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Welcome to 2016, faithful podcast listeners. We start off the year strongly with two of our most popular guests: the great Victor Davis Hanson and the no less great Andrew Klavan.
There’s lots of talk about warriors ancient and modern, some Trump, some Europe. Even some talk about the current crop of movies. But seriously, no spoilers.
A few links related to this show:
- Victor Davis Hanson’s The Classicist podcast is a must listen and is hosted by some guy named Troy Senik. No, we’ve never heard of him either.
- Andrew Klavan recently started a podcast of his own and despite the fact that it’s not on our network, we still think you should listen to it.
- On our last podcast of 2015, we spent a fair amount of time arguing about spoilers (OK, James and Rob argued, the rest of us, including Peter Robinson, just listened). That conversation inspired this Martini Shot, the audio commentary Rob does for KCRW.
Music from this week’s episode:
I’ll Be Around by The Spinners
The opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced by James Lileks.
Thanks, EJHill.
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Published in: Podcasts
Always good to have VDH and Klavan around. Their own podcasts are excellent.
It’s about freakin’ time.
Enjoyed the guests, gents. Perhaps it’s an editing thing, but the end of the conversation with VDH sounded unexpected, if not rude. Was there something major left on the table that we didn’t get to hear?
Victor’s internet connection cut out at the very end of the segment (bandwidth is as scarce as water at Victor’s farm, evidently) and James artfully tried to cover for it.
Ah, I see. Thanks for the update!
In the conversation with Andrew Klavan, the point was made regarding Trump that he might just throw his current supporters under the bus, therefore his supporters are foolish or whatever to believe him. That’s true, Trump might throw them under the bus. I believe that at least some Trump supporters are aware of that risk, but that risk doesn’t have too much effect on people who think that they are already under the bus. A sizable chunk of the right have been making these under the bus type noises since at least W’s presidency. There’s also the perception that all other candidates on offer are either representative of those driving the bus in the first place, representative of the ineffectual backseat drivers, or representative of the ineffectual onlookers unable or unwilling to help all this time.
My bet is that the Trump supporters would have flocked to anyone else trying to capitalize on this perception, but no one else is doing it. Not doing it good enough, anyway. Yes, 2012 was about anybody but Romney on the surface, but this under the bus feeling was present back then too. Also when Palin was getting the business. The frustration over the Republican party which had grown timid, incompetent, and/or beholden has been brewing for the last decade at least.
What a joy to come home from an annoying day of work to find not only a podcast but one with two of the best guests. Please goad Klavan to contribute here again.
I’m right now glued to Andrew Klavan’s Empire of Lies . Am looking forward to reading Victor Davis Hanson’s book : The Savior Generals, and listening to The Classicist podcast.
Good to hear them.
The tune that Andrew was referring to, I’ll Be Around, was the one by Alec Wilder, not the Spinners version you played at the end of the podcast.
@Onggo I know, but I like the Spinners tune better.
I always enjoy hearing VDH. Klavan is also a lot of fun to listen to.
The high points, though, were the way you guys worked in the ads this week. Smart Box or The Great Courses?
Isn’t “striking a blow for civility” a contradiction in terms?
As I’ve written in comments elsewhere on Ricochet, I spent last Friday night with 7,000 Trump supporters. I had one-on-one conversations with 12 of them— there’s a lot of waiting time if you want a seat so plenty of time to talk. The people I talked to were all college educated or currently in college. Whether they’re drawn to him because of immigration, charisma, negotiating skill or whatever there is one thing they all say and it is one thing no other candidate, R or D, can match: he doesn’t need donors.
They all see the money-grubbing nature of politics as corrupting and know that he doesn’t have to play it. Oh, and every one of them told me they had no second choice although one woman, a nurse who retired here from PA, said her choice for VP was Cruz. (Since Cruz is my guy I asked her if she was going to see him locally next week. No.)
The simple fact that Trump is self-financed is the core base for his support. That doesn’t mean they’d support Bloomberg– his Truman-like politics matter too. But when Republicans attack him on policy, style, demeanor— none of that matters. In fact, the attacks make him stronger because his supporters just see it as the donor-owned candidates showing their fear.
You can learn a few things by getting out among people and listening to them. A Trump event is nothing like the way it’s portrayed on TV. It isn’t angry, it’s fun. People leave smiling not scowling. I have been to lots of Republican events over the years and I’ve never seen anyone use the word “LOVE” as much as Trump. He has the on-stage comic chops of the comedians I used to see on Ed Sullivan growing up. He’s like a WASP Jackie Mason at times. And he does an hour plus with no prompter and, essentially, no notes but never loses the audience for a moment. Well, not until they can tell he’s wrapping up and they realize it will take an hour to get out of the parking lot because the crowd is so yuuuge at least.
I had the misfortune of seeing The Revenant last night. While I’d quibble with Peter’s time table — I’d say the movie was good for the first hour or so — but I completely agree that it became oppressive, boring, and pretentious during its middle third and during the last third all I could think was how much longer it would likely be.
Gorgeous though. DiCaprio was fine but Tom Hardy is — as he so often is — compelling and fantastic.
When I heard him say that, I said Birdman was pretentious and tedious too.
Hardy is really great in Locke, having a series of phone conversations in his car.
I looked up the song, found this Billie Holiday version, and noticed Jay Nordlinger mentioned in the description below the video as having interviewed Wilder. https://youtu.be/KoSpKjHG6XU
Linking videos is apparently not working.
Okay, now it suddenly is.
So I’ve heard. I still haven’t seen it yet.
Very much on my to-see list. Hardy is one of those actors who improves everything he touches.
RE: VHD’s assessment of the European Conservative. Not as accurate as he thinks, clearly. Particularly the SoCons in Germany vitiate his characterisation. Gay Marriage? Not legal here, c.f. “Monopol Familie” and “Demo for Alle” on resistance to attempts to make it so. Abortion? More restricted here than in all but the most conservative states in the US. Guns? The most conservative Germans I know are all deeply envious of our 2nd Amendment, and some of them know how and from whom to get the weapons they want illegally. The one area I have found most disagreement with US conservatives such as myself has been on the death penalty. As for the attacks in Cologne, Hamburg, Bielefeld, Frankfurt and Salzburg, they have shot the romanticism about refugees from the Middle East and North Africa in the head here in Germany and in German-speaking Europe more broadly. The question now is, are we finally going to get the long-needed addition of prudence to the humanitarian policies of the German government? People have been calling for it for month (c.f. fight between Merkel and Seehofer). The CDU/CSU with the AfD and FDP are all pushing for increasing deportations of criminal aliens and border controls to screen for terrorists and criminals- and they will get their way if the Greens/Linke and SPD don’t sabotage it.
“Old, sick, dumb”- best description of HRC.
Peter referred to Cruz being “hard-edged and obnoxious”, but I think a bigger problem is the way he speaks.
He must speak in a more conversational manner. As it is, his manner of speaking signals insincerity, as if he were a used car salesman. He needs to address the public the way that he addresses his family members at home.
This would do his campaign a world of good, and it would cost nothing, except perhaps the job of the campaign strategist suggesting it to him.