Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markwood Show on iHeartRadio. On my monologue last episode, I talked about how people crave normal and they want to know what to expect. A few people have called this election the revenge of the normies, and I really have to agree. People don't want to be yelled at for using a term that was okay last year but no longer is today. They don't want to have to use language they think is ridiculous.
They don't want to be judged for having very standard opinions by people who are really fringe, but have it reinforced by others because everyone is afraid to fight back. I can hear people saying, but Donald Trump is unpredictable, and that's true, but not in the way the last few years have been extremely unpredictable.
We really couldn't be sure.
What Joe Biden and comm Will Harris believed. Biden ran as a moderate and then seemed not controlled but certainly guided by his more left wing staff. Kamala Harris was super left in California, but then ran as a moderate this time. Last time she ran as super left. Yes, politics is what it is, and Donald Trump was a Democrat from most of his life and all of that. But there is a sense with Trump that you get what you get and there is no pretense. People like
to know what to expect. Yes, I'm going to tie the political back to your own lives. If the election went the way you hoped, there really is no need to poke your liberal friends and family in the eye with it. And if it didn't go the way you hoped, I'd suggest not going around talking about how everyone who voted for Trump is a fascist. More than anything else, let the people around you know that this is the behavior they can expect from you, you will expect from them.
Thanksgivings coming soon. Don't get roped into arguing with people you love over politics. It's not that the political is not important. It's just that no one's mind will get changed. No one enjoys being lectured or getting little comments made at them, and rifts will form. So lay down the expectations in all of your relationships and live up to those expectations. Knowing what to expect from people is very important. Family and friends deserve that from you, and you from them.
Coming up next an interview with Michael Brendan Doherty. Join us after the break, but first, with daylight savings behind us, crime rates tend to rise. You've heard us talk about the Saber home defense launchers the ultimate choice for protecting what matters. But did you know that Saber also offers a full line of on the go pepper sprays, gels and stun guns backed by Sabers maximum strength guarantee. They're the number one pepper spray brand trusted by law enforcement.
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Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show.
On iHeartRadio. My guest today is Mychael Brendan Doherty. He's a senior writer at National Review, the William F. Buckley, Senior Scholar at Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and the author of My Father Left Me Ireland, a really fantastic book.
I loved it so much. Hi, Michael, so nice to have you on.
I mean, it's great.
I love the book.
I mean, I think I've recommended it to so many people. It's a few years old now and I still like refer to it.
When did it come out.
It was twenty nineteen, so it was in the Before Times.
Yeah, totally before times.
I looked up the other day and thought, oh, maybe I should do a five year five years event, and then I realized that already passed.
Well, what about like a follow up of you know, well, we should you write second books? I hear not me personally, but I am aware people do it. This was your first, right.
I haven't done it yet, but you know, stay tuned. There may be news on that front soon.
Okay, I will stay tuned.
So the book is about you're raised in America, your father is Irish and lives in Ireland. My kids used to walk by the book and think your dad was like an Irish king or something and he left you Ireland.
But that's not what it's about. So can you tell us a little bit about it, or.
Yeah, you know, it's funny what your kids thought is kind of what my father almost taught me to believe. But it was I wanted to write about a couple of things at once which were coming together, which were
growing up fatherless. Right. My father had left before I was born, and wasn't it was only a very sporadic presence in my childhood and kind of had an unusually unusual relationship in that, like most children of divorce or for single children only children, you know, they'll have their father on the weekends or you know, part of the holidays, and that wasn't it for me. For me, I would see him maybe every two or three years, for maybe a week at a time, like a kind of controlled visit,
and then sometimes even more sporadic than that. And then I was reflecting on that relationship I'd had with him in light of a couple of events as I was becoming an adult, which was my own mother dying, the mother who raised me, and then having children myself and my mother had kind of filled our home with Irish culture and music and even some language and yeah, Irish American, and in kind of my father's absence, it was a kind of Breadcombe trail back to him in a way.
And gradually, you know that the throughout the these letters that I'm writing to him in this book, I'm revealing the story of how he and I reconciled as adults. And you know how meaningful that was to me, to my to my children, and sort of also this kind
of gift. It gave me of access to Irish nationality and it's kind of legends and history, and and through that I was able to access values and ideas that aren't in fashion right now, right like about how to you know, how to be a man, how to be responsible, how to be you know, there's a there's a kind of contrast in the end of the book between the kind of education I received as a young kid in the nineteen nineties, where it was like we were sured we were going to get whatever we wanted life right
very easily. Just you know, just get educated, behave seasonally enough, and it'll all come to you easily, which wasn't exactly true. And then the education that kind of the hero of the Irish Revolution Patrick Pierce offered his students where he wanted to teach them to be proud, valiant and tough like and even willing to sacrifice their lives for something beautiful.
And what I came to realize in the end was that, you know, in a way, my mother had been that sacrificial figure in my life who kind of threw her life away for me of love for me, and that my father had also been this surprise figure in that. You know, I'd always conceived of his abandonment as you know, an act, you know, or right, but in fact I kind of it dawns on me over the course of this how much grief and love and regret filled his
life on the other side. So, yeah, I just wanted to write about that because it's something listeness is hugely, yeah, like endemic in society, and I had this unique perspective on it and this unique experience of it, one that kind of shed some hope for some people.
We'll be right back with more from Michael Brendan Doherty. But first, protecting our families and homes is essential.
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I remember reading this and thinking your mother left you Ireland and that she was the pusher of Irish culture and Irish thought.
So it's interesting you know that your dad was the one living there, but I felt like your mom was the one who who really tied.
You to the place.
Yeah, and you know, it was funny. One of the reviews picked up on that. I thought Andrew Sullivan, of all people, picked up on that most of all said that, like, it's a book about fatherhood, but it's it's a disguised poem about maternal love. And in a way, like it was a very fulfilling book to write, Like personally, I remember when I got to read the audiobook. I got to be the voice of the audiobook, which's not something
every author gets to do. And so I was reading the completed work just before it was coming out, and it was incredibly like a cathartic experience to do this, and it was sort of like no reversal. Like when I was a very young boy, you know, you're taught the ten commandments, like honor your father and mother, and I remember, like, as like a little kid, I was kind of cynical about it. At like six years old. I was like, yeah, God will let me off on this one.
This one clearly does not count.
Clearly like it doesn't apply to me exactly like and so then I had this experience at like thirty five years old, as children are coming into my life, where I felt for the first time like I had obeyed the commandment. And it's such a childly thing to think, but it was. Yeah, it was incredibly moving to experience as well.
Though, are you succeeding and raising your children like with those Irish values that you talk about.
I'm certainly they certainly have the romance for Ireland. I mean, we've been able to We're very you know, we're blessed with more material resources and cheaper airfare than existed in my childhood. You know, in my childhood, you know, a a phone call to Ireland could like rerecord the family budget for the month, you know what I mean, like long distance phone call just to my father. So we didn't have them. I had letters. And now you know, we get to go, you know maybe every other year.
He comes here, you.
Know, and he's really courage and the valiant and the second I mean, I'm trying, you know, you know, you try, yeah to teach your boy's courage and to be proud and.
You know, so, like you just try to fill them with stories that that give them that worldview or like important that worldview, so that it's not absent from them because they wouldn't normally get it from no like uh like even the like kids watch like there's some magic being that just sort of interrupts and fixes all the problems for them, Like one of them, it's like there's
this weird like magic mom or magic whatever. Even from the youngest ages, Like there's like a Mickey cartoon that used to be on where like they would just summon some magic.
Yeah. I remember this. I forgot what it was called.
It had a had like a chant or something you had to be like, Yeah, my kids used to watch.
It when they were little. I totally remember that.
They summoned some masker tool or something.
Yeah, mouskool mausker tool.
They would like just summon this thing to like fix all their problems.
Yeah, your kids are small, right, Hell are your kids?
Yeah? They're small now they're nine, uh seven and five.
Yeah, and you forget the mask of tools. Let me tell you.
Yeah, yeah, if you forget the mask you tools. But it's you know, we try to give them challenges and you know, to learn that, like it's okay to fail, and it's okay to take on something big, so big that you're bound to fail in some ways, right, and and that's how you grow. So you know, we're starting there. I mean, I won't get to like the self sacrifice stuff, I think until a little later.
Maybe a little later.
Yeah, but yeah, it's and of course there's the book itself, and you know, I think it's like a kind of treasure that they'll they'll discover in you know, fifteen years or so, twenty years.
Yeah. What do you consider your beat at National Review?
I consider my beat sort of to be, you know, it's politics and culture, religion, but often like a little bit more of from a a traditional perspective I think, you know, from a you know, and sometimes from a dissenting perspective. Right, So, like I'm a little bit like I kind of exist at National Review to be maybe in that publication the minority voice on foreign policy. I'm a bit of a dove on most is, most conflicts, not all, but most. There's a little bit of a
you know, into trump Ism before Trump. You know, I'm a big free trader. I think a free trade is sort of a convenience, not as like a political ideal. You know, I've always been funny.
I see it as a political ideal, but I don't think it actually functions as you know, as that ideal. So like I if I could run the world, it would be free trade.
But we don't have free trade. So I don't you know, I don't think that we need to continue to push something that isn't happening.
What's funny about it is like for me, it's just so obvious that like history, like geopolitics and war kind
of proceed trade. Like so you know, for instance, like there's a reason we buy our cars from the two countries we defeated in World War two, like and that we immediedly you know, that we immediately needed to make into allies in the Cold War, Like you know, there's like and again like there there's a reason why like we opened trade with China kind of after Nixon, you know, as a way of pulling them away from the Soviet Union. And you know, so like there's all these I think
the politics precedes the trade policy. It's like, Okay, we're going to be friends, We're going to be part of a pact and we're going to integrate our economies somewhat, not all the way, right, yeah, because like if you did it all the way, we wouldn't even have farming in America. We would just be like, well, American lifestyle is too expensive to support farming, but we have farming, you know. We find ways to make it cheap to farm,
and and then we subsidize it too. So yeah, so trade is sort of yeah, I've always been a kind of heretic there, And the same thing on foreign policy.
What do you what do you worry about?
Do I worry about like politically or socially.
It could be whichever way you feel like answering. It's one of the questions I ask all my.
Guests worry about. Like I talk a lot about fertility rates, like how fast women are having babies or not having them, because I think human I have this belief that for most of history, like most humans, their their closest, their kith and kin kind of are the people they rely on for emotional support and development. The larger your family, like, the more powerful you are in some ways, and that it's not just economically but socially, like if you're the
weird kid in your house. But you have a big family. You probably have like a weird uncle or aunt that you relate to and help you out, or you have cousins that can help you find a job, you know, in something that actually pro Big.
Families for sure, for that reason, for lots of reasons. I mean I come from a small family, and I think big families are the dream.
Yeah, you know my household growing up with my grandparents, my mother and myself and then slowly just my mother and myself, and then you know, I felt that experience of just me just kind of being cut off at
the end. So I worry about that. I worry about the loneliness that kind of comes with with that, and also that family life is sort of contagious, like like I you know, I go to a traditional Catholic church where we have the old Latin Mass, and there's a lot of big families that and like when a young couple comes in, you can almost like feel them go from like we can have like five kids or like maybe they get seven kids someday, like because they're seeing other families do it.
Yeah, like which is a huge I mean, just seeing other people succeed at it is something.
Even having just one or two.
Kids or you know not you know, just having a family in general, I think sends a message of possibility to somebody who might not have thought that that was before. I mean, there's all these like studies and articles about how young people see marriage and family as completely out of reach and maybe something that only rich people do, which is crazy, and you hope to turn that around.
Like I wish people could see some of the families we know that you know, somehow like raised ten children on you know, a music teacher's salary, and you know, the the first children are going into the Ivy League like.
Those you know, like yeah, you.
Know, the the incredible success. And then also like how rich the children's lives are because they have this dense network of relationships with their siblings and cousins. You know, in my own own life, that's been really hugely rewarding. As you know, I went from being the only child with a single mother to now I have three children of my own. We have they have four cousins around
and like locally in the neighbor like very close by. Yeah, it's some even in our neighborhood, and like you know, the house can be full.
And no better feelings.
Right.
Yeah, Like this weekend, we took to my my sister in law's kids for the weekend to you know, give them a breaking it, let them get a get away in and over the long weekend it's five of them, you know, running around. It was awesome. Yeah, And so I worry about I worry about the fertility thing I worry about sounds weird. I worry about like government collapse.
Like I think COVID brought like huge stress to a lot of governments, probably unnecessarily in a lot of ways, but we I think we saw a huge part of that was like in our immigration crisis in the last couple of years, where people are fleeing governments in South America that totally failed and people's lives worsened really fast
in some of them. And like I worry that there's like like China or in North Korea will like collapse into total disorder and send like a human wave of misery over their borders that becomes like impossible for the international community to to support in any like rational way.
So like you know that that's something I haven't heard described. But yeah, I'm gonna start worrying about that too.
I just like, you know, how would how would South Korea cope if North Korea literally fell apart tomorrow? How would we cope? If you know, if China really like went on a decline quickly. I think we would do okay, but like I think it would be very rough slemming for a while. Yeah, so, yeah, I worry. I worry
a bit about that. Yeah, like North Korea going the way of Venezuela or like one of these Southern Triangle countries and just losing control, even though I'd like to see that government go away and be transformed, Like I don't, like I worry.
You know, you don't want to, right.
Right, So yeah, so I worry about those things. But I'm also like medium term hopeful, you know. I think, you know, on the on the population front, I think people are realizing that something is wrong and like we need to make a society that's more welcoming to children and that children are good. I think people are waking up to it. Yeah, I mean it could be weird, Like I could imagine like a reaction going too.
Far, like like people having too many kids.
Well no, I mean more like like a left wing like all right, let's have a Handmaid's a Handmaid's tale of our own, like you're not allowed to become a nun, like you're too fertile, right, But you know, I think I have hope that we'll we'll regenerate on that front. So yeah, those are the things I worry. I think I think about preponderantly.
We'll be right back with more from Michael Brendan Doherty. But first, this week marked one of the most consequential elections in our history, and no matter what happened, we knew that the support of Americans like you means so much to the people of Israel, especially now. This past year, not only have we seen the war rage on in the Holy Land, but we've also seen an alarming rise in anti Semitism. This is why I'm a proud partner
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What advice would you give your sixteen year old self?
I would clever is not enough. I like that work work a lot harder than you're working. Like just you know, you've been in institutions where being clever could cover up a lot of sins. People who are only clever disappoint their friends, their family members, and then ultimately themselves. It's just got to be joined a lot of hard work. That was like the big thing I think I learned in my late teens in twenties was like I had to work so much harder than I thought I did.
You know, smarts were not for sure, smarts could get you somewhere.
But like, yeah, you.
Have to deliver.
That's something we stressed to our kids a lot.
Like some of the smartest people I've met went nowhere in life because they didn't want to work. And I don't care how smart you are. I want I want you to struggle. I want it to be hard. I want you to learn how to work.
Yeah, that would be the biggest thing, Like I was way and then the other the other the advice like I would would you know, where I'd be encouraging my sixteen year old self and where I think I had it right when I was sixteen, was like follow your heart, like follow like if there is a burning passion inside of you for something, chase it and chase it to
the end of the earth. Right Like I married my high school sweetheart, were very happy, you know, and that was a chase of you know, the things, the great things in life that I've pursued were like romances, and I've never regretted going where that that risk and that ashion is like that that has always worked out.
I love that. Yeah, it's good. So I love that conversation.
Yeah, live dangerous in some ways.
Yeah sure, Yeah, I've loved this conversation. I love reading you. You're just such a beautiful writer. And here with a tip for my listeners on how to improve their lives. And you've kind of gotten into some of it, I'm sure, but leave us with a tip.
A tip I think is improve. One thing that I'm trying to do now that's working out a little bit, is like improving the rituals in my day. Like you probably have like little patterns of how you live, you know, like you reward yourself with a coffee after a morning
routine or whatever. Like, find those little rituals and then put something healthy or you know, spiritually nourishing in it, whether it's like reading a little bit of poetry or saying a prayer or ten minutes of meditation and and do that and find little things to do with you know, if you have kids, like with them, you know, fifteen minutes of tossing a baseball around and talking about the day.
So yeah, I think like improving those rituals is like a way to add a ton of of value to your life and make it habitual without you know, like really overhauling the you know, the whole Like if you've got basic things working, fix those little little things.
He is Michael Brendan Dougherty rita met National Review check out my father left me Ireland.
Thank you so much, Michael, Well, thank you it would be great.
Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Marco wid Show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts,