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This week, we do a Rico-Centric show with our regular crew and our two trusty editors: Jon Gabriel (Ricochet’s beloved EIC) and Bethany Mandel, the Madonna of The Main Feed. We talk about flagpoles, conservatives on social media, an insider’s view of Arizona, why Instagram is the best social media platform (after this one, natch) and of course, Lileks gives the lowdown on the Minnesota State Fair.
Music from this week’s episode: State Fair (opening title) by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II
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This podcast in iTunes is the same as the previous one (The One About Socialism). Please fix.
Episode was mis-numbered and that has now been fixed. Should be in iTunes momentarily. Thanks for the catch.
Mission Statement: 24/7 center right radio. It seems like a lot of AM radio stations already have that mission statement… Or do you think they are far right?
Swagger, Peter. We’ve got swagger.
Wheres the note on the state fair song?
Fixed!
I put this show together very late last night after a long day of traveling — I probably shouldn’t do that.
Really good Podcast. I always enjoy hearing Bethany.
As a mother of 3 and a grandmother of 2, I love listening to Bethany. Children are wonderful and grandkids are truly a blessing.
C’mon Peter, the Trumpsplaining you indulged in over the flag going up and down was a bit much. It is exactly the kind of stupid behavior Trump loves to perform for his true believers. It reminds me of all the nonsense about Trump making fun of the disabled journalist with those gross hand movements. His apologists explained that Trump often makes gross hand movements when making fun of people as though that excused his behavior in some way when he did it to attack the disabled man. Trump is a very vulgar and petty man and he behaves that way as President. Some people love it. Others explain it away.
There was a time when big families were assumed to be Catholic. I’ve encountered a few assumptions of being Mormon. The question I get asked most, as a mother of 7 is – “do you homeschool?” “Oh, good grief, no!!” is my usual answer.
I’m one of six kids and my husband is one of 5. We grew up in a place where those were unremarkable family sizes. So having 7 isn’t totally out of the ballpark. And while you may have heard of only children who want to have more than one kid, I can think of some people I know who came from big families (8-10+) who decided that 2 kids was the max for them.
I just wanted to let you all know that this was finally the pitch that got me to join at the Podcast Listener Level. Keep chugging away at those. You’ll wear us all down eventually.
#swagger.
I was half expecting James to say that the Quip toothbrush has “just the right sink, and just the right bounce.”
Ha! I ALMOST DID. You read my mind.
Another anecdote (data point?) on only children wanting multiple children themselves: Friends of ours have 5 children, the middle one being the same age as Bethany. Mom was an only child who wanted multiple children (dad had one sibling). Mom’s big surprise was as the boys (1 and 2 were girls, 3, 4, and 5 were boys) got older and fought with each other (as boys will), but as soon as a boy from outside the family came in, the brothers closed rank with each other against the outsider.
Their house was often the gathering point for the kids’ friends, for which they spent a fortune on snack foods, but they then knew who their kids’ friends were, and where they were.
Mike Pompeo has swagger. Our own Max Ledoux? As his t-shirt indicates, he has something even better: moxie.
You’re a mother of seven? You’re going straight to heaven, whatever your religion.
I’m going to change my name to Moxie C. Swagger.
Make of it what you will, but here’s the story explaining that the White House raised the flag again “in accordance with the U.S. flag code.” The central graf:
None of this means Trump is a saint, obviously. But my guess is that the president himself wasn’t even aware that the flag had been restored to full staff–raising and lowering the flag is the responsibility, if I recall correctly, of the White House usher’s office–until he saw the stories on cable television. Whereupon, what did he do? He ordered the flag returned to half-mast.
I concur with Bethany’s supposition that large families correlate with religious belief more directly than with political conservatism per se. Religious belief (at least Christianity and Judaism) starts with people being created in the image of God as the culmination of God’s creation, who are supposed to tend to the earth. We have a reason to be on the earth. We are not a blight on the earth. We need to create more miniature images of God to carry out our responsibility to continue tending to the earth, even though we know that we are now fallen creatures. We have a reason to reproduce.
People with strong Christian or Jewish beliefs (I don’t know enough people of other faiths to comment on them) tend to be culturally and politically conservative because we know what fallen human nature is, and how intractable it is. So we want to be careful about radically changing patterns and practices that seem to be working. So, religious people reproducing tends to look like “conservative” people reproducing.
My guess is that he was very aware and for once his silly game didn’t work with a good percentage of his base. He was certainly aware of his pathetic initial tweet about McCain. It has become custom for the flag to remain at half staff longer and indeed, other flags in DC remained at half staff. Someone ordered the WH flag to be run back up.
“Fascinating!” How could I have intuited that, from listening to the recording hours after it had actually occurred? Do Ricochet podcasts now record thoughts/feelings/emotions, too? Cue the movie “Brainstorm!” (Nice looking movie, but utter claptrap in several ways.)
Which is another DC custom that should be changed. As the Flag Code shows we’ve drifted from respect to worship. And that’s a bad thing in a Republic no matter what your views on Trump, McCain or any other politician.
Oh I agree. Far too much slavish adoration of politicians. Presidents live like kings too. It has become ridiculous.
The strict adherence to established norms just proves that Donald Trump’s presidency is not normal. 🤣
What a lovely podcast and reminder of the strength of family. I strongly urge you to consider doing other podcasts at cocktail time where you are all relaxed and feeling good. ☺
Great episode! I can’t get enough of Bethany either.
Regarding kids: While I have a sister, we are rather distant to each other because of mental health problems she suffers from, so I consider myself more of an only child. I want to have lots of kids because I feel like I missed out on having a close sibling.
Regarding Facebook: my wife is one of the content moderators Peter was talking about. They have a big office in Austin. She’s more of a Trump supporter than I am and she knows better than to say anything nice of him at work. Most of her coworkers are kids and they all share the same progressive outlook so I’m not surprised they have a quick trigger. It seems like everyday I’m telling her about a controversy on Facebook.
Shouldn’t she already know?
Also, Peter got the math wrong, again. 40,000 is 20% less than 50,000. But 50,000 is 25% more than 40,000. (10,000 is 1/4 of 40,000, or 25%.)
The last three are adopted. Does that get me a higher rung?
My guess is that Trump is very aware that he is living rent-free in JuliaBlaschke’s mind. And in Mona Charen’s. And Bill in Kristol’s. And in Jay Nordlinger’s. And in John Podhoretz’s. And in …
Oh yeah, that Trump base is leaving Trump, because they so respected John McCain, who was an enemy of free speech, a consistent opponent to tax cuts, and an insulter of law enforcement and national sovereignty through his aggressive support of amnesty for illegal aliens.