The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg

This weekend’s Ruminant sees Jonah starting off in some classic Remnant Bingo™, but peppered in with a healthy dose of interesting new information on those topics – in this case, anti-Enlightenment nationalism, and the establishment of fair rules under classically liberal societies. This comes along in addition to a rundown of the ham-fisted efforts by many outlets to pretend that “originalism” is actually something much more radical and antediluvian than it really is. Then, Jonah moves on to a topic that our culture could desperately use some clarification on: “Justice” and “social justice” are two different things – and “bending the will of every institution towards social justice … is how you end up with a kind of soft totalitarianism.” And, in this particularly relaxed-fit episode, we even get some rank punditry on the tail end on subjects like the censored New York Post story and much more. Show Notes: -The Dispatch’s “What’s Next”Get your tickets now to event -The most recent G-File -Against Empathy by Paul Bloom -Mazie Hirono being weird -Making fun of originalism to own the cons -Live Not by LiesRod Dreher’s new book, -Morning Joe Rod responds to his appearance -Post The story in question -ExpressVPN.com/Remnant to get three months free off of a year-long plan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here we are, in the wreckage of another simply wonderful Supreme Court confirmation hearing; who better to discuss the aftermath, next steps, and what these hearings do to the court than Ilya Shapiro? As Jonah says, Ilya is likely “the guest most consistently asked to make a comeback - mostly by the guest himself,” but it’s easy to see why. In addition to giving the 411 on why these hearings have transformed into so much “senatorial bloviation,” he also can talk about the bigger picture as a result of the research he did for his incredibly timely new book on the politicization of SCOTUS. It has been a long time coming for this return - and much like Ulysses’ journey back from Troy, it was worth the wait. Show Notes: -Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America's Highest CourtIlya’s book, - Ilya in USA Today: End confirmation hearings -Telefon, mind control scene -Pete Buttigieg’s 5-5-5 Plan -Barrett: Roe is not a super-precedent -Barrett’s article on precedent -Ginsburg’s history with Roe -The history of an internecine fight on the right about judicial activism -Ilya Shapiro on “Team Liberty” - Shapiro on Shapiro -Lucy.co, promo code DINGO for 20% off all products -Bradleyfdn.org/Liberty to hear Trent England on the Electoral College Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we bring you Will Saletan of Slate – after having struggled mightily against the malevolent whims of technology in order to get it ready. Not since Episode 11 has an installment of The Remnant so risked the sanity – nay, the very essence – of all participants involved. Luckily, the conversation more than makes up for these struggles. Jonah asks Will what it’s like to be a genuinely liberal guy in an industry space that has moved largely past actual liberalism, and then Will turns the tables on Jonah and asks him what it’s like to be genuinely conservative in an era of dwindling conservatism. Afterwards, stick around for SCOTUS punditry and what could be described as a worrying amount of Hegel-talk (for awareness: a worrying amount of Hegel-talk is any Hegel-talk). Show Notes: -SlateWill’s page at -New River Media -Dallas retcons itself -Candidate Trump reacts to the crowd while announcing travel ban -“The 5-5-5 Plan” -“What I Learned From Amy Coney Barrett,” by Laura Wolk -Fukuyama’s piece on social capital -LiquidIV.com, use promo code DINGO at checkout for 25% off anything you order -Keeps.com/Dingo to receive your first month of treatment for free Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TO OUR FAVORITE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD! Not seniors this time around, but Remnant listeners, that is. Jonah returns to ruminate with some fire in his belly this week – on the wasting of energy on Twitter, the bizarre phenomenon of the mainstream-media respectable conservative, court packing, The Worst President in History™, a revisiting of the weed conversation from the last Remnant, and more. Also, the quote of the day – or maybe the month, or the year – might be this: “The very essence of serious thinking … is the ability to make distinctions between superficially similar things.” Show Notes: -G-FileThis week’s -Steve Schmidt picks a pointless fight with Matt Lewis and Noah Rothman -“Respectable Conservatives” -Brian Morgenstern invokes HIPAA rights when talking about Trump’s negative COVID test -“A switch in time saves nine” -“Heil Woodrow,” something of a self-own in review form -“TO MY FAVORITE PEOPLE!” -Remnant This week’s with Jonathan Adler -Star TrekIn case you also wanted to get addicted to a -Bradleyfdn.org/Liberty to subscribe to We the People and listen to Frederick Hess on education policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Remnant first-timer Jonathan Adler joins Jonah today, not to watch Cheech and Chong over a bag of Doritos, but to talk about the politics of marijuana. Earlier in the year (right around the time that the world was ending, actually), Adler edited a volume entitled Marijuana Federalism, which explored the legal contradictions within the laws regarding cannabis in the U.S.; the situation is somewhat unprecedented, in that we now have a substance that is a federal crime to possess, while many states have had such an overwhelming turn in public opinion that this same substance has now become perfectly legal within their own jurisdiction. How do individual states get away with this without the feds swooping in? The amusing answer is something like: Eh, turns out that the feds are pretty understaffed. Jonah then moves on to his role - well-known among the Remnant fan base - as Inquisitor of Libertarians, figuring out how Adler feels about total drug legalization. He gives one of the most grounded and logical responses to this inquisition we’ve ever heard on the program, continually emphasizing the fundamental fact of American federalism: “The freedom to live how you want to live also includes the freedom to live conservatively.” This brings the two gents down the avenues of nationalism, post-liberalism, and the hope for a return to localism, all wrapped up with a bow of “420” puns that Jonah just can’t help but put to good use. Show Notes: -Marijuana Federalism: Uncle Sam and Mary Jane -The origin of “laboratories of democracy” -Vitamin E Acetate as the root cause of many vaping illnesses -Libertarianism: A Primer -The Office, a dinosaur in internet years, is Netflix’s most popular show -For the uninitiated, the fusionist’s Bible -Acton.org/Dingo to subscribe to the Acton Line podcast -Gabi.com/Remnant to stop overpaying on your insurance today Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since the first six days of October 2020 have felt like 87 years, who’s better to sift through everything that has happened than one of The Dispatch’s own quadrumvirate of podcasters, Steve Hayes? Here to give Jonah the inside scoop on some of the background reporting he’s done for The Morning Dispatch, Steve has some ideas about how Trump’s overly-cinematic return to the White House could’ve been handled better, why there was a communication breakdown between Trump’s medical staff and his PR people, and, most mysteriously, what on God’s green earth Mark Meadows has been trying to do for the past few days. Beyond these more Machiavellian machinations, they also delve into some of the downright silliness that’s gone on – such as the new pessimism that anything can even be done to stop COVID, since it’s a contagious disease (the stamping out of which has characterized (“Uh… literally the entire history of human civilization,” in Jonah’s words). They also give an update on the State of The Dispatch, and ponder what their place in the conservative media landscape may look like in a post-Trump era – whether that’s sooner or later. Show Notes: -The Dispatch30-day trial at , ends Thursday Oct. 8th at midnight -The Morning Dispatch -Watch as Sean Conley awkwardly flails -A history of the administration’s bipolar relationship with Fauci -“Why do we actually think we can stop the progression of a contagious disease?” – A thing unironically said by an elected official -Mike Pence’s confessional piece on his negative campaign in Indiana -The Joe Biden agenda -The Dispatch’s opening manifesto -DonorsTrust.org/Dingo to receive “6 Reasons to Use a Donor-Advised Fund” -Go to CaucusRoom.com to experience a social network by and for conservatives Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This weekend’s Ruminant features Jonah running through a set of possible scenarios that might play out given President Trump’s COVID diagnosis – if we do say so ourselves, it’s a positively David French-like methodology given the approach to David’s new book (Out now!). Will Trump be able to do a Zoom debate? Will Mike Pence have the opportunity to do more than he currently does (which, as of now, seems to be standing completely still in a pensive silence like a sculpture of a Roman general)? Then, Jonah discusses the current partisan tendency for “both the right and the left [to] weaponized norms,” chastising opponents for hypocrisy while refusing to adopt responsibility for their own flubs that damage the constitutional order. He explores the ways in which this manifests in both the nationalism debates as well as the current SCOTUS mess, and how the more intellectually serious proponents of nationalism can’t seem to decide whether they actually like to play by the rules or make things up as they go. All of this is followed up by a veritable potpourri of quick hits: Inside baseball on how syndicated column publishing works, how dumb the tax code is, steaks, dogma, and more. Show Notes: -The Dispatch30-day trial at -This week’s G-File -Just in case you were wondering about how the Swiss executive branch works, since it comes up here rather often -Trump’s battleground state polls are… not great -Dispatch Podcast The on the debate -“Facts have a liberal bias” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In true Remnant fashion, Jonah speaks to Seth Masket – a political scientist at the University of Denver – in an attempt to understand why so few people in American life actually get what they want out of their vote. In Seth’s new book, Learning from Loss, he traces the Democratic Party’s inability to come up with a coherent “autopsy” post-2016 as Republicans did post-2012 (which is not to say that the GOP actually followed its own advice; we wouldn’t have Trump if it did). There’s some debate punditry at the beginning, before Seth and Jonah swiftly move into the explanations that Democratic organizers and activists have developed for why Clinton lost to Trump. The primary explanations often focus on a contentious topic: identity politics. As Seth says, “Doing this research helped to remind me that all identity claims are essentially a construction,” but for something so artificial, they have a very outsized effect on our politics. While Seth and Jonah effectively take opposite sides on this issue, they generate much more light than heat, while also arriving at an answer to the fundamentally important question in 2020: For a party so concerned with diversity, how is it that the Dems ended up nominating a septuagenarian white guy? Show Notes: -The Dispatch30-day trial at -Learning from Loss: The Democrats, 2016-2020Seth’s new book, -White liberals have moved farther to the left -Overdetermined phenomena -Weather’s effect on elections -The RNC’s 2012 “autopsy” -The invisible primary -The Party Decides -White Identity PoliticsAshley Jardina’s -Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop -DrinkHydrant.com/Dingo for 25% off your first order -Acton.org/Dingo to subscribe to the Acton Line podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join Jonah on today’s episode of The Remnant with our first-time guest: CBS’s John Dickerson. The subjects included in John’s latest book, The Hardest Job in the World, will allow you to get a fix of incredible nerdiness about presidential history in equal proportion to your daily recommended dosage of rank punditry. Why is it that we’ve made the presidency, in John’s words “essentially an impossible job”? Another shock: Many of the parts of presidential decorum that we consider par for the course are actually pretty ahistorical, and John makes the case that this weird, patristic view of the presidency in which the Executive has to appear in person at every important going-on throughout the country actually erodes some of the prudential, quiet, considered principles meant to undergird the job. Oh, and there’s some mutual Wilson-bashing in store as well, which is always a bonus. Show Notes: -The Hardest Job in the World: The American PresidencyJohn’s book, -Franklin’s final speech at the Constitutional Convention -Theodore Roosevelt and “scientific management” -FDR flying into Chicago to accept the nomination in person -Book of VirtuesBill Bennett’s -Ancestry.com/Remnant to discover your story -Harrys.com/Dingo to receive your free trial offer today Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonah’s longtime friend Tevi Troy makes his second appearance on the program, this time to discuss not only the history of presidential debates, but also to share some info on how the sausage gets made from his time doing debate prep for George W. Bush. Beyond simply recounting some of the best zingers in the history of these debates (“The youth and inexperience of my opponent…” “You’re no Jack Kennedy.”), they discuss the degree to which these moments are actually staged, and how the pretzel-like overcomplicated logic of certain debate preppers actually contribute to their candidate looking pretty silly on national TV. Keeping this history in mind, Tevi also talks about what he’ll be looking for in the upcoming debates (both campaigns should be taking notes, honestly), and happily discovers that he has reached “Vin Cannato Equilibrium” in the canon of the REU (Remnant Extended Universe). Show Notes: -The Dispatch30-day free trial at -Fight HouseTevi’s latest book, -George H. W. Bush looks at his watch -“Conservatism as a Second Language” -Intra-American migration due to COVID -Quayle/Gore debate highlight -Bush headchecks Gore -Biden decides to be, uh, pugilistic towards Paul Ryan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices