MAGA vs. NATO

Free Jonah.

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101

Sarah, Steve, and Jonah break down the GOP’s divisions over Russia and the debate between interventionism versus isolationism.

The Agenda:
-Takeover of the MAGA youth
-Realignment in parties
–Replacing George Santos
–Hur report and advising Biden
–Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV
-Super Bowl kayfabes

Show Notes:
-Stephen Hayes: Rand Paul, Russian Stooge
-Kevin Williamson: The Full Duranty

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Comments (101)
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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Sarah, in a non-conspiratorial way did Epstein kill himself?

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  2. Jameslbussey

    In the spirit of radical transparency that Steve is all about - the Free Jonah picture needs to go public

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  3. Pohl

    Sarah was right—Jonah came prepared with NATO remarks. I wish he’d defend the UN like that. NATO is low-hanging fruit because it’s obvious why we’re in Europe: to prevent getting dragged back during their otherwise inevitable civilizational suicide attempt. The UN is just as important on a global scale to hammer out whatever can be hammered out. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be there as a kind of living constitution. Otherwise, the embers of commitment to universal principles and rights will die out. It’s better to have something to cry hypocrisy over. Plus, they do many things well, and the Security Council is irreplaceable. But I digress. Good pod.

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    1. R. James

      The UN is the Mos Eisley of international organizations.

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      1. Pohl

        Basically, though it’s sui generis among them. We’re like the Han Solo of the UN, doing the messy business of world politics. But it’s not the only place for this.

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  4. Wdbadger

    I cannot and won’t defend former president Trump’s statement to “one of the presidents of a big country” about encouraging Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to a NATO country whose defense expenditures were less than two percent of GDP.

    It is appalling in too many ways to recount. And yet, somewhere, buried deep beneath the surface, Trump has a point that Jonah and company miss: The U.S. has demonstrated a greater commitment to European security than have the Europeans, and that threatens public support for the alliance.

    NATO, Jonah notes, isn’t a country club. It is, however, a mutual defense pact. It thus requires three things, the first of which is defense. A country that spends too little on its own military is of little use to itself, much less its allies. Unwillingness to devote sufficient resources to military preparedness renders fealty to Article V nugatory.

    Secondly, to be mutual, each country must commit resources that may be needed to help others as well as itself.

    The U.S. has always lived up to the mutual commitment that NATO requires. Europe has not. According to NATO estimates, European members and Canada collectively spent 1.74 percent of GDP on national defense in 2023. That is not only below the two percent threshold that NATO countries have pledged but also below the global average of 2.3 percent of GDP, according to the World Bank.

    While a peaceful Europe – contra Trump -- serves U.S. interests, it serves European interests even more. And it serves the interests of some European countries more than others. A closer look at the defense spending of European NATO members reveals that their military expenditures have less to do with the mutual defense of their alliance partners than with perceived threats to their own security.

    Of the nine European countries that met their NATO defense spending obligations in 2023, seven (Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, Romania, Latvia and the Slovak Republic) are near neighbors of Russia which, with the exception of Finland, endured nearly half a century of Soviet domination.

    That’s perfectly understandable. What’s problematic is that the remaining 19 European and Canadian NATO members, which feel less threatened by Putin, shirked their obligations, and 17 have not met the two percent threshold at any point in the last decade. The other two have met it just once – France in 2020 and Bulgaria in 2019.

    In short, the mutual defense pact that is NATO isn’t terribly mutual, stints on defense and is a pact whose terms most European nations defy with impunity.

    Most of Europe uses NATO to outsource security needs to the U.S. Americans accepted that obligation during the Cold War, but millions now view NATO as an alliance in search of a mission. Trump’s comments are despicable, but they underscore the need to make a vigorous case in defense of NATO. Europeans can help advance that case by devoting less energy to questioning America’s commitment to NATO and more energy to demonstrating their own.

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    1. Seth.Depenning

      This is a well reasoned perspective and one that I agree with. The United States is right to call out NATO members that are taking a free ride, but it certainly shouldn’t do so in the way Trump is doing it, which publicly creates divisions in the alliance and shows weakness right at a time when Russia is showing aggression on its Eastern flank. Behind the scenes, though, by all means compel especially the wealthy Western European nations to start pulling their weight.

      Thanks for taking the time to write a thoughtful position on the topic.

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      1. Incognito

        It's the behind the scenes aspect that Trump is hideous at. You stand united in public and pressure allies for greater contributions in private negotiations. What Trump did only weakens NATO, which is fine with so long as he benefits.

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          Wj

          "They didn't pay their dues". That will be the line and it won't actually matter if the allies are on target with their military spending or not. The whole performance is really to develop the pretext he'll use to abandon the alliance, no matter what, during a 2nd term.

          It will be the same scripted reality show either way.

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        2. Seth.Depenning

          Exactly!

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      2. Wdbadger

        Thanks

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  5. Avatar photo
    WKDawson

    I'm surely center-left. I even studied Russian back in the '80s when it was still the Soviet Union. What I can say is that back then, one of my Russian professors was very right-leaning. I also read the staunchly conservative San Francisco-based publication Russkai︠a︡ Zhiznʹ (Russian Life). I could see what they were saying at the time, but I felt they were over-to-top.

    However, when I saw Putin invading Ukraine, all those discussions and readings came back to me. They were basically spot on! ... and yet now, the __right__ is behaving even worse than the worst of the lefties "let's give the Russkies a break" types back then. How could they get it so correct back then and screw it up so asininely now?

    That is why I support the resisting Putin. Back then, the right was largely correct about this matter and we are seeing history repeat itself because of those factions in Russia.

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  6. Randall Briggs

    Dear Sarah: Please stop making excuses for the GOP. Let it go. It is a party without any principles higher than loyalty to whatever Donald Trump's gut-rumblings say at any given minute.

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  7. Avatar photo
    Delenda Est

    This conceit that the Democratic party has done a "flipperoo" on foreign interventions is lot of tripe... the Democrats got us into Vietnam, and were chastened by it; the Dems' post-Watergate tendencies against foreign military adventurism was certainly sealed with the Desert One fiasco.

    But the with the Reagan-era, the Democrats had to adapt and move to the Right to remain politically viable. Thus they reconciled themselves to tax cuts, greater privatization, the shrinking power of unions, and the de-regulation of finance. Their turn towards being more intervention-friendly came with the one-two of the Gulf War and the collapse of Soviet Communism. But even in spite of that, they would not go along with the "war of choice" against Iraq that Gingrich's Republicans were trying to push on Clinton in the days before the Lewinsky scandal broke. Madelaine Albright's "muscular multilateralism" has been, for three decades now, the default Democratic view on foreign interventions. Democrats have been on the right side of history on this, and Republicans have not - as is demonstrated by the debacle of the Iraq War and the splendid proxy-war against Russia that the party of Reagan is now, inexplicably, doing its best to shank.

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  8. Bobby D

    This discussion appears to misrepresent the basis of the allegations against the NFL when it comes to the Chiefs. I agree that NFL games are not fixed in the way that WWE matches are fixed. But anyone with two eyes and a basic knowledge of football can see that the NFL is putting a thumb on the scale. Just look at the egregious degree to which holding is ignored when the Chiefs are on offense. Look at the mysterious flags for pass interference that fly when the Chiefs fail on a third-down conversion. Look at how protective the officials are of Mahomes when it comes to calling late hits. He garners calls for late hits in instances where no other quarterback in the league would get such a call.

    With the Brady-Manning-Brees-Roethlisberger era having come to an end, the NFL is desperate to maintain the public interest that the NFL legitimately generated in that era. So, they’ve decided to package the Chiefs as a kind of nouveau “America’s Team” and Patrick Mahomes as “America’s Quarterback.” The NFL has become financially dependent on garnering the eyeballs of too many people who have no interest in the game itself. It’s become an entertainment product for the ignorant masses. We’d be far better off if the NFL went back to what it was in the 1970s and people spent their Sunday afternoons going on hikes with their kids.

    It may also be that I’m more sensitive to this because of my upbringing. I grew up without television, and rarely watch television as an adult. I sometimes go to the local cigar lounge on Sunday afternoons, and catch glimpses of the NFL there. It generally annoys me. Give me rugby or soccer any day.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Driven away by the bigots

      For someone who doesn't watch a lot of football you sure are pretty conversant in it.

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      1. Bobby D

        I played football for one year in high school and am generally knowledgeable about the game. That’s a big part of why I dislike the NFL. The NFL is merely a football-themed hyped-up entertainment product. Besides, rugby is a far superior sport. And because the play is continuous, there are no commercial breaks except at HT.

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    2. BadgerBill

      What a huge pile of balogna!
      1). Were you around in the 70s? People watched the NFL on Sunday afternoons, just like they do now. Were you around in the 60s, 80s, 90s, 00s, or 10s? People watched football on Sunday afternoons in those decades, too.
      2). You appear to be have seen a lot of football to know that “how protective the officials are of Mahomes when it comes to calling late hits. He garners calls for late hits in instances where no other quarterback in the league would get such a call”. But then you go on to say “I sometimes go to the local cigar lounge on Sunday afternoons, and catch glimpses of the NFL there.” So, which is it? Do you watch so much football that you’re an expert on calls on Mahomes or is it that you just “catch glimpses”?
      3). So, the NFL, in a giant conspiracy, has decided the Kansas City Chiefs are the new “America’s Team. All those billionaire owners of NFL franchises would agree to one team in a small market is “America’s Team”? Really? Jerry Jones would agree to that? The Davis family? The Krafts? Heck, the 1,000s of owners of the Packers? QAnon much?

      Sorry, calling balogna.

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      1. Bobby D

        Someone must be a Chiefs fan.

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  9. Avatar photo
    Patterico

    The Not Worth Your Time? was the least worth our time ever.

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  10. Avatar photo
    Mike B

    Jonah, at around 38:27 - "... instead of blaming him for it, they blame Hur for it ..."

    Groan! (Pun not intended?)

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