Malformed Cabezas

Go down the rabbit hole of conservative eggheadiness on this weekend’s Ruminant, where Jonah discusses ...

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Go down the rabbit hole of conservative eggheadiness on this weekend’s Ruminant, where Jonah discusses both the validity of “Trumpism” as an ideological construct as well as how that plays with the idea of conservatism as the “negation of an ideology.” Jonah also explains how we are seeing the ratcheting effect of increased government authority take place in real time, why Chris Stirewalt is the greatest, why right wing populism is the worst, and much more.

Show Notes:

–The Dispatch Podcast with Chris Stirewalt and Jonah

–“Expressio Unius Exclusio Alterius”

–Crisis and Leviathan by Robert Higgs

–Milton Friedman and income tax withholding

–This Friday’s G-File

–Giuliani: My legacy? F*** it!

–Area man loses mind on live television

–Kirk: “Conservatism is the negation of ideology”

–Jordan Peterson: Reject ideology

–Murphy Brown and Dan Quayle

–Erewhon

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  1. Avatar photo
    Dpatricola

    Definitely your best titled Remnant yet. I need to find a way to inject this into casual conversation (which should be easier than 'body politic').

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    Man-Eating Cow

    Jonah, you may find it fascinating that Netflix apparently already has plans to make a movie about the GameStop short squeeze. It seems somehow consonant with one of your themes here.

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  3. Pammburkhart

    Your comments about the right being the side manning the brake, and that conservatism keeps more of an eye in the rearview mirror brought to mind this quote from the composer Gustav Mahler: "Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire." Applying this to the context of preserving the written (vs a living) Constitution, conservatism's focus is preserving the Constitution's structure of the people (not the state) as sovereign, and commitment to the founders' vision of individual liberty... that's the fire to be preserved.

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    Ohio Gas Hog

    So right on mask wearing! If you tell me I am going to be wearing a mask for 7 years, I'm going to stop wearing right now. It comes down to the goal posts are always being moved. To use a wartime phrase, there is no exit strategy. Give me some realistic targets on what needs to happen to allow people to live their lives. Side note: To "live" in this sense means to worship, work and recreate with family and friends with no (limited) government interference.

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  5. Curtis Jensen

    The My Pillow CEO sounds like he came straight out of Zoolander 1: “The files are INSIDE of the computer!”

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  6. Richard Fulmer

    We’ve decided to follow Rome’s path to decline: Rule by bread and circuses. Our one innovation is that we’ve moved the circus from the Colosseum to Congress.

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      Narwhal

      I’m assuming that your remark was intentionally superficial so as to make a specific point.

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      1. Richard Fulmer

        Nothing deep. Just noting that we used to send statesmen to Washington and now we send clowns.

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    Charley Warns

    The great debate we're having in society seems like a rehash of what Burke and Payne already argued (but obviously never settled). Yuval Levin wrote about this in his excellent and perfectly titled book: "The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left." It's like whatever the argument is, you just put it in terms of the Burke position vs. the Payne position. And the reason it's so easy to do that (as I learned listening to Jonah here) is that it's a Newtonian vs. Darwinian argument. That'll be argued forever. That's got to be an oversimplification, but there you go!

    "If it ain't broke ... don't fix it," says Burke. Thomas Payne, on the other hand, figures a society evolves (move towards perfection) only via change for the sake of change. Burke is the Newtonian (grounded in principle) while Payne is the Darwinian (sees the rule book as living and breathing). Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater vs. going ahead and doing that. As Yuval Levin writes:

    "The statesman’s task is therefore not to drive society toward some particular ultimate and just condition [utopia] but to create and constantly sustain a space in which the people may exercise their freedom and enjoy the benefits of life in society." Levin continues:

    "Successful political change in Burke’s view is thus utterly continuous with a society’s past and character. To plan, manage, judge, and carry off such successful change therefore requires a profound understanding of the history, the spirit, the norms, the practices, and the traditions of one’s society, and a successful politics is guided by this kind of understanding—which goes by the name of prudence."

    Great podcast!

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  8. linda

    Good pod as usual. Totally excited over Stirewalt. He was seriously undervalued at Fox News so great to have him here. I was actually thinking of asking The Dispatch to up their subscription rate to get him (not by much peeps) but glad to see some deep pockets stepped into the breach.
    Anyway, I was in this (The Dispatch) at the begins and so happy I was because it looks like the zombies are at the door. Every pol I respect is being set on fire by their state committees so roll up your sleeves.

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    Anthony Young-Garner

    I enjoy your podcasts and I'm grateful to The Dispatch, particularly for the Dispatch Live conference y'all did with Cheney, Sasse and others in the autumn.

    I understand and more-or-less accept the three-legged stool theory of the modern Republican electoral base. Stated thematically, the three legs are religion, national security, and economy. Or, stated more actively, the issues this base cares about are values, defense and free-markets. Stated either of these ways, I think you seem to lately be mourning the loss of the entire stool.

    I would like to suggest, gingerly, that a more accurate way to describe the portion of the base that was considered to be focused on religion and/or values (not that there weren't some who were earnestly focused on those things) is as being focused on the larger issue or theme of *cultural narrative*. Religion and values are only parts of this narrative, not its whole. I make this suggestion, or perhaps this argument, because I think it allows us to see that the stool is not gone at all. It just looks different because the culture leg of the stool is newly strengthened, adorned, and empowered.

    The ascendence of this faction has brought to the fore characteristics of the Republican party that you don't like or appreciate, in particular: the entertaining of fantastical ideas based in emotion and wish-fulfillment rather than reason and fact. But emotionally charged defenses of false narratives have been present in this portion of the Republican base since at least Reconstruction, and I would argue even long before then. I understand that at the time of Reconstruction, this portion of the electorate largely identified as Democratic but my point is that fantastical narratives have been "in the bloodstream" of this portion of the populace since before the Civil War.

    Joseph Uscinski repeatedly claimed that patterns of thought within the population with respect to conspiracy are as they have been for decades and you had a strong aversion to this claim. Consider the possibility that one reason you reacted so strongly to the claim is that it weakens your current narrative. Your current narrative is that a lot of Republicans have suddenly or gradually changed in their thinking and that this is the result of some outside influence, whether leftist thinking or technological change. An alternative narrative is that this thinking has always been present and is not new, but only newly empowered.

    If this alternative narrative is correct, Sarah Isgur's "screed" was entirely correct: the way forward is not to continually bemoan that these people and these ideas exist, but to continually focus on and press forward alternative ideas and people. Accentuate the positive, as it were. Or "look for the good", as Mr. Rogers would say.

    In any case, thank you for your decades of dedication to the positive development of this country and to the cause of righteousness as you see it. I'm sure it hasn't always been easy but I trust and pray that it will one day be again.

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      BWG

      I generally agree, although I'd say willingness to believe the fantastical is pretty widespread - there are many people in the world willing to believe what they wish is true, rather than what the evidence shows is true. I think the effect is generally diluted because there's usually no single fantastical narrative that grips so many people and has such widespread repercussions. One unscrupulous liar in a position of power can change that quickly, as history has shown time and time again.

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  10. Avatar photo
    Narwhal

    Jonah you take issue with the term body politic, which I didn’t know some found objectionable or why, but then you later described “the much crazier, more hormonal design your own reality stuff” being in the bloodstream of the right.

    I recently used the term body politic in one of my arguments made in another person’s article on the site without knowing some found it objectionable or why they do. So, I’m now curious if some read the comment and dismissed it for that reason alone. I doubt you’ll reply, but do you have any suggestions for another similar term or word?

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      Charley Warns

      How do you do? I'm Pierre Bezukhov and I'm on a search for meaning. As a fellow member of the body podcast listenership, let me take a stab at that one. I'll go with "corporation politic." I found this in yourdictionary.com: "The definition of a corporation is a legal entity with its own rights, privileges and liabilities separate from the members who created it." "Corporation" (though its root means that) will never come across as existential as "body." You can always sell your stock in one and buy another.

      The term "body" connotes nationalism in the sense that the organs in your body are not in *conflict* but work together as a team with a common purpose. In contrast, in a liberal Democracy, we do not want the 3 branches of government to team up but to be (somewhat) in conflict so that each provides a check on another. As Yuval Levin put it in his book "The Great Debate":

      "The statesman’s task is therefore not to drive society toward some particular ultimate and just condition but to create and constantly sustain a space in which the people may exercise their freedom and enjoy the benefits of life in society."

      In other words, in a liberal democracy, it's about having space for disparate viewpoints (that could be in conflict) rather than unity.

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        Narwhal

        Thanks. Fwiw, I used the term to describe how populism is a symptom of an ailment(s) in the body politic. So, I’m not sure that your suggestion would work.

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          Charley Warns

          What you just said is "I used 'body politic' to describe how populism is a symptom of an ailment in the body politic." I don't know what that means likely because it has no meaning. JG is saying that "body" in "body politic" connotes nationalism for the reason I already mentioned. And I'm saying that "corporation" is a substitute for "body" while conveying something less anatomical in nature. It may suck ... but it kind of works.

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            Narwhal

            Well, it is similar to Jonah describing “the much crazier, more hormonal design your own reality stuff” being in the bloodstream of the Republican Party.

            Body politic is defined as a “group of persons politically organized under a single governmental authority”. Or , “in Western political thought, an ancient metaphor by which a state, society, or church and its institutions are conceived of as a biological (usually human) body.”

            And its origin is much older than Jonah described.

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