The Reality Rebellion

Slate’s Will Saletan joins The Remnant once again to discuss Trump’s lunatic lawsuit against big ...

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Slate’s Will Saletan joins The Remnant once again to discuss Trump’s lunatic lawsuit against big tech, Biden’s first six months, and the endless debate over critical race theory in education. Plus, in a shocking turn of events, Will challenges Jonah on his oft-repeated line that America has two minority parties, instead arguing that both Democrats and Republicans are engaging in a war on reality fueled by the strangeness of the internet. Be ready with your bingo cards, because Jonah’s references to defunding the police, the term “Latinx,” and the annoyingness of teachers’ unions arrive at an unprecedented rate.

Show Notes:

– Will’s page at Slate

– Will on Trump’s crusade against democracy

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  1. Susan Huckaby

    Fantastic podcast. THIS is why I joined The Dispatch. Real conversation of substance.

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  2. Bruce Wilkinson

    My vote for Trump in the last election was transactional--hoping to fend off another left wing presidency and the incipient cancelation of the Constitutional safeguards (Bill of Rights, Separation of Powers, Rule of Law, Federalism and States' Rights). However, his irrational refusal to allow the constitutional process to decide the next president and his tacit assent--even cheerleading--during the feckless assault on the Capitol completely destroyed any conviction in my mind that he is the lesser of the evils. Therefore, I heartily subscribe to the proposal floated in the podcast that we would be well served if elected representatives on both sides of the aisle would simply admit some simple obvious things that don't fully support the agenda of the extremes of their parties.

    The example of biological men competing in women's sports as egregiously unfair to biological women is so patently obvious that no rational person could dispute it. If it is to be allowed at all, strict protocols would have to be observed. As a possible compromise to level the playing field, the first criteria should absolutely be that the trans person must never have trained or competed as a male--at any level and in any sport that provides a significant cross-training effect for the women's sport applied for. That requires that, the decision to transform must precede the decision to engage in athletic sports. The second is that the surgical transformation must have been completed and sufficient time elapsed for male hormones to have left the body. In college, after just two swim classes, no real training, and as someone who had only competed at a high school level in wrestling, my times in the 100 yard freestyle were good enough to get me considered for the women's swim team. It would have been completely unfair for me to have applied as a woman and take a spot away from a biological female.

    On the other side, conservatives could certainly compromise on some "safety net" issues as well as work more pro-actively on what can be done to close the racial divide in the judicial system and to overcome past systemic racial disadvantages for minorities--especially those who have been generationally set back by decades of Jim Crow.

    Finally, the longer the GOP obsesses with Trump, the longer we will remain in the dark ages. Trump had more than enough time to exhibit even a drop of statesmanship and maturity over the last couple of years of his presidency and failed to exhibit any characteristic aside from demagogic narcissism. Liz Cheney, Jaime Herrera Beutler, even Romney, have got that right about him. Right now, both parties are unmitigated dumpster fires--and it doesn't look like there is much hope of cooler heads prevailing.

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    Ben Connelly

    Since Jonah asked for feedback: no I don’t think he’s “obsessed” with Trump or doing too much Trump bashing. The people who comment about that usually don’t want to hear/read any mention of something that contradicts their worldview. Some of the comments on one of Haley’s Uphill newsletters, which explored the January 6 commission and offered no value judgment on Trump, were ridiculous and since then I tend to ignore some of those people.

    Occasionally, I have felt that there was a little too much focus on Trump or redundancy in that realm, but it’s honestly not that often. As Trump has been less and less newsworthy, the Dispatch covered him less and Jonah and David talked about him less. And given everything Jonah has said about the left, I don’t at all buy the arguments that he and David and everyone here at the Dispatch are just NeverTrump-hater-liberal-shills or whatever. At the same time, I’m not asking for more Trump coverage. I’m glad to hear less about him.

    Actually though, as someone who agrees entirely on the whole Latinx and Defund the Police thing, I am getting a little tired of hearing the same examples used on this podcast. Surely there are other examples we can talk about at this point to make the same point.

    Overall, good podcast. I’ll have to go and read more of Saletan at Slate.

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    Patrick O'Rouke

    The funny thing to me about the word "Latinx" is that it is almost impossible to pronounce in Spanish. I know Jonah likes to say "lah-ten-EX" (with a short "a"), but if you tried to say it while actually speaking Spanish, it would be something like "La-TEE-nsch". It might be better if folks went out of their way to performatively pronounce it that way just to draw attention to how ridiculous the whole thing really is.

    We have an employee resource group at my corporation called "AMIGOS" for Hispanic/Latino employees (and brave cis-white allies like me!). Some of the group leaders have started overtly using "Latinx" as part of our recent corporate awokening. I kind of want to ask them why they haven't changed the name of the group to "AMIGXS" because the current name obviously isn't very inclusive.

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  5. jmk789

    Really good listen. The only issue with this kind of agreeable, civilized discussion is that it offers a misleadingly optimistic view of how discussion and debate take place in public today. I suspect that if a transcript of this discussion were posted, all it would take is a few people deciding that the language used at various points was "problematic" and putting misleading screenshots on social media for this to turn into another viral cancellation. Both Saletan and Goldberg would probably be denounced and swarmed by people on the far-left and, while Goldberg would likely be fine thanks to the Dispatch, I can easily see Slate immediately deciding to cut ties (as they have before) with someone who gets on the wrong side of the woke mob.

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  6. DocHeartless

    AMAZING! Oh man, it is always so refreshing to hear two "persuadable" people have a conversation.

    If I could offer a quick thought about the transgender debate. I agree with Will that the athletic issue is a red herring. This seems to be one statistical micro step above zero number of cases. However, I think he is deeply mistaken in not coming out forcefully against what is happening medically and culturally in this and other countries. I would love for Jonah to take this conversation to a more relevant and scary place, which is that we may very well be harming thousands of children.

    Start with a few truths. First, what little research exists on gender dysphoria (feeling like your birth sex doesn't match how you feel) is that it tends to resolve itself later in life. Most (research indicates perhaps 80-90%) in their late teens and early twenties grow to feel quite comfortable with their assigned sex. Many come to find they are gay or lesbian. Second, science has no way of knowing at this point if a child is in that 80-90%, or if he/she is in the other 20-10%. How will that 12 year old patient feel about their birth sex in 10 years? Third, there are very real consequences to puberty blockers and surgical transitioning methods that include, but are not limited to, psychological effects, osteoporosis, sterility, and lack of sexual function.

    If these points above are true, then doesn't if follow that we are treating thousands of children cruelly by offering these experimental treatments that 4/5ths of the time will lead to markedly worse long-term results? That seems like an absolute tragedy in my mind, and it is happening because of what they were talking about -- the inability for our cultural conversation to become fact and solution based rather than the endless pissing match.

    Links:
    We do not know the long-term psych effects of these meds: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5841333/

    Effect of puberty blockers on bone density: https://www.bmj.com/content/366/bmj.l5647/rr-0

    Percentage of kids non-medically (self-) resolving gender dysphoria: https://www.thecut.com/2016/07/whats-missing-from-the-conversation-about-transgender-kids.html

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    Angie

    PS: One of my favorite pods, along with the Jonathan Rausch one.

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    Angie

    I'm a center-left person, so, not sure my take has value for you as far as not pushing back

    However, I think you always stay true to what you honestly believe, and never waffle for any reason... and I also understand that sometimes when doing a bipartisan debate, with friends especially, some things just aren't worth the possible downside to getting too antagonistic about.
    I thought your pushback with Will on the transgender topic was true to you and was "pushy" enough, to make your point without it being a "war" thing.

    Personally, I have a hard time settling on the "side" for the transgender stuff, I get both sides, but, I also have a strong inclination to fairness, and I don't think it is any fairer to allow transwomen who have the biological advantages to compete against women/girls who don't have those any more than performance-enhancing drugs are. In some sports I am not sure why they couldn't compete as males, the clothing certainly isn't all that different for instance?

    I think there is a bigger audience than we currently have here for both sides rationality and debate as friends, without the rancor, I am hoping more outlets do this, though I am heartened by the fact that since I joined here, there have been several new ones popping up , even on the left.

    And I love Will, but, I don't agree with everything he says either...but, that isn't the point. I love you to Jonah, and it isn't your views so much as who you are as a person, because I don't always agree with you, but, I do learn from you and it if helps, you have influenced me to rethink some of my positions and actually change them. Keep up the good work.





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  9. Richard Fulmer

    I have a couple of replies to Mr. Saletan's point that the number of transgender women in sports is very small:
    1. A few transgender women can largely lock biological women out of many Olympic sports
    2. In the past, the USSR, East Germany, and other Eastern Bloc countries pumped their female athletes full of hormones. Won't some countries latch onto this, now legal, way of sending "juiced" female athletes to international sports competitions?

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    Richard Grebenc

    One of the better conversations on The Remnant, to be sure. I very much appreciated the civil tone and the point-counterpoint. Jonah pushed back firmly with some excellent commentary when Will went astray; Jonah even addressed his willingness to do so after Will left, which I appreciated since, as do some other listeners, I sometimes get perturbed when a guest is allowed to get away with an error, mischaracterization, "stolen base," or what have you.

    One matter I must take issue with has to do with the transgender discussion, though. It is one thing to call someone by whatever name he or she asks to be referred to. It is another to confirm that same person in his or her denial of biological reality. I am with the gym teacher who said, "I love all of my students, but I will never lie to them regardless of the consequences" (https://nypost.com/2021/05/28/gym-teacher-put-on-leave-after-refusing-to-call-transgender-students-by-preferred-pronouns/). Denying objective truth is a bridge too far. We must maintain our integrity or this problem will not stop here. In fact it has already been simmering with the whole matter of "identification." Truth must prevail or society will completely break down.

    All of this reminds me of Justice Anthony Kennedy's line in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992): "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." Shudder.

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