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, we go deep on North Korea with AEI’s Nicholas Eberstadt and Salena Zito tells us not to break out the surf boards quite yet — that blue wave may not be so big after all. Also, Rudy can’t fail and Peter Robinson gets schooled on Kanye. Yo.
Music from this week’s podcast: Rudi Can’t Fail by The Clash
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.
Oh I get why evangelicals or anyone voted for Trump in the General Election even though I couldn’t do it myself. It is why those evangelicals voted for Trump in the Primaries that baffles me and to be frank, really upsets me. I think they were conned and DID think Trump was a good guy. Now they have to defend that vote in the primary and do it by saying he’s not Hillary. Doesn’t wash with me.
I can help you out with the JFK/ Trump thing.
JFK and Trump both know what it takes to get the American economy moving. The alternative was the sort of Stalinist regime that prosecuted the Little Sisters of the Poor. AND while doing that made every non-politician in the country poorer.
Wake up! JFK, Trump, Obama, you are never having them to your house for dinner. What decisions they make are what matters. Their personal lives and that means 98% of what you hear about in the “news”
is stupid, irrelevant who sits at the cool kids table in the high school lunch room noise.
Pay attention to what matters.
Good heavens, @peterrobinson. I am older than you, haven’t had a TV in 32 years, have never watched the Grammys … but even I know who Kanye West is.
I was well aware of his name for years; recently Scott Adams, Candace Owens and Dave Rubin have all spoken of him as someone culturally important, so I’ve begun to pay a lot more attention.
This is a reoccurring theme among Trump critics and the one that drives me up the wall. Like Hillary’s “deplorables” and Mitt’s “47%” it’s impolitic, insulting and needless. If you care about keeping evangelicals and Trump supporters inside a long-term conservative coalition you’ve got to stop the talk of Trump as con man and his supporters as gullible and/or stupid marks.
The missing question among other elected GOP officials and conservative commentators is this: What was it that caused large and important swaths of conservative voters to gravitate towards Donald Trump in the first place? They don’t ask this question because they know they’re not going to like the answer.
The answer is they feel like they were already conned. For forty years the GOP promised them so many things: Less government, defunding political enemies (such as Planned Parenthood, PBS, NPR, the National Endowment for the Arts/Humanities, etc.), killing Obamacare, and not just free trade, but a level playing field for American workers. And what they got was bupkis. In fact, the GOP trade policies were disastrous for many states and communities. And worse, their response to that was, is and continues to be callousness. (Hey! Cheap trinkets at Walmart!) They listen to the “experts,” they listen to each other, but they refuse to listen to the voters – which is something Ms. Zito has been doing for years.
Not only did they feel conned by the professional politicians, but they look at conservative commentators as their fellow grifters. They were the ones who sidled up to you after the sales pitch and closed the deal. “You can trust him! I invested and I made thousands!”
If the conservative cause is to go forward there’s going to have to be more introspection of why you got Donald Trump and less bitching about the fact that you did get Donald Trump (and who you want to blame for that.)
Meanwhile, if you want to complain about the president he gives you plenty of targets. Debate the style, debate the policy, but stop the unending criticism of the voters. You may need them in the future.
Deaf ears, EJ . They hate us for not being them and Wil hate us forever. I know in my heart I am despised by my betters. Their contempt is clear with every post.
Hey I don’t work for either party. If I think people were conned I’m going to say so. I also think Trump supporters are fools if they think Trump is the solution to anything. Trump IS a professional politician. The voters want to be conned. They fall for it every time. So you can all see yourselves as being full of virtue because you listen to the voters. I don’t have to pretend. The voters have chosen poorly by coming up with the 2 worst choices possible and then telling me I consider myself some sort of elite if I say no thanks, I think you’re all nuts. I can’t bring the conservative cause forward. Not my job. But you carry on.
Speaking only for myself.
I voted for Trump. I had no problem with it – every choice in life is between bad and not so bad. Maybe you need to be Irish?
that having been said, had I known then what I know now about a Trump presidency, I’d have been knocking on doors for the guy pre- and post- primary.
You may not work for a party or a politician but politics is the art of persuasion. That’s not going to cut it. If you want more polarization and more discord then you may be on to something.
You and I simply disagree with who was bad and who was not so bad. And I’m sorry if you have only had bad choices. There are good choices. Maybe not in politics.
Don’t speak too soon. It is not over yet.
I’m not a politician and I’m not trying to persuade anyone. Simply saying it the way I see it. You really think we could be any more polarized? You may be happy with how things are going. I’m not. I was advised to focus on what’s important. Well I think it is important to have some character in the President of the United States. Like James I also wonder if there is anything Trump could do or say that would make you say that’s too much. Also that Democrats can’t come up with anything better than a community organizer, an old Marxist and a corrupt old harridan. We need to do better. We need to vote better.
Well, you can preach it or you can persuade people you’re right. But since you’re not in the persuasion business all I can tell you is, “Good luck with that.”
I wish you luck too because nobody on here has managed to bring me over to the Trump side either and there are plenty who agree with me too. Oh not amongst the ones on here. You won’t do that by writing NeverTrumpers off as elites or idealists as many have done.
Just so we’re clear:
A. I don’t regard the majority of Trump voters (or Trump skeptics who later moved to the supporter column) as deplorables, b/c I probably know more Trump supporters personally than Trump supporters know right-wing NeverTrumpers. I get it. Their election decision wasn’t mine and vice versa, and as far as being a factor my regard for them, it’s below their opinion in the Real Mayo vs. Miracle Whip debate.
B. I understand why evangelicals et al would vote and support Trump over the alternative; I don’t understand their seeming indifference to his character and behavior. Or is all that stuff about family and marriage just BS for the groundlings?
I said at the start of the podcast that I don’t care about the Stormy Daniels stuff because it’s no surprise, and there are more important issues in the world. But I do care in the sense that a sui generis POTUS like DJT has the effect of dragging all the standards down.
Perhaps some day you’ll have to choose between Kurt’s camp – with its awesome powers of persuasion – or be cast into the shadow realm of the Fredocons, but for now it’s still possible to laud what’s done well without losing sight of the standards we’d like our kids to believe in.
i am not an evangelical, so not speaking for them
But I’m curious how you would like those people who are not indifferent to his behavior (speaking of the Daniels situation) but still support him as president to behave?
I have inlaws who are evangelicals and I know they disapprove of my son who lives with his girlfriend and friends of ours who are a gay married couple
When my son’s name comes up they don’t say: bummer he’s living in sin. And they are friendly and polite to our gay friends.
Does that mean their standards have slipped or that their beliefs about family values are BS?
I don’t think so.
For them to be consistent, should they shun my son and my gay friends?
I quite enjoyed Peter’s laughing fit.
ANALYSIS: True
Government is how we steal from each other.
This is a hopeless notion. I don’t like that fact, but there is nothing that you can do.
Democracy, the God That’s Failing
Woodrow Wilson centralized the government and now we are all screwed. It’s all about stealing from each other and pushing each other around around with voting and K Street.
@jameslileks I am a pro-Trump evangelical. How I see it:
You can pick up the ball in the opposite goal line and still run it the length of the field for a touchdown.
I thought that Christianity means that we all realize that we are desperately in sin and all need a Savior. This was clarified for me when I heard the story that Billy Graham’s wife Ruth was once asked if she ever thought of divorce. No, she said. Murder yes, but never divorce. Do you think it was easy to live with Billy Graham? Heh. No more easy than to live with any of the rest of us.
The moral preening actually disgusts me more than Trump and his insufficiencies: 1) Call me crazy but looking back I can’t see who else could have won that election. 2) All the presidents have had moral failings we just didn’t have this vast endless universe of electrons to bandy it all about and have our eyes and ears pounded continually with the sordid details. 3) The Yin and Yang of good and bad always come as a pair — and maybe I did get this point exactly right but I’ll keep listening to Jordan Peterson. 4) Trump is actually working to clean up the mess of previous administrations, which as far as I can tell was putting the Constsitution and god knows what else through the shredder. 5) Trump’s unique New York style seems to keep the media in a mad cow disease type of frenzie. 6) The Left’s relentless attacks on everything Trump just has to mean he is doing good things. 7) Mike Pense is great but see point 1. 8) If/when the Left regains power they’ll make Barry, Hillary, and Valerie look saccharine.
I have liked this podcast only because of the phrase, “Levantine intrigue.” That would also make a good name for a band.
I’ve heard Nicholas Eberstadt on other podcasts and wish he was able to stay on the line longer. He seems knowledgeable while being humble enough not to over speculate about any outcomes from possible negotiations with North Korea.
Mr. Eberstadt mentioned a “civil war” in South Korea between conservatives and progressives, which I thought was interesting terminology. Do those terms have the same meaning in the South Korean context as they do in the U.S.?
From what I have read elsewhere, the older South Korean population skews toward the progressive viewpoint, while younger people are generally more skeptical of Korean unification due to economic concerns.
Mr. Eberstadt seems to cast a wary eye toward immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea. I can understand why, considering Pres. Trump’s many statements about bring overseas troops home. If the South Korean government succumbs to this, I hope they are prepared for what might come next.
What, if any, are the indications that North Korea is abandoning the doctrine of Juche? Or that North Korea has in any meaningful way, abandoned their goal of One Korea (with you-know-who no doubt head of state)? I had hoped those questions would have been presented.
Oh well, you don’t get everything you want. It was still an excellent program — or a fraction (.5) of a program.
Yeah, I was coming here to say that even with Peter’s well-known lack of pop culture awareness, I was a little surprised to hear him say he had never heard Kanye’s name. It’s not that he should have to, it’s just that he and is wife are so pushed on us in the media (though it is just like ignoreable background noise when your checking email etc) .
We’ll have him back on soon.
Thanks for this, James. I would call this Schlichter jumping the shark. I generally like him, so I hope he doesn’t continue with this tone.
I think that you do understand my seeming indifference to the President’s character and behavior. I think that I’ve heard you talk about it. I understood these things when I decided, very reluctantly, to vote for him. New revelations like Stormy Daniels do not add any relevant new information.
From my perspective, it seems that the only reason for my fellow conservatives to focus on such revelations is to aid in the undermining of the President’s agenda, which I think that we agree has been better than expected.
So when news stories appear, the proper reaction is: OK, that’s bad behavior. We all thought that he did such things. I had a choice between this mess and the Clinton Catastrophe. I’m going to stick with this guy and focus on the positive.
And don’t tell me that he’s dragging the Presidency to new lows. I don’t think that Trump is any more boorish than LBJ, and at least he hasn’t had any affairs while in office, as far as we know, as did FDR and JFK and Clinton.
I find that Andrew Klavan has just the right tone in his reactions to the President. Peter Robinson is pretty good, too.
I was well aware of Kanye mostly from this, in 2009, when he interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for a video award because he thought Beyonce should have won:
Now, he did apologize. Beyonce handled it with great class, inviting Swift to join her on stage when she won a later award.
Unfortunately, it seems to me that Beyonce’s music and videos are horrid cultural crack. It’s something close to pole dancing with lyrics glorifying sexual promiscuity. I’m not a fan, so I don’t watch or listen to her much. She is such an amazing talent, as she showed in Dreamgirls, that to see her descend to such debauchery is heartbreaking.
I actually think that the 2009 video that Kanye was praising was one of Beyonce’s best messages, called “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It).” At least it had a pro-marriage theme, sort of. But this is just a sign of how depraved the culture has become. Here it is (with subtitles, since I can’ understand much of the lyrics):
Contrast this with the wholesome sweetness of Taylor Swift’s winning video, “You Belong With Me”:
Do you see what we’re up against?
And yeah, the boy in the Taylor Swift video did play one of the good guys in X-Men: First Class.
By the way, it’s worse than I thought. Taylor Swift won Best Female Video for “You Belong With Me.” But Beyonce later won Video of the Year for “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)”
I remember the controversy. As mentioned, have never watched the Grammies (is that how you spell it?); read about it after.
Kanye got on my radar thanks to Dave Rubin, Scott Adams and Candace Owens.
I am a sucker for unlikely heroes and I predict Kanye is going to be one.
There are some that have been preaching the message for years and not getting much traction in the right demo (Sowell and Elder come to mind). Thanks to Kanye, people are now reading Sowell and listening to J Peterson. How is this not a good thing?
For Shapiro to be tweeting out commands on who Kanye and Candace O should be associating with is ridiculous.
Elder has impressed me more than anyone on Twitter – a guy who truly believes his message and is thrilled to have Kanye on board. Many others sound like spoiled brats annoyed that Kanye is getting attention.
Annefy, I agree about the positive possibilities if Kanye comes around, as he may well be doing. I didn’t really mean to be critical of him. It just launched me into contemplation of the more horrid elements of our popular culture in recent years.
James left out the an important detail when explaining Kayne to Peter. He’s also a gay fish (language warning).
The setup from the South Park episode is that Jimmy comes up with the greatest joke, “A: Do you like fish sticks? B: Yeah. A: Then you’re a gay fish”. As the joke sweeps the nation, the egotist Kayne is asked the question on a late night show. Not getting the joke and constantly being asked if he likes fish sticks, Kayne comes out as a gay fish at the end of the episode and enters the sea.
I almost mentioned the South Park stuff. He also starts to learn he is engaged to a hobbit (Kim K.):
Indifference? As Annefy asked: what do you expect them to actually do to show their disapproval? Shoot themselves in the foot politically? What would that prove and to whom would it be proven?
Family and marriage BS? That’s a question we social conservatives have been asking of the rest of the coalition for a long time now, as we have lost ground on all fronts in the culture wars. We lost most of those fights, so now it’s our failing to not throw a tantrum every time that fact is made obvious? We can get along in the fallen world without our noses always pointing to the sky out of distaste and disdain, snootiness.
Dragging the standards down? Depends on which standards you’re referring to. Reagan was divorced dontcha know. Some of our revered Founders also had mistresses, some of them even slaves. Actually, I assume that most powerful men had mistresses which they wanted to keep private. Or are you talking about decorum? Yes, the Bushes were exemplary on that score, though that didn’t earn them either success or respect either culturally or politically.