All By Herself

The fight over who is in and who is out within the GOP leadership has ...

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The fight over who is in and who is out within the GOP leadership has reached a boiling point. Rep. Liz Cheney, who survived a vote in February to oust her from her leadership position, may not be there much longer. Sarah and the guys break down what’s happening and how much of a chance Cheney has to survive another attempt to replace her. Also, the special election in Texas shows a weak spot for Democrats, Jonah asks the group if competitiveness even matters in the global economy, and the gang discusses what happens next in the fight against COVID-19 now that the U.S. seems to be hitting a vaccine hesitancy wall.

Show Notes:

–Steve’s piece on GOP leadership fight

–Former President Trump’s statement on Liz Cheney

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Steve I’m with you on the outdoor mask thing. Your, “what the hell” comment is exactly my thought. I wear a mask indoors in a restaurant/grocery store etc. I follow the science etc. But I have never worn a mask while running, and I never will.

    At the same time, I’m not likely to say anything to someone double masked outside by themselves as long as they give me the same respect. I’ll live my life the way I want to and other people can live their lives the way they want. I don’t smoke cigarettes but it doesn’t bother me that other people do.

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  2. Lanky

    Around 55:00, Steve says that CDC recommendations go “way way beyond” what science says to do. But then around 56:30, Sarah argues against folks on the Left who insist on requiring prevention measures that go beyond what the CDC recommends.

    Guys, which is it?

    We’re all sick & tired of the COVID situation we’ve been in; we’re getting close, but it’s not over yet. Let’s follow the science, and get out of it ASAP. So, what’s the science? Is it those CDC recommendations we like, and don’t inconvenience us much? Or is it a source other than the CDC? If so, what is it, and why are both Steve and Sarah referring to the CDC and not the better scientific source?

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  3. Raincheck

    Hey, Steve, I am a conservative. I am totally healthy and vaccinated. You might see me wearing a mask in a situation where you think it is ridiculous. My wife has blood cancer. Her vaccine produced no antibodies, which is happening to blood cancer patients. Her cancer has a 50% death rate with Covid.

    I wear a mask because the vaccine is only 95% effective, and we don’t know what extent people can carry the virus even if they don’t come down with the disease. So let’s say there is a 10% chance that I can carry the virus. That’s a 5% chance that my wife DIES.

    More people are in this situation than you think and need herd immunity to be safe. If you think they are ridiculously safe, fine. But maybe assume people have a reason for doing something before call them performative lefties.

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    1. Mark Moromisato

      Raincheck, Steve was making a general observation. I have no doubt about your sincerity and all the best to your wife. But there are many more who fit the profile of the performative masker than those protecting seriously compromised loved-ones. I have been immunocompromised for a similar condition as your wife's and had to have those around me wear masks. And before the COVID pandemic - it seemed very odd and almost threatening to some people who weren't aware or didn't understand. I didn't take it personally and if you cut Steve just a little slack...you wouldn't either.

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  4. Avatar photo
    WKDawson

    There actually are good reasons for at least some people to wear a mask while walking around alone (or even, seemingly more ridiculous, driving around alone in a car wearing a mask). When I walk around, I tend to think deeply about all sorts of stuff. If I happen to stumble upon a neighbor while I'm meandering in my thoughts, I might get into a conversation and easily forget that I'm not wearing a mask.

    Likewise, driving around in a car is often severe tedium (especially on roads in Tokyo). There are those automaton pedestrians, bicycles that suddenly pop out from nowhere, signs everywhere and anywhere that tell you what you can and can't do but are often hard to notice in all the other distractions, and there is just the difficulty of being sure you know where you are. It's just a zoo and really nerve-wracking. It might occur to me that I need something from the shop, or to fill the tank. By the time you've driven through any part of Tokyo, your mind is probably a wreck and the last thing that will occur to you is at that point is the mask.

    So it can be seen as a logical precaution to wear the mask so you don't catch yourself in a situation where you no longer alone yet not wearing a mask. That can be solved with protocols, but that means you have to remember to follow them.

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  5. Avatar photo
    TheKingPrawn

    I can't be the only one who saw the title and thought that Sarah must have been spectacularly wrong on this podcast...

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  6. BMW

    I think the complaining about virtue signal masking was a bit much. Sometimes I'll mask when there's not a legal or health reason to because if someone wants to approach me it's clear that I want my space. I don't have underlying health problems, but I know some people who don't take the pandemic very seriously. Call it virtue signalling if you want, but IMO it's the obvious thing to do sometimes to avoid an awkward social situation.

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  7. Ben Moser

    Honestly give me a break. This outfit needs to figure out an editorial policy when it comes to their commentators engaging/discussing their friends in public life.
    1st we had to listen to Jonah have Crenshaw on for an hour to just lie and preen about how much of a 5 tools badass he is while Jonah just chuckled along and asked questions with the consistency of the paste we feed great Grandpa.

    Then Sarah, who has previously had Roy on for a glowing comfy chat and held up as a model for an honest Republican, can barely get herself to say “maybe said some things I don’t agree with” presumably referring to his flip flop on Cheney because she tells the truth.

    I get having friends and not wanting to say cutting things about them on the record. But if you don’t have the gumption to call balls on your friends when they throw behind the batter you aren’t gonna be believed when you call strikes for them later on.

    This website has a hugely different political outlook but I pay money because I want to hear what you actually think, not what you actually think that won’t insult your friends. I get that this is hard but you lose credibility when you shade the truth.

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    1. GregS

      I get where they're coming from. If you know someone and think they're actually a honest and principled then when they do something that seems dishonest and unprincipled you're inclined to make excuses for them or to give their excuses more weight than you would if it was someone you don't know. It's the same reason that you don't have a trial with a jury made up of your friends.
      That being said, I have very little respect for people like Chip Roy and Crenshaw who are happy to put principle behind them when it suits their political interests.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Jason Gibson

        And also I would say the people at the dispatch also treat people on the left in the same way. Jonah has received complaints that he was too easy on people who are perceived as left-wing like Jake Tapper (who is not left wing)

        If you want a journalist site that is constantly on the attack instead of just mildly critical of political figures you come to the wrong place.

        Civility is still a priority here and thank God says I

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        1. Ben Moser

          I think you are straw manning our critique here. You can be civil and probing and you can be (see Jamie Weinstein’s excellent pod) and you can be uncivil and still let ppl off the hook (see Jon Stewart’s critique of CrossFire’s “performative disagreement” which generates lots of heat but no light.

          I’m a social studies teacher so I have to pretty flatly reject the concept that you can’t ask hard questions in a civil manner…

          Also I don’t think anyone would seriously argue that Tapper is similarly situated as Crenshaw, or AOC, or Liz Cheney, or Schumer.

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          1. Avatar photo
            Jason Gibson

            I will grant that there Are different degrees but I still think that the format of these podcasts are more like round table discussions then they are like debates

            So I don’t see how I’m creating a strawman the format just is what it is

            But I agree with you about some of your examples in fact what’s really almost ironic about the Jon Stewart example that you brought up is that crossfire would seem pretty appropriate now. Because now the two sides don’t debate face-to-face at all they just go to their corners and pontificate into the camera for the home team

            Jon Stewart actually made the problem worse

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      2. Ben Moser

        I totally get that Greg and largely agree with you but part of being a professional is doing things that your natural human instincts rebel against.
        We all do that in our various jobs, garbage handlers don’t wake up in the morning wanting to handle garbage but they do it because it’s their job and the social contract needs us to play our role, I’m not sure why Jonah and Sarah can’t.

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        1. GregS

          Yeah but I bet if you asked them they'd say they thought they were being fair. As Jonah often says, this is an explanation, not an excuse.

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          1. Ben Moser

            All fair, my issue is with their judgement, certainly not yours.

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  8. DJ

    Re: competition with China - on the very high macro level I agree about comparative advantage. On the specific case, though, China has been manipulating its currency for ages and then there is the Uighur issue.

    More broadly, I agree with Biden's statement that democracy in general is under threat, and democratic countries need to push back.

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  9. Anonymous

    So utterly disgusted with the treatment of Liz C. I'm listening to the podcast now and am reminded of "down ballot voters" who refused to vote for Trump. I'm one. Now I'm thinking my down ballot friends (the politicians) are in trouble from the likes of me. I so wish we could have an experiment of adding two more parties and see what America does: one moderate left, one moderate right. People are TIRED of the status quo. It's broken. Another part of me is to just cease being involved and "let this country become the country that it's inevitably going to become" and just bow out.

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      Jason Gibson

      I’m closer to your position than makes me comfortable

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      1. Anonymous

        Just read David's piece today that mentions the ” exhausted majority.” How timely.

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  10. Avatar photo
    Xaveria

    I know so many Trumpheads who INSIST that it's not about him, it's about his policy. But they won't support Pence, they won't support Cheney, even though they represent the same policies, "because they won't win." I don't know why they don't just take the knee and get it over with.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Kmregan7

      Do they? Maybe they mean something else when it comes to "policy?" I have no idea...just spitballing.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Xaveria

        My spitball theory? They just cannot, on a deep psychological level, admit that they fell for a smarmy Roderick Spode-wanna-be conman. They cannot admit that they were that wrong, when so many people told them so, so many times. They cannot let themselves know the contempt in which history will hold them. So they make excuses for themselves. They construct and cling to narratives in which they weren't as stupid as they obviously were. We all do it, all the time. Just most of us don't burn down the country in the process.

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        1. Avatar photo
          Kmregan7

          I have my hopes that's it - it beats the alternative which is that a large number of people in our country care more about "owning the libs" or whatever it is than the principles of our democratic republic (peaceful transition of power, not overturning elections and lying, etc.)......you're right - we all do it (I have a theory that we don't teach people how to admit to being wrong or accept people being wrong very well, at least in this country).

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          1. Avatar photo
            Xaveria

            I say elsewhere that I think it's demonic possession, and it probably seems like I'm joking, but I'm not joking. At the risk of seemingly like a hillbilly, I think that the Devil uses social media. It seems to me that a lot of people have learned to deploy mass personality-altering techniques using the new technology.

            Think about the Jim Jones cult. Those were reasonable, well-meaning people at first. Somehow, using a kind of hypnosis, drugs, and long-term conditioning, he was able to convince hundreds of people not only to kill themselves but to *murder their own children.* Now I'm sure there's science to explain everything he did to those people. But you'll never convince me that the Devil wasn't in it.

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        2. GregS

          Yeah I was hoping that January 6th would allow some of them an exit ramp to admit their error - which is what Cheney is trying. But apparently that's not a popular approach among Trumpists. Its just double down every time.

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          1. Avatar photo
            Kmregan7

            Well, some of them did (Cheney, for instance, is high profile) plenty of people changed their party affiliation, but you're right - a huge mea culpa from a lot more would have been nice to see. "We were wrong about Trump. Let's get to work with Biden" etc.

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