The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg

While it’s true that Chris Stirewalt came to perform an autopsy on the GOP’s 2020 election strategy and results, it’s worth pointing out that “the GOP” as a rule didn’t do all that badly in 2020 – the real problem was Donald Trump. Given this state of affairs, Chris decided to reverse course momentarily by speaking to Parker Poling, the 2019-2020 executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee and one of the primary architects of the GOP strategy for congressional elections in 2020. Parker helps to give us a better sense of why Republicans entering the party without Trumpian baggage were able to outperform the president in their own state and local elections and what it was like to make such strides in diversifying the GOP cohort to include more women and racial minorities at a time of revanchist populism. Parker even gives us her advice for freshman members of Congress (Hint: Most of them don’t follow it, even though they should). Show Notes: -Parker’s time in the GOP -Patrick McHenry’s unexpected congressional career -Congressional Republicans outperformed Trump -Florida’s 27th Congressional District had an unpredictable election -Iowa’s 2nd District, and the election with a six-vote margin -A hint of what the NRCC could’ve run on before January 6 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Recorded in anticipation of the change of government that Israel has undergone, Jonah brought back one of his oldest friends Tevi Troy, now a fresh face at the Bipartisan Policy Center. The pair discusses the differences between our chaos-filled presidential system and Israel’s chaos-filled parliamentary system, Bibi Netanyahu’s legacy, and why, in a world filled with limitless technological delights, Hollywood’s blockbuster movies are just so bad. Show Notes: -Tevi’s new gig -How do different democracies pick their head of state/government? -“Jimmy’s my Jewish friend” -Tevi describes what to expect from a Democratic White House’s relationship with Israel -New coalition government ousts Netanyahu -Recent antisemitic attacks look like images from Europe, not America -Bari Weiss’ book, How to Fight Anti-Semitism -Jonah on structural antisemitism -Tevi’s case for optimism -The Fish of Monte Cristo -Tevi’s book, Shall We Wake the President? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonah returns to the classic Ruminant format for the end of the week, which turned out to be a rather newsy, strange sequence of days. From Jeffrey Toobin’s seminal moment (not the one you’re thinking of), to Kamala Harris’ Skeletor-like tactic for dodging questions, all the way to a story about taxation that Jonah thinks has more going on in it than most people think (it may even break “one of the most sacred compacts of government”), this episode brings us reeling back through the mists of time all the way to… last summer, when Jonah was doing this every Friday. Show notes: Jeffrey Toobin continues to help himself on CNN, in spite of our protestations Politico’s Playbook, and their analysis of Kamala’s Guatemala visit “Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman.” The painfully awkward Lester Holt/Kamala Harris interview “Some of his sentences give me the same sensation as falling backward in one of those ‘trust’ exercises, in which you just have to hope things work out.” Texas bans COVID vaccine passports A black-owned bus company helped to fight segregation .The ProPublica tax… thing De Blasio thinks there’s enough money in NYC - it’s just in “the wrong hands” The Remnant with Brian Riedl “The Hop Bird” The Wednesday “news”letter Audrey Fahlberg’s piece on the Maricopa County “audit” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Remnant gets rank today as Josh Kraushaar, one of Jonah’s favorite party-obsessive pundits, returns to discuss everything electoral. As Jonah has mentioned more than a few times in recent months, America now has two minority parties, both of which seem to be trying to out-crazy the other. In distinctly wonky fashion, Josh explores why this is the case, and what the future holds for a country with two moons and no sun. Will the GOP ever be rid of Trump’s influence? Why do Democrats keep using “Latinx”? And will Jonah finally learn to stop worrying and love primaries? Show Notes: - Josh’s page at National Journal - Josh’s podcast, Against the Grain - North Carolina’s Senate race gets Trumped - Josh Mandel burns a face mask - Trump’s gun control flip-flopping - “Please clap.” - Josh: “Trump is Sabotaging the GOP’s Senate Prospects” - April’s career-ruining Remnant with Mike Gallagher - No one uses Latinx ... - … except Elizabeth Warren - Jonah: “Abolishing Police Departments is Insane” - New York’s impeccable vote-counting - March’s primary-bashing Remnant with Elaine Kamarck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

NBC’s Steve Kornacki saw his star shine a little brighter on November 3rd, 2020 and the succeeding weeks as he walked Americans through the results of a long, arduous, and oftentimes confusing election. But Kornacki has been providing that kind of astute analysis for a long time, and he’s bringing it to this episode of The Hangover to discuss how our changing electorate has contributed to the sense of political chaos from the 90s until now. In a political culture where polling seems less and less accurate, and where the weak parties contribute to strong partisanship, how can the GOP claw its way back to a sensible-but-popular agenda? Show Notes: -Steve Kornacki’s The Red and the Blue: The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism -Republicans were not enthusiastic for Romney -“The Growth and Opportunity Project,” or, the 2012 GOP autopsy -Ohio is much more Republican now than it was four years ago -Wisconsin’s “WOW” counties Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a world increasingly subjected to discussions of Jewish space lasers, fake birth certificates, and luciferian pedophile cabals, the truth could use a spirited defense. Jonathan Rauch, whose work Jonah has cited on countless occasions, finally appears on The Remnant today to offer exactly that. The two discuss Jonathan’s new book, The Constitution of Knowledge, which explores how all Americans can defend free inquiry and objective reality. Are trolling and propaganda as American as apple pie? Do Marxists run a monopoly on disinformation? And should loyal listeners abandon all hope of Jonah ever publishing that “Liberal Fascism Reconsidered” essay? Show Notes: - Jonathan’s page at Brookings, where they’re always eating candy - The Constitution of Knowledge, Jonathan’s new book - Kindly Inquisitors, Jonathan’s second book and a Jonah favorite - “You didn’t build that.” - Jonathan in defense of free speech - That other time Trump ran for president - Michael Flynn’s call for a Myanmar-style coup - Trump thinks he’ll be “reinstated” as president in August - David French debates Christopher Rufo on critical race theory in public schools - Jonathan on Trump’s firehose of falsehood (not a euphemism) - “The Constitution of Knowledge” - Jonathan’s 2018 essay - Facebook’s new oversight board - Twitter vs. Dave Weigel - Jonah, Saul Alinsky, and the contemporary right - Alice Lloyd’s lengthy profile of Dinesh D’Souza - Woodrow Wilson’s propaganda machine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You wanted the best and you got the best: the hottest FM radio imitation in the world, Friday’s drive-time Ruminant. Feast your ears on the third installment of this curio, as Jonah (unquestioned ruler of the fun side of The Dispatch), Ryan (cicada sous chef and alien aficionado), Guy (unofficial American and classic Simpsons obsessive), and Nick (as good a Straussian as Michael Jordan was a baseball player) join forces to save America from Michael Moore’s invasive telescope. Some serious punditry is mixed in, too, as the quartet explores Donald Trump’s latest antics, memories of Bush-era conservatism, and the possible existence of little green men. As always, please share your feedback on this format, positive, negative, and otherwise. If enough people don’t like these episodes, we can say they were also released during the Chinese lab-leak. Show Notes: - Ryan and Alec’s early summer feast - Jonah’s eulogy to his dad - Charlie Cooke’s report on Trump’s delusions of reinstatement - Jonah’s cryptic tweet - Of populism and conspiracies - “He’s history’s greatest monster!” - “...with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln” - The New York Times is in on the alien cover-up - Memeing like it’s 2001 - Bush talks immigration on The Dispatch Podcast - The psychology of the immigration debate - The Hangover with Matt Continetti - The Remnant with Shawn Bushway Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his younger and more vulnerable years, Jonah had a minor obsession with criminology (for no reason in particular, he says). Today, he rekindles that old passion by talking to Shawn Bushway, a scholar at the University at Albany and the RAND Corporation, about the history of crime in America. The pair begins by exploring whether crime is currently on the rise, before launching into a supremely wonky discussion of cities, statistics, and the root causes of criminal behavior. Is the broken windows theory on its way out? Has America made any real progress on race? And why are Democrats still talking about defunding the police? Show Notes: - Shawn’s page at RAND - Racial disparities in criminal justice - Is racial progress a myth? - Trends and patterns in interracial marriage - Marvin Wolfgang - LBJ’s crime commission - “The Racist Roots of Campus Policing” - Only 25 percent of Americans favor decreased police spending Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chris Stirewalt’s third guest is AEI Fellow and Washington Free Beacon founder Matthew Continetti, who gives voice to the story of the GOP’s ascendant populism from the historical perspective of the American right and the conservative movement. As Matt says, while Trump may have proved the usefulness of populism as a last-ditch electoral strategy, the long-form history of right-wing populism shows that “apocalypticism is a feature, or even the dark side, of populist movements.” By Matt’s lights, conservative politicians in Washington had a vastly different understanding of what “constitutional conservatism” meant compared to the grassroots, but they kept in lockstep regardless. These contradictions simmered under the surface for years, only to explode into the Trump campaign. “For the Tea Partiers, [it meant] that the current government in Washington D.C. was something of an alien, invasive presence. And radical measures were necessary to beat it back.” Additionally, tune in for an analysis of Trump’s “mental jiu-jitsu” and a unique critique of the 2012 GOP autopsy. Show Notes: -Matt’s book on Sarah Palin -Joe Wurzelbacher becomes ‘Joe the Plumber’ -Rick Santelli starts the Tea Party on live television -“The Two Faces of the Tea Party” -Matt discusses Bush’s immigration reform proposal -Buchanan’s 1992 “Culture War” speech -Obama, a pen, and a phone -David Shor speaks to the importance of “ideological positioning” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Has conservatism always been a grift? Not according to Jonah and today’s guest, the illustrious David French. The pair ascend through various levels of wonkery, beginning with an assessment of critical race theory’s philosophical origins and ending with an exploration of superhero morality. Along the way, they discuss First Amendment jurisprudence, crippling video game addictions, and the ongoing debate over whether Army of the Dead is actually worth watching. To learn if David is secretly a supreme being, however, you’ll have to tune in again next Tuesday … Show Notes: - David’s French Press - Advisory Opinions, for all of you who speak legalese - David debates Christopher Rufo on critical race theory in public schools - Jonah still disagrees with Joshua Tait - Michael Flynn calls for a Myanmar-style coup in the U.S. Yes, really - Jonah on bridge-and-tunnel populism - Last Friday’s G-File - Jonah’s ancient disagreement with David on the zombie apocalypse Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices