Jonah and a brand new guest, Robert Draper of the New York Times , engage in punditry ranker than even the most devoted Remnant listener could imagine before gushing over Draper’s adorable canine companion. If that sounds like a retread of the week’s previous episode with A.B. Stoddard, fear not! Today’s dog talk is entirely spontaneous. The pair have Biden’s joint congressional address to dissect, and Draper has a fascinating new piece on Republican turmoil that stimulates plenty of conversatio...
Apr 29, 2021•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 341
Remnant favorite A.B. Stoddard joins Jonah today for an episode of exceedingly rank punditry. The pair discuss how President Biden has fared in his first 100 days, Donald Trump’s lingering presence within the GOP, and why both parties can’t help but be nutty. Tune in for political eggheadery, but stick around for uplifting dog discussion. A.B. has just taken in a new puppy (Chief!), and Jonah is as excited as he can be. Show Notes: - A.B.’s page at RealClearPolitics - Dispatch Live gears up for ...
Apr 27, 2021•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 340
In distinctly Goldbergian fashion, Jonah manages to combine musings on Home Depot, climate change, the Chauvin trial, and the classic “Deep Space Homer” episode of The Simpsons into a single, coherent Ruminant , which includes as many references to infrastructure as you’d expect at this point. Tune in not just for Jonah’s eggheadery, but to hear him face his greatest challenge yet: pronouncing the name “Greta Thunberg.” Show Notes: - Ben Shapiro gets wood - “It’s an inanimate carbon rod!” - Jona...
Apr 24, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 339
On today’s episode, Vital Interests author and national security extraordinaire Thomas Joscelyn makes his first Remnant appearance. With a healthy supply of Hayek references on hand, Jonah seems determined to outdo the wonkiness of Brian Riedl’s visit earlier this week. Al-Qaeda, Afghanistan, China, and the meaning of necrocracy are all discussed peacefully by the pair, until a certain name is mentioned; If you thought Jonah’s contempt for Woodrow Wilson was unparalleled, just wait until you hea...
Apr 22, 2021•1 hr 41 min•Ep. 338
Senior Manhattan Institute fellow Brian Riedl joins Jonah on The Remnant for an uber-wonky discussion of economic policy. Fresh from testifying before the House Committee on Financial Services on President Biden’s madcap “infrastructure” plan, Brian provides insight on all manner of economic fallacies peddled by Republicans and Democrats alike. What’s to be done about infrastructure? Are inflation and debt really a big deal? And why is everyone turning on free markets? Also, take a shot of your ...
Apr 20, 2021•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 337
Today’s refreshingly (or regrettably, depending on your perspective) sober Ruminant finds Jonah surrounded by boxes of books so nerdy that even Goodwill won’t take them. Preoccupied with thoughts on the strange state of the right, and the equally strange state of Joe Biden, he swiftly reaches levels of wonkiness so high that they could cure sleep deprivation. What’s the matter with the Claremont Institute? Will the oft-discussed “ Liberal Fascism Revisited” piece ever be completed? And what new ...
Apr 17, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 336
On today’s career-ruining episode, recorded deep within the headquarters of Half-Baked DARPA, Jonah is joined by frequent guest Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Packers) for a jaunt through the land of new and creative ideas that still need some more time in the oven. The show sees the guys return to the idea of annexing Greenland while also bringing new life to half-baked concepts such as spray-painted meteors, an $800 quadrillion infrastructure plan for salvaging the experience of the midpriced American...
Apr 15, 2021•1 hr 57 min•Ep. 335
Only those in the wonky 1 percent should subject themselves to today’s nerdtastic Remnant , in which Jonah is joined for a third time by the Manhattan Institute’s Andy Smarick. The pair use Andy’s recent Dispatch piece on the folly of never-ending school closures to launch a wide-ranging discussion of the pandemic culture war and divisions among conservatives. Should you be friends with politicians? Why are some Americans desperate for normalcy to never return? And is it wise for so many right-w...
Apr 14, 2021•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 334
On this freewheeling Ruminant , Jonah is accompanied by a smaller cast of off-putting onlookers than last time. Still on a high after the week’s earlier discussion of Bigfoot’s messianic powers, he approaches the questions of the day with extra verve. Is recycling a load of garbage? Is President Biden’s rhetoric on race any better? And, of course, has politics supplanted religion? Tune in to find out and, in case you missed it, to learn of the Sasquatch’s alien origins. Show Notes: - The great p...
Apr 10, 2021•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 333
Jonah collaborates with Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw on their second Remnant together in an attempt to hash out their differences of opinion regarding why Congress doesn’t work. (Or does it?) Come listen, and discover why members of Congress feel the need to have such robust media teams on staff all the time, why Marjorie Taylor Greene is actually a swamp creature nowadays, and walk through Dan’s “favorite moment of 2021,” which features a shockingly bad instance of Spanglish. Show Notes: - Dan’s pod...
Apr 08, 2021•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 332
Denver Riggleman, former congressman for Virginia’s 5th District and noted Bigfoot enthusiast, joins Jonah on today’s episode for a colorful discussion of Americans’ freedom to believe anything they want. Sometimes, the consequences can be tragic, as in the case of January 6. But they can also be truly spectacular, and for proof, look no further than those who believe Bigfoot is an interdimensional traveler, psychedelic prophet, and alien scout. Before diving headfirst into Sasquatch lore, the p...
Apr 06, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 331
Today’s Ruminant features Jonah amid a group of silent watchers, staring at him while on mute in a Zoom meeting as he speaks to himself for an hour in the basement of an undisclosed location. On the docket today: Jonah returns to one of the most interesting political conundrums of our moment. Was our class of political nutjobs always crazy, or did they only get crazy in the last few years? On a completely unrelated note, why is Matt Gaetz the way he is? And, of course, Jonah speaks to the danger...
Apr 03, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 330
On today’s episode, first-time guest of The Remnant , Shadi Hamid joins Jonah for a comprehensive discussion on religion, identity, and the bizarre wokespeak favored by Twitter’s blue checkmark crowd. Have wokeism and ethno-nationalism superseded religion on the left and right respectively? Are Islam and classical liberalism compatible? And, crucially, can Jonah contain the annoyance that consumes him at the mere mention of Adrian Vermeule? Show Notes: - Shadi Hamid - Brookings Institution - Sha...
Apr 01, 2021•1 hr 34 min•Ep. 329
On this episode, it’s déjà vu all over again as Chris Stirewalt returns - this time in the guest seat. What do Georgia’s new voter laws, Arlen Specter, mandatory voting, The World According to Garp ’s infamous “tongue scene,” Henry VIII, and Robin Williams’ illustrious career in drag have to do with one another? Well, the guys talk about all of it and more in this edition, and hopefully it puts you in a mood to believe that the living will not , in fact, envy the dead - “at least at the margins....
Mar 30, 2021•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 328
For this weekend’s Ruminant , hop into Jonah’s somewhat underwhelming time machine that goes only to the past – because, after all, “the future doesn’t exist.” Why is Jonah driving through the setting of a Mark Twain story? Why do conservatives look to the past for better times (even when the past is largely worse), and why do liberals look to a nonexistent future? Why are both left- and right-wing kids trying to make the entire world like a college campus? And who is Gabriel Kolko, and why does...
Mar 27, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 327
David French graciously guest-hosts in Jonah’s place on today’s program, wherein he has a long-ranging conversation with a longtime friend , Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. David and Greg discuss some of the silliest and most sinister examples of censorship regimes on college campuses from recent history, the history of the campus free speech movement stretching back to the 1950s, David’s memories of being a conservative at Harvard Law School, and ...
Mar 25, 2021•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 326
Tevi Troy—presidential historian and all-around smart person—joins the program to talk about the mechanics of cancel culture, and what might be done to prevent it from taking hold in the future. Key to Tevi’s point is that “cancel culture is actually a distinct phenomenon from political correctness, which everyone largely disliked in the ‘90s.” They also talk about the larger culture of censorship in America before moving into the most vitally important topics of our time: Marvel vs. DC, in both...
Mar 23, 2021•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 325
In the midst of carving a path to Yosemite, Jonah has graced us with a Ruminant that provides a weekly roundup of his writing – from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to an example from his past that indicates why our radicals should Czech their privilege. He moves into a rumination on subconscious conservative messages embedded within Hollywood entertainment before discussing the unintended consequences of the Senate re-embrace of earmarks as well as the perks of sleeping in Walmart parking lots...
Mar 20, 2021•57 min•Ep. 324
Live (well, at the time of recording) from Park City, Utah, Jonah is joined by his AEI handlers, Nick and Guy, for a pop culture-filled conversation with the help of listener-provided questions. Why does Jonah go on trips fit only for Survivorman ? Why is Pam Grier so fascinating? Was Angel actually better than Buffy ? And, the most important question of all, which one of Jonah’s former coworkers in conservative news media does Guy sound exactly like? Show Notes - Onion: “Markle seen holding Pri...
Mar 18, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 323
Pinch-hitting for Jonah today is his vocal double Chris Stirewalt, who talks with his old friend from their shared years at Fox News’ Decision Desk, Daron Shaw. Chris and Daron go on a “mythbusting” expedition, explaining why the conventional wisdom that high-turnout elections benefit Democrats isn’t true (and has never been) as well as why campaign finance efforts have historically failed to attack corruption in favor of simply dismantling the “appearance of corruption.” It’s a punched-up episo...
Mar 17, 2021•44 min•Ep. 322
In this weekend’s Ruminant, Jonah has a lot rattling around in his mind, and now you're gonna hear about it. Why are elites inevitable? What explains the transformation of the Democratic Party into an ideological party? Stay for Jonah's thoughts on Covid relief, and President Biden's first prime-time White House address. Show Notes: - The Friday G-File - The members-only midweek “news”letter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Mar 13, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 321
Steven Hayward enters the ranks of the three-timers on today’s Remnant , as he and Jonah engage in a discussion of the American right that manages to be both wide and deep. Jonah and Steve get the “dark clouds out of the way” (such as a pervasive illiberal cancel culture and the reappearance of especially nasty tribalism) first to make room for Steve’s heartening optimism. Such greener pastures involve an investigation into what remains of the old fusionist mindset among conservatives, why the r...
Mar 12, 2021•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 320
On today’s show, Jonah speaks to Manhattan Institute fellow and CCNY professor Daniel DiSalvo (an expert on public-sector unions and their history) to find out how the sausage really gets made in the intra-organizational politics of these public-sector unions, and how their influence is often the result of “the breakdown of machine politics – especially within the Democratic Party – in big cities.” Show Notes: - Dan’s page at the Manhattan Institute - “The Trouble with Police Unions” - Dan’s lat...
Mar 09, 2021•56 min•Ep. 319
This weekend’s edition of the Ruminant is a little bit like Christopher Hitchens’ D.C. apartment: a little bit of one thing right next to a little bit of the complete opposite thing. There’s a lot of ground covered in this, a practically record-breaking long episode of the podcast in which Jonah discusses his dad’s work for the wonderfully-acronymed NANA (North American Newspaper Alliance), dynamic scoring (a system in which this episode gets an A+), the necessity of telling the truth at a time ...
Mar 06, 2021•1 hr 42 min•Ep. 318
Elaine Kamarck of the Brookings Institution joins us for the first time. She and Jonah stray from pure rank punditry to instead discuss intra-party politics of primaries, the Democratic Party, and Elaine’s innate skepticism of the Electoral College. Jonah pushes back by saying that “When you start to dig under the surface, most people who oppose the Electoral College are really just saying that they don’t like the Senate,” to which Elaine has a great, balanced response (probably the best answer ...
Mar 05, 2021•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 317
In an effort to explain the current state of the economy as well as the political ramifications of some parts of the Biden agenda coming down the pipeline, Jonah invited Michael Strain, his colleague at the American Enterprise Institute, for a return appearance. Strain explains complicated issues without confusing the plebeians among us who can’t look at numbers for very long before developing a headache. Speaking of headaches, near the end of the podcast the guys get into a relitigation of the ...
Mar 03, 2021•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 316
Jonah joins us on a feature-length Relaxed Fit™ episode of the Ruminant in which he discusses his innate wish to continue speaking as a conservative without the sacrifice of genuinely-held principles. An important trait for a moment where that simply doesn’t happen often. In the first half, Jonah also addresses the “autoimmune problem” (both literal and figurative) of American youth as they continuously fail to prove themselves in tests of emotional fragility, and he makes a shocking claim about...
Feb 27, 2021•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 315
Fellow Dispatcher Declan Garvey joins Jonah on today’s program, wherein they discuss the parallels between the GOP’s current identity crisis and the last time that Americans witnessed a similar party realignment (the Whigs vs. Jacksonian Democrats). The guys discuss the prospects for a theoretically ascendant third party - “The people I spoke to said, ‘Yeah, I’d be happy to belong to a party that addressed my concerns even if I knew it might lose in the short term,’” says Declan - as well as ear...
Feb 26, 2021•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 314
Today, we confirm that Dispatch contributing editor Chris Stirewalt has indeed surpassed our gold jacket threshold while engaging in the rankest of punditry. Chris and Jonah discuss how Biden’s “poison pills” (Neera Tanden’s potential confirmation, a dogmatic insistence on a $15 minimum wage policy, et al) are quickly becoming … well, pills, simply put. While the administration continues to add progressive boxes to their checklist, Israel continues to speed ahead with vaccinations and, in the do...
Feb 24, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 313
Jonah welcomes Kevin Williamson to discuss their shared status as Americans trapped within the final layer of Dante’s Hell (aka, Texas in the midst of a large-scale winter weather disaster). From the corporatism on display to the “stunning lack of entrepreneurialism” in response to the issues the state is currently facing, to every issue in between - such as the pointless populism being proffered as an explanation for Texas’ woes - this situation is proving to be a microcosm of everything that i...
Feb 19, 2021•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 312
