Speaker 1: My other favorite Churchill story is when his great granddaughter,
Speaker 1: I think granddaughter ran into the room. This is off
Speaker 1: to the war, and he's sitting writing his memoirs and
Speaker 1: she runs into You may know this. She runs into
Speaker 1: the room and she sees him sitting there, and she's gosped.
Speaker 2: She stops, shees, She goes.
Speaker 1: Great Granddad, is it true that you're the greatest man
Speaker 1: in the world? And he says, yes, Now fuck off.
Speaker 3: Ask not what your country can do for you, Ask
Speaker 3: what you can do for your country. Mister gorbachav tear
Speaker 3: down this wall. It's the Ricochet podcast number seven hundred
Speaker 3: and forty one. James Lilax is off today, but I
Speaker 3: am joined by Peter Robinson and Charles C. W. Cook
Speaker 3: and our special guest, Christopher Scalia. Let's have ourselves a podcast.
Speaker 4: The gleaming marvels of Ria and Abu Dhabi were not
Speaker 4: created by the show called nation builders, neo cons or
Speaker 4: liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trillions of
Speaker 4: dollars failing. Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East
Speaker 4: has been brought by the people of the region themselves,
Speaker 4: the people that are right here, the people that have
Speaker 4: lived here all their lives.
Speaker 3: Welcome everybody to episode seven forty one of the Ricochet podcast.
Speaker 3: James is off today I'll be your host, Steve Hayward,
Speaker 3: joined us always by Charles C. W. Cook, and today
Speaker 3: a stranger is filling the third slot. It's a guy
Speaker 3: named Peter Robinson. Hi, Peter, how are you? Hi?
Speaker 5: Steve? I barely remember myself right what? We've got a
Speaker 5: lot to do in.
Speaker 3: Our special guest today will be Christopher Scalia with a
Speaker 3: terrific new book on novels that we've been neglecting. But
Speaker 3: before we get to Christopher, quickly, Peter, and I mean
Speaker 3: very quickly, because this could be the whole show. But
Speaker 3: give me your just initial impressions of the new Pope.
Speaker 5: The Pope I listen, I mean I like him. Yeah, yeah, No,
Speaker 5: I do too. I'm just trying to explain that I
Speaker 5: feel myself in the position of a dog rescued from
Speaker 5: the pound that was grievously beaten by its former owner.
Speaker 5: It is going to be a while before I unclench
Speaker 5: and give my full trust to a new master. That's
Speaker 5: the kind of beaten dog I am. After twelve years
Speaker 5: of Pope Francis, now, I'm sure there will be some.
Speaker 5: And I speak of him with respect because he is
Speaker 5: the pope, was the pope. And however, Pope Leo is just.
Speaker 5: He seems to be a man of good sense, well spoken,
Speaker 5: loves the church, and loves the church in every particular
Speaker 5: of its history. So he speaks beautiful Latin, he sings
Speaker 5: the Regina Shelley in front of the Every bit of
Speaker 5: this is just a relief and an inspiration to a
Speaker 5: Catholic such me. So I truly I love the man.
Speaker 5: I love the man right down to his brothers, who
Speaker 5: are moordinary Americans, just right, the sense of normalcy. Now,
Speaker 5: of course, the left will be outraged because one of
Speaker 5: the brothers is pro Trump. I remind the left that
Speaker 5: Trump won the popular vote last time. You can be
Speaker 5: a normal American and pro Trump. Just the sense of
Speaker 5: a kind of normal love of the church, love of country,
Speaker 5: love of this country. Not however, that he hasn't dedicated
Speaker 5: almost all his life to the poor in Peru. But
Speaker 5: I so far I love him. I find myself my
Speaker 5: heart going out to him.
Speaker 3: Right. All right, Well, let's go from the sacred to
Speaker 3: the mundane. I'll put it that way. Charles, I got
Speaker 3: up early yesterday out here on the left coast to
Speaker 3: listen to the oral argument in the Supreme Court. Yeah, wow,
Speaker 3: the birthright citizenship. Although really the case is about whether
Speaker 3: district courts can do these nationwide injunctions. So I listened
Speaker 3: to the whole thing and have my thoughts. But did
Speaker 3: you get a chance to listen or review at Charles?
Speaker 6: I did?
Speaker 1: I have thoughts on both of those? Which do you
Speaker 1: want either describe it whoever you like?
Speaker 5: Charles? Is this wonderful intellectual constitutionalist's jukebox you put in
Speaker 5: a quarter rights your button? Go ahead, right?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: I wish that this case was not also about national injunctions,
Speaker 1: because I think they'd be a better vehicle for that,
Speaker 1: and also it may get in the way of the
Speaker 1: on the merits decision. I have very complicated thoughts about
Speaker 1: national induction, Steve. I think that ultimately the problem we
Speaker 1: have with judges who come in and usurp the role
Speaker 1: of the other branches is that the judges are hacks,
Speaker 1: not that national injunctions exist, because there are many circumstances
Speaker 1: in which it makes sense to have national injunctions.
Speaker 2: I think the problem is we have a lot of
Speaker 2: bad judges on the.
Speaker 1: Question of birthright citizenship. It's funny. I think Trump will
Speaker 1: lose this if it's decided. I am less persuaded than
Speaker 1: I was that it is easy. I thought last year
Speaker 1: i'd say.
Speaker 5: Well, yes, that's a profound point.
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, one kim ark is settled law. The originalist
Speaker 1: meaning is obvious. I still think that's probably true on balance.
Speaker 1: I certainly think that there would be five votes for
Speaker 1: that position, three of the Democrat appointed judges, and then
Speaker 1: probably Robertson Kavanaugh on precedent inertia grounds. But I am
Speaker 1: less sure than I was. I haven't got to that
Speaker 1: because of yesterday's or all arguments. I've got to that
Speaker 1: slowly over time. Randy Mannett raised some questions for me.
Speaker 1: Ilan Werman raised some questions for me. I read a
Speaker 1: few of the Amikast briefs. I've read some other people
Speaker 1: I respect who have sown doubt in my mind. So
Speaker 1: this one, actually, I think is more difficult than I
Speaker 1: had thought it was.
Speaker 3: You no, My impression it was that they're going to
Speaker 3: pun completely on the birthright citizenship issue, because it seemed
Speaker 3: like about ninety five percent rough estimate of the argument
Speaker 3: was really concentrated on the nationwide injunction question. And I
Speaker 3: thought Justice Kagan gave away the whole game when she said,
Speaker 3: with some indignance in the way she put the question
Speaker 3: to one of the Trump attorneys Justice Department attorneys, I
Speaker 3: can't believe you're bringing this case to us. And the
Speaker 3: subtext was you're trying to sheehorn in birthright citizenship on
Speaker 3: something that even I admit it's problematic, which is district
Speaker 3: judges giving nationwide injunctions. And then the second thing was
Speaker 3: the other thing of the weakness of I think the
Speaker 3: Democratic justices, it's clear they hate what's going on on
Speaker 3: both levels. I think they like activist judges doing nationwide injunctions.
Speaker 3: But the Trump administration plan or initial argument was, well, look,
Speaker 3: the decision should be bound to just the parties of
Speaker 3: the case, which was you know Lincoln's view about dred Scott,
Speaker 3: by the way, so not a novel or exotic position, correct,
Speaker 3: And the Trump attorneys responded sensibly, well, look, you could
Speaker 3: have a class action suit brought to federal district court
Speaker 3: and that could give a broader injunction to a whole
Speaker 3: class of people. And then there were but then the
Speaker 3: comeback from the liberal justices was, well, what if the
Speaker 3: class isn't certified, are you really telling me you'd have
Speaker 3: to go one person at a time through the federal
Speaker 3: courts to vindicate their citizenship or vindicate their eligibility for
Speaker 3: benefits and other rights that come from citizenship. And so
Speaker 3: you could tell that. I think that there's and I
Speaker 3: think even Keigan's probably thinks that nationwide adjunctions are problematic
Speaker 3: at the very least. But it was clear that he
Speaker 3: really hates it that it's tied up with the birthright
Speaker 3: citizenship issue.
Speaker 5: We have a guest joining us soon, so but may
Speaker 5: I ask a question of both of you. I did
Speaker 5: not listen to all the oral arguments, and I certainly
Speaker 5: didn't read any of the meek as briefs the way
Speaker 5: Charlie did. But I listened to bits and pieces of
Speaker 5: it as it floated through my feed yesterday. And here's
Speaker 5: my question on national injunctions. I try to put myself
Speaker 5: in the mind of John Roberts, Chief Justice John Roberts. Oh,
Speaker 5: and we've seen over and over again, and I think
Speaker 5: it's true of him. By the way, just full disclosure,
Speaker 5: I've known the man for forty years. We worked together
Speaker 5: in the Reagan white House's young men, and I like
Speaker 5: him a lot, which is not to say that I
Speaker 5: get my head around all of his jurisprudence. However, he
Speaker 5: really is an institutionalist there. He really does take seriously
Speaker 5: holding it all together. And now we come with an argument.
Speaker 5: And the argument really it's interesting for Justice Thomas and
Speaker 5: Justice Alito as well, because it's not a question where
Speaker 5: how do you apply original meaning to the question of
Speaker 5: national injunctions. You've got six more than six hundred district
Speaker 5: court judges who have the power to impose national injunctions.
Speaker 5: Every single one of them is simply a judge who
Speaker 5: has the ability to stand up to the President of
Speaker 5: the United States, elected by the entire country, and in
Speaker 5: many circumstances, to the Congress of the United States, to
Speaker 5: defy on his own bat Article one an Article two
Speaker 5: of the Constitution. And it doesn't work. It's almost a
Speaker 5: purely institutional argument. The situation is untenable. Now, mister Chief Justice,
Speaker 5: what do you do with it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good question. You know what I want
Speaker 3: to do, Peter, I actually want to pose that question
Speaker 3: to our guest, who is ready to join us in
Speaker 3: a moment he may not want the question, and you'll
Speaker 3: see why. I want to tell you who it is.
Speaker 3: Our guest is here. It is Christopher Scalia, a senior
Speaker 3: fellow in the Social Cultural and Constitutional Studies at the
Speaker 3: American Enterprise Institute, formerly a professor of English at the
Speaker 3: University of Virginia's College at WISE, and he has a
Speaker 3: brand new book out that he's here to talk about.
Speaker 3: But Chris, you'll get used to a book tour interviews
Speaker 3: where the interviewer wants to ask you about something aside
Speaker 3: from your book. But I promise we will do the book.
Speaker 3: The book is called Thirteen Novels Conservatives will love but
Speaker 3: probably haven't read. It's going to be out here next week. Chris, welcome,
Speaker 3: glad to have you. I've been waiting with great anticipation
Speaker 3: for this book.
Speaker 6: Thank you, guys. It's great to be back on the
Speaker 6: podcast and I'm looking forward to talking to you all.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay, well just briefly. I mean, because I think listeners,
Speaker 3: because of who you are in your name, they're going
Speaker 3: to know if you have an opinion about the Supreme
Speaker 3: Court argument this week on injunctions and birthright citizenship. And
Speaker 3: if you don't, that's fine because you are a professor
Speaker 3: of English and not of the law. But since we
Speaker 3: have you, I have to ask.
Speaker 6: I admit I have not been following it very closely
Speaker 6: because I've been preoccupied with book obligations and opportunities. So
Speaker 6: it's obviously an important issue, and I agree with the
Speaker 6: general conservative consensus that these universal injunctions are becoming a
Speaker 6: serious problem and we need to figure out what the
Speaker 6: hell is going on with them, as President Trump would say,
Speaker 6: and they do seem novel. So my own uneducated opinion
Speaker 6: on the matter is that the judges making these injunctions,
Speaker 6: handing down these injunctions are overstepping their bounds. But I
Speaker 6: don't have a ton of confidence in that opinion, And
Speaker 6: based on a little bit I heard about of the
Speaker 6: arguments yesterday, I really don't know what's going to happen
Speaker 6: with the birthright citizenship decision. But obviously I'm not certain,
Speaker 6: and you can't tell for sure from oral arguments, but
Speaker 6: it does look like the administration has an uphill battle there.
Speaker 5: Enough of this, Christopher Scullia, I have known you since
Speaker 5: you were a pipsqueak. Now Here you come, now here
Speaker 5: you come, all eloquent, informed, speaking judiciously. Furthermore, you've written
Speaker 5: a book, and to my intense irritation, it's a very
Speaker 5: very good book. Here's the threshold question. In an age
Speaker 5: in which you know, as the father of four, nobody reads,
Speaker 5: kids are not being raised to read. Here you come
Speaker 5: saying we'll come to some of the particular novels in
Speaker 5: a moment. But here you come saying reading is important.
Speaker 5: And furthermore, this disused genre, this old form, the novel,
Speaker 5: really matters. It can say tremendously important things to us.
Speaker 5: It can help us think through why we're conservatives. It
Speaker 5: can help us approach life in a healthy and more
Speaker 5: intelligent way. What the hell are you talking about?
Speaker 6: You are unfortunately correct that people are not reading much
Speaker 6: of anything anymore, apart from their phones, I guess, and
Speaker 6: that's been going on for a long time, but it
Speaker 6: it is getting worse. I won't get into the numbers,
Speaker 6: but one alarming statistic is that in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 6: young people were the most likely to read a lot,
Speaker 6: and now young people are just behind the very old
Speaker 6: in rates of reading as of just a couple of
Speaker 6: years ago. And no doubt that has a lot to
Speaker 6: do with the many, many distractions that young people have
Speaker 6: to choose from. What I do in the introduction to
Speaker 6: my book is make the case for reading, in particular
Speaker 6: for reading fiction. I have nothing against poetry, but novels
Speaker 6: are what this book is about, and fiction has particular
Speaker 6: merits that other type of types of books do not have.
Speaker 6: History books obviously are important, but I know, especially conservatives
Speaker 6: love reading history and biography, especially conservative men. But novels
Speaker 6: give us knowledge in a way that those books do not,
Speaker 6: and they also offer beauty in a way that history
Speaker 6: books rarely do. And I think conservatives especially should be
Speaker 6: interested in the novel as a form because it is
Speaker 6: among the greatest art forms of Western civilization. It's a
Speaker 6: relatively new form. It's only, you know, a few centuries old,
Speaker 6: but some of our yeah, that's right, it's basically a
Speaker 6: new kid on the block. But it's uh. Some of
Speaker 6: the greatest thinkers and writers of our civilization have expressed
Speaker 6: their ideas and written in this form, and we need
Speaker 6: to be aware of it. We need to we need
Speaker 6: to remember and maintain our ability to engage with novels,
Speaker 6: because once we lose that ability, I mean, you're not
Speaker 6: born with it. It takes some practice to appreciate a novel.
Speaker 6: It is much easier to scroll through TikTok or whatever.
Speaker 6: But if we lose that, we're cutting ourselves off from
Speaker 6: a great literary tradition.
Speaker 5: Okay, you give me about three sentences. I'm going to
Speaker 5: hit you with some of the novels that you discuss here,
Speaker 5: and at some point, at any point, Steve Hayward and
Speaker 5: Charlie Cook are going to jump in to take issue
Speaker 5: with you or ask why you left this or that
Speaker 5: novel off the list. But let's begin with one that
Speaker 5: I myself always just loved Rossellus Samuel Johnson. Yeah, what's
Speaker 5: the point of it? When? What's the story? And what's
Speaker 5: the points? According to Scalia.
Speaker 6: Samuel Johnson Rashalis, technically not a novel. I cheat a
Speaker 6: little bit here. It's an Oriental tale, but nobody's going
Speaker 6: to care enough to raise a big fuss about that.
Speaker 6: Seventeen fifty nine. It is a tale of a young
Speaker 6: man who is restless. The pun on his name suggests
Speaker 6: that he is. He has a great life. He's a
Speaker 6: prince and he lives in a kingdom. Everything is given
Speaker 6: to him, but he doesn't have to work. He doesn't
Speaker 6: have to do anything, and his experience and knowledge is
Speaker 6: are so limited. He wants to go out and learn
Speaker 6: more about the world. And what he learns is that
Speaker 6: life is full of disappointment, not because it's unfair or
Speaker 6: anything like that, but once you reach what once you
Speaker 6: reach your goals, you immediately want to do something else.
Speaker 6: There's an innate restlessness about us. And the novel is
Speaker 6: also about a very conservative idea of universal human nature,
Speaker 6: human behaviors and ideas and values that transcend time and place,
Speaker 6: and what I do in my chapters, I connect a
Speaker 6: lot of what Johnson wrote to what the Founders wrote.
Speaker 6: Even though Johnson was not a fan of the American Revolution,
Speaker 6: a lot of their Enlightenment ideals overlap.
Speaker 5: Tell us about the astronomer.
Speaker 6: Oh, the astronomer is somebody who gets so he's a
Speaker 6: character in this book who gets so absorbed in basically
Speaker 6: in his one bit of knowledge, impressive knowledge that it
Speaker 6: is that it deforms his mind. And it's a really
Speaker 6: important lesson that any really any expertise deforms the mind.
Speaker 6: I think Nietzsche said that I should have quoted that,
Speaker 6: And so they have to kind of rescue him and
Speaker 6: bring he believes he has all sorts of powers he
Speaker 6: doesn't have, so they have to dissuade him.
Speaker 5: I read Rosalus because it was assigned I read Rossellus
Speaker 5: in college. It is I'm so delighted that you started
Speaker 5: with it, because it is for young men particularly. Leave
Speaker 5: I leave the brick bets from the women to you,
Speaker 5: although there will come to that in a moment. But
Speaker 5: the astronomer seems at first to young Rossellus like though
Speaker 5: he has finally found a wise man, yes, a man
Speaker 5: who studies that. And then gradually as he spends time,
Speaker 5: as you read through the work, it becomes clear that
Speaker 5: the astronomer believes that he's not merely observing the moon rise,
Speaker 5: that he is causing it, that all the movements of
Speaker 5: the cosmos have come to depend upon him. And I
Speaker 5: have to say I have found that as I've gone
Speaker 5: through life, I have found that particular touch of insanity
Speaker 5: in one otherwise wise sane, accomplished person after or another.
Speaker 5: It's profound. Okay, now we come to.
Speaker 6: You described that much better than I did, Peter. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Can I bit in Peter for a minute, because of course,
Speaker 3: see well, I think we got to set a broader
Speaker 3: scene for the listeners first before we get in some
Speaker 3: particular novels. I mean, we can do each one of
Speaker 3: these for an hour each almost. But put this way, Chris.
Speaker 3: When I saw that you were working on this book,
Speaker 3: and I've been looking forward to this, by the way,
Speaker 3: so I'm glad now to have it, and I saw
Speaker 3: the title, it was thirteen novels. Oh gosh, I just
Speaker 3: lost it.
Speaker 6: Here, thirteen novels conservatives will love but probably haven't read.
Speaker 3: Right. Well, you know my first assumption as well, it's
Speaker 3: probably gonna be the you know, the usual list of
Speaker 3: the books that I cherish, you know, orwell, Darkness at
Speaker 3: Noon Brights had revisited C. S. Lewis's novels, several others
Speaker 3: you can point to, and you make nods to those
Speaker 3: in your introduction as you explain how you've done it.
Speaker 3: And instead the list we've got as even some of
Speaker 3: the prominent authors, you haven't done their most prominent novel So,
Speaker 3: for example, you have Georgia Elliott, and of course I say, oh,
Speaker 3: Middle March, like one of the five Greatest Things. Instead
Speaker 3: you have Daniel Deronda instead. So I'm wondering what your
Speaker 3: thought process was picking novels that you might say, are
Speaker 3: not the ones that would be the a list that
Speaker 3: the rest of us would do if we're asked by say,
Speaker 3: National Review, to give the five most important conservative novels
Speaker 3: or something.
Speaker 5: Steve says, Steve says, how interesting explained to us how
Speaker 5: you took all these offbeat novels by great authors. And
Speaker 5: Robinson is thinking, yes, Kaliah, what the hell were you doing?
Speaker 3: No, I didn't think that at all. I thought it
Speaker 3: was I thought it was genius. Peter.
Speaker 5: I wish to reserve. I yield the floor back to you, guys,
Speaker 5: but I wish to reserve a moment or two to
Speaker 5: bitch and moan about selecting Waverley.
Speaker 6: But go ahead, how dare you? How dare you?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 6: I don't know if it's hereditary, but I am a
Speaker 6: little bit of a contrarian, and I wanted to. I
Speaker 6: wanted readers to encounter books that were off the beaten path,
Speaker 6: in large part because conservatives do have this bookshelf that
Speaker 6: at their hands that is for the most part, pretty impressive.
Speaker 6: But by always going to the same books, and you
Speaker 6: mentioned a lot of them, we're we're selling ourselves short.
Speaker 6: We're not recognizing the rich literary tradition that that kind
Speaker 6: of reinforces or develops or depicts some of the values
Speaker 6: and ideas that we hold deer. And these aren't These
Speaker 6: novels do not proselytize. These novels are are not didactic.
Speaker 6: They are first and foremost great works of literature that
Speaker 6: I really believe people of any political persuasion would enjoy.
Speaker 6: But conservatives in particular would enjoy these books because they're
Speaker 6: surprising and they and they are sympathetic to things that
Speaker 6: we hold deer. In the case of Daniel Deronda, Middle
Speaker 6: Marches is the better novel by by George Elliott, but
Speaker 6: more people are familiar with with Middle March, and I
Speaker 6: think Daniel Deronda is underrated. It is her longest novel,
Speaker 6: is her last novel, but I find it remarkably accessible
Speaker 6: for as long as it is. I think it moves
Speaker 6: pretty quickly. And it is it's about duty, It's about
Speaker 6: what you owe other people, the sacrifices you make you
Speaker 6: have to make to other people. And one of the
Speaker 6: main characters, Gwendolen Harleth is a beautiful, funny, very likable
Speaker 6: character in some ways, but very selfish, and she learns
Speaker 6: the hard way the short the dangers of that selfishness.
Speaker 6: But more remarkably, it's a Zionist novel. This novel. George
Speaker 6: Elliott was not Jewish, but this novel predates the Zionist
Speaker 6: First Zionist Congress by two decades. And it's a case
Speaker 6: for a Jewish state that in which the Jewish people
Speaker 6: are able basically to secure a national identity in the
Speaker 6: way that European peoples are able to do it. So
Speaker 6: it's for that reason a very controversial novel. But in
Speaker 6: this day and age, perhaps especially relevant.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, Chris, I think that you've got a
Speaker 3: wonderful list here. I just sent from Peter's crankiness about
Speaker 3: how you picked it. But I'll say listeners that this
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Speaker 3: Ricochet Podcast. All right, Christopher, we're back. But before I
Speaker 3: turn you back to Peter for his completely unfounded criticism,
Speaker 3: I'll just say that I enjoyed you saying that one
Speaker 3: of the subtexts of the of the book is, as
Speaker 3: you put it, read another book, something that's not on
Speaker 3: the regular lists. And you said you thought of calling
Speaker 3: the book read another book, but the publisher wisely said
Speaker 3: that wouldn't attract a lot higher You know, I do
Speaker 3: remember from back in what sixties and seventies, was either
Speaker 3: Jerry Rubin or Abbie Hoffman or one of those old
Speaker 3: yippies had a book that they called Steal this book. Yes, anyway,
Speaker 3: so I kind of think read another book was maybe
Speaker 3: not such a bad idea.
Speaker 6: Anyway, would have been a more fun title. My title
Speaker 6: just tells you exactly you know, exactly what you're getting.
Speaker 6: That's the advantage of thirteen novels conservatives will love.
Speaker 5: Thirteen novels conservatives will love. And as I so read
Speaker 5: the book, read Christopher's essays about each novel, because the
Speaker 5: son of a bitch writes just beautifully. Boy does it
Speaker 5: annoy me to see to see somebody coming up behind me,
Speaker 5: who's going to who's already in some ways past me?
Speaker 5: Boy do I hate? I just stick my leg out,
Speaker 5: hoping you'll trip over it somehow or other. The novel
Speaker 5: I decided, I resolved, and I recommend this resolution to everybody.
Speaker 5: Read Christopher's book, read the essays one by one, and
Speaker 5: then take the books that you haven't already read and
Speaker 5: read them. And I have to confess in the final chat,
Speaker 5: I never I read about but never read The Children
Speaker 5: of Men by P. D. James. And then I have
Speaker 5: never read anything by leaf Anger Christopher recommends peace like
Speaker 5: a River. Nor have I honestly even heard of Christopher
Speaker 5: Biha Beja.
Speaker 3: How is that?
Speaker 5: I don't even know.
Speaker 6: I think it's be yea Christopher.
Speaker 5: Beha the index of self destructive arts. So I said, terrific,
Speaker 5: I'm going to take this and do what I think
Speaker 5: everybody ought to do. Get the book, read the essays,
Speaker 5: and then read what you haven't already read. And so
Speaker 5: I got to Waverley. What were you thinking? I was thinking,
Speaker 5: I addresses all over the place.
Speaker 6: It is the Fun's have the fun.
Speaker 5: It is like watching your life drift by in some
Speaker 5: muddy river that just trickles on path. Furthermore, it's nobody's
Speaker 5: favorite book by Walter Scott. I can't find a good
Speaker 5: edition of it even on Amazon. I can't find a
Speaker 5: good edition to a reduced bookstore.
Speaker 6: Go ahead, this is all. This is slander and calumny.
Speaker 5: Okay, So why did you choose every book with knights
Speaker 5: and armor specializes in calumny?
Speaker 6: So ivan Hoe is great, and in some way ivan
Speaker 6: Hoe is his best structured novel. But Walter Scott's best
Speaker 6: novels are the one set in Scotland, one of the
Speaker 6: one factor in determining what books to include in this
Speaker 6: In my book, all of these book novels you can
Speaker 6: find easily in paperback editions, including Waverley uh Penguin World
Speaker 6: Classics and Oxford World Penguin Classics. In Oxford World Classics
Speaker 6: editions of these are easy to find. Conservatives throughout history,
Speaker 6: or at least since Walter Scott was writing have loved
Speaker 6: Walter Scott. G. K. Chesterton Russell kirk Kirk called him
Speaker 6: basically Burkie, and he did more to spread Edmund Burke's
Speaker 6: ideas than Burke himself did. Scott was the most significant
Speaker 6: novelist of the Romantic era and arguably the nineteenth century
Speaker 6: until Dickens came along. And and yes, I'm not forgetting
Speaker 6: about Jane Austen. When George Elliott writes about the Romantic
Speaker 6: period in Middle March, to establish the setting, she has
Speaker 6: all of her characters talk about Walter Scott because he
Speaker 6: was such a big deal. And the digressions, I think
Speaker 6: are half the fun. It is difficult because it's he's
Speaker 6: writing about a time period we don't know about. He's
Speaker 6: writing about the Jacobite Uprising. But it's such an important
Speaker 6: novels novel for conservatives to know because a it conveys
Speaker 6: this really important point that it's not enough just to
Speaker 6: read and not enough to Yeah, not to read widely,
Speaker 6: but you need to read with some purpose. You need
Speaker 6: to read, and especially if you're young, you need people
Speaker 6: to guide you when you read. So nowadays we see
Speaker 6: a young person reading something below their grade level or
Speaker 6: something we think, oh, at least he's reading. But that's
Speaker 6: not that can be dangerous. And Scott is also important
Speaker 6: for conservatives. As I said, he's Burkeian and this novel
Speaker 6: is I think one of his most Burkian novels because
Speaker 6: it shows the d reminds us of the dangers of
Speaker 6: revolution and sudden change rather than incremental change and gradual process.
Speaker 5: Oh all right, I'm sold. I'm sold.
Speaker 6: And also it's fun it's funny, Christopher.
Speaker 1: I would like you to account for my failures. I
Speaker 1: have read one book.
Speaker 6: Can I guess which book you read? Is it Scoop?
Speaker 2: That's right? That's right?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: Yes, now, yes, now here's the thing.
Speaker 1: I have read everything evil and War, right, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: have read I think everything else from George j Elliott
Speaker 1: except Daniel there on THEE And then if you put
Speaker 1: a bunch of books in front of me by the
Speaker 1: same author, I've probably been through those for a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of Jane Austen. I read everything Jane Austen wrote,
Speaker 1: all well Shakespeare.
Speaker 2: So here's my question.
Speaker 1: And as somebody who's not as we well read as
Speaker 1: I would like to be or or could be, but
Speaker 1: is nevertheless not a slout, why haven't I read all
Speaker 1: the books on this list or more than one of them?
Speaker 1: So there's going to be something about these books because
Speaker 1: you say in the book conservatives probably haven't read them.
Speaker 1: That's a very good guess, at least in my case.
Speaker 1: Why haven't they read these ones? Because I recognize a
Speaker 1: lot of the authors. I just haven't read these books.
Speaker 6: I think part of it is going back to what
Speaker 6: I was saying earlier. We're just conservatives in particular are
Speaker 6: stuck in a rut about the same the same handful
Speaker 6: of novels. So if you talk to somebody about George Elliott,
Speaker 6: it's gonna be about Middle March.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But why, it's my question, Like why is.
Speaker 6: Because because the books you're familiar with are great. There's
Speaker 6: It's the point, isn't that those novels are bad, but
Speaker 6: they Jane Austen, for example, Jane Austen is obviously excellent. Yeah,
Speaker 6: the only thing bad about Jane Austen is that she
Speaker 6: distracts us from everybody else who was good at her time,
Speaker 6: except for Mary Shelley, and we still read Frankenstein. I
Speaker 6: include Walter Scott, as I mentioned, he was very important
Speaker 6: and widely read. I also include my Jane Austen like
Speaker 6: novel is Evelina by Fanny Bernie Francis. Bernie. Austin loved
Speaker 6: her and when you read this novel you'll see why.
Speaker 6: You'll see its influence on Jane Austen, especially pride and prejudice.
Speaker 6: But we don't talk about it because there are just
Speaker 6: over the time. Certain books assume a place in the
Speaker 6: cannon that they do deserve, but other books that arguably
Speaker 6: also deserve that place get overshadowed.
Speaker 1: But what I'm driving at, and perhaps this is a
Speaker 1: difficult question, but is Daniel Deronda a worse book than
Speaker 1: Middle March or is it just abtry The Middle marchals
Speaker 1: I've read Silas Manner as well, are the ones that
Speaker 1: my school encouraged and that people talk about.
Speaker 2: I mean, why is that.
Speaker 6: I think Middle March is a little bit better than
Speaker 6: Daniel Deronda. Okay, but for the purposes of my novel,
Speaker 6: of my book, Daniel Deronda, I think is more interesting
Speaker 6: in some ways. I think Daniel Deronda is more thought provoking.
Speaker 6: It is still an excellent novel, but it's one that
Speaker 6: I think is overlooked because Middle March gets deserved attention
Speaker 6: some of the later books I write about, I just
Speaker 6: don't think. I think conservatives have an aversion to later
Speaker 6: novels like.
Speaker 5: Conservatives conservatives of myself.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I think after like after after WAW,
Speaker 6: we get a little bit skeptical. But Muriel Spark, I
Speaker 6: include the girls of Slender Means she was She's if
Speaker 6: you like WAW, you're gonna like Muriel Spark. She's she
Speaker 6: was also a Catholic convert. She was less orthodox in
Speaker 6: her belief but she's about as funny as WAW. Formally
Speaker 6: more interesting than WAW. And then vs. Night Paul. I
Speaker 6: think he has some important lessons for conservatives. He was
Speaker 6: loathed by liberal academics because he pushed back against postcolonialism,
Speaker 6: and he won a Pulitzer. I mean, he was recognized
Speaker 6: as a great novelist, but I think for whatever reason,
Speaker 6: we're skeptical of him. And then I wanted to include
Speaker 6: twenty first century novels to make clear that people are
Speaker 6: still doing this. People great, great novels are still still
Speaker 6: being written, and not every novel coming out is just
Speaker 6: woke stuff to run away from.
Speaker 3: Christopher can I ask what twenty first century novels were
Speaker 3: on your possible candidate list. I'm curious about this.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 6: The ones I included were Leif Vanger, Piece Like a
Speaker 6: River and Christopher Beja Index of Self Destructive Acts. I
Speaker 6: considered including Gilead by Marilyn Robinson, which is one of
Speaker 6: the great novels of the century so far, but I
Speaker 6: thought a lot of people have read that. I considered
Speaker 6: including Cormick McCarthy, but again, I think a lot of
Speaker 6: conservatives are familiar with Cormick McCarthy. There are a lot
Speaker 6: of people already saying read Cormick McCarthy. I wanted to
Speaker 6: advocate novels that were a little more obscure, but I
Speaker 6: think I think I prefer them more than Cornmick McCarthy.
Speaker 5: Frankly, may I offer an answer, at least a partial
Speaker 5: answer to Charlie. In my reading of Christopher's book thirteen
Speaker 5: Novels conservatives will love but probably haven't read, I don't
Speaker 5: take Christopher, who is with us and can correct me
Speaker 5: if I'm wrong. I don't take Christopher as actually attempting
Speaker 5: to establish to add these books to the canon, or
Speaker 5: to establish an alternative canon. I take Christopher. I take
Speaker 5: this guide as an exploration not only of these thirteen
Speaker 5: novels and novelists, but as, in some ways the presentation
Speaker 5: of Christopher's scalia. And it turns out that taking Chris
Speaker 5: as a guide is worth it. He's that good. So
Speaker 5: it may strike you, as I have to say it
Speaker 5: struck me in some regards. I'm still a little I'm
Speaker 5: still a little ticked off about Waverley because it's going
Speaker 5: to take me hours more to get through that thing.
Speaker 5: But Christopher's written a really good book and it's fascinating.
Speaker 5: And just because he thinks this is the point. Yeah,
Speaker 5: Christopher is so good that because he thinks these thirteen
Speaker 5: novels are important, they are important. By the way, I am.
Speaker 6: I love that.
Speaker 3: I am going to.
Speaker 5: Make a Yeah, well, I figured you would tell Adele
Speaker 5: to send the check to my home Adgry. So I
Speaker 5: have a confession to make, and it really is a confession.
Speaker 5: As far as I am aware, and unless by accident,
Speaker 5: I have never read a novel written in the present century. Yeah,
Speaker 5: but under Christopher's guidance, I'm going to read, and I'm
Speaker 5: going to start with these two.
Speaker 6: There have been a lot of great novels over the
Speaker 6: last twenty five years, and many of them don't espouse
Speaker 6: conservative views. I'm a big fan of Jonathan Franzen's novels.
Speaker 6: Nobody would confuse him with the conservative or expressing conservative ideas.
Speaker 6: But yeah, I Peter, I think a lot of conservatives
Speaker 6: share your wariness. But I think we were missing out
Speaker 6: when we do that. And if I can give a
Speaker 6: plug for one more novel, I write about this one
Speaker 6: that Zora Neil Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. That's
Speaker 6: probably the most widely read book I cover it, which
Speaker 6: she died in nineteen sixty. Really nobody knew about her.
Speaker 6: She had some success in her lifetime, and then she
Speaker 6: faded out and died in obscurity and poverty. And then
Speaker 6: the novelist Alice Walker kind of resurrected her career in
Speaker 6: the seventies and now her novel is the most assigned
Speaker 6: novel by an American woman in colleges across the country.
Speaker 5: That's why I've stayed away from it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, exactly, and that I think is okay, bad sign.
Speaker 6: I think conservatives are wary of that. And uh when
Speaker 6: she Alice Walker revived her reputation in part because Hearston
Speaker 6: was presented as a This was present presented as a
Speaker 6: black feminist novel, and there are feminist elements, but it's
Speaker 6: much more complicated than that. But conservatives, I think will
Speaker 6: love this. Hurston was really, really conservative. She was a
Speaker 6: she was an American patriot. She hated communism. She was
Speaker 6: she was so conservative. She hated Brown v Board. She
Speaker 6: thought it was a bad decision because, in part because
Speaker 6: it it assumed that black students could only learn if
Speaker 6: white people were around them, which is ironically a progressive
Speaker 6: argument today, and their eyes were watching God. Has some
Speaker 6: really conservative arguments and points about about race and racial progress.
Speaker 6: And there's a great passage in which Hurston kind of
Speaker 6: subtly defends the reputation and accomplishments of Booker T. Washington
Speaker 6: and his emphasis on self reliance education. But like you, Peter,
Speaker 6: I think a lot of conservatives and I know I
Speaker 6: was too. We're wary of this novel because of because
Speaker 6: it was so popular. It's a you know, contrarian instinct.
Speaker 5: Here's the last largish question for you. You've got to
Speaker 5: go on to other podcasts and sell your book. The
Speaker 5: last largest question is this We now have, oh, depending
Speaker 5: on how you count it, three decades at least, maybe
Speaker 5: even half a century of the American Academy saying we
Speaker 5: need to deconstruct novels, we need to read them through
Speaker 5: the lens of gender studies. On and on it goes,
Speaker 5: and there's not a word of that in your book.
Speaker 5: You don't even take the time to refute this nonsense.
Speaker 5: You just ignore it. You present essays about these novels
Speaker 5: as if you were wearing a tweet jacket with the
Speaker 5: stem of your pipe sticking out of one pocket in
Speaker 5: a small Midwestern college in nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 6: My author photo, I am actually wearing a tweet jacket.
Speaker 6: So you're close. Because I don't think this was written
Speaker 6: for the general reader, and I don't think the general
Speaker 6: reader cares about that, And I think there's some hope
Speaker 6: even in the Academy. There is kind of a there's
Speaker 6: a little bit of a movement afoot, not led by conservatives,
Speaker 6: led by center left professors to move to a more
Speaker 6: traditional way of teaching literature because they see that the
Speaker 6: English major is dying, and so is a history major.
Speaker 6: The humanities in general are in trouble, and it's people
Speaker 6: are realizing, even people in the Academy are realizing it's
Speaker 6: because they've politicized these novels and have over theorized them. So,
Speaker 6: I mean, I have some passing references, especially in my
Speaker 6: chapter on my Antonia by Willa Cather, I have a
Speaker 6: nod to some of the amagy Academy is doing. But
Speaker 6: I just think the average reader doesn't care about that.
Speaker 6: They just want to know. They want to enjoy the
Speaker 6: novels themselves, and they're open to deeper meanings. But you know,
Speaker 6: only so far. It's easy to to become the target
Speaker 6: of satire with some of these readings. So yeah, I
Speaker 6: just I really focus on the novels and the context
Speaker 6: of the novels and generally avoid I really don't get
Speaker 6: into the theory behind them at all.
Speaker 1: What is your favorite book on this list and why lovely.
Speaker 6: When I started the list, I would have said Waverley,
Speaker 6: But I think now it is My Antonia.
Speaker 1: Okay, I listen.
Speaker 3: To me, I say, listeners can't see the shocked book
Speaker 3: on Peter's face.
Speaker 6: No, I am a I am a Walter. I'm a
Speaker 6: big Walter Scott stand but no, Antonia is such a
Speaker 6: moving and powerful depiction of uh, to use the maybe
Speaker 6: cheesy term, the American dream, and it's it's about the
Speaker 6: success and happiness that immigrants can find in the United States.
Speaker 6: It doesn't it doesn't idealize immigration. It doesn't suggest that
Speaker 6: all immigrants will find happiness and success here. And Peter,
Speaker 6: I quote, I quote your boss Ronald Reagan and his
Speaker 6: one of his speeches about the contributions of immigrants, and
Speaker 6: obviously that this novel is the early twentieth century and
Speaker 6: the situation is very different now. But well, heck, I'm
Speaker 6: I'm on a podcast with an immigrant who has made
Speaker 6: a couple of contributions to the American Dream.
Speaker 5: So probation, let's not get carried away about cooking.
Speaker 2: But I also learned, yes, I think might be now.
Speaker 6: I also love My Antonia because it features a big
Speaker 6: family and there aren't many novels that have big family,
Speaker 6: and Antonia finds happiness in part through her her many
Speaker 6: many children, and this comes towards the end of the
Speaker 6: novel and it's a very moving scene for me.
Speaker 3: Well, Christopher, congratulations on the book. Once again. For listeners,
Speaker 3: it's thirteen novels every conservatives you read, but you probably haven't.
Speaker 3: That's close enough, I think close enough. Yeah. Now, I'll
Speaker 3: say this in closing, unlike Peter's confused, indignant rants about
Speaker 3: what you've done this, I only have one complaint out
Speaker 3: of everything I've read, including the footnotes. By the way,
Speaker 3: I love your footnotes. I'm an academic nerd too, and
Speaker 3: so don't ignore the footnotes. Readers, you confess that you
Speaker 3: don't like Walker Percy, and I don't know. I know
Speaker 3: those are fighting words, man, I'm sorry, they just are.
Speaker 3: But that's for another occasion.
Speaker 6: So Steve, can I just say, I know, I feel
Speaker 6: like it's a guilty displeasure. I feel like I should
Speaker 6: like him, but I've just never enjoyed any of his
Speaker 6: novels very much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they do take a little bit of work, and
Speaker 3: I get all that. But anyway, thank you for joining us. Christopher, Congratulations,
Speaker 3: on the book and to our listeners, everyone should go
Speaker 3: out and buy it.
Speaker 6: All right, thank you guys very much. Great talking to you, Chris.
Speaker 5: Congratulations you bastard.
Speaker 3: Well you know on that point, Peter, I mean, as
Speaker 3: I read the book and thought about it, Christopher is
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Speaker 3: of the things this is the three or four books
Speaker 3: on Christopher's list I have read. I read a long
Speaker 3: time ago, and I've I need to reread them because
Speaker 3: I've really kind of forgotten them. But I have to say,
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, Scoop is one that I do
Speaker 3: go back to once in a while, along with Charles.
Speaker 3: It's got some wonderful stuff in it.
Speaker 5: But by the way, can we agree that Charlie's Charlie's
Speaker 5: question was really quite a remarkable display of what I
Speaker 5: think any properly trained psychiatrist would describe as passive aggression.
Speaker 5: I am ignorant, Christopher said, Charlie, I have read only
Speaker 5: one book of the thirteen you list here. On the
Speaker 5: other hand, I have read the Bible and Greek. I
Speaker 5: have read all of Shakespeare. I have read everything by
Speaker 5: Walter Scott, except of course this one. I mean, it
Speaker 5: was really quite a question that Charlie put can.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to be clear that, unlike with say, movies,
Speaker 1: which I really am truly ignorant about, although I'm trying
Speaker 1: to fill the gaps, I have read a lot of books.
Speaker 2: I just hadn't read these ones.
Speaker 1: I thought it was I thought it was ad mobly
Speaker 1: honest to say, hey, I've read one of these thirteen books.
Speaker 5: Well charge, I wanted to set.
Speaker 1: It in the right context, you know. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to sound like I couldn't read right right, all right, Well, right,
Speaker 1: you guys, before we go today, I wonder if either
Speaker 1: of you have any quick thoughts on things that will
Speaker 1: be on the minds of listeners from the news.
Speaker 3: So we've just seen this, this Trump tour of the
Speaker 3: Middle East, that's been Oh my lord quite the box office, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, he certainly has the visuals down better than anybody,
Speaker 3: I think, Peter sins Ronald Reagan, right, Uh, And I
Speaker 3: don't know, do either you have any sort of summary
Speaker 3: thoughts on what you observed happened in the last few days.
Speaker 5: I'm happy to go. And my summary thought is help me,
Speaker 5: help me because and maybe this is a little bit
Speaker 5: like your ad for quality that if you came up
Speaker 5: as I did under Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush,
Speaker 5: Donald Trump is really hard to take. And the idea
Speaker 5: that he would accept a seven forty seven from cutter
Speaker 5: and so, and this notion of these unbelievable images of him,
Speaker 5: these arab dances as he enters vast palaces, all of which,
Speaker 5: of course is our money extorted by these tinpot dictators
Speaker 5: over there, recycled into vast palaces, and so all of
Speaker 5: it strikes me is so unseemly. Stop. Then we have
Speaker 5: on the in the Capitol the Republicans with a very
Speaker 5: slender majority in the House of Representatives, led by Mike Johnson,
Speaker 5: whom I read and whom I will be interviewed, who
Speaker 5: I will be interviewing in a week. I read. Mike
Speaker 5: Johnson is a good guy, and in fact, he strikes
Speaker 5: me as the most intriguing story in Washington because it's
Speaker 5: a good guy who's doing an impossible job and he's
Speaker 5: doing it. However, on the latest news accounts, they're stuff.
Speaker 5: And do you know what's going to have to happen.
Speaker 5: Mike Johnson is going to have to have Donald Trump
Speaker 5: call half a dozen members of the House of Representatives
Speaker 5: and swing them back into line. And so this man,
Speaker 5: whom I find just so hard to take, turns out
Speaker 5: to be indispensable help.
Speaker 3: Right right, Well, I mean, first of all, I'm glad
Speaker 3: you pivoted to the tax bill, Peter, because if you
Speaker 3: listen to our episode last week with Ben Dominich, it's
Speaker 3: pretty clear that Trump's not paying much attention. He just
Speaker 3: wants a big bill to sign and doesn't seem to
Speaker 3: care that much about the details. And that's a big mistake.
Speaker 3: As you know, Reagan was deeply involved in the details
Speaker 3: of both of his big tax bills. I will add
Speaker 3: this observation and then get Charles thought, which is one
Speaker 3: thing is different right now that I'm surprised no one
Speaker 3: is mentioning in the analysis of it which is we
Speaker 3: are no longer supplicants for arab oil. We now go
Speaker 3: there on the energy question from a position of strength,
Speaker 3: and I correct. I think that changes the dynamics to
Speaker 3: some extent. Now that doesn't bear on your you're puzzlement
Speaker 3: over the airplane and certain other aspects of the trip,
Speaker 3: But I do think it's a different world now, just
Speaker 3: for that one very important fact.
Speaker 1: Charles Well, I'm not a foreign politics buter so I will.
Speaker 5: Are you really a reader when it comes.
Speaker 2: To it, No, apparently not.
Speaker 1: But I am going to join a militia over this
Speaker 1: tax bill, and in particular the salt provisions, which are
Speaker 1: a disgrace. The very notion that is Floridian should pay
Speaker 1: more for the same federal government because New York and
Speaker 1: California are a profligate and can't handle their own affairs
Speaker 1: is revolting per se. But as politics from Republicans, it
Speaker 1: strikes me as being insane, because what's going to happen
Speaker 1: is they're going to massively increase the salt cap, probably
Speaker 1: without making changes to the alternative minimum tax or the
Speaker 1: tax rates, so people in those states will get a
Speaker 1: better deal than they had prior to twenty seve, which
Speaker 1: means that the governments of California and New Jersey and
Speaker 1: Illinois and New York are going to increase spending in
Speaker 1: those states, make themselves more dysfunctional than they were before,
Speaker 1: have no effect on their own taxpayers, and then send
Speaker 1: the bill to me. So I'm watching this Republican Party
Speaker 1: essentially reward the blue states that have made themselves into
Speaker 1: national joke and punish Florida and other red states that
Speaker 1: have done all the right things for ten years.
Speaker 2: That's conservatism, is it? I? Just I despair?
Speaker 5: Okay, Charlie, help Speaker Johnson out of the following bind
Speaker 5: He has two hundred and twenty Republicans. Yeah, there is
Speaker 5: a midterm election coming. He must preserve, yeah, three four
Speaker 5: five seats in upstate New York. And he must preserve
Speaker 5: this small but essential delegation of Republicans from here in California.
Speaker 5: And if he's still any hope of passing any important
Speaker 5: legislation in the second half of Donald Trump's term, he
Speaker 5: actually needs to pick up a couple of seats in
Speaker 5: Orange County. And that's the reason for salt. It is
Speaker 5: practical politics. How do you answer that?
Speaker 1: Let me say, a couple of things. The first one is,
Speaker 1: of course, it is true that there wouldn't be a
Speaker 1: Republican House majority without New York, but there also wouldn't
Speaker 1: be a Republican House majority without Florida. Governor DeSantis's map
Speaker 1: that he pushed through and used a great deal of
Speaker 1: political capital to push through is a reason too. So
Speaker 1: if you end up punishing Florida, which is not a
Speaker 1: swing state and the way it used to be but
Speaker 1: still could flip back in a couple of areas, then
Speaker 1: you have the same problem as you have in New York. Second,
Speaker 1: I accept as a matter of practical politics that you
Speaker 1: have to do something on salt and Donald Trump I
Speaker 1: wish he hadn't, but did promise that he would during
Speaker 1: the election. But if you look at the moment at
Speaker 1: how much of the space the headroom within the bill
Speaker 1: is being taken up by even the small assault offer
Speaker 1: it is outing out everything else, it seems to me
Speaker 1: to be absolutely disproportionate as a percentage of what has
Speaker 1: been proposed. And so as somebody who is quite practical
Speaker 1: and who understands that politics is not an exercise in
Speaker 1: academic griping, I am not against deals. I know that
Speaker 1: there were a lot of deals done in the Reagan
Speaker 1: tax bills as well. But look at the cost. And
Speaker 1: I don't use that to imply that tax cuts cost money,
Speaker 1: but given that they're trying to keep down the quote
Speaker 1: unquote cost of these tax cuts, look at the cost
Speaker 1: of salt one thing that Trump promised relative to everything
Speaker 1: else that it's absolutely enormous. And the deal that they struck,
Speaker 1: which was thirty thousand dollars, which is very, very generous,
Speaker 1: was described by the New York delegation it's being insulting.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at this and I'll finish on this question.
Speaker 1: The reason this annoys me so much, Peter, is I'm
Speaker 1: not a Trump guy. I'm not a MAGA guy, right
Speaker 1: the listeners know this. But I do like a lot
Speaker 1: of what Trump has done. And I thought the first
Speaker 1: tax bill is terrific in twenty seventeen. But the argument
Speaker 1: that I get, the one I get often dripping in contempt,
Speaker 1: is you don't understand, Charles. We needed Trump, We needed
Speaker 1: MAGA because this squishy UNI Party driven by moderates and
Speaker 1: the GOP just gives the farm away every time they
Speaker 1: subsidize Blue states. They won't defund Planned parenthood they block
Speaker 1: conservative policy. And what I'm watching now is that. So
Speaker 1: it's not that there is all of this opobrium being
Speaker 1: thrown at Mike Lawler and the Democrats in New York
Speaker 1: as the Republicans in New York. It's being thrown at
Speaker 1: Chip Roy and Thomas Massey and Ran Paul. So if
Speaker 1: the argument is we live in the real world, we
Speaker 1: have to keep a coalition together, that's fine. That was
Speaker 1: also true though in twenty thirteen. It was also true
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen, in two thousand and six, in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty one. So if we're gonna argue we need Trump
Speaker 1: because otherwise we don't defund Planned parenthood, well we're giving
Speaker 1: in to the moderates on not defunding Planned parented. If
Speaker 1: the argument is what we need Trump and we need
Speaker 1: Maggot because otherwise we give away these subsidies to blue
Speaker 1: states in the blue well, look, it's very very annoying
Speaker 1: us a Floridian, to be far more conservative than these people,
Speaker 1: to live in a state that has done all of
Speaker 1: the reforms that the Conservatives have wanted to do for
Speaker 1: fifty years, and to watch them molly coddling the moderate
Speaker 1: uniparty squishes that I was taught had been exiled.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm annoyed about it. It's not that I
Speaker 2: don't understand the need for practical politic.
Speaker 5: Okaye, Charley, I just wanted to say one thing to Charlie. Charlie,
Speaker 5: you're beautiful when you're angry.
Speaker 3: Well, I was just gonna say, Peter, we'll mark Charles
Speaker 3: down as undecided. Now it is hard to follow a
Speaker 3: an exquisite rant like that, any rant that includes molly coddling,
Speaker 3: as you know, on number A ten on the scale.
Speaker 3: But it's actually even worse than that, Charles. We left
Speaker 3: out completely the number of Republicans trying to preserve a
Speaker 3: lot of the green energy booned dogs.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, right, that's the other bit.
Speaker 3: And you know that just blows my mind too. I mean,
Speaker 3: it was very clever of the Biden people to direct
Speaker 3: a lot of the money to red states. That was
Speaker 3: on purpose. And guess what it looks like. It's with
Speaker 3: an ace of succeeding in keeping all that This.
Speaker 5: Is this is this is just this is the agony
Speaker 5: of practical politics for conservatives. Well, I convert to the Steve.
Speaker 5: Steve will know the details on this, But I revert
Speaker 5: to this that when Ronald Reagan took office in January
Speaker 5: of nineteen eighty one, having promised to eliminate the Department
Speaker 5: of Education, the Department of Education had been, in effect,
Speaker 5: had been in existence for one year. If there were
Speaker 5: ever a time you could have killed it, it was then.
Speaker 5: And Ed Poes told me that he went up to
Speaker 5: the Capitol Hill to discuss the Reagan agenda with our senators.
Speaker 5: We had recaptured the Senate in nineteen eighty we were
Speaker 5: in charge. And he came back to the White House
Speaker 5: and said, oh, my goodness, even the Republican senators are
Speaker 5: sticking up. They had already figured out how to use
Speaker 5: the Department of Education to said benefits to their constituents,
Speaker 5: and they wanted to defend it, not eliminated. Unbelievable.
Speaker 3: But now, remember Peter though, that by my count in
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty one, yes, the Republican Senate, but sixteen of them,
Speaker 3: that's my count. We're modern to liberals. You still have
Speaker 3: person Magmaflize, and nowadays you only had.
Speaker 5: That wing of the party is gone now exactly, so
Speaker 5: we have a better except for upstate New York, right well.
Speaker 3: But even there, I mean, at least Dephonic is one
Speaker 3: of the persons.
Speaker 5: Accurate.
Speaker 3: True, And look, look that's obviously this is very transparent.
Speaker 3: It's in the interest of their constituents, and they're going
Speaker 3: to do that. And it's hard to ask someone to
Speaker 3: risk their seat for something except that's what Democrats did
Speaker 3: with Obamacare also other times.
Speaker 1: Right, it's absolutely hard to ask someone to do that.
Speaker 1: And I don't ask a result resent that, say, Mike
Speaker 1: Lawa is trying to. What I resent is that all
Speaker 1: of the energy seems to be spent denouncing Rand Paul
Speaker 1: for saying, hang on a minute, this massively blows open
Speaker 1: the budget deficit, rather than denouncing Mike Lawa.
Speaker 5: And I get that.
Speaker 1: There is a political element, but then don't tell me
Speaker 1: that you're pere and everyone else is a squish.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yes, yes, when it comes to it. When it
Speaker 5: comes to it, the Speaker is going to send the
Speaker 5: White House a list of half a dozen Republicans that
Speaker 5: he wants the President to call to get them to
Speaker 5: back into line. And on that list it's going to
Speaker 5: be six conservatives, not six moderates. Correct, Yes, yeah, for
Speaker 5: the most part, that's right, Let's get into line. That's right. Okay,
Speaker 5: let's get out this way.
Speaker 3: I'll pile on to Charles's rant by saying that one
Speaker 3: of the things that's cheering to me right now is
Speaker 3: that we really do have Blue states on the up
Speaker 3: against the wall, I mean, politically, fiscally, in various other ways.
Speaker 3: And so to give in now to help the Blue
Speaker 3: states is political malpractice of the highest order in that regard.
Speaker 3: I thought one of the most interesting things said this
Speaker 3: week was not from not about the budget the tax bill,
Speaker 3: but it bears on this question. And it was Jamie Diamond,
Speaker 3: the CEO of JP Morgan, who was a Democrat by
Speaker 3: all accounts thought to have been a candidate for Treasury
Speaker 3: Secretary for President Kamala Harris. Had such a thing happened,
Speaker 3: and he said, I don't understand why we call it
Speaker 3: red tape. It ought to be called blue tape, because
Speaker 3: it's the Blue states that are the worst on regulation.
Speaker 3: So when you have Jamie Diamond saying things like that,
Speaker 3: and you have, as we know out here, Peter, if
Speaker 3: you're paying attention, Gavin Newsom's crab marching to the right
Speaker 3: as fast as he possibly can on so many areas,
Speaker 3: this is not the time to go what's the old
Speaker 3: line from Margaret Thatcher.
Speaker 5: This is not the kind of goes dobbly.
Speaker 3: George, yes, right, and let's not go wobbly your Republicans
Speaker 3: in the House and Senate. But that's where we are,
Speaker 3: and where we are is at the end of our
Speaker 3: hour together, so everyone should go out and by Christopher
Speaker 3: Scalia's book, we thank you for joining us. We thank
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Speaker 3: there in the comments and back here live again next week.
Speaker 5: Bye bye, guys Ricochet. Peas join the conversation.