Welcome back, everyone to a new episode of You're Wrong with Me David Harsani
and Molly Hemingway. If you have anything to write the show, please do
at radio at the Federalist dot com. We love your mail, Molly.
How's it going going? All right? How are you doing good? Did
you have a nice Memorial Day? Did? One of my kids was confirmed
in her Lutheran faith on Pentecost and her godparents came in with their kids,
so we had a wonderful family time. It was just great. That's great.
What about you? Yeah, that was nice enough. So some family
I should bought you something. I was in an old book store. Yeah,
I was in an old bookstore and they had I was just looking through
some old magazines and stuff, and they had a magazine from nineteen twenty called
The Lutheran and it's for American Lutherans. Yeah, and I just bought one
for you just so you could check it out. That's great, Although you
know, there's like a joke about how many different denominations there are, but
if it was in the English, it's probably not my kind of Lutheran.
It might be fun to look at. Ifely, have you ever heard of
the saying it's the thought that counts. Oh, I'm looking forward to it.
I did not mean to sound in any way like anything other than an
awesome gift idea. I'm just kidding. I think we should just hit on.
We obviously don't want to get into this too much because there's a lot
to it, and as you mentioned before the show, it's probably a little
boring. But the dead ceiling and negotiations are over. For me, this
is all kabuki theater. They knew no one was going to default. It
was never going to be a great deal because no one's going to default.
Enough Republicans can pretend that, you know that. They're all upset because they
know there are enough votes for it to go through. Some progressives are going
to not vote for it because they know it'll go through. It will go
through. I don't think it's the worst thing ever. I know a lot
of conservatives are super mad about it. I think anything you get is something
these days, especially in this kind of negotiation, and there are some good
things in it, but it doesn't really cut spending in any real way.
Yeah, I mean, I think I agree with you in the main,
although you're being a little too kind to what a bad deal it is.
I mean, it really is setting in spending at levels that never should have
been reached during the COVID crisis and acting like that's like a normal, acceptable
level of spending. We already have so many problems with our entitlement spending that
literally no one wants to tackle that. It's a bad situation. So I
also understand that Republicans only control one chamber, that they barely control it,
and so I think I had more realistic expectations. Maybe, But I'm also
open to the argument two things. One that there was more leverage there that
could have been utilized by the Republican negotiators. And I mean, it's like
even worse than that guy who ran for president Rick Perry. That I can't
remember what my second one is anyway, I agree, I agree with that
point. I agree it could have been better. It should have been better.
Oh I know what it was. Yeah, sorry that I don't like
being told that this is super awesome, that the deal is super awesome.
If you said, listen, not so great, but actually pretty great that
we got anything, given how little we control anything, I would be much
more like, yeah, that sounds about right. When you're told, like,
this is the best deal that's ever been crafted in the history mankind.
You're like, I don't think it is, because they overpromised, you know,
they were they were bashing everything Biden had done. But in the end,
we're at the same where an emergency spending baseline, which is always going
to you know, whatever they spend. That's where we are forever, and
we just move they move forward. But also, you can't fix everything in
what one debt ceiling debate. You know, it's going to take a long
time. I don't think anything's gonna be fixed. It's gonna take a long
time. In general, I do wish that Congress understood how much power it
has by having the power of the purse and really worked harder on it.
And there are things that could be accomplished by Republicans sticking together here. Yeah,
for the budget appropriation stuff, I agree. I think we were so
servatives or fiscal concervatives are so used to losing that any tiny victory is something
to cherish and celebrate, you know. But yeah, I mean it sucks.
It's Oh, everything's on the wrong trajectory. Let's talk about something else.
Um, So I wanted to touch on these boycotts, and in particular
or two of them. One is obviously the bud Light boycott, which seems
to be working. It's anecdotal evidence, but I loved during Memorial Day people
take snapshots of the supermarket and all the beer was gone, but all the
bud Light was still there on the shelves, you know. And then also
Target which I don't know how that boycott's working, but from what I've seen,
I think it's doing pretty well. Also, these are I think,
in my lifetime, the most successful conservative economic boycotts that have ever existed.
Like I can't even remember another boycott my entire life that conservatives have engaged in
that have actually worked. Do you agree with that? I'm not sure.
I mean, I'd like to think about it a little bit before I think
about whether other there are other boycott examples that have worked. What's fascinating to
me is this is completely organic. You have on the left, this very
complicated architecture, well funded, well organized, to enforce leftist dogma, you
know, by pressuring corporation, and they really pick a target and they attack
them. You know, you look at what's happened with Fox News, where
every powerful billionaire on the left has funded an effort to keep advertisers away from
the top rated cable news network. That's you know, it's a smart play
for political activists on the left and on the right. Like there's no organization
really of any kind these The bud light thing is completely organic. The target
thing is also completely organic. It's just people having had enough of leftist politics
shoved down their throat by corporations and apparently like they were willing to sort of
take it, take it, take it. And finally the I guess the
part where they are arming children is the one where some people finally found a
backbone. Yeah, so you just think, you see, I view it
more as less of a political kind of caught and more of a normy,
a normal person revolt against sort of the wackiness that it's gotten gotten to a
point where it was just sort of this cultural bias and political bias that was
always being you know, being thrown at you in little pieces. But then
BLM happened. I think that that was sort of the first thing that really
got people mad about, you know, the the role corporations playing that kind
of cultural revolution basically, and now this is just the manifestation of that anger.
Not that this doesn't matter, but it's just another thing that finally brought
them over the top. I just wonder, like, what is the staying
power. Is it going to continue with other corporations or is it going to
be diluted because there's just going to be too many people to try to boycott.
It's very difficult in your in your life to avoid things. Might be
might be easy to avoid a beer, but you can't really avoid like NBC
corporation, or you can, but it's much harder right when you have avoids.
Pick your targets very carefully. I think the thing about the bud Light
one is it's just fun. It is fun to participate in this boycott.
It's fun to tease people about drinking bud Light. It's it's the type of
boycott that works because there are so many other beer options of the same variety
that you can go to, and it's just become like a cultural moment that
is, as you point out, much beyond typical political tribes. Beyond that,
you start getting into pretty shaky territory. I mean, even like the
target thing is a little bit harder to communicate and participate in even though a
lot of people are and I mean targets really hurting by people declining to shop
there because of how they are trying to harm children with their transactivism and supporting
groups that cut off healthy body parts of children and permanently sterilize them. Like,
these are really bad things for people who know it, but it's a
little harder to get into the cultural understanding. And then when you get like
beyond there, it'll I think it'll just depend on what people are doing.
I think, you know, the Dodgers situation is very interesting because I don't
think people want to boycott the Dodgers. I don't think people want to stop
watching baseball. I mean I did a couple of years ago, and it
was for political reasons when Major League Baseball decided to attack the integrity of our
US election system. For me, it was just like, I can't participate
in supporting a group that's actively trying to harm the country in such a horrible
way. That bowed down to Joe Biden when he said, I'm calling for
people to do an economic boycott of a democratically like governed state because I don't
like that they are working to secure their elections and Major League Baseball bowed down
and said, sir, yes, sir, we will join with you in
doing a boycott of you know, we're going to boycott this state. We're
going to attack democracy, We're going to attack elections. Like I was like,
I can't, I cannot participate anymore. But a lot of people were
fine with that. But when the Dodgers decided to honor an anti Christian hate
group that is mostly known for blaspheming God, you know, that's that's too
far for a lot of people. Well hold on, Molly, hold on,
Molly. They are going to have a Christian night as well, So
they've balanced that out right, So a little blasphemy and a little God.
Yeah, I saw that. Clayton Kirkshaw was saying, oh yeah, okay,
so we're honoring a group that blasphemes our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
But counterpoint, a month later, we're going to invite Christians to spend money
at the park. So it kind of balances out. And it's like,
well, that's not how it works. If I can have a like a
point the Ten Commandments, you know that should have no other gods before me?
Is is many meanings. But one of the things is like not to
not to put God on the altar with other gods or other you know,
with false gods. And this idea that you can sort of clean off the
blasphemy of God by also saying that you honor him is not It doesn't match
with the traditional understanding of the first commandment. Well, I quickly want to
mention that there are over I think nine hundred and forty something like that players
on active rosters in Major League Baseball, and four of them or basically four
but one has now apologized. So three of them, only three of nine
hundred. These are players who make the sign of the Cross, they look
up to God, they thank God all the time. Only three have spoken
up. One of them, as you say, is Clayton k Kershaw,
who almost didn't speak up. It's just such a tepid ginger or statement.
But two of them were and I just want to mention did a good job.
I think we're Trevor Williams with the Nationals and and Blake Trennan, I
think is how you pronounce it with the Dodgers. I mean they did,
you know, they were just clear cut statements about how one of them was
to Catholics, and one of them was to Christians overall. So you have
to give those people props because as you saw, Anthony Bass a Place for
Toronto apologized. He just retweeted, he retweeted some pro boycott message on Instagram,
and he, oh lord, he had he had gave this long apology
where he promised to educate himself, which is always a euphemism for ideological an
ideological transformation, and he begged for forgiveness basically. And the coach there,
John Schneider, I think his name is, promised that it was not over,
that his education would continue. Can you imagine what is it the business
of the coach that the player has an opinion, a political opinion he doesn't
like. It is just mind boggling to me, and actually even worse in
this case, it was his religious opinion. He retweeted someone saying that Christians
should boycott groups that you know are supporting the mutilation of children. I mean,
this is a religious viewpoint that Christians have had a remarkable consistency with opposition
to child sacrifice or child mutilation, you know, to serve pagan gods.
And it was very sad to see how he bowed down, you know,
repented of his sin against paganism, and it was like, please forgive me.
I will always, you know, bow down to the altar of the
sexual perversion, and I will never speak out on behalf of my faith ever
again, and I will educate myself. I mean, it was really awful
to see, particularly in comparison to what the two men you mentioned did,
which was a much better statement explaining their religious views, why they're important,
and how they can't be compromised. Well, he retweeted something that where they
it was a an activist, some sort of Christian actists. I don't exactly
know who he is, but he mentioned, you know, he mentioned the
word satanists, that these people were promoting something that was Satanist, and everyone
got like all these I saw all these comps of people all upset about calling
gay people's satanists. He was referring to the Target designer who called himself a
Satanist. I believe have you have you seen that it was a designer and
Target, Yes, it's almost it does almost sound like too crazy to believe.
But one of the designers that Target used to push their trans transing of
children message is someone who is very open about his support of Satan. I'm
not surprised by it as a religious on the it's a bit on the nose.
Yeah, I mean it's like, it's almost not it's almost part.
These corporations are allowed to work with avowed Satanist Satanists on the mutilation of children
and then if you notice it, you have to do a struggle session and
repent of your sin to the pagan gods. The Watchdot on Wall Street podcast
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Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I
mean, think of this. The Dodgers are going to honor a group that
dressing a non drag and give out condoms and do much worse things than that,
just gross things. But yet the person who's an orthodox Christian has to
beg for forgiveness to continue to play in the league. It is something is
really wrong. And I always say this, I'm not even religious, i
am not a Christian, And to me, the whole world is upside down
right now. It doesn't make any sense. And one quick thing, even
if you believe in free speech, you believe in free expression, a person
should be able to have an opinion without being worried about their job, without
having to apologize to everyone. It's not like he came out as a neo
Nazi or something. You know, this is a completely normal position that many
people in this country have, probably around half the country or more. If
the new yeah, they knew what was going on. I do think part
of the problem is that a lot of people are too cowardly or conflict of
verse to stand up for their views. Like with the number of Christians playing
in Major League Baseball, they should all say we are extremely concerned by the
attacks on our religious beliefs. Seems like you're creating a hostile workplace. We
need this to stop. We're not going to show up to work that day
as a boycott of what you're doing to us. And you do that,
and all of a sudden, you're going to have people, you know,
back off on some of this politicization of sports. Well, I think if
if people, normal people would regularly listen. I've said this often. You
and I get to say whatever we want. In fact, we're paid to
say things that probably would upset a lot of people. But you know,
I understand why someone who works at a company, in a normal job doesn't
want to speak up and risk their livelihood and their insurance in their you know,
a career to have an opinion that's going to get them fired or you
know, ostracized or whatever. But baseball players Ershaw I looked it up and
his career has made three hundred and fifty million dollars playing baseball. If he
can't stand up, if these guys can't come together and even a group and
stand up, then what are the chances that normal people are going to do
it. It's it's you know, they are just complete cowards. So Tucker
Carlson gave a speech at the Heritage Foundation's fifty at the anniversary whenever. That
was back in April, I think, And one of the things he was
saying was that he was just completely blown away by those brave people who stand
up to woke mobs, and how it's never who you think it's going to
be, and how sometimes it's people who really have a lot to lose.
And he was making the point he's paid to express his opinion, you know,
and being a TV host is very easy. I don't think he had
any idea what was about to happen there, and so it made a sort
of poignant, you know, what he was saying. But I am always
inspired by people who do stand up to mobs when they face great persecution for
doing so, and at the same time also kind of disappointed it how few
people are willing to withstand the pressure. Like you think about the early history
of the Christian Church, it's just it's just like leader after leader getting killed
for their viewpoint. And in America, a lot of Christians face, you
know, persecution, they face attacks on their faith in the in their workplace.
It's very common now. But I think it would be good to see
a little bit more standing up against it, and it's very easy to say
this, much harder to do it. And I'm sorry I'm speaking to myself
as much as I'm speaking to anyone else here, but I think we should
think about how we also serve fellow Christians. And sorry not you, but
again, Christians should think about their fellow Christians and how they can support them
by standing up against some of this stuff. Even if they're like scared to
do it for themselves, they should care enough about their neighbor to stand up
against it. I mean, for me, this began with when I met
Jack Phillips and I wrote about him for instance, like that was that's a
tough thing. He was basically alone at the time standing up to fascists in
Colorado and still trying to stand up to them. But yeah, I mean,
you need more and more people to do it. And if a guy
who makes three hundred and fifty mill can't do it, I don't know how
a person is making fifty k trying to get his kids through school is going
to be able, you know, going to be able to do it hopeful,
you know. But any the way, my my parents stopped by Masterpiece
cake Shop last week. They were in the area because one of our friends
died and they were at a funeral. They're there and they were very sad
because Jack wasn't in there, but they bought cakes or pastries or something.
In any case, it is almost a miracle that that place is still open,
right, Like, after all it's gone through, after all the people
who've attacked it and boycotted and protested in front of it, that it's still
around him. It's it's heartening to know that that that they're still there.
It does and you brought this up, but it does remind me a little
of the people who have stood up to Sandy Kofa's not pitching on your kipper.
I don't know what year that was. I think in maybe sixty or
something like that. It's just a famous moment. But I don't know,
you know, he is he was held up. I wonder at the time.
I don't know enough about that incident. Do you think at the time
people were like, you know, yelling at him and you know, saying
he'd let the team down, or do you think that, Oh, yeah,
so I was. I was reading up a little bit on it.
I didn't realize that. So you know, he famously is not pitching game
one of the World Series because it falls on Yom Kapoor and Don Drysdale,
who's another Hall of Fame pitcher, is the guy who takes the mound and
he absolutely gets hammered. And afterwards he told the manager Walter Alston, I
bet you wish I was Jewish as well. And he was a great pitcher
himself, you know so. But Colfax was one of many Jewish players who
declined to play on religious holy days. I think, is that right?
I think there were other instances. I don't remember the people, but you
know there were some big Jewish you know, famous Jewish players in those days.
Yeah. Yeah, And he'd previously asked for, you know, a
different spot on the rotation for other holy days, and it really was something
that people found kind of surprising and on spiring. And I was tweeting about
it last night and some people said I was a kid when that happened,
and I was so angry, and I've grown up to realize, like,
this man is really to be honored for what he was willing to do for
his faith. Yeah. I mean, Kipper is not just a high,
you know, it is the holiday in Jewish religion. It's more important than
Sabbath, which you know, it is just the most important day. So
but you know, I don't know. Sometimes I'm like, he could just
pitch another day in the rotation. It's not like, you know, I
mean, that's as we did, but where are you pitching? The rotation
really is important. And by the way, this reminds me that I got
to go to see Game one of the two thousand and six World Series and
it was in Detroit, and I went with two friends. I was a
Cardinals fan at that time before I stopped being a major League Baseball fan,
and so Detroit was so excited about being in the series and they were widely
expected to win this game and they did not, and the Cardinals took Game
one. And there's this great picture that was in the Detroit News of me
being the only person cheering in a sea of Tigers fans and it was It's
one of my favorite pictures. Right. That had nothing to do with anything.
Oh, it was justin Verlander was pitching and he was expected to win,
and I think and he did not. Yeah, that's a good story.
My last thing on this is just that I'm a Yankees fan, but
I'm Also, let's say a New York big hockey fan, it would be
very difficult. I think it would be very difficult for me not to watch
something that I've enjoyed since I'm a kid that I'm so invested in. They'd
have to do a lot. I'm just being honest. They'd have to do
a lot for me to stop watching. Well, do you remember what a
big fan of baseball it used to be? Okay, I mean it was
a lot to give up, and it took. It sort of happened over
a course of years. Like the first thing that was a problem is that
they embraced the COVID insanity and I didn't like that, but I kind of
understood that the whole world was crazy at that time. Then when they came
back even some of my favorite players were bowing down to the BLM, you
know, extremism that was I did not like that, and I sent a
note saying, like, if any more of this happens, like I'm going
to have to check out. So I sort of it. It happened in
stages, and then that next year was when they bowed down to Joe Biden
to boycott the state of Georgia for passing like frankly fairly weak election laws,
like they should have been much stronger, and even that was too much and
then and so so at that point I was like, I just can't in
good conscience do it. I wouldn't say. One of the thing though,
about the whole topic of people standing up against this, which is I love
to read Voslavhavel's Power of the Powerless essay and one of the things he talks
about so that's the one where he's talking about how conformist systems operate through pressure
from above and below and uses the example of you know, the workers of
the world unite signs that you see everywhere in communist systems, and he's like,
this, this happens with a combination of pressure from above, like you
want to show the people above you that you're no threat to their power,
and also from the people below you want to work with them, and you
want them to know that they are safe to work with you, and so
it just produces this elaborate conformity and to fight against it. It's very hard
in a totalitarian or post totalitarian system to fight against it. And one of
the things he talks about is the power of a dissident who just, you
know, sort of emperor has no clothes kind of approaches it, and it
makes people realize that they have power and that they could avoid being part of
this system. And so even if it's not that many people who are standing
up against these anti Christian mobs, even just one doing it is very powerful.
And I read the notes from those players to my children last night just
so they could kind of think about how when they are faced with pressures to
conform to belief systems that are contrary to what we believe, you know,
how they will how they will handle That also reminds me a bit of George
Orwell's introduction to Animal Farm that actually wasn't published with the original version, but
later, where he talks about censorship in society that is conducted by people,
incorporations, and just pressure rather than the government coming in. That's what this
is. It's even more dangerous because people do it to themselves. Like I
get that the government doesn't make Anthony or what's his name bass apologize, but
the societal pressure does. And if no one cares about the importance of free
expression anymore, then we don't need the government to ban it. It's we
just have people doing it, and that's in the end just as bad.
And that's what's happening in society. Yeah, we have these great laws protecting
free expression, and they really are wonderful, but they mean absolutely nothing without
a culture that supports those laws. And we are beginning to witness what it's
like to have laws on the books that are not embraced by the culture,
and how damaging it is to the underlying rights themselves. That's a good point.
Let's talk for a moment about the Republican primaries, if because we must.
Yeah, I was thinking about how it's like a year and a half
until people start voting, and I am already so annoyed by everyone, you
know, the candidates, their supporters. This is going to be a long,
long primary, it is. Do you think anyone is really in contention
other than than the Santis and Trump? I don't. I mean I think
they're you know, there's always like what if they both get hit by a
bus kind of approach, Or you're also going for other things, like you're
trying to make money, or you think you could be a VP contender,
or you want a cabinet position, you know, for whoever might win.
There are other reasons why you might engage in or even just you know,
I always think of the Rand Paul method of I don't think he had a
super great shot at winning the Republican nomination, but he knew that entering that
presidential contest, which I say, Rand Paul, I'm run Paul hum that
entering that contest is a good way to have some really important debates about foreign
policy or other issues. So there it's okay. I'm one people who does
not mind a large field. I thought that in twenty sixteen it helped the
party really litigate or not litigate, you know, I mean like debate some
issues. And likewise, in twenty twenty, a large field for Democrats seem
to serve them well. But I do remember how annoying twenty sixteen was,
where people got so emotional and so invested. But this has been already that
way pretty I mean, when you when you have candidates that are indistinguishable from
each other in many ways, like I think Rubio and Crews were in some
way. I know, their personalities are different, and then it just becomes
this ego trip for them. I think that becomes problematic if you want real
two competing voices, and obviously I didn't want Trump to win that, and
so that's maybe why I'm saying that I don't think you'll have that happen again.
But I just want to quickly say Chris Christie is joining the race.
I read this morning. I think his appetite for power is a little bigger
than talent. Yeah, it is funny because he's always playing the tough guy.
But whatever you think of Trump, he was the first one to surrender,
and his surrender was complete, like he was behind Trump. It's like
just completely you know, broken down, and he would have been a good
like Secretary of Education. Maybe I think it's a good spot for him maybe
or something like that, finding unions, finding teachers unions. But I would
have came to them too. So I last week I said something. I'm
in this position where I like both Trump and to say I think they both
have admirable qualities or great policy positions. I'm not saying either one is perfect.
One in particular is quite a lot to deal with. But I had
said something nice about Ronda Santis on Fox, and you would not believe how
much that angered the Trump fans. And then last night I saw that okay.
So Ronda Santis has officially entered the race. He's in Iowa, and
the night that he entered the race, he did a little press pressor with
some of us and it was really interesting to me. Philip Wegman asked him
a question about sort of taking the fight to Trump, and he's like,
oh, yeah, I'm doing it, and I was like, huh,
that's an interesting strategy. And he's continued with that. You know, he
said he's Trump is bad on the border and bad on spending, and you
know, he's made some digs previously, like when Alvin Bragg was preparing to
politically indict Trump, he said something like, now, I don't know anything
about sexual indiscretions and how they affect your life, but I don't think it's
great that Bragg is doing this. And a lot of people are like,
well, that was kind of a weird personal petty snipe. I want to
get to what Trump's doing to DeSantis here in a second, because it's reprehensible.
But last night in Iowa, Dave Weigel reports that all the questions from
reporters were about Trump and that he was eager to attack Trump everywhere. And
so I say, as someone who likes Rhonda Santis, that I don't think
this strategy is great, Like I think it's great for winning the Twitter hive
mind, but that if you want to win like actual primaries, you should
be attacking basically the Republican establishment more than you're attacking Donald Trump. And everybody
was like, oh my gosh, how can you say that Trump has spent
the last six months attacking to Santis. I agree, and I'm not saying
it's unfair for De Santists to fight back or that I have any philosophical problem
with him fighting back. Trump thinks that DeSantis even running is a horrific betrayal.
He's been very petty and personal in his attacks on De Santis. He's
spent millions of dollars to harm his reputation among conservatives. Like, it's fair
to fight back, but the problem is that it kind of feeds into this
idea that DeSantis is just anti Trump as opposed to fighting on behalf of Trump
voters to get what they want done. So I'm just like offering this,
like here's my thought on it, and oh my goodness, the DeSantis fans
were like, you are paid money to lie on behalf of the Orange Man,
and I'm like, oh my gosh, if you can't take like constructive
criticism, I'm not even saying you have to agree with it by any stretch,
but like, calm down, it's May twenty three. I don't.
I just want to or say something about the back and forth between those two.
I think that DeSantis will lose out if he tries to engage in the
same kind of personal digs or nicknames or whatever. Trump is just better at
it, and fighting him on that level, you're never going to win.
They try to remember Rubio trying and it was just a disaster. I think
he can score some points when he pushes back on like when Trump says you're
worst than Cuomo, Florida was one of the worst states during COVID. I
think he has a good case to make that Trump leaned way too heavily on
Fauci and that he was one of the first governors to say we're not going
to do it that way. I think that actually is something that a lot
of that's a that's actually policy, it's something that people can really latch onto.
So I think for him, and I'm no expert on this, because
again, no one would elect me for anything, taking the digs and then
come back with something more solid and policy wise. Is I think going to
be could be successful for him if you know what's Yeah. Absolutely so.
One of the things that I disliked the most about Trump's handling of COVID was
when he actually went after Governor Kemp of Georgia for opening up. He was
like, I think this is too soon. I was like, what are
you doing? All of your press conferences have been about how you don't want
to shut down the economy and how we have to get everything back and running
as quickly as possible, and then when someone finally does it, Kemp,
he goes after Kemp like it really bothered me. But so I think there
is totally room for criticism, although I think De Santis is a bit misguided
in how much appetite there is for that. Now. I am one of
these crazy anti COVID response piece people myself, like, I am totally appalled
at what this country did enough to know that that group of people isn't It's
a loud and powerful group, but it's not like as many people as possible,
and making Trump seem reasonable in his COVID response which is kind of what
happens when you're over there. I don't know, making him seem reasonable to
the people who in twenty twenty we're thinking he wasn't doing enough. You know,
it's just not I'm not sure the strategy is as good as the rabid
people who think like I do. I think it is that could. You
might be right in that regard, especially in a general but I'm not sure
about primaries. There's a lot of crazy people voting primaries, you know,
But I don't know. I okay, for me, I'm like you.
I think that that was a horrible moment in American history, and it's worth
pushing back on the other issues. I think that people are just kind of
like pretending not to remember what would have actually happened had Trump pushed the envelope
any outer edge of the envelope anymore than he already did. Like he absolutely
would have been impeached a second time if he had pushed it more. Like
you had no buddy supporting his view in DC. They were all a bunch
of scarity cats who were was an m page twice though, you mean I'm
saying twice before the third time. There's like a bit of revisionist history,
or even forgetting that. For all of his faults in how much he listened
to Fauci and other stuff like that, he did work pretty hard to preserve
states rights to reopen when there was a lot of pressure to do sort of
national level shutdowns. They gave people like Christy Nome and bron De Santis and
Brian Kemp the ground from which to push back against some of the insanity.
But obviously Trump's saying that New York handle things better than Florida is just a
lie. It's wrong. It absolutely needs pushback. I can understand what round
Santis is like, listen, buddy, you can shove that up your piehole.
I get it. But when you don't recognize what was done to Trump
through COVID or two Republican chances for winning re election, it makes voters think
that you're sort of part of the cabal that was doing that, or like
he's trying to run to the right of Trump, which is not the craziest
idea for winning a primary. But he's kind of running on issues that are
twenty fifteen or prior issues for the most part, like the border or spending.
But he's not doing it when it comes to things like fighting the military
industrial complexes, you know, plan for World War three, anything that would
require a little more bravery, or taking on the Republican establishment and I and
so it's my it's just my view that this is why could explain why he's
not taking off. But maybe, you know, maybe everything will work out
fine for them. And I just suspect he's not comfortable on foreign policy yet.
It's not something he's you know, I know he was in the military,
and know he was in Congress, but I just it's not in his
wheelhouse really yet right now, or maybe I never will be. I don't
know. So he had that really the excellent statement he gave to Tucker Carlson
about the Ukraine War. It was so good that the Wall Street Journal and
New York Post like immediately and all the neo cons at AI were like,
buddy, get it together and repent of this. And the sad thing is
like within two days he did. He was like, I didn't mean that,
you know, And you're not going to really be able to take on
these powerful forces in office if you can't take them on in the campaign.
But maybe he was just doing that for strategic reasons like, you know,
Trump all the time would say something really correct, he would get attacked for
it, and then he'd be like, would if I gave you John Bolton
as National security? You know, he would totally like do and say things
to kind of live to fight another day. So I don't think I'm not
holding the scientists to a different standard than Trump on this. But the other
issue that he could truly run to the right of Trump on and that would
make Republican voters feel like he was defending them, I think would be fighting
the weaponization of government and the use of law enforcement to put political opponents in
prison. I have talked with so many people who say that when he did
that little dig at Trump when Alvin Bragg was going after him, that that
really bothered them. I think if there's a way to just not take the
bait about how awful and mean Trump is being to him and really show that
he's that he gets the seriousness of the weaponization problem, and I mean I
really think he does. I mean his words on this are good, but
you also have to convey it in terms of aligning yourself with the with the
Trump voter, I think, and people go, well, he's going to
win the nomination without the Trump voter. It's like it's he's literally got to
pull a certain percentage of them, right, Yeah, of course it's going
to use the Trump vote. My view of DeSantis is probably a little off
from other people, as my view is that is naturally clination is far more
traditionally conservative of the last thirty years, and people believe so it's difficult for
him to say stuff like military military industrial complex, you know what I mean,
because I don't believe he's actually there. I think he probably is more
concerned about like the free markets and stuff like that than than people. This
is just my I don't follow him on a daily basis, just my sort
of conception of how he is. You know, he's much more DC centric
than people think. His time in Congress, he was just voted with the
usual on the usual conservative stuff. That doesn't mean he hasn't changed his mind
about certain things, and he doesn't like. He fought Disney in a way
that I don't know most governors would have done in Florida, not even a
you know, I just think that he really stood up to them, and
I don't actually agree with that as much. I'm not as like excited about
that as other people, but I get it. I just want to say,
just to go way back to something you said, I did go back
and read my columns at the time when COVID was going down and Trump was
being attacked for letting states do what they wanted, like he was constantly being
attacked. But it wasn't even like he's letting states do they It's just the
Constitution. Yeah, the states are allowed to do what they want to do.
And that would have been the best thing for Trump to really stress.
I know he did occasionally, but he should have said, listen, if
Florida thinks this is right for them, that's what they should do. And
later he was praising Florida constantly as the best state. And I think De
Santa's crack about him moving down to Florida is a pretty good one. I
mean, if Florida's are terrible, why do you live there? Why'd you
leave New York it's better? Yeah, the battle for the Republican nomination is
a battle for the Republican Party, and you have a very powerful establishment that
would very much like those people, those voters, to sort of be managed
and controlled and have their heads padded and then not really cause a problem.
And base voters are primary voters for the most part. And I think Desanti's
has some good things going in terms of his field operation. He has some
excellent people working for him. But he just in my view, should fight
the establishment far, far, far more than he's attacking Trump. And even
though there are another crazy molly, how about fighting you know Democrats? Well,
yes, I think that's something that you know, all of the Republican
candidates are doing, which is good, but picking who your nominee is going
to be to take that fight, Like a lot of base voters recognize that
they have a problem in their own party as well, Like they think their
own party is helping Democrats achieve their victories, so they want to know that
someone is willing to take on that powerful cabal of people. So people are
free to take this for what it's worth and maybe everything's going to be fine.
But oh, the other thing is, like the really structural disadvantage that
des Sanders has to deal with is that Trump is like the best and worst
of an incumbent president, like he lost last time. But a lot of
Republican voters, like the vast majority, were Publican voters think he unfairly lost.
That the media and big tech and COVID all and manipulation of COVID protocols,
all these things were exploited to to make this election victory of Biden's fundamentally
unfair. So he's kind of like not in office, but it's like he
was. And so just by virtue of taking on the quasi incumbent, it's
viewed as disloyal by a lot of Republican voters, and it's viewed as just
becoming part of the establishment attack on Trump. You know, like he had
to deal with the FBI running a soft coup. He's had to deal with,
you know, a resistance within his own bureaucracy, a resistance within the
Republican establishment. And now when you know the people think he should be vindicated
for all that he had to go through, you have this, you know
this thing happening too. It's a very different. I will acknowledge it's an
extremely difficult road for descantists to take to just challenge him period. But I
think this is why it's not taking off as much as the funding an organization
would hope for. I have to say that I think the Alvin Bragg think
actually helped Trump sort of launch his campaign in a way, you know,
it made it reminded everyone and the way you know, he was targeted by
all these organizations that people who view him as a victim. But anyway,
I also wanted to say that this campaign also reminds me then twenty sixteen,
my main problem with Trump was that I didn't think he was conservative enough.
And he keeps attacking De Santis. Tacked him on abortion, tacks him on
you know, he's attacking him from the left. It's not as if De
Santis is running to the right of him. The Santis has held these opinions
as governor from the beginning. It's that we have Donald Trump, who has
done more for the pro life move I don't care how how if you yell
at me about this. He's done more for pro life movement than any president
probably in history. Right. Yeah, I just wouldn't say. I get
why Trump is doing these attacks onto Santis, but they're just horrible for the
conservative policy projects. Like DeSantis has done a good job of implementing conservative policy
at the state level, and you've got Trump just like attacking him left and
right for that conservative governance, like it makes sense to bring him down with
Republican primary voters, but it's very frustrating as someone who supports the policy.
I think Trump's just running for the general already. That's how he views this.
He views DeSantis as something that's, you know, someone who's just bugging
him but not very you know, not a serious threat to his run.
And that's how he is viewing it. So maybe that's the right policy to
Maybe that's the right tactic. Last thing on this, I just want to
say there was this Nate Silver tweet from maybe two weeks ago last week where
he's like, I don't understand what's going on. All these never trumpers who
said that they want to get rid of Trump and get past Trump. They
seem angrier and they hate de Santis even more, you know, like why
are they against all Republicans? Now? I don't get it. And then
I saw I think it was a David French piece where he's like, will
Ron de Santis destroy Conservatism? Answer? Yeah, he will. You know,
these people are the biggest listen, it's they. It doesn't matter who
Republicans run anymore, these people will will oppose them. If Mitt Romney wanted
they'd oppose him because they're Democrats now and they were Democrats then. For the
most part, they're social engineers and technocrats. They just like it when we
do it in a rock and they want to do it here at a slower
pace. But they're no more conservative than the far populist who believes in big
government is. You know, They're no more principled conservative than those people.
Anyway. I just wanted to make that statement, and you have nothing to
say that because you agree with every word as usual I do. Actually,
all right, let's talk about culture real quick. I have not done a
lot of it this weekend. I had. I watched a movie called Rolling
Thunder from nineteen seventy seven with William Devane because Quentin Tarantino had it as one
of his favorite movies in his book, So I gave that of you.
And then I watched a comedy special, another comedy special by these comedian Tom
Poppa, who I think you would like. I think it was called You're
Doing Okay or You're doing just fine, And it's a kind of heat.
He has two daughters, and he talks about life as a dad and just
telling people to calm down and enjoy life and enjoy all the little things.
And he's very funny. And I think that was on Netflix. That's it
for me on that. Okay, I mentioned that we had these big festivities
with Pentecost and that took up most of my time. But I am continuing
my journey through Scripture. It's awesome. I mean, I know I keep
saying this every week, but I don't remember where I was last week,
but I think I was in Joshua and I finished Joshua, and I finished
Judges and I finished Ruth and I'm like sixteen I'm right, I'm like sixteen
chapters into First Samuel. We're right at the David versus Goliath. Samuel is
awesome, very fun read. Judges was fascinating, like really dark, but
fascinating. And one of my this is like such a stupid minor point,
but one of the things was talking about like these different judges who were sent
to rule and how you know, they would rule and then they would die
and then Israel would fall into apostasy. But there was this one guy,
I think his name was a Bimelech or something. He was one of the
sons of Gideon. But he was kind of like an illegitimate son, but
he was tyrannical and he's like going to war against various Israelites and they all
this one group like takes refuge in a tower and he pursues them to the
tower, and then a woman takes a millstone and drops it on him and
it cracks his skull, but it doesn't quite kill him yet. Like he's
dying, and he says to the guy nearest to him, like, oh
my gosh, please kill me with your swords so that it won't be written
for all time that a woman killed me. And it just like made me
laugh because I was like, I don't know anything about this Abimelette guy other
than a lady killed him. And it's like thirty two hundred years later and
the only thing you know is like a lady killed this dude, and it's
just like funny, you know, you know, I don't know, there's
just all these like when you read it as a book, there are these
funny things that come out, and there's so many, you know, for
as a Christian reading this, there are so many christ figures throughout the Old
Testament, and I don't know, it's just been I wish I had I
should actually probably prepare thoughts on what I'm what I'm learning from each book,
because I'm forgetting right now. I love Judges Samuel, I love the story
of David. I think Saul. I don't want to get into it too
much now, but I think that Saul was actually a hero of that story
and a victim of a coup. Basically, Samuel picks him and then he's
like, oh, surely this I think said. They throw Samuel out because
he doesn't kill all the Amalekite like like kids or maybe they're animals or something.
No, what happened is he does have this like effective victory, but
then he allows the people to violate all of God's laws when it comes to
taking the spoils of victory, including that you know, they're explicitly told not
to eat fresh blood, and they do, and so as always, it's
failing to follow God's word that leads to a break here. So Samuel's like,
actually, I was all wrong. There's this other kid. I'm going
to bring him in. But then that kid literally fights with the Philistines.
Later he literally breaks every one of God's laws. You can imagine, he
has someone basically murdered so he can marry them. I'm just saying I don't
want to give away in that story, but I mean, I just want
to say, I'm I'm reading that soon. Okay, we should have a
King David. And not just because he's my namesick. I just think it's
the most fascinating character in the Bible, just the most amazing story, the
most amazingly like a guy who lives every part of what a man is,
like, he lusts, he's a good guy, he's a hero, he's
like a rock star. He writes poetry, he fights giants, like he
uses like superior technology to kill a giant philistine, like, he just does
it all. And he's just such a fascinating character. So that reminds me
that during twenty fifteen twenty sixteen, when evangelicals were first glomming onto Trump,
they would always say Trump is like a David character. I mean, he's
got his flaws, but he's also virtuous. And it always kind offended me,
mostly because David is known for his repentance when he sins, and that
is not what you would say about Donald Trump. But when you read the
story of Sampson, now that's a guy who sounds very trump Like in that
you know, he's kind of born into favor of a certain kind. He
has a very big zipper problem. It ends up being his downfall. But
he also has great courage and great strength and like great focus on what the
ultimate goals are. So like, if you're going to take if you're going
to take one of these people and say, that's trump like to me Samson.
Oh and also the hair, you know, it's just a natural is
important. Yeah. So the other thing I thought was interesting was how much
you don't so in the New Testament Mary when she is given the news that
she is to give birth to the Savior, and she has her beautiful message
of how the how God brings the mighty down low and elevates the poor and
the downtrodden. And you know, it's something that you say as Christians,
like every week you seeing her magnificat. But I love seeing all of these
examples in the Old Testament of this message, like God brings the mighty down
and he elevates the poor and the downtrodle is inescapable. How much God is
a god of justice, And yeah, how he looks with kindness on the
poor, the downtrod and the oppressed. He's got a little bit of a
stricter hand, I'd say, in the Old Testament than the New when it
comes to justice and stuff. But maybe not. I don't know. I'm
not no expert on the New testam Do you mean by that? I mean
that people who sin typically pay a big, big price, like give you
an example job, you know, just killing off his children to teach him
some tom some kind of lesson. I know he gives them new children,
but we still like the ones we have, right, and or even Saul
saul story is quite tragic, right, or how he treats people who stand
against the Israel. Right, he has the massacred quite often, things like
that. It's very bloody and very it reads more like a chronicle. I
just think because it's older, it has a different sort of perspective. But
you know, we don't want to get too deeply into this. Maybe we
should do a David podcast, yeah, or some biblical podcast. I mean
I'm not. Obviously you're far more parmer expertise than I do. But I
find it interesting that I'm just enjoying this. I'm just enjoying this as a
delightful book. So you're not like taking a deep dive into commentary. You
just want to enjoy it for what it is, unadorned by all everything else,
and just read it as literature, almost, would you say, exactly?
And almost The speed with which I'm reading it plays a big partner,
because usually when you know, in my religious tradition in Lutheranism, like you
might do a deep dive into one book of the Bible and you spend like
all sorts of time really going through like what the precise meaning of this word
is in that word. And I have always gotten a lot out of that.
But what I'm really enjoying now is just like we're going to run through
this as a book. I want to get the timeline like very firmly in
my head, and then I'll go back and I hope to get more out
of it. Then. Also, I have been loving the comments from people
about my Bible reading, but also everything else that we're doing on this,
So I really appreciate everybody who's emailing in thoughts and comments, which I think
is at radio at the Federalist dot com. Is that right correct? And
also because I'm going to be traveling this summer, we're going to pre tape
some some episodes, and it would be great if we had questions for David
and me to answer. So if you can send those questions in just things
that we can riff off of or ideas for a one off podcast, that
would be very helpful, so we can It doesn't have to be about politics.
It can be about what is your favorite biblical character or whatever, anything
in the world, talk about sports, whatever you want, we will We,
meaning mostly Molly, will be happy to answer these questions and tell I
think that's it right, Yeah, all right, Well, thanks for spending
it some time with me, Molly. Till next week. We lovers of
freedom and anxious for the Frame