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The Horse Race explores the history of political analysis with one of its founders, Stuart Rothenberg, and asks Stu what he looks at to analyze a contest. We also talk with columnist and author E.J. Dionne about President Trump and Joe Biden’s chances to improve Democratic performance with white working class voters. Finally, Ad of the Week looks at a Republican candidate in Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District, perhaps the classic example of a working-class, Obama-Trump seat. Don’t be moody, blue, or just guess who – download and listen today!
Subscribe to Beyond the Polls With Henry Olsen in Apple Podcasts (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in Apple Podcasts or by RSS feed.
Published in: Podcasts
Nice of you to have that commie on to lie about Trump.
I’m always intrigued by comments like this. I grant you that Dionne is lying — but so what? Let him make his claims on the record and then be help accountable for them. No one in our audience is going to have their minds or their votes changed by him, so why not let him put his ideas out there? If nothing else, it gives you a window into how the left is thinking about the election and their strategy (which is the point of this podcast).
Just acknowledging it, Yeti. If anything, I was surprised Henry pushed back just a little.
“A lie unchallenged becomes the truth.” That is, by remaining silent you’re giving tacit approval to the lie.*
The problem is, E.J. Dionne was a “get” for Olsen’s little podcast. If Olsen challenged him, he knew Dionne simply wouldn’t be back. And smear him to his leftist buddies as a crazy Trumpist no one else should have anything to do with.
*The “Black Lives Matter” movement is a good example.
Sigh, you could not be more wrong. One, E.J. is not a “get” for Henry. They work together at the Washington Post and have been friends for years. So I can personally assure you that there will be no smearing in the coming days.
Two, we don’t discuss podcast numbers for competitive reasons, but this show is not ‘little.” It does quite well, thank you very much.
As noted above, E.J. Dionne is veteran a liberal political columnist. He’s paid to give his opinions. That’s his freaking job. If you actually listen to show the rather than just write standard and boring left/right diatribes (smears! lies! Black Lives Matter! Yawn…), you’ll hear that they have a pretty pointed debate. You might even actually learn something.
@blueyeti — You really had me worried. After all, I hadn’t listened to the podcast yet. Had I gone off half-cocked, based on comments from @arahant — plus 50 years of watching liberals and conservatives interact?
The answer is no; in fact, the podcast is worse than I expected.
Dionne accused Trump of talking about injecting bleach into patients; Olsen did not correct him. In fact he spoke very little throughout the 30 minutes Dionne was there. (Olsen’s deference is understandable: Dionne has a Wikipedia page and nine times as many Twitter followers.)
Here’s what Trump actually said, according to the very liberal Snopes.com:
And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So, that, you’re going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds — it sounds interesting to me.
Tara Reade: not mentioned. Biden’s senior moments: not mentioned. Hunter Biden: briefly mentioned. The absurdity of open borders after COVID-19: not mentioned.
The general effect was like MSNBC interviewing a Democrat spokesman.
The podcast was also rather tiresome, and I would have bailed after a few minutes had I not been challenged about it.
@blueyeti — “standard and boring left/right diatribes (smears! lies! Black Lives Matter! Yawn…)”.
This is a rather shocking statement. After all, Black Lives Matter is part of the system of myths and lies that keep black voters wedded to a party that does almost nothing but injure them. Not to mention that BLM has inspired the murder of policemen.
Yet it is almost sacrosanct in the marketplace of ideas. For example, I have never seen anyone on Fox News ever challenge it, even when interviewing BLM leaders. I suspect Fox News management has told their on-air personnel it is untouchable.