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Mr. President says he needs four more years to break the country, so we at Ricochet thought we’d bring in a few guests that believe we aren’t quite done for. First up is the spritely and ever-exuberant Kevin Williamson to make the case that things aren’t quite as bad as some would have us believe. And Andrew Gutmann returns to tell us about his bold campaign in the Sunshine State to take Lois Frankel’s seat in Congress. (Support the effort to take back our future here!)
It turns out James was a-way last week. He’s still a dude as far as we can tell. The reunited trio chat about his couple weeks in Europa.
Song of the Week:
- Sound clip is from Biden’s speech to the North America’s Building Trade Union’s Legislative Conference
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I’ve met Kevin Williamson several times on NR Cruises, and I agree with him that his reputation for grouchiness is overstated. And I also like his statement that he’s not a man of the people, he doesn’t like the people.
I’ll pushback on his things aren’t as bad as they seem. I’m old enough to remember those times in the 1960’s, especially 1968. I was in the 6th grade, but as I grew into my teens and then adulthood, I could look back at how I observed things. There are differences. Back then, the cultural opposition was definitely more violent, and I think that was the reason those movements were put down so quickly. And Kevin points out that the difference between the 1968 elections and the 1972 elections where Nixon won a landslide.
This patch of bad is lasting much longer than the late 1960’s and early 70’s. And the opposition is much more clever, by not organizing themselves into violent cells. Antifa is not being put down precisely because they haven’t turned themselves into terror cells. So they’re lasting longer.
I’ve been hearing that things can’t get much worse, that we’ve hit bottom, or Herbert Stein’s “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” Well, it hasn’t stopped yet.
As for his desire to move to Switzerland, it’s probably one of the few countries in Europe that’s set up well, especially regarding energy. Most of their electricity is produced by hydro-electric and nuclear power. Unlike Germany, they aren’t dependent on Russia. But Europe in general is in for a bad patch. Like the rest of Europe, Switzerland has a low birthrate, and that also will affect its future in the next couple of decades.
I’m also not sure if it imports or exports more food overall. When moving to Europe for the long term, that should be a consideration.
The U.S. doesn’t make it easy to give up citizenship, but regardless, I’d urge him to keep his U.S. passport.
What? Didn’t James remember that the Monolith told us not to visit Europa?
Also, the song video isn’t working.
Wait he says things aren’t as bad as we think he dislikes the American people and he wants to move to Switzerland?
Um huh?
Maybe he thinks things are good enough for US, but not good enough for HIM?
I just got that Queen album last weekend.
Sounded to me like KDW’s “prescription” for how things would have been a lot better over the past few years, boils down to having a second Trump term instead of Biden.
Not that he’d ever admit it, of course.
I love to hear people take note that Biden is too old to be a Boomer. And Dr Jill is the oldest First Lady in history.
James’s good words about Barcelona match my impression when I visited there years ago. It is a beautiful, walkable city, and Gaudi’s architecture adds whimsy to it all.
Not sure if outsourcing the supply chain to the country that wants to become the next superpower was a great idea.
Nothing mission critical should be made overseas.
If you want lower prices from globalized trade and importing cheap labor, the Federal Reserve needs to switch to deflation. This will never happen. So we will have another financial crisis.
What decade should our Ruling Class figured out that China was run by mafia?
#silverrounds
#ammo
#dehydratedfood
Peter seems perplexed that a large number of people want to return to a successful president who had an election stolen from him.
Trump can’t win.
The election is going to be decided by 200,000 independent voters over five states. When they survey independents that hate both Trump and Biden, they will vote for Biden 5 to 1.
Furthermore, they are going to keep him in court the whole time. Coordinated political persecution.
Thanks James for pushing back on the ‘stupid rubes want to fight a culture war’. How silly for someone to say that Dylan is just having fun and we are sticks in the mud for thinking it’s part of a movement to erase women. Maybe having a child will change Kevin’s priorities.
Reading the comments assures me I can happily skip the pontifications of Sir Kevin.
Peter is easily perplexed.
James’ postscript to the discussions of Florida politics and the inexhaustible subject of Republican decline touched on a number of things I wanted to hear more about. Having lived half my life in London I agree about the small joys of British life that still persist despite all its current woes,and ,of course, Barcelona although I caution against being too starry-eyed about the place. Its high drug addict population has given rise to an increase in street crimes(search term-mugged in Barcelona) -my wife a savvy Londoner being one of its victims. What piqued my interest though was James mentioning in his talk British actors on American radio and how they affected American perceptions of Britain. Hebert Marshall’s A Man Called X was I’m sorry to say a not very good show with a risible plot and a ghastly supporting character who seemed to pop up in every episode for some reason. Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce playing Holmes and Watson was another British influence. But what others? I can’t think of any but maybe James has some I have forgotten about. He also mentioned in passing Peg Lynch who wrote the much loved Ethel and Albert series only I think surpassed by Vic and Sade which is to my mind the best of all radio comedy of the period.
So James can you with all these trailers put together a program on these strands-maybe to include your seemingly abandoned project on The Great Gildersleeve?
Ronald Coleman for one. He was a real life neighbor of Jack Benny’s and he and his wife, Bonita Hume, began to appear as themselves on Jack’s radio show as recurring players in 1945. The single best run of the Benny radio show took place in the Spring of 1948 when Jack borrows Ronnie’s Oscar (for A Double Life) and it’s stolen from him. (“You’re money or your life!” . . . . “I’m thinking it over!”) It would eventually lead to their own show, The Halls of Ivy. It ran on NBC from 1950-52 and then a year on CBS television in the 1954-55 season.
And it depends on what you consider John Houseman. He was born in Romania to a British mother and a German father, grew up in Wales and became a US citizen in 1943. His career was highly intertwined with that of Orson Welles, including the Mercury Theatre on the Air. He produced a little broadcast called “War of the Worlds.” Ever hear of that one?
Weird how if Texas is so blue, they re-elected Abbott and said no to Biden. Everybody in my admittedly rural county from the dog catcher on up is a Republican and I bet if you go beyond the cities to the suburbs you will find a heck of a lot of Republicans and THAT’S where the people live in Texas.
Here is a graph of the number of hours an average paid employee needs to work to buy a median priced house. People now have to work twice as many hours. Maybe Kevin can heed his own advice and start thinking about other people.
We need more inflation. The “elites” will solve it.
I’ll second this thank you to James. He tried to push back on some of Kevin’s positions. I don’t think he got answers. I have always felt James is a little closer to us “common folk” and understands us better. Maybe it’s because he grew up in middle America and hasn’t moved too far from that life. To Kevin and all those like him, if we had put a stop to some of this crap 20, 30, 40 years ago, we wouldn’t be in this place now.
I wish Andrew Gutmann all the best in his primary. I hope he doesn’t stop the podcast after he wins. I enjoy it tremendously.
Thank you! I would love to keep it going, even once in Congress, if possible. Though perhaps expand the focus by then.
I feel like you guys are sort of expanding out while maintaining a focus on the kids, like with the guest last week.
Yes, we’re trying to push it just a bit. Maybe someday we’ll change it from “Take Back Our Schools” to “Take Back Our Country.”
Love it!!
Dems will say, “TBOC extremists!!!”
Because to them, that’s somehow different from “fundamentally transform.”
Thanks, guys. I don’t think I got answers either, but I said what I said mostly to put down a marker, and not let the assertions go unchallenged.