Making It Up in Volume

Jonah flies solo once more in a podcast filled with the hottest of takes: Biden’s ...

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Jonah flies solo once more in a podcast filled with the hottest of takes: Biden’s foot-breaking story is not only totally true – it’s also just kind of lame, weed saved George H.W. Bush’s life, and, most controversially of all, The Walking Dead still has some redeeming qualities. He also discusses why you should take John Bolton’s advice in The Dispatch seriously, and “Eurosclerosis,” the fanciest word of the day.

Show Notes:

–This week’s G-File

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  1. rob

    sliced bread is highly overrated - the high sparrow

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  2. Bill Farrand

    Jonah mentioned that he thought that a lot of people claiming election fraud were not "true believers" in it. I certainly can't break it down in terms of percentages, but I've just spent the last couple of days going back and forth with an ex-girlfriend who accused me of being "aligned with socialists" since I was saying there wasn't any massive voter fraud. I tried to point out that prominent people on the right side of the aisle like Andy McCarthy and Megyn Kelly didn't find merit in any of the legal cases, but that apparently didn't carry any weight. I have no idea how to get through to someone like that.

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  3. GKnight

    If only the Girl Scouts made “ I told you so’s “. You could binge on those cookies with no guilt.

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    BWG

    Jonah, thanks, enjoyed it as usual. And also as usual I've got so much to get done this weekend I don't have time to make any proper comments - they take time!
    Would like to put in a request for a search function specifically for The Dispatch. Substack has one but it's not helpful for Dispatch content.

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    Mkapnick

    As a regular listener to both The Remnant and to Charlie Sykes on The Bulwark, I think Charlie's position to more rational than yours Jonah. I love you and I am open to someone providing me a rational explanation why I am wrong, but allow me to better explain my position which I believe is Charlie's (and JVL's).

    I am going to first quote you Jonah. In fact, I am going to quote you from today's G File. This is what you wrote:

    If, six months ago, I were to describe the last month to the politicians still rewarding and encouraging Trump’s behavior, most would say I was succumbing to Trump Derangement Syndrome. “Oh, come on, he wouldn’t do that!” they’d say. And even for those who thought this outrageous affront to the civic order might be possible, they’d certainly take great offense if I followed up with, “Not only will he try to steal the election with deranged conspiracy theories, not only will his champions call for martial law to erase the loss, but you won’t say ‘boo’ about it. In fact, you’ll even say he should run again.”

    So Donald Trump is clearly not even committed to the most basic principal of free and fair elections and the vast majority of Republican office holders (and voters?) are ok with that or at least willing to allow him to try and steal power. We should keep voting for these people? Why? Why would I want to give political power to a political Party that is willing to toss out the rule of law to try and steal an election. I don't get it. I write this not as a progressive listener of yours but as a conservative. I don't want progressive policies and you know what, having Joe Biden as President and essentially Joe Manchin running the senate with the filibuster in tact means no progressive policies. It means you still need Republican votes to get anything passed.

    Nobody thinks we should hire a Paul Bremmer type to de-Trumpify the GOP. Rather we think principled conservatives should continue to deny this version of the GOP political power until such time that they learn being Trumpy equals no political power. How long will that take? I don't know but maybe 10-20 years. Given the political reality of the Senate, even with the GOP not in control of the Senate there is still not likely to be enough votes for any significant progressive legislation. Even if you assume that means Clarence Thomas is replaced with a liberal vote, there is still a conservative majority on the Supreme Court that likely lasts for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, the Party that no longer believes in basic democratic values is kept out of power so they cannot continue to undermine our democracy. Does this position mean Nebraskans should not vote for Ben Sasse. No. And I think the good folks of Utah should continue to vote for Mitt Romney too. And in the 16th congressional district of Illinois, Adam Kinzinger. But with a penchant for authoritarianism and conspiratorial thinking, this current iteration of the GOP is dangerous to our republic and you have essentially argued as much. Why then would you want to give them political power to continue their current rotten ways? And how does rewarding them for either supporting or tolerating the crazy elements of the party incentivize them to change?

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  6. soapboxalpha

    I have no idea how Jonah went from "who is going to purge the GOP?", through "how many troops does the Pope have?", and failed to arrive at "Papal ninjas are the answer!". Seems like a real failure to understand his brand.

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    Old guy named Bill (OGNB)

    Enjoyed the podcast as always including your own fact-check/research of the Bush story.

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    CynthiaW

    After Jonah mentioned the podcast he'd recorded with ... some name ... on Friday, I hoped to find a link in the show notes. Oh, well.

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      BWG

      If you mean the Bing West interview, which sounds really interesting to me (will try to listen Sun), it's here: https://remnant.thedispatch.com/p/the-last-platoon-63f
      They have so much content now, especially with all the fact checks, it's getting hard to find things!

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        CynthiaW

        No, Jonah said he was on someone else's podcast. I'll have to go back and listen to the first few minutes and try to figure it out.

        I liked the Bing West discussion. Super interesting.

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    Arrbee

    Won't play. Won't play on Google podcasts either. Other podcasts work fine.

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      CynthiaW

      Reboot your phone? I've got it on Google podcasts.

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  10. Richard Greydanus

    One of the things that isn't going to die very easily is the idea that Obama was just as bad as Trump. Obama acted unilaterally without Republican buy-in, Trump acted unilaterally without Democratic buy-in, ergo what they did is essentially the same. (That's what I hear Jonah saying, at least...) From a Democratic perspective, Obama worked his ass off to get Republican buy-in and Mitch McConnell decided there was no way in hell that was ever going to happen, while Trump couldn't be bothered to work to get Democratic buy-in and McConnell didn't care.

    So it's difficult to see Jonah as being intellectually honest on this point. Of course, you could make an argument that Jonah is being very selective in which facts he chooses to bring to the fore. His primary audience are conservatives, not not Democrats, and he wants to make his message palatable to them. Maybe. Maybe not. Still, I thought conservatives were realists. Let's be realistic about people's motivations.

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