Blame the Voters?

Off to the races.

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It’s officially an election year, and Donald Trump seems be running away with the Republican nomination. Morose and resigned, Sarah, Steve, and Jonah discuss:

—Steve and Sarah’s ‘high steaks’ 2024 election bet;
—Jonah’s campaign advice to GOP candidates;
—Claudine Gay’s plagiarism; and
—What a certain former Trump administration official thinks isn’t worth your time.

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Comments (159)
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  1. Avatar photo
    Patterico

    I’m confused by the assertions that, at the same time, a conviction of Trump would not motivate a single voter to vote for him who wasn’t already going to … yet the big turn-around event that revitalized Trump was the Bragg indictment.

    How does an indictment galvanize his voters but a conviction would not?

    The fact is, the voters are galvanized by any Trump depredation and especially by any attempt to hold him accountable for said depredations because … the voters suck.

    I loved the title: Blame the Voters? If only more than 60 seconds or so has been devoted to this central concept, which Nick Catoggio has flogged for months now. I was thrilled to hear Jonah taking that position, briefly … but the concept gets lost in an hour of commentary about what these candidates supposedly could have done differently, when the truth is: there is nothing they could have done. If only they had taken on Trump! Except (as Jonah noted) Christie has done that and is super unpopular.

    When it’s a cult, the only way to win is to be the cult leader. The cult itself has to take the lion’s share of the blame for that. For the real post mortem, I suggest that rather than fantasize about alternate strategies that all would have failed, you instead try to get Nick on to discuss the real problem: the cultish nature of the GOP electorate. It’s the only topic “worth our time.”

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  2. RS

    I wish Ms. Isgur wouldn't interrupt and talk over her fellow podcasters so often. A host must keep the show moving. I understand that, which is why it's so annoying when Isgur constantly interrupts answers in order to dwell on her own positions.

    Also, as other readers have noted, it would be nice if producers could turn down Isgur's mic so we don't have to keep adjusting the volume on our end.

    Sorry to be so negative, but I just can't continue to listen or fast-forward through these things anymore.

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  3. Mitchzavada34

    Is the left’s trouble with the source of the Claudine Gay plagiarism stuff comparable to the right’s trouble with the origins of the Russia election stuff? More both sides! More both sides!

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  4. CCA

    EDIT: Jonah's solo Remnant from this past week wades into the territory that I wrote about here. And he does it nicely to the point that my post seems unnecessary. So, I deleted it.

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  5. Cody Murphy

    If Trump wins, I am going dark on National Politics. I love the guys at the Dispatch, but the fact is that I will have to deal with that man for almost 15 years after he gets done in office. I'm done. My mental health cannot take much more of him. I have my own life to live then to continue worrying about the Horse in the hospital. You could get me back if Dispatch personalities did a Podcast that's more fun and less political football.

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  6. Sunilsaha2

    I see a lot of comments about Sarah Isgur. I wanted to share some thoughts:

    - I believe Sarah has the best political instincts at TD. I submit her High Steaks bet as evidence.
    - I believe she is a fantastic moderator. She is very effective at quickly introducing topics and keeping the podcast moving forward. This particular episode was a rare exception where too much time was spent on Claudine Gay IMHO.
    - I do think she's the most partisan between the three of them. I don't have an issue with her bringing up Republican arguments such as Nancy Pelosi it to blame for Trump not being impeached (I'm not sold on this) but if she aims to persuade people like me, she'll need to call out her own side more which I feel she rarely does and she'll need to address the counter arguments to her arguments perhaps a bit more like the back and forth that happens on AO.
    - My "vibe" is that she remains angry at Democrats over the Mueller investigation and that colors her thinking on politics in general. I would be very interested in hearing her thoughts on the findings in the Mueller report as David French wrote about here: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-mueller-report-should-shock-our-conscience/.

    I do find it telling how TD talks about the Mueller report in comparison to the Hunter Biden investigation. As a left of center moderate, it feels like a double standard to me.

    Edit: I just wanted to end with I'm a fan of both TD and Sarah Isgur :)

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    1. Brett F

      I've noticed some differences in Sarah since her return from maternity leave. I used to agree with her around 95 percent of the time and that's down to about 50 percent.

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  7. Mike_dye

    I don't have time to read all these comments, so if I am repeating someone, sorry...
    ...but I continue to be amazed at why pundits focus on Trump being a "victim" of prosecution as the reason his poll numbers go up. Maybe part of it, but the bigger thing is how it confirms to many Republicans that Trump is the "big dog" that the Democrats are afraid to face leading them at all costs to "take him down". And the media obsession with Trump (often as much $$$ as partisanship) again underlines that conclusion. Trump seems like a very cynical figure, and we are all living down to those expectations -- so I don't think this was every going to play out differently.

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  8. Brett F

    It seems to me there are some parallels between Rufo/Right vs Claudine Gay and Bragg/Left vs. Donald Trump.

    Steve and Sarah were consistent. Sarah focused on the partisanness of both attacks, Steve on the truth to the charges.

    On the other hand, Jonah seemed to mostly fault partisanship for the Bragg indictment while blaming Gay for plagiarism.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Patrick

      I think there’s a key difference. The majority of legal minds believes the Bragg indictment had no reasonable legal footing. At the very least, it’s highly debatable. But nobody believes Gay is innocent of plagiarism.

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      1. Brett F

        As far as I know, it's not in dispute that Trump falsified New York business records. The debate is whether that rises to the level of a crime.

        Nobody believes Gay is innocent of "duplicative language" but as Sarah mentioned, the "crime" of plagiarism is debatable. Feels analogous enough to me.

        Looks to me like Jonah is being inconsistent in a very NR kind of way. I mean you rarely hear any Trump defenders mention that he falsified his business records. ;)

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          Patrick

          I think you may be looking too hard to try to find an inconsistency. Gay was president of Harvard, where they have clear rules about “duplicative language”…which if done repeatedly, is called plagiarism. She’s in an entirely different arena than the legal arena. The standards are much different for what should cost you a leadership position vs. what should send you to prison.

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          1. Brett F

            The standards for POTUS should be at least as high as president of Harvard.

            The rules for plagiarism at Harvard don't seem to be that clear. There are rules for a guilty verdict in the Bragg case. Likely fine and/or probation. But if it's prison, so what?

            My observation stands that Sarah and Steve view the two cases consistently and non-partisanly while Jonah slants his judgement to the right. He's been backsliding some lately.

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  9. Sai Ayila

    Let's see you guys think Claudine plagiarist I agree she deserves to resign. But why the
    are you guys giving pass to bill ackman's wife neri oxman who did exactly what Claudine gay is accused of doing. I don't think they went after Ms. Gay because she was black but I don't see any outrage from them right wing media when a Jewish American PhD holder does the same? The real issue promoting genocide in campus is wrong and Claudine gay and others rightfully recieved the flak. But these far right wing "activists" are trying to lump plagiarism into the conversation to get the Harvard president resign because they are mad they couldn't get her to resign for supposedly for promoting genocide in campus but they conveniently ignored neri oxman's own plagiarism history. The real problem is not plagiarism but rather what is considered free speech or not but unfortunately this turned into a messy plagiarism debate. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/01/06/metro/neri-oxman-bill-ackman-confront-allegations-of-plagiarism/

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      Patrick

      Is Ackman’s wife the president of the world’s most prestigious university with strict ethics and plagiarism rules for the students and faculty under her leadership?

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        Stephanie

        The point is that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

        Ackman has a major ax to grind with Harvard for personal reasons that have nothing to do with plagiarism, and he's gone a little nutty on the subject. He was posting nonstop on Twitter trashing Harvard--they offended his ego re some donation he wanted to make--he whined about it at length. I forget the details--nor do I care. I eventually blocked his posts because it was so annoying.

        Some times the enemy of your enemy is not worth defending.

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      2. Sai Ayila

        Ackman made a big fuss of plagiarism in elite universities ignoring that fact his own wife when she was a PhD student at MIT did the same. Some people here want Claudine gays's phd status to be revoked and I ask the same question about neri oxman. Also the real motivation remove gay is not plagiarism but rather for not condemning students making genocidal comments. They simply wanted to use plagiarism as a excuse to get rid of gay because they didn't like the comments she made at hearing which are off course bad. The real debate this form should be having is what speech is considered free.

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        1. Brett F

          For Rufo, the real motivation for getting rid of Gay was DEI. Plagiarism and not condemning the student comments were the excuses.

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          Patrick

          That debate is now gladly and finally being had. Universities will hopefully start to recognize that they’ve been severely punishing ideological speech from one direction, while ignoring ideological speech from the other direction.

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          1. Sai Ayila

            Agreed.

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  10. P Satter

    Appreciate the mix of voices and perspectives in this discussion. Part of what some commenters are reacting to is the neutral fact that interruptions (which are always part of an enthusiastic group discussion) between similar voice tones are much less noticeable than those between dissimilar ones.

    However, discussing "what went wrong?" is perhaps too broad a question and too early to lend itself to a satisfying conclusion for anyone on a podcast at this point. We're still not out of the woods yet.

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