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Another busy week (is there any other kind?) and our intrepid podcasters cover it all: is The New York Times' 1619 Project the definitive (new) history of the United States? Spoiler alert: no. Hoover Institution and self-titled Grumpy Economist John Cochrane joins to discuss the possibility of a recession, and later, our own (well, by marriage) Seth Mandel (OK, he also edits The Washington Examiner Magazine) stops by to discuss the President's uh, unusual language when discussing members of the Hebrew faith, and why Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar really do employ anti-Semitic tropes on a regular basis. Finally, should we all start eating plant-based "beef"? Our podcasters debate and their opinions may surprise you.
Music from this week's show: All That Meat And No Potatoes by Louis Armstrong
James Lileks
Peter Robinson
Rob Long
John Cochrane
Discussion (78)
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So Seth is saying that Trump puts all Jews into a big lump that is all the same and that you can't do that, then turns around and says let me tell how American Jews really think... Wait - what?
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Love, love the Louis Armstrong song. I wish you guys (Rob and James) would let Peter talk more.
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Regarding the NY Times’ “1619 Project,” Rob and Peter seem ready to take it on faith that Leftists “just want to know the facts” and that genuine, intellectual engagement with them is even possible on this point.
If only.
Social Justice — particularly in the form of “Anti Racism” — is a de facto religion with these people. It is what brings meaning to their lives and carries its own set of dogmas, pieties, heresies, and Original Sin (being born a cisgendered white male).
I’m not sure Peter and Rob fully understand the degree to which this new secular faith depends on its adherents viewing America as a deeply racist place. For Leftists, the dopamine hit is triggered not by finding reasons to excuse or even understand America’s legacy of racism, but by pointing the quivering finger at America and denouncing it.
Incredibly, Rob and Peter think Leftists can be persuaded out of their faith through patience and the equivalent of a TED Talk — or several TED Talks. Insane.
You cannot talk a zealot out of his faith — particularly when it is that faith alone that sustains him.
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The New York Times has a political agenda so I wouldn’t get my American history from that publication. There are plenty of other ways to learn history without the biases.
I’m skeptical about the premise, too. The people who settled in Jamestown and the people who settled in Massachusetts Bay could not have been more different culturally. So American history ought to make an accounting of both cultures, North and South. The first Jamestown settlement failed.
Anyway, the Jamestown settlers were not Americans and it’s arbitrary to claim American history begins there. The history of the US formally begins when the Constitution is ratified. What do the settlers of 1619 have to do with anyone?
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Rob has it right, and Seth has it wrong, about U.S. Jews and the State of Israel.
Most American Jews are secular, their de facto religion is Progressivism, and they no longer give a damn about a sovereign Jewish State in a part of the world where, in their view, perhaps it shouldn’t have been founded in the first place.
Most Leftists — including most Leftist Jews (especially most young Leftist Jews) — waaaaayyy deep down — are no longer convinced of the legitimacy of the “Israel Project.”
It’s incredibly sad. And you’d think the Seths of the world would know this.
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