Speaker 1: Jagger is their own force. So I obviously did something
wrong and I apologize to the sports gods.
Speaker 2: You'll note how I You'll know how I've not mentioned it, Charlie.
Speaker 3: The gods will ensure that that team loses as long
as you continue to mispronounce it. The gods football gods
are American, my boy, Ask.
Speaker 2: Not what your country can do for you, Ask what
you can do for your country.
Speaker 1: Mister gorbachaw tear down this wall.
Speaker 2: It's the Ricochet Podcast. But Charles C. W. Cook and
Peter Robinson, I'm James Linox and today we talked to
Eli Lake about Israel and the effects of iddies on
the election. So let's have ourselves with podcasting.
Speaker 4: We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on
the landing Grounge. We'll fight in the fields and in
the streets. We'll fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.
Speaker 2: Now, look, my community knows who I am, and I'm
a knuckleheaded times but it's always been about that. Welcome everybody.
It's the Ricochet Podcast, number seven to eleven. That's right.
We're not brought to you by the Southland Corporation, but
we are happy to be here. Anyway, providing all the
things you need for your daily Internet podcast Joy. I'm
James Leleax in Minneapolis, beautiful fall day, and I'm speaking
again with Peter Robinson in Sonny Clement, California, and Charles C. W.
Cook in Florida. Where the weather could be humid or
not so much or sunny. You're beautiful or hurricane stricken
or whatever. In any case, you're here, good gentlemen. Welcome,
Thank you, James, thank you. So we had a debate.
We indeed had a debate, and there was some stuff
that had been leaked before that said that Waltz was
actually kind of nervous about this, and people were saying,
you know what, they're just trying to They're trying to
massage your expectations, so you're really impressed when he just
knocks it out of the park. And I spoke to
a few people who were in Waltz's corner and came
away from that the big permanent wins creased on their face.
For any number of things. The moment to me that
summed it all up was you can't shout fire in
a crowded theater being spoken by a man who presumably
is smart enough to no better run the country. What
were your takeaways from that? And do you think any
lasting impact on the election.
Speaker 3: The way you put that question? And it is now
mandatory for us to give Charlie a moment to explain
why that nineteen nineteen constitutional decision is no longer of
any well, it's of relevance. I said, go ahead, Charlie,
take it.
Speaker 1: You guys have just wound me up. You've put me
on the floor and wound me up because this annoys me,
as you know, immensely. This is a bat signal for me,
because it is everything that possibly could be wrong with
an American politician talking about free speeches encapsulated in that
moment from Tim Wallas. First off, it's falsely in a
crowded theater something while with shouting fire and crowded theaters,
that there's a fire, You're just not allowed to do it,
if you're lying, if you're trying to cause a stampede.
Speaker 3: Charlie, the phrase the phrase comes from give us the
historical hell.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, more importantly, though, it was
an analogy, and it's a horrible analogy that thankfully was
overturned by Brandenburg. V Ohio in nineteen sixty nine. The
analogy is with an immigrant who didn't speak English protesting
against World War One. So it wasn't actually about theaters
or fires, or falsehoods or panics. The argument was, if
you are out on the street handing out leaflets in
Yiddish telling people not to sign up for the draft
because it violates their constitutional rights, because you oppose a
war that is happening three and a half thousand miles away,
a war that was fairly disastrous, you are the equivalent
of somebody who will ran into a thing and shouted
fire and caused a bunch of death, which is insane.
It is insane given the American tradition of free speech.
The entire purpose of the First Amendment, which above all
else says the freedom of speech, which is a term
of art that meant something at the time of ratification,
above all else, protects the rights of American citizens to
debate whether or not what their government is doing is legitimate.
What could be more core to that than a war,
a foreign war. So that Timwore said this at all
is ignorant, but that he was saying it in the
interest of justifying one of the worst laws ever passed
the Espionage and Sedition Acts of the twentieth century under
Woodrow Wilson, and a Supreme Court decision that has thankfully
been made of moot and forgotten and is disliked broadly,
is even worse. Awful man, awful man who proved his
awfulness in that moment.
Speaker 3: But hold on just a moment. The nineteen nineteen decision
Justice Oliver Wendelholmes Junior, who, even if the decision was wrong,
was a pretty remarkable figure. Let's see Bill Buckley used
to say, Alistair Cook, your countryman. Alistair Cook arrived in
this country in the thirties, and one of the first
interviews he conducted was with Oliver Wendelholmes Junior. And Holmes
shook his hand and said, my boy, you have just
shaken the hand of a man who shook the hand
of Lincoln. And Bill would then, Bill, of course would
then say, you've shaken the hand of a man who
shook the hand of a man who shook the hand
with Lincoln. All right, Oliver Welde Holmes wrote, quote, the
most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a
man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing
a panic close quote in isolation. The sentence is sensible, Charlie.
Speaker 1: Well, yes, but the analogy that it draws is used
to justify the imprisonment of anti war protesters. And if
you go back to that series, there are three cases
around that period. And it should be said, I'm not
a fan of Oliver Wendelholmes and Buckley savaged him in
National Reviews opening issue, but he did change his mind
on this question, I think because he saw it as untenable.
Around that period, in nineteen eighteen nineteen nineteen twenty, the
US Supreme Court upholds a whole host of grotesque imprisonments
on free speech grounds, one of which involved the Wilson
administration in prisoning Wilson's opponent, the socialist Eugene Debs. I mean,
this is a really low moment. This is the low moment.
I will shut up in a moment. But let me
just say this. I talk a lot about free speech
around the country, and I often note that there is
a great paradox, which is that free speech in the
United States is now more legally protected than it has
been at any point in the Republic's history. The protections
that the Supreme Court has afforded the citizenry under the
auspices of the First Amendment have never been this good.
At the same time as we have probably less cultural
respect for free speech than we've had in a very
long time. And when I run through the history of it,
because we've always had attacks on free speech. The slavery
powers were big into this in Congress and at the
state level, abolitionists were often targeted. But the worst period,
without a shadow of a doubts the progressive era. The
progressive era is the nadea of free speech in the
United States. And if there is one case that sums
it up, it's this, because it takes an entirely sensible precept,
which is you can't go into a crowded place and
lie and cause a panic and be held innocent. Fine,
it takes that and it applies it to core speech,
and thank goodness, the Court in the nineteen sixties said, no,
we're not doing that anymore.
Speaker 3: Charlie, you're beautiful when you're angry, James.
Speaker 2: There's nothing more to say at all. Is said what
needs to be said, And I mean Wilson said this
before about the need to combat misinformation, as so many
people on that side of the political equation. They would
like to use the instruments of the state to influence
or prohibit social media from saying certain things that fall
outside the parameters of what they believe to be the truth,
even though we know now later with the years of
experience with COVID, for example, the things that people were
being banned for saying the hammer coming down on doctor J,
turns out to be the other doctor J turns out
to be correct pretty much, and their efforts to stifle
it only led to the erosion of the respect and
trust we had for those institutions. So yeah, no, let
me speak, let the marketplace decide. Let people figure out
whether or not what I'm saying is BS or not.
That seems to be a basic core American principle. And
anybody doesn't think that's the case, well then they're full
of spinach. And to help with them. Second thing we
have this week dodged a bullet when it comes to
the strike. There was going to be the guys who
offload the containers from the big ships were going to strike,
and normally I don't think that would really penetrate most
people's flow of information, except that we got these interviews
with the guy the head of the union, who was
sort of bragging about his ability to cripple the country,
and it seems to be one of those things that
doesn't strike you as the most patriotic of sentiments. As
he climbers off his long yacht and tells us that
we're all going to have no Christmas because the toys
won't be coming. Luckily, it's not going to happen. They
kick the can down the road. There's good and be
more negotiations. But what was illustrative about this were two things. Biden, President,
and I'm using air quotes here for President Biden because
we have no idea exactly whether he's involved in any
of these things or whether he's just being shuffled around
from one bingo session to the next, said he wouldn't
invoke TAP hardly, he doesn't believe in it. And then
Governor DeSantis actually stepped in and directed the Florida National
Guard and the Florida State Guard to the ports to
ensure that things went as they should, which made a
lot of people say, well, boy, you know kind of
wish that guy had been the candidate, but that's not
how it's going to work out. What do you guys
think of how this plays out. The unions I don't
think come off very sympathetic in this, particularly when it
comes to automation. Now you know, we're all looking around
our shoulders saying AI is going to come and eat
our jobs. But if the people had had their way,
there would be no automated systems that the at the
ports at all. They would be taking everything out in
a bucket brigade of hands. You can understand why they're
making the statement that they are, But in the issue
of keeping the ports modern and the rest of us,
where do you fall on this or do you just
not care?
Speaker 3: I'll give you what's in my head. Not that I've
come to any particularly incisive conclusions about this, but I
start with, was it nineteen fifty four, maybe the Ilia
Kazan movie on the Waterfront? Yes, because that shows the
way shipping was handled in the United States before the
advent of container shipping, or Eric Hoffer describes it a
little bit in some of his work Eric Coffer, who
was the term used to be Steve Ador. So if
you have on your mind a picture of cargo nets
coming up and big burly men walking back and forth
and shouldering huge loads and carrying them from the pier
up to the warehouse. That's the way it used to be.
I suppose if this Union president had been in place
in the nineteen seventies, we wouldn't have container shipping, which
would of course solve all the problems with globalization because
we wouldn't have we wouldn't have international trade to speak of.
Speaker 1: You know, you're actually exactly right because that guy is
part of the same union that opposed container shipping, and
he's on the record.
Speaker 2: Happens.
Speaker 3: Is that so okay? Because then you know more about
this than I.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, carry on. I'm just wanting to know
you're totally right. It's not a hypothetical that actually happened.
They tried to block container shipping right right.
Speaker 3: So what's going on is, as far as I can tell,
it's it's a version of the Hollywood Writers' strike. The
writers see AI coming at them in this sense. Obviously,
longshoremen and writers are different kinds of people, but the
Hollywood writers saw AI coming at them. I myself couldn't
quite get what they were so worked up about because
I thought AI as a threat to writers was off
in the distant future. And then a friend of mine
who actually is in the produced director's guild. I guess yeah.
The director's guild said oh no, no, no, And he
sat down with me and said to AI, said to
chatchebt or one of the others. Five minutes amusing Trump
and Biden playing ping pong, and up popped a sketch
that needed a little tightening up, but had four or
five different jokes in a five minutes. In other words,
writer's rooms are really under threat already. Okay, they see
that coming. Likewise, the teamsters, excuse me, not the team stores.
The longshoremen. Longshore people have they renamed the union, and
they want to extract the sitting guys who know they're
likely to be the last generation who can count on
this work for a whole career as they head into retirement.
They want to grab everything they can get. As far
as I can tell, it's as simple as that. And
on the other side, the shippers, the people the counter party,
want to give them as little as possible, but for
sure reserved to themselves to introduce automation as the robotics
become smarter and smarter, empowered more and more by AI.
So it's just a straightforward commercial conflict of interests and
let him add it. As far as I can tell,
what we saw last week was in an attempt to
hold up the country's politics. That's and then of course
it thinks largely to the New York Post, we found
out that the president of the Union is a very
rich man and a hypocrite in all kinds of ways. Anyhow,
So my view is this is one more It's going
to be difficult, this transition to AI and robotics, no
doubt about it. But it's one more place where the
government ought to stay out.
Speaker 1: Charles, I think it's Proposter's rent seeking, is what I think.
The same guy you're referring to is very rich, actually
is in favor of mandating unionized toll booths, even though
we've had easy passed since nineteen eighty seven. So he
wants people in them who've stopped the cars and slow
down the traffic. And it seems from the studies that
I've read increasingly where they do exist, still do nothing
other than pay for the pensions of the people who
are slowing the cars down. So you're slowing the cars
down to pay for the people who are slowing the
cars down. The docs are not anymore a justifiable excuse
for union tactics. I am and have always been hostile
toward unions. But I was born in nineteen eighty four.
My dad was born in nineteen forty seven. He really
dislikes public sector unions because he lived through England in
the seventies. But right, but he has always said to me,
and will still say no, no, there is a good
historical role in certain circumstances for unionization. And if you
walk up our backstairs in their little house, you'll see
photographs of my ancestors, some of whom were minors or
worked in textile mills or what you will. And my
dad said, it's a reasonable point. You know, if you
were in a mine in nineteen hundred, you really wanted
a union because it was dangerous work and you needed
somebody to stand up for you. And I think that
that's a fair point. But that's just not what's happening.
What's happening here is they just want more money. They
already make a lot of money, by the way, They
already make about two hundred thousand dollars a year on average,
so this is not some dangerous, low paid job. And
they're trying to stand in the way of efficiency and
to extort international trade so that they can line in
their own pockets. And I think it's insane that this
would even be debated. And if I were the president
of the United States, which thankfully for everyone, I will
never be, and I had the Taft Hearty Act on hand.
Funny how Joe Biden believes in all sorts of laws
haven't been passed, but not ones that have. I would
use it in the national interest to stop this because
I think that what they're doing is functionally indistinguishable from
the mafia.
Speaker 3: Lovely Lovely.
Speaker 2: I don't think there's any more to add to that either.
So that's two conclusive denunciations by Charles today, and we
can only hope.
Speaker 3: For a third or perhaps the pattern here as well established.
James entertainingly puts the question, I attempt to provide a
one on the one hand, on the other hand, analysis
and then Charlie comes in with white hot anger beautiful.
Speaker 2: Well, we'll see if we're going to go for a
third or maybe a ringing endorsement. Perhaps it all depends
on where we go with our guest, who's Eli Lake.
Eli's a columnist for the Free Press, contributing editor to
Commentary and host of the re Education podcast Eli.
Speaker 5: Thank you, welcome, Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: All right, so Middle East kaboom people were expecting actually
an earth shadowing kaboom by now, they were expecting Israel
to strike back at I mean, after October seventh, the
Gaza response. Then you have hezbe Law shooting in to Israel.
Then you have Israel taking on his bolah. Then you
have Iran deciding to heave five percent of their missiles
over I mean, so that's where we are now. It's
not it's not of a piece. It's all part of
a very very ongoing kinetic exercise and sorting things out
over there. Anyway, So Iran through the missiles. Israel is
expected to strike back, but people were saying were thinking
that there were there would be some sort of immediate response.
And the more the time goes on, there's only one
of two things that can happen. Either one they're not
going to do anything or to do something proportional, or
two being very careful to plan. What is a definitive,
definitive response that up ends the status quo for good?
What do you think is going.
Speaker 5: On well, I'm hoping in my sense, just looking at
what Prime Minister that Y'aho has been saying, is that
they are going for strategically changing the balance of power
and not just a proportional response. And I think one
explanation for why it hasn't happened yet is the Jewish
New Year or Russia Shanna, you know that it's obviously Israel's.
It's not a it's not a theolocacy or anything like that,
but it is a Jewish state, and that might be
one explanation. The other explanation is that I would hope
that the one target that makes sense is what as
much of Aron's nuclear program as possible, and that may
not be just a matter of you know, bunker buster bombs.
I mean, Israel is proving ingenious in its ability to
sabotage and to kind of have these hybrid intelligence strikes.
So my hope is that that is what's being you know,
that is what is in the offering, and there might
be some things that have to kind of happen, and
it's not such a terrible thing for the Iranians to
sort of be left in a state where they know
something has come in they don't know what it is,
you know, let them feel the anxiety he.
Speaker 3: Lies true or faults on. As we tape this on Friday,
October fourth, in the year twenty twenty four, be me Netnyah,
who is the greatest man in the world?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 5: Yeah, he's Churchillian? At this point, I think, really, I mean,
we have to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you couldn't ask for a more flawed man to
be as great as he is. But he's changed the world,
has he not? In the last three weeks?
Speaker 5: I absolutely think he has. And I'll go I mean,
I've criticized him in my columns over the years at times,
but the real brilliance here from Nennyahu is that he
has managed to withstand efforts from his greatest ally to
try to unseat him from power into box them in.
I mean that, you know, the the the congratulations goes
to the genius of Israel's military, and it's most odd
for the pager attack and the walkie talkies and and
and the pinpoint accuracy of their strikes of not just
assign Nosralla, but the next two successors of assign Asrala
of the News out of Israel, Lebanon was right last night.
That's something that you know that a nation state has
built that capability. And so but it's it's Netanyahu's ability
to navigate a really difficult situation with his most important ally,
because if America chooses to, it can lead to it
can kind of drop a diplomatic nuclear bomb on Israel.
By no not behowing a resolution that you know from
the Security Council that would really hurt and and and
isolate Israel. So far Biden administration hasn't done that. That's good,
but it's certainly you know, the messages from Biden himself,
I don't know how with it he is at this moment.
Is you know, why wouldn't he want Israel to attack
the nuclear program? That's the that's the that's the crown
jewel at this point.
Speaker 3: As far as we know, at least as far as
I've read, you follow this obviously followed hour by hour,
But the number of casualties from the Iranian ballistic missile
attack was as single digits, as I recall, it.
Speaker 5: Was one Palestinian, like the last salvo from April. Okay,
So the regime that claims to defend the honor of
the Palaestinian people is so not only felt spectacular in
their missile strikes, but they've managed to kill Palestinians. Congratulations.
Speaker 3: On the other hand, they demonstrated a willingness for the
second time in a matter of months to fire ballistic
missiles at Israel, and this time they demonstrated that they're
capable of learning in a military sense, and that they
clustered them the missiles much more tightly, I presume, in
an effort to defeat the Iron Dome. And to that extent,
they demonstrate a certain degree of seriousness and a certain
degree of military prowess. And they did get a few
of those missiles through, killing one person a Palestinian. What
would have happened if they hit they hit an airbase?
But okay, okay, So to take their.
Speaker 5: Damage, they didn't do lasting damage. They didn't damage any
serious infrastructure.
Speaker 3: Had that missile been equipped with even a small nuclear weapon,
what kind of destruction would.
Speaker 5: We know to be the end of the state of
Israel at beast? Okay.
Speaker 3: So, in other words, what we have is a demonstration
of a risk that is simply unacceptable. Correct, of course,
obviously the.
Speaker 5: Whole thing is unacceptable. But the reason why this is uh,
keep thinking of like the Steve win what song when
you see a chance take it is because the decapitation
strikes on Hesbelah and the fact that this organization is
really that was the loaded gun at Israel's temple right there.
That meant that was the Iranian insurance policy. So the
reason that you know Israel hadn't done this before through
subterfuge or you know, an aerial campaign, is because if
they did, there were two hundred thousand rockets, missiles pointing
directly at Hipen Tel even Jerusalem now not so clear.
Now it's like, you know, that's why they're going in
and they're trying to remove that threat because and that's
why I'm on as I think you know, that's why
we're seeing the Supreme Leader, you know, showing up at
the ridy services and delivering in some ridiculous speech.
Speaker 3: So one more question, you Ela, before I hand it
back to the remand you to James and Charlie. I
have to believe that if we were in Israel right now,
we would just feel so different approaching this holiday from
the way the country has felt it any time since
October seventh. Has it made any difference in New.
Speaker 5: York, Well, I'm I'm in d C.
Speaker 3: Oh, you're in Washington.
Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, I'm in Washington. But I would say the
people that I speak to and other my family, other Jews,
i'd talk to Enti Aspara, everybody is it's I don't
want to say cautiously optimistic. I think people are really
optimistic in the long run, and they know that there
are difficult days they had. But this is enormous and
I don't think it just starts in September. September is
where we begin to see it. The change came when Netanyahu,
in my view, basically told the Biden administration to pound
sand and sent the IDF into Rapha and managed to
evacuate this a million people, which everybody said couldn't be done.
And they were getting the IDF was getting and people
they would say this, but people really weren't listening because
it kind of tuned out. And you know, it's a war,
you believe one side. But my understanding is that they
pretty much degraded the Hamas military leadership at this point,
and so they went from a terror army to an insurgency.
But that is an enormous military accomplishment. And then you
started seeing really precise hits in the summer with Senior
Could's force Iranian people in Syria, in Lebanon, you started
seeing very specific kind of targeting. And that's when I
think the decision was made that they were not going
to allow I wrote a column basically say they were
not allow there. They were no long going to play
along with the American hug because it came with handcuffs.
And that's when Israel started kind of acting out and
and and you know, listen, I mean there's there's a
sort of bittersweet side of it. I'm a very patriotic American,
and as much as I love Israel, it gives me
no joy to say that American prestige is plummeted to
the point where, you know, a really important ally in
the Middle East just basically said go screw to the
White House. But unfortunately, that's where very bad leadership has
led us right now. That's why all of the efforts
they keep saying de escalation, We don't want to become
a regional war. It's been a regional war, dummies. I mean, sorry,
excuse my prespiration, it is a regional war. And yeah,
it's it's I don't understand. I really feel that there
is a this is exposed a deeper problem than just
you know, this white house, these advisors. I think there's
a rot in our strategic class that we've over learned
the lesson I guess of the Iraq war, and at
this point we forgot that the best way to end
the regional war is to have the good guys win it.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you, Eli, it's just cookkit. Whether you
were in any way shocked as I was by the
reactions to October seventh and the subsequent fighting, I clearly
am naive because I did not expect to see first
the wholesale abandonment from Progressive America of this house of
cards that they've built up, which sets of fence as
the highest sin. You know, we saw on college campuses
people shouting at Jewish students hus were the victims right.
The second, I did not expect this lazy use of
the word genocide to describe what is normal war and
defensive war at that And third, I did not expect
the Israeli caused to be abandoned quite as quickly as
it was by an international response that was at first sympathetic.
Was I just living in a bubble or are we
actually dealing here with something that is new.
Speaker 5: I think it's a little bit of both. If you
look at like, there's an inherent problem in the idea
of I mean, we talk about the intersectionality, right, the
idea that you know, the struggle for gay and trans
Americans as infralinked with the struggle for Black Americans interact
with the struggle in their world, et cetera, et cetera.
And a big problem with intersectionality, to be perfectly blunt,
is that if you consider Islamophobia one of the great
hate that you're that is in your kind of you know,
pyramid of discriminations that you're against, then you have to
look at the fact that there are a lot of
very devout Muslims who are racists and sexist and homophobic,
and they've never been able to quite handle the dissonance there.
And there are all kinds of other problems. You go
back and you look at the history, say of the
Black Panthers, right, there's an enormous amount of misogyny in
that organization, and they did terrible things to people that
they suspected of being informants to the FBI, and so
in some ways, this concept of intersectionality, it was always
a sham because it meant that you couldn't criticize certain
protected groups. And then the whole house of cards came
down because Jews, who would obviously be if you were
thinking about this historically or in any kind of literate way,
would be part of your group of people, well, that
was the one group that was excluded, right, And so
at a certain point it reminded me a little bit
of like what happened in post war Europe. You had
both parties that steamrolled other liberal democratic parties because that
was the one part of that was willing to use
violence and not play by basic rules of liberalism. And
that's what I think is kind of happened on campus
and among this intellectual class. And they, I think they're
shamed by it, but it's it's telling in some ways
that you're if you call them anti Semitic, they become
very offended. They're like, no, no, no, we don't hate the Jews.
We just hate the Jewish state and people who think
that it should exist, which is an absurdity because most
Jews obviously think it should exist. And when you say
you're an anti Zionist. Well, what does that mean? There
are you know, seven million Jews who live in Israel,
so what happens to them? But that this is and
so they're too. I think that this has been a
long time coming, but it was shocking to me as
well shocking coming from the international community. It was shocking.
And the genocide thing is absurd. I mean it's hardcore,
like Palestinian activists have set genocide for a long time,
but it was just taken up like overnight, and now
you have TNAG easy it's you know, joining in with it,
which I guess no one should be surprised about either.
This is you know, he steeped in this kind of ideology.
But you know, at this point, my view is like
the only way out is through, and I'm glad that
I've been on the right. I think it's much harder
for Jews after October seventh, who kind of saw themselves
as being in good standing with the left, and they're saying, oh, well,
we were with you for me too, we were with
you for Black Lives Matter, and where were you for us?
And my views like, well, I could have told you,
but I don't want to play that game. I just
feel that the right is better equipped to kind of
deal with it because they've been making this critique for
a longer time and we sort of understand what's happened.
Speaker 3: Kingsley Aim has told Bob Conquest that when he published
his new edition, and after the fall of the Soviet Empire,
when he published his new edition of Harvest of Sorrow,
he should retitle it. I told you so, you fing idiots.
Speaker 5: I love Conquests and Quest book was the archives incredible?
Speaker 3: Just this could into a seminar in its own, but
just as a kind of mental experiment to show why
the anti Zionism stuff is crazy. So here's the question,
wouldn't we all be better off if somehow or other
the United States has just given the Jewish people Delaware?
Speaker 5: No what no, no.
Speaker 3: In other words, it's the notion that if if Jews
need a country of their own, why did it have
to be right in the middle of a hostile Arab populations.
That's sort of desionist impulse I have.
Speaker 2: I've heard and this this may be just Brumer fact,
but that there actually is an ancestral connection to that
part of the world could be wrong more so than
Delaware or Rhode Island. No, yeah, yeah, yes, of course
the Jews would love Delaware because of their their their
money grubbing tactics would lead them to love a place
with liberal corporate incorporation Delaware. Why would they want Delaware? No?
I mean that the create the idea somehow that that
they are a colonial imposition, that that a bunch of
white Europeans, all of a sudden, under the the the
the poisonous intellectual fumes of Hertzel decided all, let's just
go steal this land right there. It is absurd, the
number of stud the amount of things that I've seen
paraded around on Twitter work. They're pointing to a manhole
cover that says Palestine, as if there's is proof that
a nation existed.
Speaker 1: It's well, the British Empire gives them that fig leaf.
Unfortunately it's not true. It's a bit like the Second
Amendments saying the word regulated in it is. It didn't
mean that at all, but people point to it and
they go a haa, it says regulated. Well, so there's
all these quotes from British imperialists and they think, well,
I'm an anti imperialist and so that must be bad
and it's just but that that was sort of part
of my question.
Speaker 3: Eli was, well, there's so much.
Speaker 1: Nonsense that has been latched onto by people who should
know better, and I've been shocked.
Speaker 5: By It's it's shocking. I'm in the middle actually finishing
a script right now titled one hundred Year Into Fada
for my next podcast, and it's basically about the history
of Palestinian nationalism and Palstin. It wasn't like there was
this land of Palestine and the British came and conquered
it and then gave it to the Jews, which is
the simplistic and false story that is told by anti Zionists.
It was a possession of the Ottoman Empire, quite cruelly,
i should say, by various pajas. The British then acquire
it at the end of World War One because the
Ottoman Empire has collapsed. So they are there with the
remit from at the time the League of Nations to
create a Jewish homeland. Because lots of people believe that,
and there was at one point in the maybe you
could say the first two or three decades of the
twentieth century, there were Palisity and leaders who got along
very well with the early Zionist leaders, but it really
was the rise of a British invention. A guy by
the name of Paja Minal Hussein even was the first
Palestinian leader, but the British made this Grand Buffy. They
created a position for him in Jerusalem, and he became
the kind of recognized world leader. And he did not
have a vision really to create an independent He called
for independent Palestine in the thirties, but what he really
was focused on was driving the Jews out and stopping
immigration of Jews into you know, the Palestinian mandate during
the rise of the Nazis, which eventually, of course, those
of us who know our history age I mean almost.
And he really liked Adolf Butler and joined their cause
in World War Two, much to the shame and of
Palestinians today, which they've totally forgotten him. But that's the
history of Palestinian nationalism. It is not a very nice history.
And we can play this. I love historical counterfactuals. What
if the British had not appointed this guy, who by
the way, already shown that he was a vicious anti
Semite when they made him the Grand Mufty, he was
the leader of what was known as the Nephew Lussa
Riots of Jerusalem in nineteen twenty What if they had
not appointed him, What if they had not done that?
And it gets back to a problem with that America
has inherited from the British Empire, which is a belief
that the more violent a local leader is, the more
extreme a local leader is, the more authentic they are,
and which demands that the great power has to sort
of accommodate them and bring them inside of the tent.
And this is seen as a great strategy. The British
did this all the time, and oftentimes they ended up
kind of empowering really violent monsters. Not all the time,
but a lot of the time. And this was certainly
the case when it came to the policy Threndy and
I would argue was the case in the nineteen nineties
when the United States embraced Yaser era fat as a
sort of peace partner. And I have to say, as
much as I appreciate the initial policy from the United
States after October seventh, the speech that Biden gave in
Israel was really to be commended, but I think that
the way it was going with his constant, incessant droning
on of a ceasefire discussion, when every single time Hamas
wasn't even participating in the talks. It would have ended
up with some representative of Hamas, possibly even Yahwa Sinemar,
being elevated as a peace partner, and we would have
another round of these kinds of negotiations. And it's like
enough already. Sometimes you have an enemy that is implacable
and it is good for the world, and it advances
the cause of peace to utterly defeat them, and that's
what Israel is doing. That's why, in my view, he
is Churchillian and unlike Churchill, although I mean, obviously nobody
touches Churchill. I'm a huge fan obviously, But unlike Churchill,
he didn't have an American partner like FDR or Truman.
He adds Joe freakin' Biden, you know what I mean,
He's got He's got a Chamberlain in Washington. So it's
really that's the part of it that really I think
history will judge him so well.
Speaker 3: He back to American politics from more, Yeah, does all
this lead to cognitive dissidents among American Jews who have
been for so many decades such firm supporters of the
Democratic Party. Is that all we get a little discomfort?
Is or at the other extreme, is there a serious
realignment going on if you go by age, Is it
the case that older jewsers are more Democratic and younger
more open to Republicans supporting Republicans? Or I mean, what
are the political repercussions?
Speaker 5: I mean, this is talk about counterfactual. Imagine if the
Republicans have nominated Nikki Haley, how many I think you
would have a majority of Jews voting Republicans. I think
the problem is is that even though I believe that
Trump's policies were very good for Israel, and I don't
really think that that's debatable, his rhetoric, his indiscipline.
Speaker 3: Just can't stomach him.
Speaker 5: It's not even that you can't stomach him. He has
said incredibly anti s things, even though I believe he
would be much better for Israel and therefore the Jewish
people than Kamala Harris. But he can't help himself but
saying ridiculous things like if I lose, I'm gonna blame
American Jews. What the hell is that?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 5: I just don't know, you know, in my own family.
There is a sense that there. I think the way
this is how I interpreted this is not scientific. I
think almost every Jew understands there is a faction of
the repult of the Democratic Party that are highly educated
anti Semites, and they're a real problem, and they are
a problem in big institutions. They're a problem in the
institutions that a lot of American Jews care a great
deal about, like universities or published houses, and boy, it
would be nice to have a Republican Party that also
didn't have an element at least that sometimes catered to
a different kind of anti Semitism, kind of like know
nothing anti semitism, the sort of anti semitism of you know,
ranks in their basement. But in my view, at least
the elites of the Republican Party, the policy makers of
the Republican Party, have their head screwed on straight. And
I have questions thought about every and there are plenty
of very good and there plenty of Jews in the
Democratic Party. We should say that, but it's the fact
that are you trying to have a coalition with at
least a faction of people that want to see the
only Jewish state in the world destroyed, and that is
the Democratic Party today.
Speaker 2: There's also a coalition on the far right that I
wouldn't characterize them as no nothing anti Samites. They're actually
they think they know something and they're not just the
you know, you're not just drooling morons who are out
there talking about the views and coming up with crude memes.
I find this stuff infesting my Twitter feed all the time.
There will be a discussion, for example, on Great Replacement,
which itself is a fraud issue, but I think it's
one that we had to discuss and tease out what's
true about it and what's wrong about it, and what's
idiotic and what actually is worrisome and look at the demographics.
It's a discussion to have. But the other day, just
this morning, when I was following a Twitter thread, what
followed after the main point that the person was making,
and it had to do with imagery in European public
service messages, we'll set that aside for a second. The
person posted a whole series of comments and remarks about
the white race, its need for destruction, the need for
a genocide, and every single one of them was Jewish.
And it was pointed out that every single one of
them was Jewish. So you will have people on that
sort of intellectual just speaking the truth here, just you
know who will gleefully embrace and lean into the worst
sort of anti Semitism. And that's worrisome. But it isn't
as characteristic of the right as the anti Zionist stuff
is of the progressive elements of the left. And that
would seem to me to be bobbyous to me, to
anybody who's looking at this situation. But you know, I
don't know.
Speaker 5: This is how I look at it. If you say
I'm a fan of the great replacement theory and you
have a position of some kind of authority, again at
a university or a media outlet, you might fire that
you that's a fireable offense. If you say I don't
think the Israel should exist and it's committing a genocide,
then you are just mouthing conventional wisdom in the most
institution that is true, because it's a different kind of threat.
It's like again, it's the threat of you know, I mean, listen,
I understand, I don't want to you know, like I'm
not trying to say, I'm sure what is the name
martyr made the people's historian who doesn't think Churchill, who
thinks Churchill's a villain, that moron. Okay, I'm sure he
has some sort of level of intelligence where he's able
to read quickly or whatever it is. But I'm not
worried about that guy taking over Princeton University history department.
But there are people on the left who have just
as lunatic views of history and are themselves like very
serious ideologues masquerading as academics, who have already taken over
these institutions. So it's a different kind of a threat.
And the waere politics are now is that Trump is
the populist, he is the you know he channels, He's
the tribune of a kind of rage at a system
that I think is totally fair to say is often unfair.
It is unfair, and how it actually a junicates what
isn't isn't racism, So it's this is a complicated question,
and unfortunately it feels like both sides have different kinds
of threats to Jewish people in this country. So it's bad.
Speaker 2: Eli. One last question before we let you go. You're
always wearing some good band T shirt. Could you stand
up a little one? So we can see what this is.
Speaker 5: Get the reference.
Speaker 2: It's a nod that goes up to eleven. It's spinal
tab very very very good, which is a reminder that
I should have.
Speaker 5: By the way, if I know Charlie was here, I
have a great T shirt that's just John and Yoko.
Speaker 1: Ah, just to upset me on this shore.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, we'll get onto the lyrical profundancy profundities of
Imagine after you've left.
Speaker 5: But oh no, I hate Imagine. But that album is
superb and I think Imagine is a completely overrated, terrible anthem.
But I found out is incredible.
Speaker 2: Out there, I suppose. But I regard anything that Yoko
is involved in as as I don't know. It's just
it's it's like adding a dash of aromatic bidders too.
Speaker 5: John's very unhappy before he met Yoko. She really gave
him happiness, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: That's very nice for a millionaire heroin attic. But I
don't really have to pay attention to his to his
music for that anyway. Well, the Beatles. The Beatles with
Eli Lak is another show that we'll do down the road.
In the meantime, we keep our powder dry and we
wait for the inevitable response, and perhaps we'll speak to
you after that.
Speaker 5: Shallow Shalloon.
Speaker 2: Thanks the ELI next year in Jerusalem. So the last
thing before we go here and you is that getting
to the hurricane. And again, this is one of those
things where if you get most of your news from
social media, and I don't mean Instagram, and I don't
mean TikTok, I mean from I'm going to say X,
aren't I. I'm going to give in at some point
and just say X. But I'm at knowing it's Twitter.
It's Twitter. It's always going to be Twitter. They will
call it something else my entire life, but it'll be
Twitter anyway.
Speaker 3: If you get in very strange hills to die on, James,
that's all I can say.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm sorry, but I X is a stupid name.
X means nothing. Twitter is the historical name of it,
that sums up all of.
Speaker 3: What Man paid forty four billion dollars for it. He
saved freedom of speech. He can call it what he wants,
and he has.
Speaker 2: I just don't have to go along with it, That's
all I'm saying. I don't.
Speaker 1: I find it hard to I can't call them the
Cleveland Guardians, and I can't call them the Washington Commanders,
and I can't call it act just it's it's not
even a principle. I just feel odd doing it, a
bit like if I started to say Yule, I would
just sound weird.
Speaker 2: You would don't so you'd like me affecting a britishism,
which I won't. But the Guardians, the Cleveland Guardians, though,
I think they're named after statues on a bridge. I
think I think there's the interest, yeah, which is an
interesting thing. So they might be the only football team
named after statues.
Speaker 1: I don't say I see that.
Speaker 2: I'm with you, Jennyway on Twitter. The conversations about the
female response in the and the Appalachians has been remarkable,
And some of these stories you just have to cock
a skeptical Scott Spock like eyebrow because too many priors confirmed.
But then when the legitimate news organization start running with
the story of helicopter pilots who are told no, you
can't go up there, you can't go save those people,
and then you have other people talking about FEMA coming
in and taking some of the supplies, supposedly so they
can do a better job of coordinating the distribution and
the rest of it. You think that perhaps the organizations
responsible for going in and fixing things are finding themselves
flat footed because they a. Not very good at it
and b don't want to be shown up by people
who do. You would think that this would be one
of those stories like you see in a movie or
a television show where you've got some Tommy Lee Jones
character who arrives on the scene, parachutes in comes in
in a helicopter, and immediately snaps everybody into one coordinated
effort that solves everything. But no, and it makes you
wonder if FEMA, which we'll all recall, of course Martin
Lando telling Molder in the first X Files movie, was
the secret government that actually controlled things. Wonderful moment that
shows you how deep the paranoid and stupidity of nineties
was FEMA. The shadow government that FEMA may join the
other institutions in which we have lost a tremendous amount
of respect, because well, they've been more interested in handing
out hotel coupons to people don't ought not to be
here than figuring out what they ought to do when
something like this strikes or am I wrong?
Speaker 3: No, no, no, there's no I mean, there's no doubt
we can't. The federal government cannot control the border. The
Secret Service cannot ensure the physical safety of a former
president and now presidential candidate. Israel can hit back at
the who theis, but the United States Navy it cannot.
Why should we even expect FEMA to prove even minimally competent.
The failure of the federal government and agency after agency
after agency is comprehensive, and.
Speaker 2: None of these are a failure of ability. It's a
failure of will. It's not because we can't actly things.
It's just that we decided not to, and that decision
not to becomes this paralyzing venom that seems to just
cause everything to lock up.
Speaker 1: The Jarman Well, I am impressed by a man who
I've seen described as president of the Southeast Rondo Centers,
who I think has shown the way. This is one
thing Florida is very good at. Had to get very
good at it. And when you have to get very
good at something, you do as the British learned in
nineteen thirty nine, nineteen forty and I think that FEMA
is really not set up in quite the same way
because it's less important to the people who run it.
And that's one reason I'm a free market here, and
it's one reason I'm a federalist is I think people
who have money in the game or affected themselves tend
to do things better. And I just cannot see a
better example of it than the difference between the responses
from the states in North Caro, Liner in Virginia and
Florida here and Florida has sent National Garden State God
troops to help, and FEMA. Of course, because the president's
a Democrat, we hear a lot less about it. We
don't get the calumny that we've got against George W. Bush,
which is desperately unfair. But what matter is most of
the people who have been affected is whether or not
they're getting help, and if they are, it's likely to
have a state emblem on it rather than a FEMA logo.
Speaker 2: I think one of the reasons that Bush got more
trouble than Harris is getting today, aside from, of course,
the natural leaning aspect of the people covering the event,
is that you had New Orleans, you had a concentrated
example of human misery. This to the people, perhaps in
the medium, perhaps in the government just seems sort of
like a spread out area of the country where for
all they know it's done. But jet clampet shooting, it's
some food and it doesn't really going on there, and
it's kind of hard to wrap your brain around. There's
a road out, there's a town gone. It's not the
same as having the you know, the New Orleans Dome
up to its gun whales and water, or seeing blocks
and blocks of flooded school buses. It's just there's there's
no visual thing that they can quite get their hands
on or their eyes on their hook. It doesn't explain
why the coverage has been what. It doesn't justify where
the coverage has been what it is. But I don't know.
I find appalling things in my Twitter feed with photographs
and stories and the rest of it, the occasional AI
photo designed to get clicks, yes, but appalling things. And
then when I go to my main news sources, I
get dribs and drabs and it seems to be all
over and we've moved on to something else, just like
I mean, I'm looking at the news and it's just
like we've moved on beyond the Iranian attack on Israel.
Already we've moved on this desperate need to keep moving on.
As a last question, why is that? Is it because
you know the things aren't going well, and a general
sense of things not going well is not helpful towards
the general project of electing his historical presidential candidate and
taking that box. I think that's part of it. I
that's a lot of it.
Speaker 1: I think it's almost all of it. And I would
just note that we don't move on when not moving
on is useful to the press's broader political projects. The
assassination attempt, the first one on Donald Trump, disappeared quite quickly.
Speaker 3: That was not helpful. The killing of.
Speaker 1: George Floyd lasted an entire summer. And that's because one
allowed the advancement of a negative narrative in the eyes
of those who control our newsrooms, and the other a
positive narrative. And I think this is a huge problem
in this country that massively skews our political conversations.
Speaker 3: Does it ever? Speaking of not moving on, Jack Smith
is given permission to really or releases I don't know.
The judge Chuck whatever, releases the new indictment against Donald Trump,
and the New York Times uncovering it. I give them
this much. They put it in the very first paragraph
that it contains no new information. Now no real I'm paraphrasing,
no new charges, no new information, but richness of detail
and texture. In other words, there's nothing new here. They've
just padded it out with some additional anecdotes, and the
New York Times, literally years after the event, now puts
this on the front page, and it will be there.
I'm sure that I haven't looked again today. I'm sure
there are follow on stories. This will go on for
between them on the election, for sure.
Speaker 2: For sure.
Speaker 3: I think it isn't not that it isn't an important
event that needs to be taught, blah blah blah blah,
but if you put it in the moving on category,
it's time.
Speaker 2: I think at this point it strikes the public imagination
as Jim Garrison coming up with some more charges to
file against somebody in New Orleans about the Kennedy assassination,
or strikes them as interesting as Lenny Bruce sitting on
his stool at the end of his career and reading
the Warren Commission report. I just your eyes glaze over.
He becomes added to it. It's like, yeah, he's a crook,
he's a criminal, again and again and again. I get
I get it, I get it, I get it. I
don't care. Is what most is what the people uh
in Trump's corner will say, And I don't think it
persuades the people in the middle. I think what persuades
them are arguments such as VANCE made about the policies
that they would enact, or as we said a couple
of weeks ago, the policies that they wouldn't. I don't
think people are worried so much about what Donald Trump
would do as concerned that, you know, he wouldn't do
things about what am I trying to say here? Let
me let me rewind that and be more coherent. People
aren't worried about what Donald Trump was going to do.
They're just happy that he won't be doing the things
they expect from Maharis and Walts administration.
Speaker 3: Exactly. You put that beautifully. What was it last week, James?
Speaker 2: I did, and then I said, inexpertly and tumbletongue today.
Speaker 3: Stumbletongue today because I haven't had enough stillating five hundred,
So could I post one one last question myself here?
And it is this What do you two make of
the polls? They just don't seem to move. Donald Trump
has a very bad debate performance in any way you'd
care to score it. She seemed more coherent, calmer, so forth,
and she got maybe half a point benefit out of that.
Vance has a terrific debate performance. Doesn't seem to be
showing up in the polls. She seems to be retaining
I'm looking. I look every day at the real clear average.
She seems to be retaining a national lead of about
two percent, and in the battleground states, he seems to
be maintaining his lead in several including an Arizona. It
just is this very to me, very strange sense of stasis.
Speaker 2: Well, Hillary was going to win two. I believe a
lot of the polls said, I don't know anyway, Charles,
go ahead, I am I'm not. I'm not a poll watchers.
Polls annoy me. They just do. I'm annoyed that I
have to keep up with them. I annoyed that I
have to parse them. I'm annoyed that I have to
keep them in my head. It's my failing, But I
just I'm bored with poles polls. They have allergies to them.
Speaker 1: Charles, go ahead, Well, I have a theory that makes
people very cross when I say it, and I'm sure
expressing it here will yield more angry emails and charges
of squishiness and elite detachment. But I nevertheless think that
I might be onto something I don't. I think the
American public particularly cares about the selection. That is not
the same thing as saying that people aren't hurting, there
aren't real issues. It's not the same thing as saying
that the election doesn't matter. I think there is a
disconnect between how much people who work in politics and
think about politics all the time and volunteer in politics
care about this election, and how much people who are
living normal lives who only start thinking about such things
in late October care about this election. And I think
that the reason for that is in part because both
candidates are god awful. People are tired of Trump, even
if they like it, They're tired of Trump. People do
not like Carl Harris or know who she is, or
find any inspiration or joy in her candidacy. And although
there are a lot of people hurting and the world
is on fire, in many ways, assay historical matter please
don't write to me and saying I'm saying this because
I'm some super rich guy living in a scrooge McDuck castle.
I say, historical matter. Relative to where we were in,
say two thousand and nine, or where we were in
say nineteen eighty, or where we were in say nineteen
thirty two, America is still pretty rich and prosperous. And
because of that, people are not out on the streets
waving signs. And I think that the election is just
not looming large in the imaginations of the public in
the way that those on both sides think that it should.
And I think that's why the polls are hovering at
around fifty to fifty, because we're a fifty to fifty nation.
People have removed themselves back into their usual political, partisan
and ideological postures. And maybe something will break that down
in the end, but maybe it won't, and we're going
to get the closest election since two thousand.
Speaker 6: Now, go jump in your golf cart and drive off
to the course, your tail finned golf court golf cart,
no doubt, no, this little am radio set to an
all Elvis done.
Speaker 2: I think you're right. I think that's the uh that's
the most insightful thing I've heard in the last hour.
And you know that's with Eli and Peters. So you
got two screeds out of Charlie and then a third
one which I wouldn't say was screedy, but it certainly was.
Speaker 3: That was pretty screedy. That was pretty screedy. I think
Screen Adjacent.
Speaker 6: Seen has greenish elements of a philipic but but it
also had anyway.
Speaker 2: So we are moving along, we are going away. We'll
be back next week, of course with podcast number seven twelve.
We'll be back all through the election and beyond. Because
we're ricochet dot com. I'm not going anywhere. And you
if you haven't been there yet, if you've been listening
to me talk for seven and eleven episodes, I don't
know what's going to do to take you to go
to ricochet dot com. But once you do, you'll be
happy because you will find the place you've been looking
for all these years on the internet, same civil mostly
center right com, mostly center right conversation. It's a great place.
I love it. I'm there every day. I'm there five
six times a day checking it. We just I had
a great conversation with one with Gary McVeigh about what
are you thinking, oh, about demographic shifts in the Southwest,
about increasing trade problems with Canada, about immigration in southern
Now we're talking about Sergeant Bilko. Phil Silver Is a
great movie he made, and how that inevitably wound into
a conversation about television and mid century culture and it
was just great. It was so Ricochet and it's waiting
for you. So go there, sign up and join the
member feed and give us those five stars at Apple
Podcast if you don't mind. And I can't think of
anything else except we'll see you in the comments at
Ricochet four point oh Next.
Speaker 3: Week, guys, next week, boys, Ricochet join the conversation