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Perhaps you’re failing to vibe with Bin Laden and feeling a bit behind the times. Then again, you could be a sane person with a moral compass. James, Charles and Steve cover this and more with Noah Rothman, author of The Rise of the New Puritans: Fighting Back Against Progressives’ War on Fun. Aside from his anti-Osama stance, Noah takes us through the relevant considerations about America’s interests abroad, the nearly abandoned project to promote democracy and the modern world’s Western neurotic, who’s always clamoring for a club to beat their own civilization with.
The hosts also think through anti-Israel influencers on the right — edgelords or something sinister? — and worry that the U.S. is picking a most inopportune time to be frivolous.
- Sound clip from this week’s open is a TikToker’s response to “A Letter to America”
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I *love* this graphic.
What’s with the over-talking starting at 32:30? (not counting inserted ads)
Noah Rothman has been wrong on every foreign policy decision for decades. Why do you choose to platform him? Pass.
Now I’m interested in Rothman.
“seems to equate blood and religion with an intellectual stance”
Hmmm. Religion and intellectual stance have huge overlap, so the parallel with blood seems faulty in this context. Blood not so much.
My mistake. I must’ve dragged a few tracks over a few beats without realizing it. The corrected file’s been uploaded!
Thanks for pointing that out.
What frustrates me with Rothman is they care about the borders of other countries than our own. They are not as outraged about what the Mexican Cartels and the CCP has done to the southern border (the flood of illegal immigration and fentanyl) than that of Ukraine. They didn’t think nothing of the outsourcing of the work to the CCP. There is no reflection if any of these policies were wrong.
Don’t import deflation from communist mafia that want to abuse their own people and the whole planet.
Don’t force inflation when you import deflation.
If you are losing jobs from automation and globalized labor, otherwise known as deflation, stop forcing inflation.
This won’t make me any friends, I suspect but I’ve gone this long without any so WTH…
I wonder at the reshuffling that’s going on and why. The young people on the left “discovering” an evil akshully has redeeming qualities is tragic comedy on so many levels, least of which is proof of the failure of the public school system. But as the gentlemen hosts said, not much different than the strange fashionable fascination with Che. Put anything on pop-culture graphic tee shirt and the youth are willing to trade their parent’s hard-earned money for entry into the ironic In-Crowd. Che Guevara fans for capitalism club has a lot of members in colleges and high schools.
George W. hatred on the right + Osama love on the left has me baffled.
And the right having this odd un-nuanced foreign policy stance is something I find a little strange. My line is U.S. troops on the ground. So far, it seems we haven’t crossed this line. We should be outraged at the border and the drug crisis. Maybe we’re re-living the 1980s except the party at the top is a D instead of an R and we have a media conglomerate actively working against American interests with a heavy dose of social media that skews perception to fun-house proportions.
In the run-up to 2016, Trump and Christie had a good debate where drug deaths and the decay of interior heartland cities and communities was highlighted. Not much came of it. Same with the border crisis. And when Biden took office both issues went from third-tier to no tier. I don’t know if the culture war issues just sucked all the oxygen out of the room or what, but more people pay attention to what Tucker Carlson says, what foreign leaders are doing and why America should emulate them (which actually angers me), and the 12 millionth pointing out of leftist/media hypocrisy (duh).
So, we ignore how maintain a strong military presence actually is good for America and the world, how there is a moral line that worth defending against evil, dictators, and murderous regimes. Instead of crying about funding for allies and not our own borders, maybe we should ask why lawmakers are devoting their time to gotcha games that reflects the ADHD of the outrage electorate instead of how to make it easier for companies and families to flourish within our borders, to promote life and rootedness in a country increasingly disjointed from tradition, community, and family. Top down is where we’ve been headed and it hasn’t worked — not for conservatives and not for America. It’s worth considering what an America without a strong conservative presence and principles looks like. I don’t think it looks good. And that is where we seem to be going especially for influential parts of the New Right as Mr. Rothman rightly argues. I don’t agree with him on much, but I do think this is worth thinking about.
There are any number of polls where people overwhelmingly want neither Trump or Biden to run. There are also any number of polls where people overwhelmingly say they are voting for Trump or Biden in primaries. This makes no sense to me.
Pollsters get paid to produce desired results. Different employer? Different results.
Steve mentioned Conrad Black and his recent criticisms of Donald Trump.
Conrad Black in 2016 astutely recognized and approved of Trump’s appeal to Americans who love America and wish for it to adhere to/return to first principles.
Then in 2021 Conrad Black gushed about Rachel Walensky, who soon abused the civil liberties of all Americans. Has Conrad Black admitted how spectacularly wrong he was on Rachel Walensky? If so, I’ve not heard it.
Conrad Black sadly has relegated his credibility to Andrew McCarthy level.
I really hope that is what is happening and people really aren’t going to vote for either Trump or Biden.
Mr. Black was clearly “smitten” with Ms. Walensky. His comments on her compeetence were foolish.
Agree on passing on Mr. Rothman. My worst nightmare is being trapped in a room with him and John Podhoretz.
I dare say those are the options.
ALTHOUGH — the DNC gets to simply name a new candidate if their guy pulls out after the primary. See how this works?
Those are the only options on the table.
There are plenty and far better options on the table.
I’d have to look at the internals but I suspect that the “none of the above” polls are all registered voters without being filtered for how likely they are to vote, whereas the primary polls are made up of the “very” to “highly likely” to vote. One is designed to look at the mood of the overall electorate and the others to predict likely outcomes.
Rothman makes a correct point about global US dominance underlying US material wealth. This is an appeal to support an interventionist foreign policy even if you don’t buy the more commonly argued moralistic rationale. Printing the global reserve currency underlies a lot of American prosperity, and we are basically funding a global empire through seigniorage. This dynamic empowers a decadent elite similar to Saudi princes. Instead of pumping oil we print money. Like the Sauds exporting Islamism, our elites are determined to impose gay communism abroad and at home. I really hate gay communism which has me asking myself how much poverty I would endure to be rid of it.
Seems to me we were pretty prosperous before gay communism even became a thing. How about just going back to that, and no poverty required?
What about hetero communism?
Here is the image @jameslileks referred to late in the interview with Noah Rothman.
And Charles misstates the debt problem. From what I read, the $1 Trillion per year is not “debt repayment,” it’s just INTEREST on the debt.
Oh, and if people are stupid enough to vote for Newsom over Trump, they deserve what they get.
If people are stupid enough to vote for Trump over DeSantis, they deserve to get Newsom.
I just want to say — and I think I’m speaking for quite a few others — that I don’t think I deserve Newsom under any circumstance.
Well there’s nothing like shrill spiteful sour grapes to convince people.
Gee, how does a country get its self in this position?
Are we i m m o r a l?
Are we s t u p i d?
Or is the Fed goosing the economy too much? Better living through inflation ran out of gas two decades ago.
Not as fun.