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Thanksgiving is here once again, and the full crew is home for the holidays. James, Rob, and Peter discuss the recent cabinet appointments (including Peter’s first person experiences with Jim Mattis), the media freakout, some reflections on wrong predictions, few stories from the recent NR cruise, what it’s like to run a big time network TV show, ac couple of posts from the Member Feed, and finally, some thoughts on what we’re thankful for. Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone!
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Music from this week’s podcast: I’ve Got Plenty to Be Thankful For by Bing Crosby
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Ahem “reflections”. With an “l”. And it is good to see that Rob’s back. I will have to listen to this tomorrow.
Fixed!
@peterrobinson You tell Gen. Mattis that I’d write speeches for him in a heartbeat. I know how my son feels about him (i.e. major man-crush) and that is almost universally felt across The Corps. He’s the kind of guy you’d willingly move to hell to serve… and Washington DC is as close as it comes to that.
Glad they “got the band back together” in time for THE American holiday. Happy Thanksgiving y’all. Freedom, Family, and Football….what else does one really need?
Christmas season is officially here. Like the first pitch of a baseball season Yeti has pitched the first Crosby record on today’s podcast. If Reggie was Mr. October and Jeter Mr. November, I know who Mr. December is…
The best podcast in a long time, thanks! Let me add a few thoughts:
Like Rob, nothing would make me more thankful than to be proven completely wrong in my fears if Trump continues on this trajectory.
I am 60 years old and have never once in my life heard an anti-Semitic comment, outside of movies. Maybe I’m exceptional but I really don’t think so, I really think this is one of the most depressing developments if this “fad” continues.
Since Peter and General Mattis are buds here’s a suggestion to help him win the job. Trump understands real estate and highest and best use. Why not have the government sell Elgin AFB [on the Florida panhandle coastline] to Disney so they can create some jobs and take some pressure off the long lines at the Orlando facility? Maybe suggest it to Romney so he can win out over Rudy instead.
Thanks again for Ricochet and your great contributions to the public square.
Mr Long ‘s attempt to link the handful of Nazi’s with Mr Bannon had no evidence , nothing tangible but Mr Long making a link and then demanding denunciation of every crackpot he determines makes him uncomfortable.
I found that disturbing. An accusation that a senior advisor to the President of the United States was seriously supporting or linked financially or spiritually with a handful of crazed bigots needs some proof before it goes out on the airwaves.
Where was this concern about Valerie Jarrett? John Podesta? Al Sharpton? George Soros?
If Ricochet is going to do this on what is considered a flagship podcast, it means this material is acceptable and viewed as a priority to disseminate.
I understand Mr Bannon is a veteran. Did he serve his country badly? Was there dishonor in his term of service?
Has he engaged in criminal behavior? What are his sins that he should be considered loathsome? I have listened and have not heard any substantiation or facts.
There are people who view me as loathsome because of my beliefs in the country, the role of government, individual freedom , and the price of liberty. I used to think they were to the left of me and Ricochet was a place where beliefs were respected in a civil manner. It appears one must conform to be considered acceptable and not loathsome even at Ricochet. How very PC.
Enjoyed this podcast greatly.
Happy Thanksgiving to all, and thanks for Ricochet.
Just to second and third this. I have one Marine son who is ALWAYS happy. This week he’s happier. The other Marine son is not the least bit effusive – he called earlier this week (he didn’t return a call or comply with a request to call. He called of his own volition. Noteworthy) and he was the happiest I have ever known him to be in his 28 years on this earth (with the possible exception of when Navy beat Notre Dame)
The fact that Trump is even talking to the Mad Dog has put a spring in all their steps.
Our Marine son (along with all his buddies) also exhibits the Mad Dog-major-man-crush.
I know nothing about Bannon but I was glad to hear Peter and James point out that he has nothing to do with the nuts. If I get 20 guys in a room to say ‘Heil Rob Long’ would Rob have to spend the rest of his life ‘disavowing’ them?
Among the reasons for the Trump phenomenon is that people on the right are tired, very tired of Republicans throwing allies overboard because ‘ his brother’s sister-in-law’s cousin once bought a tee shirt from a guy with a swastika tattoo’ while the same Republicans are telling us how they were good friends with Swimmer Kennedy and Sheets Byrd. Also I might add communist parents and grandparents, GD Amerikkka pastors, bombers in the neighborhood and a hundred other scandals that Republicans are too gentlemanly to mention.
I wrote this before I read TKC1101 above, with whom I agree.
As you recall from the podcast, I agree with James: we can’t demand endless “repudiations” and “denunciations” every time some crackpot group associates itself with our side. That’s not only unrealistic, but an attempt by the other side to tar everyone with the worst and lowest brush.
So, yes, I agree with you guys on that.
But the “alt-right” self-defines as “white nationalist,” which is itself a euphemism of some pretty repellent ideas. And Bannon defines Breitbart.com as the mouthpiece of the alt-right. So, honestly, who is to blame here? I didn’t draw the connection. Bannon did. And now he needs to live with it. Again, not my fault. Had he asked me, I’d have suggested he describe his enterprise — and manage it — more along the lines of its namesake, a man who was my dear friend and who was anything — anything — but alt-right.
(And he wasn’t a pushover, either. Talk about a fighter!)
Look, we live in a 51% country — and even presidents elected with major popular vote margins (like Obama) and sky-rocketing popularity in the early days of their administrations (again, like Obama) can find themselves hobbled by an electorate that hands over the house and the senate to the other side. Happened to him; can happen to us. One thing that really isn’t up for debate: the American voter is wildly mercurial. They love you on Tuesday and toss you overboard by Friday.
So why needlessly pick fights like this? Why needlessly cavil and hair-split over what’s alt-right and what it means? In his NYTimes interview, Trump did a very good job of making his feelings clear on this. Why can’t Bannon? And why do we think we need to defend someone who is, as we survey a pretty impressive collection of advisors and cabinet secretaries, such a lightning rod and political liability?
It’s not being “politically correct” or cowardly to want the next 24 months — the richest and most amazing opportunity in, maybe, our lifetimes to effect real and lasting rightward change in the federal government at all levels — to be as free from distractions and shadows as possible.
Thankful for this podcast. It was great!
And I agree with Rob, as I think I said in the podcast; both points are valid, and can coexist without too much cognitive dissonance. But we wouldn’t be talking about these Nazi scumsacks if the Pepe-Hitler gang had been marginalized from the get-go.
But that would have been PC.
It was a fun cruise and there was plenty of discussion about the “Against Trump” issue, but nothing like the Thanksgiving dinner table conversations that snowflakes are advised to avoid. People who pay that much to cruise with NR do not hate the magazine.
Jonah gave the best response at the last seminar, one even Trumpies could not argue against. I know who they referred to because he and I had the same conversation (you just don’t get it person). He was still dealing with the fear Hillary could have won because of it.
New cruisers I talked to had a great time and are sure to return. During the Mashup podcasts, a lady beside me got angry over a Trump comment and left the theater. Her husband let her leave alone and stayed for the whole thing. Everyone else found plenty to laugh about. There were moments during a couple of seminars when you could feel tension but most passengers put that sort of seriousness aside. It was a great cruise.
The pod helped me get through an 8-mile run, gentlemen. Thanks!
It’s great that you got the band back together.
@roblong, I keep hearing this – the only thing I’ve seen about this is an article on investigativefund.org that I think comes from Mother Jones.
Can anyone link me to him saying this on film or in an outlet that does not trace back to the Mother Jones article?
Rob, I am delighted that you are working with Kevin James! He and I grew up in the same neighborhood on Long Island (several years apart). Plus, my dad worked for Grumman for forty years until they were acquired by Northrop. That was a blow for LI, so it’s great news that Kevin Can Wait is bringing industry and jobs to the area!
@cdalloway KJ went to Ward Melville ;)
Today I resubscribed. I had meant to for some time but never got around to it. I listened to the pre-Thanksgiving – Post election podcast this evening. I am almost sorry I joined up again. Donald Trump was, as Dennis Prager says, my 17th choice. I voted for him and I pray and I hope things go well doubtful as it seems.
The nasty negative feelings of you know who almost made me ill. He went on and on and on and on. The MSM bait The Trump folks with the alt-right and I hear that Donald and Company are to somehow stop the constant alt-right bait. That ought to be easy, no?
I am given to understand that may upstanding folk have stood up to defend Stephen Bannon. I do not know him, I had never heard of him before Donald Trump picked him to help the campaign. Is he as nasty as I understand him to be from the podcast? Only the left paints him as badly as I heard tonight. I probably should repeat the last sentence. Maybe he is very evil maybe he is not evil at all.
What a horrible podcast.
Peter, I found your story about the guy in the Benz to be … odd.
If someone said to me “you’re not Jewish, are you?” my only reply would be to say “well, I’m half-hungarian so who knows, but why do you ask?”
Key phrase: “why do you ask?”
Goodness, I’ve asked people questions like that on a million different topics for a million different reasons that have nothing to do with anti-semitism or racism or anything else. You’re in California, for goodness sake. Who knows what might have been said that could lead to a question like that, and who knows where a person might have been going? The worst part of that story, to me, was the reaction of your friend. He was scared?! Let us suppose that the guy actually was anti-semitic – what a great opportunity to have a conversation about it and try to convince him that such views are asinine! But we lack the basic human trust to even sit down and talk to a person?
I shudder to think how often any of us might be dismissed or hated or feared or distrusted because someone assumes the worst from an innocent remark that they didn’t bother to seek clarity on. And frankly, I’m not terribly impressed with this friend of yours.
This was my initial reaction as well.
My second reaction is to not jump to conclusions about the friend either — he was there and I wasn’t, and it’s entirely possible that the meaning was conveyed by the tone and the context.
I’m not sure I’d be prepared to have a profitable discussion on that topic, off the cuff, with a complete stranger either, so I certainly won’t hold that against him. It would be a bizarre feeling — to think you’re on the same page with someone and then find the ground swept out from under your feet.
“Trump and Bannon have to shut them down” – Peter
Uh, shut them down how? They’re not doing anything illegal. They’re free, under the Constitution, to meme and Roman salute to their little hearts desire. I’m more disturbed by calls to “shut them down” than I am by a hundred people getting together in a room and talking about frogs, the wall, and George Lincoln Rockwell.
Oh, and a twofer here: Andrew Breitbart would be nothing like the people running Breitbart now, and nonsense like “Pizzagate”, and all that jazz…
As the kids say, I’ll just leave this here:
I have had it up to here with these awful, quasi-ironic, interrupted segues. It was endearing in 2011. It is just tiresome now. Here are some suggestions; any one would work:
Please.
I love the segues.
Sometimes they’re witty. Sometimes they’re awful. But the ads help pay the bills, so, bring ’em.
Just got around to listening to the episode today, and I enjoyed it a lot. Glad to have Rob back.
I strongly identified with Peter’s anecdote about the parents in NorCal feeling emboldened to stand up to the ‘thought police’ (teachers). I felt something very similar immediately after the election that was difficult to fully describe; a feeling almost of liberation to be able to engage with my liberal (and fellow millennial) friends at work and on facebook on political matters without my views being dismissed out of hand. Trump (or at least his election) has already given me that, so I have nothing to complain about (yet).