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, our pal and former colleague Mollie Hemingway sits in and fortuitously, there’s a ton of media stories to discuss, starting with the President’s epic press conference. Later, NewsMax CEO and Presidential BFF Chris Ruddy joins to give us his insider POV of the machinations of White House staff. Then another old colleague, author and musician James Poulos stops by to discuss why he’s intent on making Tocqueville great again with his new book The Art of Being Free: How Alexis de Tocqueville Can Save Us from Ourselves. Also, some thoughts on the Deep State, a phrase that has suddenly come back into the zeitgeist.
Public service announcement: if you’re not a member of Ricochet and enjoy this podcast, be one of the 1,500 and join today.
Music from this week’s podcast: Razzle Dazzle by The Cast Recording of Chicago
The ALL NEW opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced by James Lileks.
Yes, you should absolutely subscribe to this podcast. It helps! And leave a review too!
Sit down, @EJHill.
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.
Analysis of yesterday’s Trump freakshow features almost nothing of any actual substance and lots of raving about the performance art. Then we’ve got Mr. Robinson drooling about Trump’s staggering intelligence. Such is political analysis in the age of Trump. Gag me. If you’re NeverTrump…I’d skip this one.
He’s at 38% now in Gallup. But at least he’s entertaining, amirite?
I was NeverTrump, and I did this one. There was criticism amidst the qualified kudos.
If you’re still NeverTrump (and I was) a month after the inauguration, you need to move on.
http://www.mikelofgren.net/
Mike Lofgren wrote a book about the Deep State vs. the Constitution, according to a thirty second Google search.
Maybe he would have a perspective on Trump suitable for use in a podcast.
More Mollie Hemingway on Ricochet podcasts!
Yes! She is the best. Whose arm do you have to twist to get her on Ricochet more? Whoever it is, do it.
Drooling? Even after I said he was undisciplined? Oh well. At least you called me “Mister.”
Halfway through. Look like third lousy “flagship” podcast in a row. I admire Mollie’s attempts to make some sense of Peter’s and the Newsmax guy’s disgusting gushing to the “leader”. (Newsmax?? are you going to invite the National Enquirer rep next week? I feel sorry for James to have to MC this decline. BTW: where is Rob when his brainchild is dying?
Interesting word choice when it seems, from the tone, that the commenter likely has a fair amount of spittle dripping off his own screen.
Anyway, if the biggest criticism against you is not showing proper levels of hatred, then you’re probably doing OK.
Addendum to the discussion about the pleasures of watching the DC media corps given a few New York elbows in the ribs: it’s a different thing entirely to declare them the Enemy of the American People.
Unless Trump and the American People are indistinguishable entities, of course.
If they are the Enemies of the American People, ought not something be done about them? Is President Trump the sort of person who lets the Enemies of the American People do what they wish with no consequences? Or is this just spouting off, and we should be accustomed to POTUS saying this collection of people are Enemies of the nation, but hey, whatevs, you know what he really means, they’re not ISIS-level enemies. Just your basic garden-variety domestic enemies.
The analysis of Obama was just dead-on. Trump should use his national emergency cell phone interruption thing to make everyone listen to it.
Is Rob no longer doing the podcast? If so, then you need to stop highlighting his absence. It sounds ridiculous to tell people they should pay for membership, when the site’s founder appears unwilling to contribute more than 90 minutes worth of his time per month to GLOP, and none at all since the beginning of the year to this. I understand he has a job, but doesn’t everybody? Just drop him altogether from the flagship podcast, unless he plans on actually being a part of it again.
He’ll be back towards the end of March on a permanent basis and may well make a cameo appearance on this podcast before then as well.
I admit, I checked out early, so may have missed the more critical analysis. With more early discussion on Trump’s great intelligence than the fact he didn’t even know the electoral margin in his own election….I figured it was downhill from there, especially with the “presidential BFF” joining the fun.
Do my ears deceive me? A Rancho de la Luna, QOTSA, Arctic Monkeys, and Radiohead mentioned on the Ricochet podcast?! So weird to think about my two worlds colliding here. ??
Indeed, it was truly a bad decision on Rob’s part to produce this network prime time show. Even worse was the decision by the Ricochet Board of Directors to let him take it. I don’t want to get into the details of the Ricochet employment and non-compete contracts, but I will say that that this was a failure at all levels of management. This reminds me of when an eager nation awaited Johnny Carson’s monologue on a Monday evening, only to hear Doc Severenson announce, “Johnny’s guest host tonight is Joan Rivers.”
Certainly if I, a Ricochet podcast listener, can take the time to listen every week while I mow my lawn, the hosts can–at the very least– hook up a microphone and do the same. You should henceforth consider all money earned from this effort to be ill-gotten wealth.
I was a Never Trump evangelical conservative who has been subsequently thrilled with a lot of his cabinet picks, etc. As I have been watching the reactions of the media, of the more intellectual conservatives who reject Trump’s way of conducting the presidency, of my evangelical friends and family who are all over the board, and of the massive swell of Americans who voted him into office, I have come to believe that much of the cultural drama is about just that: culture. The reactions of the Left and of intellectual conservatives are remarkably similar in spite of differing ideologies. There are ways of communicating that are considered appropriate that rise to a level of morality for the highly educated. Those who don’t follow the rules are not only inappropriate…they are offensive scoundrels. The Left demands those cultural manners to a ridiculous extreme. Steve Martin can’t even tweet that Carrie Fisher was attractive. Many who don’t buy into that culture…blue collar workers, straight talkers from the Midwest or Victor Hanson’s farming community, find that kind of tiptoeing dishonest…and Trump’s manner of discourse, through abrupt, is an appropriate, long awaited correction of the deep dishonesty and manipulation by the Left who use what should only be an issue of manners as a form of power (and the meek Conservatives who have let them get away with it.)
Good points, and good post. But is there a point at which the correction should be critiqued because it, too, contains dishonesty and manipulation?
The complaints about substitute guest hosts are absurd.
Hopefully only one “complaint,” as mine was hastily written sarcasm. May have been a bit subtle, though.
More Mollie, please. I do miss her around these parts.
Mollie Hemingway was great. She is sound.
And Chris Rudy and James Poulos were also great.
Great podcast.
I was on the fence about it, but I did eventually decide that your post must have been sarcastic. Nicely done!
Is she allowed to do “Fight of the week” even when Mark isn’t on with her?
Scratching my head on how @peterrobinson can observe a very smart man in Trump.
Being okay with Trump because: Better than Hillary on margin? Sure. Pleased about Gorsuch? Definitely. Happy with (some) cabinet picks? Sure. Combative with the media? Fine, if that’s your thing.
But it’s important to be clear-eyed that he is a gibbering mental incompetent. It goes well beyond undisciplined. These are the words of an intelligent man?
Take last week’s Two-State Solution nonsense. He was too lazy to read one paragraph (just one!) on what the current US policy actually is, before attending a press conference with Netanyahu? Smart lazy people might try to wing it, but they realize when they just flopped because of lack of prep. Stupid lazy people think they nailed it after they embarrass themselves.
This level of ignorance is not acceptable in a President. There will be consequences for the US. It behooves conservatives and libertarians who support some of his domestic goals to understand the difference between “undisciplined & smart” and “lazy & imbecilic” and keep the pressure on for him to get his act together.
These are definitely the words of an inarticulate man, and new to the subject (inexcusably so). But it is basically correct on the doctrine.
By comparison I’d wager Barack Obama knew about the same amount about nuclear doctrine when he took office. He was so insulated from military culture that he didn’t know how to pronounce “corps”. He wanted to cut ballistic missile defense and promised not to develop new nuclear weapons. But now, thanks to his administration, we have a trillion dollar nuclear modernization program.
I say this to justify optimism that the smart people serving the president will prevail upon him to do the right thing, and he will follow their advice.
What is the doctrine he’s proposing here? That thermonuclear war is bad? That’s not a doctrine, that’s a fact (that he apparently needed to be “briefed” on?). It is the case that we should avoid that- the only opponents of that position are frightening crows in a cornfield at the moment.
It is false that there is no “up-side” to not being friends with Russia. There are many strategic interests that can be served by firm opposition to Russia, short of thermonuclear war. If he’s presenting a doctrine here, it’s based on a false dichotomy.
But there’s no doctrine! He simply doesn’t know what he’s talking about. If he wants to change US stance toward Russia, Israel, whatever- great: he can make the case. There is no case here, he’s just babbling.
Of course Obama didn’t know what he was doing. That’s a fact that doesn’t make me feel better about Trump.
I’m waiting to see evidence that he’s being persuaded by smart people. I think he is exhibiting a classic hallmark of stupidity: insisting he’s got this, that he doesn’t need to learn or think because he has a “natural intelligence.” This is what bothers me about Peter’s comments.
@markwilson I think it’s reasonable for you to be optimistic about his “guide-ability”. I just haven’t gotten there.
It could be that I completely misread the context. I assumed Trump meant there was no up-side to nuclear war.
Now on the other hand, if I was interpreting him correctly:
It was in fact an important advancement in nuclear doctrine when Reagan and Gorbachev mutually agreed, upon meeting in Geneva, that a nuclear war is unwinnable. Prior to that the Soviets had a dangerous uncertainty about whether the US would try to wipe them out with a first strike — which nearly led to accidental war on more than one occasion. There have also plenty been of alternative doctrines put forward over the decades about how to wage a “limited” or “protracted” nuclear war that might be winnable. It’s a significant point of doctrine to reject that concept and adopt doctrines like No First Use and Mutual Assured Destruction. So it’s not as cut-and-dried as you seem to portray.
Goodness, this podcast riled people more than seems proportionate. Are these the times we live in? (Very possibly)
I’m willing to believe that we are simply in the whirlwind phase, consequent on the nature of the president, and a period of (relative) calm shall follow, when the GOP actually does something that doesn’t involve writing the Democrats’ election ads for them by not CTA on Obamacare. After all, a popular trope is the benefit of the outsider, of blue-sky thinking etc; it always has to be seen just how much an outsider needs to know to get the job done. And sometimes redefining the job is part of the task.
(Outsiders are always supposed to be Senator Smith, but never actually are. Isn’t this one of the seven basic plots?)
Thanks to James for pointing out that the Left is clever enough to get the facts right; unlike, say, Birtherism or Obama’s religion (thanks so much, Mississippi Republicans). It’s the interpretation that’s faulty, but who in a Twitter world will ever be open to refutation of a misinterpretation? It soon becomes gospel because ‘everyone’ knows it to be true.
The Left has far more to gain than to lose by crying wolf. It doesn’t cost anything, comes with no consequences and keeps everybody in a state of nervous tension. There really is no downside from their perspective.