Baring All

Impeachment is broken.

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Jonah’s world is often defined by the things he hates, but just can’t resist talking about. Today’s Ruminant kicks off with an unrelenting rant against many of such subjects, including Trump; populism; and petty, meaningless Twitter feuds. After that, things drift in a more eggheady direction, as Jonah examines Israel’s governmental framework and provides a few musings on public morality. But even if none of those eclectic topics interest you, you’ll want to stick around until the end of this episode to answer an urgent call. The Remnant has received a nomination in the 2023 Podcast Awards, and we need you, our faithful listeners, to vote for the show right here. 

Show Notes:

– The Remnant with Andy McCarthy

– The Dispatch Podcast on Israel’s constitutional moment

– Politico on the online porn industry’s retreat

– Vote for the Remnant in the 2023 Podcast Awards

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Comments (100)
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  1. Avatar photo
    Whit Waldo

    100% with you on the chorus of lawyers that wrote off the impeachment as not being a legal certainty one way or another or set up precisely as (lack of) precedent has dictated and then lamented afterwards that this process wasn't intended to be a courtroom and that it was such a shame that President Trump wasn't properly indicted as he deserved.

    At the same time though, shame on the Jan 6 impeachment team for both waiting so long after the fact to actually impeach Trump and for then trying to impeach him for so much more than the appalling action that he actually took. The effort reeked of partisanship and anti-Trump bias instead of shaming Trump for effectively inciting a mob to march on Congress and apparent eagerness for more (as evidenced by his lack of action for hours after the crowd broke into the building, telling the rioters he loved them and his subsequent belittling of Pence for not aligning with the "clear" interest of the crowd as incensed by his words immediately before an in the preceding months.

    As you said, the process is clearly broken. Just as you say in a later episode (The Right Regime, I think), that people respond to a poll differently because of whether or not the question asks specifically about their camp or not, so too, because the impeachment came so far after the action, the Democrats wasted the immediate appalling reaction to Trump's incitement and instead tried to fan the flames into a larger anti-Trump campaign of all the things they didn't like about the guy. By waiting so long, they allowed the Republican party to allege gross partisanship and hide behind the lawyers on TV shouting about the alleged responsibilities of each party in the courtroom that wasn't and thus effectively neutered the effect of the impeachment in the first place.

    Regarding the possible, maybe changes for the podcasts: As a paid subscriber, feel free to put anything behind a private feed you feel like you need to. But if you're making private feeds, please also consider eliminating the strict-ish hour caps on the shows. Sure, maybe cap the public feed to the first half hour or so of the discussion but there are so many of your guests that are just really getting into something interesting when DING, that's it for today's show and we'll have to have you back to really get more into X. If you're mixing up the format anyway, consider having longer episodes on the paid feed.

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  2. Avatar photo
    Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

    MR. GOLDBERG (1:04:00ish):

    ===begin quote===
    And I want to say, "radical hatred of this country," I mean on the right or the left, because I think there are examples of it all over the place these days.... These people who leapt at this opportunity to compare [Russian lawyer and anti-corruption advocate] Alexi Navalny to Donald Trump? That is the kind of argument you used to hear throughout the cold war, from left-wingers. You now hear it from, sort of like Federalist [online magazine, I think]/MAGA people. And it is profoundly stupid. It is just so profoundly stupid — this is where we were, getting back to the the beginning [of this podcast], when we were talking about whether [Andrew McCarthy is arguing in] good faith or not. Some of the people who are saying this stuff are smart enough to know how stupid it is. And I just cannot make up my mind whether they understand that what they're saying is stupid — but it's great boob bait — or whether they are so deep in the tank on this nonsense that they can't see the stupidity of what they are saying.
    ===end quote===

    To you it's profoundly stupid to compare Navalny to Trump. I had to look up Navalny's name, having missed all those comparisons, but I don't doubt you a bit. You've looked into Navalny before forming your opinion about him and how he compares, if at all, to Trump.

    I've looked into the words of the special counsel regulation, 28 C.F.R. part 600. You probably haven't. Therefore, when Andy McCarthy comes on your show and says that a conflict of interest is the only basis upon which an AG can appoint a special counsel under that regulation, you may not know that that's ... [sigh].

    I don't want to say "profoundly stupid," but I will say it would get a failing grade on any law school exam. It would get laughed at in any court filing. You can look right at the reg and see that it also permits appointments in "other extraordinary circumstances." In the context of an argument like the one McCarthy was making, where he's criticizing the appointment of Jack Smith, that's not a mistake that can be treated as inconsequential, Mr. Goldberg.

    Likewise, when Mr. McCarthy points to Supreme Court cases on wire fraud, and argues that they're applicable to other federal fraud statutes under which Trump has been charged — when they aren't, because the wire fraud statute has very different requirements right there in its text from the statutes upon which the DC indictment relies — lawyers like me are left wondering what to make of Mr. McCarthy. He should know better.

    The phrase I use to describe his legal judgment on everything related to Trump now is "on tilt." If you're a poker player, you know that phrase. It doesn't mean you misread every hand or always lose; it means, instead, that something has affected your normal judgment to make you do and say things that are unwise and imprudent, things you wouldn't ordinarily do. Like go "all-in" before the flop in a seven-player game of Texas Hold'em with a pair of fours.

    I repeat my suggestion: Have Mr. McCarthy back, but pair him with another guest, or at least guest-host, who actually knows these laws and regulations and how they've been applied in practice by the courts. If you think Ken White is too trenchant or quick to jump to a conclusion of bad faith, then pick one of the many, many other lawyers who've differed with Mr. McCarthy more politely.

    I want to be clear: I'm among those who admire Mr. McCarthy for his service to the country as an AUSA in SDNY, and who's read his legal punditry going back at least 15 years. He's an excellent writer, thinker, and advocate — otherwise, no one would pay this much attention to him — and I credit him with personal integrity and honesty. I don't think he's in anyone's tank, including Trump's. I'd play draw poker with him over the phone and let Mr. McCarthy be dealer.

    But on matters relating to Trump, I feel like I have to double-check every single thing he says now. And that makes me sad. If we did play draw poker over the phone, I'd probably drop in some wisecracks to try to put him on tilt — with confidence that even if I did so, he'd still admit the losing hand at the showdown. But he needs to recognize the degree to which his own judgment may be impaired, and — as all professionals need to do from time to time — earnestly solicit, and heed, contrary views before he doubles down.

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  3. Avatar photo
    John Will

    Great episode. I hope your home front drama comes to a copacetic resolution. Keep up the good fight and stop apologizing.

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    Ben Connelly

    As usual, I think you’re in the right, Jonah, when it comes to the small dollar donors. Thanks for having McCarthy on again. I appreciated that one.

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  5. RexDoodis

    I generally agree with you about Trump. I don't agree that impeachment was designed or ever envisioned as a tool to send a signal to future presidents that they better watch out. It was designed to remove a president who is a selling out the country. For example, selling access to the official power of his office to foreign interests. Impeachment is a remedy to stop a specific official from continuing or repeating a behavior. Not to create a standard of behavior for future officials.

    I understand your frustration about Trump. But you can't use Trump to lock in any kind of threshold for what an impeachable offence looks like. If Biden doesn't get impeached and convicted for allowing his son to sell access to the office of Vice President, then Trump should certainly not have been convicted for asking that corruption to be investigated.

    Trump should have been convicted for the Jan 6 dereliction. But the well of integrity in Congress was poisoned by the fraudulent claims of Russia Collusion and the deep distrust in the DOJ and other 3 letter agencies who clearly have not been acting in a good faith nonpartisanship for several presidential terms. Also Adam Schiff lying about the existence of evidence that only be could see.
    So, as long as the culture war is being waged and our institutions of justice have their thumbs heavily on the scale in favor of the left (e.g., the letter signed by dozens of agency officials claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop looks like Russian disinformation), don't expect anyone to get impeached and convicted in a process that transparently looks like a continuation of the ongoing political theater where the majority can just fabricate a script with the opposition cast as villains and the majority using known liars to provide evidence in the case.

    Again, I understand your frustration. But frustration doesn't make for a good argument that setting an example by impeaching Trump could ever become some kind of threat to curb what would probably be very different instances of malfeasance by future presidents.

    Finally, do you think that, if Clinton had been impeached, Trump would have taken that to heart and behaved himself? Really?

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    1. Avatar photo
      Jconstantino199

      Couple of points...
      1. The normal procedure for international investigations is: our AG contacts another country's AG and forms an investigative agreement, ie- the Black Ledger agreement with Ukraine is what caught/indicted/convicted Paul Manafort for his corrupt actions with Ukraine's former President. Sending your personal lawyer (and two minions) to create a backchannel in order to strongarm the Ukraine government to ANNOUNCE the opening of an investigation of your political rival is NOT in any way a legal way to "investigate corruption". This was a flagrant abuse of power and the reason Trump was impeached.

      2. There were over 120+ direct contacts between the trump campaign and agents of the Russian government. Asking a foreign government for dirt on your political opponent AND providing that government with confidential polling information WHILE they were involved in a targeted propaganda effort to help your campaign IS collusion. This collusion was well documented in both the Muller report and the Senate report on Russian interference led by Marco Rubio. Muller said that there wasn't enough evidence to charge a criminal conspiracy (due to obstruction by Trump and his campaign officials), but "collusion" absolutely occurred. You can thank Bill Barr's false narrative of the Muller report for your confusion between "collusion" and "conspiracy".

      3. Donald Trump personally (through his lawyer Rudy) had a copy of the laptop hard drive for a full year before Rudy tried shopping it around as an October Surprise. You can't blame any grand conspiracy to suppress knowledge of the laptop when Trump had a full year to plan the rollout of this story, and the response of the Biden campaign was to basically say "nope, we don't think it's true". The failure of the laptop story is entirely on Trump and Rudy. Seriously... Trump tried rolling out an October Surprise and it fell flat, and he was too incompetent to know why (spoiler: after 35,000+ lies, 5 cabinet officials recommended to the DOJ for criminal prosecution for corruption, one impeachment for trying to tamper with the election, and complete incompetence in handling a 100-year pandemic, neither Trump nor Rudy had any credibility when they tried smearing their opponent's troubled son).

      As for your belief that Biden is "selling out our country", so far that's just an article of faith on your part, with no actual evidence ever presented to back it up. Seriously... according to Bill Barr there were two active investigations into Biden by the DOJ during Trump's administration, so the fact that nothing was ever publicly release from that (or acted upon by Trump) AND that Trump decided to pull his scheme in Ukraine (which got him impeached) to generate a FAKE investigation to smear Biden, probably means that there *isn't* ANY evidence to be found.

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  6. Pohl

    Jonah deserves normal grief, and Twitter-levels of grief because he perversely swims in that cesspool, over his opinions on small donors. How dare you commoners interfere with the billionaires’ selection of their favored stabilocrats! Your defense is barely this sophisticated. But I guess you’re just going to keep doubling down on this nonsense from here to eternity. At least, try not to bring it up much. It’s going to end up on your tombstone at this rate. Either that or “He’s gone to His Maker to give his final Canine Update.”

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    1. Avatar photo
      Ben Connelly

      Do you think the masses of small dollar donors have been good for democracy? They gave us MTG.

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      1. Pohl

        Billionaires could have backed another candidate. Donors more or less equate to votes. I need a more compelling argument.

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          Ben Connelly

          Wait you’re blaming the billionaires for MTG?

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          1. Pohl

            You’re implying small donors made her inevitable. I’m just asking why, especially if one of Jonah’s billionaires could easily outspend the small donors and run a Sunday Night Movie making a hero of his chosen candidate. What is so horrible about small donors that requires turning to Scrooge McDuck to pick our “representatives”?

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      Kurt

      Either that or “He’s gone to His Maker to give his final Canine Update.”.... Hilarious.

      I give him big credit for putting together TD; it's a great media site. As a writer and general member of the Commentariat...the guy can't get out of his own way.

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      1. Pohl

        I like Jonah. He’s why I subscribed. I just think many things he struggles with would be resolved if he closely examined other sources. He is too steeped in modernity for my tastes. But he does discuss some thinkers I know nothing about, so there’s stuff to learn. He isn’t 100% to my taste, but sometimes he seems he could really get there. And I’m the measure, naturally. Lol

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        1. Avatar photo
          Kurt

          I'd never heard of him before I subscribed to TD. I'd never heard of anyone in here. Seems there's a number of mags and institutes that the politicos all think are wonderments and to be revered and which I think are largely a pile. I've been following and buying KDW's stuff for a while, but he's a relative newcomer. I'll grant JG's got good ideas, his sources are sound, there's stuff to learn, etc., etc.... but the guy can't figure out what concision or editing is or how to get there, and anyone that bathes in the sump of Twitter/X and has pretensions/desires for greatness is conflicted in ways that bore the crap out of me.

          I'll hand it to him on TD. He's put together a great little business, and I reserve highest respect for anyone that makes a go of a high competition business, especially a media operation. For that, I'm thankful. The rest of it is easily ignored if I'm not into it.

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          1. Pohl

            Haha. Yes, Twitter is garbage, and I hate hearing him talk about his self-inflicted, faux travails there. That, and the drip-drip of his faux apologies for having to rush this article or that pod. It always sounds like he’s just laying the groundwork for a later defense of a shoddy effort, and I totally ignore this and treat his stuff as normal, professional output because what else is there? What does he do all day? What does he do at AEI? If you can’t keep up, slow down, or cut some stuff out (Twitter). Lol

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    3. Keith Blank

      Rather than disparaging small donors, it would be better to say that both small and large donors have their own respective downsides.

      I definitely agree it is easy'ish to get someone emotional about a single issue and then solicit a small donation.

      I really despise it when politicians use the televangelist's hellfire playbook for fund raising. There's a lot of people being taken advantage of here.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Aylene Wright

        I saw that one of the "gotcha"s that Jonah and his allies used against Vance in that Twitter tiff, was that Vance himself was backed by a billionaire venture capitalist, Peter Thiel.

        But that dunk, while exposing Vance's hypocrisy, actually undercuts the argument that big donors are necessary more moderate and rational compared to small donors. Obviously, that's not always the case.

        PS; I also question the idea that unless you're willing to totally become politically obsessed and spend half the day seriously contemplating political philosophy and nitty-gritty of various policies, that it's better to just not follow politics at all, but go volunteer to coach youth soccer and not even vote.

        I don't consider myself a populist at all, but "only the professionals and rich amateurs who have the time to really pay attention to the issues, should be involved in politics at all" seems to go too far in the elitist oligarchy direction.

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        1. Keith Blank

          Sure, I don't propose that big donors have less downside or that small donors don't have some upside. I will say that big donors have more ability to hold the recipient to their commitment, which takes some of the candidate manipulation out of the mix. Of course, that has inherent downside when the motives are suspect - such as Thiel's Palantir being interwoven with government contracts. Overall though, I do think it is much easier to mislead and manipulate small donors. All that said, I really despise the fundraising construct all together and feel there has to be a better way. I have some thoughts on that (shocker right?), but they're probably a topic for another time.

          In terms of your PS, I totally agree. I do have an on-going debate with someone a bit younger than me about it (he's 28). He feels that if you aren't educated about the candidates, you shouldn't vote. I mention his age as his stance was surprising to me for that position in that demographic.

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      2. Pohl

        Who cares who, why, or how much people donate? Makes more sense to have public-financed campaigns, which isn’t saying much. Jonah should simply focus on his campaign against primaries and stop getting bogged down on the small-donor issue. For strategery reasons.

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        1. Keith Blank

          When 40k unique donors are required to qualify for the debates, I think the small donor issue, and the tactics used to obtain them, are very relevant to the primaries.

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          1. Pohl

            That’s a relatively tiny number, but now your problem is really with debate requirements.

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  7. Avatar photo
    Jonathan

    I did listen to Adam’s Israel podcast last week and found it fascinating. I don’t know much about Israeli history but I do find it hard to believe that they haven’t adopted a written constitution in nearly 80 years because of one dude in the 1970s. This seems like an overdetermined phenomenon.

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  8. Laura Zaner

    This was perhaps my favorite Jonah podcast of all time. Thank you for making so much sense and for calling out the performative absurdity of both the left and right of todays politics. The drunk uncle analogy was spot on. I for one will never forgive Mitch McConnell for not impeaching Trump. I’m pretty sure he can’t forgive himself these days either …. Rock on Jonah!!

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  9. Sjrubert

    Regarding Israel, I understand there are some significant distinctions, and the distinctions do involve differences, but the criticism for party lists combined with the disdain for primaries has some slight dissonance.

    I would be most interested in how those two get harmonized.

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    1. Photo of Jonah Goldbergcircle-angle-nib
      Jonah Goldberg vertical-nib Author

      This is a really great catch. You're right that there is some tension. I think part of my answer would be about proportionality or balance. I'm all for making the parties stronger and less internally democratic, but that doesn't mean there no limits to the direction I'd want to go. Moreover, there's the issue of the two countries really not being all that comparable.

      I wouldn't want our parties to work the way they do in Israel but I don't think that would be possible given our constitutional system and structure. In a small unicameral nation with no written constitution and few if any checks on the "executive" save a basically rogue supreme court, I might want parties to lose some of their power. But in a large continental nation with all sorts of madisonian structures, both vertically and horizontally, I'd like to see our parties be stronger in order to build constructive factional coalitions. But I can't imagine living in an America where we wouldn't actually vote for actual candidates at all. I would still want politicians to be accountable to voters.



      For as long as I've been railing against weak parties, I've been railing in favor of federalism for even longer.

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      1. Sjrubert

        I'm just trying to wrap my head around what the process looks like if there were no primaries. It seems like in the American system, that just means party "lists" of one candidate for each of the individual elections. Are you maybe more comfortable with primaries for State elections but not for the Presidency?

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          CynthiaW

          ** It seems like in the American system, that just means party "lists" of one candidate for each of the individual elections. **

          In Britain, a party approves a candidate for a constituency, and the candidate runs against other parties' candidates in that locale. The party with the most winners forms the government and chooses the Prime Minister.

          Netanyahu was the proponent of direct election of the Prime Minister in Israel.

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          1. Sjrubert

            The British example makes a little more sense in the parliamentary system, mostly because there are more than two viable parties. I'd like to think that getting rid of primaries would result in viable (and palatable) third, fourth and fifth parties, but I'm skeptical.

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        Aylene Wright

        Thanks Jonah for clarifying your position, that your advocacy for "strong parties" and abolishing primaries, does have some limits, and that you don't think the Israeli system of voters not having any option of voting for individual candidates, even in general elections, would work in the US.

        I also think that the US having a two party system also is a big difference from Israel.

        From the recent TD podcast, I got the impression that a lot of the issues with the Israeli Right these days isn't because of Likud or Netanyahu, at least not directly, but because Likud is dependent on small far-right parties as part of their parliamentary coalition.

        PS: There's some parallels to the current House situation of McCarthy having to appease far-right legislators to retain the speaker's gavel, but so far he's managed to walk the tightrope and avoid pointless impeachments or government shutdowns.

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  10. David McCune

    Hat tip for breaking out the !Kung dialect. From all of the tens of us who recognized the reference, well done, sir.

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