

    False false false. I went to a great public school and it was covered, but with an emphasis on the stupidity of the Vietnam war and the terror of nuclear war, not how evil communism was. Also, Reagan was recent enough that he wasn’t covered. Our history books ended with Nixon’s impeachment.

    The Millennials portrayed by media are a small slice that are overrepresented due to their prevalence in media and government

    100% accurate. The lifestyles of “flyover country” Millennials, like the rest of flyover country, are vastly underrepresented. 

    • #27
  28. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Lazy_Millennial (View Comment):

    Some thoughts on Anderson’s commentary on millennials:

    Millennials like big-government welfare-statism, not socialism

    Outside of the usual far-left activists, truth. Millennials switch jobs a lot, so having healthcare tied to a job is precarious. College is expensive, and so are non-bankruptable college loans. Housing is expensive because of zoning regulations, but Millennials aren’t aware of the “because” portion of that statement. 

    All of this is so important. 

    Housing  and all shelter is way overpriced for a Buch of reasons. All of it should be 20% lower at least. 

    • #28
  29. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Why Saying Socialists ‘Mean Well’ Gives Them Too Much Credit | Grant Babcock https://fee.org/articles/to-say-socialists-mean-well-gives-them-too-much-credit/ via @feeonlinehis 

    This is excellent. 

    • #29
  30. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    When many – perhaps including Peter and Rob, but not James – opined that there was really nothing the Left could do to stop or even slow down the Kavanaugh appointment, I was thinking “Do you really think the Left will rely just on actual facts to get their way?  What planet do you live on?  They’ll invent SOMETHING.”

    It seems I was correct.

    • #30
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.