Get the Ricochet app

Ricochet will work fine in a browser on your mobile devices, but for the best experience please download our app.

Download on the App StoreGet it on Google Play

Become a member.

Tired of the toxicity of social media? Why not join Ricochet for just $5/month? Think of it as an online bar. Come in, have a drink, hang out, say whatever you want. But don’t badger, bully, or berate the other drinkers. That's our only rule.

HM

Heather Mac Donald

Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. She is a recipient of the 2005 Bradley Prize. Mac Donald's newest book is The War on Cops

Series

3 Whisky Happy Hour2 episodesFirst Things Podcast1 episodeThe Ricochet Podcast4 episodes

Recent Episodes

3 Whisky Happy Hour
3 Whisky Happy Hour

When Race Trumps Merit, with Heather Mac Donald

Heather Mac Donald may be the most fearless journalist in America. She is relentless in her reporting, bracing in her truth-telling, and ferocious in arguing her case. Her new book, When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives, explores how the current attack on meritocracy in the name of "equity" is rampaging through almost all American institutions, in particular arts and culture, but also higher education and corporate America. Her bleak inventory includes the degredation of the sciences as well, which will if continued will exact a high cost. But our conversation also takes some unusual twists and turns, delving into some of the deeper aspects of the issues of race and merit that are typically neglected. We conclude our conversation with a discussion of Heather's recommendations for remedies, which will require some serious backbone on the part of the nation's political leadership that appears to be in short supply just now.
Host:
Steve Hayward
Organization
Ricochet

July 2020

The Ricochet Podcast
The Ricochet Podcast

Everything Is Broken

We're back after our 4th of July break (well, most of us are back -- we have Ricochet Editor Bethany Mandel sitting in for the vacationing Peter Robinson) and we've got another super-sized episode to make up for our time off. First up, the always great Heather Mac Donald, who speaks truth to protestors like nobody else. Then, meet Shermichael Singleton, former political strategist, a former Deputy Chief of Staff at HUD, and a former member of the GOP. Shermichael tells us why he's left the latter two organizations and it should be required listening at the RNC. Luckily for us, Shermichael is a current Ricochet podcaster and if you have not listened to the Speak-Easy podcast he co-hosts with Antonia Okafor, we highly recommend it. Also, a bit on the Harper's free speech letter, the triumphant return of the Lileks Post of The Week, and Bethany has a new Twitter friend. Music from this week's show: Everything Is Broken by Bob Dylan
Hosts:
Bethany MandelJames LileksRob Long
Organization
Ricochet

October 2019

The Ricochet Podcast
The Ricochet Podcast

The Policy, Not the Mouth

On this episode of The Big Show® we take you back to last night's 74th Annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner where Rob offers a first hand report. The guest of honor was former Defense Secretary (and Marine Corps legend) James Mattis and, of course, the main topic in the hall was the current situation in Syria with Turkey and the Kurds. (The General's full remarks can be watched on the Fox News Facebook page.) Then it's off to the City by the Bay with Heather Mac Donald, where she recounts buying fentanyl on the streets and how a great American city has fallen hostage to its homeless population. To wrap things we cover the current state of the 2020 race for the White House, including Elizabeth Warren's "zinger" on gay marriage. Music from this week’s show: I Left My Heart in San Francisco by (Who else?) Tony Bennett.
Hosts:
Peter RobinsonRob Long
Organization
Ricochet

September 2019

3 Whisky Happy Hour
3 Whisky Happy Hour

Heather Mac Donald’s Greatest Hits

This special double-length episode features a wide-ranging conversation with best-selling author and iconoclast Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute, with special focus on her new book, The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture. I hosted Heather this week at . . . UC Berkeley (!!), and we decided that rather than going with a set-piece speech, I'd interview her about the full range of topics she's written about. So we talk about her own intellectual odyssey, the decline of literature in universities, crime and punishment, the drug war, why we'd actually cheer the return of old-fashioned Marxism, as well as the hot button issues of her new book: preferential college admissions and the entire "diversity industrial complex." We even get to the "T-question" (Trump), where Heather remains skeptical and conflicted. One thing that comes through immediately is how utterly fearless Heather is. For our exit music today, I discovered what I suspect is one-off artist named Michael $cott, a parody of "Michael Scott" of The Office, who has put to music the script to the famous "diversity training" episode of The Office. Hence the opening teaser of this episode.
Host:
Steve Hayward
Organization
Ricochet

February 2019

October 2018

The Ricochet Podcast
The Ricochet Podcast

Caravan

This week, the bomber is apprehended and Rob Long is not surprised, there's a caravan headed our way, professional prognosticator Patrick Ruffini opines on his epic Tweet storm and makes some mid-term predictions, and the great Heather Mac Donald stops by to chat about her new book The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture. Finally, some thoughts about Megyn Kelly, free speech, and...Halloween? Music from this week's podcast: Caravan by Van Morrison
Hosts:
James LileksPeter RobinsonRob Long
Organization
Ricochet

August 2016

The Ricochet Podcast
The Ricochet Podcast

Law and Order

This week, author and Manhattan Institute fellow Heather Mac Donald joins the show to discuss her important new book, The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe. Also, Paul Manafort exits, auto promotion and Ricochet's editorial voice (or lack of one), and a heartfelt "bye-bye!" to John McLaughlin, who's long running show, The McLaughlin Group is a distant relative of this very podcast. Public service announcement: if you’re not a member of Ricochet and enjoy this podcast, be one of the 1,500 and join today. Music from this week’s podcast: What It Means by Drive-By-Truckers The brand new opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced by James Lileks. Yes, you should absolutely subscribe to this podcast. It helps! And leave a comment too! Let's be careful out there, EJHill.
Hosts:
James LileksPeter RobinsonRob Long
Organization
Ricochet