Speaker 1: But you're still not hearing us.
Speaker 2: Now I'm hearing you because I plugged my I plugged
Speaker 2: my headphones.
Speaker 3: Yet doctors, I've actually found historically that helps a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, I've done that several times.
Speaker 3: One of those little tech tricks that doctors don't want
Speaker 3: you to know about.
Speaker 4: It ask not what your country can do for you,
Speaker 4: as what you can do for your country.
Speaker 1: Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
Speaker 2: It's the Recorchet podcast with Charles Yukook and Stephen Hayward.
Speaker 2: I'm James Lonnox and the day we talked to Ellen
Speaker 2: Fantini about the European Conservative and yes there is more
Speaker 2: than one, so let's ever selves a podcast.
Speaker 5: Any of this new information implicates former President Obama in
Speaker 5: criminal behavior, we have referred and will continue to refer
Speaker 5: all of these documents to the Department of Justice and
Speaker 5: the FBI to investigate the criminal implications of this.
Speaker 1: Would an untalented man be able to compose the following
Speaker 1: satirical witticism cook yourself.
Speaker 2: Welcome everybody, It's the Ricochet of podcast with a very
Speaker 2: satisfying number of seven hundred and fifty. You too can
Speaker 2: join us at ricochet dot com. To be part of
Speaker 2: the most stimulating conversation in community on the web. And
Speaker 2: I know that's a big claim, bold claim, but Dear,
Speaker 2: if we couldn't back it up, we wouldn't make it.
Speaker 2: I'm James Lilacs and sunny, beautiful Clement, Minnie Apolis, where
Speaker 2: I just walked the dog by the creek in the woods,
Speaker 2: glorious day summer. And Stephen Hayward, I believe is in
Speaker 2: California or Iceland, who knows. And Charles C. W. Cook
Speaker 2: is probably in Florida, where I imagine it's torporous and
Speaker 2: one can barely walk in the humidity without feeling as
Speaker 2: if though you're jogging at the bottom of a pool. Gentlemen,
Speaker 2: how are you?
Speaker 1: I am good, We're both good.
Speaker 6: I think I played.
Speaker 3: Two hours of tennis this morning in this weather, so
Speaker 3: I hope you're impressed.
Speaker 2: I am impressed. My wife plays tennis as well. She's extraordinary.
Speaker 2: What are you are you? A four, A five, A
Speaker 2: four point five, a three point eight.
Speaker 3: Now, well, my wife's a really good tennis player. I
Speaker 3: didn't have a ranking, but I am six foot three,
Speaker 3: so I can still win most of the time because
Speaker 3: I'm just stronger than that. She's the one with all
Speaker 3: of the numbers and lines and all of this. I'm
Speaker 3: just I'm just trying to make sure that I don't
Speaker 3: sit in my chair all day and do nothing.
Speaker 2: That's my aim. Yes, I know, I'm the same way.
Speaker 2: I am keen to sit in my chair all day
Speaker 2: and do something. But now that I am retired, I
Speaker 2: have to get out of the house. I have to
Speaker 2: do things, and I'm enjoying it quite an awful lot
Speaker 2: as a matter of fact. But then again, that gives
Speaker 2: me time to bruise the web and the Twitter and
Speaker 2: the X and all the rest of it and see
Speaker 2: what's up and going. And it appears we have a kerfuffle.
Speaker 2: We have a concretent that was once known as Russiagate
Speaker 2: that is back in the headlines. Some people are saying,
Speaker 2: this is nothing new, We've been over this before. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: There's no trees in here, there's nothing that ties it
Speaker 2: to well Bama, etcetera, etcetera. But as I understand that
Speaker 2: there were documents that were under lock and key for
Speaker 2: an awful long time that were finally prized out of
Speaker 2: those who were holding them, and that they've been going
Speaker 2: over them with the proverbial no, I'm sorry, not the axiomatic,
Speaker 2: the cliched fine tooth comb, and things have been revealed.
Speaker 2: What do you, gentlemen, take away from Director of National
Speaker 2: Intelligence Tulsea Gabbert's presser on this particular situation.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess I'll go first. I think if we
Speaker 1: take it at face value, and of course we heard
Speaker 1: Gabbart's presentation of it, it does look like we are
Speaker 1: seeing some new things suggesting that a lot of the
Speaker 1: senior intelligence people under the last weeks of Obama knew
Speaker 1: that all of these claims were false or extremely weak
Speaker 1: at best, and that Obama knew about it, and Obama
Speaker 1: was up to his neck. And I guess I'll call
Speaker 1: it a conspiracy. I try to avoid that because I've
Speaker 1: run out of tinfoil, but involved in a conspiracy to
Speaker 1: hobble cast out on the legitimacy of the election and
Speaker 1: hobble President Trump's first term, which they had some success, right,
Speaker 1: I think for the show.
Speaker 2: And I don't like to use the termspiracy. I think
Speaker 2: satanic cabal is a little.
Speaker 1: Less right, right, Yes, well, I mean I think. And
Speaker 1: then we also heard that the Russian intelligence, through their
Speaker 1: hacking of Democratic Party emails or whatever, claim to have
Speaker 1: known that Hillary Clinton was given to fits of rage
Speaker 1: and was had serious psychological problems, was taking tranquilizers heavily,
Speaker 1: and various other things that may or may not be true.
Speaker 1: I mean, we all, I think when we heard that
Speaker 1: I read that, what ran our minds back to that
Speaker 1: September eleventh, twenty sixteen episode she had where she had
Speaker 1: to be bundled up and carried to a van when
Speaker 1: she was obviously having that. And you had various explanations
Speaker 1: for hours of days after.
Speaker 2: She dragged like a legless sack of potatoes.
Speaker 1: Right, but they told her, well, she was dehydrated. It
Speaker 1: was this, there was that, and and you know, we
Speaker 1: never quite got a clear explanation of that. I do
Speaker 1: think that if oh tobably type two diabetes is claimed
Speaker 1: by this supposedly Russian intelligence and so I don't know.
Speaker 1: I do remember reading on Twitter at the time, and
Speaker 1: it's almost ten years ago now that oh, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a neurologist, and I can tell that she's got
Speaker 1: Parkinson's disease and she's going to be dead in a year.
Speaker 1: And you know, some of the typical claims are people
Speaker 1: run away with themselves? And herry are almost ten years
Speaker 1: later and Hillary's still with us, and so I don't
Speaker 1: think we know the truth of all that, but it
Speaker 1: is an intriguing little tidbit that emerged from all this.
Speaker 2: I'm less interested in that than the things that we
Speaker 2: learned about the five supposed pieces of evidence that led
Speaker 2: them to conclude that the Russia Gate was ongoing. And
Speaker 2: it was like, well, this one is thinly sourced. We
Speaker 2: can't exactly find where it comes from. It makes a
Speaker 2: vague allusion to somebody with a first name starting with
Speaker 2: TA started her last name is starting with T. It's
Speaker 2: from somebody who was later revealed to be a triple
Speaker 2: agent for Mongolia, and it's from eighteen fourteen. And they said, well,
Speaker 2: I you know, it's got the ring of truth to it.
Speaker 2: So it was throwing in the mix. Charles, are you,
Speaker 2: first of all, are you still interested in this? Do
Speaker 2: you think it matters? Do you think it is a
Speaker 2: germane to today?
Speaker 6: Well, it depends what you mean.
Speaker 3: I think that it's a scandal, and the passage of
Speaker 3: time doesn't change that. I thought it was a scandal
Speaker 3: at the time, wasted two years of not just Trump's
Speaker 3: first presidency, but my life, I do regret one thing
Speaker 3: I regret.
Speaker 6: It's a quick digression.
Speaker 3: I went at that time on CNN relatively frequently, and
Speaker 3: every time they would bring this up, I would think,
Speaker 3: you know what, just say, doesn't this all sound like
Speaker 3: a bunch of nonsense to you? And then I thought,
Speaker 3: if I say that and I'm wrong, just on the
Speaker 3: off chance that I'm wrong, I will for the rest
Speaker 3: of my life be that guy who did that.
Speaker 6: So I didn't.
Speaker 3: I said, well, but I do think it's a scandal.
Speaker 3: I think it's not so much that it doesn't interest me.
Speaker 3: But I think the context within which Tulsy Gabbart had
Speaker 3: said it is just wrong, in that there is not
Speaker 3: going to be a prosecution of Barack Obama. Whatever might
Speaker 3: or should happen to lower level intelligence operatives or Brennan.
Speaker 3: Barack Obama is not going to be prosecuted for this,
Speaker 3: in part thanks to a Supreme Court case called Trump
Speaker 3: versus United States, which has rendered him immune. So I
Speaker 3: don't like that she has told people that this is
Speaker 3: going to happen, because it's not. But insofar as this
Speaker 3: has been used as a vehicle to remind people that
Speaker 3: this was a really bad incident in our history, and
Speaker 3: that the light worker himself was involved in it. I'm
Speaker 3: absolutely happy to revisit it.
Speaker 2: Especially since we're dealing with an administration that was caught
Speaker 2: off Mike Hart Mike saying that after the election will
Speaker 2: have more flexibility. I mean, I've never understood why that
Speaker 2: wasn't up there in bost letters of body's consciousness, but
Speaker 2: seems to have just pat after the election, I will
Speaker 2: have to do one exactly more flexibility for you to
Speaker 2: do what exactly. No, he's not going to be prosecuted
Speaker 2: in the idea that somehow he's going to be frog
Speaker 2: marched out and changed. But it was interesting that I
Speaker 2: think the Trump administration somebody ginned up an ai image
Speaker 2: of just that. And of course everybody you hair on fire,
Speaker 2: I get it. It's you know, the norm is broken,
Speaker 2: et cetera. But it does sort of force them to
Speaker 2: talk about what that's in reference to. And there seems
Speaker 2: to be a lot of the press doesn't know quite
Speaker 2: what to do about this, because you know, it's it's
Speaker 2: truth y as a man once said that he was,
Speaker 2: you know, probably obviously propriate, et cetera. Et cetera. And
Speaker 2: the particulars really don't matter to them, and they'll come
Speaker 2: out and say things like, well, it's not as if
Speaker 2: we said that Russia changed the election or hacked the election,
Speaker 2: but that is exactly what you guys were saying. So
Speaker 2: this will be red conned and flushed that that's that's
Speaker 2: basically it. And and unfortunately the internet meme nothing ever happens,
Speaker 2: I think will apply to this. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I think that there has been a punishment.
Speaker 3: This has been my view for years that this is
Speaker 3: an intrinsically political question because the president's not going to
Speaker 3: be prosecuted for it, and there has been a punishment
Speaker 3: for Barack Obama, which is that he lost his legacy
Speaker 3: thanks to Trump winning in twenty sixteen, and now Trump
Speaker 3: won again.
Speaker 2: And like the main legacy he's going to have, I believe,
Speaker 2: is going to be an unfathomably ugly public library.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I actually just finish on this by saying, this
Speaker 3: is the thing that I love about America. Obviously it's
Speaker 3: not perfect and this doesn't always happen, but the thing
Speaker 3: that depresses me in other countries and in my country
Speaker 3: of birth is things go badly, bad decisions are made.
Speaker 3: You get into these periods of torper and then the
Speaker 3: public says okay.
Speaker 6: But in the US usually.
Speaker 3: The public doesn't like it and does something about it.
Speaker 3: And we saw this with inflation, for example. We saw
Speaker 3: those terrible moves that Biden made. The public punished Biden
Speaker 3: for that, and yeah, the press will wreckon this and
Speaker 3: they'll try to rewrite it in time. But Barack Obama
Speaker 3: has paid a price for this, and so has the
Speaker 3: Democratic Party. Even if the average person in the street
Speaker 3: isn't up on it or thinking about it day to day,
Speaker 3: they didn't actually get away with it. And I think
Speaker 3: that's good.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, after our guests, I want to talk
Speaker 2: to you, Charles, when you mentioned that the English British
Speaker 2: reaction is different. There has been a change seemingly in
Speaker 2: the atmosphere after the introduction of migrants into Epping and
Speaker 2: the displacement of hotel people at Canary Wharf to house
Speaker 2: and boat people, and there seems to be a bit
Speaker 2: of a shift. Whether it results in anything, we'll discuss
Speaker 2: after we talk to our guests, and the guests they're
Speaker 2: not going to lie to you. They aren't and you
Speaker 2: may be tired of people lying to you, aren't you?
Speaker 2: Are you being lied to? Well? You know they tell
Speaker 2: you to defer paying your taxes by saving in a
Speaker 2: four oh one K or an IRA because you'll retire
Speaker 2: in a lower tax bracket. But if that's true, why
Speaker 2: are so many retirees and the highest tax bracket of
Speaker 2: their lives. Look, it's time to get to the truth
Speaker 2: and discover a better way to grow and protect your money.
Speaker 2: Bank on Yourself a proven retirement plan alternative banks and
Speaker 2: Wall Street desperately hope you never hear about. It gives
Speaker 2: you the following guaranteed predictable growth and retirement income. With
Speaker 2: Bank on Yourself, your plan doesn't go backwards when the
Speaker 2: market's tumble. Your principle and growth are locked in tax
Speaker 2: free retirement income. What Yeah, you'll know your tax rate
Speaker 2: and retirement zero under current tax law, which protects you
Speaker 2: from the current tax coming tsunami. It's got built in
Speaker 2: inflation protection as well. Your money is guaranteed to grow
Speaker 2: by a larger dollar amount every year in both good
Speaker 2: times and bad, and it gives you peace of mind.
Speaker 2: You'll know the minimum guaranteed value of your retirement savings
Speaker 2: on the day you plan to tap into them at
Speaker 2: every point along the way. This is something you had
Speaker 2: to check out. I did. I was curious about it.
Speaker 2: And you know, a free report right to your door.
Speaker 2: It'll reveal how you can bank on yourself and enjoy
Speaker 2: tax free retirement, income, guaranteed growth and controlling your money.
Speaker 2: Just go to bank on Yourself dot com slash ricochet
Speaker 2: and get your free report. That's bank on Yourself dot
Speaker 2: com slash ricochet. Did I say bank on yourself dot
Speaker 2: com slash ricochet. I believe I did. And we thank
Speaker 2: bank on Yourself for sponsoring this the Ricochet Podcast. And
Speaker 2: now we welcome Ellen Fantiney, deputy editor of the European Conservative.
Speaker 2: And there's got to be at least three or four
Speaker 2: of those there in continent, so she probably knows them
Speaker 2: all intimately and can tell us, you know, their full story.
Speaker 2: But welcome. I'm gonna throw this to Stephen because I
Speaker 2: know he's got something query he wish used to put
Speaker 2: you in.
Speaker 1: Well, right, I'll be high Ellen, great to see you.
Speaker 1: You and your other half, Mario Fantini, or two of
Speaker 1: my favorite Europeans, even though you're Americans. But Mario can
Speaker 1: almost fake being a European with a name like Mario Fantini. Right, anyway,
Speaker 1: I mean here's I mean, we have listeners here. No
Speaker 1: one can see the magazine I've got. I've got them
Speaker 1: stacked up here on my desk. And what I tell
Speaker 1: people about it is so, first of all, I'll try
Speaker 1: to describe it. It's printed on thick stock, it's perfect bound,
Speaker 1: as we say in the magazine Trade, and it's got
Speaker 1: lots of great art work in it. And so I say,
Speaker 1: it's if you want to try think about a conceptually
Speaker 1: A describe it as a cross between Chronicles magazine and
Speaker 1: Architectural Digest.
Speaker 2: Right, I mean like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well I'll just share one, you know, a typical
Speaker 1: piece of art that's always very topical with James and Charles.
Speaker 1: Here's what they call the magazine trade a double truck.
Speaker 1: It's a two full page piece of artwork. And this
Speaker 1: is a rawing of Trump's Southern Border Wall. Now you
Speaker 1: really know it's a conservative magazine when they're highlighting artwork
Speaker 1: in praise of Trump's a.
Speaker 2: Southern border wall, practically a fold up Playboy fold out
Speaker 2: for the.
Speaker 1: For the Maga Trade. And then I don't know, I mean,
Speaker 1: so I don't want to go on too long, Ellen,
Speaker 1: and praise your magazine because I want to ask you
Speaker 1: how it started and a few things about it. But
Speaker 1: for example, you one issue, two or three issues back
Speaker 1: had several features recalling the glory days of the Habsburgs
Speaker 1: and interviewing the latest heirs of the Habsburg dynasty. That's
Speaker 1: a real conservative magazine, right, Or you know articles saying,
Speaker 1: you know, we ought to give Franco a second look
Speaker 1: and realize he's not the boogeyman that we've been told
Speaker 1: for years. What latest issue has a couple of features actually,
Speaker 1: like I think five features on the legacy of Jean
Speaker 1: Marie Lapinn, who remains you know, a boogeyman for everybody
Speaker 1: and enlightened opinion.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly right.
Speaker 1: So tell us a bit about I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 1: give us your sort of thumbnail sketch of what you
Speaker 1: guys are about out and not about I mean, I'd
Speaker 1: like to say you don't have dense articles on marginal
Speaker 1: tax rates. You're about culture and beauty and philosophy, and
Speaker 1: you know some of the populist currents going on in Europe.
Speaker 1: You guys are all over. But tell us how the
Speaker 1: magazine got started and what you guys try to do
Speaker 1: with it.
Speaker 5: Sure, So, yes, we've been in Europe for I know
Speaker 5: Mario has been there for about twenty years. I've been
Speaker 5: close to fifteen. And we used to joke when Mario
Speaker 5: would say, I'm Mario Fantini from the European Conservative, and
Speaker 5: they'd say, oh, so you're the Conservative, the European Conservative.
Speaker 5: That's changed quite a lot, and we can talk a
Speaker 5: little bit about that, but certainly the political landscape has changed.
Speaker 5: So the magazine had its early beginnings as a newsletter
Speaker 5: from the proceedings of the Vandenberg Meeting, and the Vandenberg
Speaker 5: Meeting still meets to this day. I think it's been
Speaker 5: seventeen or eighteen years. The Center for European Renewal brought
Speaker 5: together intellectuals and thinkers to try to look at the
Speaker 5: philosophical I would say, foundations of conservatism in Europe, what
Speaker 5: is there to conserve, etc. So started as a newsletter
Speaker 5: and then Mario, let's say, was discontent with his day
Speaker 5: job and said, hey, do you mind if I try
Speaker 5: to make this into a real magazine. They said, sure,
Speaker 5: that's fine. He did that for many years. Then we
Speaker 5: got some foundation help. Actually an American Foundation gave us
Speaker 5: some money to start a small website. Meanwhile, we were
Speaker 5: producing this magazine on our own and sending it out
Speaker 5: as a PDF, or printing a few copies and handing
Speaker 5: them out like samizdat, you know, at various conferences. But
Speaker 5: the PDFs really started getting shared, I suppose went viral
Speaker 5: a bit. People really loved these magazines, and eventually we
Speaker 5: got a foundation funding to really properly professionalize to publish
Speaker 5: the magazine Steve that you have in your hands, and
Speaker 5: we also started a website, We started a news program,
Speaker 5: we opened an office in Brussels. We have reporters all
Speaker 5: around Europe doing daily news, commentary, analysis. But the baby
Speaker 5: of the project, the Fantini baby, is definitely the magazine
Speaker 5: and its aim is to I would say, understand what
Speaker 5: is European conservatism, And I say that but also say
Speaker 5: it's not a monolith. So really it's European conservatisms because
Speaker 5: of course there are conservative or right wing traditions across
Speaker 5: Europe that are really different from one another, and they
Speaker 5: have histories that are very different. And of course even
Speaker 5: today the European right is not a monolith. There are
Speaker 5: issues that one country deals with that another country perhaps
Speaker 5: has dodged for now and so on. So the magazine
Speaker 5: attempts to, through beauty and art and culture and philosophy
Speaker 5: and book reviews, tries to remind us, of course, what
Speaker 5: we mean when we say we want to save the West.
Speaker 5: What is the West? You can't simply talk about taxes
Speaker 5: and financial policy if what you're trying to save is
Speaker 5: our patrimony. So that's part of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so I know the magazine. Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: I should mention that whenever I'm going somewhere in Europe,
Speaker 1: I will email Mario and say, who do you know
Speaker 1: in Oslo, Dublin, or you know some small town in Spain.
Speaker 1: And he always tells me five people that he knows
Speaker 1: right and tells me all about them. And so you
Speaker 1: guys seem to be in touch with everybody everywhere. And
Speaker 1: I know that you've been on newsstands. I think you're
Speaker 1: on the Smith Consortium of newstands, except when they kicked
Speaker 1: you off temporarily because of some cartoon.
Speaker 5: Right, Yes, that was the best thing that happened to
Speaker 5: our to our sales is when we got we got
Speaker 5: sort of canceled by W. H. Smith, which is basically
Speaker 5: the Barnes and Noble of the UK and a fairly
Speaker 5: well known playwright went into a W. H. Smith and
Speaker 5: let's say he and his husband are not the types
Speaker 5: who would normally gravitate towards something called the European Conservative. Well,
Speaker 5: they flipped through it and found a cartoon. The cartoon fantastic. Uh.
Speaker 5: Mom asks a little boy wearing a backpack, what did
Speaker 5: you learn at school today? And the little boy vomits
Speaker 5: a rainbow? So, I mean, you know, not particularly so edgy.
Speaker 5: But they complained to W. H. Smith said, how can
Speaker 5: this rubbish be sold? You know? Meanwhile, I'd love to
Speaker 5: know what was right next to it and behind it
Speaker 5: that was probably actual rubbish. Wh Smith panicked told all
Speaker 5: of its retailers to to yank that issue from the shelves.
Speaker 5: We of course seize the opportunity because there's no such
Speaker 5: thing as bad press, and people were very interested and
Speaker 5: we got lots of new readers.
Speaker 2: To W. H.
Speaker 5: Smith's credit, they didn't ban us from their stores, and
Speaker 5: they still stalk us, and in fact, they'd just been
Speaker 5: sold to something with a similar name that's not wh Smith.
Speaker 5: And they continue to stalk us, and we are stocked
Speaker 5: across the United States of America in Barnes and Noble.
Speaker 5: Interesting little factoid is that half of our readers kind
Speaker 5: of across all platforms, so website, magazine sales and subscriptions,
Speaker 5: our social media followers are in the US. And I
Speaker 5: think it's because you kind of alluded to this. Americans
Speaker 5: do want to know what's going on in Europe and
Speaker 5: they want to understand what European conservatism is. They also
Speaker 5: want help, I think, sometimes navigating the players. Who are
Speaker 5: the good guys who are the bad guys? You know,
Speaker 5: not that we have a list of like who the
Speaker 5: bad guys are, but I think because there's such an
Speaker 5: import export of bad ideas between Europe and America, a
Speaker 5: lot of Americans want to know what's what's happening in
Speaker 5: Europe and the European conservative does that.
Speaker 1: Well, one one more question for me and I'll turn
Speaker 1: you over to Charlie and James. I mean, one of
Speaker 1: the things I like about it is exposes me to
Speaker 1: a lot of European writers I've never heard of before.
Speaker 1: I mean, a few I'm familiar with, and some have
Speaker 1: come to really treasure. And so I'll just mention one
Speaker 1: for one particular thing he does for you regularly, and
Speaker 1: it's Sebastian Morello, who I think what lives in some
Speaker 1: state up on the isle of Sky, I think. But
Speaker 1: he in addition to features, he writes a must read
Speaker 1: column in every issue about whiskey, which of course is
Speaker 1: something I'm fond of. But anyway, I don't have a question.
Speaker 1: I just want to say that it must be fun
Speaker 1: to have the stable of people all over the place.
Speaker 1: Who are you know? So it's so different from most
Speaker 1: American publications, I'll put.
Speaker 2: It that way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I mean that's thank you for noticing that.
Speaker 5: I mean, one of our missions is to bring to
Speaker 5: English writers who don't write in English. Of course, Sebastian
Speaker 5: writes in English, but we always say, why is it
Speaker 5: that the next great thinker has to be an Anglophone?
Speaker 5: In other words, they're really interesting people writing in Portuguese
Speaker 5: and in Spanish and in German. And if English language
Speaker 5: is the barrier to entry, well then we tear down
Speaker 5: that barrier. We translate their work, and we think that
Speaker 5: that's really important because while of course, as an American
Speaker 5: I do think that there is some superiority to some
Speaker 5: of the Anglophone world's ways of viewing things. It's certainly
Speaker 5: not the only way, and I think we can learn
Speaker 5: a lot from continental European thinking and thinkers.
Speaker 3: Hi, Charles Cook, I wonder is it a challenge dealing
Speaker 3: with Europe which is a very big place with lots
Speaker 3: of different countries in it and different traditions leave aside, languages.
Speaker 3: Britain is different in France, which is different than Italy,
Speaker 3: which is different than Germany. How do you coalesce all
Speaker 3: of that or do you treat them as discrete entities
Speaker 3: under the European banner?
Speaker 5: Yeah? I mean, I suppose we treat these countries and
Speaker 5: even let's say the threads of conservatism within these countries
Speaker 5: as as separate in the sense that there is no monolith.
Speaker 5: And I think although more and more, every country in Europe,
Speaker 5: and even countries who used to be in Europe, suffer
Speaker 5: from a lot of the same problems. I mean, it's
Speaker 5: quite easy these days to say the word migration and
Speaker 5: you have a chorus. Now, how countries or right wing
Speaker 5: leaders or thinkers approach these topics may be different, but
Speaker 5: the similarity of the problems is certainly is certainly obvious.
Speaker 5: But yeah, so to answer your question. I think that's
Speaker 5: the beauty of Europe rather than the EU, which likes
Speaker 5: to treat discrete, sovereign European countries as one big blob
Speaker 5: or block. So, yes, we love Europe, We're not so
Speaker 5: crazy about the EU.
Speaker 3: My second question is you mentioned that a good number
Speaker 3: of your readers are in the US, and in a
Speaker 3: sense you are translating for them. What is the biggest
Speaker 3: misconception Americans have. I asked this because I increasingly meet
Speaker 3: people on the right in the United States who seem
Speaker 3: genuinely to believe that, say, Britain is now a Muslim country.
Speaker 3: There are problems with Muslim immigration into Britain, especially around
Speaker 3: free speech.
Speaker 6: We've seen the issues with the gangs in the North.
Speaker 3: I'm certainly not downplaying it, but as somebody who's Froming,
Speaker 3: then it goes back there relatively often. Yes, London is
Speaker 3: more Muslim than it was twenty years ago, but if
Speaker 3: you go almost anywhere else, certainly where I'm from in
Speaker 3: rural England, that's not the issue. Is it that or
Speaker 3: is it something else? What is the biggest thing? People
Speaker 3: don't know will get wrong?
Speaker 5: So what are the biggest things that Americans tend to
Speaker 5: get wrong about Europe. I would think that a lot
Speaker 5: of Americans don't understand the patriotism that Europeans feel. And
Speaker 5: perhaps it's because I'm not sure any country, except maybe
Speaker 5: maybe my father's country of Denmark, very few countries do
Speaker 5: patriotism with flags the way that Americans do and call
Speaker 5: themselves patriots. I mean, it's remarkable in fact that this
Speaker 5: new both political European political party and grouping in the
Speaker 5: European Parliament, the Patriots for Europe Right. Saying the word
Speaker 5: patriots is unusual and fairly new, and I think a
Speaker 5: lot of Americans don't understand and that Europeans love their countries.
Speaker 5: They love their countries the way that Americans love their countries,
Speaker 5: and so I think part of what we can do
Speaker 5: is help to show why and examples of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, the people love their country, but they're not
Speaker 2: so sure that their leaders do. Now, just to tell
Speaker 2: you where I'm coming from here, I recently spend four
Speaker 2: days in a verbo in the Adriatic in Italy, so
Speaker 2: I'm an expert on Italian politics. So that's where I'm
Speaker 2: coming from. And I go to England at least once
Speaker 2: a year, and I am keenly interested and concerned about
Speaker 2: the country and its future. But when you say that
Speaker 2: the people are patriotic, I believe that. I mean, you
Speaker 2: talk to a Britain about their scepter dial but they
Speaker 2: don't feel as if the leadership does. They feel that
Speaker 2: the leadership is constantly apologizing for the country, apologizing for Europe,
Speaker 2: apologizing for the entirety of Western civilization with its dreadful
Speaker 2: history of colonialism. And they feel, to varying degrees that
Speaker 2: there's an intentional program to dilute the national identity with
Speaker 2: people from other places because A it's humane. B we
Speaker 2: owe it to them, and see, you get a better
Speaker 2: society the more diverse it is. And they feel as
Speaker 2: if they are actually being worked against by their leadership.
Speaker 2: That's what I get from an awful lot of people
Speaker 2: on Twitter in various countries. Is that true. I'm sure
Speaker 2: it's true to varying degrees in Europe. But which countries
Speaker 2: feel that the least and which countries feel that the more.
Speaker 2: In other words, which countries say, yes, we are patriotic
Speaker 2: and our leaders are patriotic, in which country says we
Speaker 2: are We desperately love le France. But the Macron is
Speaker 2: a producer of our of.
Speaker 5: Our heritage, right right. So yes, I think I think
Speaker 5: the average person in any European country, with few exceptions,
Speaker 5: and I'll say what those exceptions are, agrees with the
Speaker 5: premise that they love their country and their leaders are
Speaker 5: actively trying to destroy that country.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: It's sort of the European equivalent of the NPR ification
Speaker 5: of patriotism, which is that it's you know, it's mocked,
Speaker 5: it's you know, kind of ignorant. And so I mean
Speaker 5: that that that sort of elite disdain for a basic
Speaker 5: love of one's country is alive and well in Europe,
Speaker 5: of course, you know, they're European. Europeans in various countries
Speaker 5: keep on electing people who don't love their countries. I mean,
Speaker 5: I think I think that's a fair statement. And when
Speaker 5: I say don't love their countries, of course that shorthand
Speaker 5: for progressive or socialist or in some places communist policies
Speaker 5: that actively destroy the countries. So I mean, you know,
Speaker 5: do I think Emanuel Maccron loves France. I have no idea,
Speaker 5: but he sure doesn't act like it. So yeah, So
Speaker 5: I mean, I think I'll give you an example I
Speaker 5: live in Austria, and when in twenty sixteen it was
Speaker 5: looking like Donald Trump was going to do pretty well,
Speaker 5: a lot of my Austrian friends said, how is this possible?
Speaker 5: And I said, all right, look at an electoral map
Speaker 5: of Austria, and you see those green and red spots
Speaker 5: in the university towns and in the capitol. Okay, those
Speaker 5: are progressives or communists or socialists, and the entire rest
Speaker 5: of the country is voting for the Freedom Party pretty
Speaker 5: much the same is you know, that's just like America.
Speaker 5: So you have the coastal elites let's call them, even
Speaker 5: if they don't have coasts in Europe. And so those
Speaker 5: are the voters who keep on voting in governments and
Speaker 5: leaders that don't have the country's best interests in mind
Speaker 5: are the ones who mock the patriots and so on.
Speaker 5: So I would say most of Europe, at least European
Speaker 5: leadership fits in that category. And then you have places
Speaker 5: like Hungary. I think Poland's coming back to some sanity.
Speaker 5: You see AfD is surging in Germany and Germany is
Speaker 5: of course we could have a half hour conversation about Germany,
Speaker 5: but I mean Germans, especially young people especially young people,
Speaker 5: are saying it cannot be a crime to say that
Speaker 5: I'm proud of being German, like it just can't. And
Speaker 5: they're expressing frustration with the idea that there is no
Speaker 5: end in sight to a prohibition on being proud of
Speaker 5: being German.
Speaker 1: So Ellen, let me follow up on that if I can.
Speaker 1: It seems to me I think this isn't an exaggeration
Speaker 1: or over simplification. That the one of the unifying issues
Speaker 1: there as it has been here and now, including Japan
Speaker 1: and their elections here in the last few days, which
Speaker 1: I'll mention in a minute, is the concern about migration,
Speaker 1: the erosion of national identity elites who are governing against
Speaker 1: the country. I don't know if you follow this. I
Speaker 1: don't follow Japanese politics, but I couldn't help but notice
Speaker 1: some articles saying, huh, there's a new populist party in
Speaker 1: Japan that serves and Lay's election. It's strength coming from
Speaker 1: especially from young men frustrated about their lack of opportunities
Speaker 1: in a stagnant economy and controversies over migration, which Japan
Speaker 1: has very little but has some. And then I look
Speaker 1: back at Germany and one of the problems it seems
Speaker 1: to me, and this is sort of my political science
Speaker 1: geek coming out, is you have these parliamentary systems with
Speaker 1: multi party elections, and so in Germany right now AfD
Speaker 1: is leading in the polls on a hypothetical election, and
Speaker 1: the other parties literally won't speak to the AfD members
Speaker 1: of the Bundestag, as I understand it, and they've completely
Speaker 1: frozen them out of office. And what Mertz, he barely
Speaker 1: got the job because what he only got twenty three
Speaker 1: twenty four percent of the total vote that was cast.
Speaker 1: My point is, if you had a binary system or
Speaker 1: first past the post system like we have in America
Speaker 1: or in Britain, I think that the populist voice would
Speaker 1: be stronger, the elites would have had to change, or
Speaker 1: you have actually had a populous government. And instead all
Speaker 1: those systems are conspiring to elect someone for who seventy
Speaker 1: five percent of the voters wanted somebody else, and eventually
Speaker 1: that's got to lead to some kind of bad outcome,
Speaker 1: it seems to me for the establishment, which means maybe
Speaker 1: a good outcome for us, but seems to me the
Speaker 1: suppression of legitimate voices and the marginalization of legitimate claims
Speaker 1: to be included in a government. It's just storing up
Speaker 1: all kinds of problems for the elite. And I see
Speaker 1: a Trump like storm coming to Europe. Does that make
Speaker 1: sense to you?
Speaker 5: It absolutely makes sense to me. I mean, certainly the
Speaker 5: American style law fair that we saw against Trump is
Speaker 5: alive and well in Europe. I mean, if you look
Speaker 5: at Marine le penn and rossamblamant Nationale or the National
Speaker 5: Rally in France. Not only was she convicted and sentenced
Speaker 5: to what I think anyone would say is a completely
Speaker 5: bogus charge, but then they they forbid her from running
Speaker 5: for political office for five years and that prohibition cannot
Speaker 5: be stayed pending appeal, which is just crazy. And then
Speaker 5: you have the normalization of the cordon sanitaire. Right, this
Speaker 5: this firewall against in France, against the RN in Germany,
Speaker 5: obviously against the AfD and Mertz. You know, I mean,
Speaker 5: he virtue signaled to the right, he started talking a
Speaker 5: little bit tough on migration. He's completely failed there. And
Speaker 5: I don't think anybody can be considered center right if
Speaker 5: they endorse a firewall against the second most popular party
Speaker 5: in the country. In Italy, you have law fair against
Speaker 5: Matteo Salvini, the Deputy Prime Minister. This is ongoing and
Speaker 5: you're absolutely right that if the voters weren't disenfranchised in
Speaker 5: all of these countries, I think the political landscape would
Speaker 5: look very, very different.
Speaker 2: I hate to interrupt, but actually interrupting the guest is
Speaker 2: on my checklist. I got a checklist for my day.
Speaker 2: I'm retired and that means that I got to keep
Speaker 2: myself busy. Checklist comes in handy. I'm not even nine
Speaker 2: to five anymore, nine to nine. Getting through all of
Speaker 2: this stuff though, if you're still employed, you got a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff going in your life. Getting through it
Speaker 2: all it could be hard. But today's sponsors want you
Speaker 2: to have time to priorities put them getting through that right?
Speaker 2: The matter with me today? Three to one. Hey, I
Speaker 2: hate to interrupt here, but I'm going to. As a
Speaker 2: matter of fact, I've got on my list of things
Speaker 2: to do and I just checked it off. You probably
Speaker 2: have a checklist too, especially if you work nine to five.
Speaker 2: Getting through all your things to check and be hard.
Speaker 2: But today's sponsor wants you to have time to prioritize
Speaker 2: you outside the work hours, inside you order. Let's call
Speaker 2: it you're five to nine, Cozy the Earth lets your
Speaker 2: thoughts turn to luxurious softness. Life gets hectic. Finding comfort
Speaker 2: and calm it's essential. We need time for relaxation and
Speaker 2: recharging and soaking in a sense of peace. And with
Speaker 2: Cozy Earth, you can create a space that feels like
Speaker 2: a personal retreat. Frankly, or comfort and serenity come together naturally. Now, Charles,
Speaker 2: as we know, is a big fan of Cozy Earth.
Speaker 2: And as you know what, even though he's I'm gonna
Speaker 2: tell you what he would tell you because I know it,
Speaker 2: and because he said it because his wife. His wife
Speaker 2: bought the sheets, and as a smart man himself, he
Speaker 2: acquiesced to her purchase. But as a Florida man, he
Speaker 2: knows that Cozy Earth provided him with breatheability in all
Speaker 2: the seasons thus so far. And he's not just saying
Speaker 2: this because his wife bought them, right, he's nodding on
Speaker 2: the camera. Okay, anyway, Cozy Earth, they use only the
Speaker 2: best fabrics, only the best textiles to provide the ultimate
Speaker 2: ingredient for a luxurious softness and let's just sleep like
Speaker 2: a baby. And they're not just soft that we fabric
Speaker 2: is enhanced for a durability that won't pull. You know
Speaker 2: those sheets you get after two years or something like that,
Speaker 2: they're all scratched and pulling not gonna happen. Best of all, though,
Speaker 2: Cozy the Earth betting products have a one hundred night
Speaker 2: sleep trial like you're gonna give him back you won't,
Speaker 2: and a ten year warranty. That's a decade of cool
Speaker 2: quality sleep. So upgrade your summer. Got a Coziearth dot
Speaker 2: com Andy use the code Ricochet for up to forty
Speaker 2: percent off your best selling temperature regular sheets, apparel, and
Speaker 2: much more. Trust us, you'll feel the difference the very
Speaker 2: first night Cozy Earth. We thank co Was the Earth
Speaker 2: for sponsoring this the Ricochet Podcast. We'll go back to
Speaker 2: something you said at the beginning of the interview. You
Speaker 2: mentioned three people. You said that you'd interviewed, the last
Speaker 2: remaining Habsburg. Is that correct?
Speaker 5: Yes, Well, so there was an interview I think with
Speaker 5: carlvon Hobsburg.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right right. I follow him on Twitter where he
Speaker 2: fends off predictable japes about his gin physiognomy, and he
Speaker 2: seems a very civilized and interesting person. A lot of
Speaker 2: people have a certain sort of nostalgia for the os
Speaker 2: the waning days of the Austrian Hungarian Empire and the
Speaker 2: stuff on this week area of Vienna and the twilight
Speaker 2: of that civilian I get that. I get that. I do.
Speaker 2: It's an interesting thing to do. But you also said
Speaker 2: that you have an article about another look at Franco
Speaker 2: and the penn And while I can't comment on either
Speaker 2: article without having read them, I want to know what
Speaker 2: is exactly what's is it worth the candle to take
Speaker 2: these figures about whom the ideas are pretty well baked
Speaker 2: and say we need to take another look for these
Speaker 2: reasons or does that not run the risk of just
Speaker 2: immediately tarring everybody who calls themselves a European conservative with
Speaker 2: wanting to go back to discredited ideas, or people that
Speaker 2: you know may have had a good idea here and there,
Speaker 2: but are not somebody necessarily we want to gather into
Speaker 2: our arms and say what can we learn from you?
Speaker 2: Is it not best too? Perhaps? I mean, what's the
Speaker 2: point of that? I guess as I mean, I know
Speaker 2: it doesn't keep you from writing about new people on
Speaker 2: the horizon, but I'm just curious the impetus behind those
Speaker 2: editorial decisions.
Speaker 5: Sure well, I think I think that it's part of
Speaker 5: our exploration of the legacies that have made up what
Speaker 5: is modern Europe. And I think one could look at
Speaker 5: someone's legacy and explain it, or analyze it, or criticize it. Certainly,
Speaker 5: the twenty pages that we've devoted to the legacy of
Speaker 5: Jean Marie le Penn it's not a twenty page tribute,
Speaker 5: but rather are the criticisms fair? What else do we
Speaker 5: know about him? And frankly, could the French rite exist
Speaker 5: the way it does now without what he did then?
Speaker 5: I mean his his predictions on globalization, migration, this homogenization
Speaker 5: of Europe. Those were prescient warnings, even if even if
Speaker 5: what he said about other things were in bad taste
Speaker 5: or worse. There are certainly arguments that it's worth looking
Speaker 5: at his legacy, especially because literally no English language publication
Speaker 5: and UH took a look at his legacy, except you know,
Speaker 5: sort of a passing uh obituary. So I think it's.
Speaker 1: So if I can jump in briefly, there is you
Speaker 1: may have seen it, Ellen, I'll send it to you.
Speaker 1: Christopher Caldwell has a long yes piece on Lapan in
Speaker 1: the latest Clairemont Review books. The tracks very closely with
Speaker 1: with your treatment of him.
Speaker 5: Sorry to interrupt, Yeah, And I mean it's also you know,
Speaker 5: we we we joke that that we're we're open to
Speaker 5: everyone from uh, you know, sort of traditionalists, anarchists, you know,
Speaker 5: sort of conservative anarchists, monarchists. I mean, we have the
Speaker 5: American monarchist Charles Colombe, a Californian, uh, writing about the monarchy.
Speaker 5: I mean we we think that these are all interesting,
Speaker 5: and we think that our readers are smart enough to
Speaker 5: figure out if it's interesting to them. So, you know,
Speaker 5: I appreciate the question, but I also think this is
Speaker 5: the sort of the fabric. It's weird and uncomfortable sometimes,
Speaker 5: but but there's a lot there that people can learn from.
Speaker 2: You mentioned that it will been warning about the homogenization
Speaker 2: of Europe, and that's that's something that's that people seem
Speaker 2: to go along with shrug their shoulders, you know, the
Speaker 2: center right, the social Democrats, they were okay with you
Speaker 2: EU having a certain amount of control and influence over
Speaker 2: their lives because they got open borders where they could
Speaker 2: pass without having to get a visa stand they didn't
Speaker 2: have to bother to change their perfectly good money into
Speaker 2: that strange useless script that the other nations had. I mean,
Speaker 2: you had this settled notion of Europe that a certain
Speaker 2: class of people enjoyed, but now they're finding it changed
Speaker 2: in ways. I think that's that that that that are
Speaker 2: a front to them, And so I wonder if there
Speaker 2: was it, if the EU would not be facing the
Speaker 2: pressures it had today, if it's simply hadn't decided to
Speaker 2: embark upon this read this demographic altering project that they
Speaker 2: seem to be doing. If they just stopped at regulating
Speaker 2: the size of bubbles in Swiss cheese, that they'd be fine.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, I mean I think I think that's true.
Speaker 5: I mean I think I think plenty of people would
Speaker 5: say that being an economic or trading block, or regulating
Speaker 5: you know, sort of like oil and gas, all that
Speaker 5: was good. I think there there are some countries who
Speaker 5: are very happy about the Euro others that are not
Speaker 5: at all happy with the Euro. I think the Shengen,
Speaker 5: the Shengin treaty that opened the borders. I think a
Speaker 5: lot of people, as you said, said oh well, that'll
Speaker 5: make it so convenient, but they never thought about, for example,
Speaker 5: what happened this week, which is that Pedro Sanchez in
Speaker 5: Spain has based said, I think I'm just going to
Speaker 5: normalize the status of like a million illegal migrants and
Speaker 5: just you know, give them residents, permits and work visas,
Speaker 5: and so they would in fact just be able to
Speaker 5: do whatever anyone else with illegal status in Europe could do.
Speaker 5: So that means borderless crossings, that means going wherever they
Speaker 5: want to go. And I'm not sure that the people
Speaker 5: who thought Schengen was a good idea because they don't
Speaker 5: want to have to get visa stamps had this in mind,
Speaker 5: and certainly I think that there are a lot of
Speaker 5: people who are really regretting it.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: Are you optimistic about Europe? I ask because it seems
Speaker 3: possible to me, and I understand this is provocative that
Speaker 3: Europe will just not fix itself. Twenty years ago, the
Speaker 3: size of the European economy and the American economy it
Speaker 3: was the same, and now the American economy is twice
Speaker 3: as big as the European economy. I don't know as
Speaker 3: much as you obviously about continental Europe. I know France
Speaker 3: pretty well, Italy increasingly, so I know a lot about Britain.
Speaker 3: I'm from there, and at the moment Britain is just
Speaker 3: not fixing itself. Britain is not making the decisions that
Speaker 3: it needs to, and it seems possible to me. I
Speaker 3: hope it doesn't happen. It seems possible that Europe will
Speaker 3: just decline.
Speaker 6: Are you hopeful? Do you worry about that too?
Speaker 5: Well? You know, it's funny whenever Mario and I get
Speaker 5: asked this question. You know, Mario gets called doctor Doom
Speaker 5: because he would, I think, say the same thing about Europe.
Speaker 5: So I guess I'm supposed to be the ray of sunshine.
Speaker 5: But I'm with you, Charles in the sense that I'm
Speaker 5: not seeing them do it right. So I'm seeing a
Speaker 5: lot of people try, and I'm seeing uh, you know,
Speaker 5: these sort of populist movements, populist nationalists, uh, whatever word
Speaker 5: that is. I think that they they really want to try.
Speaker 5: But boy, the march through the institutions, uh well, and
Speaker 5: truly succeeded in Europe, and and all of the power
Speaker 5: and the money has gone into initiatives that were actively
Speaker 5: work against European growth. I mean, Europe can't defend itself.
Speaker 5: Euro does Europe doesn't make anything or manufacture anything. So
Speaker 5: although I am the ray of sunshine apparently as between
Speaker 5: myself and my husband, I am. I am worried, but
Speaker 5: I do think that the that the that there is
Speaker 5: there are some sparks, and I think I think people
Speaker 5: are are pretty well fed fed up. I just worry
Speaker 5: that their fed upness is going to get ugly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's the big thing. You repress until you
Speaker 2: get a blowback that you don't like. In Sweden, there
Speaker 2: I forget that. The term for it in the Nordic
Speaker 2: countries is unpronounceable to me, in which there is a
Speaker 2: series of intellectual guard rails. Accepted opinion must travel between
Speaker 2: these guardrails, and anything outside of that is regarded as
Speaker 2: not something that a decent civilized person would say. And
Speaker 2: one of those, I think is the idea that that
Speaker 2: Swedish identity is somehow all encompassing and protein, which it isn't.
Speaker 2: I mean, in America, the great thing what I love
Speaker 2: about America is that anybody can come here from wherever
Speaker 2: and they can become an American, and that even includes.
Speaker 4: Charles, because we have a civic identity that is born
Speaker 4: in an idea embodied in a constitution, and that does
Speaker 4: not depend on blood and soil, and all the rest
Speaker 4: of it. That anybody can become an American, but it
Speaker 4: is absurd to think that anybody can become a sweet.
Speaker 2: I can't go to France and become a Frenchman, never could,
Speaker 2: never would. Don't even have the interest in knowing enough
Speaker 2: about whine to be able to claim any sort of
Speaker 2: frenchness to me. I could move to England, I really could.
Speaker 2: There's a place that I would live, but I know
Speaker 2: in my heart that I would never be an Englishman.
Speaker 2: So it is absurd, however, to be able to you
Speaker 2: can't say these ideas in modern Europe because it goes
Speaker 2: against the whole transnational idea, which then suppresses nationalism, which
Speaker 2: then you think, as I always looking at history, erupts
Speaker 2: and erupts poorly. But I'm with Charles, I don't see
Speaker 2: it erupting. I just see more and more slump shouldered,
Speaker 2: sullen reaction to this as the country, just as the
Speaker 2: countries have a slow, slow, long decline. I don't want
Speaker 2: that spark but to erupt. But I want something to happen,
Speaker 2: but I don't think it will.
Speaker 5: You know, this is interesting, this question of identity, and
Speaker 5: let's say, on the British very online. Right, There's been
Speaker 5: a whole discussion about being English and in Ireland same thing.
Speaker 5: Somebody I read a tweet just today that observed that.
Speaker 2: I know what you're going to say. I wrote the tweet,
Speaker 2: go ahead, right.
Speaker 5: So an Irish person will say to an American who says,
Speaker 5: you know, I'm Irish, you're not Irish. But somebody can
Speaker 5: arrive twenty minutes ago from Somalia and they're definitely Irish, right,
Speaker 5: and you know so? And then there was the whole question.
Speaker 5: I mean, this is this is the question, you know,
Speaker 5: when you do a what now defunct twenty three and
Speaker 5: meters genetic test, At what point is somebody going to
Speaker 5: have a genetic test that says they're American? Right, Because
Speaker 5: it's a civic it's a civic identity as well as
Speaker 5: you know, sort of being American of whatever. Fill in
Speaker 5: ethnic identity roots where Swedes are Swedes. But there is
Speaker 5: a heavy, heavy, heavy push everywhere in Europe to say
Speaker 5: that citizenship is national identity, and there's a big push
Speaker 5: against it, and I think that's right.
Speaker 2: Ellen Fantini, who is the deputy editor of the European Conservative,
Speaker 2: go down to Barnes and Noble, buy several copies, and
Speaker 2: you know, you know, with the heft and waight of
Speaker 2: Stephen described with a nice stock and the rest of it,
Speaker 2: you can probably use it for some good bicep curls
Speaker 2: as well. I look forward to looking at the next edition,
Speaker 2: and Ellen, we hope to have you and or Mario
Speaker 2: back in the future to discuss exactly what's changed in Europe.
Speaker 2: If anything does, and if nothing has, you can tell
Speaker 2: us why. Ellen Fantini, thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: The news cycle move so fast that nobody cares about
Speaker 2: Stephen Colbert, but it turns out that a lot of
Speaker 2: people care about Stephen Colbert before then. Now he's going
Speaker 2: away someday. Here's your hat. You know, it's going to
Speaker 2: take him like eight months to get to the foyer
Speaker 2: and leave. But he's new, and he's revitalized, and he's refreshed,
Speaker 2: and he's all resistance. F you Trump people are saying
Speaker 2: that he was canned for political reasons the same week
Speaker 2: that South Park just came out and made the hilarious
Speaker 2: humiliation because that's what they do. It's a momb on Biden.
Speaker 2: You guys think that Colbert was axed because he was
Speaker 2: just too resistancy or because maybe he was losing a
Speaker 2: lot of money in his average age of his viewers
Speaker 2: of sixty eight.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's the latter, but I wish it was
Speaker 1: the former. I would love for it. David Allison, who's
Speaker 1: the owner of sky Dance that's buying Paramount, I would
Speaker 1: love for him to come out and say, actually, we're
Speaker 1: hitting rid of him because he's too political and he's unfunny.
Speaker 1: I mean, South Park at least is funny, right, I
Speaker 1: mean those guys are geniuses, and Colbert became a crashing
Speaker 1: bore and kill the ratings and it's losing tons of money.
Speaker 1: I do think we saw the future though, of late
Speaker 1: night left wing talk shows. It's going to be Colbert
Speaker 1: joining forces with Hunter Biden on MSNBC to see who
Speaker 1: can out.
Speaker 2: F bomb the other, and Charlie you'll be watching, of course,
Speaker 2: you're being a big Hunter Biden fan. I think you
Speaker 2: saw his the entirety of his forty seven hour interview
Speaker 2: that you.
Speaker 6: Say, I did watch the whole thing.
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 3: I love you look, it was engaging. That doesn't mean
Speaker 3: that he's not crazy. It doesn't mean that the guy
Speaker 3: who interviewed him isn't an idiot, but it was engaging.
Speaker 3: He asked open questions and then let Hunter Biden speak,
Speaker 3: and I found it fascinating.
Speaker 1: Well, it is that fascinating in the same way we
Speaker 1: slow down look at car wrecks. So that's the way
Speaker 1: I thought of it.
Speaker 3: Sure, on Collbat, it just seems very unlikely to me
Speaker 3: that CBS said we had better get rid of Colbert
Speaker 3: to please Trump and give one and a half billion
Speaker 3: dollars to South Right in the same move. But the
Speaker 3: problem there was that the show that he inherited is
Speaker 3: not supposed to be what he made it. You know,
Speaker 3: it's like ice cream is great, right, but it doesn't
Speaker 3: make a very good hammer, And these two things they're
Speaker 3: not the same. And so many of the criticisms from
Speaker 3: the left have said, ah, so you don't think that
Speaker 3: they should be able to criticize the president. No, that's
Speaker 3: not my view. I think he should be able to
Speaker 3: criticize the president. But he is in charge of the
Speaker 3: late show. That's not that. And yeah, but it comes up. Sure,
Speaker 3: but it became this party political broadcast. Of course it
Speaker 3: was canceled. Of course, no one wanted to watch it.
Speaker 3: Of course, its audience numbers went from eleven million to two.
Speaker 2: If that McMahon had come out every night and started
Speaker 2: making speeches in favor of George McGovern, I think that
Speaker 2: would have been seen as inappropriate for the tonight show
Speaker 2: and what it was attempting to do. But you know,
Speaker 2: the Left sizes every single aspect of the culture and
Speaker 2: then and then and then accuses the Right of doing
Speaker 2: the exact same thing. We would be content, perfectly content
Speaker 2: to keep the culture and the politics a little bit separa,
Speaker 2: although they'll say the personal is the political, and everything
Speaker 2: cultural is inherently just a tiresome group of people. And
Speaker 2: speaking of which, when you mentioned before, Charles, there's a template,
Speaker 2: you know, the the nineteen thirty Germany template in which
Speaker 2: everything is put and the getting rid of Colbert is
Speaker 2: another step of the fashions regime silencing all dissent. I
Speaker 2: saw somebody the other day yesterday, reacting to the executive
Speaker 2: order that said, you know what, you can't nod out
Speaker 2: from drugs on the sidewalk and die. We're just not
Speaker 2: going to do that anymore. Cities, states, municipalities, you got
Speaker 2: to get these people off the street and put them
Speaker 2: in a treatment And the reaction to this from one
Speaker 2: left wing Twitter person was, this is eugenics, straight up.
Speaker 2: That's serious, that this is out of the Nazi playbook,
Speaker 2: rounding up the undesirables and putting them into camps. It
Speaker 2: is better, apparently, in the name of harm reduction somehow,
Speaker 2: to have no go streets in cities where people are
Speaker 2: dying unless you jab them with some narcan or just
Speaker 2: doing a fenifold for a couple of hours until their
Speaker 2: desperate lives are reduced to finding the next tack. That
Speaker 2: that's somehow preferable to what a lot of us have
Speaker 2: been saying is necessary in the first place, forced institutionalization
Speaker 2: to give these people an opportunity to live without the drug.
Speaker 2: And I'm saying, you can give them endless opportunities, but
Speaker 2: the start is getting them off the streets. And I
Speaker 2: think it's partially. They won't admit this, but it's partially
Speaker 2: because it deprives them of two things. One the people
Speaker 2: who are in the homeless industrial complex, who make an
Speaker 2: awful lot of money. I think you know San Francisco,
Speaker 2: Los Angeles, how many hundreds of agencies do they have
Speaker 2: dealing with these things? Are afraid of the money going away,
Speaker 2: but also b it deprives the rhetoricicians of their favorite
Speaker 2: examples to use against capitalism and private housing and all
Speaker 2: the rest of it. I mean, if the streets were
Speaker 2: suddenly clear, there weren't a lot of drug addicts out anymore,
Speaker 2: and these people were somewhere off there, the arguments against
Speaker 2: capitalism and housing would not be as compelling as they
Speaker 2: want them to be. Or am I being cynical now?
Speaker 1: I think? I mean my guess is knowing how much
Speaker 1: we've spent here in California on homelessness only to see
Speaker 1: it grow. Of course there may be a connection there, right.
Speaker 1: The more money there isn't it, the more of it
Speaker 1: you're going to get. So it's something like twenty five
Speaker 1: thirty billion dollars that state and local government have spent
Speaker 1: in California and homelessness. You would have thought they could
Speaker 1: have built some homes with that kind of money. Very
Speaker 1: very few. In any case, let's not be clever about this.
Speaker 1: When you put homeless with drug problems and psychological problems
Speaker 1: in hotels and cheap housing, they tend to trash the
Speaker 1: place because there is no adult supervision. It's got to
Speaker 1: be cheaper. It's not a matter of money, essentially, but
Speaker 1: it's got to be cheaper to put somebody in some
Speaker 1: kind of institution. I forget the numbers now, but they
Speaker 1: go something like this, that we had something like five
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people institutionalized in the nineteen fifties when the
Speaker 1: population was, you know, about half of what it is now,
Speaker 1: and today it's something like fifty thousand. I don't quote
Speaker 1: those numbers precisely any listeners, but it's that magnitude of
Speaker 1: change of our deinstitutionalization, which we did start in the
Speaker 1: late fifties. And it is sad, but that's a much
Speaker 1: better approach to the problem. And now we can probably
Speaker 1: find better institutions than we did back in those days
Speaker 1: when many of them were pretty dismal places.
Speaker 2: Right worldA Rovera, if I recall it, correctly made his
Speaker 2: bones at the very early age by discussing the bedlam
Speaker 2: like conditions in these places, Bedlam being, of course, the
Speaker 2: term that comes from an institution in Great Britain. So
Speaker 2: we'll let Charles have the last word.
Speaker 3: I just love the response that you mentioned eugenics. This
Speaker 3: is because this is the problem with our moment. This
Speaker 3: is something that I've increasingly noticed that people can't level
Speaker 3: a criticism without adding a bit on the end that
Speaker 3: just makes them sound completely crazy. So you meet some
Speaker 3: law professor from Berkeley or something, and they'll say.
Speaker 6: Tie, wow, wow, I'm very, very worried.
Speaker 3: I mean, under the nineteen forty eight administer to procedure
Speaker 3: at Donald Trump was supposed to submit this for review
Speaker 3: through three or four different channels and put it in triplica.
Speaker 6: But he hasn't done that.
Speaker 3: He's skipped forward to section three. And that's why fourteen
Speaker 3: thousand people will die. And you're like, what, sorry, I
Speaker 3: was with you until what right. I was totally interested
Speaker 3: in your argument until you went there.
Speaker 6: And it's like, so, I mean, I'm with you guys
Speaker 6: on the homeless thing.
Speaker 3: But even if you don't like this executive order, how
Speaker 3: do they get from Well, I don't like this moderate
Speaker 3: change in federal policy affected by the executive branch.
Speaker 6: Within the statute are eugenics.
Speaker 2: It is it is delightful. Well, it's all been delightful,
Speaker 2: the whole thing. It's been delightful to be sponsored by
Speaker 2: bank On yourself and by Cozy Earth, and we thank them,
Speaker 2: and of course you can avail yourself with the products
Speaker 2: to make your life better today and in the foreseeable future.
Speaker 2: It would make us happy if you gave a five
Speaker 2: star review on Apple Podcasts. But you know that, you
Speaker 2: know how much it would go out in my day,
Speaker 2: and yet you haven't done it yet. And don't think
Speaker 2: I haven't noticed. Oh I'm not mad. I'm not mad.
Speaker 2: I'm just And also, I would like to tell you
Speaker 2: if it isn't obvious that ricochet dot com is the
Speaker 2: enterprise in the edifice behind this weekly podcast. And if
Speaker 2: we've got seven hundred and fifty under our belt, well
Speaker 2: there's so many, many more, a whole feed of podcasts
Speaker 2: to which you can listen to, including My Diner, which
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with politics and stuff that has
Speaker 2: to do with Well, you just have to go and see,
Speaker 2: won't you. A lot of names you'll recognize and a
Speaker 2: lot of new people that you'll love to meet. It's
Speaker 2: been fun, Stephen Charles, have a great week, and we'll
Speaker 2: see everybody in the comments. Said Ricochet four point zero.
Speaker 2: Bye bye,