After getting a review of new and unpronounceable whiskies out of the way (such as the one posted here) along with the miseries of the week just past that compel several drams of whisky, “Lucretia” and I had planned to talk about an obscure but profound essay from way back in 1973 that explores the serious philosophical roots of how today’s progressive left is best explained by the left’s formal commitment to snobbery. No really—we were! We had a whole seminar on “snobbish snobology” ready to go (is there a more fitting angle for single-malt whisky fanatics?), but we got diverted to—what else?—the election postgame show.

Among our questions and issues: What needs to be surveyed to make out a prima facia case of election fraud? And what kind of evidence is necessary to prove it? Given the low and continually falling trust in our leaders and institutions, is it any wonder that people (including apparently one-third of Democrats according to one poll) don’t think this election was on the up-and-up? We kick around the possibilities, and then ask our listeners: would you like us to do a live taping of the podcast next week? We could have a virtual happy hour under the new lockdown, though of course you’d have to bring your own whisky. Let us know.

This week Steve and “Lucretia” survey the dismal scene of uphill recount prospects (and why game theory says Trump should fight on even past January 20), the impending COVID tyranny (“Lockdown II: This Time It’s Personal!”), and the latest social science nonsense, and decide the only sensible thing to do is pour another whisky and contemplate whether the long-term “Trump dividend” will offer a better return than the 30-year Treasury, or the “soft power dividend” that looks to be coming back under a prospective Biden Administration.

Among other highlights is Steve’s prediction of how and why Trump will haunt the waking dreams of liberals for at least the next 50 years, and Lucretia’s skepticism that Republicans have learned the right lessons from the Trump Show. And yes, the prospective change of scene means the Power Line Show may need to adopt a new tag line. Listen to the end to hear why, and what we’ll change to.

If Trump wins the electoral college again on Tuesday while losing the popular vote (perhaps by a bigger margin than he did in 2016), the left will lose its mind. Well that’s a given, but they’ll really lose their mind about the electoral college. After hoisting a couple of toasts to the passing of Sean Connery and a second sour whisky shot for Britain going back on COVID lockdown, “Lucretia” and I get down to business reviewing the republican case for the electoral college, and why it is a great institution that makes our political system better. Far from being an archaic relic, it is more necessary than ever in a country that the left calls “diverse” but which it actually views through perverse homogeneous lenses.

This week’s recap starts off with a challenge to find the most unpronounceable scotch whisky you’ve never heard of (like Poit Dhubh, which is unavailable in the U.S.), plus a review of the 10 health benefits of drinking scotch whisky (some of which need a controlled experiment to validate properly, which we’re happy to conduct ourselves).

I know we promised listeners that last week’s episode would be the beginning of a three-part series on liberal education rightly understood, but the passing of Justice Ginsburg has thrown us off our plan. But rather than go in for the usual punditry about confirmation battles and the effect this will have on the election, Lucretia and I decided to step back and take on a truly radical perspective on the controversy. What if the Supreme Court wasn’t so important to our political order, and appointment to it were on the level of appointments to the Federal Trade Commission instead? How might that be accomplished?

Lucretia thinks maybe—perhaps—the trouble isn’t with “originalism” versus “activism,” or certain cases and periods when things went notably wrong (like the so-called “revolution of 1937”), but rather that the sweeping judicial review ushered in by the famous Marbury case in 1803 is the root of the problem. It is very nearly a heresy to regard Chief Justice Marshall as the root of all judicial evil, but maybe we haven’t got him, or Marbury, quite right. We go back through the peculiar politics and jurisprudence of the Marbury case, including the striking political parallels between our bitter election right now and the equally bitter contest of 1800, which I suggest could well be considered “the Frigate 93 Election.”

Well now we’ve done it! This week Lucretia and I decided to take a break from downing whisky shots over the latest crazy news headlines and drag listeners back into the classroom for a new mini-series. I get lots of emails and comments from listeners and readers about why we surrender the term “liberal” to deep leftists who are profoundly illiberal. It’s a great question, and so Lucretia and I decided to take this as an opportunity to offer an extended excursion into how Leo Strauss handled this question in the Preface to his essay collection Liberalism Ancient and Modern.

Strauss wrote the preface to this collection way back in 1968, and while some specific references are obviously dated (such as the Vietnam War), the main arguments are remarkably prescient for our current moment of badly politicized and degraded liberal education in the universities. One of the things Strauss says in this five page preface is, “Liberal education is not the opposite of conservative education, but of illiberal education.” And he also says, “Progressivism is indeed a better term than liberalism for the opposite to conservatism.”

After a one week hiatus for jury duty, the Three Whisky Happy Hour with Steve and Lucretia is back, but with a role-reversal: Lucretia bartends this week! Partly this is so Lucretia can school Steve on how to think about vigilantism and the case of Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who has been charged with murder for what appears to have been self-defense in the Kenosha riots earlier this week.

Our second flight of whisky is inspired by Joseph Epstein’s commentary in today’s Wall Street Journal on “Today’s College Classroom is a Therapy Session,” in which we drink to and reminisce about having one of the toughest “tough guy” professors—the late constitutional historian Leonard Levy. He was terrifying in the classroom in ways that wouldn’t be allowed today—and an experience neither of us would trade for anything. Students today have no idea what they’ve lost with our new emphasis on “safe” and “nurturing” classrooms.