Broken Window Blues

Only those who own ties imprinted with portraits of Burke and Hayek should tune in ...

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Only those who own ties imprinted with portraits of Burke and Hayek should tune in for today’s Ruminant, which sees Jonah’s philosophical rumination reach dangerous instability. After assessing the increasingly credible COVID-19 lab-leak theory (and remembering the time Trump suggested using “the heat and the light” to cure the virus), Jonah examines what the debate over woke corporations reveals about the state of the conservative movement. He then dives headfirst into the morass of intellectual history, to explore how conservatives really feel about democracy. It’s an episode Albert Jay Nock couldn’t resist.

Show Notes: 

–   Young Guns, the greatest book ever written

–  Jonah: “How the Media Botched the Lab-Leak Story”

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  1. Avatar photo
    SAB

    The media got it wrong. Also not a surprising lead. They were all about the skepticism, they lost all their objectivity (and have yet to relocate it, for the most part). But don't think that then pivoting to Trump's Jan 6th debacle, is an excuse for the media's shortcomings either. There is a case to be made that the media played a part in the division that lead to that rioting. They fueled it every day after the election when they could. Trump absolutely deserves the bulk of the blame, but the media were culpable as well. The media was so busy virtue-signaling during the race riots that they gave rioting a veneer of justifiability. The media got that wrong too.

    I don't feel any empathy for the media that has been duped - they wanted him to be presidential, and they just never adapted to the fact that he was salesman/rallier in chief. They had 5 years. Now he is gone, and they still can't adjust. Now the media has invited the scorn of reasonable politically center folks, and with any luck they are going to get their comeuppance. I fully expect a cascade of these revelations showing their failures. It scares me what damage they can do during the Biden presidency with a lack of objectivity - instead of skepticism, unquestioning belief in everything uttered from the White House. This is equally as dangerous.

    And as a parallel to what you said - the media has invited the animosity they are getting every single day past his presidency. They don't get to whine about it cause they were name calling too - using lots of those same adjectives, frauds, fakes, illegitimate, etc. They just couldn't see it in their blinding self-righteousness, which they simultaneously disproved - someone who will willingly lie to their constituency for their own self-interest (isn't that how you put it, oh wait, were you talking about Trump or Gaetz). It seems to me if the media just stopped talking about Donald Trump they might be able to salvage their own credibility. But no, he is still duping them. And now there are others that are taking up that same role. Don't fall for it again!

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  2. Avatar photo
    Matt A

    Small world! My church actually meets at the ASW distillery!
    (I know that sounds strange but finding space to lease in Atlanta is a bit rough.)

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  3. Avatar photo
    Faraday

    Jonah, I know you don't usually read these, I am hoping one of the poor emaciated interns stumbles across this in a blind haze of hunger and confusion, and brings it to your attention ;-)

    I had a thought of sorts (yes it did hurt and you may've heard reports of some loud pop like sound echoing across the nation from the west), I also realize I may be very late to this party, hold my beer:

    The social media outlets and what passes for and is colloquially referred to as the "Main Stream Media" all engaged in what is currently being called suppression of the "lab leak" scenario early on in the pandemic. The thought was in regards to the incentive for the suppression and the reason that the environment is now more accepting. I submit that all of the parties, heretofore mentioned, are all beholden to the CCP and the PRC, in a largely financial way, and moved to suppress the story, directly or not, to protect their perceived financial gain/access of said market (see NBA behavior, re. Hong Kong), the PRC.

    Now that there is no chance of gathering conclusive evidence, people are either properly motivated or disappeared, and any physical evidence has been destroyed, they can begin to talk about it as a vague but maybe unprovable theory.

    Off base?

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  4. Avatar photo
    Hrodland

    So Jonah, Trump is the boy who cried "wolf!" 10 billion times!

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  5. GregS

    There is a really basic problem with saying, "Actually, Trump isn't anti-democracy! His argument is that the election was stolen from him."
    Do you see the problem?
    It's that he's either *lying* or *wildly mistaken*.
    The same goes for all the bootlickers in the GOP and their apologists in right wing media. Taking them at their word regarding their motivations and intentions might be fine - if they weren't simultaneously demonstrating to you that they're 100% on board with the anti-democratic results demanded by the January 6th crowd.
    So no - the argument that Trump and his GOP have become anti-democracy proto-fascists is not unreasonable.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    I want Jonah to record himself saying, “No you won’t this is a podcast,” for the end of the Solo Ruminants where he’s talking to himself.

    Also anyone got any feedback on comment etiquette as far as do I address Jonah, Sarah, David etc. as You or refer to them in 3rd person. I go back and forth. Especially since I’m undecided how much they read the comments.

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      Faraday

      Love this idea Ben!

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  7. Scott Mc

    listener feedback - as noted, you have requested some feedback at times......but I accept it is your show......... okay here goes - Gaetz, former impeached pres., etc...so stipulated again. You are always have brilliant gems, it was a long, long listen to get there today - I was happy I did but yeah... Please preserve the oxygen for your intelligent teaching which is well studied and articulated and progresses ideas and good dialogue, pleas...so much of the earth's oxygen consumed on ones where reasonable and maybe unreasonable people agree and if they don't they never will. See who disappeared (most of the squad) when media who criticized them stopped mentioning them...one can hope it happens with these others...Can you talk more about your underrated book? and your next book, or your humorous asides or the dogs...? In any case a grateful listener...thank you.

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  8. Avatar photo
    Paul B

    Utterly unrelated to this podcast itself...can The Dispatch explore possibilities and of getting Jonah on the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast?

    I was listening to the earlier driving Remnant where Jonah is just riffing with his employees(?), and he mentioned how psyched he’d be to appear.

    Jonah, your friend Jake Tapper was just on. Next time y’all are at one of your fancy Georgetown cocktail parties we all know you love, bring it up with him.

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  9. Avatar photo
    Adicesa14

    As is becoming the norm, excellent.

    Surprised to learn that article titles are mostly written by editors. Presumably, an essayist would understand his/her central premise and name the piece accordingly. Title by editor seems a disingenuous practice. Now, I understand my occasional confusion between an essay title and essay theme (as I see it). Another personal difficulty with titles is length. Titles should be brief to focus and support concise ideas. Many current publications title their essays with what amounts to summations, apparently in effort to attract readers.

    Thanks for mentioning Woodrow Wilson; I miss the background audio. Glad you are not a “crank.”

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    1. Avatar photo
      SAB

      Having whoever writes the headline aiming for the essence of the piece instead of a click-bait contender would be one step the press could take to differentiate themselves from the media.

      At lunch last week with the retired editor and the retired general manager of our local newspaper, they explained to me that headlines are no longer even written locally after the paper was acquired by Gannett. The general manager wasn't bothered by the practice of trying to grab eyeballs by a stilted headline; but it made me sad that the editor wasn't outraged at the practice. Seems that pride in the accuracy of the news is a thing of the past.

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  10. IamJACKSventedSPLEEN

    Jonah,

    You give DeSantis crap about the law regarding social media censorship - which is a real problem, when the entire US Congress and the president passed CLEARLY unconstitutional racial preferences in the Covid law - it's struck down as unconstitutional by the 6th Circuit, with the dissenting judge FULLY engaged in the CRT garbage out there, yet you CHOOSE to burn pixels and Podcast Gas on Gaetz, Trump, and DeSantis.

    Yes, the FL law is unconstitutional, stipulated - but why is that more of a target for you than these clearly unconstitutional, racist provisions in the Covid law?

    https://tinyurl.com/5dfewsv5

    Where you point your resources and narrative energy matters these days. It's clear the illiberal right is a more enjoyable target for you these days...when there's plenty of more dangerous illiberalism on the left. It's pathetic, and maddening.

    Seriously, you've creating a cottage industry pandering to Democrats and handing them talking points. It's not helpful - unless you measure success in terms of Democrat subscribers. All this from the guy who wrote "Liberal Fascism". LOL.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Cornelius O’Brien

      Your ad hominem mission to critique this author and the dispatch as pandering to a left wing audience is tiresome. Please engage on the merits of the piece; your comments are a plea to pander to your views. Don’t you get that?

      The set asides in the relief bill are worthy of criticism and, apropos of one of Goldberg’s defenses of liberal democracy, the 6th circuit opted to further marginalize race based preferences. A review of that decision shows a continuing effort by democrats to lever the case law to their preferred outcome. Pretty conventional. There is nothing conventional or constitutionally defensible about the Florida law mentioned in the podcast and perhaps its audacious illiberal motive is why it made the editorial cut over the issue you prefer to discuss.

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      The Stray Goose

      The Dispatch - conservative writers subscribed to by a bunch of Democrats. The vast majority of commentators are on the left and many seem to be here to drive their Democratic Party talking points. I often criticize Trump and trumpers and get many 'likes' from the left-leaning posters. But, God forbid, we hold Joe Biden to the same standards. The SAME people who like my Trump comments suddenly are full of obfuscations and what-aboutism trying to defend the indefensible. I'm tired of it and I'm not playing their game anymore.

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    3. Avatar photo
      Dante Longfellow

      You'll not make any headway complaining that a writer--any writer--doesn't write what you want to read. The same is true of podcasters.

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      Narwhal

      Do you think the majority of the subscriber base of the Dispatch is conservative and/or Republican? Yes or no?

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      Paul B

      I strongly sympathize with your overall impulse and point, but I respectfully submit the same response I do to my “Trumpier” loved ones:

      Of course the more progressive Democratic Party and their media allies don’t care about potential unconstitutionality and anti-Americanism. They never have, and they never will. That’s precisely why conservatives (properly understood) have to hug those principles even tighter. Someone has to model good behavior.

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