Pilsners With Presidents

Plus: some slippery slope stuff.

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Hungover from a night of CNN debate wonkery and inadequately caffeinated, Jonah provides an especially nerdy Ruminant covering yesterday’s town hall with Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, the strange desire to have a beer with presidential candidates, and the Biden administration’s lacking response to the Houthis, the latter inevitably leading to a lengthy defense of having a Navy. He discusses all of this while leaving enough (probably too much) time for the reification of diversity and some lousy defenses on behalf of Claudine Gay.

Show notes:
– Yesterday’s Dispatch Podcast
– Jonah’s piece on Haley’s civil war answer
– Jonah’s most recent G-File on Claudine Gay

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Comments (56)
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  1. Sam Huffines

    Umm... Hey Jonah, could we actually, maybe get that "incredible cul-de-sac on Metternich" someday? Asking for a friend, of course.

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    The Bell Tower

    I’d like someone to explain to me why Nikki Haley dog whistling the supposed racists who support Trump over to her side is bad. If such people exist (a belief which the left and so much of the media seem to take for granted), they exist and they vote. If the Haleys of the world just ignore them, we’re going to wind up with Donald Trump who is much closer to the genuine article than Nikki Haley.

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    Bean

    I think you're too kind to Jefferson's views on the Navy. He may have been more OK with it than with armies, but he certainly wasn't a big-ship guy. His main contribution to the USN was attempting to turn it into a gunboat militia, which worked so poorly in the war of 1812 that I am having trouble finding details. The Navy responded by not giving him a carrier when they named ones after the other presidents on Mt Rushmore.

    Also, Buchanan was unlikely to have sent the 7th fleet to save Croatia, because that's based in Japan. You were probably thinking of the 6th fleet.

    And the British are unfortunately not likely to save us. They are not as bad as a lot of people say, but they don't have that many ships, certainly not enough to fix this problem.

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      Bean

      Doing a bit more reading, it looks like Jefferson was privately reasonably pro-navy, particularly in the case of the Barbary states, but the Democratic-Republicans were very anti-navy, and basically saw no need for trade protection. He was caught between these two, and while he made the right call with the Barbary states, he made the wrong call with regards to gunboats. (Seriously, I cannot emphasize enough how poorly that worked out.)

      To expand on the British thing slightly, they have about 16 escort ships, which limits them to 5 or so deployed at a time, and only 6 of their escorts have the sort of high-end antimissile capabilities you'd want off Yemen. (The others are survivable, but probably not against missiles and don't have a whole lot of area defense capability.) Oh, and none of them have Tomahawk (yet) so they can't do strike warfare without one of their carriers. Neither of them appears to be deployed right now, which means it's going to take a while to get into operations, and there's some diplomatic issues, given that half of the air group comes from the US Marine Corps.

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    George.Skinner

    I think a second reason that activist movements start to become more extreme is that as they win successes, the active membership starts to shrink as those satisfied with the gains drop out. It distills a broader coalition down into a smaller, more radical remnant. That remnant often continues to benefit from the reputation and branding of the original organization, giving them a credibility they wouldn't otherwise have.

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  5. Sai Ayila

    While what Jonah is saying true. Nobody mentioned that being black is the real reason Claudine gay was forced to resign rather they simply used plagiarism as an excuse to remove her because they are upset by the horrible answers she gave at hearing regarding antisemitism. But my question Jonah and others have completely ignored neri oxman plagiarism (wife of plagiarism critics David ackman). Are you trying to tell me the plagiarism is ok if you Jewish white American but not ok if Claudine gay does it. You guys didn't mention single criticism of David ackman who was praised as a "hero" for calling out plagiarism of elite universities then his wife neri oxman gets caught doing the same, I didn't hear any criticism from you why is that? I'm sorry you must either stop with his both sides bs if you are talking about gays plagiarism while avoiding other elite figures doing the same. That's not seeing both sides sorry. Other than that you are correct

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      George.Skinner

      Neri Oxman isn't the president of a prestigious university, and she's not even an academic at this point.

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      1. Sai Ayila

        She is a mit PhD holder. Many of them had called Claudine gays credentials into question and asked her PhD to be revoked. I ask why aren't you guys asking the so called "hero" David ackman's wife to do the same. Ackman huge fuss about plagiarism in elite universities forgetting his own wife benefitted from the same plagiarism standard. Yes not a single article on any conservative outlet on her. Why? If you want to attack dei standard of Harvard or mit I'm totally fine with it and if you are going to attack Claudine gay because she didnt condemn antisemitism in universities that also fine it was well deserved. But using plagiarism as an excuse to attack her while ignoring the same elite figures doing the same is unacceptable. Let's face Claudine gay is not the first person nor the last person to use plagiarism. (Intentionally or not) many people do it time to time. Yes as a president she needs to be held to higher standards but so does David ackman's wife. Let's says why not revoke PhD of both these ladies or none.

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    C C Writer

    Jonah, you're a fun-with-words guy. So look up the meaning and derivation of the word "𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬" and you'll never misuse it again!

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    R Brooks

    Going to have to add "reification" to the bingo card after this episode.

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  8. Kevinckrisher

    I enjoyed your remarks about how navies are not a threat to liberty in the way that land forces often are. Here is one of my favorite quotes, from George Orwell's essay "England Your England":

    The English people's "dislike of standing armies is a perfectly sound instinct. A navy employs comparatively few people, and it is an external weapon which cannot affect home politics directly. Military dictatorships exist everywhere, but there is no such thing as a naval dictatorship."

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    1. Russell J

      Interesting quote and it seems to mostly hold up especially in the case of England. A navy can be pretty effective at pressuring regions with critical port cities. This wouldn't be an exact fit but an early Union strategy of the Civil War was to use the Navy to surround the South, so sort of a direct influence on home politics. The boots on the ground do signal more of a serious long-term commitment even if it is just perception.

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    2. Pohl

      Nice Orwell quote. Of course, the many victims of impressment would probably be less impressed.

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      1. KevinC

        Good observation! Another point was made by Groucho Marx, who said that the advantage of having a standing army is that you save money on chairs.

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

      That is awesome. Thanks!

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  9. Pohl

    Jonah, your pro-Haley bias here is not as much in check as in print lately. You sound only 72 hours away from full propagandizing for her. Speaking of slippery slopes, everything on this topic beginning with your usual, idiosyncratic use of teleology and pronunciation of eschaton is highly dubious. You meant to diss Hegelian ideas of progress but ended by critiquing activists of many stripes for failing to observe your own mini-dialectic of taking limited success as a win and packing up their marbles or face the inevitable backlash.

    Moral progress is a neverending task and, unless a movement has very narrow aims, it should feel free to keep going until a consensus appears. These are almost tautologies rather than examples of slippery slopes, except for the absurd one about marrying horses, which is just a good example of reductio ad absurdum, often a useful tack in debates, one which you also sometimes enjoy.

    I agree with you on the obvious necessity of our Navy and “peace through strength.” There are more chokepoints than the two canals and the Strait of Hormuz, of course, but those are vital. I imagine we will see a forceful response in the near future if Houthi attacks continue, though, so I’m not ready to pounce on Biden. Blinken is a busy guy. We should not act as if the war in Gaza is being fought in a vacuum. Because of it, we have to continue to show some restraint in the region. If being a superpower means, as you say, others should fear OUR escalation, it also means, especially in a world with other great powers, that we don’t need to respond to every provocation like we’re flummoxed by a schoolyard bully. If I play this pod backwards, will I hear the Ledeen Doctrine espoused? I don’t really think so, but I am always skeptical about our use of military force in the region. But, again, I expect something in the news soon, so you’re not wrong about its importance.

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

      It's 72 hours later and I am not in full propagandizing mode.

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      1. Pohl

        Let’s start the clock from my comment then. There’s still time that way. I believe in you. I’d rather know why you say ESH-kuh-tahn. (smile)

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    Aylene Wright

    To borrow a Jonah-ism (and avoid plagiarism I will happily give him full credit), I agree with him "directionally" but I do think his argument for the role of individual choices and agency in determining individual success, would have been strengthened by addressing a rather widespread *conservative* argument against it. Widespread to the point that at least two of his TD colleagues (Kevin and Sarah) have argued for it.

    This is the idea that most success is based on inherent intelligence, that is based almost solely on genetic inheritance, and perhaps slightly due to how a child is raised and educated, but that neither factor has anything to do with actual individual choice. Since people are basically born unequal in this way, inequality of outcome is just The Way It Is (credit to Bruce Hornsby), and therefore we should all just accept it, and stop trying to make society more equal, because that's an inherently impossible goal, and attempting it just leads to more harm than good.

    To be fair, at least from the essay Kevin once wrote about this topic, he tempered this analysis, which I personally found quite anti-meritocratic and dismissive of the idea of free will and agency, with the idea that those elite intelligent people should be aware that they didn't actually earn their success, anymore than elites who inherited material wealth. They were just lucky enough to inherit intelligence. They should therefore act with humility and the good kind of condescension towards their intellectual inferiors.

    This worldview at least doesn't lead to blaming nefarious outsiders for a group's lack of success. And certainly it's not inherently racist by any means. But it's obvious how actual racists could use it to justify racism.

    It's also a worldview that I think most anti-racist types are quite aware of, and aim some of their arguments against. I think there are a lot of people who, if given truth serum, or even without it, would say "of course blacks are, as a group, obviously less intelligent than whites" and even "blacks are as a group more violent and criminal" and although most would insist that doesn't mean they support LEGAL inequality, they don't see the current state of SOCIAL inequality as even a problem in the first place, but merely just The Way It Is (again, due credit to Bruce Hornsby)!

    PS: I think the changing racial demographics of professional sports teams, is a fairly obvious example of how neither a simple "the System is racist" or a "it's all about the genes" monocausal explanation suffices. MLB has, in the last 20 years or so, had a steadily declining proportion of Black players, and a steadily increasing population of Asian players. I don't think "that means MLB is getting *more* systemically racist towards Blacks and less so towards Asians", nor do I believe "that means there have been mutations in the Black gene pool that make them less talented at the sport, and mutations in the Asian gene pool that make them more talented".

    This doesn't mean I would deny that overall athletic ability doesn't have a genetic component! But I don't believe there's a "hockey gene" that Blacks lack, or a "basketball gene" that Whites lack, etc. There's a lot of historical and cultural context for the changes in the demographic composition of pro sports leagues.

    A lot of the genetic determinism rhetoric out there, just strikes me as quite ignorant of how genetics actually work. I should also note that although progressives would deny that for race, they mostly embrace it when it comes to sexuality and gender identity.

    Now, I am sure there *are* strong genetic elements, but when it comes to, say, why does one XY person who doesn't have a simple cis straight male identity, identifies as gay male, while another identifies as a straight trans female, I don't think it's just a question of one having a Gay Gene while the other has a Trans Gene. In some social circles, I think it would actually be more socially advantageous to identify as one over the other, and I am not even talking of Woke Progressives. Iran actually provides government subsidies for sex change surgeries for men who claim a trans female identity. But men who claim a gay identity, are treated much less nicely, to say the least.

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    1. Pohl

      “XY person”? C’mon, “man.” (smile)

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