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We discuss the events of the week, we talk to AEI’s Yuval Levin about leadership in a populist age and Andy McCarthy about the 25th Amendment and pardons. One of our hosts is dealing with a medical issue which he discusses here and in some members only content with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (available here). Keep calm, carry on, and be nice to each other. This too shall pass.
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You need to talk about policy, yesterday.
You are overstating your case. Dennis said something that was hyperbolic. I pressed the “Like” button. From that you are saying that I agree with each and every detail of what Dennis said. If memory serves, you are grossly misstating what Dennis said.
The same would apply when I repeated statements made by Rob Long, one of our founders, which calls for figuratively burning Trump at the stake, which you have taken literally.
Perhaps you should take all of this seriously, but not literally.
Like many people said about Trump for years, which you and so many others ignored?
Your memory is about as good as Gropey Joe’s.
Perhaps you don’t get to lecture me.
I find it sad, amusing, and predictable that Gary now wants to be taken seriously but not literally, which he and Rob and so many others denied to Trump for years.
Also, I thought “incitement” and calls for violence were very very bad. (They are btw…but if Trump is guilty of it, then certainly this blood thirsty guy squeeing for political leaders to be roasted alive certainly is.)
You can always refund your own subscription and peace out if your delicate sensibilities are too aggrieved.
Reagan was my favorite populist president. Populism is not a good or bad thing per se, it depends on what it is used for.
I guess if you kind of gloss over the roughly 1,000 years after the fall of Rome, you could say the British Empire rose from its ashes. On a technical level its true.
You didn’t know before 4 years that democrats were insane? Do you just not usually pay attention?
Yeah, it took awhile. But when Rome proper fell, it still existed for awhile out on the fringes of the empire. Particularly in Britain. One could easily make an argument that the British Empire was a continuation of the Roman Empire. I think Chesterton makes that argument pretty plainly in “A Short History of England.”
Anyone that is freaking out about “populism” needs to watch this.
I get the general anger about cabinet members etc. leaving their posts in protest, but I think I agree here. I don’t think Trump, or Cruz, or Hawley incited any violence, but the rioters were Trumps people. And they did riot, and whatever you think about it, it looks horrible. Admin members, conservatives, republicans, ricochet commenters etc. do not owe Trump anything here. Rob is at least right about the fact that we were in a better position 20 days ago than we are today, and we shat the bed. Listening to freaks like Lin Wood telling people not to vote, hinting at some goof ball Kraken plot that never materializes. And Trump went along. Devos should leave. She’s a serious person who wants to go on doing good in the world.
I’ll stop here, before this just becomes a ramble. I’m not Never Trump, look up my comments. I think he was a necessary gamble. I think it’s really too bad he lost. But we don’t owe him anything guys.
I read this and instantly thought of Nordlinger.
OK Stalin.
Can we get a de-Robbinsification of Ricochet? (I mean as long as calling for purges are cool and all.)
Three things I noticed:
1) James has not been saying much for several episodes now. I think I know why.
2) It is amazing that Rob is so concerned about Trump’s impropriety towards our hallowed institutions, when those institutions betrayed the public during COVID, even to the point of denying many the treatments that his own family took.
3) No one outside of D.C. knows or cares who Mitch McConnell is married to. I love you, Peter, but only someone who spent too much time in D.C. would assume people think McConnell is a tool of the CCP because his wife is Asian.
I think we’re just holding you to your own standard Gary.
You could say that about a lot of Medieval Europe though. Good book on it all is The Inheritance of Rome by Chris Wickham. Basically middle ages Europe was a fusion of celto/germanic tribes, and the crumbling Roman administrative state kinda glued together by the Catholic church. I’ll check out the Chesterton.
The actually-peaceful (not just “mostly”) protesters were Trump people, but it’s likely that the actual violent ones were not.
Still no like-to-the-Nth-degree button, and I also think I know why…
Thanks for the book recommendation. Chesterton’s prose is . . . Chestertonian, so I’ve often found I had to read paragraphs a couple times to really get the gist of what he’s saying. And I still haven’t finished it. (True confession: when sermons are boring, I pull up Chesterton on my Kindle and read that instead.)
What many still seem to be unable to grasp is that it doesn’t matter who the Republican is in the race, whether they are an uncouth barbarian or the most elegant intellectal. They will be destroyed with lies and innuendo, because it’s just so much easier to win an election and get political support that way. Exhibit A: Mitt Romney, a Boy Scout that was destroyed with “binders full of women,” not policy debates. Exhibit B: Obama sure seemed to like winning elections by getting divorce records unsealed. We can burn Trump in effigy and throw him in a deep hole as Rob suggests and it. won’t. matter. Democrats and the media will give everyone the Trump treatment. Doubly so for DeSantis, who is wonderful but liberals already despise because he’s proving them wrong on COVID and they can’t seem to find the piles of bodies he’s hidden in the Everglades (now there’s a conspiracy theory for you, extremely popular on the left).
Oh I grasp that fine, but you’re right that many people don’t.
By the way, does it somehow violate the CoC if I express the opinion that you’re a lot more sensible than that other Julia who pops up occasionally?
I believe that that would mean that a Cult of Personality has grown up around me, where little children learn to sing my many praises at school, where artists create art dedicated to my magnificence, and where adults say that they are ready to die in my honor as they assault the ramparts (or beaches). I have somehow missed all of of that.
It may not have happened for YOU, but it sure happened with Obama. Or did you miss all of that too?
Obama also created a Cult of Personality around him. This goes both ways.
The point, though, is that you don’t appear to have a problem with “cult of personality” as such, it’s just you want to be in the cult of personality for someone you “like.” Or are you claiming that Biden/Harris don’t have their own cult of personality?
I don’t like Obama. I voted against him twice. But, as opposed to Trump, I do respect Obama.
Considering Obama’s actual behavior, that would suggest you were actually part of the cult of personality without realizing it.