New Dogs, Old Tricks

Live from an undisclosed location in heat-struck Maine, Jonah gets ranty on today’s vigorous yet ...

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Live from an undisclosed location in heat-struck Maine, Jonah gets ranty on today’s vigorous yet thoughtful Ruminant. In light of his surroundings, he begins with a few reflections on Ted Kennedy’s incident at Chappaquiddick before launching into a passionate tirade against the foolishness of the new right. In distinctly nerdy fashion, Jonah leaves no room for interpretation: There is no place on the right for racist politics, and white supremacist and anti-semitic ideas must necessarily be treated with moral outrage.

Show Notes:

–The Cover-Up podcast on Chappaquiddick

–The Ted Kennedy incident

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Jonah admits Buckley might have been wrong to kick out the Randians!

    Admittedly, Rand did have a few problematic ideas (mainly that some people really were better than others and that inferior people - she would say moochers and looters - should get what she thought was coming to them, also she hated religion). But I think Pat Buchanan should have been written out of the movement and that Rand could’ve stayed on the fringe. We might be better off today if Buchanan and the paleos had been kicked out instead of her.

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    1. Maddmac

      For years my German stepmother was the biggest Ayn Rand fan. Then one day, later in life, she read a more recent biography of Rand and completely changed her tune - in her words, Rand was a "pig". I think she wasn't aware of the somewhat bohemian lifestyle Rand had and that was what turned her off.

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        Ben Connelly

        Yeah there are a number of things about her that were pretty distasteful. The way she went from one man to another and acted like her husband should just get onboard was pretty unsavory. And she had problematic views about certain groups of people.

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    LLM4OSU

    I listened to Andrew Sullivan’s podcast interview with Sohrab Ahmari this week. Wow. My takeaway (in my 58 year old , Catholic, once Conservative, now a lot more Center Moderate) was : “OMG! I had no idea this guy is so young (38)! Give him 20 more years. Then let’s talk.” I so agree with Jonah about so many people being too young or “new to the game” to see that nothing is new. However …. The scary thing today is that the extremely big “voice” that everyone has through social media and “news outlets” means that they can set so much evil in motion … and who will care when they come to realize that they’ve evolved out of those ideas? Thank God for everyone I didn’t set my political ideas in motion when I was in my 20’s or 30’s! Lol!

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  3. Niku

    I didn't really care about your drama, or that you didn't talk about it. You were properly outraged and I agree. What did you think of Rubio's 'Soros backed prosecutors' comment on the Senate floor today? I felt he was clumsily (as usual) trying making a point, but in today's context it felt chilling to me.

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  4. Chad Souke

    It is with the shock of Captain Louis Renault, that I tuned into the Remnant this weekend and was not treated to the musings of a Drive Time Remnant.

    Three consecutive missed "first fridays" could leave me feeling jilted; but then again it is summer and people have vacations and whatnot. Scheduling 2.6 people can be difficult, though also makes me question the degree of indenture of Jonah's amanuensis.

    I choose to just be happy for DTR when it arrives sometime in August, hopefully.

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  5. Bob D

    I enjoyed listening to this. You hit the nail on the head at the end. This is nothing but careerism. There is a well-worn path of moving up in the DC political world, which typically includes getting an advanced degree, writing a book or a number of long-form pieces that engender serious discussion, etc. it takes time and hard work. Most of these guys appear to have started down that path. But, with the rise of populist conservatism, a new path opened. Because that movement had no substantial institutional presence in DC, they could dispense with going to law school or spend years conducting research, writing, and working their way up through the conservative establishment. These privileged children of suburbia could start pretending to be populists and appoint themselves as the intellectual vanguard of some new movement.

    I grew up on a farm in Indiana. And, as a backpacker and a hunter, I spend a fair bit of time in rural America. These kids know nothing about rural America or rural Americans. It’s also interesting that, despite claiming to represent the interests of rural America, these kids have no interest in going there and meeting people. No one in rural America is concerned about the dining habits of the striver class. Most of them aren’t even that interested in politics. No. They voted for Trump because he was the first candidate from either party in over two decades to acknowledge the struggles that many in middle America face. In my home county, about 35% of Trump voters in 2016 and 2020 had voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012. They believe that they’re being screwed over by the technocracy, and are looking for someone to throw a wrench into the works and take seriously the challenge of stopping the squeeze that middle-class folks experience. Only Trump was sort of promising to do that.

    As for Nategate, I find it hard to have much sympathy. This is what happens when careerism takes priority over other things. Even if he was just dying to get Fuentes to talk, it just doesn’t seem much better. There is no reason to give Fuentes any platform. Period. I be,ieve that much of Buckley’s success is attributable to the fact that he disavowed the Birchers and cut off NR from anti-Semites like Joe Sobran.

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    1. Niku

      Everything you said, I agree with and from a similar experience. It seems that these peopls lives are so curated that they just don't know any better. That is sad.

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  6. Avatar photo
    CynthiaW

    All very "tempest in a teapot" crossed with, "Who are these people, anyway?"

    I'd rather hear more about the dogs.

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  7. Avatar photo
    PB3

    Honestly, I kind of feel for these D.C. kids (not the Groyper CHUDs, screw those goobers). The "midwit" slang term pinged my brain in particular.
    When you're an overeducated, underemployed 20-something suburbanite wracked with the existential postgrad angst of questioning the life choices that led you to this desk, you need to pin your self-worth on *something.* It might as well be your intellect, you guess. And given those strengths, why not apply your analytical skills to the modalities of interpersonal courtship? After all, that must be how the "chads" do so well.
    What Hochman doesn't know and won't find out for a few years is that the college buddy he secretly compares himself to who scored that high-flying Goldman Sachs associate gig works 90 hours a week and hates his life.
    Hochman will land on his feet and be just fine. Eventually.

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    1. Bob D

      Maybe. But it doesn’t seem like this crew is cut out for doing the heavy lifting. The folks who populated the ascendant right of the Buckley era were a bit older and had significant accomplishments under their belt. One could say the same thing for the Weekly Standard crowd that rose to prominence in the 1990s.

      Most of these kids have accomplished nothing. Most are barely more than a couple of years out of college. They’ve earned no graduate degrees, written no significant books, held no positions within a public institution, or done any of the other things that were once prerequisites to being taken seriously. They don’t even seem to know anything about the history of the conservative movement. It seems like most of them are entitled suburbanites who aren’t half as smart as they think they are, who parachuted into DC with some financial backing from Clermont. We’re supposed to take them seriously because they tell us that we’re supposed to take them seriously. If it weren’t true, you’d think it’s parody.

      Jonah hit the nail on the head when you point out that much of this is little more than a kind of narcissistic careerism laden with ingratitude. I recall reading an article a few years ago in which one of these clowns, Emile Doak, excoriated George Will for not being a “true” conservative. It was laughable coming from a 20-something snot who hadn’t accomplished for the conservative movement even 5% of what Will has.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Aylene Wright

        I totally agree and I would also add that in a way TD might actually have contributed to the problem by giving these guys so much attention, thus implying they actually have power and influence within the overall Right. I don't see that. You don't go courting the likes of Fuentes if you actually have your own power base.

        What I actually do wonder is, exactly what are the young conservatives really like? Unfortunately it seems the nonpartisan, thoughtful Dispatch Youth are a tiny minority of them, and at least one guy who was steeped in that environment for several months, still quickly rejected it.

        So then who really represents the young conservatives? Ben Shapiro? Charlie Kirk? Both much less toxic than Fuentes, but still mostly of the bomb-throwing variety. The situation at DW employing both the very smart, brave Kassy Dillon and the likes of Candace Owens, may be a very telling situation. At one point, Dillon was on the ground in Ukraine reporting on the war (and in the past she's gone to Syria to report on the Kurds). At the same time Owens was spewing anti-Ukraine "America First" idiocy.

        Seems most young conservatives aren't crazy, but *are* resigned to allowing the crazies a place in the tent. If that's true, that's much more concerning in the long run.

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    Andrewabranch

    Why’d you bleep “Bull$h1t” so loud I nearly had a car accident daamn

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  9. Avatar photo
    Aylene Wright

    Re "There is no place on the right for racist politics, and white supremacist and anti-semitic ideas must necessarily be treated with moral outrage."

    I have opined on "Nategate" (yes, yes, I will head for the 🚪soon but I couldn't resist) elsewhere but figured I should comment here as well.

    So, I read Alec's article yesterday and my reaction was first "ok so these guys aren't really populists, just posers, but who cares, I've never heard of them" to "hmm, I knew Nate Hochman's writing has become more populist since he left TD but I didn't know he ran with this crowd" to "uh ... he told Nick Fuentes he respects him? What the ..."

    And at that point I was shocked enough to read the comments he'd made, that his losing a fellowship seemed to be a totally expected consequence of his actions.

    And I certainly understand why Jonah would want to make absolutely clear that he himself, and TD as an institution, condemns giving the racist and anti-semitic views of Fuentes, any credence whatsoever.

    But after thinking about it overnight, I am really not sure if the punishment fit the crime. Especially if you really do take his "I was just pretending to admire him to get him to talk" explanation at face value.

    Now, if you don't believe him, then yes, he deserved to lose the fellowship, and ISI and NR should probably cut ties with him too, much as even Tucker fired the staffer caught making racist comments on a website.

    But if you do, if even saying these things in the context of a civil debate / interview without actually believing them, is a fireable offense, what does that mean for basically any journalist who gets the chance to interview a bad actor?

    Is the only morally defensible interview style a relentlessly negative one in which the interviewer takes care to state that he (or she) is morally outraged at the subject?

    Because many people reading this would say "of course"; but broaden the definition of "bad actor" far beyond the likes of Fuentes, to the likes of Robert O'Brien, Mark Esper, Mick Mulvaney, and Chip Roy, all past guests on the TD podcast. Indeed, considering the angry comments these podcast episodes have received, I am sure TD has lost subscribers who didn't think Steve, Sarah, and Klon were morally outraged enough.

    Yes, what Nate said was terrible, but so is the "N word", and I don't think all examples of people using it are equally culpable and deserving of the same penalty. As Jonah himself has stated in the past.

    PS: And for similar reasons to why Jonah is leery of prosecuting Trump and setting a precedent for subsequent Presidents being prosecuted as SOP, I am leery of the precedent that this sets.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Ben Connelly

      I think that’s a pretty fair analysis/argument, Aylene. I guess I’d say that I’d probably be more likely to personally forgive Nate but say that professionally, actions have consequences. He made a mistake and he needs to pay the repercussions. Maybe it’s a harsh punishment but it’s important to send a signal that Fuentes is toxic waste and shouldn’t be respected in any way. And it’s honestly important to teach young people hard lessons (I say that as someone who is maybe the same age or within five years of Nate).

      Conservatives have long argued that actions have consequences and we can’t stop believing that when it’s people we like. Principles aren’t principles if they stop mattering when you don’t want them to matter. At the same time, I don’t want to “cancel” Nate and I don’t want to destroy his career. In fact, while I think he should probably lose his fellowship, I don’t think he should be banned from all future professional opportunities.

      I think it would be entirely appropriate for there to be some kind of public, “we’re punishing him by doing this but we hope he will learn his lesson and in the future this shouldn’t reflect upon his hiring prospects as long as he stays far away from the Groypers” thing. In other words, he does his time and takes his consequences and then he can come back hopefully more mature.

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      AndreaLeane75

      I've worked at a newspaper for decades. You can interview bad actors without sucking up to them and without being unnecessarily antagonistic. Neither approach is necessary IMO. Now an interview can become antagonistic if they react badly, but it doesn't have to be. It's always best to just try to make it about professional behavior and not performance, which so many seem to rely on these days.

      Caveat: I am not a reporter although I have written some stories and have the training. I was an editor and am now a page designer.

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    Adicesa14

    Thanks for the Saturday morning wake-up. The audio problems only occurred in the first few minutes. I considered ending my listen, but stayed with it and was rewarded. Unfortunately, you probably lost listeners. Have a nice vacation.

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