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The Ricochet Podcast has returned from the high seas and this week it’s all about you, the Ricochet Member. Rob, James, and Peter answer your questions on the election, the best way to deal with the opposition, the way forward for the GOP, who takes care of Rob’s dog when he’s galavanting around the globe, and much more. Thanks to everyone who submitted questions, we’ll do this again in a few months.
Music from this week’s episode:
- God Only Knows by The Beach Boys
The Ricochet Podcast opening theme was composed and produced by James Lileks.
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I am listening again to the Podcast, without the LiveChat going on. I have to say, it is much easier to listen to the Podcast without trying to keep up with the LiveChat.
You know, I was an AV guy for 3 years in college.
I would set up all the films, watch the one I wanted to (Satyijat Ray, Akira Kurusawa come immediately to mind), and even have time to troll the classrooms for enough cans & bottles to buy a Burger Basket & Chocolate Milkshake at the Student Rec Center.
I guess I am a Geek.
Yippee! My long run on Sunday just got better!
Thanks, all.
Peter: I didn’t set out to irk you, but I do enjoy your energy and conviction when you get all fired up — so as long as Rob and James enjoyed it too, then no real harm done I guess?
Having forums like Ricochet where we can hash out fine points of policy within our broadly defined philosophical umbrella (they make great stocking stuffers) is absolutely valuable. My concern is the people we tend to forget exist until after the disappointing election results come in, whose only exposure to conservative ideas is filtered through pop-culture caricatures. (I can personally confirm that such people exist. I’ve encountered many of them.)
The flavor of the unread remainder of my question was: What are the most effective ways to get our unfiltered presentation of our values, philosophy, and irresistable redefinition of “cool” in front of the eyes and ears of people who won’t actively go looking for conservative sites, blogs, and publications? Do movies matter most? Music? Rob Long sitcoms? Are all of these cultural approaches more likely to prompt an “oh, that’s conservatism?” a-ha than sending opinion pieces to unsympathetic newspapers?
I had to Google what the whole Ginger VS Mary Ann question was about!
Fun show as always.
What are the most effective ways to get our unfiltered presentation of our values, philosophy, and irresistable redefinition of “cool” in front of the eyes and ears of people who won’t actively go looking for conservative sites, blogs, and publications?
I think we need to get to people where and how they live. Innocuous sound bites and icons, both old school and new tech. Billboards, bumber stickers, Google Ads, YouTube videos. Piggyback on popular media and appeal to short attention spans. Start with simple, abstract ideas that appeal to everyone, like being wealthy and successful. Then invent icons and catch phrases to capture those simple ideas. Then plaster those icons everywhere. But do not directly or overtly connect the images and sound bites to conservatism, libertarianism, or the Republican party — at least not at first. Create “cool” and then claim ownership later. We already have the right products; we don’t have a good brand. We need to go viral.
We were joking about this on Rico-chat yesterday, but the more I think about it, the better the idea sounds. I was in Whole Foods last week (which is rare for me). I was amazed at how many people were buying organic without really knowing what organic really means. Organic = Cool. Whole Foods = Healthy and Eco- friendly. We need to look like Whole Foods and stop showing people what the warehouse looks like.
So no GLoP (GoldPoLo) podcast too?
Gold Polo!
That’s even better than GLoP.
That’s what you should call that particular Podcast from now on.
And this should be its Logo:
You don’t know about Ginger and Maryann?
I shall never speak with you again!
Next thing you know you don’t know about the long running rivalry between Agents Scully and Dunham!
Fun show as always. ·1 hour ago
Edited 1 hour ago
Ok, if we will not stop spending untill we can’t borrow, then lets default. Ok that is a MSM lie on default we will not default if we don’t raise the debt ceilling but seriously. The Republican platform should be we will never raise the debt ceiling except for a war.
Thank You, thank you for answering my question James! It was worth my year membership to hear you savage the Whos down in Whoville and wax rhapsodic over Vince Garauldi.
Start with simple, abstract ideas that appeal to everyone, like being wealthy and successful. Then invent icons and catch phrases to capture those simple ideas. … We already have the right products; we don’t have a good brand. We need to go viral.
…
We need to look like Whole Foods and stop showing people what the warehouse looks like.
All excellent points. We need to get the message through to the “Rock the Vote” generation: Submission ain’t rock ‘n roll, baby.
Happy to oblige! They were all great questions, and I wish we would’ve gotten two more. But you know us – we get to talkin’. It’s almost as if we enjoy the sound of our voices.
We need to get the message through to the “Rock the Vote” generation: Submission ain’t rock ‘n roll, baby. ·56 minutes ago
Bill Whittle refers to this as “going forward to our traditions”.
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-stratosphere-lounge
I enjoy the podcast, but I have to disagree with Rob that the country has been drifting leftward since the 1930s. I think we forget the battles we have won over the past decades.
Peter’s point that it is important to have a place to discuss conservative views is exactly true in my experience with Ricochet. Rob mentioned he is more of a center conservative, which I suppose I am, but I have valued the more conservative views. They teach and remind. You Americans assume Ricochet is about America. I did not know American politics or history so the bottle you tossed out in your podcasts came along to me. I liked the people and chat. Then I was intrigued with the historic and pop culture references. Your core values fit mine and I was reading and watching American media since I was a child. I think Ricochet could do what Levi jeans did, set a global standard. So don’t forget the foreigners!
Re Rob Long’s remark that letting Obama have his way is childish:
Maybe, but it may also be the best thing to do considering the circumstances. What are the circumstances?
1. The MSM is the propaganda apparatus of the Democrat Party, which is the symbiont of the federal government. Nothing the GOP does, says or conspires to do or say will absolve it of the blame for everything that goes wrong under the Obama Regime. To this the MSM will see. Is this unfair? Yes. Is it nevertheless reality? Yes.
2. If one is to receive all of the blame for everything blameworthy regardless of what one does or says, then one must adopt a modified standard operating procedure. First, learn to anticipate and interdict your opponents’ moves well in advance. Second, admit complicity only in the lesser crimes while implicating your accomplices in the greater crimes. Third, get your stories straight before you have to tell them, and keep everyone on script. No stupid mistakes or innocent slip-ups. No one in this game is innocent.
Wake up and grow up. Things in America are not as they once were or should be. Adapt and overcome.
Rob is correct, you cannot let the Lefties have a free hand for two reasons:
The ratchet: It only goes one way. There’s no going back once some new program goes into effect. And even the sort of harmless looking things like EPA, Headstart, the 59 redundant job training programs, all go off the rails and eventually wield power and command budgets that would never pass the laugh test if known at the outset. We saw this in action in the first two years of the Obama administration and we’ll be saddled with the Affordable Care Act for a long time.
The second thing is that if we can constrain the Left’s impulses for a couple more years, we may get to watch the EU implode. When that happens, checks will stop going out. Really. One of these bi weekly rounds of earnest negotiations to stave off Mediterranean disaster is going to end with Germany saying No. There will be crippling upheaval and hardship across the continent when the house of cards collapses. EU economies are unstable when things are going well, but introduce the recession that that’s now underway and things will get bad fast.
These seem like tiny victories more than anything else. We’ve still got trillions of dollars of debt, and the country just relected the most leftwing president in history, and confirmed its desire for socialized medicine.
To me, this is what losing looks like. How can you say we’re “doing fine?”
In retrospect, my question re part of the intro being a sampler of Bruckner’s Ninth was kinda dumb, I should have compared keys – the intro is a C, whereas Bruckner opening tremelo is a D. Well, at least despite my idiocy I made it into a podcast!
Sadly, I have to agree with Rob that we kid ourselves when we think, “this will be the last straw and then people will see things our way”. I was counting on Obama’s first 4 years to be that last straw. It just never happens.
I also agree that having well-run States is probably the best we can do right now. If there’s a big enough success gap between our 30 and their 20, maybe we can make it 31 or 32 next time. That’s at least something.
Bill Whittle refers to this as “going forward to our traditions”.
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-stratosphere-lounge ·November 30, 2012 at 9:18am
Thanks. I’m versed, and a longtime fan of Bill’s work. And yes, I like tri-cornered hats as much as the next guy, but I agree with what he’s said on TSL: we’re going to need more that that to “win the future”.
I’d love to see the modern re-imagining of the Revolutionary War that Bill described, with the Founders sporting Armani suits and laser-scoped rifles. Hollywood could make a summer box office door-buster out of that, if it cared to.
I’ve got a small contribution of my own in the works, along the lines of what Bill is thinking. The culture is indeed the key battleground at this point.
James, sadly, is wrong about Ginger vs Maryann. Maryann was a farm girl and had seen the animals doing what comes naturally etc, she knew the score. Ginger, on the other hand, had the breathy voice and all, but she never actually DID anything. And remember when she got back to Hollywood in the first movie, and tried to get back into her acting career, she wouldn’t even wear a skimpy negligee etc let alone actual nudity.
I’m going to have to take a break from this podcast again, Peter’s tap-tap-tapping/thump-thump-thumping really gets on my nerves. And my computer speakers don’t like it either. Some things, it seems, just don’t get corrected.
Peter? Peter, look over here.
WHAP!
Knock it off, willya?
Perhaps the key part of letting Obama and the other Dems “have what they want” is that ANY kind of “compromise” that gives them LESS than that, will be blamed – on the Republicans – for the inevitable failure. The ONLY way to make it CLEAR to a widespread population with a majority IQ of 100 or less by definition, that Obama’s policies especially WILL NOT WORK, is to SHOW IT. You’ll never TALK them out of it. It’s similar to what I wrote previously about Scott Walker’s success in Wisconsin vs the failure to make similar changes in Ohio.
Coming in late, but I just got to this podcast, and Rob overlooked something that was mentioned in a previous “show” too: a big part of why Scott Walker beat recall is that the public-employee-union reforms were able to work for something like a whole year first. If the recall had been done as soon as they were passed, before even the dimmest unionista could see that they WORKED, he probably would have been thrown out.
And the problem with that is, President Romney or Rubio or Headroom or whoever, won’t get a chance to show that their policies WORK, FIRST.