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Another slow news week…yawn. Uh, no. With so much to talk about, we present another super-sized Ricochet Podcast clocking in at just under 90 minutes. We’ve got our pal David French, who wants us to Stop Making Terrible Arguments for Blind Loyalty. That’s followed by two Ricochet members (that’d be Robert McReynolds and Max Ledoux) who wants us to give the President the benefit of the doubt at least some of the time. Seems reasonable, but you won’t want to miss the debate that ensues. Who won? Tell us in the comments. Also, RIP Roger Ailes, the whip smart, innovative, and yes, controversial, creator of Fox News (the Michael Wolff piece Rob refers to about Ailes is here).
Music from this week’s podcast: Happy Family by The Ramones
The all new opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced by James Lileks.
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Your avatar has a whiff of the white, male patriarchal “drinking the libation and tears of their liberal women”. Are you a friend of Tim Allen?
I’m only going to wade into this cluster[redacted] to make one observation: Mr. Long’s comparison with the Clinton presidency is inapt. Clinton didn’t have to deal with an anti-Clinton march on Washington on day one, the Science March, Antifa violence in the streets, and a hair-on-fire media. No one had Not My President bumper stickers on their cars. No one tried to get Electors to change their votes.
Clinton and Reagan faced some hostility from the other side but nothing like this. You can argue that Trump deserves it or not, but it’s wrong to claim that the situations are comparable. Honestly, Mr. Long, even you don’t believe this.
Are you paying attention? Read the NY Times or Washington Post; watch MSNBC or CNN for some real tough love. The criticism started before January 20 and got louder since then from a group of Washington insiders and a media determined to drum him out of office. Why? Because of his tweets or his inarticulate statements? Could it be for the undiplomatic firing of Comey? All these things make gentle folk cringe, but are they a legitimate reason to bring down a government?
Robert and Max were too polite. They should have interrupted you, Rob, as often as you interrupted them. You came in looking for a brawl and didn’t get one.
Now I did my fair share of cross-talk too. It wasn’t just Rob.
In fairness, you have a point there.
My characterization would be that the President is not Legislator in Chief.
I thought it was a great discussion. As I have said elsewhere in recent times, even though I was not a Trump fan, I accept him as our president. I want his term to be successful, not for him but for the country. I don’t care for his tweeting. I don’t do Twitter. It has no appeal. To me, it has no dignity, something that the American presidency needs.
I have a lot sympathy with what Max and Robert said about Trump being under fire from the media and the left. It is, if anything, worse than what G.W. Bush had to deal with following the stupidity of the Florida hanging chads. I think, to a large extent, the left learned from that exercise and have simply been building on it since Trump was elected. For me, it feels a bit like being in a hard snowstorm in the mountains. There is so much wind and so much fluff flying at you that it is nearly impossible to find a direction. In this, I am not talking about Trump. I am talking about those of us trying to make sense of all the information, true and untrue statements and opinions coming from all directions at once.
Starting from a position of not particularly liking Trump, my inclination is to believe a lot of what is said if it fits his personality. However, I have the countervening force of a complete distrust of the media and of anyone spouting the current left meme. It is really easy to spot a leftist. They all say exactly the same things, as though they were reading from a script.
It is all very frustrating, and Trump isn’t helping us to come to some kind of reasonable position which isn’t based solely on which side the aisle we identify with. I listen to Max and I hear someone fairly typical in his rhetoric of the Trump contingent. I listen to Robert and I hear someone closer to my own view, though perhaps, more forgiving of Trumps inadequacies than I am. I listen to David French and I hear what is most often my thoughts. It is all very confusing, and Trump himself is largely responsible due to his inarticulateness, his egoism, and his nearly complete lack of class. We grew up in the same environment at the same time. For much of our youth we went to the same schools. Trump didn’t come from Fishtown. He was a product of people whose main goal was the accumulation of wealth, not education or erudition. He was not representative of the area he grew up in. he is not the “common man.” He is simply what was referred to as nouveau riche, sort of what I visualize as the idiot driving he new beemer wearing his baseball cap backwards. It is all about display. That is what makes it hardest to not believe the stories.
James and Rob are never so animated as when feeling like they must defend their honor against pro-Trump guests. Without fail, they defend their personal position on Trump more vociferously and passionately than any other subject which comes up on the podcast.
Also, why was one of the guests not even bothering to defend Trump? He’s just anti-MSM lies about Trump, not pro-Trump. Jeez guys, is the bubble so think even on Ricochet?
P.S. James *wildly* mischaracterized Michael Anton’s series of essays beginning with the Flight 93 essay. He was absolutely not advocating for an “our Caesar”.
This is what I meant by defensive. Robert and Max seemed a little more calm and collected. Rob, maybe you should’ve had more scotch first. ?
Rob, you did come across as much more defensive.
I think Robert, you did the best, with calm, rational statements. My favorites were:
Can we go back to Lincoln? (though you know I disagree, it was great to hear it)
and
McConnel and Ryan are bright enough to walk and chew gum at the same time.
Which is why this is all about class.
I agree that is a huge part. What it shows is that conservatives really rather not be ruled by the first 200 people in the phone book.
I can just see the disdain dripping from the manicured hands as they delicately trip the light fantastic on the computer keys. I mean really, don’t we all know one is only worthwhile if one has old money inherited from great grandfather’s trust?
To my ear, Robert and Max were not pro-Trump, they were anti-anti-Trump. Their “defenses” of Trump sounded like OJ’s fanboys cheering on his white Bronco. I just wish this interview had been postponed to next week, when Trump fires Mueller for subpoenaing his tax returns.
Do you mean Robert or me?
Umm… Mueller doesn’t need to subpoena them. The IRS has copies of his returns, remember? FBI (Justice) and IRS (Treasury) are both part of the executive branch.
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I haven’t read much more than the first paragraphs of David French’s articles over the last year and didn’t follow him much before the NR “Never Trump” front page. I did hear him during his fake campaign and was appalled at his attempt to damage Trump.
After listening just now to him in this podcast I am flabbergasted at his take on the most ridiculous claims that have been made recently (Comey’s lies about obstruction of justice) and then he added a ridiculous tissue of connected thoughts to say simply that “you know, it could be that Trump obstructed justice.” This is the leftist way of doing business — how is it that he doesn’t know that?
I like Rob. But I must say, can you in the future please let people answer the question you asked before interupting them. Or how about this novel concept. Dont INTERUPT.
It was rude and disgusting and if you had done that to me. I would have violated the code of conduct in about 7 different ways.
I dont pay 5 dollars a month to this site, to listen to one of the founders do his best impression of Don Lemon.
I think you owe both of your ‘guests’ an apology.
Coward!
Those who tire lose.
And are you seriously suggesting that Trump is in any way in the same class as those first 200 people??? Really? A man who plates his toilet seats in gold? Who started his adult life with financial resources that most of us wouldn’t make over a lifetime of work? Are you suggesting that vulgarity is a hallmark of the average Joe?
I used to know someone who was in the office within the Dept of Agriculture when ketchup was defined as a vegetable. What she said was they were tasked to categorize everything that was served in America’s schools. There was no category of “condiment” or any such thing. When the problem was raised, they were told, as would be true in any self
-respecting-aggrandizing bureaucracy: “Everything! And the categories are the categories.”After repeatedly promising to produce them Trump changed his mind and said no, he decided he couldn’t produce them after all since he was being audited for at least 12 years in a row because he was such a strong Christian. Trump is the head of the executive branch and is refusing to produce them to anyone without a court order, ergo Mueller will need a subpoena to do his job.
Fake news of that day. And still we talk about it.
Max, I am quite a bit older than you. I remember the Kennedy administration. I was in my late teens when John Kennedy was elected president. I remember Pablo Casals entertaining at the White House. There was a quality of class that the American people could up to and aspire to, even if below the surface it was ugly and corrupt. It is always about theater. The Kennedy clan played to the loge and the boxes. Trump and Obama play to the pit in the Shakespearean sense.
I don’ know a single NeverTrumper who is primarily motivated by the class issue. If the only problem with Trump were that he’s a raunchy buffoon with Austin Powers taste I could live with that – LBJ would have made Trump look like Orrin Hatch teaching Sunday School. Our problem is that the man is a racist demagogue, a delusional narcissist within the narrow definition of the DSM-5 manual, a man with the attention span of a flea, a pathological liar well outside the ambit of anything tolerated in American political life before… other than that he would be acceptable to the NeverTrumps like Jonah, Mona, Jay or myself.
And Obama lectured those in the loge and the boxes that there were people outside the Globe who couldn’t even get into the theater because of their selfishness.
Everyone should cut the folks on the podcast some slack as far as the crosstalk and interruptions are concerned. We had some connection issues today that have mostly been edited out, but much of the crosstalk is a byproduct of iffy call quality. There is always a bit of a latency problem on Skype, but the cruddy connection (Peter was on hotel wifi — always notoriously bad) exacerbated it today.
My thanks to @robertmcreynolds and @max and to Rob, Peter, and James. This is an emotional topic, and a difficult but necessary debate, and I think all involved handled it exceptionally well. We’ll do this again soon.
See Webster’s, under “glutton for punishment.”