The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg

Latest Episodes:

Does Trump Understand Tariffs? | Interview: Anthony Scaramucci Sep 02, 2026

Show notes

Who do you call it when American politics has got you scartchin’ your head? That’s right—the Mooch! Anthony Scaramucci joins Jonah Goldberg on today’s Remnant to talk about how the last four presidential administrations brought us to where we are today. Listen in as they dive deep into the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, gerrymandering, Citizens United, China, the George Bush tax cuts, the status of the dollar, immigration capital, tariffs, Donald Trump, and the Marshall Plan.

Show Notes:

—Scaramucci: All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump

—Scott Lincicome: “Testing the ‘China Shock’: Was Normalizing Trade with China a Mistake?”

—Scott Lincicome in The Dispatch: “Getting the ‘China Shock’ Right”

The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.

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Zombies Need Air Conditioning, Too | Interview: Thomas Chatterton Williams Aug 31, 2026

Show notes

Jonah Goldberg is not a bigot. Yet, as we all know, there are exceptions to every rule. The French are one of those exceptions. In particular, Jonah sees the cheese-eating surrender monkeys’ refusal to embrace America’s foremost gift to the civilized world—air conditioning—as an offense against all reason and good sense. Nevertheless, being a fair-minded man, Jonah is willing to give the French a hearing. Having no desire to talk to an actual Frenchy, however, he’s turned to the next best thing: an American who lives in France.

Sweat beading on his forehead, Thomas Chatterton Williams joins The Remnant not only to make apology for his adoptive country’s backward ways, but to dispense his usual authoritative takes on politics and culture, covering race in France, the Rassemblement National, radical Islam, integration, accents, Woke 1, Jason Arday, 80/20 issues, policing speech, The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan, and Jonah’s ideal zombie movie.

Show Notes:

—Francis Dearnley Remnant

—TCW in The Atlantic - “France’s Best Argument Against Racism Isn’t Working”

—Robert Nisbet - The Quest for Community

—TCW - Self-Portrait in Black and White

—Colin Gorrie Remnant

—NYT - “A Decorated Historian’s Research Comes Under Fire”

—Jesse Singal in The Dispatch - “The Cascade of Dysfunction That Helped Doom Jason Arday”

—Jonah’s G-File on The Odyssey

—Tom Holland - Dominion

—Colson Whitehead - Zone One

—Max Brooks: World War Z

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The Wave Is Coming | Ruminant Aug 29, 2026

Show notes

For the first time in like, 100 years, Jonah Goldberg is bachin’ it up. With no dogs and no wife, The Ruminant is on time and cooking, diving into the Kennedy Center, the Indiana Dunes, Korean War-era debates, Donald Trump as the establishment, the three “M’s” of the midterms, postwar politics, sovereigntism, Canada, John Ratcliffe’s trip to Russia, Vladimir Putin’s designs on Europe, and guilty white liberals.

Show Notes:

—School of War - “Inside America’s Fight for Drone Dominance”

—School of War - “Our Foreign Policy Divide Began with the Korean War”

—Friday’s DisPod

—‘Me-too Republican’ G-File

—Ukraine: The Latest

—Etymologist Remnant

—Wednesday G-File

—Tyler Austin Harper Remnant

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Linguists Are Nihilists | Interview: Colin Gorrie Aug 26, 2026

Show notes

There’s a certain ache in the bones—no, more like pain behind the eyes brought on by fatigue with the world—that overtakes a man when he’s gone too long without talking about etymology. We here at The Remnant have been feeling that deeply, and we know you have too. That’s why Jonah Goldberg is sitting down with fellow word nerd Colin Gorrie to talk about everything he’s ever wanted to know about language. Jonah and Colin cover Old English dialects, prescriptive vs. descriptive, the world’s biggest language, Latinization, early dictionaries, class, accents, linguistic hygiene, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, metaphors, the euphemism treadmill, borrowed words, Shakespearean coinages, Australian English, gender in language, Basque, and the hardest European language to learn.

Show Notes:

—Colin’s Substack

—Colin speaking Old English

—John McWhorter Remnant

—Paul Bloom - Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil

—George Lakoff and Mark Johnson - Metaphors We Live By

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‘The One True Libertarian’ | Interview: Jesse Walker Aug 24, 2026

Show notes

After basically pirating Jesse Walker’s ideas for several months now, Jonah Goldberg has decided it would be only fair to have Jesse aboard HMS Remnant to talk shop and swap yarns. In between sips of Captain Morgan and bites of the finest hardtack, Jonah and Jesse delve into the depths of the Remnant bingo card, pontificating on libertarianism, the myth of left and right, intellectual hyperlinks, conspiracy theories, populism, group pluralism, the rhetoric of unity, federalism, and the freedom to exit.

Show Notes:

—Walker - The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory

—Ron Bailey Remnant

—The Individualists: Radicals, Reactionaries, and the Struggle for the Soul of Libertarianism

—Nash - The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945

—Lewis Brothers - The Myth of Left and Right

—Lewis brothers Remnant

—Walker review - The Myth of Left and Right

—Walker in Reason: “The Anarchist and the Republican”

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We Don’t Do Math Here | Ruminant Aug 22, 2026

Show notes

Dear listener, I must ask you to take a seat. I fear you are not prepared for what I’m going to tell you. Jonah Goldberg appears on the show today… with… written notes. Granted, they contain about five words. But they exist! On paper! Marvel of marvels! And so it is with this boy-scout level of preparedness that Jonah embarks on his weekend ruminations, covering Jon Ossoff, Natalie Harp, savvy political baiting, Jason Arday, Jews and liberalism, race, social justice, group performance, Jacobin tariff rhetoric, data centers, and the Dupont Circle farmers market.

Show Notes:

—Jesse Singal in The Dispatch: “The Cascade of Dysfunction That Helped Doom Jason Arday”

—Jonah on the Call Me Back podcast

—Cliff Asness in Commentary

—Jonah’s book: Liberal Fascism

—Polling on data centers

—Wednesday G-File

—The Next Right: “Brian Kemp Doesn’t Apologize for Free Markets”

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Not Losing the Iran War | Interview: Hal Brands Aug 19, 2026

Show notes

General Jonah Goldberg can’t get war off his mind, so instead of losing another round of Battleship, he invites Hal Brands, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and hallmate, to discuss the ongoing war in Iran and whether or not we have an exit strategy, a possibility of a world war, and our commitment to allies.

Show Notes:

–Hal Brands’s upcoming book: The Landscape of Power: Geography and the Rise and Fall of Nations

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Americans: An Ungovernable People | Interview: Kevin D. Williamson Aug 16, 2026

Show notes

You thought it was over. After the Napoleon III Remnant ran nearly two hours, observers and pundits the world over said this had to be the end. How could anyone, even Jonah Goldberg, have an appetite for more? But wait—who’s that dark figure lurking in the wings? Oh no. It’s … Kevin D. Williamson.

Apparently Jonah’s chemical addiction to 19th-century French politics stirred something in Kevin’s mind, so much so that the man began writing a book about “the sacrosanct presidency.” And they say deeply fruitful intellectual friendships are dead. But don’t worry, gentle listener—if you’re sick of Napoleon III, there’s plenty more to feast upon at this Remnant smorgasbord, including democracy, Henry VIII, anarchism, individualism, competing rights claims, Woke 1, civil rights, and the American ethos.

Show Notes:

—Napoleon III Remnant

—New Yorker article on data centers

—Kevin’s book: The Smallest Minority: Independent Thinking in the Age of Mob Politics

—Jonah’s book: Suicide of the West

—Willmoore Kendall: “The Two Majorities”

—Aaron MacLean Remnant

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Obey the Will of the People! | Ruminant Aug 15, 2026

Show notes

After spending four days deep in the Adirondacks, Jonah has emerged like Rousseau’s noble savage: reflective, in touch with nature, and ready to talk for two hours as a disembodied podcast voice. If that seems incongruous to you, don’t worry—you’re not alone. Listen in as disembodied Jonah pontificates on disowning the establishment, J.D. Vance’s prospects for president, the iron law of oligarchy, elites, Locke vs. Rousseau, the general will, Tucker Carlson, the DSA, the Michigan Senate race, the meaning of progressive, etymological conundrums, Wisconsin politics, Iran, the meaning of The Remnant, the superfluous men, and Albert Jay Nock.

Show Notes:

—New from The Dispatch: The Next Right

—Burrito G-File

—Friday’s DisPod

—Daron Acemoglu Remnant

—Acemoglu: Why Nations Fail

—Jonah’s book: Suicide of the West

—Jonah’s book: Liberal Fascism

—Russell Moore Remnant

—Rosenblatt: The Lost History of Liberalism

—Jerusalem Demsas Remnant

—Open Primaries newsletter

—Wednesday G-File

—Nock: Memoirs of a Superfluous Man

—Jonah’s NR piece on Albert Nock

—Nock’s essay: Isaiah’s “Job”

—Nash: The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945

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What Happened to Liberal Democracy? | Interview: Daron Acemoglu Aug 12, 2026

Show notes

It’s time to be honest: Jonah Goldberg can’t remember if he’s ever had a Nobel Prize-winning guest on The Remnant. If that shocks you, calm down. It’s called getting old. After today, however, Jonah can say with certainty that he has, as he is joined by Nobel laureate in economics Daron Acemoglu. Listen in as Jonah and Daron light up the Remnant bingo card like a Hanukkah bush, covering liberal democracy, community, subsidiarity, the welfare state, status, prosperity gaps, AI, automation, China, abundance, the working class, Zohran Mamdani, and the Democratic Party.

Show Notes:

—Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

—What Happened to Liberal Democracy?: Remaking a Politics of Shared Prosperity

—Daron Acemoglu in Financial Times: “Liberalism can win back the working class. Here’s how”

—Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History

—Jonah’s book Suicide of the West