Podcasts

Rather than dedicating today’s Ruminant to another interminable rant about the state of the GOP (although if you’re interested in one of those, you might want to read Wednesday’s members-only G-File, hint-hint), Jonah focuses his attention on topics less likely to drive him utterly insane. These include some major recent Supreme Court decisions, his shrinking skepticism of horseshoe theory, and our tendency to overlook the meaningful distinctions between friends, family, and strangers. Tune in also to hear Jonah thoroughly dispel all rumors of his anti-Italian bigotry.

Show Notes:

– The GLoP Culture podcast 

– The Dispatch Podcast on the end of affirmative action

– The Remnant with Bret Devereaux

– Guy is released from the pit for a Remnant AMA

– Jonah: “Defending Conservatism—From the Right”

– Gertrude Himmelfarb’s The Roads to Modernity: the British, French, and American Enlightenments

– Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History

Unable to find a guest who’s willing to tolerate his ramblings, an anesthetized Jonah is forced to return to the AMA format on today’s distinctly messy Remnant. Temporarily freed from his pit, Guy, Jonah’s immigrant manservant, offers a fresh batch of listener questions that cover everything from the latest in Supreme Court controversies, to the prospect of a Dispatch blogging section, to the conservative underpinnings of popular movies and TV shows. But although their conversation contains a few nuggets of genuine substance, most of it proves to be so pointlessly indulgent that you may be better served by simply listening to the week’s first episode again.

Show Notes:

-Watch: Jonah Goldberg AMA on YouTube

–The Remnant with Bret Devereaux

–Advisory Opinions on Alito’s preemptive strike

–Justice Alito’s Wall Street Journal op-ed

–Jonah: “Stop Pining for the ‘Good Old Days’”

–The Daniel J. Boorstin Reader

– Jonah discusses Patrick Deneen on the Acton Institute podcast

Jonah’s unwashed historical nerdery is usually unparalleled, but on today’s Remnant, he may finally have met his match. His guest? Ancient historian Bret Devereaux, who joins to discuss all things Roman. With topics including war and peace, political philosophy, and the cruelty of Spartan society, their conversation is sure to eliminate any misguided nostalgia you may have for the past.

Show Notes:

– Bret’s pedantic blog

– Bret talks Orc battle tactics on that niche legal podcast

– Bret on Ancient Greece and Rome

– Bret makes a correction on social conservatism

– Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

– Azar Gat’s War in Human Civilization 

Saddened by hate mail and addled by a dingo-related health scare, Jonah’s in an exceptionally frazzled state of mind on today’s predictably excessive Ruminant. He begins his ramblings by addressing a crude spat between Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Green in the middle of the House floor before pivoting to some recent Russian war crimes in Ukraine. Then, it’s nerdery all the way down as he revisits last week’s G-File, which inspires a rant on the philosophical origins of liberalism, what defines American culture, and why there really is nothing new under the sun.

Show Notes:

– The Remnant with Stephanie Slade

– The Remnant with Robet Kagan

– “Critical Trump Theory”

WARNING: The following episode contains multiple references to a certain American president who shall not be named. Due to the high volume of mentions, The Dispatch production team used discretion in playing the musical cue which normally follows all such mentions. We apologize in advance.

On today’s Remnant, Jonah is joined by Robert Kagan—leading scholar of foreign policy and senior fellow at the reviled Brookings Institution, where the sweet taste of candy never gets old—to discuss his new beach read, a 700-page history of America’s role in the world in the first half of the 20th century. Their conversation covers everything from the origins of the League of Nations to the wackiness of Charles Beard, with some fiendishly nerdy musings on isolationism, nativism, and conservatism mixed in for good measure. Predictably, Jonah does not make good on his initial promise to “not get too deep into the weeds.”

Show Notes:

–The Ghost at the Feast: America and the Collapse of the World Order, 1900-1941

–The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History

–American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis

–“Challenging the U.S. Is a Historic Mistake”

Patrick Deneen has released a new book, and predictably, Jonah has some pointed opinions on it. To critique Deneen’s post-liberal vision for American society and the political right, Jonah is joined by a returning Stephanie Slade, senior editor at Reason and noted liberty-lover. With furious agreement and ornery hand-wringing, they take a deep dive into the strange world of the new right, analyzing how seriously we should take its vision for the conservative movement. They also provide a few thoughts on the state of Catholicism, what the Dobbs decision revealed about voters, and why nobody can agree about immigration.

Show Notes:

-Watch: Jonah Goldberg interview Stephanie Slade

–Stephanie’s page at Reason

–Jonah: “Patrick Deneen’s Otherworldly Regime”

– Stephanie: “Liberalism Isn’t Rule by Elites”

–Stephanie: “The New Right Isn’t So New”

–Stephanie: “The Rise of Right-Progressivism”

–Adrian Vermeule: “Integration From Within”

Despite the desperate pleas of his wife, his RA, and his psychiatrist, Jonah insists on continuing to record the Ruminant, and his sanity may be steadily slipping away with each mumbled syllable. Today, he largely resists the temptation to discuss the Trump indictment, instead digging into Johns Hopkins’ baffling new classification of lesbians, California’s push to punish “non-affirming parents”, and the sheer lack of decorum we all must now endure. Things conclude on familiar ground with an ol’-fashioned, extra-curmudgeonly rant about the new right’s bizarre nostalgia for the Dark Ages.

Show Notes:

– The McCarthy Report on Trump’s indictment

– Advisory Opinions, also on Trump’s indictment

– The “non-men” of Johns Hopkins

– Michael Knowles and the 1220s

– Politico’s Patrick Deneen profile

– Alcohol is woke