The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg

Latest Episodes:

Triple-Barreled Questions Feb 05, 2021

Show notes

Given the state of… things (imagine us gesturing wildly as we say this) as they currently are, Jonah figured that this might be an apropos time to bring back a popular guest for his second showing: Joseph Uscinski, a political scientist and professor at the University of Miami specializing in how conspiracy theories spread. Buckle up for the discussion of Jewish space lasers, QAnon, Frazzledrip, and much more. They also discuss why the conspiratorial tendency never seems to go away, thanks to its basis in personality type, as well as the fact that “politicians … use [them] as a cudgel to go around accusing their opponents of the worst things possible.” We’re sure you can imagine just what Joe is talking about with that one.

Show Notes:

-Joseph E Uscinski - University of Miami

-Our previous episode with Joseph

-Birtherism

-Every conspiracy theory promoted by Trump

-Conspiracy theories are for losers

-9/11 truthers

-70 percent of Republicans don’t think the election was free and fair

-Eric Voegelin and the roots of conspiracy theories

-The God of the gaps

-Conspiracy theories and evolutionary psychology

-The Koch brothers control everything

-Bernie and the rigged economy

-Alienated America by Tim Carney

-“Frazzledrip”???

-6 percent of Republicans and Democrats believe in QAnon

-NYT: Biden should appoint a “reality czar”

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Getting Hayekian Feb 02, 2021

Show notes

Thanks to international supply chains, Scott Lincicome’s Five Timer gold jacket is in the mail today as he joins Jonah to discuss a whole panoply of economic trends. Scott and Jonah talk about some of his observations from his posts as a fellow Dispatch-er with his Capitolism newsletter, as well as through his role at Cato where he has just put out a ton of research refuting the too-clever-by-half idea that the government can seize the manufacturing industry for national security reasons. The guys also discuss how COVID has essentially reversed the consumer side of the American economy. (“The pandemic has temporarily converted us into a country that buys goods instead of services”), and they even manage to get in some Hayek (peace be upon him).

Show Notes:

-“Five Timers Club”

-Scott’s newsletter, Capitolism

-Democrats trying to push through $15 minimum wage

-Tom Sowell on the minimum wage

-More from Less by Andrew McAfee

-Scott’s latest for Cato

-Scott’s take on the ‘deindustrialization’ myth

-A rundown on the National Technology Industrial Base

-U.S. ventilator overproduction

-Sherrod Brown’s “Buy American” push to the Biden administration

-Jonah: Thank globalism for COVID response, not nationalism

-Jonah, microcosms, and macrocosms

-Invisible Wealth by Nick Schulz and Arnold Kling

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Zombie-Bite Politics Jan 30, 2021

Show notes

On this Ruminant, Jonah explicates the sadly prominent “antisemitism in the gaps” theory of political history on both the left and right, his proud status as an ideologue of the lukewarmist school, and the GOP’s inability to take “yes” for an answer on winning cultural issues against the American left. He also touches on how the GameStop kerfuffle is really just a case where “the market should be left to sort it out,” and how it isn’t some kind of refutation of libertarian economics, in addition to pondering the ways that the virtual world has started to rewire our brains.

Show Notes:

-This week’s G-File

-Iranian conspiracies about the British

-“A lukewarmer”

-David French: “An ocean of possibility for a reasonable GOP”

-Madison Cawthorn’s staff is built around comms, not legislation

-A Remnant starter on impeachment

-The members-only midweek “news”letter

-“Every kiss begins with Kay”

-The LeafFilter commercial

-Take our podcast survey

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The ‘Not Crazy’ Party Jan 29, 2021

Show notes

Will Saletan of Slate returns to discuss the looming possibility of a political conflict between the Biden administration and the public sector teachers’ unions who nominally support him, the ways in which the pandemic has shifted labor back into the private sphere of the American household, why both parties should be aiming to present themselves as “the ‘not crazy’ party” (and why they both seem to be doing the opposite), and much more. Will also provides a useful thought experiment as to whether or not one is engaging in hypocrisy in political discussions: “Always try to ask, ‘Am I doing the same thing I’m accusing others of?’”

Show Notes:

-Will’s page at Slate

-Will: “The Enemy isn’t Republicans. It’s Liars.”

-Biden now wants 1.5 million vaccinations a day

-Student suicides in Las Vegas

-Will with Charlie Sykes on The Bulwark podcast

-Jonah: “The Center is a Lonely Place to Be”

-Will: “Trump is the GOP’s warlord”

-Lucifer: “The very first radical”

-Tucker Carlson goes to bat for QAnon

-Newsweek edits 2015 story to conform to new attack on Tom Cotton

-Burke and the impeachment of Warren Hastings

-Jonah and Tom Friedman: BFFs

-Take our podcast survey

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The Inmates Are Running the Party Jan 27, 2021

Show notes

A.B. Stoddard rejoins the show for the three-timer award, as well as to talk, well, politics of all things. What can we expect from Senate Republicans at the start of the new Biden administration. Especially with a vote on whether to convict Donald Trump in the pipeline? We also get some more chronicles in the saga of Mitch McConnell: Machiavellian, principled, or both? And what about the recent flurry of (largely) socially progressive executive orders from the Resolute Desk? Stoddard helps determine what of this recent political news is a signal, and what’s simply noise.

Show Notes:

-Stoddard at RCP

-Stoddard on McConnell

-The Hawaii GOP expresses its support for QAnon

-Is Jim Jordan about to get more influential?

-“The One Where Jonah Calls Matt Gaetz a Steroidal Playmobil Figurine”

-Updates on the Patriot Party

-Take our podcast survey

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Remnant D’être Jan 23, 2021

Show notes

The days of the 2012 GOP “autopsy” are long behind us. Listen as Jonah ruminates on the struggles of protecting serious conservatism at a time of supreme unreflectiveness among many adherents of the movement as to how it has been led astray. Jonah also expresses his optimism at the revitalized raison d’être of The Dispatch in a post-Trump America. Additionally, Jonah even previews a forthcoming idea that could be of supreme interest to The Remnant’s nerdier factions: “I owe it to readers to do a deep dive… into what Liberal Fascism has to say” about the revanchist populism of the Trumpian right.

Show Notes:

- Take our podcast survey

- This week’s G-File

- The minimum wage and eugenics

- Why are they calling all of Antifa “Biden voters”?

- Hunter Baker’s article

- Newt Gingrich, with another asinine thing

- “Not my president?”

- The Wednesday “news”letter

- The Remnant with Mo Elleithee

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Jack Gets Back Jan 22, 2021

Show notes

Join Jonah and special guest Jack Butler, his former research assistant for the tricentennial episode. It’s the best of both worlds as the program recalls its greatest hits (conspiracies about the Soviets, Bigfoot Erotica, The Episode that Shall Not be Named, and, of course, Jokes at Jack’s expense) while also breaking into new territory. The guys talk about the conflict between college Republicans who got into politics just to be edgy versus the more thoughtful millenials and Zoomers who actually hold convictions, and about how “for the first time in more than four years, conservative politics do not have to flow through the person of Donald Trump.”

Show Notes:

- Take our podcast survey

- Jack’s page at NR

- The Remnant with Joseph Uscinski (or, as Jack said in an interesting instance of spoonerism, “Douglas Urbanski”)

- Lost Cosmonauts

- Werner Herzog being vaguely horrified by Grizzly Man audio

- Bigfoot Erotica: Origin Stories

- “The Swamp: An affectionate farewell”

- The “Uncomfortable Learning” program at Williams College has a strange history

- Jack’s profound disappointment with Madison Cawthorn

- Jack ponders the possibilities of Amazon’s show in Middle-Earth

- Dan McLaughlin on what comes after Trump

- Zhou Enlai on the French Revolution: “Toon soon to tell”

- Community: Nick Cage, good or bad?

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Mo Unity, Mo Problems Jan 21, 2021

Show notes

In an exercise of “dealing with liberalism’s best arguments,” Jonah plays host to returning guest Mo Elleithee, a Democratic political strategist. They talk about the first day of the Biden administration and many of the coming political realignments. Would Democrats relish the thought of a “Patriot Party” rising up in opposition to the GOP, or would they reel in horror? Are Americans cautiously optimistic about the incoming administration’s “unity” message, and if so, are they right to be? And in a shocking turn of events, every House Democrat must now bow before the Lord Regent of West Virginia, Joe Manchin.

Show Notes:

-Take our podcast survey

-Mo Elleithee - Georgetown University

-George W. Bush’s first inaugural address

-Trump’s “Patriot Party”

-Liz Cheney vs. the House GOP

-Chip Roy’s House speech on impeachment

-NYT: “Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police”

-The January 2021 Civility Poll

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Scarcity of Lacrimosity Jan 16, 2021

Show notes

On this weekend’s Ruminant, Jonah discusses how the essence of conservatism in all its variety has been distilled down to a single oversimplistic metric: The more one likes Trump, and the more libs one owns, the more conservative one is assumed to be. “If you agree with Donald Trump, you’re a conservative, and if you defend Trump at all costs, you’re a good conservative.” Jonah then talks about how the larger panoply of conservative ideas is not only more interesting, but more practical for achieving realistic goals in our politics. There’s also a healthy smattering of theology, dog-talk, and Buckley stories throughout.

Show Notes:

- Take our podcast survey

- This week’s Remnant with Yuval

- This week’s G-File

- DeSantis puts his kid in a MAGA onesie

- Varieties of Conservatism in America

- Varieties of Progressivism in America

- Advisory Opinions talks about incitement standards

- Pew polls attitudes about election results

- This week’s Remnant with Keith Whittington

- Last weekend’s Ruminant

- Jonah combat’s J. V. Last’s dog-suspicion

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Yuval Got Some Explaining to Do Jan 15, 2021

Show notes

Today, AEI’s Yuval Levin returns, and Jonah asks him something more important than “What happens next?” Rather, they try to think about “What should we do next?” They talk about what Congress’ institutional responsibility is in regards to impeachment. They also discuss the 10 Republican representatives who voted for impeachment (“Look, I’m Jewish: 10 is better than zero.”), and their hopes to move past the historically anomalous character of right wing discourse throughout the Trump years. “This period has just been devoid of policy conversations. … Keeping the left from crushing you is an important goal, but it’s not what matters most.”

Show Notes:

- Yuval’s most recent book, A Time to Build

- Yuval’s quarterly publication, National Affairs

- Rich Lowry: “The Crash of the Flight 93 Presidency”

- The Good Fight with Yascha Mounk

- William James and Charles Peirce’s “Cash value of an idea”

- “’Coequal’ is my trigger word”

- Federalist No. 10, where Madison discusses democracy vs. republicanism

- Robert Putnam, The Upswing

- “A Nation of Cowards,” by Jeffrey Snyder

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