Brain-Dead Partisanship

McMuffindom and bongism.

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Chris joins Sarah and Jonah to discuss the upcoming GOP primary debate. How much will the candidates praise the guy they’re primarying? Will there be anything to talk about besides the hedonic treadmill of indictments? Can any candidate successfully be a gateway drug out of Trump? Also:

-Biden’s shrinking incumbent advantage

-Republican Party as a suicide pact

-Jonah goes Schlappian on third parties

-Eric Adams vs. Joe Biden

–“Rich Men North of Richmond”

Show notes-

–Jonah’s attack on small donors

–Nick Catoggio’s defense of Jonah in Boiling Frogs

–Sarah’s interview with No Labels on The Dispatch Podcast

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Comments (56)
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  1. Drewjohnson830

    Chris Stirewalt - can we have your list of 10 great country acts?

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    Laura

    “ Fortunately I do not actually like going to concerts because I do not like manifestations of mass enthusiasm about anything”

    This is an incredibly relatable (and incredibly Jonah) statement

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  3. Anthony.G.Kaufmann

    I have been firmly stuck in a ska phase since 1997. Everyone at the Starbucks drive thru loves me when I come through blasting Catch 22 at 530am on a Tuesday.

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    George.Skinner

    I usually listen to the podcast while walking the dog, driving kids somewhere, or cleaning the house. Today I shook things up a bit and listened to it while painting new Adirondack chairs. Clearly I need to up my game a bit - Sarah’s comments about not wanting to know what people are doing suggests I’m missing out on something here…

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  5. Hartzlk

    Putting this note here, though I haven't finished the episode yet.

    The constant reference to "lockdowns were bad" vs "Trump's lockdowns were bad" is confusing to me. I'm from Michigan. Our lockdown memories are all tied to the governor of Michigan. What events are people even thinking about when they suggest the term "Trump's lockdowns"?

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  6. E.S.

    I think there’s been only minimal discussion of a political voting block that is likely to play a role (albeit, likely small role) in the 2024 presidential election. I have been a registered independent for the last ~6 years and prior to this I was a registered Democrat. In this election cycle for the first time I have become a registered republican. I haven’t seen any poll questions asking voters if they will vote in the republican primary and would be very interested in any ideas or discussion surrounding this possibility.

    The republican voters and party are entitled to vote for who they think will represent them and the country’s interests best. Trump is so uninterested in the welfare of the country he might as well be a foreign adversary. He is remarkably the front-runner to many republican voters. In response, I have registered republican specifically to vote against Trump in the primaries.

    I believe most democrat’s calculus is that Biden stands the best chance against Trump. I personally think this is incredibly cynical and is part of the reason we ended up with president Trump in the first place. The only way I see forward as someone politically moderate in the current election cycle to make my voice known is to try and aid the republican party get back the semblance of a party in the primary votes.

    If it comes down to Biden vs. Trump, I’d vote for Biden 100 out of 100 times, but I’d similarly vote for any other republican over Biden 100 out of 100 times. I just hope and believe more people than just me will choose to participate in the 2024 republican primary. Dealing with Trump in the primary vs. the general election would diffuse much more of the national conversation surrounding him and his “power”. I’ve been tired of hearing about him since 2016 and would like the conversation to move onwards and upwards. In short - I’m sure I’m not the only one who has come to the conclusion to vote in the 2024 republican primary against Trump.

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  7. Lovell.Eugene

    It seems as though Donald Trump has started, and succeeded, in forming a third party. They call themselves Republican. Old time Repubicans just got their party name taken from them.

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    Rajeev

    On the immigration issue, we need to stop saying the same platitudes that both parties are to blame because they are extreme in their views. Joe Biden has been pretty much were the median voter is on immigration. And Eric Adams, Gavin Newsome and others have walked the walk even as they talk the talk.

    The "blue-city" mayors have always stated that a major complaint about the immigration stunts by Abbott and DeSantis is that they drop these immigrants often tricking them without any coordination. DeSantis and Abbott are so morally bankrupt as human beings that they view these people as less than human. Eric Adams has hangled the situation with honro and integrity. He realizes it's a no win situation because to be humane to these immigrants you have to take away potential resources from the city. But that's what a mayor that overlooks the Statue of Liberty should do. He needs more federal money from the government and he is right to allow asylum seekers to obtain employment.

    The problem is Congress won't provide work visas for these immigrants. Republicans will always say it rewards bad behavior and can potentially depress wages, which they are possibly right about on both counts. But Joe Biden did the best he could in creating other ways to apply for asylum. The reality is people will continue to come here.

    Governor Abbott can get his East Germany fetish on by putting up razor wire to cut up young immigrants/nursing mothers and floating barriers to help them drown while ordering them to push them back into the water or not give water to medically sick individuals seeking asylum:

    https://apnews.com/article/texas-border-razor-wire-fainting-7aa811baf2708b89a0316804c3f2e35e

    And I'm sure the so-called pro-life governors DeSantis and Abbott are they must've been extra excited to see Abbott's Barbed wire cause a miscarriage to a desperate 19 year old pregnant migrant:

    https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/07/20/us-texas-officials-put-migrants-danger

    This is the modern Republican Party. Democrats like Eric Adams are making an honest effort to balance caring for people in genuine need while still trying to push for a more comprehensive strategy that likely will never get enough Republican support in congress. Joe Biden has been successful at stemming the flow with some of his new solutions but simply doesn't have enough authority to really make a change without congressional authorization.

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  9. Russell J

    My punditry intake is pretty narrow but I don’t know who is ripping Scott. Mild criticism, yes, but everyone should be criticized to see how they react. The guys getting no criticism are the ones uncertain to make the debates. There will be an effort to follow a less Trump option. It might fail but folks will try. No offense to Chris, I LOL often when he is doing the ink-stained wretch thing.

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  10. Cjonespam

    Getting a little burned out on Jonah's repeated insistence that the GOP would be taking the Federal and Georgia indictments more seriously if the NY indictment hadn't come first. There's voluminous evidence that the GOP is prepared to turn a blind eye to *anything* Trump does, regardless of the context. Bringing this up seems to be a bank shot way of saying "look, this would be fine if the DEMOCRATS hadn't screwed things up by doing A, B, or C."

    I'm similarly reminded of the Dispatch's go-to critique during the second impeachment that the GOP would have voted for impeachment if mean old Nancy Pelosi hadn't drafted the articles of impeachment without GOP input... especially now that we've got Sarah saying that most of these indictments shouldn't be done because of the political harm they'll do to the country, and impeachment would have been better.

    Guys... we're not going to get perfection in politics, or life in general! Any strategy to diminish Trump's power, short of his supporters miraculously waking up to good judgement, is going to have downsides or shortcomings. But the Dispatch comments are full of *former Republicans* every day talking about how the party's become a danger to the country, and needs to be broken and rebuilt. Maybe TD writers can do a better job of recognizing that and not indulge these reflexive ticks of figuring out some way to blame Democrats, at least in part, for what's happening, and thereby justify being less than enthusiastic about doing what needs to be done to get back to a sane, functional conservative party?

    Just a thought!

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      Rajeev

      Yeah these writers/commentators are so far detached from Trump voters. Trump voters don't care about the order of the indictments, which on its face is laughable because that would involve actual political targeting if they were somehow coordinating their grand jury timelines in defiance of legal norms/laws.

      This has been a laughable iteration over the years to try and justify the pre-Trump Republican party. The party went crazy following 2010 when the inmates were given keys to the asylum. The process arguments and fake comparisons across both parties defy basic logic.

      1. The first Trump impeachment was a masterfully legally argued case by the Democratic House Impeachment Managers. Trump's legal team barely mounted a coherent defense because they knew he would be acquitted and assumed unanimously among Republicans. They were mostly right. Like a mobster on trial, why argue the charges when the jury is in your pocket?

      2. After the January 6th riots while the Capitol building was still massively damaged, 139 of 221 Republican house members and 8 of 51 senators voted to overturn the election even though none of them believed any of what they were doing. Many more like Dan Crenshaw signed on to a bogus lawsuit from Texas before January 6th that essentially if adopted would've undone federalism. And others like Chip Roy & Mike Lee pretended they were voting to uphold the elections when they were even worse than the Josh Hawley types having worked for weeks to secretly try and overturn the election just not wanting to do the dirty work themselves.

      3. The second impeachment of Trump probably could've had 1000 different articles written on it all of which were overwhelming. Every Republican knew Trump was guilty of the two charges brought against him. The Democrats provided an even more effective case this time by perfectly linking his actions to a minute by minute timeline. Republicans didn't just vote no for prudential reasons but in typical Republican party fashion they used a bogus legal theory that could shred the constitution saying a former president couldn't be impeached.

      4. The Democrats did right by the January 6th heroes the Capitol police that fought valiantly that day and got seriously/gravely wounded defending the charlatans like ted Cruz and Josh Hawley. They proposed a 9/11 outside style investigative committee that Republicans voted down and then put in charge a committee of the best members that used almost purely Republican testimony to uncover more information about the entire conspiracy to overturn the election.

      The reality is so simple. Republican voters love Donald Trump and don't care if he wins or loses they think he should be in power regardless. Donald Trump was always going to be the nominee unless they magically could scify movie Vivek's mind into Ron DeSantis's body in December before he declared.

      The current Democratic Party as it stands imperfect as it is still believes overwhelmingly in the United States basic values of fair elections, pluralism and federalism. The Republican Party simply does not and it extends so much further than Donald Trump. The real test for these candidates or the talking surrogates like Chris Sununu, Bill Barr, etc. is when Trump is the nominee can you say the obvious that we need to vote for Joe Biden. There were too many younger Democrat voters in 2016 that contended that Mike Pence was a bigger threat to the country than Donald Trump because of his ultra-views on social issues like abortion when they missed the point. Mike Pence was always an honorable man that you could disagree with policy-wise but he was never going to treat you like the enemy. Joe Biden is the same way. Both Pence and Biden would follow a Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama view of America. Trump does not. He is a threat to America because he will inspire a generation of illiberal candidates like Ron DeSantis.

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