I Got You Dave

"I'm a political dirtbag."

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Jonah’s Italian vision quest has nearly concluded, but he still has a few corners of his subconscious left to search. That leaves the Remnant in need of a guest host, and who better to captain the ship once again than Chris Stirewalt, America’s favorite country pundit? Chris has worn his egghead hat for his last few episodes, but today, he embraces his true nature as a political dirtbag driven solely by the pursuit of rank punditry. To that end, his guest is The Dispatch’s own David Drucker, who joins to discuss the 2024 election in all of its endless stupidity. Do any of the GOP candidates not named Donald Trump actually have a chance? How’s Biden been doing lately? And is going “all in on Iowa” a political death knell for Tim Scott and Ron DeSantis?

Show Notes:

– David’s page at The Dispatch

– Chris’ Remnant with Amity Shlaes

– Chris’ Roman Remnant with Mike Duncan

– David’s Dispatch interview with Chris Christie

– David: “Ron DeSantis Endorsements Keep Coming”

– Ben Terris: “The Make-Believe Republican Primary”

–Watch the video version on YouTube

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Comments (13)
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  1. Avatar photo
    Bruce Mamont

    Read the WSJ editorial this morning (30 Oct, Monday) about Mike Pence suspending his campaign. Question for Chris and/or David: would Trump's selection of a high priest or priestess from his follower cult, intended to mitigate the risk of a Pence-like "betrayal", reduce his chance of election? Would forcing him to identify a slate of running mate candidates during the primary reduce his popularity among the "I'll vote for him because he's an R, even though I don't like him" demo?

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    OK Steele

    I do always agree that we have never actually been 1 election away from democratic ruin, but I do worry in a small “c” conservative/The Road To Serfdom sense about what a second Trump presidency, with a cabinet full of looney toons, would do to further erode institutions and norms.

    They can always be wrestled back and restored but it gets harder to wrestle back the more norms we erode. I worry about that cabinet collecting more and more power in the executive branch as Germany did in the early 1900s in the office of PM.

    I just finished the Storm Before The Storm per Chris’s last appearance as guest host, and it does shake you how remarkably reminiscent it seems to many of our concerns today.

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    Stephen Dause

    I have no constructive feedback to give, so instead I'll just let you know: it's pronounced "lolz", not spelled out like "el oh el zee". =D Or as ChatGPT informs me: 'The term "lolz" is generally pronounced as "lollz," where "loll" rhymes with "doll" and the "z" is pronounced as "zzz." It's essentially "LOL" with a "z" sound added at the end. The term is often used to indicate laughter or amusement, much like "LOL" (Laughing Out Loud), but the "z" is sometimes added for emphasis or stylistic effect.'

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  4. Lee Rone

    Hi Chris,

    I'm one of those who used to identify as a "Wall Street Journal Editorial Page Republican." I used to have on Fox 24/7.

    However, I stopped watching Fox virtually on the day that Trump arrived on the scene, and I will forever admire you for taking a stand, being honest with the viewers about the Arizona election returns. Even the sainted Bret Baier is on record over email promising to "slow-walk" any election returns that were unfavorable to Trump. Fox had turned into Pravda before our very eyes, and I'm so proud of you for standing on principle.

    I have a question for you regarding the campaign tactics of the Republicans who are attempting to beat Trump in the Republican primaries.

    Almost immediately after Trump came down the golden escalator, he shot to to the top of the polls after essentially doing a comedy routine full of racial and ethnic jokes. He referred to Mexicans as rapists; he vowed to ban Muslims from the country; he made fun of unattractive women; he made fun of disabled people (both disabled reporters and eventually disabled war vets); and he made fun of Chinese people's physical appearance including eventually Mitch McConnell's wife.

    Trump built his campaign around taking back the "courts" which for many Republicans is coded wording for giving power in our society back to Christian fundamentalists, not only regarding the matter of women's pregnancies but also on suppressing the emerging freedom of LGBT people.

    The talk in far-right circles about globalism apparently was coded wording for siding with Trump against Jews. Trump also entertained people's fantasies about Putin being a champion for Christians because of his (admired) bigotry towards LGBT people.

    In the Republican convention, Trump's theme was crime in U.S. cities, which while a genuine issue, in this case was simply coded wording for siding with Trump against black criminals. (Under Trump's presidency, in many cities the murder rate shot to astronomically high levels, revealing that Trump was using the issue not to bring safety to law-abiding Americans but to win the election by stoking racial prejudice.)

    Revealingly, every ethnic group was subject to Trump's attacks except for fundamentalist whites. So much for genuine problem solving.

    With all this in mind, I am confused as to why DeSantis, Haley, Scott, and the other candidates are not utilizing the very campaign tactic that gave Trump his victory over Jeb Bush among Republican primary voters.

    I'm absolutely Not advocating this idea but rather posing it as an analytical question.

    Why isn't Tim Scott doing jokes to the Republican audiences about welfare mothers? If Haley wants to win, she could please Republican voters by making jokes about effeminate men who want to get married or reference the haircuts of lesbians. DeSantis obviously built his campaign around entertaining Republican voters with attacks on LGBT people, but why hasn't he expanded his attacks to Florida Jews or Puerto Ricans in Orlando?

    My guess is that they want to be president but not badly enough to forever brand themselves as malevolent George Wallace types, right here in 2023, and also because they are not sociopaths like Trump and are not totally immune to shame.

    Lastly, I want to share my theory that what is going to kill Trumpism once and for all is Republicans losing Texas. The Republican victory margin in Texas, which used to be over 20 points under George W. Bush, has been dropping on the average by roughly one point per year. Ted Cruz beat extreme leftist, juvenile-acting Beto O'Rourke by a mere two points.

    I have a second theory that non-white, Democrat candidates perform (slightly) better than white candidates in with non-white voters. I stand to be corrected on that assessment; but I'm basing that in part on Obama's performance among non-white voters compared to white Democrat candidates in the post-Obama years.

    Collin Allred apparently has both black and white parents (according to Wikipedia) and is a former NFL player. Given that the GOP victory margin in Texas had been dropping by (on the average) one point per year, and given that Republicans in 2020 won by just 5.5 points, isn't it likely (all other things equal) that in 2024 the Republican victory margin should drop not only to 1.5 points but to essentially to zero, given that Allred will increase non-white votes for the Democrats?

    If Biden wins Texas because of the racial and cultural diversity, this will force Republicans to begin fielding diverse candidates and force Republicans to abandon the central tenet of Trumpism (and source of his followers' devotion to Trump), which is his willingness to openly and unapologetically attack minorities, something that no other candidate has done successfully anywhere on the national stage.

    If Republicans lose Texas because of its racial and cultural diversity, given that Republicans cannot win the White House without Texas, the GOP will be forced to drop Trumpism, and its intrinsic anti-minority animating passions, now and forever.

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    1. Avatar photo
      George.Skinner

      Republicans have a huge weakness in bigger cities, and it's only getting worse as demographics continue to favor urban and suburban areas. Current Republican state-level strength can probably persist in spite of the changing demography through various types of gerrymandering: race-based fudging of districts will be challenged in the courts, but there's plenty of ways of hacking electoral boundaries such as maximizing the difference in the size of the electorate in urban vs. rural areas, and "cracking" urban districts to create more favorable hybrids with suburbs and rural areas. Still, eventually the dam will break and they're just going to lose unless they figure out how to appeal to those areas. Texas would be their figurative Alamo in that case, and if they lose Texas, they're done.

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    Todd T

    If Republicans vote for Trump simply because they are Republicans after 8yrs of empirical evidence then God help us all. This makes me like Drucker less for pointing this out.

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  6. Philebus

    The more I listen to these conversations, the more I lament that Trump may be our next President (again). But, on the bright side it was an ad-free experience. Ha! Kamala Harris will be just fine - dammit - trust me.

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    The Bell Tower

    A question I didn’t hear addressed here:

    If DeSantis remains in the race, is he dividing the Trump vote (or at least peeling some of it away) and therefore benefiting Haley? If he drops out, will whatever support he’s accumulated drift back to Trump?

    In other words, shouldn’t he stay as a sort of Ross Perot spoiler? I think until we see what the votes actually mean as opposed to the polls, it’s hard to know. David is right, in a few months, a group of people are going to be yelling “See! I told you!” but we are still in the fog of war.

    Also: great danger lies with any saturation of January 6 bellyaching if the economy is weak, there is war in the Middle East, etc. Politicos care deeply about Trump’s treason but I don’t think the larger electorate gives nearly as much of a fig. They may be tired of Trump but January 6 messaging I think risks a major backlash.

    I go back to the Hillary 3AM thing. We know Trump will answer the phone. It’s unclear whether Biden will be able to wake up at all. People see that whether Democrats want to believe it or not and it’s another great risk.

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    1. Avatar photo
      BillAZ

      Do we really want Trump answering the phone... better to let it ring.

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        The Bell Tower

        I’ve been advocating for that for years.

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    2. Casual Observer

      Yes Trump will answer the phone but it scares me what he might say. Plus his first response will be to determine how the call benefits him with no regard to whats best for the country. People see that whether you want to believe it or not and it's another great risk!

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        The Bell Tower

        Absolutely agree with that. But how many others agree?

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    Pastorfbt

    A fun listen but of course a lot of what we've heard before, given how much can change between now and 11/24. I wish a little more attention had been given to "of course Kamala would lose" - given that age/disability could very well take Biden off the ticket.

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