Pity the Pundits

Trump 2024 guaranteed?

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Ross Douthat is back on The Remnant to provide a post-mortem for the Iowa caucuses. With the first result of the race now in, is Donald Trump’s renomination guaranteed? Where did Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley go wrong? Would a second Trump administration be staffed entirely by crazy people? And could a Trump-Biden rematch cause Jonah and Ross to rethink their life choices?

Show Notes:

-Watch this episode on YouTube

–Ross: “How Trump’s Opponents Made Iowa Easy for Him”

–Ross’ 2020 book, The Decadent Society

–Ramesh Ponnuru: “The 2024 Campaign Has Left Republicans in a State of Confusion”

–Martin Gurri’s The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium

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Comments (45)
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  1. Randall Briggs

    Frequent guest Ross Douthat, in his New York Times column two days ago, told us "There will be no Trump coup," while warning us “Why Nikki Haley Could Be the Most Dangerous President.”

    Anti-anti-Trump Republicans/"conservatives" seem to be welcome guests on The Remnant. Two-time anti-impeachment Representative Mike Gallagher is another example of the breed.

    I could understand the presence of these guests if Jonah made any efforts to question their support for Trump, or their lack of support for genuine conservatives who oppose Trump. But he doesn't. It's all jokes and giggles when these bad actors are in the house.

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    Will I Am

    Always enjoy Ross Douthat. He said something about the need for a mayor somewhere, anywhere to actually go solve a real problem. There’s lots of good work being done in local government. Forgive the shameless plug, but I write about that very thing weekly in Good Government Files. https://willhampton.substack.com

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  3. Mojovicnikola

    I need to preface this with saying that I have enjoyed and still enjoy reading G-File and listening to The Remnant, but saying that,

    Listening to Jonah and Ross Douthat was the most excruciating thing I have experienced in a long time.

    Unfortunately, the biggest thing I got from both of them (and to the Ross especially)that they are actually without ideas how to actually change stuff they are airing grievances about.

    And tbh its is quite useless having a guest who on everything says "I don't have a solution/I don't know what should be done" but has litany of grievances.

    And except at that one point towards the end of podcast Jonah completely failes to actually get from Ross anything concrete (does he expect that we all read Ross closely and are intimately knowledgeable of policies he supports).

    And that is kind of important, Ross talks in so vague terms that I found myself laughing from exasperation, but we don't actually get to understand what he thinks it should be done regarding immigration especially coupled with the question of failing birth rates.

    Because saying what are problems is not really that hard, serious people on all sides of political spectrum can see same problems, but they see them form different sides and offer different political solutions.

    And I want to end on Meloni and European Far Right. For people who are accurately able to dissect flaws and reveal antisemitism in so many activists on the left, I have to applaud on completely ignoring worrying ethno-nationalist side of many of those populist parties and to see with what heinous WW2 revisionist and neo-Nazis they are in coalitions on European level. And that is okay, they are not from Europe but after so many episodes and so many written words that felt so jarring.

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  4. Jimlafferty1993

    Does anybody else think Ross Douthat sounds like the doctor from Star Trek Voyager?

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      John Lewis

      Oh no! I’ll never hear him the same way again😅

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  5. Jimkee14

    If you read Tim Alberta's book and listen to Sarah Longwell focus groups, you will realize that being an incumbent isn't an important dynamic. Trump's devout followers are disconnected from reality by the propaganda that they read and watch. Incumbency is barely relevant to his cultish following. And, I suspect that fear of violence prevents many from speaking out against that propaganda.

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    Dusty

    Today’s TMD about the Child Tax Credit made me reflect back on Gingrich’s “Contract with America” from the 90s. Contrasting that GOP - which was intensely policy focused - with the GOP of today and Ross’s and Jonah’s talk about policy not mattering at all is, well…I could use many different words to describe it.

    I think it also demonstrates how weak the argument is that today’s GOP was always the end result of the conservative movement and how we’d basically be living in utopia now if it wasn’t for Rush Limbaugh.

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  7. Randall Briggs

    What will the Republicans in Congress do if Trump (by election or by putsch) returns to the presidency? Probably they will do exactly what Trump tells them to do. Smear his enemies, produce resolutions of support for him every time he commits a new felony, praise his every foreign-policy blunder, as he betrays our allies and rewards our enemies. They are already doing that. They will be even more subservient once he is back in the White House.

    Douthat agrees that Donald Trump whipped up a mob to storm the Capitol, but he doesn't see that as insurrection. If that doesn't, what would?

    Regarding the "if only one more elite group would condemn Trump" argument, how can anyone know? Most of the elites within the GOP have either capitulated to Trump or have headed to what Pat Buchanan used to call the "tall grass."

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    Addicus

    Having listened to the whole podcast I'm not sure that Douthat even knows what he's talking about anymore. Perhaps he's been at the Gray Lady too long, churning out 'conservative sounding' pap that appeals to NY Times readers who want a contrarian view from the rest of the OpEd pages - just just a little though, not too much. The Times would be better served if they just substituted his whole column with a free link to the Dispatch.

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  10. P Satter

    It's a bit curious that criticism of helping Ukraine is casually deemed "realism" when there seems to be no honest consideration of the actual "reality" of what a victorious Putin in that country vs. a thwarted one would be.
    The reality of what happens in Europe with unchecked, advancing dictators while America remains hesitant to help out should have been a worthwhile lesson of the last century.

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