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Who says we don’t break news on this show? The whole gang is back this week, and they’re joined by National Review’s senior political correspondent, Jim Geraghty for a long chat on Republicans leaving the party, fealty to you-know-who, and an update on Wuhan lab theories. Then, Elliot Abrams, who’s most recently served as President Trump’s Special Representative to Venezuela and Iran; joins to discuss They Israel’s ongoing fight with Hamas and speculate on how it might conclude, while marveling at the strength of the Abraham Accords (negotiated at the direction of you-know-who). Ricochet member @MarkAlexander gets the coveted Lileks Post of The Week® badge for his post My Shakespeare Confession and Rob and James mull the wisdom of a million dollar vaccine lottery.
Song from this week’s episode: Bad Blood by Taylor Swift.
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Dang, that’s a quality burn, and kinda true.
The world would be a better place if we resisted the temptation to label and divide our own movement. Labels are stupid tools, in that they slap whatever vague and inconsistent list of attributes they represent to any given individual onto whatever you stick them on. I’d get rid of “GOPe” for starters, because it says God-knows-what about God-knows-whom, and does so in a particularly dopey fashion. “RINO” is past its sell-by as well, and for the same reason.
If you’re going to go about the business of gutting your own party, at least have the good sense to do it with a razor instead of an axe.
Rob habitually accuses everyone in sight — Americans, Republicans, “Trump supporters” — of whatever moral deficiency he deems damnable at the moment. It’s a kind of hyperbole not unlike that of our recently departed President; maybe it’s endemic in the entertainment industry. I don’t know. But it’s doing the same kind of thing as using labels irresponsibly, neither accurate nor charitable.
I clicked like on @harrisventures #8 because I think the bulk of what he had to say made sense. I didn’t like the two lines that contained the word “idiots,” because I don’t think anyone on the podcast is an idiot and I wouldn’t say so even if I did. But everything else in the post made sense to me. Peter clicked like on Gary’s post, but Peter was also the fellow in the podcast whose frustration with Rob was obvious. Throwing him under the bus for doing what Peter does — making peace, acknowledging people — is foolish; doing so on the basis of a “like” is just dumb. James has tried to rein Rob in in the past, taken umbrage with Rob’s petulance and tried to steer the discussion where it needs to go, which is away from talk of Trump and on toward talk of other things.
There will be no other conservative party. I don’t trust people who make firm predictions about complex things, but this one is easy. If I were the media arm of the Democratic party — that is, ABCNBCCBSCNNGoogleTwitterFacebook — I would love for a new conservative party to rise. Because I’d already have my pieces ready, thoughtful and seemingly sympathetic pieces designed to confuse the electorate about whether the new conservative party is composed of true Republicans who just need a new home, or of alt-right whack jobs who want to usher in a fascist state in Trump’s own image. It would be absurdly easy to leave the right divided, guaranteeing Democratic victories as long as the two-party nonsense lasts.
So let’s work to improve — not fix, but improve — the Republican party. It seems obvious to me that prattling on about how “my party left me” isn’t productive: it’s a big party with lots of different kinds of people in it, lots of different kinds of people in D.C., even. If you feel a need to take your marbles and go home, take them and go. I’m sorry to see you leave, because we need conservatives to support the only vehicle for getting them into office. But, if you’re going to keep talking about leaving, for God sakes go: smearing forty million allies who don’t share your viewpoint probably isn’t helping the cause.
We’ve got one here who bloviates about Reagan, but who worked to put a monstrous administration in charge of the nation Reagan gave his last years to defend. Let’s all be more like Reagan. Let’s start by not tearing down our own party, by expressing a little optimism instead of painting half the people in the big tent as moral midgets, and by having the self-discipline to just stop talking about the most divisive things (or individuals) and focusing on the goals we have in common.
It saddens me a little that this particular podcast is public face of Ricochet. It brands the site as something it isn’t. The founders plus James are gifted communicators. They need to try harder.
Sadly, this stridency in Never Trumpers is unlikely to subside, as they give up on convincing us that Biden is their fault and try to convince themselves. And all the time, deep down, they’ll know the truth.
I was not aware that the members had elected a cheif spokesman. When did that happen?
Also, (and I can’t believe I actually have to point this out), but “likes” are a blunt instrument — he may be in agreement with some of the comment but not all of it. Maybe ask for clarification before you break out the pitchforks and torches?
If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking. – General George S. Patton (or maybe Ben Franklin. It’s not clear who said it first).
This word has too many meanings now, but there is such a thing as a Republican that can’t get elected without being pretty left. Better them than Democrats.
This is the way I see it.
Great, great song but I don’t get the reference to Liz Cheney. Especially in the context of Trump, who was literally “a millionaire’s son.”
“GOPe” is short-hand for Grand Old Party Establishment and is quite specific, unless of course, you think there is no GOP Establishment, in which case you don’t live in the real world.
“RINO” is short-hand for those who claim membership in the GOP — notice I did not say “GOPe” — but who support Democrats and stereotypical Democrat party positions.
I don’t see anything unreasonable or difficult to understand about the terminology.
And yet, there is always something in the flagship podcast that keeps bringing us back…
We haven’t, but we all know which member speaks for practically none of us.
That’s what the highlight, reply option is for.
“The best way to defend is to attack, and the best way to attack is to attack.” – George S. Patton (who would have bought the entire bar three round of beers were Trump to walk in the door.)
Morbid curiosity?
Yes, I know what the letters stand for. The problem is that these labels aren’t actually very useful — but they serve as handy pejoratives that contribute to strife and division. One man’s RINO is another man’s pragmatic conservative doing what has to be done to move the ball ahead. Same with GOPe.
I know it’s more time-consuming, and probably less satisfying, to talk about specific issues, but I think it serves us better. The Republican Party is no more a monolithic organization than is Ricochet, neither in its membership nor in its leadership. During this podcast, Peter was correct when he spoke of practical Republican politicians doing what they had to do to win a Republican majority. That’s a mature and productive way to look at it. The labels are, like Rob’s hyperbolic excoriation, broad and vague and divisive.
How would you refer to members of the GOP who support Democrat positions? Pragmatists? That’s just another label. Furthermore, how pragmatic can you be without abandoning your “conservative” positions?
Do you believe there is a GOP Establishment? If so, what else can you call them? You’re objections seem pointless to me.
Well, help me out here. I don’t pick the guests. To be honest I am tired of Trump talk, period. While it’s obviously still a relevant topic, it goes to the same place every time. I would have to give a four-minute preamble every time the subject came up to explain where I am on the issue, but A) boring, B) who cares, and C) It would probably still result in getting lumped into one of the two binary views. (I got a letter from a guy last week who was so, so disappointed that I had turned into a “Trump forever” guy.)
Try harder to do what? I’m serious.
I have been harping on this for forever. Identify the problems. Identify the right policy. All of this time spent amateur- analyzing the electorate and complaining about people, it’s almost totally non-efficacious.
Populism and Socialism are a real problem right now for actual reasons. We have corrupt institutions. Work backwards from there to the vote. Going in the other direction is worthless because people get off on certain kinds of political characters without thinking about the policy enough.
Yes. I could write the script for that part and I have no real talent as a writer. I do have a talent for ignoring that part and listening to the rest of the podcast. It’s still worth my time so I think you are trying hard enough.
By the standards that were commonly agreed to until Election Day on November 3, 2020, Liz Cheney was and is one of the most conservative members of Congress and she was a Pro-Trump Conservative.
The only change is that after January 6, 2021, is that Liz Cheney became an Anti-Trump Conservative.
Liz Cheney is still very conservative, all that changed was her attitude towards Trump that changed 180 degrees.
I suspect many members of the GOP support some Democrats support. At what point do they become RINOs? That’s the problem with labels: you’re going to call some folks RINOs that I wouldn’t, and maybe vice versa. It’s a way of saying “he’s not conservative enough for me,” without actually communicating anything other than dissatisfaction. And if you label the guy I’m supporting a RINO, you’ve just created a division between us that probably doesn’t really need to be there. I just think it doesn’t help us work together.
I’m sure there are all different degrees of “membership” in something you’re calling a “GOP Establishment.” And, again, that’s the problem with vague labels. Better to talk about specific individuals and issues, particularly when we’re in a time of division and when coming together to win elections is essential.
Peter was more right than Rob in his comments because Peter understands that the Republican party consists of a lot of different kinds of people, and that it can consist of different kinds and still function to the nation’s benefit. It takes a kind of humility to be willing to accept that compromise is a part of the very imperfect game of politics, and that scorched-earth moralism is rarely a good strategy in a large and diverse country. Not everyone gets that.
I believe that you misheard me. I wanted and want to purge Trump and Trumpism, the tiny circle of Trump advisors who reflexively support whatever Trump says any day, even if it contradicts what he said yesterday. I did not extend that need to purge Trump and Trumpism to Trump Enablers like most of Congress, and certainly not to Trump voters which includes my physician brother and my sainted mother.
Last month a huge shift occurred. After the election, Republicans were asked what the supported most, Trump or the Republican Party. A plurality said last month that they supported Trump more than the party. But this month 50% supported the Republican Party more, and only 44% said that they supported Trump more. Support for Trump is slowly but steadily leaching away.
Trump lost college-educated women in 2018, and college-educated men in 2020. But we will come back to vote for a Republican Party provided that Trump is not its leader.
It is not for you to decide if you will “allow” me back in to the Republican Party. Rush proved that with Operation Chaos in 2008 when he urged Republicans to register as Democrats to cause chaos in the Democratic Primaries. Unlike the Soviet Era Communist Party, or the Chinese Communist Party, the parties in the U.S. cannot veto party membership to any comer. I am here, this is my party and if you want my vote, you will stop braying that you are the Most-Trumpy candidate. Or you will accept the consequences if and when I vote for the less Trumpy candidate
OK, I’ll bite. If you can’t work with them they are RINOs. That’s a practical definition, and the point of division.
On the other term, it is clear to me that Trump was not part of the GOPe. Trump didn’t make them happy, and by “them” I mean those who wanted to purge not only Trump but also his supporters from the party, or were more subtle in their hatred and talked about a “surgical excision”. One can’t avoid these facts by rejecting a label. This has to be settled, and no, I have no idea how that will be done.
I pick the guests (mostly) and I picked Jim to come on to talk about the Liz Cheney drama and the Wuhan lab story, two (of many) topics he has done some very good writing on. But once a guest is on the show and we are rolling, the guys (and the guest) take it where they will. That’s their prerogative.
I do not go in search of #NT guests. Just the opposite, in fact. But that doesn’t mean the topic won’t come up on its own as it did in this show. I think it’s worth pointing out (since NO ONE ELSE has) that Elliot Abrams –himself a pretty staunch #NT’er– went out of his way in his segment to repeatedly praise President Trump and his administration for their foreign policy initiatives in the Middle East. If you’re going to (perhaps deservedly) crush us for the Geraghty segment, how about some props for the Abrams segment? Anyone? Bueller….Bueller?
Like it not, the hosts do represent the range of views on the right. And the feedback we get from private messages and on social media is often quite a bit different from the public comments we get on Ricochet. That’s fine — we understand that our members are probably more partisan than our general listening audience, and you are of course the most important part of the audience to us. But to suggest that it is the only view on the right does not comport with the feedback we get on this show every week.
James, I realize that “this particular podcast” is ambiguous: I meant this particular instance of the program, not the show as a whole.
And the problem I had with it is almost entirely Rob. The rest of it would have been okay. I think Rob’s unwillingness to drop the burn-the-loser-to-the-ground talk about Trump is a bad look right now, and that you and Peter should take him aside, off-line, and work something out so that it stops.
We call this thing The Flagship for a reason. It represents the brand, the whole Ricochet/Silent Cal thing, and if one of the three hosts can’t put the interests of the business ahead of his own disgust with, I don’t know, everything Trump/Trump supporter/GOP, then maybe he should take a break. I’m not saying everyone should be in lock-step, but there are limits to the disrespect one should show when one has an interest in the business. It seems both unprofessional and counter-productive, something I might expect from a member but I wouldn’t expect from a pro. You gentlemen host the show together, and this is, I think, hurting the show, and hence the site, and hence the greater cause.
I wrote a post in response to this show. It’s up near the top of the Member Feed; I don’t expect it to be promoted. The gist of it was that we have to stop talking about Trump and focus on pulling our increasingly diverse conservative voters together. Unsurprisingly, most of the comments are talking about Trump.
I don’t envy you your job.
Afternoon Mr. Lileks,
The most important part of this comment is that we are all chuffed when you jump into the comments. It is one of the better parts of Ricochet, encouraging and flattering. And we would still like you to come over for dinner, maybe not to talk politics with you but to ask your wife who her favorite tennis player is.
As you often do over at the Bleat, the rest of this comment will be generally critical and if you want to bail out, I can understand, who needs more critics.
Starting with the discussion of Cheney, our Mollie tweeted, “That anyone is talking about Cheney is proof of her failure. Her job is to revise money (she doesn’t), stay on message (HA), and not to undermine the caucus (it is all she does). If you are pretending this is only about joining withmedia/Pelosi for impeachment, you’re not serious.” Byron York noted that Cheney is not a team player. Why does no one ask Jim about this, Mollie is on/from this team, what gives.
Jim says Cheney is a principled conservative, are we using Orwellian definitions? Tristan Justice at the “Federalist” writes about Cheney’s role in spreading the rumor about the bounty. https://thefederalist.com/2021/04/16/liz-cheney-was-a-primary-culprit-of-spreading-fake-news-on-russian-bounties-to-undermine-trump/, Glen Greenwald writes about this same issue, https://greenwald.substack.com/p/liz-cheney-lied-about-her-role-in. No one on the panel asks about this. Cheney has particular access to intel info, there is no honorable reason to spread rumors, especially with men in the field.
This aspect of the show was more a commercial for the morning Jolt than a discussion of Cheney.
Asking Jim to comment on the source of the virus is a waste of time, he does not have a nose for this type of analysis. He doesn’t even know why mammals are less susceptible to viruses that reptiles, and reptiles are less susceptible than plants. He does not know bats from white mice.
When Jim suggests that their is a “Cult of Personality”, who is he trying to impress? Does he want to impress those who know the reference with is sharp wit, is he just trying to be cute. Jim scoffs at those who think something about the election smell, perhaps you could have Jim debate Mollie when her book comes out, “Rigged”.
Jim and Rob are repulsed by Trump’s character, it is oft mentioned. Compared to who, FDR having his daughter as the liaison for his affair, Ike, (driver, hardly know ‘er), or JFK, let’s ask Fiddle, Faddle, and Mimi Alford, LBJ, jumbo’s car taker, cop a feel Bush, Clinton, either one, Obama, sniff me Biden. So Jim and Rob are deeply repulsed by Trump, more troubled by that than the Comey coup. There are folks like me who have worked in foundries, on assembly lines, did hot tar roofing and Trump does not offend us. What offends us is that Jim and Rob think we are not competent to judge character, and that their understanding of character is the final word.
To me the bottom line is that I (and speaking for a few others) do not trust Jim or Rob any more that we trust the media. We also note that neither Jim or Rob seemed bothered by this, in that we notice no evidence that they think our opinion matters. Not to be trusted is serious.
There are different types of NeverTrumpers. It is a continuum.
The Lincoln Project folks pretty well have rejected most all Republicans.
The Bulwark is pretty strongly Anti-Trump, but are not Anti-Republican per se. For example Publisher Sarah Longwell started “Republican Voters Against Trump” and she supports Liz Cheney for the Republican Party nomination.
The Dispatch is not Anti-Trump, it is Trump Skeptic. It is an error to even call The Dispatch NeverTrump, because it clearly is not, however Trump and his most fierce acolytes make that mistake, and I think that they do so intentionally. They are pretty quick to point out Biden’s excesses.
Given the Trump Big Lie, the 1/6 Capitol riot, and Trump’s three hour refusal to call off his supporters, a vote as a Biden Republican makes sense. But remember that the Reagan Democrats were coaxed back into their party when Democrats did not nominate a Northern Liberal, but a southern Governor for President in 1992, in a convention that did not feature Jimmy Carter. The Republican Party can coax back the Biden Republicans with a Non-Trumpy Republican Governor, like Larry Hogan or Doug Ducey, or a formerly Trumpy Republican former Governor who rejected Trump after the 1/6 Capitol Riot like Chris Christie or Nikki Haley.
You can win this, just not with Trump.
He is always interesting.
Would you have a problem with “GOPt” for Trump Republicans now that they are a minority of the party?
Name of your sex tape!
I’m sure you will be glad to read what Alex Marlow says about this when his book comes out this week. Trump lost because of Zuckerberg’s operation and the terrible GOP response to Democrat lawfare. That’s setting aside the deep state operation and the media.
no.
You are speaking as if the entire membership thinks monolithically on this particular issue. That does not comport with the feedback we receive every week.
Once more: I don’t go looking for NT guests. It’s not a topic I feel any need or desire to discuss. At all. I look for guests who have expertise or experience on a particular topic or area in the news that week. But the show is not scripted and once we are recording, it is an improvisation. That’s just the nature of the beast.
How about we simply start making snide sexually laden comments about each other’s mother? Wouldn’t that be an easier way to foster warm feelings and a sense that we’re all in this together?
Jesus. Henry. Christ.