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The news cycle these days is crushing — warping time upon itself like a black hole. So how does America’s Most Balanced Podcast® respond? By booking a third guest, of course. On today’s lineup, we’ve got Casey Mattox;the Vice President for Legal and Judicial Strategy at Americans for Prosperity, a group dedicated to (among other things), getting Amy Coney Barrett through the nomination process. You can help by visiting their website UniteForBarrett.com and signing a letter that will be sent to your Senator. Do it! Then, our good friend (and fellow board member) Dr. George Savage stops by to give us an M.D.’s perspective on the President’s condition and what his course of treatment might be. Finally, Henry Olsen, he of the Horse Race podcast right here on this network visits and dispenses some punditry on how the President’s health may affect his re-election effort. No spoilers here, sorry. Finally, the Lileks Post of The Week is back and it’s a doozy: did Harry Truman actually approve the use of the use of the A-Bomb at the end of WWII or did the military just deploy like a new submarine or aircraft? We get into it and then some.
Music from this week’s show: Instant Karma! (We All Shine On) by John Lennon
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The ones that stay away from The Bulwark, the Lincoln Project, Principles First, David French, the Niskanen Center, anything funded by Google or Pierre Omidyar etc. are frequently worth listening to. The independent ones. Heath Mayo has been particularly awful lately.
To believe that Trump operates in a vacuum is to forget the final five years of the Bush Administration, where he had taken a nearly total hands-off policy towards fighting back, and opted to allow his actions to be his justification with the public, because that had worked for him from 1995-2000 in Texas. Didn’t matter — he was still Chimpy McBushHitlerburton, and outlets like The New York Times were treating with all seriousness books and movies fantasizing about the assassination of the president.
Trump fights back hard, but the spin from a lot of #NeverTrumpers is the way the Democrats, the media, and pop culture in general is fighting back against Trump is something totally new, when the reality is America got Trump because Bush was demonized, and then candidates McCain and Romney also were demonized by the people who were supposed to be impartial arbiters, and not the ones speaking Truth for Power when it came to propping up the Obama Administration, while (as Andrew Klavan has often noted), only deciding to question authority when Republicans are in charge.
An entertaining argument needs a good villain.
Rob is there to provide the antagonist point of view, the purposely annoying Joy Behar in the mix, the pudgy faced, jowly one everyone hates, but everyone keeps coming back to vent their frustrations.
Thank you Rob for being the perfect Douchey NT foil.
Plus the way trade policy destroys jobs it favors socialism unless we do some thing from the right. I have talked ad nasium about this. Trump exposed that and I like his advisers in this sense. He exposed China. No more dumb wars.
Other thing is the RNC was totally not ready for that primary. Then the media helped him in the primary. But some people want to suicide the country over that.
The difference is usually that the ones on the list above hate Trump to the point they’ve pretty much allowed him to own their supposed long-time conservative views, in that they can’t support anything Trump supporters, even if it’s something prior to late 2015 they had been saying they supported for 20 or more years, though even some of the softer #NeverTrump types are willing to delude themselves about the Democrats in order to make it sound not-so-bad if Trump loses.
Case in point was way, way, way back in the dark mists of American history, 12 days ago, when you saw a lot of the soft #NeverTrumper get behind the idea of putting off any vote on Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s replacement until the next Congress, as part of a deal with Democrats on their threats to kill the filibuster and pack the court. The Dispatch Podcast supportively went over that proposal last week; people with a longer view of history wondered why if the Democrats reneged on deals with Reagan and both Bushes (on illegal immigration, tax hikes/budget cuts and school funding/school reform) anyone in their right mind would think they would hold to this deal with Trump and McConnell, if they gained control of the White House and the Senate in November. They’re best off that the debate and Trump’s COVID diagnosis have given them the ability to never talk about this ditzy plan again (the difference between them and folks at outlets like The Lincoln Project, is that now that Amy Coney Barrett is nominated, TLP is going to work as hard as possible to defeat ACB. Soft #NeverTrump types won’t).
Peter could probably opine about the Reagan steel tariffs during the 1980s, when Japan was accused of dumping at below cost prices in the U.S. as a way to gain market share. So even as big a free trade advocate as Reagan was, he had his limits (while Xi’s actions have blown up the idea that looking the other way on trade violations with China was worth it, because it would help bring about greater freedom in that country, not give companies near-free slave labor).
It’s a complicated subject. When you say you are for automation and globalized trade you are talking about deflation along with job loss. A few people suffer while the whole country’s purchasing power goes up. The problem is you have to have good policies surrounding that. We haven’t done anything right for 30 years. That’s how you got Trump. The alternative is everybody just gives up and swallows socialism.
I think Rob thinks he won’t be affected by the destruction a Harris administration would bring. Why else would you want to replace the positive Trump policies?
Look Rob is a little annoying, but its not like Jonah who I used to follow all the time. Someone earlier said, hes playing a role. I agree with that.
On the Democrats’ side, the dynamic is how the party essentially threw private sector unions under the bus starting with the Clinton years, in favor of crony-capitalist big corporations (and their big campaign donations for Democrats) which were able to not simply get away from the added costs of American unionized workers, but from the cost of non-unionized ones as well by shipping production outside the country, primarily to China (to the point some companies that had shifted production first to Mexico ended up closing those maqulidora boarder plants and moving to China, because Mexican workers were too expensive).
The Democrats benefited for years by pretending, with the help of the media, that they still cared about the private sector unions, and not just the public sector ones. But their arrogance about their new unbeatable coalition of special interest groups caused them to openly start disdaining some of the old-line private sector unions in things like mining and manufacturing, and open contempt was just enough in a few key states to put Trump over the top in 2016.
I just listened to the Henry Olson segment and found myself shaking my head at his analysis. Not being familiar with his work I perused his columns and came across this.
It’s an analysis of Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy’s fiscal policy, and the relationship between him and the voters post Covid. His take from afar, versus those whose boots are on the ground (me and all of the Alaskans I know) could not be farther apart. He’s waaaay off on what the voters feel about Dunleavy, and perhaps that’s relevant information when considering his analysis of voters regarding Trump (or more importantly Biden) nationally.
I was torn on whether or not to post the following. But after reading the comments, I decided the timing was correct. @semperfimom, this one’s for you:
Maybe Rob thinks a Harris/Biden administration would open up the TV sitcom market again?
It doesn’t seem like the 4 years have helped. But that was November 9, so I guess he still has a few more weeks to get humble.
Yes, especially in a time where the rewriting of history is in full swing, it pays to understand the real events of consequence, and how they unfolded. I love that Truman would not “distance himself” (hate that phrase) from the decision.
Except, apparently, by not actually putting it in writing. Which could mean that if it hadn’t turned out “well,” Truman could have said it wasn’t his decision. And there would be no contrary evidence.
We have certainly benefited from much prosperity over the 4 years, and a heck of a lot of progress on numerous fronts, not just the courts. But I seem to recall Rob saying a few podcasts back that “we’ve accomplished nothing in his term” (paraphrase), and thinking, really?!?
I agreed with Rob in one area that Peter conflicted with him. When Peter condemned Biden for his rudeness during the debates, it was Rob that was right when he said that Trump set the tone, not only during the debate but really his whole presidency so far.
I happen to mostly be a proponent of Trump’s rudeness, if he was more strategic in turning on and off. Part of the reason we couldn’t get Bush 43, Romney and McCain to fight is because they wouldn’t be rude when necessary (in McCain’s case he could be rude — to other Republicans).
Yet, I don’t have a problem with an opponent using the same strategy against him.
Always, always, remember that within the big picture, Trump is a symptom, not a cause of the divisions in this country. The debate was an almost perfect depiction of how both sides treat each other nationwide. I personally watched maybe 5 minutes of those debates before turning it off, so I didn’t like it either. But if I were in Trump’s position, I’d be rude too, albeit with more sense.
As for Trump’s catching of Covid, a lot depends on how badly he gets it, and how seriously he takes his recovery. I have a theory that one reason Boris Johnson got as ill as he did, is that he continued to overwork instead of resting. He tried to continue working 16 hours a day in quarantine. Now he’s useless, because he has no perspective regarding the harm of lockdowns.
If Trump really rests, he’ll probably be all right.
If he ends up getting through this with minor symptoms or even a few days of major discomfort, he’ll be able to tell Americans that for most people this is not a big deal. That catching this is not the be all end all that too many experts and non-experts claim, and that we should go about our lives fairly normally.
That could actually boost our confidence.
Right now it’s all in God’s hands.
This
Agreed. That made my eyebrows rise, as well. The last four years have been a massive leap forward for everyone in my family and circle.
I sell construction equipment, and because of COVID restrictions my supplier has experienced significant delays. I sold a large tile saw last week and asked the customer: Tell me when you need it by. He replied: If I had it tomorrow, I’d have a guy using it tomorrow. Which almost made me weep in frustration when thinking about how many thousands of times per day similar situations are playing out; economic growth being stymied.
I thought it was ironic, given all the grief Rob’s getting regarding his attitude towards Trump was his concern that they were losing listeners when they were in the middle of their Truman segment. Perhaps most listeners were turned off, but I enjoyed it.
It never bothers me. It would be so much fun to have him to be Michael Anton. lol
The virus is not “deadly” given the fatality rate, especially when compared with other illnesses …
On Decorum… wanting Trump’s decorum when it is Trump and not anyone else.
I get you guys are beltway pundits (largely), but from where I sit in tim buk tu outskirts of East Orlando, decorum has only ever applied to Republicans. Obama may have dressed nice and was clean and articulate, but he was thinly veiled nastiness. I don’t know why no one sees that in him. He was not a kind person. Polite and political, yes. Kind? No.
Biden is nasty.
So what I saw is nasty Democrats and door mat republicans. No, I don’t want that. I don’t want to go back to the norm. Nasty Democrats is the norm. Fighting Republicans is not. I like it better when nasty is met with fight.
Nothing shows Biden giving up nasty, so why should we give up fight?
Fyi, it’s not just politics where Democrats are nasty. It’s out here in the real world, too.
It’s in retirement developments, on college campuses, in restaurants, and protests (the real ones). Democrats are nasty and crude and cruel.
You don’t have to go far to find them.
The next time that CoViD-19 is a topic, perhaps Peter Robinson can ask something along these lines:
The headlines are consistent, nearly unanimous even:
Donald and Melania Trump test positive for CoViD
Occasionally, the story reveals that employing the PCR test, POTUS & FLOTUS tested positive for presence of SARS-CoV2 virus, that causes CoViD-19.
NEVER reported is the fact that when you get a virus, you may not always get sick from it. Your immune system may be able to fight it off.
A long-minimized fact is that many (most?) CoViD-19 sufferers are asymptomatic.
Aggressively minimized facts include the following:
In other words, the vast majority of CoViD-19 deaths are those who are BOTH very old AND very sick.
Putting things in perspective, gauging by the above-cited facts of CoViD-19, President Trump is NEITHER very old nor
very si— … nor sick at all.Here’s what I can gather about POTUS’ actual symptoms:
Questions:
And don’t forget Peter Robinson who is beloved on Ricochet for his voice of diplomatic reason. Rob’s point of view is very much in the minority here as we all know he’s part of the New York Never crowd who consider themselves the elite arbiters of all things political. There are a few other anti-Trump voices who are usually either ignored or constrained in the forums. It doesn’t hurt us to hear all sides just so the “misguided” side doesn’t dominate.
Agree.
Well, maybe in “we,” Rob was putting more of the focus on himself. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t seem like Rob has accomplished anything over the past 4 years. I wouldn’t count moving from the west coast loony bin(s) to the east coast loony bin(s), as an “accomplishment.”