Speaker 1: Mister Gorbachoff teared down this wall.
Speaker 2: It's the Ricochet Podcast. I'm James Lylax Stephen Hayward this
year and we're going to talk to Daniel Mahoney about
the totalitarian impulse and whether or not Donald Trump but uh,
tone it down or not. So let's everselves a podcast.
Speaker 1: We are part of one civilization, Western civilization. We are
bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations
could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry,
and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common
civilization to which we have fallen air.
Speaker 2: Welcome everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast. Number get this seven
hundred and seventy seven. I'm sure that's lucky somewhere. Why
don't you play it in the lottery today or even
better investment of your money. Go to ricochet dot com
Join up, sign up part of the most stimulating conversations
and community on the web. I'm James Lylax in Minnesota,
where it was wonderful and warm, and the sun came
out and all the snow melted, and then six inches fell,
which taxed the ability of my little Toro to get
it my back, my back, But that's neither here nor there.
Somebody who was not here but is there is Stephen Yward. Stephen,
how you doing.
Speaker 3: I'm good, James. How are you snow blowing challenges?
Speaker 2: That's a fraud question these days, But you know, here
we are. Minnesota seems to have calmed down a little bit.
I have no idea if I is working at the
same level it did before, but the whistle blowing and
the protests and all the rest of it seems to
have subsided, so that perhaps and then you know, National
Nightmarre has moved elsewhere. But that doesn't mean that the
world isn't full of things to discuss. And no, I
don't mean to imply that if Minneapolis is having troubles,
it's something that everybody has to constantly think about. I'm
tired of it myself. Tariffs by yeah, well go completely sorry,
go ahead, No, bring us up to speed on this.
This is a new development. I'm sure everybody is keen
to know what you think and what is next then
exactly what was said, what was struck down?
Speaker 3: Right? So what the court ruling released this morning and
it's one hundred and seventy pages long, and I've barely
gotten through about two pages that I'm I'm trying to
grab the main threads because there's all these partial concurrences
and then the scent. So it's six 's three vote,
I should say that, and the three dissenters were not
the three Liberals. It's Thomas, Alito and Cavanaugh. Something of
a surprise. I would have thought Kavanaugh would have been
in the majority on this second. I'm sorry Charlie's not
here because he's already tweeted out that the decision was
absolutely correct and it should have been nine zero. And
I understand his argument, and I think I sympathize with it.
But what it said was is that Trump does not
have unlimited scope to impose tariffs under a particular statute,
the What International Emergencies Economic Emergencies Act something like that.
I don't have it in front of me, But that
does not strike down all tariff power. He still has
Section three h one and retaliatory tariffs, and that goes
back decades. And I mean, I looked this up once.
You know, Ronald Reagan free Trader threatened Spain in nineteen
eighty six with two hundred percent tariffs on everything, because
Spain had a bunch of really bogus trade barriers against
American agricultural imports, and Spain folded and lifted all those
within forty eight hours. So that power. But that's always
retaliatory power, or against clearly determined unfair trade practices by
our trading partners. Trump wanted sure stuff.
Speaker 2: I mean, doesn't it go without saying that was the
motivation that Trump was choosing that it was that they
had unfair barriers to us, and therefore we're going to
do it to them. I don't buy the emergency thing.
The emergency thing is like one of those little weasel
words they use in government to just addy absolutely everything,
like interstar commerce, right. But retaliatory yeah, I mean, if
somebody's got a big tariff wall against our products and
we do the same, why is that not within the
scope of the powers?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well it's because Trump didn't invoke Section three oh
one or it's a tool. I forget the numbers because
I'm not a trade expert. But instead he invoked a
statute from the seventies and it had, you know, as
the words in it about the power to regulate foreign
commerce under emergency circumstances, which is up to the President
to determine, but regulate is not the same as tax,
is what the Court is saying in the majority opinion.
So okay, he can probably still impose some of these
tariffs under other legal authorities the President retains that have
not were not challenged or not before the court. Whether
he can do things like, for example, the threatening the
big tariffs on Indian and other countries to stop them
from trading in Russian oil. They may have just wiped
out that power, and gosh, that's something an awful lot
of pro Ukrainian people are. People are critical of Trump
kind of like right now. So this is an odd circumstance.
There is an interesting, curious subtext to the case that
I picked up on so far, which is that the
case relies in part on statutory construction. That the statute
simply doesn't grant that brought a power to impose tariffs
as a remedy for controlling foreign trade. But the major
questions doctrine. That's what Chief Justice Roberts brought up, which is, look,
whatever the ambiguities may be, and I'm paraphrasing very widely here,
Congress needs to be clear about it and specific under
the new doctrine the Court embraced two three years ago,
the major questions doctrine. Well, guess what the three liberals
on the Court who sided the Roberts. They filed separate
concurrences saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we don't want to Essentially,
what they're saying is, we don't want to use that
major questions doctrine because that is a major impediment to
the administrative state ruled by bureaucrats that the left depends
upon these days. So I think it also means not
to go on too long about this. I think it
also means that the the big move we talked about
last week, repealing the endangerment finding for the EPA to
regulate climate I think it means that that is, the
Trump's moves are likely to be held up under the
same doctrine of a major questions doctrine, And so in
a collateral way, this decision is bad news for the
environmentalists and the climate cult.
Speaker 2: Is there a minor questions doctrine? Imagine when it comes
to when it comes to government and emergencies, Imagine everything
is a major coe. So it the s and P.
Five hundred of course leaped up after this, and everybody says, well, great, okay,
this is back to the old order. But the old order,
we're told, the globalist order of free trade and the
rest of it has fallen under. Let's see a cloud,
a dark cloud in the last year two years or so,
as everybody looks around us says, wait a minute. What
we were supposed to get to was a frictionless world,
the end of history, everything being flat, everything being interesting.
We get cheap, cheap stuff, there are standard of living
goes up. A lot of people looked at that bargain
and said, wait a minute, No, this didn't readown to
our benefit. What we got was the hollowing out of
American industry. We got barriers to immigration, drops so that
society becomes diluted, et cetera, et cetera, all of the
things about globalism that people don't like. Does this mean
globalism is back on the menu, boys, as they would say,
as the orcs might say, or have we moved beyond
that to a case by case basis where we're still
going to be protecting American industries and attempting to re
shure as much as possible, because that's what interests me
about this whole thing. I didn't like. I don't like tariffs.
And part of the reason I don't like tariffs is
because I was awake in junior high and learned that
Smoot Hawley killed everything. I mean, we all have our narratives, right,
Smooth Holly came along, tariffs went up. Things were bad,
stock market was too frothy. Everyone was buying things on
the margin, and then it crashed and the bankers jumped
out of the window or sold apples on the corner
or both. You know, if they had a stock pointing.
That's what I So I've always had in the back
of my head an aversion to tariffs, even though you
know they paved the way for the budgets for decades.
I mean, that's it's interesting to watch that movie about
the assassination of Garfield and realize, you know, how much
power the guys who ran the ports and did the
tariffs had. I mean, there's an extraordinary money maker for
them in the times. But anyway, so I don't like them.
But the part that didn't bother me necessarily was the
part that said we are going to look at critical
supply chains. We're going to provide incentives for country, for
companies to come back to the US and build I
like that. Everyone says you're dreaming if you think they're
going to make whirlpool washing machines in Columbus, Ohio anymore.
Part of me says, but then let me dream, because
they're while I pine sort of for aspects of the
past that we may romanticize a little bit. There is
something to be said for having a solid, productive industrial base.
And then people quote the numbers that you actually with
this are the industry we have Now everything's fire. We
all know in our heart of arts that we'd be
happy if iPhones were made here, if washing machines and
microwaves were made here, if all the drugs were made here,
if we didn't have to rely on China for everything.
So that's my incoherent, romantic and unsubstantiated beef against Tariff's
promo con which is why I'm not on the is
why I'm not in the Supreme Court.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, I mean, the big problem with trade going
back decades is not so much to other countries have
tariffs against this, straightforward tariffs of ten percent or something.
It's that they employ a lot of non tariff trade barriers.
They're called in other words, yes you can send American
cars to Japan, but then they let out a bunch
of conditions which make it expensive or impossible to do so.
But because they're not formally a tariff, you could ensue
at the International Trade Court or whatever it's called world
the WTO it's called now okay. So as insofar as
Trump wanted to use this whole exercise as a way
to blast a part remaining trade barriers and also secure
supply chains, like you'd say, I was all for it
and willing to go along with it. And by the way,
if we ever do make washing machines here in the
country again, and I think we might, it will be
made by human beings, will be made by robots. And
that process is already very far along, right.
Speaker 2: I know, I know that's that's the part that you
realize that it would not be guys toiling away with
a lunch bucket who would go home when the whistle
blew that it would be made. Then we think, well,
it's going to be made by robots. So we're going
to need lots of programmers to design and build those things,
and now out of the point where, well, actually we
don't because AI can design and program those things. And
you know, essentially what used to be one big, huge
factory in the end of town with a smoke belching
out of the stack and grimy men leaving at the
end of the day to get into their DeSotos and
go home to their small little house. The American dream
actually turns out to be one guy in Miami who's
sitting there filling a winner's laptop. So and what everybody
else does for what everybody else does for a living,
I'm not exactly sure.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, there's one last loose end about the case
today that I'm sure some listeners will wonder about. Is
what about the one hundred and fifty billion whatever the
number is in tariff revenues the Trump is collected from
which he was promising two thousand dollars checks to all
of us. Do those have to be refunded? That question
was not before the court today, and so they said
nothing about that. And I think there may be some
lawsuits filed saying from companies or somebody saying, hey, we
was one of the costs of these terraffs. Now you
owe the money back. Which will further further make our
whole fiscal situation so much brighter, won't it?
Speaker 2: Oh so much so? All right, let's turn our eyes
elsewhere across the pond to Europe. Europe is in a
parlous situation.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 2: Caught in a world in which its influence is shrinking.
It has overestimated its soft power, It has made suicidal
bargains when it comes to its energy policy, in its
demographic makeup Western Europe, and it is becoming essentially sort
of a theme park with nice old buildings and in
half a little tight town, compacted town squares with winding,
twisting little streets where you can get a good pay.
Marco Rubio went there and laid down some markers and
some truths. People are seeing it as a book. ND
to the last year's fans speech packed the conference, the
Munich Security Conference. You know, whenever you hear about Munich conferences,
I tend to shift in my seat a little bit, right.
But you know, he opened it talking with the origins
about how the continent had been riven by the Cold War.
And I remember those days as you do too. Barbed
wire laid down in Berlin and the guard posts went
up a nuclear proliferation Soviet Union on the March, And
I mean you probably, like me, Steve grew up seeing
the Eastern Bloc as just a fact of history that
wasn't going to be dissolved anytime soon. It just it
seemed it seemed set in concrete. But of course Soviet
concrete was pretty cheap, and after a while it falls
away and crumbles. Rubio said, united not just by what
we were fighting against. We were united by what we
were fighting for. And that's true. Underneath that, however, of course,
was an anti American strain that was built both perhaps
a little bit of resentment, but mostly by resurgent leftism,
which regarded the United States as colonial and awful and
you know, unfit to lead the world into its brave,
new collective future. People are praising this speech as a
re establishment of a commitment to a certain kind of
way of looking at the world. Is it passe? Is
it just simply return with a V and avatars on X,
with the classical statuary and bygun nostalgia for a world
that is simply no longer able to be put back together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I liked how you put up that it was
a bookend from JD. Vance's very tough speech last year.
I think you could call it good cop bad cop,
because the substance of Rubio's speech tracked very closely with
what Vance said, but the difference was in the rhetorical
style of it. It was more reagan Esque. In fact,
it reminded me a lot of Reagan's famous to me.
You may remember too, his speech that he gave in
London in nineteen eighty two about the meaning of the
Cold War and why not only are our ideas better,
but Marxism is a failure and we're going to transcend
them and they're going to end up on the ash
heap of history, heap of history, right. You know, Oh,
it was a wonderful larcenary of old Marxist rhetoric. And
I do remember the New York Times saying, oh, this
is Cold War rhetoric from the fifties. Isn't this terrible?
And that was you know, a year later it comes
back with the Evil Empire speech. Right, that was sort
of the JD events at Reagan. But look, the content was,
I say, tracked pretty well but well received, partly because
Rubio's stock is rising. Second, I do think I got
standing ovation, they say, I did notice, like Reagan's speech
in eighty two that the sainted Alexandria Ocasio Cortez complained
that he was talking about Western civilization, and how terrible
that is.
Speaker 2: I mean, he promoted those Let me read the quote,
which our producer has kindly provided for me. It says,
here we are part of one civilization, Western civilization. We
are abou to one another by the deepest bonds that
nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry,
and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common
civilization to which we have fallen. Heir. I mean, yeah,
but a lot of people get angry about that. And oh,
on the on the mind Cortes, I love the fact
the last name is literally a Spaniard who came over
and wiped out an indigenous empire. But I mean people
have been nitpicking this apart and saying this is absolutely preposterous.
Somebody living in Lithuania has has nothing to do whatsoever
really with somebody living in Portugal, somebody in the Hebrides.
What have they got to do with somebody living in Greece?
And to me, it's a petty, even meritricious way of
looking at it, because obviously there is something called Western sieve,
and it's you know, the only time the left seems
to acknowledge it is when it's sandwiched between the phrases
haho and has to.
Speaker 3: Go yeah yeah. Well, I mean, I think that that's
not even the subtext of the speech. But I think
what's really going on here is Europe has lost confidence
in itself and its heritage when they're not in fact
hostile to it, right. And I think that's what's different
from say forty to fifty years ago, when we were
often frustrated with our European allies for being weak, for
being two appeasement minded to the Soviet Union. But now
it's worse. And I'll just give you one instance right
now that's not getting a lot of attention in the
American press. Is so, you know, when Reagan decided to
bomb Libya nineteen eighty six, after they had bombed the
disco in Berlin, our bombers took off. You may remember this, James,
from an airfield that we run in Britain which we
still have the base rights there, that had to fly
around the straight of Zibalder because France said no, okay,
leave that aside for the moment. But right now the
British are denying us permission to use that base and
also the Diego Garcia base and the Indian Ocean for
any operations against Iran. At least that's what's being reported
right now. And you know, this is an outrage, right,
this is an exact and because look, the attitude of
Europe toward Iran, especially England has been in full appeasement
mode really since nineteen eighty, right, so this is very frustrating.
And I'm sure, well Rubio is, you know, a kinder
and gentler version of Vans in his speech. I hope
and expect that behind the scenes he was giving him
the business about this.
Speaker 2: I hope so too. There's nothing I read out of
England and their politics that makes it well, actually, there's
quite a bit, because you have a group now, a
new party, which is at full throated expressing what a
lot of people have said needs to be done for
Britain and whether it makes you know, it makes reform
look like look frankly wet. But we can get to
that in a minute right now, we're going to talk
to Daniel Mahoney. Daniel J. Mahoney, Professor Emeritus at Assumption University,
where he tried from eighty six until twenty twenty one,
Senior Fellow with the Claremont Institute, Senior writer at Law
and Liberty, and Executive editor of Perspectives on Political Science.
Is twenty twenty two book The Statesman as Thinker Portraits
of Greatness, Courage and Moderation received the Award for Conservative
Book of the Year by ISI in twenty twenty three.
In his latest book is The Persistence of the Ideological Lie,
The Totalitarian Impulse Then and now fascinating topics. Let's get
right to it, Daniel, welcome my pleasure. Well, so earlier
this week you were a piece called discipline at a
moment of power. And it's a critique, a measured critique
of the administration from a and let's use your description.
I believe a friend but not a flatterer of Donald Trump.
All right, so let's just get right to it. Why
does Trump have a duty to outgrow the worst of
his excesses. Everyone always says, oh, it's the mean tweets,
but it's it's it's more than that.
Speaker 4: Look, whenever you proper this kind of advice toward Trump
or the administration, a thousand voice rise in unison and say,
but he won't change, it'll do no good. Look, we're
obliged to point out these things, partly because some of
this behavior affects self presentation are very self defeating, and
partly for intellectual and moral hygiene. You can support this administration.
It's brought goals many of the specifics of what it's done.
You could acknowledge that Donald Trump has been the only
person in the political class in recent years who's willing
to face up to the crisis the country is facing,
the sort of active subversion of our constitutional order, the
moral foundations, and democracy. But you can also acknowledge that
his modus operendi is a sometimes a self defeating mixed bag.
And you know, I think the president really never learned
that there's a veryubstantial difference between campaigning and governing. When
you govern, I mean, even maga partisans want you to
sometimes be presidential. And as I said at my piece,
we owe in the language and the Declaration of Independence
a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.
Speaker 2: Before we go further some examples. Do you think of
the self defeating behavior? Just we got some stuff on
the table.
Speaker 4: Well, look, I said, probably the most extreme and dramatic
example I gave, and I gave it because dozens of
people I knew who were generally supportive of this administration
were very much taken back by it. The remarks about
Rob Reiner and his wife when the son was killed,
but the son killed them, and Trump's reaction was just unacceptable.
It was narcissistic, it was brazen, it was petty, and
the high minded thing to do would have also been
the self interested thing to do. Just be magnanimous. We
didn't agree on anything, but this is a human tragedy,
absolutely lamentable, et cetera. And that small mindedness hurts, and
there's no there's no use in pretending it doesn't. And
I happen to be in Europe during the whole Greenland thing,
and I saw something very ominous. I saw conservative and
conservative populist thinkers very very were well disposed to trumpet
it defended him, really react extremely negatively to what they
perceived is bullying. And and you know when Stephen Miller says, look,
how did the Dans get Greenland. Well, you know, three
boats went there and all that. Well, does anyone get
anywhere you got there by boats?
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: Evan Burke says, never looked too close below the initial,
you know. And the fact is, you know, they sounded
like settler colonialists, the Danes. So there are many Europeans
who won uh one take some pleasure in uh in
ticking off. But the Danes were reasonably friendly government, you know.
And you could have handled this in a far less
blastic way. I can give other examples, but by the way,
this is a pro trum piece. I'm I am trying
to say to the President the people around him, if
you want to succeed, and we want you to succeed,
you you can't double down on the things that undermine
the larger course.
Speaker 3: Well, Dan, by the way, great to see you. Listeners
should know that you and I have known each other
for a long time. I hate to say along.
Speaker 4: Spid went back to nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think that's right. We were both interns in Washington.
It was those glorious days, right I did. I'm not
chose with you, but I I did get thrown out
of the Hawk and dove once on Pennsylvania Avenue. There
are you and I used to go there some for
happy es.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I got through thrown out there once along with
Martin Morris Moooster if you remember him, because we were
eating too many of the free chicken wings.
Speaker 4: I remember Mark Morris was he was a watch at
a conservative statement. Oh that's right, yes, centric intellectual.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness. Yes. Well, anyway, back to the main
point is you know you, you and I have talked
a great length about you know, Churchill and de gaul
and you know, gall could be a nasty piece of work. Also,
I mean, maybe arguably lacks some magnanimity. But here's the
point question I'm coming to. Maybe this is too broad,
but I think that in the fullness of time, but
I mean, you know, ten, twenty thirty years from now
or longer, we're going to look back on Trump for
some reasons. You already articulated in others as one of
the most consequential and necessary presidents in our history. That's
sort of my pre casting, but I think it's going
to be in the future. But he does lack that magnanimity,
except he does surprise sometimes, and so yeah, I was
right with you. I thought the mistake about the Rob
Reder tweet was most America is not on social media.
We think everybody is, but they're not. And so most
people didn't know about Reiner's, you know, derangement about Trump.
And so this is called attention to the fact that
Trump is a thin skin and and most Americans knew
Rob Reiner is this beloved filmmaker. Right, So what a
blunder because it could only hurt Trump. On the other hand,
here two days ago, I wonder if he did this
on purpose. He sends out a very effusive, true social
post on Jesse Jackson. Right now, if there's anybody who
has it, there's a dossier of I mean, we don't
speak ill of the dead, except Trump usually does that
very effusive posts about someone about whose dossier of bad
deeds and effects in American politics is quite long and
quite serious. Right. And did he do that just to
mess with liberals heads? I don't know, but he can't
do it once in a while.
Speaker 4: So Trump is quite capable of being humorous and self
deprecating and generous, and he has an act for making
up with people he called terrible things. Think of Secretary
of State Rubio no and I think a problem that
the the officer class, you know, the guardians of democracy
as it's been redefined. The mistake they make is they
take everything Trump says literally. Half the time Trump is
kidding around, or exaggerating, or or or pushing buttons. And
I recognize all that, but but I do think one
point I am at one point I emphasize on my piece,
and I think this is no mean political consideration, is
that President Trump is exhausted.
Speaker 3: And yes, I.
Speaker 4: Have talked to untold number of people who voted for
him two or three times who say this president to
see is exhausted. He's people need a bit of a break.
And but I do think acting presidential doesn't mean that
Trump shouldn't be Trump. It doesn't mean he shouldn't take
on the the woke, censorious, neototalitarian left. It doesn't mean
there's a way of doing all of that and yet
just avoiding those those self inflicted wounds that give powerful
ammunition to his to the despising right.
Speaker 3: I've been saying the same thing about Trump is that
actually George Will was saying this in the first term.
Of course, George has really got a full blown case
of TDS. Unfortunately, I think. But you know you're also.
Speaker 4: One from being a Burkie into a hyperlibertarian. Yeah, I know,
that's a good life crisis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know. That does an interesting change, right. Yeah. Yeah,
we'll leave that for some other day. Where's that going?
Oh yeah, so you may remember this. Trump took a
weekend off here sometime last year, and again social media,
what nuts, where's Trump? It's been thirty six hours since
we've heard from it. Has he had a stroke because
he thought was he died? And Trump had a lot
of fun with that the next day. But that's just
his nature is to do, you know, fifty things before lunch.
Speaker 4: Look, I think a lot of people on our side
have forgotten a fundamental truth about politics. And Monesque talked
about this in seventeen forty eight and the spirit of
the laws. When you win, immediately those people who with
your party, who voted for you, a certain number of
them are immediately going over to the other side because
everything you say and do creates a certain amount of discontent,
and that means public opinionshifts, and there's the waivers. The
most people are used to be partisans, but a small
number go over to the other side, and the other
side wins elections. So it means even as you're taking
on as both premp has done impressively, you take on
this censorious left, you take on the deep state, but
you also have to keep in mind those ten or
fifteen percent of the voters who they may be annoying,
they may be uninformed, they may underestimate the crazy, you know,
the nasty character of the other side, but you have
to persuade them in some way. And persuasion isn't just
through a series of rational arguments. It's just not giving
them reasons to go over the other side. So you know,
in politics, it's always that judicious balance between doing what
you were elected to do and not offending, needlessly offending
people so that you give of. In this case, we're
in a dark plays in our politics because we really
can't afford for the other side to win if we
keep the public, and that means there's a special responsibility
not to be in permanent campaign mode, but to persuade
that fickle part of the country. These these no one
annoys me more than independent voters who.
Speaker 3: Oh, oh, I'll go off on rants about how you
usually have the last presidential debate every four years is
with undecided voters in a town hall format, and it's
always a room full of morons, right, who could be
undecided three weeks out from a national election? And they
asked the dumbskie? Okay, we know that story.
Speaker 4: George Will wrote a column and he said, do we
really want the fate of the Western world to those
who are listening to music in their car and driving
on November fifth and still deciding who they're going to
vote for? But it's just a fact of life, and
and yeah, and also with the foreign policy stuff, a
decent respect for opinions of mankind. I was very worried
when I started seeing serious publicists, editorialists, others in Europe
who are pro national minded, very much opposed to the
despotism of the extreme center, as some of my European
friends call it, who were really appolled saying Trump, you know,
does Trump really care about us? We got to recognize, well,
it's perfectly legitimate and necessary and welcome to be American patriots.
We need to encourage other national minded and patriotic people
and a big coalition, a kind of conservative international where
we say we're in this together against globalism. The erosion
of national sovereignty, the replacement of you know, sound morals
and common sense consensus with woke nonsense. And when they
these people start saying, you know, Trump's Trump just doesn't
like us, you know, he doesn't distinguish between you know,
good and bad Europeans, it's worrisome. And that's where I
think that Rubio's talk in Munich was perfect because he
didn't say anything wholly different from Vance, but he didn't
he didn't exude contempt.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Well, when you say the opinion of mankind though, that's
one of those phrases, I'm not sure what you mean
by that. I mean, to me, it would seem to
be Europe and Canada perhaps, and some friendly nations in
Japan perhaps, you know, in Australia if they want to come.
But the opinion of mankind is self interested, and they're
self interest of course, is going to look at us
and say, you know, what do we get out of
this place?
Speaker 4: Well, you left out a word I decent respect for
the ads in mankind, which means all that mean is
the factors didn't just for the out of seventy seventy six,
didn't just or seventeen seventy five. Didn't just revolt against
the Brits. They gave reasons to the world, candid facts,
you know, they laid out the reasons for it in
a very and very civil, pugnacious but civil terms.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I think that means he make a case, make a case.
It doesn't mean we should defer to what the editorialists
and Laguardian or Lamone said.
Speaker 2: God forbid, I know I'm in agreement with so much
of what you're saying. I just want to come back
to the change and whether or not if it happens,
what effect it would have. Is anybody persuadable at this point?
Now doesn't Europe as it ever matter. But it was
talking about the undecided, the people who hate I mean,
I don't think that anybody would have who hates Trump
would have hated him any less if he kept his
yap shot during the during the winer tragedy is it.
Can the needle be moved at this point?
Speaker 4: It has to be moved or we'll lose big. In
twenty six and twenty eight, Chris Caldewell had a column
and The Spectator World the Less Issues, saying Trump's losing
supports from his supporters. You know, some people in his
coalition are turned off. And you know, I think Minneapolis,
of course, the press covered over the an teeth of
militants and the nonsense and turned these two rabbl rousers
into martyrs and and but you know, the Tom Holman
approach of making distinctions. And you know, I think Trump listened,
and I think we have an approach here that doesn't
make him the enemy, doesn't highlight you know, there is
a consensus in this country about sealing the border and
deporting the worst of the worst. It probably isn't a
consensus to kick out twenty to twenty five million people.
But the point is in Minneapolis, when Homan came in there,
a troubled situation was righted pretty dark quickly. And I
do think it makes a difference, especially if Coldwell's right
that a certain number of Trump's natural supporters are disillusioned
and tired. They have no illusions about the left, but
they're enthusiasm or Trump. Not a majority, not maybe even
a significant private of enough and it's five or eight
or ten percent. It's a game of change.
Speaker 3: Dan, one more question about your article, and then I
actually want to introduce something beyond the scale for your
article and shift gears a bit. One of the things
I really liked about the article is you saying very
forcefully and clearly, look, all this talk of Trump being
a dictator and authoritarian threat to democracy is all nonsense.
And you know, sometimes when people hear a criticism of
Trump like you've made, they'll default to saying, oh, you're
really a closet never Trump or something. So anyway, that
was a very valuable part of the people Trump.
Speaker 4: Three times right, and I wasn't exactly holding my nose like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, that's right. But then the other thing is,
I'm not quite sure I completely agree with you when
you brought up the old distinction time honored in American
political analysis between campaigning and governing. In other words, I
think that I think you'll understand my analysis and probably
agree with it, so so restate your arguments so that
I get it better. The sort of the structure of
our government, with the administrative state, the deep state, what
everyone want to call it, the way the media operates,
the way the opposition operates, is no longer possible to
govern without being deeply political and being on the offense
all the time, and That's why I think you can't
really separate those two realms anymore. Like you know, the
first president Bush said, I've in campaign mode and I'm
in governing mode. I think that distinction doesn't work anymore.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I largely agree with that, But you know, there's
multiple ways of campaigning. I think it's good of Trump
to do these rallies. It energizes the base, she taught
the media and the lies of the political class. But
he can do other things, you know. And you know
he went to Higoway recently. He was supposed to talk
about the economy, as I say, and the piece there's
such good news share with the American people seeing the border.
Everyone said it was undoable and it's being done, and
it's been done. But I do think you know, when
he went to Highway he was supposed to talk about
the economy, he immediately started praising his accomplishments and saying,
there's no real problem with the economy, and look, the
economic news is much more good that it's bad. But nonetheless,
if people see the prices of groceries going up and
have formed a certain impression, probably fueled partly by propaganda
and the media, you got to meet them a little
bit of the way, yeah, and all that, and so
these are these are not questions of really a radical
or fundamental reorientation. It's just you know, he says, well,
you know, up said, I'll be presidential when I have
to be.
Speaker 3: Well, well we're waiting, Yeah, you have to be Yeah,
you know, and.
Speaker 4: You mentioned, Look, I've spent my whole life and as
you have, Steve, you know, talk you know, talking up
the nobility and dignity of high minded statesmanship. And I'm
obliged to admit, you know, if Trump nodded every once
in a while in that direction, yeah, well it's in
his self interest. Occasionally he does, I.
Speaker 3: Know, well cheer up. Maybe long story and won't count now.
But I've talked to some people, some of the speech
writers and people in the Domestic Policy Council at the
White House, and you know, they have serious ideas about
July four coming up, and if Trump stays on message,
I think it will be really good. So let's just
put a pin in that and hope right.
Speaker 4: I only talked about Trump briefly at the end of
the Statesman as thinker, but I said, look, you can criticize,
you can criticize him, but I said, in the summer
of twenty twenty, when the political class revealed themselves to
be cowardly createns, if not insurrectionists, Trump spoke in defense
of the country. The talk, the speech he gave Mount
Rushmore was a tour de force of intelligent, spirited patriotism.
And I hope this is a twenty twenty six will
be a wonderful opportunity for Trump to play in the
higher ground. But in a way that makes clear what
he's defending, what we're defending. He's quite capable of doing it.
And it's just that I don't think we do this
presidency any good by saying, well, he won't change, or
you know, the other side's terrible because in retrospect, eventually
people will admit all this when he's gone. You know,
you have to sometimes it's better to admit it. Well,
it's going.
Speaker 3: On, right, Well, what's the online of Churchill's was you
have to take the rough with the smooth, right. He
used to say that, exactly right.
Speaker 2: Let's say that we live in an alternate dimension in
which rondas anss had won. Do you think we would
have gotten what we've gotten from the last oh, you
know year of Trump administration.
Speaker 4: You know, I mean, look, I don't know the answer
to that. I think you would need Solomon's judgment, you know,
because Roder Sanders has done wonderful digson Florida, tough minded, determined,
pugnacious things. He was a terrible candidate, and I think
he decided to he's stiffened up somehow. Whether he would
have he certainly hasn't had that bearing as governor. And
look a little bit. But I'm tempted to say Trump
Trump is one of a kind, and uh, he's he
is willing to take on what everyone says is untouchable.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: He, as I say in the piece, he has he
is the only person in the political class who from
the get go had utter contempt for the secular religions
of climate change, gendary theology, the racialism and all that.
He feels it in his bones. By the way, I think,
I think the governor Florida is against all those things too.
But maybe Trump Trump where there have been the same
determined assault on the elite universities which have become bastions
of illiberalism, and intellectually, I don't know, but I think
just could have been a very good president, even yeah,
even if he was a mediocre candidate.
Speaker 3: Right, So Dan, let me uh the last question here,
last topic, and we can go on a long time
and don't have a long time, but it's already it's
over to Europe a bit because listener should know that
you have not just detailed expertise about European politics, but
you're acquainted with, as I like to put it, all
the most sensible people in France, both of them. I'm
tempting to joke, right like you know, but also you
are I think I think i'd be so bold as
to say, and you'll disclaim it, but you're maybe the
leading or at least one of the three or four
leading American scholars of social netson.
Speaker 4: I think that's fair to say.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, good. I was afraid you're gonna accuse me
of hyperbole because I do that's true. Look, so I
don't know. I want to confine the question and we'll
be here all day. You know, you mentioned we've all
talked about rubio speech, how good it was, and I'm
thinking he was trying to, you know, grab Europe on
lapels and say, have some confidence and respect for yourselves please.
That's one way. But then there's France. You know, Trump
maybe at forty percent or less. Mat Prone is down
to what sixteen percent approval rating.
Speaker 4: I think it's even lower.
Speaker 3: Than Yeah, and I don't know.
Speaker 4: Matt Crow was you know this conservative of a consertive
fellow got kidnapped and murdered and leonned by some Antifa
people who are linked to the left wing party Frances friends.
I'm about and Crow yelled at the Prime Minister Maloney
of Italy said, you have no right to speak about this. U.
Pierraman I recently said, look, if you talk about conservatives,
they're all in human and totalitarian people. Are Are you
going to be surprised that they're killed? Yeah? No, macall
is very unpopular. He represents this technocratic ethos you heard
me say, the extreme. Soult and On calls it the
fanaticism of the center. These are the people from the
old mainstream parties, even the Christian Democrats in Germany who
are determined, determined to bury democrities to save it. And
also McCall has that goalist hauteur without the greatness of
soul that the goal had. You know, you if you're
an honor of mediocrity. It log and technocrat. You can't
pretend you're Winston Churchill or Trills to goal. The Olympian
haughtiness looks ridiculous. By the way, Mertz is down in
at about twenty percent of the polls in Germany because wow,
he you know, do Germans keep unvoting him and the
social Democrats out and they form these coalitions to keep
the populace out And now they're following the Greens are
part of their alliance. They're following these suicideal ecological policies
and electricity bills like the northeast where I lived, my
electricity bill is twice what it was last January and
literally becoming a place that's unlivable. And the Germans are
mad as hell that, you know, green ideology is literally
undermining their way of life, their economic prosperity. Yes, Trump
is infinitely more popular. You may have seen inside or
advantage in another recent poll that came out, the ones
who were most accurate about the twenty twenty four election
have Trump closer to fifty forty two percent. So I'm
not sure Trump is in so much trouble. I think
reports of his death are much exaggerated to resurrect that
old saying.
Speaker 3: But but.
Speaker 4: He's got so much against him, has so many you know,
the media class, in intellectual class, no doubt some Republicans
who will come out of the woodwork when it's advantageous
that he he doesn't have as much room for maneuver.
So I'm sure there people call me a rhino. I'm
not a rhino. I'm not an You know, there's nobody
who considers Bill Crystal to be more of a lunatic
than me. Right now, he's now referring to Trump as
executing people at Minnesota.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, he's lost his mind.
Speaker 4: I don't He's supported I'mdani.
Speaker 2: I know, well, Daniel, your latest book is the persistence
of the ideological lie that totalitair in impulse. Then and now.
Last question, what's the difference, well.
Speaker 4: Between then and now? Yes, Well, what's not a difference
is the structure of the position. I argue that the
root of the evil goes back a century and a
half or two century, displacement of the age old distinction
between truthful so good evil, with this pernicious distinction between
progress and reaction. The guys who are on the side
of history and the people or are holding it back, and
that that's what wokeness is now. In the case of
the French Revolution, in the case of twentieth century totalitarianism,
that orientation justified full scale totalitarianism, you know, assaulting the
bodies and souls of whole groups of human beings. The
woe haven't gotten there yet, because we still notice I
called my the book that sometimes I say the impulse.
We don't live in a totalitarian state, although we came
closer to it in the summer of twenty twenty, but
the totalitarian impulse is alive and well, it's been institutionalized
in many institutions like the universities, et cetera. And look,
Steve mentioned, I've spent a lot of my adult life,
my scholarship writing about totalitarianism, about communism, And I said,
right from the get go in eighty nine, unless we
pass on real lessons about the totalitarian episode, it will
reassert itself and reassert itself very quickly. You can't just
say we won, or it was a victory of the
market over planned economy. All that's some of it's true,
but it's superficial. You really have to know the lie.
You have to know what it was. This was not
just a poor economic model. This was a war against
human nature and a war against the human spirit, and
a war against the roots of free government. And it's
alive and well, I say in my piece, I don't
think there as many eighty twenty issues as people say
there are. There's a lot of people out there who
have bought into lunacy, and so we shouldn't. I mean,
I was asked to contribute to a symposium a week
after trump Onet is wokeness finished? How going to be
because of an election? You know, wokeness is deeply extantiated
in well, in the you know, the bmpulse on the
chattering classes. They're they're default position as woke. They're they're
they've stepped back a bit under pressure. But this is
a battle royale and and it's not just going to
be won by winning elections. We have to recover or
do our best to recover the institutions of civil society,
the churches, the universities, you know, the corporations which you
know became agents of a wokery and certainly in the
last generation.
Speaker 2: What this country needs is another good, long march with
comfortable Chinese shoes, Daniel, thank you, Thank.
Speaker 4: You so much, guys. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: The persistence of the ideological lie that to tell Journey
Impulse Then and Now is his latest book. We thank
him so much for coming on board, and we'll talk
to you again down the road. By Daniel. So before
we go, a couple of things, I've got to mention
to you that Ricochet meetups happen. People actually get together
in real life IRL, as they say, and as I've
found out that many of these things talk about anything
except politics. I'm only going to talk about politics at ricoghet, right.
That's what you do, that's why you go there, That's
why you pay for it. What's that you haven't paid
for it? He says, with a stern and knitted brow. Well,
you know, yeah, I know what it's like to get
people to pay for things on the internet, believe me.
But it's worth it because it's cheap and what it
gives you access to a community on the member side
that you won't find anywhere else on the web. And
that's where you find conversations all over the map, from
old radio to new movies, to sports to politics. He
has to culture to it's just it's a fantastic place,
and if you pay that a little bit, you get
to comment, and that's what keeps the comment sections interesting
instead of being just absolute sispool. You know, free for
alls like you find elsewhere. So that is something you
want to do. And you'll find mentions of meetups, perhaps
in your area, and hey, if there isn't one in
your area, start one. That's a great thing about Ricochet.
People tell them to come and they'll show up and
they'll probably bring hot dish or something like that. Not
at least in Minnesota had a couple of high profile
deaths we're having. You know, a whole generation is expiring,
it seems when you're of the age of Stephen and myself.
It's not unexpected, but it always hits you right there,
because wasn't this guy just thirty five forty years old
just a little while ago. No, that was in the eighties.
Jesse Jackson perished, died, and it a unique American figure
and I read an awful lot of eulogies, and people
who were not necessarily on his side in his corner
viewed him as something of an opportunist, but nevertheless would
attested the man's charisma and his ability to charm and
the rest of it. And he did bring an interesting
brio to American politics and then seemingly vanished. Stephen your taking.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, you put your finger on it at two observations. Yeah,
the charisma that you really don't see his successors like
Al Sharpton and so forth. I was a reporter at
the Democratic Convention in nineteen eighty four, as a cup
reporter at a press pass and only convention I've ever
been to. I don't like big crowds like that. And
his speech, a keynote speech closed out the second night,
I guess, was absolutely electric, and I remember thinking wow,
and then I read the speech the next morning in
the paper and it was not the same. In other words,
the orator was greater than the oratory, right, and that
was always his problem. His substance was pretty bad, but boy,
he could light up a room. I do think that
some of the conservatives, maybe a National Review said nice
things about him this week, and I guess, you know,
don't speak ill of the dead. I think he looks better.
Well put it this way, the cleanest shirt and a
lot of dirty laundry. His successors like Al Sharpton are
so much worse human beings than he was, and that
you know, Jackson had lots of loss personal and professional,
politically and so forth, but it's only gotten worse. And
he kind of propelled us. I think he did mainstream
helped mainstream anti semitism on the left. The famous Heinee
town remark right, right.
Speaker 2: So came to my mind within ten seconds of hearing
his death.
Speaker 3: Frankly, yeah, exactly right. And then yeah, so I'm going
to go on about him, but I think that's enough.
Speaker 2: Robert Duvall, Robert passing of Robert de Val is hard
because we're losing a certain kind of guy. It seems
a certain sort of I mean, it's ridiculous for me
to judge his acting skills. They were fantastic and it's obvious,
and there's I shouldn't get patted on the back or
a gold star for saying what a range that man had.
It's a great actor. But there's a certain sort of
archetype that we seem to be shedding, and Devall was
one of them. A squareness, quietness, as centeredness, a sort
of American presence that you know, I was watching anatomy
of a Murder the Other Night, which he is not in,
and for the time, it was a startlingly modern movie
in the words that it used and the things that
it discussed quite so frankly, but it's still in the period.
In the character of Jimmy Stewart, there's a there's an
American quality to there that you recognize instantly when you
see it, and you gravitate towards it if you're of
my generation, because it's familiar. And I wonder sometimes if
it's hard to get young people involved and interested in
old movies, not just because they're black and white, but
because the culture, in the archetypes and the values that
they seem to effortlessly inhabit seem alien and foreign and
probably wrong.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think there's something to that, although I'll
just say that you now actually inspired me to think
that maybe ought to show a Robert Duvall movie or
something to my students. I like to use movies in
class to illustrate the serious content of what I'm teaching,
but also to sneak in some old culture, and one
that I use with great effect is The Man Who
Shot Liberty Balance, which in its political teaching, really is
about what are the conditions necessary for the rule of law?
And is Tom Donovan Aristotle's beast or a god? I mean,
I go through a bunch of classic political questions with
the and they like it. I mean, first is like,
this thing's slow, it's black and white, but you know,
I make them sit through it in a whole class period.
And then we discussed it and it works pretty well.
And I think that Lonesome Dove is maybe the greatest
mini series ever made. And he's what Augustus McCrae and
that I think he said that's his favorite role he
ever did his entire life. And that's kind of an
epic of the Old West without apology for stolen land
or any of the nonsense that preoccupies Hollywood and other
woke folks today. So yeah, they don't make them like
him anymore.
Speaker 2: One I'll be sad to lose with somebody about who.
I'm watching a documentary recent in the last few days.
It's on HBO. It's about Melbrooks. The ninety nine year
old man is actually delightful, as is he. So to
show you a class blazing saddles stee oh yeah, point
them to that and say that, well, the movie add
its slight controversial aspects to it. Take a look and
the spirit from what in which it has made, and
try and tell yourself that these aren't the freest people
you've ever seen in your life. Tell my daughter that
the seventies were awful. Trust me, the seventies were awful.
But you know, you can imagine somebody in a convertible,
smoke and a cigarette without a seatbelt, driving down on
their way to see Blazing Saddles, and those are the
freest people that ever existed on the face of the earth.
Now they may have been killed in a crash and
they got lung cancer and the rest of it, and
the sentiments of Blazing Saddles curdl does Meilbrooks try to
get lightning in a bottled subsequation doesn't matter. I mean
there's a brio, there's an openness, and there's there's a
cheerfulness to these things that just you know, when you
in this tendentiously careful age is refreshing to see.
Speaker 3: So that'll be hard, yeah, I mean, if nothing else,
I always like to mention the scene where Melbrooks's governor
La Pedamain says, quick, we've got to do something to
save our phony belonging Jorge Job. No short thing was
ever said about our political class.
Speaker 2: And at the time, at the time, none of us
could go on the internet and look up Petamain and
figure out what it meant, what it was a reference
to that was the thing. You would have to go
to the You'd have to know it meant something. You'd
have to go to the library. You'd have to go
to the section of the card catalog that talked about
French entertainers. You'd have to pull it out, page through
the Dewey decimal notations, find it, go, get the book,
hope it wasn't in French. Pull it out, then say, oh,
mel Brooks is referencing a man who went on stage
and farted in a theatrical fashion. Brilliant. Now, of course
we have access to everything, and nothing means anything except,
of course this, and except of course the fact that
if you give us five stars at the Apple podcast reviews,
we will it will be in your debt in the
most meaningless fashion for the rest of our lives. We
hope that Charlie is with us again next week. He's
at the funeral of our friend that we discussed last week.
John acdaw and we thank you for listening. Everybody. I'm
James Lenox Stephen. We'll see you all in the comments
at Ricochet four point zero. Bye bye.
Speaker 3: Ricochet.
Speaker 2: Join the conversation.