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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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Increasingly, I think the evolution of the journalistic class from reporters to professional pundits is an unfortunate development, in that they do represent a particular class — a kind of intellectual elite — that, I believe, finds it harder and harder to be in sympathy with normal people. Not everyone, obviously, and there are plenty of normal people who are outliers as well. But when they are correcting us, rather than listening to us — as, Jim, you suggest here — I begin to think we’ve lost something important.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t terrific people. College professors are terrific people too. I just don’t want any of them telling me how to think.
Here’s another Republican, Winsome Sears, who would be interesting to interview on the podcast about the future of the party, what she thinks key issues are, what’s the current state of outreach to new voters, and how to better reach new R voters. Also, she’s in the midst of running for the Lt. Governor of Virginia (so beltway types will be interested too!), and greater exposure is always good. As a historical aside, she brings up a fascinating fact about the location of the first Republican Party state convention in Virginia in 1865.
Geraghty’s “analysis” of the Texas special election ignores that not only did “golden” candidate Michael Wood place like 5th among Republicans, he also came in behind 4 Democrats.
The more Winsome Sears, the better.
This woman is fabulous. We need more like her regardless of color.
This is by far the best thing I’ve seen on the Liz Cheney situation
https://audioboom.com/posts/7867500-republican-on-republican-fisticuffs-including-the-liz-cheney-controversy-davidmdrucker-johnfund
ricochet is probably my most consistently listened to podcast. diverse opinions and thoughts are healthy to consider. however, during this episode, mr long disparages president trump as a loser, etc… not new for mr. long. however, mr long’s argument against the continued support for president trump’s policies is tainted by an obvious emotional dislike for president trump. president trump’s policies were more in line with president Reagan. certainly president George w. bush had less in common with president Reagan than president trump. one may not like the persona of president trump, but he was certainly NOT a loser. after all, he won the presidency in 2016. and the reference to his “cult of personality”, though I can understand why mr long might use that descriptive, is derogatory, placing him in league with Stalin or Mao. this is a bit hyperbolic, don’t you think. if one wants to end one’s “negative emotional” attachment that continually causes one to berate president trump, just simply stop mentioning him. talk about his policies, why people may still support him, but stop talking about him. the more you practice this sort of abstinence, the easier it will get and you will likelier be happier in the end.
Ronald Reagan would not be spewing out a bunch of GOP boiler plate, which is what Trump haters do when you ask them about policy. He was really into Austrian economics, and I can promise you he would evaluate the world more like Trump et. al. than the GOPe.
I suppose he would feel left out but the GOP is NOT seriously conservative. I feel left out because I have no use for a cult of personality.
Something should be done.
Is it possible that, if there even was a “cult,” it was a “cult” of PERFORMANCE, not personality?
And why shouldn’t people be enamored of actual PERFORMANCE when all they usually get is talk, and some degree of betrayal?
What PERFORMANCE? When the the tax bill was passed, he was pushing on an open door. The GOP held both houses of Congress. Paul Ryan practically wrote the bill. It easily passed both houses. The GOP had a majority which Trump inherited. He didn’t create it. The vote was mostly along party lines – 13 Republicans in the House voted against the bill. No Democrats in either house voted for it. Trump didn’t have to fight for it hardly at all. Passing the tax bill was hardly a masterwork of performance.
He underperformed fiscally. He never even tried to restrain spending. Did he get an immigration bill passed? Nope – no performance there. He got the revised NAFTA treaty done but there’s a reason Nancy Pelosi backed it. He just tacked onto the treaty some provisions Democrats had long wanted. Did he ever offer a health care plan? No. Paul Ryan offered Trump the border adjustment tax as a way to pay for the wall but Trump rejected that idea which is fine. He didn’t have to accept Ryan’s proposal but he never offered an alternative. Instead he diverted defense spending which is Constitutionally problematic. The matter is still making it’s way through the courts. His other trade negotiations, with China, yielded nothing. He fought for Kavanaugh which is good, but so did the entire GOP Senate caucus. Even Susan Collins stood by Kavanaugh. He got a lot of good judges passed but that had more to do with McConnell and the repeal of the judicial filibuster. McConnell was able to repeal the filibuster for SC nominees because he had a majority, again, which Trump inherited. Others made that happen. Almost Trump’s last act as president was to cost the GOP their Senate majority. As a leader of the party he was Obama-like – his UNDERPERFORMANCE was massive..
Operation Warp Speed is a feather in his cap but the vaccine was built on a lot of research that had already been happening. Pfizer didn’t participate in OWS because they didn’t need the government’s money. If he could have restrained himself during the pandemic, he would have been a more effective leader. His constant need to be the center of attention undermined him and his leadership.
Trump spent most of is presidency tweeting and writing Executive Orders. He liked to fight with people like Rosie O’Donnell and Mika Bzrezinski. So there’s that. Both Rosie and Mika are ditzes but his feuds with them did nothing to advance the public interest.
The key word is at the end of that phrase. Every achievement is “Yes, but”.
Neither party can do anything about this. It would cause a recession. You can’t be idealistic about conservatism under a bubble creating Fed discretionary mandate.
The GOP had eight years and three months to get ready for the moment. There is plenty of blame to spread around everywhere.
Yes there is and I blame McCain more than most for the fiasco. He broke faith with his voters when he voted against the “skinny repeal”.
Trump torpedoed the first GOP proposal as “too mean”. At that point and because he was the freaking Republican president, after all, he had a responsibility to offer an alternative. He never did.
He didn’t know a damn thing about it. He didn’t study it enough before he started pressing for it. I’m sure he would have found it tedious, most everybody else does.
All of them should have just stood down for a year and held some town halls about how we got into this mess.
The ACA is going to force single-payer because nobody had the guts to wipe out employer-based insurance when we had the chance.
I never expected or even wanted a balanced budget. If all he did was reduce the red ink, that would have been a success. We had low energy prices (which function like a tax cut), low interest rates and lower taxes throughout his presidency. Trillion dollar deficits weren’t needed to stave off a recession.
I’m not going to get into a big argument about it, but the government has to generate a certain amount of debt or the economy starts going in reverse. It’s a gigantic asset bubble.
The last chance for Austrian idealism was over two decades ago. Alan Greenspan started it.
Again I didn’t expect or even want a balanced budget. I wasn’t proposing Austrian idealism. We didn’t need trillion dollar deficits. I didn’t think that was all that controversial a position.
Neither one of us can prove our position. I watched videos about this all of the time and it is a big problem. Our last shot to fix this was a long time ago.
If an employer wants to offer health care as part of its benefits package, why is that anyone’s business? The government’s only action would be to tax the value of that benefit as ordinary income.
This gets really complicated but here is the problem. People need to be in a pool. People that buy it on the open market can’t be in a pool or a group or whatever you want to call it. The second thing is employer-based insurance does get some government subsidy in multiple ways. People that make less money actually get some subsidy out of the US treasury.
They need to wipe it all out and just do a transparent subsidy straight out of the US treasury.
It’s a political and structural mess.
If an individual company or group of related companies create a pool for their employees, it’s no one’s business, least of all the government’s. The government should stay out of it — no subsidies — and not have the power to prohibit it.
***If you can’t get every single person into an actuarial pool***, it’s going to force single payer. People can’t change jobs or start businesses because of this stuff. Then they do all of those dumb pre-existing condition laws anyway, which ends up being regressive taxation. The whole ACA has just increased the regressive taxation nature of our health insurance system. It’s stupid. If everyone that needed it got a simple subsidy out of the US treasury it would be done with progressive taxation.
I should also add that these people get subsidized out of corporate profits as well.
Isn’t employer provided health insurance a by-product of government intervention? I thought that wage freezes during the FDR administration had employers offer insurance as a way to increase benefits without increasing wages.
That’s the story I’ve always heard.
I’m not following you. My salary was subsidized out of corporate profits. So? And nothing “forces” single payer. The nation may choose it, but nothing forces it.
A real discussion would require that we drop the stupid stuff about insuring against pre-existing conditions. You don’t buy collision insurance after the car wreck. So the real problem is “health care” and not “health insurance”. No; I don’t have a solution.
They had wage controls during World War II, and then they let them do that for critical industries. Then in the 50s when the VA got overwhelmed because they didn’t plan any of that free healthcare out, they made it deductible to take that pressure off.
They start all of the central planning and they don’t think it through
A person with bad health and a low salary is effectively getting a subsidy. In the same company, somebody with a high salary and good health is sort of getting screwed.
I mean politically.