We're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Dashinski,
culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show
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That's because we're going to be doing another one of the question and answer
episodes that honestly, I really love these episodes. I always hesitate to do
them because this still feels strange to me that there are questions people might want
me personally to address. But you know, hey, I love addressing these
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So again, if you have any tips, if you have any suggestions,
I've actually thought recently about doing more actually of episodes just like this one where
I kind of go through people's questions talk about different issues. We have a
lot of really cool guests coming up. By the way, We're not you
know, I'm sticking with the regular format. You you'll keep getting programming as
usual here, but every once in a while I do find it interesting to
just kind of talk through some of these questions. So let's get to it.
I put out a tweet yesterday just say I'm about to take some questions
on a Q and a Federalist radio hour. So I've got a lot of
questions actually about the protests that are going on in college campuses right now.
Let's see where to start. I want to make sure we have these organized
in a good way. Here's one. Why is the legacy media shying away
from all the obvious examples of Zionist crime against anti genocide protesters. That's from
Gritty get Lidty. I want to find another one that's sort of similar in
this vein right here, really shocked to find you. This is from Dimitri
really shocked to find you, defending the illegal actions of the pro Hamas pro
Palestinian protesters on campus. So breaking into buildings, are just breaking a few
windows. According to Ryan Grimly, my co host over at the show,
counterpoints is cool. Vandalism, property destruction, assault is cool again. So
we have a lot sort of in this in the protests that I mentioned.
Here's another one from John Carlow. How do you manage cringey comments like this.
Attractive smart people don't join these protests. They have good lives and don't
need fake activism to make themselves feel special. Do you address it with your
fellow colleague to flush that thought out or is there a fear of reprisal.
I'm like literally reading these as I go along, so it looks to me
like I just googled that quote. It looks like that's something that the great
Megan Kelly tweeted, and I'm reading these like again for the first time.
I'm reading a lot of these as I'm going through the list. So this
is not scripted or anything, just so anybody knows, I'm taping this live,
doing it live. I don't think that's a cringey comment. I think
that applies to some people, and I definitely I'll say, I definitely don't
have a fear of reprisal. But I genuinely think there's truth and there there
has been truth in similar I guess protests over the years, and it's not
you know, I don't. I don't agree that it applies to everyone,
but I actually think there's something about what's going on in college campuses right now
that speaks to people who don't have quote, good lives. That's a quote.
That's the quote that I was asking about. They just feel unfulfilled,
and there's something that really gives you a sense of meaning and purpose, at
least superficially, it feels like it meaning it purpose, And I've seen that
happen on the right too. I'm I don't think it's just about people on
the left. I mean, I think there are I think, honestly,
I saw a lot of that on January sixth, people whose lives are emptier
than they would have been before, you know, the era of hypermodernity that
we're in now. We talk about this a lot on the podcast, So
you know, is it everyone, No, But I think there are a
lot of people that are really really struggling, and you know maybe. I
mean, for example, one outward sign that people are struggling right now is
just the shocking obesity rates. It's just manifesting in certain things like that.
I mean, one of the first indications of this with gen Z to me
was Billie Eilish, who was sort of intentionally making herself look unattractive. And
I think Billy Eilish is somebody who has very clearly looked to politics and sort
of she said that she was looking towards gender nonconformity as a way to protect
herself. She said she had watched a lot of pornography and she dressed with
this kind of androgynist style intentionally to protect herself. And so again I think
this is happening on the left and the right in some of the protests that
it's not entirely new. This is a lot of what Christopher Lash. I
think we referenced this on the episode earlier this week with Matt Walsh. I
think this is a lot what Christopher Lash wrote about when he wrote Culture of
Narcissism. I think that was like the early eighties, may have been the
late seventies or early eighties, and looking at how the growth in media and
new media technologies, especially in some ways triggered ancient narcissistic instincts in people who
lived in the West was a really worthwhile pursuit for Lash at that time.
But we just see it kind of going into hyperdrive, and I say hyperdrive
now in twenty twenty four, people might look back on this in you know,
twenty five fifty four, we make it there and say, wow,
what you were describing as hypermodernity at the time is nothing compared to or hyperdrive
at the time. Hypermodernity hyperdrive at the time is nothing compared to what we
deal with now. But I actually, I think it's an entirely defensible position
that people who are engaged in these protests on college campuses are not being fulfilled
by modernity and some of them and it's for some of them that's manifesting in
you know, physical ways exactly how Billie Eilish described using androgyny, using androgyny
as basically a shield to protect yourself from the judgment of others. I think
it's manifesting in ways like physically with our bodies. And I don't think it's
just relegated to the left. You know, conservatives aren't tearing up college campuses
right now, But it depends on the kind of conservative protests we're talking about,
you know, is January, is it some of the let's say,
you know, fringe protests that you see pop up from time to time.
Yeah, probably, you know, they're not on the same scale right now.
But I just don't think people's suffering right now and their lack of fulfillment
right now falls neatly down those lines. I do think though, that there's
some truth to this on college campuses at the moment. So to address some
of the other questions that I just mentioned, this was the first one.
Why is the legacy media shying away from all the obvious examples of ZIONUS crime
against anti genocide protesters. I find this question from Gritty get Liddy very interesting
because we've set up before on the show that this particular issue is one in
which elite opinion, it is one of the only issues in which elite opinion
is polarized. You know, you get elite media basically on the same page
when it comes to I mean, we saw it happen really quickly with marriage
for example, you know, within like the last twenty years, and then
about ten years ago, there's just total lockstep on that. For a long
time, there was total lockstep on BLM, there was total lockstep on transgenderism.
We're starting to see a crack in that particular facade. But you know,
there's people are on the same page for example, about Donald Trump.
There are very few people in elite media spaces, the ones that sort of
are either the kind of polite spaces in Washington, d C. In New
York and Los Angeles, where people would defend Donald Trump defend voting for Donald
Trump, would say they voted for Donald Trump themselves. That's obvious. So
on this issue, though, you see some flagrant bias in both directions.
And I think it's really hard to say that the media is just universally pro
Israel or pro Palestinians. I actually think, you know, overall, it's
a really like there isn't any categorical way to put it. I mean,
there's there's so much internal strife on this question because you you know, have
people so like Bill Ackman as someone I think is a really good example of
this, who said, you know, when he was is on the board
of I think it's called the Harvard Corporation. It's like the control is a
group of people like control a lot of big decisions at Harvard. And when
Clauding Gay came up for consideration as the president of Harvard, Ackman has now
and this happened last fall, said, you know, he he thought the
DEI stuff was great as it applied to Claudine Gay. He thought it meant
X, Y and Z, and you know, he thought it meant racial
equality, and he thought it meant, you know, making sure that everyone
feels safe and included. But he wasn't totally cued into the broader conversation about
equity, for example, and we heard him talk about that in a conversation
with Dean Phillips and one of his other colleagues from the All In podcast.
And Dean Phillips is an interesting example a Democratic congressman who is a big supporter
of like the Equality Act, which would be terrible for speech rights. But
again it's sort of in the name of something that broadly sounds great to everyone,
women's rights, equality, it's in the name of the bill. But
you know, Dean Phillips still boasts about supporting the Equality Act, for example,
even though he told Bill Ackman in the wake of October seventh that he
believes in equality, not equity. He believes in equality of opportunity, not
equality of outcomes. And you know, they were very clear about free speech
and expression and all of that. So you get the Bill Ackmans of the
world who have become very uncomfortable with the clouding gaze and the sort of agenda
that sounded really good on the surface, but then on the other hand,
when you see it in action, You're like, oh, well, this
is sort of anti Western. And if we keep pulling at the thread of
what's anti Western, and this is where I disagree most, I think with
my friends who oppose Israel in this this most recent conflict. If you keep
pulling on that thread of what it means to be anti Western, you get
to anti American, you get to anti capitalist. And I guess capitalism is
depends on how you define it, whether we oppose or support capitalism. You
know, if you have a positive definition of capitalism, it centers your communities
and families, you know, or a sort of government approach to capitalism,
and there are regulations that kind of tend to the weeds. But it just
sort of depends on how you define it. Either way, you keep pulling
at that thread, and basically the American quilt unravels to maybe torture a metaphor
a little bit. And I think that recognition. No, I just wish
the left would be more honest about it. I guess I think there's some
people on the left right now who don't realize that's what happened if you keep
pulling at the thread. But I think there are a lot of people that
you know, it's exactly why they've pulled at that thread. They actually started
from the point of total unravelment. You know, they knew just sort of
in their minds that they found something so wrong with America. They're so uncomfortable
with, you know, what they see as inequality, which again, as
a Christian, honestly, it's this. It's not something that can ever be
a utopia. Right. Inequality is always going to be with us. We
should strive to minimize it. We should you strive for justice every day.
We are never going to rid the world of inequality, discrimination, and evil
manness. Ballen, So, I think though people are looking around in the
country right now and say I don't like this place, it's very easy from
my perspective, to lose sight of what the world has been like through the
course of human history and look at the United States and be like, man,
this place sucks because right now, you know, for example, just
take race as an issue. We've seen people's perception of race relations in America.
This is Gallup polling where they've looked at this over time. People thought
race relations in the country got worse over the last ten years. I think,
actually maybe even longer than that starting around twenty twelve, which personally,
I've said this before, when I thought it started happening, I remember when
Trayvon Martin was killed by George Zimmerman and the country erupted into this debate that
almost seems quinet now compared to the post George Floyd world, the post Michael
Brown world, I just had a hit in my stomach. But I think,
you know, people look around at these examples, and you know,
why do we feel worse over the last fifteen years about race relations after having
so making so much progress generally and what people think about, for example,
interracial marriage for decades, after being one of the most or the most tolerant
pluralistic societies that has ever existed at this scale, And we look around and
we're unhappy, and we feel like something's wrong. We feel like something's off.
I don't know. I think Euphoria the show and HBO captured this really
well. Actually, So people look around, they feel like the quilts is
unraveled. They don't like it. They don't like the United States, they
don't like free enterprise, they don't like sort of institutionalized inequality through the system.
And I'm talking about sisoeconomic inequality right now through the system of Fanner Prize,
the institutionalized system of free enterprise that is overwhelming supported by American institutions.
You know, Chris Ruffo makes interesting points about whether it is actually supported by
American institutions, which have now just been sort of since the I guess mid
century period, infiltrated by cultural Marxists who may or may not actually be a
full Marxists economic Marxist, which is definitely the case with the Black Lives Matter.
On their website they said, you know, they were against the Nuclear
family, and it went on and on to like really true raw Marxism,
even if it also includes these sort of cultural Marxists, let's say, window
dressing as a way to entice you know, a Jack Dorsey to give what
I forget what he gave to them some obscene amount of money after George Floyd
was killed. So I think this is what we see manifesting in elite media.
So I think, actually they're interesting, you know, they are interesting
biases towards Israel, And that might sound ridiculous to my friends that are like
man the media, But what about all of the people who were what about
all of the you know stringers that were exposed with you know, certain ties
to Hamas. I mean, yeah, what about it. I mean that's
exactly right, like I think it's it's actually up in the air. And
that's very very rare with elite media opinion, because elite media is dominated by,
as Rufer would describe, these sort of cultural Marxists who are overwhelmingly supportive
of the Black Lives Matter movement until you know, well, actually they probably
are still overwhelmingly supportive of it. That's where you got quote unquote mostly peaceful
protests from. And that's where you got all of the shameful coverage of some
of these events from Jacob Blake and Milwaukee Kenosha, I should say, not
far from where I grew up, was one of the best examples of just
utterly shameful media coverage, utterly shame media coverage. That's where you get it
from. So many of those people are going to say, well, I've
of course, like I've pulled out this thread. I don't like the system
of the West. I want the system of the West to move more towards
a system of institutionalized equity. I want the United States to sort of take
the backseat in this question of foreign policy, because I believe US capitalism led
to US imperialism, that these things are inextricably intertwined, and they are not
salvageable. This is a system that is fundamentally flawed. Not fundamentally remarkably self
correcting and just, but fundamentally flawed. So basically, they're saying, the
emperor has no clothes. This is not a good and just society. We
can make it a good and just society by rebuilding a different foundation. And
so you have people like that, and you have people who start pulling out
the threaten and realized, Oh, I actually kind of like the foundation.
And I think that explains the media coverage. So you know, I feel
like that's what the clashes, that's where you know, you get I think
actually some really flawed coverage of the protesters. I haven't actually watched a lot
of elite coverage of the protesters, to be honest with you, because I've
mostly been frankly criticizing it from the right. I wrote a long piece in
The Federalist this week actually about what the right is getting wrong in this coverage
of protesters, and that came from the interviews that I did what Jonas do
on this show. Great. Jonas Doue was the founder of the Columbia Sun
Dial that came on the show last Friday, talked about his experience as a
student journalist at Columbia, his junior covering this over the last couple of weeks.
He's behind a lot of the really important reports from campus that have really
shed light on what was happening there. But also Ryan Grimm and I who's
mentioned in one of the questions I read earlier, interviewed one one of the
Jewish student leaders who, when Ryan called her to ask if she could do
the show, was organizing the Passover Satyr for the encampment. She came on
counterpoints and I confronted her about, you know, what they were doing to
try to crack down on some of these examples of obvious calls for violence and
obvious you know, anti semitism. If you're standing with a sign in front
of a bunch of Jewish students that says al Cassom's next targets, Yes,
that's a call for violence, and yes the students were waving Israeli flags,
that's anti semitism. Clearly they're calling for the deaths, specifically of a group
of Jewish students. So yes, and she was expressed frustration with that,
and that's what I thought the right was missing. And that's why, honestly,
I've been paying personally just more attention to how the right and the sort
of pro Israel site has covered these protests, because you know, we saw
this in the House just last night, the House of Representatives just this week,
i should say, which passed a bill with really frightening speech implications for
people who are criticizing Israel. Thomas Massey and others have been out on the
side of this, had been out on top of this, and actually some
you know folks in Freedom Caucus who maybe even voted differently the Massy on some
of the uh the resolutions. Just so, of course the last six months
or so that have said that Massy has said, conflate anti science Zionism and
anti Semitism. There's no doubt, there is no doubt that there's a lot
of overlap between those two things. But it's important, you know, not
to legally conflate those in the same way. It's not ConfL it's important not
to you know, complate conflate sex and gender identity, because then criticism of
transgender let's say transgender, I'll put it in quotes medical care, a lot
of which I think has been exposed by the Cast Report, UH and other
analyzes in recent years as anything but care, but criticized that becomes essentially non
protected speech on college campuses. And you can go down the list. But
all that is to say, that's personally why I've been paying more attention to
this, just because you know, to the extent that there's any way people
in conservative media can influence politicians, it's you know, by paying attention there
and saying, let's law the role. But even more importantly from my perspective
is, you know, things like Sofia Southeast. She's the student that we
interviewed, the Jewish organizer that we interviewed, who is not anti Semitic,
She's not pro Hamas. She's not like Judith Butler, someone who believes that
Hamas is the quote resistance and that it's important not to miss. And I
do worry. I do worry that people on the on the right and people
who are you know, a Bill Ackman sort of pro Israel, center left
type of person or center type of person. I do worry that's what they're
missing by, you know, focusing on what they see and in some cases
are legitimate examples of anti semitism or support for violence, which is awful and
it is terrifying, and there's way too much of it. But that is
not definitive and that's the big mistake. And that's just just because I happen
to be in a position where I talk to a lot of people on the
left thanks to Counterpoints and some of my friends in that space. That's why
I've been I've been focusing there. So yeah, I mean, that's that
would be a huge mistake I think to miss that a lot of these campus
protesters are not people who are anti Semitic. They're not people that are pro
Hamas. They are protesting the foundations of the country. That's the big story,
because if you have a mass protest basically in the United States against the
foundations of the United States, if you look at polling of people in their
generation, it should really open up a lot of people's eyes as to how
feasible the American project is going to be or how difficult it's going to be
to continue the American project down the line. And I laugh because I was
just looking at another one of these questions here, which is on a scale.
This is from Eric, on a scale of Sodom and Gomora to Rome.
Where do you see this country in five years, twenty years, and
fifty years. Oh man, I hate to say it's a good question,
but you knows of what I was just saying about the feasibility of the American
project going forward. I think there's something there, Eric, you know,
I'm hopeful. I think probably the biggest mistake a lot of people making media
and in journalism is saying they know what's going to happen. I think the
best we can say is, listen, there's good evidence something like this could
happen, and I think there's good evidence that you do really start to see
a lot more strife. John Daniel Davidson just wrote Pagan America. His perspective
on this, I think is a good one. He was on the show.
If you haven't listened to that one, I highly recommend it. The
book is about from his perspective. I think I agree with this that we
are lurching into a future that will be a lot darker. We'll just sort
of have to make peace with the reality that the America that had your sort
of very firm Christian foundations. And by Christian, I think we mean the
Christian ethical foundation that was forged by some people in the Enlightenment. John always
talks about, you know which Enlightenment? You know? Are we talking about
the Rousseau Enlightenment? Are we talking about, you know, the Enlightenment that
really did start to codify what we now think of as human rights, but
that are are sort of unusual from a historical perspective, and as we lose
that, Yeah, I probably agree with John that the future will be the
immediate future. Our lives, our children's lives, our grandchildren's lives. The
country will just not be as happy and healthy as it was when many of
us were growing up. And I actually think people who are a bit older
than me experienced a real golden age, and I think that shows up and
polling, some of which I just mentioned earlier about race relations. But I
really believe that's true, and it makes me sad. It makes me sad.
Yeah, I think that for me at least came to an end around
twenty twelve. Things really started to feel bad around twenty twelve. And that's
just vibes of course, it is not even to get into like quality of
life. Obviously that came on the heels of the recession, which bred the
Occupy Wall Street movement, which was very popular with my generation at least for
a moment. But vibes at least, vibes at least, I feel like
we're good. Until twenty twelve, ver millennials like myself and a lot of
people on the left would say, well, you are a CIS white,
You're CIS white person of privilege. Yes, that's my answer to the question,
or that is my response to the statement. Yes, yes I am,
but I do. Actually if you look at pulling like the Gallup polling
on race relations that I mentioned earlier, you know, I guess I have
some perspective on that just as a woman. Yeah, I think that this
is something increasing A lot of people, you know, whatever they look like
or who they are, are starting to put their fingers on and it's tough.
But you know, John, I think in his book, and I
know a lot of people like the Benedict option by Roderer who blurbed John's book.
You know, these are books that actually carve out roadmaps as to how
to make this work. So I think I appreciate people who are working in
that space right now and giving us road maps to how we make that work,
because I actually don't. I mean, listen, we do live in
the freest farist society, and I do believe it's a self correcting society that
is rooted in timeless and during principles, and that's a source of great hope.
So while I think that we're losing a point of consensus on that,
I think it also because we you know, as of right now, have
remarkable levels of free speech. Why we have, even if there are threats
to these and they have been encroachments on these rights. While we have all
of that, where this is a country of just incredible beauty, and I
think while we have all of that, it's it's very possible that there's a
self correction. You know, there was a self correction. It took way
too long with civil rights. And I'm not talking about the legal the legal
debate over civil rights that people like Christopher called well and you know and as
step men have waited into. I'm talking about people's attitudes towards each other,
their attitudes about racial equality. It took too long. But what we've achieved
as the United States of America is really remarkable from those sort of broad aperture
of history, and that's you know, not something to take for granted,
and it's not something that's powerless now. I mean, I think we still
have that. There are people who you know, have clear memories of you
know, the United States that accomplished a lot of that. Some former civil
rights leaders who have spoken about this, there's a lot there's a lot of
power in the United States. So I don't know, I can't put as
on the scale of sond Wingomore to Rome in the next five twenty and fifty
years. I think there are a lot of possibilities, but you know,
my gut instinct is that it's not great. But I do think there's plenty
of reason to hope, plenty of reason to hope. Raoul asks why does
the right not understand trickle down economics is a myth? A lot of questions
from the left on this one. It actually reminds me of another one that
we got here, which was, can you from Mark, can you explain
why the right reverers Reagan when he basically sold USA manufacturing to China and his
tax cuts did not trickle down. There's actually a lot of debate about what
happened with the Reagan tax cuts and about you know, manufacturing jobs and China
and so sort of. I don't even know that in trickle down economics,
et cetera. I don't know that we need to wade into that here because
I probably disagree with Raoul and Mark on it completely, but it's probably worth
getting into at least the point about why the right reviewers Reagan, or if
the right does revere Reagan. It's totally generational, you know. I think
people who grew up with memories of Ronald Reagan will Ronald Reagan was still alive,
you know, they tap into just not even on a policy level.
I think this is why it's really powerful, that it's really it's why Ronald
Reagan is still I think, someone a consensus figure for most Americans. There
are a lot of people who absolutely just buse Ronald Reagan, no question about
that. There always have been. But he's he feels like someone that you
know, sixty percent of the country who was alive during his presidency probably agrees
on like, oh, he was a good guy. And I think for
a lot of people it's because he sent good vibes, right, and I
don't think that's an easy thing to do. I think that is no small
feat for a president of the United States. Some people are really really good
at it. I think Ronald Reagan was really really good at it. Obviously,
I worked part time for a Young America's Foundation, which owns the Reagan
Ranch Reagan Boyhood Home. I was just at the Reagan Boyhood Home hearing some
amazing stories about Ronald Reagan. I'm personally a big fan of Ronald Reagan.
I think though, if you go back and read Reagan's speeches, and I'm
talking about, you know, speeches when he was governor of California. I'm
talking about speeches when he was running for president initially, which is especially my
favorite, like Reagan era when he was you know, the nineteen seventy six
convention. If you listen to that Ronald Reagan, I mean, I think
you really see the intense, intensely skilled communication that he was able to harness
to his success so and to this to a way that made people feel really
good about the country. That you probably disagree or maybe you disagree both of
these commenters about whether he was tricking the country lulling people into a false sense
of security. But I also think we do a we forget that there were
a lot of mistakes made after people like Ronald Reagan, and I'd wonder myself
if Ronald Reagan would have made some of those mistakes. It also kind of
reminds me of criticisms of Nut Gangrich, who came in after what forty years
forty years of democratic control of the House of Representatives. Ronald Reagan came in
as somebody who detests a big government with you know, decades of a big
government post Wilsonian sort of built up, and you know, the sort of
experiment in that space. Actually, if you look back at media coverage,
was like the Heritage Foundation was criticizing Ronald Reagan like halfway through his presidency for
not disbanding the Department of Education. So why do I think the right still
revers ron Reagan. I think because the vibes were so strong. I don't
necessarily think it's attached to specific policies beyond the policy of loving the United States
and loving your fellow Americans and having reason for optimism and help that was expressed
really well by Ronald Reagan. I actually think that's flatly why the right Revere's
Reagan. I could absolutely say, we could absolutely have conversations about the sort
of Latin American policy. Latin American policy is a good example, Wall Street
policy, market policy, things that were regulations that were eased that people or
or groups like American compass I think in recent years we've had Orn cass On
here many times have done a good job of breaking down things that happened in
the eighties in the Reagan administration. Absolutely willing to have those conversations. I
think though that the and Ron Reagan came in with union support, by the
way, and obviously that speaks to something that he was able to Again,
you know, I get people will say he lulled the working class into a
false sense of security or the middle class into a false sense of security.
But people are smart, they make their own decisions, and a lot of
for a lot of people, they don't like the American left, and if
someone, if a politician on the right, is able to inspire them with
a sense of optimism and help about the country, that's really really powerful.
And so I wouldn't be too dismissive or I wouldn't say, you know,
people who are middle class or working class who liked Ronald Reagan then or who
maybe like Ronald Reagan now, don't have anything in favor of that argument,
because you know, even if an economic policy, let's say, is it's
debatable whether that that does trickle down. Even if that's the case for a
lot of people, not everyone, but for a lot of people, there's
this just intense dislike of the left that people like Ronald Reagan were really effective
at arguing against and sort of yeah, doing the the restoration of the American
vibes. So to get into in my position on trickle down economics and China
manufacturing under the Reagan administration would be a policy or would be a podcast in
and of itself, and actually we should do that. I'm going to make
a note to do that and to go deep on that, and maybe we
can even get some Reagan people on to talk about it. But yeah,
my point is basically the vibes. So that's why people revere round Reagan,
and I think, you know, there's a pretty good argument for that.
Let's see, here's another one. What are your thoughts of the alleged meeting
between Trump and DeSantis inevitable inevitable because Trump is going to be asked, you
know, about DeSantis. Desanta's is constantly going to be asked about Donald Trump,
and Donald Trump is a very transactional politician, and politicians are known for
being transactional. Donald Trump, uh to, to his credit, often is
very transparent about being transactional in a way that other politicians aren't. So he
We've seen this with other people over the years. He's he's pretty forgiving when
people, when people are willing to, uh, you know, be transactional,
to give and to do a little push and pull a little bit of
that negotiating tug of war. You give me this, I'll give you this.
H So it's not surprising, you know, I don't know if Trump
said I'll basically keep giving you my support in Florida, I don't know.
I actually don't know what really happened bhying closed doors. I'm not surprised by
it. I think DeSantis has Desanta's was one of the people who was most
boldly maga before he was governor, when he was running for governor, because
he knew his state. Well. He's smart, so he's he's also just
a clever politician, and they're both clever politicians, So it seems to me
like at this time a good relationship is mutually beneficial to them. So I'm
not surprised it's not. There's no political benefit to Ron DeSantis, and he's
seen this with people like Liz Cheney or Adam Kinsinger or even another good example
is maybe like ken Buck, there's no real benefit politically to Ron DeSantis continuing
to criticize Donald Trump. I think they are both people who say, yeah,
that was the primary. They're just you know, smart politicians. They
understand that supporting each other. They both fairly well liked, but especially DeSantis
towards Trump. I mean, Trump is the leader of the party. Uh
and run de Santis lost the primary to him. So there you go.
Jeffas asks, are the Trump trials a quote crossing of the Rubicon moment in
American history will lead to all future presidents being prosecuted after leaving office. Are
there any benefits to having the office of president being more open to prosecution?
This is the biggest question I think in American politics right now, and I
think it is unanswered, and I think that's always been part of the you
know, we want to have black and white opinions on Donald Trump. People
have wanted to have black and white opinions about Donald Trump since twenty fifteen.
Politically, I don't think we've had enough time to answer some of these questions
about Donald Trump that, you know, and I respect people who do say,
you know, I am either firmly in the black camp or firmly in
the white camp, and that actually kind of works because they're they're firmly black
built, they're white built. But I respect people who do think that we've
had answers to that question. But whether Trump ends up being a net positive
or a net negative for the country, I think depends on kind of the
answer to this question. If we're able to look back in retrospect and say,
yes, this was a crossing of the Rubicon moment, and then you
know, did Donald Trump? Should Donald Trump have just kind of retreated from
politics and let someone like Rondo Santis who wouldn't fight just like Donald Trump?
You know, I'm making this is the argument. I also don't know what
the answer to this question would be, and I won't pretend I know what
the answer this question would be. You know, should we have let someone
else get in there and fight all the evil forces of the deep state,
and that would have been, you know, more effective than Donald Trump,
who is being prosecuted in ways that violate norms, that push Democrats to violate
norms because they see that Donald Trump violated all of these sacred norms. And
Donald Trump did violate some norms and ways that made me feel uncomfortable. I
won't pretend otherwise. You know, I always use the example who's tweet about
Mika Brazinski's facelift while he was in office, which is just like, it's
a silly little example. It is so ungentlemanly, it is so beneath the
dignity of the office. And then some people will say, well, what
do you mean the dignity of the office? Bill Clinton and John F.
Kennedy, but Bill Clinton in particular, the physical office lost its dignity under
Bill Clinton. And they'll point out wars and said, well, what's the
you know, the dignity of the office. You're upset about the dignity of
the office being soiled by a tweet about a cable news host's facelift. And
to that, I say, again, I understand the argument. I get
it personally. I just don't think we've had answers to all of those questions
yet, about whether the dignity of the office would be is restorable, About
what about, frankly, where the country can go in terms of war powers,
right like bringing in the explosion or the expansion of war powers, and
about you know, being a just presence on the world stage, about surveillance,
about all of these things. And there was a lot of room for
improvement. We talked about that with Ronald Reagan, but also with the Trump
administration. And it's easy, with the benefit of hindsight to say, well,
they could have done this better, this better, this better. I
mean, that's kind of my whole perspective on Reagan Cold War policy at this
point, is that some of that is you know, I have a lot
of real criticisms, not just of the Reagan Cold War policy, although I
think that was a benefit in the long term, just you know, like
Latin America. And we did a couple of different podcasts in the last six
months here on the Dulles brothers, the CIA and all like it was any
of it, were any of the constitutional and culturally healthy norms that were violated
before Donald Trump. Is this I don't want to sound like a leninist.
Is this what was Trump something that finally woke the country up into fixing the
erosion of those norms, into forcing elites to preserve and restore healthy norms.
You know, the Tea Party tried, others have tried anti Bush movements tried
on the war powers and surveillance, and then you got Obama, Obama,
and then they wanted Clinton. You know, could any of this really have
been truly restored? I don't know. But for Donald Trump, right,
I don't know, you know, I don't know, And I don't know.
If you know, Donald Trump loses, I don't know if I don't
know how Democrats are going to handle that. I don't know if he wins,
how Democrats are going to handle that. I don't know how Trump supporters
will handle that. I just think this is a majorly unanswered question, and
I'm I think it's the most important. I'm obviously very interested in it.
I think it's like the most important question. This is from Brandon, who
says, Emily are the best thank you compliment accepted? How much of the
current areas of current public dilemmas with Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, WROTETCA would
have happened anyway with an R in charge. Another really interesting question, because
if it's just any R versus Trump, I don't know, like the way
Trump has been talking about how Israel has had a real public relations disaster or
been, you know, in a real public relations disaster of its own making.
He said that in a Time magazine interview this week, echoes comments that
he made earlier. Donald Trump is like the Madman theory right with foreign policy,
I don't know. I mean, there's no way Trump would have waived
norse stream sanctions. I think there's a good argument that who wouldn't have invaded
under Donald Trump, not just because of mad Man theory, but also just
because of different choices policy choices that an administration would have made. I don't
know. I think that's still an unanswered question about the Abraham McCords and October
seventh. I don't know what would have happened if Donald Trump would have won
a second term. But I actually think, to the point of this question
from Brandon, I actually think a lot of these fissures were bound. A
lot of these divisions were bound to manifest themselves in different ways. You know,
whether a Republican or a Democrat was in charge as different conflicts flared up
around the world. So I don't think I think these divisions are very real
and are growing, and they would have popped up no matter who's in charge.
It's just a matter of sort of when they would have popped up and
in what ways they would have popped up. Tony says, why don't House
Republicans work with House Democrats to pass a bipartisan border security bill? Great question.
I think you know. My own perfective on this is fundamentally because of
what happened in the Senate. I think you'd have the exact same dynamic on
the House side. No different because at the end of the day, Democrats
do not want to take necessary steps, tough steps, because they've sort of
already said where they stand on tough detention policies, and without tough detention policies.
You know, this is one of the reasons many Orchus was in portant
it was impeached. I just made up a new word, pretty good.
But one of the reasons he was impeached is that, you know, the
law says you have to detain people while their asylum claims are processed, and
that is optics that Democrats just fundamentally don't want They don't believe in that.
I don't think they believe in that policy. And that's where you get this
huge, huge volume of people because they don't have to stay in detention while
a dubious asylum claim is processed. We have sanctuary cities all over the country.
You can just sort of go and disappear in the shadows. And I
think Democrats, you can do these things that tweak around the edges of asylum
policy, and they can come to the table in some big changes on asylum
policy. For example, like they didn't senate, but they added so many
exemptions in carve outs, et cetera, because that's exactly what they want the
president to be able to do, is to avoid those optics of detention.
So do I think there's like some grand conspiracy theory afoot? Now? I
think they just care more about the politics of this. They like they like
the political advantages that come from avoiding those optics, criticizing Republicans on those optics.
And also, you know they've said as much they think these new demographics,
if they get you know, voting rights and legalization, et cetera,
ultimately to their benefit. But yeah, they just don't want to be seen
as being tough on migrants. So I just I don't think even with so
called moderate Democrats, there's any common ground. Until the media holds Democrats honest
on this policy, and until Democrats are willing to grapple, until Democratic voters
force their own politicians, until they develop a sort of cultural appetite for those
tough policies, there's basically basically nothing that can be done, if that makes
sense. I actually accidentally skipped a little bit of Dimitri's question about he said,
really shocked to find you defending the illegal actions of the pro homasque propose,
stay in protest on campus, still breaking into buildings or just breaking a
few windows, careering Ryan Graham is cool vandalism, property distruction, to stall
the school because it's not free speech. No, it's not free speech.
And I think I actually tweeted back at Dmitri, I said as much on
the show, that's not free speech. They smashed into the Columbia students,
that is, it was a one of their This is what it seems like
so far, based on what we know, reporting about what we know,
A I believe a sixty three year old According to the Free Press, protest
leader kind of professional organizer punched through a window, unlocked the door, and
trespassed into the building and then set up the barricade so they could hold the
building. That's not free speech, obviously, and that's not really peaceful,
you know, smashing through a window, No, not free speech deserves to
be scrutinized very toughly. That type of tactic does. And actually, at
the end of the very segment we're talking about in this exchange, Ryan said,
you know, he hopes that people who are protesting right now learn from
the civil rights movement that there's power in responding to, for example, law
enforcement with peace. And I could not possibly agree with that more. Whether
you're on the right or the left. It's in Ryan said this too.
It's really tempting right now to give into arguments that you know, we need
to resort to force and violence in what was otherwise you know, civil disobedience.
There's nothing civil about you know, smashing through the glass, that's for
sure, Poverty, destruction, attacks, all of that. No, that's
that's not free speech. It's not civil disobedience. And you know, I
believe very much, I know there's all kinds of criticism of Martin Luther King
Junior that we also don't need to get into. I have my own thoughts
on those criticisms, plenty of them actually, And I think we actually did
a podcast around MLKDA with de Lanno Squires that people can go back and listen
to about Martin Luther King in particular. But I believe in the philosophy of
civil disobedience, and Martin Luther King Junior, for again, we could debate
his bona fides as a reverend, but he based a lot of that on
Christian ethics, and so yeah, I believe in civil disobedience. Three snow
wanted to respond to this question from Dimitrius that you know, some people even
you know on on Making Kelly's show last week, we were talking about actual
threats about violence or calls for violence and anti Semites, and I had a
list in front of me of examples that I had compiled of examples specifically of
those those sort of non civil and you know, non let's say, let's
say, what's the best word, not merely political sort of disagreements, not
not disagreements, but sort of demonstrators on different campuses. So that would be
the Alcassan's next target. Lady I literally had a list in front of me
while I was on this segment and then on breaking points. The next day
we interviewed the counter points. The next day we interviewed a protester. The
girl I mentioned earlier is Sofia Southi, who was absolutely peaceful Jewish leader of
an encampment. And while I think the most important thing here to recognize is
that smart young Americans like Sofia Southi are actually in this movement that I think
has foundational criticisms of the American project, I also think, you know the
fact that we all agree on justice, and I wrote this in the Federalists.
We have different concepts of what justice is. But this idea that you
know justice, it is worth striving for justice and to create a better world,
Well, gosh, I'm at least glad that young people agree on that
point, you know so. And if you're not doing anything wrong, if
you are engaged in civil disobedience and you're not complaining about getting consequences for breaking
rules, oh this is fine. I don't think it's great when people are,
you know, I think the school has every right to clear encampments,
and students lose their right to complain about that if they're openly violating the rules.
That's what happens with civil disobedience. But if you're not anti Semitic,
if you are not pro hamas in fact, if you're Jewish and you believe
for reasons that I think are goes to this appetite for anti Americanism among younger
people, that what we're seeing transpires a genocide, then we should engage with
people on that level. And so that's not Those are not two different positions
at all, although some people were that's one thing I got comments about and
tweets about and all of that. Those are not two different positions, I
think. Actually, in fact, one of the interesting things about this current
wave of campus protests is that those are not two different positions. That there
is there is something so there's something so disgusting and then something that is you
know, disagreeable and even more widespread than what's more disgusting, and the disgusting
stuff sadly will always be with us. I hope it is minimized. We
should work to minimize it. But you know, the disagreeableness is so widespread
that that's I think what should scare people even more so. Anyway, last
question here is from Amish Nasa. That's the twinter account. We'll end on
something kind of funny here. What's your favorite song to play on guitar?
Is what Amish Nasa has asked. Yeah, I've I've got guitars behind me.
My background shot if you know, I'm on zoom or Skype or whatever.
Let's see, I don't really have a favorite song to play on guitar.
The only background that I can give is that if my dad is very
musical, he's plays guitar, drums, all that. And so I got
a guitar for my eighth birthday and he taught me and I went to guitar
lessons a little bit. I have no proclivity. I have no innate musical
talent, and that became clear very quickly, very very quickly, as I
started learning music. I was unfortunately a band kid throughout high school, so
I have a lot of familiarity with music, and I guess I have,
you know, some technical ability, even if it is not rooted in an
innate musical skill. But because I have been sort of tinking around, tinkering
around since I was like eight years old, and I do have all of
that now, like embedded knowledge about like circle of fifths. And I was
in percussion, so I love playing drums, so I actually probably prefer that
to guitar, but you know, because it's there's also something like physically cathartic
about playing drums, So I have a come home behind me that people probably
say too. So I don't have like a favorite song, but I do
just love you know, I'm proficient, definitely not great, I'm proficient,
but I just I really do enjoy. I think there's something especially that I've
found as social media has proliferated, there's something so powerful about getting completely involved
in playing music that it makes you, at least for me, it makes
you forget about notifications. It makes you care more, I should say,
cares so much about you know, finishing a song, learning a song,
than or just enjoying music, you know, enjoying playing along to something that
just makes you forget about the notifications or makes them just seem unimportant at least
for the moment. So that's my favorite part about you know, the musical
instruments in my apartment is that you know, you tink around with them and
you kind of lose track of time. So I don't have a favorite song,
but I just, you know, I'm just happy to be here.
That's all I answered that, all right. Well, on that note,
I just appreciate it everyone for the questions. Thank you always for emailing radio
at the Federals dot com, and more than anything, thank you for listening.
I know a lot of shows asked for reviews every day. I think
I asked for last week. I'm trying to get better about it, but
if you do have a nice review to leave, five star reviews are super,
super helpful to every podcast, and you know, I guess I should
be better about requesting that on this one because we're very lucky to have so
many faithful, loyal listeners over the years, and it means a lot to
us. Means the world to us, So feel free to always get in
touch. Thank you for your questions, and I hope everybody has a wonderful
weekend. God bless you've been listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
Mentally Kishinski, culture editor here at the Federalists. We'll be back soon
with more. Until then, be the lovers of freedom and anxious for the
fry hearn the reason, and then it faded away. Mm hm