Well, obviously I'm using old style wired stuff today like Battlestar Galactica. Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Mister gerbuschaf tear down this wall, read my lifts. Either you were with us or you were with the terrorists. I mean the trip that President Biden to Kiv, as many of you reported on, was historic, it was brave. Many of you talked about how we heard the sirens wailing in the background as the President was on the ground. It's the Ricoche
Podcast with Peter Robinson and Rob Long. I'm James Lilacs and our guest eventually is Eli like and we'll talk about Ukraine for that a whole lots of stuff. So let's have ourselves a podcast. We never get bored. It's the Ricoche Podcast, of course it is. Why wouldn't it be that it's number six hundred and thirty one. How do we get this far, this many
podcast? Well because of people like you, as they say on National Public Radio, people like you who joined Ricochet at rocochet dot com and discovered the most stimulating conversations in community on the web. Haven't gone there yet. Ah, what's stopping you. We'll talk about that a little bit later in excruciating detail, but for the moment, Hello, Welcome Peter Robinson in cant Lafournia, which is not sunny and rob long peripatetic as he is possibly in Gotham.
I'm James Lilacs in Minneapolis, which somehow survived the epic storm that did not exactly turn out to be as epic as we wished, and oh how disappointed we are for that, gentlemen. Welcome. How's your day going. I am in Santa Barbara, which three five days a year, nine years out of a decade, is the most beautiful place on the planet. I happened to be here the one day, two days maybe in a decade. It's flood warning. I went to dive three. They're calling what's happening up
in the mountains a blizzard. Our friend the Blue Yettie was planning to drive over from Ohai but is sucked in and Ohai, and honestly I'm loving it. I'm in a hotel just a block from actually not even across the street, is the Pacific Ocean, and it makes me feel nostalgic for the East Coast because for the first time since I've lived in California, the Pacific looks
Atlantic. There are some rollers coming in. It's that deep, model, slightly threatening green instead of the usual sapphirey blue of the Pacific on a sunny day out here. So I suppose most of the people who came to Santa Barbara this weekend aren't getting their money's worth. But I'm loving it. It was like that when I was there a while ago, too, really love that. Yeah, I mean it. The sea was choppy, it was angry that morning, my friends. But what interested me more was finding the
original Sambo's restaurant, which is on the street the ocean. It's not Sambo's anymore, but it's where the chain began. And that's a little piece of childhood nostalgia that I can't. Can we give up? Rob, you are on the other side of the continental United States? I am but speaking. I mean, I remember when um they changed the name of that restaurant. Well, they really just SAMs. Well it's it's a complicated story and no one understands it. But it's a woman. But yeah, they had a
problem because Sambos was a contraction of the two owners names put together. Um but they did. It's not but it's sound. No, let's say I'm b E a U X yeah, right, the French version. Um. But even in the decore of the place itself, they did not reference the little Black Sambo story that a lot of people grew up with it. He was Indian, that's right, and he had a he had a turban, and he was up against a Bengal tiger and the rest of it. And
there are various pictures the show. Didn't they turned into butter right, right, right, but the right so they turned him into gee but yeah. But eventually they just couldn't get past the name, and the whole thing fell apart, and they a lot of them that rebranded as Denny's. And if you're a fan of commercial archilty, you can spot an old Sambo's restaurant to this day by the shape of the sign or the particular googie style. California.
And that was the great thing, was when they built Sambo's in Fargo, North Dakota or Cleveland or anywhere they imported to these places embassies of California futuristic sixties optimistic architecture. That was fun. And I drive around now and I look at what the fast food restaurants look like, and they're all black boxes. Taco Bell is a black box. McDonald's is a sober black box. Steak and Shaken whatever is a black box. There's no fun and whimsy
in these places anymore. But that's just me. So yes, he is a place. At least come here in La Um James, there is a place as you're leaving a quick kind on the way to the airport on the west side called Dinas d I nah okay Uh. And Dinas still has that kind of architecture. Dinas still has like fried Chicken still has this gigantic snaky s shaped counter that goes all around a Dinas is still pretty much the last
one. There was a place in la called La was like a headquarters of these plays called Ships right, and Ships was famous because the owner of Ships decided, I think in nineteen fifty two that you know, everyone wanted their toasts done a certain way, and they wanted a hot and there's no way to get hot toasts the way you want it at to your table, so he's he put a toaster on every table. So the corner of Olympic and the Lasianaga and they tore it down, and there was a minor protest.
I think now they wouldn't be allowed to tear it down. And uh and I don't even I don't know what they put up, like a gas station. Now, well, what's the same as what's the name of the famous burger place over on Pico. That's still sort of old timey, or at least it was five or six years ago. Less on the apple pan Yeah, yes, yes, yeah, still good, yeah, good, right, And that's still there, right, yeah, it's still there. That applants still there. Yeah. There was ships. There was Googie, which
gave the name to the style of architecture. There was coffee Dance. There's a whole bunch of these, and there was one architect who did most of them, who had this vision, sort of the Morris Lapidus of the West Coast, of what the future restaurant should look like, and it spread nationwide. Eventually. It just defined a particular tailfin optimistic jet age space age aesthetic
that I just absolutely adore. And it wasn't it wasn't valued for many years, and hence most of them were torned out and replaced him with gas stations or in and out or something like that, so' tis a pity. Well, should we get to the news of the world before we get to our seeking of changing Sambos to Sam's Yes, Rold Dahl, the author beloved by many of James and the Peach and the Fox and all the rest of it, and the big monster guy and got boutlerized by the usual im moral skulls.
Apparently I didn't know this. There are actually companies that you can hire to pour over your work to ensure that no harm, no violence is given by the text. And these people went through and removed a variety of things from Doll's work, most of which had to do with taking out the word fat and replacing it with something that wasn't as judgmental and fat Poe again the rest of it. So surprisingly there was pushback by people who said, I'm
sorry, it's literally Orwellian, you're changing the texts. And as it turns out, the company and the reason this happened was because the Doll estate had sold rights to Netflix, and apparently Netflix wanted to prevent itself from pickets by the Blue Hairs and the Nose. The company that was doing this has announced that readers will actually now be able to choose between the original and the edited versions of Doll's work, which is again, one more time, Read America
has one set of books and Blue America hasn't. I mean, it's better, I suppose, than extirpating all future references to his original text, but I still don't like it. This is I don't know. I want to say this is serious, but I mean we stand in a kind of torrent of this kind of thing. So on. My immediate thought was, this is if Raoul Doll heard of this, he would rise up and smite Dolly. I mean, it'd be just. But it also undermined the part of
what's going on with Doll in my view. I was thinking back to reading him, and I came to him late. He didn't penetrate Upstate New York, my little town, until I was I think early teens, and an event. Part of the pleasure was that you and Doll were in on it together. That other books might be saccharin, but Doll knew the way the world really was, and the world wasn't always all was nice. It wasn't always sacharin. There was a dark, little underside, and Doll knew that,
and he was letting you in on it. He was the world was horribly anti semitic. Well that as was he Yea said if Raal Doll was alive today, Rall Doll was alive today to hear this, he blamed the Jews. Yeah, I mean, he was not a nice guy. There's also stories of him, like you know, when he was married but deact patrician Neil and she had a stroke and he was uh and she was in the hospital recovering from a stroke and he would come in, and this is
the legend too. He would come in and he kind of yelled at her, get up, get up, come up, and he bullied her, but he sort of we're kind of was trying to restrain him. My god, let her cover. But even she says, he bullied me into recovery and he was a tough guy. Um. What's the good news here is that there's enormous amount of pushback on this from not from the usual suspects, from people who are sort of general he kind of left wing, and but
also like people a pen in places like that. Um, that is really that's good news. Um. The weird news is like, I don't know, I don't know how you begin to fix a book like the you know, the Charlie and get the name the actual book, not the movie. It's like the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Um, I don't know how you actually fix it if you're trying to boulderize it or updated it is in fact, mean, it's it's in the marrow of the work. Oh my
god, it's so deeply embedded. And these children are so awful, and their punishments are so just, and some of them you just get a sense that they're not there. They're they're they're not gonna They're not a lie anymore. And it is an interesting thing. It's the idea that you have to shield children from this so weird because they're gonna do it anyway. It's like, have you ever gone to one of those kids' soccer games where they're not
supposed to keep score. You know, we're all just playing soccer, and then you ask any kid, any kid, what's the score, and they will tell you the score is before to zero or killing them right. If you ask any parent what the score is is, oh you know, well, I don't know. Just everyone's having fun. They're just playing the game that kids like there's one there's one group of human beings alive today that no matter how hard you try, you will not woke afy, and that is
a child. You will never get a child to not notice a fat person, to not notice a stupid person, to not notice a glutton, to not notice people's infirmities, even embarrassingly like to not notice the guy in the wheelchair, the person with a funny lip, or you just what, you'll never You'll never accomplish that. And the idea that you're going to try so ridiculous. No you can't. But they don't want it. It's not that
it's not that they don't want them to notice. They want to internalize from the very possible earliest point in their lives that certain things are not to be said, and these certain things that should not be thought. I mean, you can think it, but you can't be aloud in your head. And so you have everybody internalizing all of these things that must not be said,
and you have a people who are compliant. When you know I mean I mean when we say literally Orwellian by that, I mean you know the fellow was talking with Winston Smith and the cafeterias, it's you know, it's a wonderful thing, the destruction of language. Remove the words and you remove the
ability to conceive the ideas behind them. And so the whole thing about taking out the fat seems to be like like the revenge of people who themselves might be a tad on the xx excess abudapas side and are part of the whole fat excesson's body healthy, all the rest of it, which is amusing because we've gone from the President's Council on Physical Fitness, where JFK wanted everybody you know to be out there doing jumping Jack's to chicken fat, and to now
to the point where you know, we're encouraging people to applaud as stunning and brave the people who show up in fashion shots as grossly morbidly obese. So it's it's an odd turn of events. But you're right, right before we leave ro all doll in the bobblerization of language, right, not just Doll, It's happening in a more insidious way. And I will tell you a story, but I cannot name names, and i'd better keep it pretty general.
But I know a let us just say that there is a major academic figure who has written a textbook, and this textbook is the basic textbook and has been for over a decade in its subject. And it turns out that now the publisher is submitting this textbook to the little ants who go through and take out any thing that's politically incorrect. And the major academic is stunned by this, but he calls around and finds out, Oh, yes, that happens to all textbooks. That's just the way it is these days. And
it's breathtaking. So this is it's just this kind of it's like the tide coming in and effacing it is making a stupider. Yeah, I also, can I just go one more one more spin in it? And probably this is one spin too far. One of the things we're doing in our Ricochet enterprise is we're doing we're putting together some longer form podcasts series, right, And one of the ones I'm working on now is about really just a TikTok of COVID, you know, what we knew when and how it happened.
And I have a couple of controlling you know, metaphors I'm working on trying to like figure out how to describe this. One is sort of like a general countrywide panic attack, and the other is forgetting things we know right. Well. The other one I'm just thinking of now is the idea that once you say especially fat right, once you say that, once you remove those words and the power of those words and you kind of sand off the edges, you end up looking at COVID. I mean, this is I'm going
too far, but I'm not going that much too far. You end up looking at COVID and the people who are gonna get COVID and gonna die from COVID, and you can't describe them because it's your I'm not allowed to say obese people and old people. You have to come up with, well, senior citizens, our nation's seniors. You have to come up with all these euphemisms that I mean, I guess they're nice in a social setting, and they might you know, you might want to kind of like make a hilarious
acid children's book into some problem. I mean, I suppose there's there's some damage cultural damage there, and that's bad, and I'm against it. As somebody who writes for living, I'm really against it. But on the other
end, there's also like this sort of dangerous other side of it. Which is like, I do need to be able to describe the people who do not who should not be getting COVID, who should protect themselves from COVID, and I need to be able to describe them in a specific and as even alarming way I can, And if I can't do that, if that's not allowed, then we're all in big trouble. Right, old people, people
who do, people who lack chronological privilege. You're right that you might want to put it right right, you know, and I you know, you think about this and you say, well, do I want to be old? You know I want I'm gonna go to the gym after this, for example, And the studies said that people who went to the gym had a much better chance of not having a bad COVID reaction and have a much better chance of not being hospitalized for stuff because frankly, they move around, and
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thank youth Switch for sponsoring this the Ricochet podcast. We thank Rob Long for giving me the most effortless segue ever. Well before our guest shows up and we talk about the other side of the world, we should stay close at home and look at East Palestine. The story maintains. But a judge finally showed up. Did I pronounced his name right? Uh? Did he? Did he do what the Secretary of Transportation such things is expected to do.
And I say that because I've never known the Secretary of Transportation to show up and do something like this. He was pushed into it, wasn't he. I mean three weeks politics of well trauma made him do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah right. It is a you know, it is a sign that you um, it's one of those stories that takes on a greater symbolic
importance politically than it may may in its details and his details. It looks like, you know, disaster looks like a combination of sort of regulatory and I don't know, I'm not malfeasance, but sort of incompetence, that kind of thing, and everyone's trying to assign blame to it and trying to assign blames it sort of lacks regulations that were that were eased during their most recent Republican administration, which sort of something we've heard before. Um, but it
does. It also represents its crystallizes in a way I think would be unfortunate for people on the left that we are obsessed currently with things happening many many, many many thousands of miles away from from us, from economies that are happening there are thousands of years a thousand miles away, and we are ignoring
a thing that's happening right here. It's like almost if you were writing a novel about it and you said it's going to happen in a town called East Palestine, you know your editor would say something like, come on, five more minutes on the name of that town. It's a little too on the nose, but you know, sometimes the world in truth is on the nose.
So UM, it suggests two things. One to suggest that the regulatory environment is something that UM Democrats can run on and Republicans can run on too, because once you start marching through East Palestine and saying, look what happened here, you're going to find it. Probably you're you're making an argument for a more for a more stringent regulatory state, good or bad. I think that's going to happen politically. But you're also making the argument you walk through
here that where what are you focusing on? Where is your attention? And I was just noticing today just sometimes students one really in the paper looking trying to find a thing that doesn't have anything to do with the climate and trying to see how the climate is described in it. So the selection of the new head of the World Bank about two paragraphs in, I mean, it's sort of interesting characters. He's a seat keeper born in India, and you
find it. Now we're talking about the World Bank. Now we're talking about climate change as part of its mission. So if you just add up all the words the people have spent, certainly Biden cabinet officials have talked about climate change and how it should be part of your The Secretary of Treasury's talking about it. And then you go to the East Palestine. You say, what's
your biggest concern. They're not going to say, well, my really biggest concern is to point one percent chance that the temperature is going to rise in the next six years. It's going to be. My biggest concern is a train derailing in my neighborhood and toxifying my home. Climate change in d EI have to be applied to absolutely everything, regardless as to whether or not it
has anything to do with our missions. Right, But then you have a giant train exploding in chemical fire and you think yourself, please, just for ten seconds, let's not talk about the climate. And I feel like that is a that is something that I think the conservatives on the people on the right should be reminding us, is that we have been concerned with trivial things instead of the actual nuts and bolts, the potholes, as it were, of life in America today, and that what do you consider the t what
do you think is the trivial thing? Climate change? The diversity? No, you know what the Republicans are. I thought you said that the Republicans were concerned with with trivial things. No, No, I think it's a
culture we have and our policymakers have. They're obsessing on these sort of like rich people's like tiny little bits to call them, like a high class problems to have, you know, um uh, And we sort of, you know, like, what are the every debate we have now and they lusen the educational establishment is diversity and what we're going to teach and blah blah blah,
all the stuff. None of it has to do with mastery of English, the language that we speak, and mastery of complicated max which is going to be even more important, and mastery of the science science it could be even more important going to forward. Not has to do with master your rigor. Oust do was sort of this weird massaging of your social whatever your social concerns are at that moment. Lu, we have a gigantic environmental disaster in
East Palestine. It is an environmental disaster. And if you ask anybody twenty minutes before that train derailed to describe an environmental disaster, they would say something like, well, you know the climate. Well, no, if you're leaving East Palestine. The climate is the least of your troubles. So Rob and James. Now that Rob is saying in effect, although Rob is, of course he's saying it in a much more elegant way. But what he's saying in effect is I'm mat as Helen. I'm not going to take it
anymore. And you know what I had that moment. My first thought was who does this kid think he is? And my second thought was, oh, and that. And I'm referring now to the declaration that he is running for president of the United States, all right by Vivic. And I'm not even sure I can pronounce his last name, Vivic Rama Swamy. As I recall that, I forgive me, mister President, if I mispronounced it.
But listen, so what has he got. He's a thirty seven year old son of him at Grinsey, went to Harvard undergrad, Yale Law school. Both of those are counts against him. But he seems to have sent the rest of his life repenting. He's founded a company, He's now founded a fund so that you can invest in nondei companies. And now he has come out swinging, just swinging. Let's see what have we got here? The
Supreme Court is about to overlooks as though maybe overturned affirmative action. As President of the United States, I will issue executive orders stories eliminating affirmative action. The next time bureaucrats such as Anthony Fauci overreached the limits of their job, I will do what a president is entitled to do, fire them. It's so I don't know that he doesn't know a thing about Paul politics because he hasn't run for blah blah blah blah. But it is refreshing, isn't it
to hear somebody just say it? Say it. He wants to shut down the Department of Education, which which is viewed by many progressives as proof that the Republicans want stupid workers to go slouching off to factories like the workers in the underground world of Metropolis, and that they want to fund all religious private schools, that they want the government to put everybody into religious private charter schools, etc. Which is not it's not even close to it at all.
But defunding the Department of Education is just to them, you can't do that because it does such necessary work. And I'm I'm keen to know precisely what it does, how many students I want. This is years ago. I once had breakfast with Bill Bennett, not long after he'd become Secretary of Education,
and I said, how is it? And he said, well, the Secretary's office is on the I think it was the eighth floor of the building, and he said, I get in the elevator and on the way from the ground floor to my office, I passed floor after floor after floor of people who are doing nothing but writing checks, sending other people's money to other people. That's what the Department of Education does, said Bill Bennett. It just sends out money. And on the top floor there's a bully pulpit,
and I, Bill Bennett, intend to use it. But all it is is a system for transferring wealth to the two teachers, to the education bureaucracy across the country. Furthermore, since Jimmy Carter established the Department of Education, can you name any any way in which education America has gotten better? It was just the whole thing is ridiculous. He also wants to, and we're talking about vivic here, make political expression. From his tweet, make
political expression a civil right. What do you think he means by that, I thought it was, but I thought it was meaning. Is he meaning that people can bring civil suits if they're who knows, he may be making a legal point. I don't know. It could be that that you have the right to speak what you want without consequences, which you know we all like, but more don't work that way. There are there are social consequences
that are perfectly illegal to that. So but I but you you sense something in that that is that you know, it's like you want to say, do go on as opposed to Roy. Actually he also wants to use our military to secure the border. How do you feel about that? That is, we want to secure the border. For sure, it's a complicated one. I mean, there's a constitutional issue. But I'm not sure if you
need the military. I mean, the question is whether they I think that's a dumb a dumb way to put probably a smart idea and a dumb way to do what needs to be done. You don't want the military under United States military commanders to be to Floyd domestically, which would be by definition where it would be deployed. You don't really want generals um commanding troops in the United States you do want a robust and um fully funded and held to account
border force to enforce the border. That's what's supposed to do. UM So, I think he's probably in artfully describing what he wants. My guess is that's what he wants. My guess is also I really don't know. My guests is also this guy Vivic Ramaswami also feels that we need to be strategic in our immigration policy. Uh you know a nation, you know, a national economic and cultural interest, which I think is a completely legitimate way.
Absolutely so, there's nothing, there's nothing nativistic about it. There's nothing there's nothing, there's nothing phobic about it. There's nothing xenophobic or immigrant hating about it. It's to be crazy, this is I mean, look, it's America Inc. Right, I mean partly what we have is a one gigantic, fractious, bumpcious chaotic company that we're running America Inc. We all shareholders in it. And in many ways, the immigration of arms should be two
things. One is border control, meaning how you keep people out and how do you keep the order in? And the other is hr like who do we want to hire? Who do we want to bring into our big bumpshous company. You know. I like to bring in people, probably like Vivic Ramaswami. I want to roll them. More people come in here, invent more things, make more businesses grow, do all good sorts of good stuff. That's that's a good thing, and it's a good thing that somebody like
that who's been extremely fortunate. I mean, I'm sure he's worked very, very hard, but he's also been fortunate to be born and to live in a time and in a place like the United States and this in the twenty first century that rewards entrepreneurial risk taking and vision. I'm also kind of thrilled that he wants to sort of do this jump into this thing. There's no way that Bibic Ramaswami is going to come out of this process not bruised and
battered. That's what the political process is. The fact that you will need to do it is served. That's great. Good for him. I talk more, I say, and hold everybody else to account. How greatly. The other part in my eyebrow went up spot like when it was end affirmative action by executive action. I hate executive actions, and I hate that we get to the point where we're so impatient with the things that need to be changed that we applaud somebody who says, well, with a stroke of a
pen, I'll make it so right. I don't like that the way that this this huge, waddling, fat, lint sticking ball of legislation every year rolls through without anybody actually reading it or interrogating the details. This is the problem is ruling. We don't seem to sit down and craft laws as we used to or as we should. So I don't like that. I'm always on the watch for caesarism, mainly because everybody was saying when Trump the year the Trump was elected, was well, we need a caesar. We're going
to get a caesar no matter what. So it should be one of our seasons right over the American greatness. That was one of the points they were making. Go on. But in a way, the president of the United States is a caesar of about two million employees, right he the executive branch the federal government has about two million employees. Um, he could do a lot by the stroke of a pen, just in the just in the scope, in his scope of work he could do that. I mean, I'm
not necessarily making a law for everybody else. That's that has to be leg I totally agree with you. But as as the admitted to the chief executive of the ministrative branch, he could do a lot about how we run how the federal government hires and fires, and I think that, you know, I mean, mostly it should be firing and hiring. Uh, you know what, boys, This whole thing Vivic partly, But I'll tell you another
thing in a moment, has reversed my thinking about the presidential election. My thought maybe a week ago, was cheapers, I really want to Sandis to win. Everybody else stay out of the field. Let it come down to Trump into Sandis, and let I believe De Santis can take him. We can move ahead, We can get past just those two. And now I think to myself, Oona, is Vivic actually going to make a serious run
for president? He might, he might, But even if he doesn't, he's saying things that are so sharp and so pointed and elicit such deep and immediate support from the Republican Party that even if he doesn't become a serious candidate, even if he doesn't win a single primary, everybody in every debate, reporters again and again debate moderators are going to be taking vivic quotations and reading the back to Donald Trump and saying, excuse me, mister former president,
or just Sands, or excuse me, Governor Florida. You say you're running as a conservative. It sounds to us as though vivic Ramaswami is to your right. What do you make of that? This just by running and running with such intelligence and forthrightness, he will tone up and make the whole tone up the race and make it smarter. The second person I want in the race is Tim Scott. I have now come. I want I want all these guys in. Tim Scott. I didn't know much about him, but
I've looked into him a little bit. He's smart, he's upbeat. Yeah, he is an African American who represents South Carolina, and so in his very being he represents one of the thrilling, one of the most thrilling chapters of renewal and reform in American history. I want him in. I want him. I want to let him all speak. Have you ever heard him speak Tim Scott in person? No, I haven't heard him in person.
Actually, he's he's really good. Like you watch him and you can see some people and you think, oh, you know, I can see why that guy's there. He's really good. He's got um, you know, he's he's he's got a lot of heart and a lot of story and a lot of religion. I mean he is. He feels like an old timey American politician. And I don't mean that in a fake way. I mean that in a real way, Like he can he can do the stem winder.
He's got a story to tell, he's got there's them, you know, right when we, you know, we feel like everything's lost, usually something comes and corrects it, because the market kind of works that way. And it feels to me like there's a hunger. I mean, maybe I'm wishfully wishful thinking here for sort of some kind of real like yes, to be real and to not be h One of the reasons people like the Santists
so much, I think one of the reason why to like Trump. He just seemed fearless, right, this sort of string of presidents who are kind of cowed by the media and cowed by the TV camera and like trying to like weirdly pass what they say over and over again. I remember this wonderful moment and man I absolutely respected, and in many ways was. I still think it was an underrated great president. George HW. Bush. He is.
Someone asked him, I'm like, he's eighteen shot down over the Pacific and he's floating in shark infested waters, waiting to get rescued, not even sure if he's going to get rescued, clinging to some kind of debris to for his life. He's eighteen, nineteen, I don't know, nineteen, just just graduate from high school. And someone says, what were you thinking? Because well, you know, you think about everything about your family, he said, you think about um, your life, you think about you
think about God. And then he said, and separation of church and state. Like what you were not floating the Pacific circle by sharks thinking about the separation? You just realize you said God, and then you need to say I'm not not God like kind of like yeah, nah, and I and that that It was an emblematic episode of the ways certain and mostly these were like very competent guys who were not used to speaking in public or having or
campaigning in any sense in any kind of wild way. Uh. Generationally, they were not used to a camera everywhere. And then you have some politicians You're like, you know what, I'm just gonna say it, and I've thought about it, and having thought about it is the most important thing.
So um, you know, we might have an elevated, really kind of interesting conversation going into like which is right right on time about what America is going to be in twenty twenty thirty and not beyond what what what we need to invest in, what we need to stop investing in? What we need? More of what we need? No more of? Uh, how we're gonna I mean, my offer still stands for everybody the education, all the woke education crafts, which is like, you can teach all the trans stuff
you want. You could teach critical race theory all you want. That's going to be your reward for your students achieving and proving a level of rigorous mastery the most important things for the future. Once you've accomplished the mission, then you can have your dessert with your cherry on top. And if that means that high school seniors all over America know about computer science and engineering and advanced map and they speak and write English and maybe even another language with proficiency.
If you want to make senior year in high school, the groovy year where you learn all about the other stuff that you know what I'm I'm in, go right ahead because they have achieved something. No, if I know, I know, James, if it does not like that, now new I do? I would say, I would say to the teachers, just exactly what you say. You get to teach whatever you want, woke, this, that, and the other from the morning bell until the kids go home
to school the afternoon. And you get to teach that to all the students whose parents want them to learn it. But you don't get to hold anybody hostage. And the parents who who do not want their kids to learn it get Foucher programs and they get charter schools, and you get to teach and change that to whoever shows up in your classroom. But I guess what I mean is that I use this, Yeah, I do. But I guess I'm just trying to tie in my general theory that we have, you know,
big problems on the front burner. Yeah, and East Palestine is an example of that. Right. We have trains running around with you know, stuff going on, and we have kind of a rail system in the country that we haven't probably made enough attention to or invested enough in, and instead we invest in stupid things. And what we need to do is they're like,
let's accomplish the mission. First, Let's make sure that the environmental disaster or East Palestine has been mitigated and has been now prevented in the future. And then once that's happening once everybody, when once there's plenty of plenty of like a industry happening, and maybe once we don't have to worry so much about importing for an oil and like can we have nuclear power or whatever, then I'm all ears, let's talk about the climate change that you are so
obsessed with, because we'll have accomplished the mission. Now. You and I both know I'm being disingenuous because we'll never really accompt there's always going to you know, we're never really gonna do that. But the the obsession with the trivial is is what rich people do when they're just so like and they're just so bored and everything is so wonderful that they just they can't you know, like I'm so bored, I'm gonna you know, make a caviare omelet or
you know what I mean, Like it just feels decadent. This obsession with like these weird filigrees and the idea that turning those things into a crisis. Meanwhile, as a city police Palestine sort of like belching black fumes and toxifying itself. I Meanwhile, the children are going through school and learning. It's learning things that are irrelevant to their lives, to their earning potential. But
that's the new mission. It's not accomplishing the mission per se, it's it's redefining what the mission is is the mission to move the entire nation to a point where we are energy poor, where we have no gas stoves. And again that was a big conservative freak out, except it's what they want to do, and you know they banned the appliances new construction. I mean,
it's not a freak out at all. Where people are paying a huge percentage of their income income to keep their home at sixty eight degrees, where they have to take shorter showers, where they have to their entire life is built around accomplishing the mission of moving us to a sustainable grid, which is a
preposterous idea at this point. Or is the mission to ensure that Americans are warm in their homes without having to pay all of this money, that American jobs are being created in the industry field, that the safety like East Palestine is guaranteed because we don't have tanker trucks rolling around, We've got pipe we've got pipelines, which which they would have. In other words, refocus. The mission is not to electrify and change everything about your world and go to
this other standard. The mission is to keep doing what we were doing before this priesthood of fanatics and timorous souls started insisting that the world was going to end because of climate change. And it's not. It's just not. And if that makes me a denier, that makes me a denier. That means, you know, Bjorn Lomberg, we those of us who say it's not a problem can work on the same page Lomberg who says that it is something
to be concerned about. There is a coalition there to be done. But there's more in public praising all of these wonderful and new initiatives because they're sustainable. Joy and the thrill you get in your heart when you drive across the prairie and you see those silent turbine things spinning, to me, it's the dark satanic mills of you know, the old song. But that's another point. The other mission is not in education to let them have a year telling
them that everything about their culture is that I hate. It's because, right, I get what. I get what you're saying. Teach the basics first. But first of all, that assumes that even the basics that they are taught haven't already been infiltrated and tainted by the DI and the CRT and all
the rest of the little alphabets we've got going on here. If you say you have to read, it's important to know what they're reading, is what they're reading part of the cultural heritage that actually they do require it to function in your questern society, Is indeed the math that they are learning, actual true math? Or is it math that even in itself and its presentation has been infected by the way by by by CRT and the way these things are
in the way the questions are posed. You know, Johnny as six Melons? Did he get them through historical privilege? You know? I mean it's so, I mean, if you want to say they have to be able to read and they know the culture in which they exist, and yes, they know the math, and yes, they got a basics on stamin the rest of it. Then you can spend the last year filling their head at their most intellectually precocious age with the worst sort of anti American poison you can
remember. No, I think that's an extremely bad idea. I mean, I understand what you're saying. I just think that when you have a large, a large big thing is the schools are failing. I don't think the schools are I don't think they are effective in teaching woke ideology. I don't think they're effective at all. A kid that fails to pass a course on the sixteen nineteen project and that's all the history he ever gets has been sitting
in the classroom listening to the sixteen nineteen project for the whole year. The terms what they're failing at doesn't mean that they're not absorbing something. Speaking of absorb being something, that's what Russia has been trying to do with Ukraine. And now we have the anniversary of the invasion coming up. Story, Are you doing an ad I don't know. No, I'm grinding the gears. I'm grinding the gears to get to the guests, to just show showed up.
You know, we have limited time, so yes, yes, we got to with alacrity get to our guest, Eli Lake Uh, and we're glad he's here. Contributing editor for Commentary Magazine, host of the re Education podcast. Sounds familiar to what we've been talking about. He was our guest the day after Russia invaded Ukraine. Well, it's been a year and we didn't really think it'd get to the point where it's now a bloody slog. But let's figure out exactly where we are. Eli, Welcome to podcast.
Thanks so much for having me. So where do things stand in the war right now? Which one? Right? Yeah? Well, no, I mean I think that the answer to your question is far better than anybody had predicted a year ago. From the perspective of you Western civilization and Ukraine. It's pretty remarkable that we've relearned the lesson that I think, you know, sort of taking a big step back, that tyrannies and dictators are not ten
feet tall. That you know, I think a year ago most of the experts looked at this and they said Russia had been a master of hybrid warfare. That they looked at the experience of the last the first kind of Ukraine War, which wasn't really much of a war at all. They didn't give the Ukrainians much of a chance. And most importantly, we still had the hangover of the chaotic and terrible withdrawal from Afghanistan, where the elected president fled
in the middle of the night. And so, you know, looking back out of the year, it's remarkable that not only does that Zelinski has survived, but that, you know, the Ukrainian military, with our support, has proved been capable of blunting, you know, the invasion of a much larger country that we thought, you know, would sort of walk through it. Okay, so what next, Well, what do you mean by that?
Well, here's what I mean. Russia is still there and they're not backing out, and Putin doesn't seem to be now apparently sometime today, maybe as we speak. According to the news yesterday, the State Department said that they're expecting China to float some sort of peace plan this very day. I don't know if that has happened yet, but the question is, you've got Zelinsky saying we want to reclaim every bit of territory the Russians have taken including
the Crimea. And you've got Vladimir Putin saying, excuse me, we have the Crimea and we also have a good piece of eastern Ukraine. And not only are we not leaving, we're going to move on to Kiev and people are getting killed every day. How does it end? Well, I mean it's even what next? What should we do next? What should Zelensky do next? If you were advising him in the next month, Well, if I was advising Zealinski, I would say, I mean, continue to fight
back against the invasion. I do think that there's something that we can't possibly know, and that is what is the effect of a war where lots of people who are being sort of thrown into this meat grinder from the Russian side. You know that they have families, they have you know, people who care for them back home. And what is the effect on the legitimacy of
of Putin's regime at this point? We can't see it, because it is at this point probably in terms of individual liberty, back to almost Soviet times.
But we know from the beginning of the war that there were lots of unusual voices that we had heard, even from some old regards that were saying, wait a second, I don't know about this, and slowly, but surely, you know, Europe has proven to be more resilient in this in this respect, the fact that the Europeans didn't cave over the winter even though it was a mild winter, for sure, So there are certain kind of
questions that, you know, how long can this necessarily keep up? And like, we'll see what happens to the Chinese because the other report we heard about China was that they were going to start arming Russia in this which would sort of enter them into this conflict. They haven't done that yet. I'm surprised they haven't done that yet, So we'll sort of see. But I mean, this was a I think that it's a blunder, and I don't know that we know the full extent of how much of a blunder it was
for Vladimir Putin. Hey, Eli's rob long, thanks for joining us. Can I ask you a question like, um, just because you mentioned China, why why are you surprised they haven't It feels to me like if I were Chinese that with my Chinese strategic hat on, I don't know if I want to throw my hat in the ring with Putin at this point, I might want to sit this one out and just kind of be hey, listen,
nothing, we're not we got nothing to do. And the meantime, make my quiet inroads when we're not paying attention in places like Africa and the border with India, and go about my business. Well, what's what's in it for them? It's a good question. Let me, let me,
let me sort of explain why I'm surprised they haven't done it yet. One, we have at least a pageantry, the diplomatic pageantry of summits between Gee and Putin, and you know, long I don't know documents to claim that there are all these mutual cooperation between the two countries and that those have intended that that we had that on the eve of the war, when it was clear that he was going to invade. So that's the first part of it.
And the second part of it is that I do think that to a certain extent, China has already cast its lot with Russia and Iran and the kind of rogue tyrannies in the world, because it's better, I think, from the Chinese leadership's perspective, to have a world where the international system kind of remains in their favor, and that you know, a world where in the United States and European countries are determining kind of the rules of the international
system is ultimately not a world that the Chinese want to live in. Despite the fact that for the last I don't know, almost fifty years, if you want to count Nixon's visit to China, you know, the United States has has repeatedly sort of said, please join, you know, become a great power and couragees with us. So in that respect, I kind of felt like, well, the Chinese have already cast their lot, so why wouldn't they. But then you're right, um, this looks like a kind
of incompetent move. And I mean, who would have predicted how bad the Russian military is. I wish I would have remembered all of the lessons that we learned at the end of the Cold War, the collapse the Soviet Union. It was corrupt, there were all these reports that you know, nobody was getting the serious information going up the chain when they came in. I
love this story. When the Russians first invaded, their secure communication system didn't work, so they were basically using cell phone towers, even though when they were they were attacking the cell phone systems, and so it was very easy for the Ukrainians to pinpoint the locations of senior generals who were being killed at a high plamateur hour. Well, I mean so, so, I guess my question is like this feels to me like Turkey coming in at the end
of World War One on the side of the Kaiser. No, that's interesting. Um. I mean, we'll see what happens with the Chinese, whether they actually do it or not. Um. You know, but I don't. I mean, I think that there there are serious problems. I mean, what is the quality of Russian forces now that they're what conscripts? We've seen reports that they're being recruited from Russian prisons. Is that how's that going
to work out? I mean, America learned a painful lesson. We never had to do anything like this in the Vietnam War, which is that at a certain point, one of the problems was because we had conscription, we
had a draft. The morale of every day kind of soldiers on the front lines it was so bad that there were these incidents are known as fragging and things like that that happens, you know, especially when it's kind of a hopeless fight like this, where you know where's the where you know who's How would a Russian if you're fighting this in the you know, day to day, how would you be motivated when you feel morally like you have a right
to this war or anything like that. I can't see right So, because you could just stand it for a little bit, to leave China for a second, it feels to me like the strategy is this. Each person's strategy is We're gonna keep going because we have if you were putin and the Wagner group, and we have people and convicts and conscripts. We can keep throwing
a mat trenches until the other side gets tired. And the other side is saying, well, listen, we have these rich friends and they've got you know, Leopard tanks and no planes yet the planes might come and we can keep asking them to send stuff, and we have people and we are motivated to fight. I mean, the most interesting thing to me about the uk the Ukraine and Russia war is that the Ukrainians are motivated to fight. They are not given in and we can keep going until you're tired. And the
real question we have to ask us. The only thing, it seems to me, the only variable yere, is are the Russians or the Russian leadership? Are they tired of Putin? So my question is how bad is the information coming to that big table where Putin sits. Is it still as bad as it was a year ago or six months or a year and six months ago when he thought he could just kind of like Waltz's way into Kiev?
Or is it getting better and darker and better and darker? And I guess what I mean is, um, you've seen the movie down Everything, the movie Downfall, right, Yere's that moment the movie Downfall where they come in and the Furer sitting there at his table and he stands is shaking and stuff, and he goes, well, you look in the mac goes, you know what, Steiner's counter attack, he says, pointing to the map of Berlin, which is sort of encircled by the Allies coming in, the Russians
coming. Steiner's counter attack is going to turn this all around. And then someone's got to say, my furor I'm sorry to tell you that there's no Steiner and there's no counter attack, and there's no there is his he's in command of nothing. And then that's when the great you don't believe Internet is exploded with memes of this. But this seems like I'm doing a little shaking hand. This seem it's a great scene. If you haven't seen, if
you listen to podcast, you have not seen the scene. Just it's fantastic. This seems like we are waiting for that moment to happen somewhere in the Kremlin. Is anyone of the Kremlin that moment? I wonder if that moment is less determined by some military maneuver in Ukraine and more determined by the reaction
in Europe. And what I mean by that is look at, for example, every month, it seems a few weeks we have a Russian official who will say we might have to use our strategic arsenal, which is code word for nuclear weapons. We saw the big announcement to take away from Putin's you know, delusional speech this week to mark the one year anniversary, was I
am suspending participation in the remaining nuclear treaty with the United States. So there are all these efforts to try to say, wait a second, you don't want this to get even worse, and they're counting on either Democratic administration or the Germans, you know, the French, the British to basically kind of say uncle, and you know, say okay, we can't let it get
this far. I am pleasantly surprised that the Biden administration and the Europeans, you know, it hasn't been perfect that I would have liked for them to, you know, not had an open debate about sending tanks. But they eventually land on the right square. And that's great. And I think that that's the thing that you're seeing where you know, Putin can see all of that for himself because he's used to getting his way in other sorts of things. I mean, like, you know, there was a when he invaded
Georgia and you know, took up Kazia and North Sessia. In two thousand and eight, there was an election, Barack Obama came in and the first thing Obama does in foreign policies announced a policy called the Reset, which is where we're going to ignore what you just did and try to have a good relationship with you. Why so we can have this treaty known as a news Start, which Putin just announced that he was no longer going to be complying
with, which, by the way, he hadn't been complying with. So he's betting on the sort of old Europe, the old Democratic Party, to you know, emerge and say, um, all right, all right, all right, all right uncle, all right, fine, it can't get too bad. The irony, of course, is that the Democrats have stood
starn much, you know, much to my surprise in some ways. And it's this new republic in the nationalist wing of the Republican Party, if you want to call it that, JD Vances those are the ones that are saying, let's stop throwing good money after bad in Ukraine. And it's none of our business. Okay, So let's take on if I'm going to put an argument, and the argument runs as follows. Zelinsky wants to fight, as Rob noted. As you noted, one of the surprising things is that they
are not tiring. And Zelinsky says he wants to regain every inch of territory that includes the Crimea, that includes Sebastopol, which has been Russian, even if technically Ukrainian it's been Sebastable has been Russian since seventeen eighty three, five years before we ratified the constitution. Okay, so if sorry, I'm putting an argument here. You can count on Zelinski to fight as long as we
arm him. You can count on, as you've just established, you can count on the Europeans to be willing to fight as long as we give them cover, as long as we lead the way. So what Houton is counting on When you say he's counting on the other side to tire, he's counting on us to tire. It all comes down to the United States, all right. Now, then let's take the art. Let's take this scenario under which we continue to arm Zelinski. We want to push push push, because
so far they they keep bluffing about nuclear weapons. And now let's return to Rob's moment in the bunker and imagine it this way. Mindfure I'm sorry, I have to tell you there is no Steiner, there will be no conventional counterattack. But mind Furr, you still have tactical nuclear weapons. That strikes me as something we off we are forced to take into account. We can't just dismiss it. Oh, they're bluffing. They're bluffing, They're bluffing.
They keep saying these dropping out of a treaty they keep seems to me we need to take that into account, don't we. If J. D Vance and David Sacks and other highly intelligent people say wait a minute here, let's not get ourselves dragged into a nuclear exchange, they're not wrong about that, are they? Well, well, okay, hey, nobody wants a nuclear exchange, obviously obvious, and um, I don't know that. Um. I think it's it's a it's a difficult proposition. I disagree with David Sacks.
I had a tweet the other night thing, I don't understand how you can take Russia as side of the way. I wasn't talking about him. I think there are plenty of people who can make principled arguments, even though I disagree with them, and I don't want to say that they are on Russia's side. And it's, as you know, that's a nasty, um, an unfortunate development in our politics. And yeah, David, David Sacks and jd Vance, those two at least are highly intelligent, good people who
are also our friends. We stipulate that, but I think they're wrong. They're wrong in the find stance because even let's say that we sort of deter ourselves in this in this regard and we say, all right, you know, eventually they might use attach their weapon and there they might be bluffing, you know, the last twenty times, but the twenty first time they won't
be bluffing, and then it's a real problem. Um, well, then we've established a new world in which, you know, nuclear powers that are autocrats get to basically blackmail their way to what they want, and sooner or later we're going to have to confront them unless we're willing to give way a lot more than just Ukraine. So that's the first point, which is that you don't want to establish that president that that's how you get to win the
wars because you play the new card. But the second thing is this, I don't know that it makes if you think that Putin is rational and he's making decisions here that are in you know, his best interest is he sees it that hurts him if he uses a nuclear weapon like that, I think it hurts him. With China, China has an interest itself being a nuclear power of not having this. You know, they have to worry about India. I mean, there's a lot of things there where he's opening his own
Pandora's box. If he does that, where you know, if China was to say, really turn on Russia because it's been economically supporting the Russians in
this period, well then Prutin probably really is finished, you know. So I don't know that it's that we have to assume that he would use the Tacolo nuclear weapons, even though I am aware that it is part of this Russian military doctor that they would lose it if they were, you know, and that there are all these sorts of important distinctions that we have to understand that Russians believe that if they have to de trend their own territory now that
they've declared the oblasts that they you know, took over in the war as part of their territory, they could then use you know, all of that. I understand that that serious kind of Cremlinologists will like, think about all that I'm taking take a step back looking at it. I think that it's not entirely clear that he would do that. Then there'll be huge, huge problems, not just from America, from the entire world, I think, including China, if he did so, I don't I would not want to
give into it. And to my surprise, even though Biden did have this lapse at a fundraiser a few months ago, and remember this, like in September he said something about the lines like they don't be world War three will be terrible. For the most part, the Biden administration has been really good in not being rattled by these threats, which is clearly part of the Russian
strategy. Or as one gaudy, jolly Russian general said the other day on Russian state television, that at this point they have to reduce Kiev to rubble and plant the flag on the top of it, so you know, they just knew Kiev and call it a day before we let you go, Eli, there is now there are now reports that Progosian is being a persona non grata in the Russian state media. They will no longer mention any thing that
he says unless it's the report of a victory. Because he went in this law long diatribe about how the Wagner group is having a ammunition famine, that they're not getting supplies, that they're not being supported, and apparently this isn't going down very well with the guys up top of course he's he's replaceable. They all are. But what I read as I have recently that the group is actually having trouble recruiting in prison, then perhaps the manpower and the shell
drought happens a little earlier than people expected. Uh, you know, I don't want to I don't know what to make of that, because my you know, history would teach us that Russia has a very huge supply of bodies and it can't it can if it wants to extend this war, just because it's willing to accept far more casualties than a lot of other countries. Um. But it's interesting to see, you know, Putin's important allies maybe breaking
with him. Um, it's always good to see. And you know, I thought, my hope is, I don't think anybody really knows, but my hope is that the CIA and the FBI right now are using the Karen environment to go after other oligarchs that are close to Putin and sort of seeing who might want to hedge their bets. Um. I mean, now is the time to do that. And so you know, slowly betruely, and it's something I just did stress. I mean that this is not revelatory or
anything. We cannot know. We cannot know what the real situation is like in his inner circle and what what's happening inside that black box inside the Kremlin and his regime. At this point, we can speculate it, but we really just can't know. But I just would say, I mean, let's I don't I do not assume that that everything is running smoothly and that everything is okay. French warfare, war in Europe and Putin shuttling back and forth
in his private car on a railroad. It's it's just like the last hundred years never happened. Eli, thanks for joining us. I hope, I hope we're not talking to you at the second anniversary of the war. Yeah, all right, thank you so much. And generally, before we go, and we have been blathering on here for a while, we should probably mention, as Rob loves to do, to remind people that Ricochet is actually an enterprise that has a real world analog. It's not just one of those
cyber things. That was a hint Rob to talk. I was just agreeing with you and nodding, yeah, it's right. I mean, look, there's this is fun and all. We love to have you listened to the podcast. We'd love to see you on site. We'd love to have conversations with you virtually on the site. But it's also fun to get together. So we have meetups. They really do happen and they're fun. And we have a bunch coming up. You can meet the actual king of stuff,
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if I'm not in Bartholona, as I have to say now. But look, those are just what's coming up in the next I don't know, eight weeks, ten weeks, twelve weeks, and if they're toothbar away or for whatever reason you can't make it you want to, here's a solution. You just join join Ricochet, put on the put on a member fee that you want to have a meet up its closer to you on on a date that works for you, and guess what something one will happen. Because people
who are remembers the Ricochet likes travel, I'd like to get together. It's always a good time. Details of everything I've just described quickly are more specifically illuminated at Ricochet's just go to ricochet dot com slash events. You can look at it on the sidebarts right there. And if you want to come join and we will be happy to see you. In fact, if you join, if you joined because of this James, think of a secret word. Secret think of a word and then and then say it on the podcast.
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buy you the twenty four year old McCallan. Yeah, that's not happening. The hurricane out of the hurricane or the shark attack out of the freezer. Machie. I mentioned a Spanish city, and you say, I, that's that's h right there. We're gonna get complaint. It's actually not a Spanish city, of Catlonian city. I suppose Barcelona. You know that. That's what we have to say now that I mean, I was informed of that by a Barcelonian, but I guess that's that's how it's pronounced. Well,
you know, it depends. That's actually kind of controversial change because people in who can speak Catalan they say Barcelona. They don't say Barcelona. To people who are not from Barcelona say Barcelona. People from Madrid say that, so like I, when you're there, you can say. But it depends on what your your origin is. But the Catalonas Scelona, my very Catalona, very Catalonian exchange student. I'm sure my wife is seated right behind me at
the moment and she's shaking her head in disbelief at this conversation. Let me get a ruling on this from someone who actually knows Spain. Well, how is Barcelona pronounced? My cousins who are from Barcelona layla from people? But I tell you la my wife right, well, I far be it from me to I will never contradict missus Robinson. But however she does admit that that is the Spanish right. I had a cattle Catalonian living in my house for five months. God bless her so to this. You know, I
know from what I speak. She made me the pie? Am I pronouncing that correctly? I always feel like I'm leaving on a couple of syllables. I'm from North Dakota, where things are playing and simple. We don't have words like pie. No, but you do call it North Dakota. It could be right. We've been North Dakota, North Dakota. North Dakota would be perfect. N O r se Dakota was telling you, I just googled it the correct pronunciation of Barcelona in Catalan, Okay, not Spanish. Catalan
is Barona? Okay in Spanish, it's Barcelona. Well, they may disagree, but that's taken up with Google. Well, then I got a job to do when I go there, informing each and every one of them that the Google informs them if they are all incorrect. Can't wait. However, um, I have to say that we're done. Podcast brought you by youth Switch. Support them by supporting us, and support us and support them vice versa. Nice one hand washes the other thing. And we mentioned that you
can indeed join Ricochet. Go there find out why. And also if you could just take a minute, no, I'm sorry, if you could take forty eight minutes to craft the perfect five star review on Apple podcast would really appreciate that. I'm not going to tell you that you should just dash something off in ten seconds. I want you to give it a lot of thought. I want you to be like here in Rob Long Senior year after everything has been fixed, and you're writing an essay on something like that, and
that's all I got, Peter, Rob, It's been great. We'll see everybody in the comments at Ricochet four point zero four Now next week, Next week, boys, next week Ricochet. Join the conversation