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Are minorities leaving the G.O.P. or are are white voters in general just going the way of the Dodo bird? That’s the question we ponder (Rob Long ponders it at a chi chi bar in Manhattan as you’ll hear). The we chat about the debate with Ramesh Ponnuru and about Tim Kaine’s weird position on abortion rights. Later, Jim Geraghty, the Morning Jolt newsletter author (and host of the Three Martini Lunch podcast), joins to discuss the N.F.L.’s sinking ratings and whether they have to do with the injection of politics into the game. Also, the state of the Presidential race, the fight for Congress, and courtesy of Ricochet member @rushbabe49, our podcasters reveal their happiest memory. Spoiler alert: one isn’t very happy.
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Music from this week’s podcast: Yap, Yap, Yap by Squeeze
The brand new opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced by James Lileks.
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Ouch, EJHill!
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I thought it was funny that after he told you the correct pronunciation was “Ramaysh” you guys morphed his name into “Rameesh” for the rest of the podcast.
Peter asked about college football rankings. It’s an entirely different animal than the NFL.
There are four times as many Division I football teams than there are teams in the NFL. Take an area like Dallas, Texas. You root for the Cowboys on Sunday but Saturday’s are divided between Baylor, Texas Tech, SMU, the Longhorns and others, depending on where you went to school. That translates to naturally smaller ratings to begin with. 4’s and 5’s are fantastic but 1’s and 2’s are more the norm. At least for the regular season.
Probably why the poor guy settled for one of two being pronounced correctly.
Laziest segues yet. I’m cancelling …
Actually I’ll give up some of the segue skits (a fond funny two-man show) for more Lileks’ analysis. Brilliant on the destructiveness of the post-war national consensus. Mercifully truncated Rob’s rapturous compliments for MLK’s national vision.
Thanks for the education, EJ. Am I correct, though, that the whole take-a-knee-during-the-anthem thing has not spread to college football?
Depends on the school. Two weeks ago at North Carolina there was a student section wearing black and using the black power/Communist raised fist. At least one member of the UNC band took a knee.
Most college teams are not on the field during the anthem. They usually retreat to their locker room after warmups and return for the run out of the tunnel after the anthem has been played.
Addendum: The Big Ten does have its players on the field for the anthem. There have been some protests at Michigan and Michigan State.
This weekend, some members of the East Carolina band took a knee, and the backlash has been swift. The fans in the stands booed the band loudly. One radio affiliate won’t carry this weekend’s game, and the university President has told fans and alums that it won’t happen again. That sounds like a threat to scholarships to me. Good.
This podcast underscores a fundamental problem with the Republican party, that for any gain the go-to response is, “what can we do to nullify our very existence?”
Case in point: At 4:25, the very first issue of the podcast, the conversation is about Michael Medved’s claim that Donald Trump, the 2016 presidential candidate, should he win, will be impeached. With a Republican congress.
‘Couldn’t impeach Obama, no no no. ‘Couldn’t impeach Hillary, no no no. Trump is the one to impeach.
[expletive][expletive][expletive]
The Democrats don’t do that, they actually try to win.
Sometimes when I listen to Rob on these podcasts I facepalm so hard one of these days I will give myself a concussion.
His idea that Tim Kaine should have made Mike Pence squirm by saying how can you defend that man. Do you not realize that Pence could have done the exact same thing back to Kaine? And in the process brought up all of the things the Clinton campaign doesn’t want to talk about. Like her emails, like Bengahzi, like the Clinton Foundation and pay for play, like the bimbo eruptions, like well you get the point.
Oh yes, Rob Long, everybody who came back from WW II knew that they had all been on the same side – except for the “conchies,” the conscientious objectors to the war. Folks like Lew Ayres and Dick Contino.
Conscientious objectors is an accurate self-description for the NeverTrump crowd.
I hope our present-day conchies don’t expect that the troops who fought in this election will be eager to welcome them back – or more incredibly to make them colonels and generals in charge of strategy – after this battle.
You see, Peter Robinson, attracting Asians is simple: just de-emphasize – or better yet eliminate – all that Christian stuff from your rhetoric and your programs. It makes newcomers so uncomfortable.
That’s how assimilation works today: the host country becomes more like the immigrant’s old country.
The example is California, where Latin American immigration is transforming the state into a Latin American state with typically Latin American politics.
What could possibly go wrong?
Oh my goodness, Michael Medved, I stopped listening several years ago because he could never take a stand on anything, every issue was ,’ let it go , it’s already lost ,fight the next battle’ but there was never a hill he would actually fight on. You mean to say he finally took a stand on something? Someone once described him as ‘ a notorious squish with a consultants mentality’ .
The idea that ‘he would use the military’ is utterly ridiculous. Every member of the military takes an oath to preserve, protect and defend the constitution, not the President. If he was constitutionally removed he would have no more power than any one of us. The military would not take orders from him.
Forget the TV ratings and what the NFL management will do. The really interesting question to put to NFL fans, especially season-ticket holders, is what act of the “Kaepernicks” will be sufficient to make them walk out of the stadium.
What if the “Kaepernicks” turn their backs during the anthem? What if a group of them spit on the flag? If they set fire to it on the sidelines?
How masochistically self-loathing are NFL ticket holders?
How masochistically self-loathing are Americans?
Bingo! Exactly, conscientious objectors, who think they can resume the old ‘ reach across the aisle’ ‘ we can work with Hillary ‘ , ‘ please the media’ , ‘ the independents won’t like us’ agenda of constant compromise . Sorry guys, that old Republican Party is as dead as the Whigs. Why did Trump win the primaries? Because he fights, damn it , and he sticks his thumb in the medias eye.
Rightfromthestart
Oh my goodness, Michael Medved, I stopped listening several years ago because he could never take a stand on anything, every issue was, “let it go,” “it’s already lost,” “fight the next battle,” but there was never a hill he would actually fight on.
You must never have been listening whenever he talked about Israel. He’s loaded with convictions, pugnacious passionate convictions, about the Jewish state.
I know a LOT of Asians and the reason they tend to vote democrat has nothing to do with Religion, and much more to do with education. Asian Americans as a group are some of the most highly educated in the country and as higher education especially, is basically leftist propaganda,( yes even if you go into medicine, I met a woman who studied prenatal human development and was still pro choice that blew my mind) it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the most educated group would align with the left
That’s because it’s not about winning anything. It’s about ideological purity. Conservatism has become a secular religion, with priests. There a list of sins, and there are articles of faith that cannot be questioned. Conservative leadership had become, in attitude, not unlike the Soviet apparatchiks. And while I know people hate the term here, “cucks” really is a good way to describe conventional conservative leadership, because they think it’s more noble to lose while being pure than it is to win by contradicting the tenants of the faith. Democrats run roughshod over them in a manner not unlike sexual abuse, and the Lindsay Grahams and the RedState.coms are going “It’s too bad we lost and that the liberals are *&^%$#@ us, but we’re pure in the faith! That makes us better people, and we’ll take that. On to the next election!”
Asians typically come from cultures with baked-in attitudes about subservience to big central authority. The Emperor/Chairman/King/General/Party has all the answers and it’s a disaster to question them. Why, how will things run without The Authority? There are always exceptions to the rule, of course, but in general, Asians are more comfortable with Democrats because Democrats are the party of big government.
That too, which is the same for Latin American immigrants as well. They bring Big government values with them, which is why they are NOT natural Republicans even if they are more family values oriented.
Douglas & Mate De
Two perceptive comments which contribute to the conservative position for a total immigration moratorium.
Even a libertarian former open borders partisan like Charles Murray has come around to this conclusion.
Haven’t we allowed immigration to do enough damage to the traditional American nation? Isn’t one California enough for conservative Republicans to stomach?
Or do the pleasures of Malibu, the Peninsula and all those swell new restaurants trump one’s devotion to the American people?
Is that backleesh or backlaesh?
I brought it up a a way to get into the debate, instead of just saying “hey, who won” four days later. The caller had said impeachment would give us Pence, hoorah! and Medved said no, there would be a military crisis. Which I thought was ridiculous, and said so – one #NeverTrumper calling out another, if you wish.
I like Medved, and have been listening for years. Yesterday he did a pro-Hillary hour that was like some of Prager’s pro-Trump hours. I just turned it off and whispered “we will not speak of this again.”
I disagree. Many of the Indian friends I know support the Modi Government, the Republican equivalent in India, while register Democrat in the United States.
Barkha Herman
I disagree. Many of the Indian friends I know support the Modi Government, the Republican equivalent in India, while register Democrat in the United States.
But this is not surprising. In addition to opposition to Christianity and to having a strong cultural preference for big government, Third World peoples who immigrate to the West by and large join the political party in the host country that they perceive to be most anti-white.
They don’t admire us; they despise us.
And so many Americans agree with them!
No need, James, to give up your landline. When the fiber optic is installed, ask if they offer simultaneous ring as a calling feature. (FIOS and most other VOIP phone suppliers do.) If the answer is yes, then sign up for Nomorobo, which automatically hangs up on broadcast-dialed calls after one ring. If the one ring bothers you, get a wireless phone set that offers first ring suppression. I haven’t had a scam call ring through to my phone in months.
This sounds much more like a Belmont vs. Fishtown situation, another split due to class. How could someone bathed in the Leftist ideology of higher education join the clearly anti-science, neanderthal GOP? They would be swatting off attacks from their colleagues constantly.
It seems very much underappreciated among GOP leaders how much this class issue hurts them, to the extent they do grasp it their only response seems to be, “We have to ditch the SoCons.” Pure fantasy that this is a solution, in fact it displays a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of the attack.
I’m speaking of East Asians, basically from Burma to Japan. India is its own situation and a different culture completely. I know Indians get lumped in with Asians for classification purposes in the US, but central and south Asia might as well be a different continent, culturally. They should thus be classified differently in these situations. And even among East Asian immigrants, there are cultural exceptions, like the Hmong, who tend to be Republican friendly because of their experiences with Big Authority peoples like the Vietnamese back in the old country.
Smaller yes, but have they experienced a relative drop? It does not appear to be the case:
Texas-Notre Dame Thriller Most-Watched College Football Opener Ever
TV Ratings Saturday: College football wins big for ABC
Saturday cable ratings: ‘Deadpool’ and college football on top
As there is much less of the SJW nonsense occurring at the College level the correlation would seem rather clear, the strained attempts to find alternate explanations seem absurd.
Plenty of Democrats fight too, but you don’t see me supporting them. I wouldn’t consider a Trump victory for president to be much of a victory for conservatism or for the country. At best it is only slightly less bad than a Hillary victory.
That is precisely the point, the Democrats fight, they fight dirty and they fight for keeps, as Dennis Miler says ‘wear a cup’ . They come with chains,shivs and anything at their disposal, remember the Torricelli maneuver, the Franken election , the Gregoire election, calling Florida with the polls open, the Philadelphia Black Panthers, opening sealed divorce and child custody records, on and on. Meanwhile the Republicans are playing country club golf not wanting to dirty themselves with this icky … winning. We’re tired of sending chess players to a gang fight.