But you're still not hearing us.
Now I'm hearing you because I plugged my I plugged my headphones.
Yet doctors, I've actually found historically that helps a lot.
Yeah, right, I've done that several times.
One of those little tech tricks that doctors don't want you to know about.
It ask not what your country can do for you, as what you can do for your country.
Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
It's the Recorchet podcast with Charles Yukook and Stephen Hayward. I'm James Lonnox and the day we talked to Ellen Fantini about the European Conservative and yes there is more than one, so let's ever selves a podcast.
Any of this new information implicates former President Obama in criminal behavior, we have referred and will continue to refer all of these documents to the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate the criminal implications of this.
Would an untalented man be able to compose the following satirical witticism cook yourself.
Welcome everybody, It's the Ricochet of podcast with a very satisfying number of seven hundred and fifty. You too can join us at ricochet dot com. To be part of the most stimulating conversation in community on the web. And I know that's a big claim, bold claim, but Dear, if we couldn't back it up, we wouldn't make it. I'm James Lilacs and sunny, beautiful Clement, Minnie Apolis, where I just walked the dog by the creek in the woods, glorious day summer. And Stephen Hayward, I believe is in
California or Iceland, who knows. And Charles C. W. Cook is probably in Florida, where I imagine it's torporous and one can barely walk in the humidity without feeling as if though you're jogging at the bottom of a pool. Gentlemen, how are you?
I am good, We're both good.
I think I played.
Two hours of tennis this morning in this weather, so I hope you're impressed.
I am impressed. My wife plays tennis as well. She's extraordinary. What are you are you? A four, A five, A four point five, a three point eight.
Now, well, my wife's a really good tennis player. I didn't have a ranking, but I am six foot three, so I can still win most of the time because I'm just stronger than that. She's the one with all of the numbers and lines and all of this. I'm just I'm just trying to make sure that I don't sit in my chair all day and do nothing.
That's my aim. Yes, I know, I'm the same way. I am keen to sit in my chair all day and do something. But now that I am retired, I have to get out of the house. I have to do things, and I'm enjoying it quite an awful lot as a matter of fact. But then again, that gives me time to bruise the web and the Twitter and the X and all the rest of it and see what's up and going. And it appears we have a kerfuffle. We have a concretent that was once known as Russiagate
that is back in the headlines. Some people are saying, this is nothing new, We've been over this before. It's ridiculous. There's no trees in here, there's nothing that ties it
to well Bama, etcetera, etcetera. But as I understand that there were documents that were under lock and key for an awful long time that were finally prized out of those who were holding them, and that they've been going over them with the proverbial no, I'm sorry, not the axiomatic, the cliched fine tooth comb, and things have been revealed. What do you, gentlemen, take away from Director of National Intelligence Tulsea Gabbert's presser on this particular situation.
Well, I guess I'll go first. I think if we take it at face value, and of course we heard Gabbart's presentation of it, it does look like we are seeing some new things suggesting that a lot of the senior intelligence people under the last weeks of Obama knew that all of these claims were false or extremely weak at best, and that Obama knew about it, and Obama was up to his neck. And I guess I'll call
it a conspiracy. I try to avoid that because I've run out of tinfoil, but involved in a conspiracy to hobble cast out on the legitimacy of the election and hobble President Trump's first term, which they had some success, right, I think for the show.
And I don't like to use the termspiracy. I think satanic cabal is a little.
Less right, right, Yes, well, I mean I think. And then we also heard that the Russian intelligence, through their hacking of Democratic Party emails or whatever, claim to have known that Hillary Clinton was given to fits of rage and was had serious psychological problems, was taking tranquilizers heavily, and various other things that may or may not be true.
I mean, we all, I think when we heard that I read that, what ran our minds back to that September eleventh, twenty sixteen episode she had where she had to be bundled up and carried to a van when she was obviously having that. And you had various explanations for hours of days after.
She dragged like a legless sack of potatoes.
Right, but they told her, well, she was dehydrated. It was this, there was that, and and you know, we never quite got a clear explanation of that. I do think that if oh tobably type two diabetes is claimed by this supposedly Russian intelligence and so I don't know. I do remember reading on Twitter at the time, and it's almost ten years ago now that oh, you know, I'm a neurologist, and I can tell that she's got Parkinson's disease and she's going to be dead in a year.
And you know, some of the typical claims are people run away with themselves? And herry are almost ten years later and Hillary's still with us, and so I don't think we know the truth of all that, but it is an intriguing little tidbit that emerged from all this.
I'm less interested in that than the things that we learned about the five supposed pieces of evidence that led them to conclude that the Russia Gate was ongoing. And it was like, well, this one is thinly sourced. We can't exactly find where it comes from. It makes a vague allusion to somebody with a first name starting with TA started her last name is starting with T. It's from somebody who was later revealed to be a triple
agent for Mongolia, and it's from eighteen fourteen. And they said, well, I you know, it's got the ring of truth to it. So it was throwing in the mix. Charles, are you, first of all, are you still interested in this? Do you think it matters? Do you think it is a germane to today?
Well, it depends what you mean.
I think that it's a scandal, and the passage of time doesn't change that. I thought it was a scandal at the time, wasted two years of not just Trump's first presidency, but my life, I do regret one thing I regret.
It's a quick digression.
I went at that time on CNN relatively frequently, and every time they would bring this up, I would think, you know what, just say, doesn't this all sound like a bunch of nonsense to you? And then I thought, if I say that and I'm wrong, just on the off chance that I'm wrong, I will for the rest of my life be that guy who did that.
So I didn't.
I said, well, but I do think it's a scandal. I think it's not so much that it doesn't interest me. But I think the context within which Tulsy Gabbart had said it is just wrong, in that there is not going to be a prosecution of Barack Obama. Whatever might or should happen to lower level intelligence operatives or Brennan. Barack Obama is not going to be prosecuted for this, in part thanks to a Supreme Court case called Trump
versus United States, which has rendered him immune. So I don't like that she has told people that this is going to happen, because it's not. But insofar as this has been used as a vehicle to remind people that this was a really bad incident in our history, and that the light worker himself was involved in it. I'm absolutely happy to revisit it.
Especially since we're dealing with an administration that was caught off Mike Hart Mike saying that after the election will have more flexibility. I mean, I've never understood why that wasn't up there in bost letters of body's consciousness, but seems to have just pat after the election, I will have to do one exactly more flexibility for you to do what exactly. No, he's not going to be prosecuted in the idea that somehow he's going to be frog
marched out and changed. But it was interesting that I think the Trump administration somebody ginned up an ai image of just that. And of course everybody you hair on fire, I get it. It's you know, the norm is broken, et cetera. But it does sort of force them to talk about what that's in reference to. And there seems to be a lot of the press doesn't know quite what to do about this, because you know, it's it's truth y as a man once said that he was,
you know, probably obviously propriate, et cetera. Et cetera. And the particulars really don't matter to them, and they'll come out and say things like, well, it's not as if we said that Russia changed the election or hacked the election, but that is exactly what you guys were saying. So this will be red conned and flushed that that's that's basically it. And and unfortunately the internet meme nothing ever happens, I think will apply to this. Yeah.
Yeah, but I think that there has been a punishment. This has been my view for years that this is an intrinsically political question because the president's not going to be prosecuted for it, and there has been a punishment for Barack Obama, which is that he lost his legacy thanks to Trump winning in twenty sixteen, and now Trump won again.
And like the main legacy he's going to have, I believe, is going to be an unfathomably ugly public library.
Yeah. I actually just finish on this by saying, this is the thing that I love about America. Obviously it's not perfect and this doesn't always happen, but the thing that depresses me in other countries and in my country of birth is things go badly, bad decisions are made. You get into these periods of torper and then the public says okay.
But in the US usually.
The public doesn't like it and does something about it. And we saw this with inflation, for example. We saw those terrible moves that Biden made. The public punished Biden for that, and yeah, the press will wreckon this and they'll try to rewrite it in time. But Barack Obama has paid a price for this, and so has the Democratic Party. Even if the average person in the street isn't up on it or thinking about it day to day, they didn't actually get away with it. And I think that's good.
Well, you know, after our guests, I want to talk to you, Charles, when you mentioned that the English British reaction is different. There has been a change seemingly in the atmosphere after the introduction of migrants into Epping and the displacement of hotel people at Canary Wharf to house and boat people, and there seems to be a bit of a shift. Whether it results in anything, we'll discuss after we talk to our guests, and the guests they're
not going to lie to you. They aren't and you may be tired of people lying to you, aren't you? Are you being lied to? Well? You know they tell you to defer paying your taxes by saving in a four oh one K or an IRA because you'll retire in a lower tax bracket. But if that's true, why are so many retirees and the highest tax bracket of their lives. Look, it's time to get to the truth and discover a better way to grow and protect your money.
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And there's got to be at least three or four of those there in continent, so she probably knows them all intimately and can tell us, you know, their full story. But welcome. I'm gonna throw this to Stephen because I know he's got something query he wish used to put you in.
Well, right, I'll be high Ellen, great to see you. You and your other half, Mario Fantini, or two of my favorite Europeans, even though you're Americans. But Mario can almost fake being a European with a name like Mario Fantini. Right, anyway, I mean here's I mean, we have listeners here. No one can see the magazine I've got. I've got them stacked up here on my desk. And what I tell people about it is so, first of all, I'll try
to describe it. It's printed on thick stock, it's perfect bound, as we say in the magazine Trade, and it's got lots of great art work in it. And so I say, it's if you want to try think about a conceptually A describe it as a cross between Chronicles magazine and Architectural Digest.
Right, I mean like that.
Yeah, Well I'll just share one, you know, a typical piece of art that's always very topical with James and Charles. Here's what they call the magazine trade a double truck. It's a two full page piece of artwork. And this is a rawing of Trump's Southern Border Wall. Now you really know it's a conservative magazine when they're highlighting artwork in praise of Trump's a.
Southern border wall, practically a fold up Playboy fold out for the.
For the Maga Trade. And then I don't know, I mean, so I don't want to go on too long, Ellen, and praise your magazine because I want to ask you how it started and a few things about it. But for example, you one issue, two or three issues back had several features recalling the glory days of the Habsburgs
and interviewing the latest heirs of the Habsburg dynasty. That's a real conservative magazine, right, Or you know articles saying, you know, we ought to give Franco a second look and realize he's not the boogeyman that we've been told for years. What latest issue has a couple of features actually, like I think five features on the legacy of Jean Marie Lapinn, who remains you know, a boogeyman for everybody and enlightened opinion.
Yes, exactly right.
So tell us a bit about I mean, I don't know, give us your sort of thumbnail sketch of what you guys are about out and not about I mean, I'd like to say you don't have dense articles on marginal tax rates. You're about culture and beauty and philosophy, and you know some of the populist currents going on in Europe. You guys are all over. But tell us how the magazine got started and what you guys try to do with it.
Sure, So, yes, we've been in Europe for I know Mario has been there for about twenty years. I've been close to fifteen. And we used to joke when Mario would say, I'm Mario Fantini from the European Conservative, and they'd say, oh, so you're the Conservative, the European Conservative. That's changed quite a lot, and we can talk a little bit about that, but certainly the political landscape has changed.
So the magazine had its early beginnings as a newsletter from the proceedings of the Vandenberg Meeting, and the Vandenberg Meeting still meets to this day. I think it's been
seventeen or eighteen years. The Center for European Renewal brought together intellectuals and thinkers to try to look at the philosophical I would say, foundations of conservatism in Europe, what is there to conserve, etc. So started as a newsletter and then Mario, let's say, was discontent with his day job and said, hey, do you mind if I try to make this into a real magazine. They said, sure, that's fine. He did that for many years. Then we
got some foundation help. Actually an American Foundation gave us some money to start a small website. Meanwhile, we were producing this magazine on our own and sending it out as a PDF, or printing a few copies and handing them out like samizdat, you know, at various conferences. But the PDFs really started getting shared, I suppose went viral
a bit. People really loved these magazines, and eventually we got a foundation funding to really properly professionalize to publish the magazine Steve that you have in your hands, and we also started a website, We started a news program, we opened an office in Brussels. We have reporters all
around Europe doing daily news, commentary, analysis. But the baby of the project, the Fantini baby, is definitely the magazine and its aim is to I would say, understand what is European conservatism, And I say that but also say it's not a monolith. So really it's European conservatisms because of course there are conservative or right wing traditions across Europe that are really different from one another, and they have histories that are very different. And of course even
today the European right is not a monolith. There are issues that one country deals with that another country perhaps has dodged for now and so on. So the magazine attempts to, through beauty and art and culture and philosophy and book reviews, tries to remind us, of course, what we mean when we say we want to save the West. What is the West? You can't simply talk about taxes and financial policy if what you're trying to save is our patrimony. So that's part of it.
Yeah, yeah, so I know the magazine. Well, first of all, I should mention that whenever I'm going somewhere in Europe, I will email Mario and say, who do you know in Oslo, Dublin, or you know some small town in Spain. And he always tells me five people that he knows right and tells me all about them. And so you guys seem to be in touch with everybody everywhere. And
I know that you've been on newsstands. I think you're on the Smith Consortium of newstands, except when they kicked you off temporarily because of some cartoon.
Right, Yes, that was the best thing that happened to our to our sales is when we got we got sort of canceled by W. H. Smith, which is basically the Barnes and Noble of the UK and a fairly well known playwright went into a W. H. Smith and let's say he and his husband are not the types who would normally gravitate towards something called the European Conservative. Well, they flipped through it and found a cartoon. The cartoon fantastic. Uh. Mom asks a little boy wearing a backpack, what did
you learn at school today? And the little boy vomits a rainbow? So, I mean, you know, not particularly so edgy. But they complained to W. H. Smith said, how can this rubbish be sold? You know? Meanwhile, I'd love to know what was right next to it and behind it that was probably actual rubbish. Wh Smith panicked told all of its retailers to to yank that issue from the shelves.
We of course seize the opportunity because there's no such thing as bad press, and people were very interested and we got lots of new readers.
To W. H.
Smith's credit, they didn't ban us from their stores, and they still stalk us, and in fact, they'd just been sold to something with a similar name that's not wh Smith. And they continue to stalk us, and we are stocked across the United States of America in Barnes and Noble. Interesting little factoid is that half of our readers kind of across all platforms, so website, magazine sales and subscriptions, our social media followers are in the US. And I
think it's because you kind of alluded to this. Americans do want to know what's going on in Europe and they want to understand what European conservatism is. They also want help, I think, sometimes navigating the players. Who are
the good guys who are the bad guys? You know, not that we have a list of like who the bad guys are, but I think because there's such an import export of bad ideas between Europe and America, a lot of Americans want to know what's what's happening in Europe and the European conservative does that.
Well, one one more question for me and I'll turn you over to Charlie and James. I mean, one of the things I like about it is exposes me to a lot of European writers I've never heard of before. I mean, a few I'm familiar with, and some have come to really treasure. And so I'll just mention one for one particular thing he does for you regularly, and it's Sebastian Morello, who I think what lives in some
state up on the isle of Sky, I think. But he in addition to features, he writes a must read column in every issue about whiskey, which of course is something I'm fond of. But anyway, I don't have a question. I just want to say that it must be fun to have the stable of people all over the place. Who are you know? So it's so different from most American publications, I'll put.
It that way.
Yeah, well, I mean that's thank you for noticing that. I mean, one of our missions is to bring to English writers who don't write in English. Of course, Sebastian writes in English, but we always say, why is it that the next great thinker has to be an Anglophone? In other words, they're really interesting people writing in Portuguese and in Spanish and in German. And if English language is the barrier to entry, well then we tear down
that barrier. We translate their work, and we think that that's really important because while of course, as an American I do think that there is some superiority to some of the Anglophone world's ways of viewing things. It's certainly not the only way, and I think we can learn a lot from continental European thinking and thinkers.
Hi, Charles Cook, I wonder is it a challenge dealing with Europe which is a very big place with lots of different countries in it and different traditions leave aside, languages. Britain is different in France, which is different than Italy, which is different than Germany. How do you coalesce all of that or do you treat them as discrete entities under the European banner?
Yeah? I mean, I suppose we treat these countries and even let's say the threads of conservatism within these countries as as separate in the sense that there is no monolith. And I think although more and more, every country in Europe, and even countries who used to be in Europe, suffer from a lot of the same problems. I mean, it's quite easy these days to say the word migration and
you have a chorus. Now, how countries or right wing leaders or thinkers approach these topics may be different, but the similarity of the problems is certainly is certainly obvious. But yeah, so to answer your question. I think that's the beauty of Europe rather than the EU, which likes to treat discrete, sovereign European countries as one big blob or block. So, yes, we love Europe, We're not so crazy about the EU.
My second question is you mentioned that a good number of your readers are in the US, and in a sense you are translating for them. What is the biggest misconception Americans have. I asked this because I increasingly meet people on the right in the United States who seem genuinely to believe that, say, Britain is now a Muslim country. There are problems with Muslim immigration into Britain, especially around free speech.
We've seen the issues with the gangs in the North.
I'm certainly not downplaying it, but as somebody who's Froming, then it goes back there relatively often. Yes, London is more Muslim than it was twenty years ago, but if you go almost anywhere else, certainly where I'm from in rural England, that's not the issue. Is it that or is it something else? What is the biggest thing? People don't know will get wrong?
So what are the biggest things that Americans tend to get wrong about Europe. I would think that a lot of Americans don't understand the patriotism that Europeans feel. And perhaps it's because I'm not sure any country, except maybe maybe my father's country of Denmark, very few countries do patriotism with flags the way that Americans do and call themselves patriots. I mean, it's remarkable in fact that this new both political European political party and grouping in the
European Parliament, the Patriots for Europe Right. Saying the word patriots is unusual and fairly new, and I think a lot of Americans don't understand and that Europeans love their countries. They love their countries the way that Americans love their countries, and so I think part of what we can do is help to show why and examples of that.
Yeah, well, the people love their country, but they're not so sure that their leaders do. Now, just to tell you where I'm coming from here, I recently spend four days in a verbo in the Adriatic in Italy, so I'm an expert on Italian politics. So that's where I'm coming from. And I go to England at least once a year, and I am keenly interested and concerned about the country and its future. But when you say that
the people are patriotic, I believe that. I mean, you talk to a Britain about their scepter dial but they don't feel as if the leadership does. They feel that the leadership is constantly apologizing for the country, apologizing for Europe, apologizing for the entirety of Western civilization with its dreadful history of colonialism. And they feel, to varying degrees that there's an intentional program to dilute the national identity with
people from other places because A it's humane. B we owe it to them, and see, you get a better society the more diverse it is. And they feel as if they are actually being worked against by their leadership. That's what I get from an awful lot of people on Twitter in various countries. Is that true. I'm sure it's true to varying degrees in Europe. But which countries feel that the least and which countries feel that the more.
In other words, which countries say, yes, we are patriotic and our leaders are patriotic, in which country says we are We desperately love le France. But the Macron is a producer of our of.
Our heritage, right right. So yes, I think I think the average person in any European country, with few exceptions, and I'll say what those exceptions are, agrees with the premise that they love their country and their leaders are actively trying to destroy that country.
You know.
It's sort of the European equivalent of the NPR ification of patriotism, which is that it's you know, it's mocked, it's you know, kind of ignorant. And so I mean that that that sort of elite disdain for a basic love of one's country is alive and well in Europe, of course, you know, they're European. Europeans in various countries keep on electing people who don't love their countries. I mean,
I think I think that's a fair statement. And when I say don't love their countries, of course that shorthand for progressive or socialist or in some places communist policies that actively destroy the countries. So I mean, you know, do I think Emanuel Maccron loves France. I have no idea,
but he sure doesn't act like it. So yeah, So I mean, I think I'll give you an example I live in Austria, and when in twenty sixteen it was looking like Donald Trump was going to do pretty well, a lot of my Austrian friends said, how is this possible? And I said, all right, look at an electoral map of Austria, and you see those green and red spots
in the university towns and in the capitol. Okay, those are progressives or communists or socialists, and the entire rest of the country is voting for the Freedom Party pretty much the same is you know, that's just like America. So you have the coastal elites let's call them, even if they don't have coasts in Europe. And so those are the voters who keep on voting in governments and leaders that don't have the country's best interests in mind are the ones who mock the patriots and so on.
So I would say most of Europe, at least European leadership fits in that category. And then you have places like Hungary. I think Poland's coming back to some sanity. You see AfD is surging in Germany and Germany is of course we could have a half hour conversation about Germany, but I mean Germans, especially young people especially young people, are saying it cannot be a crime to say that
I'm proud of being German, like it just can't. And they're expressing frustration with the idea that there is no end in sight to a prohibition on being proud of being German.
So Ellen, let me follow up on that if I can. It seems to me I think this isn't an exaggeration or over simplification. That the one of the unifying issues there as it has been here and now, including Japan and their elections here in the last few days, which I'll mention in a minute, is the concern about migration, the erosion of national identity elites who are governing against
the country. I don't know if you follow this. I don't follow Japanese politics, but I couldn't help but notice some articles saying, huh, there's a new populist party in Japan that serves and Lay's election. It's strength coming from especially from young men frustrated about their lack of opportunities in a stagnant economy and controversies over migration, which Japan
has very little but has some. And then I look back at Germany and one of the problems it seems to me, and this is sort of my political science geek coming out, is you have these parliamentary systems with multi party elections, and so in Germany right now AfD is leading in the polls on a hypothetical election, and the other parties literally won't speak to the AfD members of the Bundestag, as I understand it, and they've completely
frozen them out of office. And what Mertz, he barely got the job because what he only got twenty three twenty four percent of the total vote that was cast. My point is, if you had a binary system or first past the post system like we have in America or in Britain, I think that the populist voice would be stronger, the elites would have had to change, or
you have actually had a populous government. And instead all those systems are conspiring to elect someone for who seventy five percent of the voters wanted somebody else, and eventually that's got to lead to some kind of bad outcome, it seems to me for the establishment, which means maybe a good outcome for us, but seems to me the suppression of legitimate voices and the marginalization of legitimate claims to be included in a government. It's just storing up
all kinds of problems for the elite. And I see a Trump like storm coming to Europe. Does that make sense to you?
It absolutely makes sense to me. I mean, certainly the American style law fair that we saw against Trump is alive and well in Europe. I mean, if you look at Marine le penn and rossamblamant Nationale or the National Rally in France. Not only was she convicted and sentenced to what I think anyone would say is a completely bogus charge, but then they they forbid her from running for political office for five years and that prohibition cannot be stayed pending appeal, which is just crazy. And then
you have the normalization of the cordon sanitaire. Right, this this firewall against in France, against the RN in Germany, obviously against the AfD and Mertz. You know, I mean, he virtue signaled to the right, he started talking a little bit tough on migration. He's completely failed there. And I don't think anybody can be considered center right if they endorse a firewall against the second most popular party in the country. In Italy, you have law fair against
Matteo Salvini, the Deputy Prime Minister. This is ongoing and you're absolutely right that if the voters weren't disenfranchised in all of these countries, I think the political landscape would look very, very different.
I hate to interrupt, but actually interrupting the guest is on my checklist. I got a checklist for my day. I'm retired and that means that I got to keep myself busy. Checklist comes in handy. I'm not even nine to five anymore, nine to nine. Getting through all of this stuff though, if you're still employed, you got a lot of stuff going in your life. Getting through it all it could be hard. But today's sponsors want you to have time to priorities put them getting through that right?
The matter with me today? Three to one. Hey, I hate to interrupt here, but I'm going to. As a matter of fact, I've got on my list of things to do and I just checked it off. You probably have a checklist too, especially if you work nine to five. Getting through all your things to check and be hard. But today's sponsor wants you to have time to prioritize you outside the work hours, inside you order. Let's call it you're five to nine, Cozy the Earth lets your
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first night Cozy Earth. We thank co Was the Earth for sponsoring this the Ricochet Podcast. We'll go back to something you said at the beginning of the interview. You mentioned three people. You said that you'd interviewed, the last remaining Habsburg. Is that correct?
Yes, Well, so there was an interview I think with carlvon Hobsburg.
Yeah, right right. I follow him on Twitter where he fends off predictable japes about his gin physiognomy, and he seems a very civilized and interesting person. A lot of people have a certain sort of nostalgia for the os the waning days of the Austrian Hungarian Empire and the stuff on this week area of Vienna and the twilight of that civilian I get that. I get that. I do.
It's an interesting thing to do. But you also said that you have an article about another look at Franco and the penn And while I can't comment on either article without having read them, I want to know what is exactly what's is it worth the candle to take these figures about whom the ideas are pretty well baked and say we need to take another look for these reasons or does that not run the risk of just immediately tarring everybody who calls themselves a European conservative with
wanting to go back to discredited ideas, or people that you know may have had a good idea here and there, but are not somebody necessarily we want to gather into our arms and say what can we learn from you? Is it not best too? Perhaps? I mean, what's the point of that? I guess as I mean, I know it doesn't keep you from writing about new people on the horizon, but I'm just curious the impetus behind those editorial decisions.
Sure well, I think I think that it's part of our exploration of the legacies that have made up what is modern Europe. And I think one could look at someone's legacy and explain it, or analyze it, or criticize it. Certainly, the twenty pages that we've devoted to the legacy of Jean Marie le Penn it's not a twenty page tribute, but rather are the criticisms fair? What else do we know about him? And frankly, could the French rite exist the way it does now without what he did then?
I mean his his predictions on globalization, migration, this homogenization of Europe. Those were prescient warnings, even if even if what he said about other things were in bad taste or worse. There are certainly arguments that it's worth looking at his legacy, especially because literally no English language publication and UH took a look at his legacy, except you know, sort of a passing uh obituary. So I think it's.
So if I can jump in briefly, there is you may have seen it, Ellen, I'll send it to you. Christopher Caldwell has a long yes piece on Lapan in the latest Clairemont Review books. The tracks very closely with with your treatment of him.
Sorry to interrupt, Yeah, And I mean it's also you know, we we we joke that that we're we're open to everyone from uh, you know, sort of traditionalists, anarchists, you know, sort of conservative anarchists, monarchists. I mean, we have the American monarchist Charles Colombe, a Californian, uh, writing about the monarchy. I mean we we think that these are all interesting, and we think that our readers are smart enough to
figure out if it's interesting to them. So, you know, I appreciate the question, but I also think this is the sort of the fabric. It's weird and uncomfortable sometimes, but but there's a lot there that people can learn from.
You mentioned that it will been warning about the homogenization of Europe, and that's that's something that's that people seem to go along with shrug their shoulders, you know, the center right, the social Democrats, they were okay with you EU having a certain amount of control and influence over their lives because they got open borders where they could pass without having to get a visa stand they didn't have to bother to change their perfectly good money into
that strange useless script that the other nations had. I mean, you had this settled notion of Europe that a certain class of people enjoyed, but now they're finding it changed in ways. I think that's that that that that are a front to them, And so I wonder if there was it, if the EU would not be facing the pressures it had today, if it's simply hadn't decided to embark upon this read this demographic altering project that they
seem to be doing. If they just stopped at regulating the size of bubbles in Swiss cheese, that they'd be fine.
Well, yeah, I mean I think I think that's true. I mean I think I think plenty of people would say that being an economic or trading block, or regulating you know, sort of like oil and gas, all that was good. I think there there are some countries who are very happy about the Euro others that are not at all happy with the Euro. I think the Shengen,
the Shengin treaty that opened the borders. I think a lot of people, as you said, said oh well, that'll make it so convenient, but they never thought about, for example, what happened this week, which is that Pedro Sanchez in Spain has based said, I think I'm just going to normalize the status of like a million illegal migrants and just you know, give them residents, permits and work visas, and so they would in fact just be able to do whatever anyone else with illegal status in Europe could do.
So that means borderless crossings, that means going wherever they want to go. And I'm not sure that the people who thought Schengen was a good idea because they don't want to have to get visa stamps had this in mind, and certainly I think that there are a lot of people who are really regretting it.
Now.
Are you optimistic about Europe? I ask because it seems possible to me, and I understand this is provocative that Europe will just not fix itself. Twenty years ago, the size of the European economy and the American economy it was the same, and now the American economy is twice as big as the European economy. I don't know as much as you obviously about continental Europe. I know France pretty well, Italy increasingly, so I know a lot about Britain.
I'm from there, and at the moment Britain is just not fixing itself. Britain is not making the decisions that it needs to, and it seems possible to me. I hope it doesn't happen. It seems possible that Europe will just decline.
Are you hopeful? Do you worry about that too?
Well? You know, it's funny whenever Mario and I get asked this question. You know, Mario gets called doctor Doom because he would, I think, say the same thing about Europe. So I guess I'm supposed to be the ray of sunshine. But I'm with you, Charles in the sense that I'm not seeing them do it right. So I'm seeing a lot of people try, and I'm seeing uh, you know, these sort of populist movements, populist nationalists, uh, whatever word that is. I think that they they really want to try.
But boy, the march through the institutions, uh well, and truly succeeded in Europe, and and all of the power and the money has gone into initiatives that were actively work against European growth. I mean, Europe can't defend itself. Euro does Europe doesn't make anything or manufacture anything. So although I am the ray of sunshine apparently as between myself and my husband, I am. I am worried, but I do think that the that the that there is there are some sparks, and I think I think people
are are pretty well fed fed up. I just worry that their fed upness is going to get ugly.
Yeah, that's that's the big thing. You repress until you get a blowback that you don't like. In Sweden, there I forget that. The term for it in the Nordic countries is unpronounceable to me, in which there is a series of intellectual guard rails. Accepted opinion must travel between these guardrails, and anything outside of that is regarded as
not something that a decent civilized person would say. And one of those, I think is the idea that that Swedish identity is somehow all encompassing and protein, which it isn't. I mean, in America, the great thing what I love about America is that anybody can come here from wherever and they can become an American, and that even includes.
Charles, because we have a civic identity that is born in an idea embodied in a constitution, and that does not depend on blood and soil, and all the rest of it. That anybody can become an American, but it is absurd to think that anybody can become a sweet.
I can't go to France and become a Frenchman, never could, never would. Don't even have the interest in knowing enough about whine to be able to claim any sort of frenchness to me. I could move to England, I really could. There's a place that I would live, but I know in my heart that I would never be an Englishman.
So it is absurd, however, to be able to you can't say these ideas in modern Europe because it goes against the whole transnational idea, which then suppresses nationalism, which then you think, as I always looking at history, erupts and erupts poorly. But I'm with Charles, I don't see it erupting. I just see more and more slump shouldered, sullen reaction to this as the country, just as the countries have a slow, slow, long decline. I don't want
that spark but to erupt. But I want something to happen, but I don't think it will.
You know, this is interesting, this question of identity, and let's say, on the British very online. Right, There's been a whole discussion about being English and in Ireland same thing. Somebody I read a tweet just today that observed that.
I know what you're going to say. I wrote the tweet, go ahead, right.
So an Irish person will say to an American who says, you know, I'm Irish, you're not Irish. But somebody can arrive twenty minutes ago from Somalia and they're definitely Irish, right, and you know so? And then there was the whole question. I mean, this is this is the question, you know, when you do a what now defunct twenty three and meters genetic test, At what point is somebody going to
have a genetic test that says they're American? Right, Because it's a civic it's a civic identity as well as you know, sort of being American of whatever. Fill in ethnic identity roots where Swedes are Swedes. But there is a heavy, heavy, heavy push everywhere in Europe to say that citizenship is national identity, and there's a big push against it, and I think that's right.
Ellen Fantini, who is the deputy editor of the European Conservative, go down to Barnes and Noble, buy several copies, and you know, you know, with the heft and waight of Stephen described with a nice stock and the rest of it, you can probably use it for some good bicep curls as well. I look forward to looking at the next edition, and Ellen, we hope to have you and or Mario back in the future to discuss exactly what's changed in Europe. If anything does, and if nothing has, you can tell
us why. Ellen Fantini, thanks for joining us today.
Thanks for having me.
The news cycle move so fast that nobody cares about Stephen Colbert, but it turns out that a lot of people care about Stephen Colbert before then. Now he's going away someday. Here's your hat. You know, it's going to take him like eight months to get to the foyer and leave. But he's new, and he's revitalized, and he's refreshed, and he's all resistance. F you Trump people are saying that he was canned for political reasons the same week that South Park just came out and made the hilarious
humiliation because that's what they do. It's a momb on Biden. You guys think that Colbert was axed because he was just too resistancy or because maybe he was losing a lot of money in his average age of his viewers of sixty eight.
I'm sure it's the latter, but I wish it was the former. I would love for it. David Allison, who's the owner of sky Dance that's buying Paramount, I would love for him to come out and say, actually, we're hitting rid of him because he's too political and he's unfunny. I mean, South Park at least is funny, right, I mean those guys are geniuses, and Colbert became a crashing bore and kill the ratings and it's losing tons of money. I do think we saw the future though, of late
night left wing talk shows. It's going to be Colbert joining forces with Hunter Biden on MSNBC to see who can out.
F bomb the other, and Charlie you'll be watching, of course, you're being a big Hunter Biden fan. I think you saw his the entirety of his forty seven hour interview that you.
Say, I did watch the whole thing.
I did.
I love you look, it was engaging. That doesn't mean that he's not crazy. It doesn't mean that the guy who interviewed him isn't an idiot, but it was engaging. He asked open questions and then let Hunter Biden speak, and I found it fascinating.
Well, it is that fascinating in the same way we slow down look at car wrecks. So that's the way I thought of it.
Sure, on Collbat, it just seems very unlikely to me that CBS said we had better get rid of Colbert to please Trump and give one and a half billion dollars to South Right in the same move. But the problem there was that the show that he inherited is not supposed to be what he made it. You know, it's like ice cream is great, right, but it doesn't make a very good hammer, And these two things they're not the same. And so many of the criticisms from the left have said, ah, so you don't think that
they should be able to criticize the president. No, that's not my view. I think he should be able to criticize the president. But he is in charge of the late show. That's not that. And yeah, but it comes up. Sure, but it became this party political broadcast. Of course it was canceled. Of course, no one wanted to watch it. Of course, its audience numbers went from eleven million to two.
If that McMahon had come out every night and started making speeches in favor of George McGovern, I think that would have been seen as inappropriate for the tonight show and what it was attempting to do. But you know, the Left sizes every single aspect of the culture and then and then and then accuses the Right of doing
the exact same thing. We would be content, perfectly content to keep the culture and the politics a little bit separa, although they'll say the personal is the political, and everything cultural is inherently just a tiresome group of people. And speaking of which, when you mentioned before, Charles, there's a template, you know, the the nineteen thirty Germany template in which everything is put and the getting rid of Colbert is
another step of the fashions regime silencing all dissent. I saw somebody the other day yesterday, reacting to the executive order that said, you know what, you can't nod out from drugs on the sidewalk and die. We're just not going to do that anymore. Cities, states, municipalities, you got to get these people off the street and put them in a treatment And the reaction to this from one left wing Twitter person was, this is eugenics, straight up.
That's serious, that this is out of the Nazi playbook, rounding up the undesirables and putting them into camps. It is better, apparently, in the name of harm reduction somehow, to have no go streets in cities where people are dying unless you jab them with some narcan or just doing a fenifold for a couple of hours until their
desperate lives are reduced to finding the next tack. That that's somehow preferable to what a lot of us have been saying is necessary in the first place, forced institutionalization to give these people an opportunity to live without the drug. And I'm saying, you can give them endless opportunities, but the start is getting them off the streets. And I think it's partially. They won't admit this, but it's partially
because it deprives them of two things. One the people who are in the homeless industrial complex, who make an awful lot of money. I think you know San Francisco, Los Angeles, how many hundreds of agencies do they have dealing with these things? Are afraid of the money going away, but also b it deprives the rhetoricicians of their favorite examples to use against capitalism and private housing and all
the rest of it. I mean, if the streets were suddenly clear, there weren't a lot of drug addicts out anymore, and these people were somewhere off there, the arguments against capitalism and housing would not be as compelling as they want them to be. Or am I being cynical now?
I think? I mean my guess is knowing how much we've spent here in California on homelessness only to see it grow. Of course there may be a connection there, right. The more money there isn't it, the more of it you're going to get. So it's something like twenty five thirty billion dollars that state and local government have spent in California and homelessness. You would have thought they could have built some homes with that kind of money. Very
very few. In any case, let's not be clever about this. When you put homeless with drug problems and psychological problems in hotels and cheap housing, they tend to trash the place because there is no adult supervision. It's got to be cheaper. It's not a matter of money, essentially, but it's got to be cheaper to put somebody in some
kind of institution. I forget the numbers now, but they go something like this, that we had something like five hundred thousand people institutionalized in the nineteen fifties when the population was, you know, about half of what it is now, and today it's something like fifty thousand. I don't quote those numbers precisely any listeners, but it's that magnitude of change of our deinstitutionalization, which we did start in the late fifties. And it is sad, but that's a much
better approach to the problem. And now we can probably find better institutions than we did back in those days when many of them were pretty dismal places.
Right worldA Rovera, if I recall it, correctly made his bones at the very early age by discussing the bedlam like conditions in these places, Bedlam being, of course, the term that comes from an institution in Great Britain. So we'll let Charles have the last word.
I just love the response that you mentioned eugenics. This is because this is the problem with our moment. This is something that I've increasingly noticed that people can't level a criticism without adding a bit on the end that just makes them sound completely crazy. So you meet some law professor from Berkeley or something, and they'll say.
Tie, wow, wow, I'm very, very worried.
I mean, under the nineteen forty eight administer to procedure at Donald Trump was supposed to submit this for review through three or four different channels and put it in triplica.
But he hasn't done that.
He's skipped forward to section three. And that's why fourteen thousand people will die. And you're like, what, sorry, I was with you until what right. I was totally interested in your argument until you went there.
And it's like, so, I mean, I'm with you guys on the homeless thing.
But even if you don't like this executive order, how do they get from Well, I don't like this moderate change in federal policy affected by the executive branch.
Within the statute are eugenics.
It is it is delightful. Well, it's all been delightful, the whole thing. It's been delightful to be sponsored by bank On yourself and by Cozy Earth, and we thank them, and of course you can avail yourself with the products to make your life better today and in the foreseeable future. It would make us happy if you gave a five star review on Apple Podcasts. But you know that, you know how much it would go out in my day, and yet you haven't done it yet. And don't think
I haven't noticed. Oh I'm not mad. I'm not mad. I'm just And also, I would like to tell you if it isn't obvious that ricochet dot com is the enterprise in the edifice behind this weekly podcast. And if we've got seven hundred and fifty under our belt, well there's so many, many more, a whole feed of podcasts to which you can listen to, including My Diner, which has nothing to do with politics and stuff that has to do with Well, you just have to go and see,
won't you. A lot of names you'll recognize and a lot of new people that you'll love to meet. It's been fun, Stephen Charles, have a great week, and we'll see everybody in the comments. Said Ricochet four point zero. Bye bye,