Jonah’s return to The Remnant features a guest with “The most important hair in public policy,” Ryan Streeter from AEI. While Ryan’s magnificent mane isn't captured in the final product, his spot-on analysis of the causes of American stagnation (and what we can do to get out of it) certainly are. Why is fulfilling work so hard to find for a great many Americans? Which of the structures meant to stand between the individual and the government do our current policy regimes totally fail to support?...
Nov 20, 2020•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 281
Jonah the Globetrotter has once again scattered to the four winds, temporarily leaving The Remnant once more in the capable hands of David French. Today, David speaks with his good friend Yascha Mounk, contributor to The Atlantic and founder of Persuasion . Mounk talks us through the current conditions within mainstream media outlets and how those institutions have the opportunity to lower the temperature of American discourse now that Trump is leaving office. David also talks about how a Biden ...
Nov 18, 2020•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 280
This week’s Ruminant sees Jonah reach his final form, as he begins with post-election punditry before seamlessly transitioning into a brand of deep-cut, Grade A political-nerd eggheadery the likes of which are rarely seen even on this vaunted podcast. Listen as Jonah effortlessly bounces in a positively pinball-esque manner between Whittaker Chambers, Orwell, AOC, Joe Manchin, James Burham, Cicero, and obscure Italian Communist Party intellectuals, in a display that will both amaze and delight. ...
Nov 14, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 279
On today’s program, Jonah chats with an old friend who will definitely NOT polarize the Remnant audience whatsoever (If we wish hard enough then it has to come true, right?): National Review ’s Kevin Williamson. Williamson is out with a new book, Big White Ghetto. Jonah sets up Kevin for a heaping helping of rank punditry to start things off before moving into some book-talk and some eggheadery. In addition to Jonah’s efforts to make Kevin explicate his self-described political ideology (“anarch...
Nov 13, 2020•1 hr 43 min•Ep. 278
In the Before Times, when we’d all walk around bookstores putting our dangerously diseased digits on various tomes without a care in the world, did you notice a recurring phenomenon? It’s been the case for the past few years that the nonfiction sections of any major bookstore are filled with a glut of “Trump era” books – either memoirs from officials, books attempting to psychologize the man himself, or vaguely rant-y polemics that are big on rhetoric but light on substance. What if, hypothetica...
Nov 10, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 277
On this weekend’s Ruminant, Jonah asks why we have to make American politics even more difficult than they already are. Why is it that, in an election that reveals Americans’ contested preferences so obviously, that we have to continue to turn up the heat by piling on additional conspiracy theories about the rigging of the election? Maybe, as Jonah thinks, this simply reveals a series of “deeply unpatriotic commitments” among our political and commentariat classes. He makes his way to greener pa...
Nov 07, 2020•59 min•Ep. 276
At a moment where punditry can feel relatively grim – mostly due to the feeling of instability resulting from this endless election – Jonah wanted to have on someone who was capable of a different variety of punditry. Who fits the bill better for a political commentary of “pluckish optimism” than National Review ’s Jim Geraghty, who displayed his infinite humility by choosing not to wear his brand new “Remnant 10-Timer” Championship Belt on the Zoom call? Jim gives his analysis regarding many of...
Nov 06, 2020•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 275
On this momentous day, in which the very nature of American politics may be defined anew for the foreseeable future, Jonah wanted to have on Razib Khan, director of science at Insitome, to talk about the most relevant, up-to-the-minute, topical subject so that, in this consciousness-shifting moment, we may be able to hold on for dear life and come up with a coherent worldview amidst the chaos. That subject, you ask? Dog genetics. How did Man’s Best Friend become such a highly variegated species ...
Nov 03, 2020•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 274
Seeing that there’s literally one story in the news right now (AN ELECTION IS HAPPENING SOON), Jonah decided to use his time on this weekend’s Ruminant to touch on some topics adjacent to the election, but also to incorporate some more evergreen topics into the mix. For example, there’s a discussion of the eternal return of the “get money out of politics” argument – and why Jonah thinks the argument is pointless in a world where the biggest benefit a candidate can get is a hysterical cycle of ea...
Oct 31, 2020•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 273
Today two-thirds of the GLoP Culture podcast are together (a veritable biumvirate, one could say) to keep you up to date with some pre-election punditry while also distracting you just enough with pop culture news to prevent a sense of total crushing morosity. John Podhoretz of Commentary magazine joins Jonah to discuss the realities of Jewish political life in America, and to level with us about how realistic the chances of an upset are in the coming election. Then, John – with his It’s Always ...
Oct 30, 2020•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 272
Could Bigfoot Erotica influence the election? Fan-favorite Chris Stirewalt of Fox News says, “It’s a possibility.” (BIG IF TRUE) No, but really, Jonah wanted to have Chris back on The Remnant to cut through the vast amount of statistical noise being generated in the run-up to the election. With some polls suggesting a Biden landslide, other polls predicting a closer-than-expected outcome, and yet still more organizations suggesting a legion of silent-assassin-Republicans, waiting in the wings to...
Oct 27, 2020•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 271
At the end of an especially busy week in pundit-world, Jonah sits down with us all to ruminate on some of the more noteworthy topics that may have flown by too quickly to actually wrap one’s brain around them. On the docket: The final debate, some useful counter-programming on the Biden email hullabaloo, getting (erm…) a “grip” on Jeffrey Toobin, and much more. Plus, Jonah has some more evergreen thoughts on the gradual defining down of conservatism, and what the G-File has meant to him after al...
Oct 24, 2020•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 270
Last time Tim Alberta, Politico’s chief political correspondent, was on the program, life in America was crazy, but in a typical, everyday, post-2016 kind of way. We figured that it was time to have him back now that we’re in the process of rushing towards a new form of crazy at Spaceballs -levels of ludicrous speed (“They’ve gone plaid!”). Tim takes us through some of the issues that voters in purple states actually seem to care about (Hint: The Hunter Biden drama isn’t one of them) while also ...
Oct 22, 2020•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 269
Co-founder of Echelon Insights, Golden Retriever companion, and professional Tea Leaf-Reader Kristen Soltis Anderson breaks a long hiatus from Remnant appearances by returning to the show today. As conventional wisdom on the right settles into the idea that “the polls were wrong in 2016,” Kristen gives us a bit of a reality check on why the conditions in 2020 aren’t that simple. She also talks about her newest research on the attitudes of young voters, with some surprising results. For one, youn...
Oct 20, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 268
This weekend’s Ruminant sees Jonah starting off in some classic Remnant Bingo™, but peppered in with a healthy dose of interesting new information on those topics – in this case, anti-Enlightenment nationalism, and the establishment of fair rules under classically liberal societies. This comes along in addition to a rundown of the ham-fisted efforts by many outlets to pretend that “originalism” is actually something much more radical and antediluvian than it really is. Then, Jonah moves on to a ...
Oct 17, 2020•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 267
Here we are, in the wreckage of another simply wonderful Supreme Court confirmation hearing; who better to discuss the aftermath, next steps, and what these hearings do to the court than Ilya Shapiro? As Jonah says, Ilya is likely “the guest most consistently asked to make a comeback - mostly by the guest himself,” but it’s easy to see why. In addition to giving the 411 on why these hearings have transformed into so much “senatorial bloviation,” he also can talk about the bigger picture as a res...
Oct 16, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 266
Today, we bring you Will Saletan of Slate – after having struggled mightily against the malevolent whims of technology in order to get it ready. Not since Episode 11 has an installment of The Remnant so risked the sanity – nay, the very essence – of all participants involved. Luckily, the conversation more than makes up for these struggles. Jonah asks Will what it’s like to be a genuinely liberal guy in an industry space that has moved largely past actual liberalism, and then Will turns the tabl...
Oct 13, 2020•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 265
TO OUR FAVORITE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD! Not seniors this time around, but Remnant listeners, that is. Jonah returns to ruminate with some fire in his belly this week – on the wasting of energy on Twitter, the bizarre phenomenon of the mainstream-media respectable conservative, court packing, The Worst President in History™, a revisiting of the weed conversation from the last Remnant , and more. Also, the quote of the day – or maybe the month, or the year – might be this: “The very essence of seriou...
Oct 10, 2020•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 264
Remnant first-timer Jonathan Adler joins Jonah today, not to watch Cheech and Chong over a bag of Doritos, but to talk about the politics of marijuana. Earlier in the year (right around the time that the world was ending, actually), Adler edited a volume entitled Marijuana Federalism , which explored the legal contradictions within the laws regarding cannabis in the U.S.; the situation is somewhat unprecedented, in that we now have a substance that is a federal crime to possess, while many state...
Oct 09, 2020•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 263
Since the first six days of October 2020 have felt like 87 years, who’s better to sift through everything that has happened than one of The Dispatch ’s own quadrumvirate of podcasters, Steve Hayes? Here to give Jonah the inside scoop on some of the background reporting he’s done for The Morning Dispatch , Steve has some ideas about how Trump’s overly-cinematic return to the White House could’ve been handled better, why there was a communication breakdown between Trump’s medical staff and his PR ...
Oct 06, 2020•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 262
This weekend’s Ruminant features Jonah running through a set of possible scenarios that might play out given President Trump’s COVID diagnosis – if we do say so ourselves, it’s a positively David French-like methodology given the approach to David’s new book ( Out now !). Will Trump be able to do a Zoom debate? Will Mike Pence have the opportunity to do more than he currently does (which, as of now, seems to be standing completely still in a pensive silence like a sculpture of a Roman general)? ...
Oct 03, 2020•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 261
In true Remnant fashion, Jonah speaks to Seth Masket – a political scientist at the University of Denver – in an attempt to understand why so few people in American life actually get what they want out of their vote. In Seth’s new book, Learning from Loss , he traces the Democratic Party’s inability to come up with a coherent “autopsy” post-2016 as Republicans did post-2012 (which is not to say that the GOP actually followed its own advice; we wouldn’t have Trump if it did). There’s some debate ...
Oct 02, 2020•1 hr 44 min•Ep. 260
Join Jonah on today’s episode of The Remnant with our first-time guest: CBS’s John Dickerson. The subjects included in John’s latest book, The Hardest Job in the World , will allow you to get a fix of incredible nerdiness about presidential history in equal proportion to your daily recommended dosage of rank punditry. Why is it that we’ve made the presidency, in John’s words “essentially an impossible job”? Another shock: Many of the parts of presidential decorum that we consider par for the cou...
Sep 29, 2020•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 259
Jonah’s longtime friend Tevi Troy makes his second appearance on the program, this time to discuss not only the history of presidential debates, but also to share some info on how the sausage gets made from his time doing debate prep for George W. Bush. Beyond simply recounting some of the best zingers in the history of these debates (“The youth and inexperience of my opponent…” “You’re no Jack Kennedy.”), they discuss the degree to which these moments are actually staged, and how the pretzel-li...
Sep 25, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 258
Fellow Dispatcher David French returns to the program on the publishing date of his new book, Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation . If you’ve looked around at American politics over the last few years, and you’ve started to view the coastal states and the middle of the country as a bickering couple – wondering, “Why don’t they just break up already? – David’s book is for you. Jonah asks David to outline some of the scenarios by which a fracturing of the repu...
Sep 23, 2020•1 hr 39 min•Ep. 257
Just as there are different Enlightenments, there are different nationalisms, too. In both cases, it’s important to see what points they all converge on. On this edition of the Ruminant , Jonah walks through the ways in which we’ve seen this all before – even in spite of how strange this moment feels. Confucius says: “Enjoy your weekend!” Show Notes: - The Dispatch 30-day free trial at - The latest G-File - Rectification of the Names - Divided We Fall David’s soon-to-be-out book, - HumanProgress...
Sep 19, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 256
“We need to agree that the Senate doesn’t work,” Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse tells Jonah on today’s episode of The Remnant . “The Founders had this great idea that you separate power vertically and horizontally if you believe in universal human dignity, and the Senate is kind of the most unique single institution that the Founders created in the Constitution.” Sasse’s appearance comes on the heels of his Wall Street Journal op-ed, in which he calls for modified Senate term limits, repealing the 17th...
Sep 17, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 255
Let the waves of optimism wash over you as return-guests Ron Bailey ( Reason ) and Marian Tupy (Cato Institute) join forces as Jonah’s tour guides through the last several centuries of human progress. Listen to the first half to hear why there is actual good news about the human condition – even during a pandemic – and stick around in the second half for a satisfying helping of philosophical eggheadery on education, personal liberty, and the logic of nonviolent protest. Show Notes: - The Dispatc...
Sep 15, 2020•1 hr 43 min•Ep. 254
What happens when you make a pundit talk about Antifa, the Dune trailer, the Republic of Venice, and 60s Iron Man cartoons all in one go? Tune in to the weekend Ruminant to find out! Show Notes: - The Dispatch Start a 30-day free trial of - Jonah’s Wednesday G-File, un-paywalled due to popular demand - Remnant This week’s second , with Andy Ferguson - Basically what Jonah means by “A Shoshana point.” - Dune The little-known miniseries - Iron Man The bizarre theme song to the 60s cartoon - Neo-ba...
Sep 12, 2020•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 253
Andrew Ferguson’s follow-up appearance on The Remnant has been a long time coming, and you can tell; he and Jonah are filled with plenty of wisdom on the state of modern journalism, what the conservative media landscape used to be like, and how to not go completely hollow while keeping up with the news cycle. Show Notes: - 30-day free trial of The Dispatch - The Atlantic Andy’s page at - Bob Dole: “I’m not bound by the platform. I probably agree with most everything in it, but I haven’t read it....
Sep 10, 2020•1 hr 32 min•Ep. 252
