Speaker 1: Welcome back, everyone to a new episode of You're Wrong
with Molly Hemingway, Editor and You Hit The Federalist and
David Harsani, Senior writer at the Washington Examiner. Just as
a reminder, if you like to email the show, please
do so at radio at the Federalist dot com. Oh boy, Molly,
did we get a lot of emails this week on
our tattoo discussion. I think it was split fifty to
fifty pro con randomly placing ink under your skin across
your body. But some of them were quite interesting. I
thought some of them were thoughtful.
Speaker 2: I liked the lady who started getting tattooed. Remember yet
last week I said, if you get tattoos, to start
getting them when you're fifty or something like that, and
she said that that's how she'd done it, that she
didn't start getting them until her sixties or something. I
liked that. She was pretty funny, even as she was
funnyizing us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, funny and making a big mistake, but funny.
Speaker 2: My favorite thing is when people I know right in
just as listeners, and we have a listener who's in Ireland,
who's my husband's awesome cousin, Becky Becky Hemingway, and she's
a very talented singer, and she and her husband live
over there, and she just wrote in to say, you know,
she remembered reading Mark's article against tattoos, and that she
would not be sending us any hate mail, but that
she and her that her husband wanted to get a
tattoo in the nineties, and she suggested to him that
he that his two lifelong commitments at that point were
Jesus and her, and that having a tattoo brought into
that category just felt like a downgrade. And it just
made me laugh.
Speaker 1: Anyway, we had initially gotten on the subject of tattoos
because we were discussing Graham Plantner in his candidacy in
Maine for the Senate seat. He has an SS tattoo,
or one that closely resembles an SS tattoo. And you see,
you can make a really big mistake in your life
when you get a tattoo. We made a lot of
mistakes in our twenties and inking your body forever as
a problem. I mean, nowadays you can removed tattoos, though
I think from what I've heard it's quite quite the
arduous process to do.
Speaker 2: My favorite thing about that tattoo guy in Maine, the
Nazi tattoo guy is that he's cause playing as a
as one of the boys, as an oyster man from Maine.
And it turned out that he went to Hotchkiss, which
is a seventy thousand dollars a year prep school. His
grandfather is a very famous architect who worked with Aerosarinin,
who's one of my favorite architects of the Saint Louis
arch the Dulles Airport and Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne,
among many other things. And he's really not one of
the guys. I mean, he did go serve in the Marines,
which is better than a lot of people in his class,
you know, but.
Speaker 1: This other yeah, I mean, I don't know why people
are embarrassed of their class. I mean we're individuals and
whatever he did. He did join the Marines, and that's
admirable and all of that.
Speaker 2: But oh, I was joking about it and people were like,
what about your orange god Donald Trump? He also went
to prep school and an Ivy League school. I was like, yes,
And his issue is he might overinflate his level of
being a billionaire, not underinflated you know he doesn't pretend
to be a garbage man. Well, actually he did in
this election.
Speaker 1: Funnily enough, he've worked at McDonald's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But the whole reason it works to have him
at McDonald's is because he's literally Donald Trump, whose name
is on a bunch of buildings and as a billionaire.
Speaker 1: People yelled when I say this, but I would only
vote for someone who's more successful than me. They need
to make more money than me, they have to be
more accomplished than me. I'm not going to vote for
someone who's blow me in those things, because I would
never vote for myself. I don't think that I'd be
prepared for that kind of responsibility. Why would I give
it to someone who's a failure.
Speaker 2: I would vote for you, David, you would not, thank kidding.
I think I've actually written you in before. I live
in a place where there are no options. Everyone just
runs on a post. So I'll vote in the Democrat primary,
try to have like the least bad option. I always lose,
Like I could be picking the most like just the
most moderate person and they lose to the Communists of
my town. But then when it comes to election day,
I do vote, and I write in people. I know.
Speaker 1: One time, years ago before probably before Trump or maybe
when it first he first started, I wrote a happy
Warrior column from the National Review, and I mentioned to
you as a potential presidential candidate in it. So it's
it's in there somewhere.
Speaker 2: Wasn't like as a joke.
Speaker 1: It was like, well everything everything I wrote in that.
Speaker 2: It would be like electing.
Speaker 1: No, no, I have to I wish I had it
in front of me. Well, I'll look it up and
I'll tweet it out.
Speaker 2: I will say I have been recruited before to run
for higher office, and I can't figure out why anyone
does it and why that would be an appealing thing
for me to do. I feel genuinely like I have
a much better life as a citizen journalist than you know,
as a member of the United States Senate or whatever.
Speaker 1: I can't agree more. To me, there's no maybe no
worse life other than maybe living in you know, you know,
another country somewhere, third world country. Can you imagine having
to think about every word you say and wondering if
people are going to agree with you, and trying to
appeal to the largest number of people, and like your
whole life is so rip did and fake. I think
people lose their souls as politicians, especially when they're there
for a long time. Not everyone, but most of them.
Speaker 2: I have a few friends who are in elected office
and I genuinely like them, but I think there's something
to be said about that sounds Sometimes I think, I
think this is wrong, But sometimes I think that there's
something wrong with you if you run for office.
Speaker 1: Of course there is.
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, you know, you see all
these people talking about how we need to radically change
the country, or you know, on the right, you hear
a lot of calls for Christian nationalism, and I genuinely
don't understand what Christian nationalism is. And what I mean
by that is, if you ask five people what Christian
nationalism is, I probably qualify under two or three of
the definitions, but definitely not under two or three. You
know what I mean, Like, there's no set definition of it.
But the thing I was thinking is if you want
our government to be Christian, I think you should focus
maybe on running for office at a lower level. I
got this idea by listening to Issues, Etc. My favorite
podcast that was talking about this topic, and they were
saying there are a lot of people who talk big
about Christian nationalism yet don't run for school board or
for mayor maybe start in your own town or in
your own sphere of where God has placed you, and
then see how it goes, and then start talking about
radically changing the entire country. And then separately, I always
think about how the founding fathers understood that our system
of government was made only for a religious and moral
people and it couldn't survive without it. So another good
focus for people who talk about this is to work
on talking to their friends, neighbor's family about the need
to be moral and religious and specifically Christian. But you
know what I mean, Like, I don't want to dissuadeople
form running for office, because actually they should be running
for office. It's just I don't think I'm a good
person to run for office.
Speaker 1: Well, people who run for office are typically embodied C. S.
Lewis's quote about of all the tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely
exercised for the good of its victims maybe the most oppressive.
And I was thinking to that quote.
Speaker 2: David, no, I don't I just can I push back
on that?
Speaker 1: Or no?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think frequently we hear about a lot
of the members of Congress or other elected officials who
are the worst. I was thinking about this related time
on like Tangent eighteen here, But did you see where
AOC went after Riley gains and disparaged her as tying
for fifth in a race.
Speaker 1: Well, she was the fifth best swimmer in the entire
country in her first off.
Speaker 2: Yes, being the fifth fastest woman in the country is
nothing to be ashamed of, particularly when you're racing against
a guy who, like, the last year he raced with
the men, he was five hundred and fiftieth, and then
his time the year that he tied with Riley or whatever,
would have been four hundred and fifty in the among men.
You know. So she's clearly got a legitimate beef here
being forced to race against a guy like that. But
more than that, I just thought it was really mean
of AOC. She said, maybe, like, you know, you should
put more time into swimming so you don't end up
in fifth place or something. And then she later said,
when Riley said I challenge you to a debate, She's like,
I challenge you to get a real job, And it
was just so mean, and I was on Laura Ingram
the other night talking about it about how the Democrat
Party has their base has kind of become angry women
and really angry single women, because married women tend not
to vote Democrat anywhere near the rates of single women.
But in my life, I don't have mean girls. My
relationships with women have been fantastic. I have wonderful friends,
I've always had wonderful female colleagues. I've had wonderful female bosses.
Like you don't hear, but you have this stereotype about
how awful women are to each other, in part because
the awful ones tend to be more prominent. Like a
good woman, you might not hear about it all because
she is in her home, caring for her home, caring
for her children, or the people that have been placed
around her, And the people who don't do that are
the ones who are much more high profile. Anyway. Yeah, No,
I just think the same thing applies to politicians. We
frequently hear about the worst ones without realizing that there
are a lot of really wonderful people out there running
their school board or running their city council, or you
know what I mean. Just like lower level political action.
Speaker 1: Well, I would say this. I think our society these days,
I think we live in an idiocracy and you're incentivized
to be me, and you're incentivized to be provocative, and
someone like AOC, I would I would say, uh is
essentially a influencer who is in politics. Like if I
asked you what is AOC's greatest accomplishment, no one would
be able to tell me what she's done. There's no bill,
there's no idea.
Speaker 2: Back she collaps back at the Republicans.
Speaker 1: Okay, so there's a lot of that. Now, she's in
a in a healthy environment in Congress should be a
she'd be just a backbencher and no one would care.
An outlier and a nut. So it is it was
funny to watch her tell someone else to get a
real job. So the politician that does the real work,
that tries to build consensus on a bill whatever, those
people are not rewarded. So it's much easier to just
because I'll give you an example. You might disagree and
people will get mad. But Mike Lee was a serious
person in the past, and I think he was just
enticed in to being this boomer online dad joke guy,
which I think is demeaning to his job and his intellect.
And I'm not comparing him to AOCU, I think is
a far worse actor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Well, in his defense, I think part of
the problem is that Congress itself has become completely broken.
It's very difficult, you know. I think the last couple
of years we've seen some nice clarity about what the
executive branch is and who is in charge of the
executive branch. But it doesn't really mean much if you
have a completely impotent Article one branch, and both in
the Senate and the House, things have just broken down.
They're not even doing well. The few you know, the
things that are given to them in the Constitution, and
a lot of them are spending more time, you know,
doing podcasts or social media than moving to improve the
country in like. But part of that is because it's
so difficult to get anything done in the Senate, as
evidenced by our current shutdown. I mean, I'm not complaining
about needing sixty votes in the Senate. I think that's
a good thing, but it's not good that our government
has quote unquote shut down, although I will note it
doesn't really seem like it's shut down, which kind of
gives the impression that maybe the people aren't in charge
of the government at all, and that you can have
you know, you can have this shutdown go on for weeks,
if not months, and most people don't really notice any difference.
Speaker 1: Shutdowns are good. I'm happy when shutdowns happen, just produce
to everyone that our federal government is way too big
and has way too many non essential jobs. It's funny
when you hear how non essential workers will be sent home,
like what organization as non essential workers? But the government.
No one else would say, oh, we have a bunch
of non essential workers. Two thirds of our workforce is
non essential. So I was thinking about how Congress has
become completely irrelevant and how bad that is for the nation.
When people were this whole kerfuffle over the ad that
was run with Ronald Reagan speaking out against tariffs and
all that, so I did a deep dive on it.
I don't want to get into that too much, the
tariff part of it. But what was different in those
days and why Donald Trump Ronald Reagan occasionally put on
some short term tariffs was to head off Congressional moves
that would have had long term implications on protectionism. It
was a very protectionist Congress in the eighties. And my
point only is that Congress used to exert his power
in a far better way, and you'd have this balance.
It would force the president to move a little towards Congress.
Congress would have to deal with the you know, and
he vetoed you know, Ronald Reagan and vetoed many protectionist bills.
But that's how it should be working, whether you agree
with Reagan or the Congress or Donald Trump or not.
And that's just not how it works. It's not how
it's worked since I would say, Barack Obama, and we've
talked about this before. I just think it's it's quoting
the Republic in a lot of the way.
Speaker 2: I'm really looking forward to finding out. I mean, it's not.
Another thing that's not great is how much power the
Supreme Court has in the country, meaning that we're relying
on nine people, some of whom really aren't up to
the task to determine what the law is or what
the Constitution says or not. It's not a great place
for the country to be. But like I just mentioned,
they had provided some really important clarity about whether we
are a constitutional Republic or not. They say yes, and
that that means that the president is in charge of
the executive branch. They keep saying it over and over again,
and we'd gone through decades of pretending that, you know,
like the DOJ is independent of the president. That was
a very commonly held belief during the first Trump administration,
even though constitutionally it doesn't make any sense. But I'm
also looking forward to seeing what they say about the
tariff issues, because it seems like part of the problem
again is what you just said, Congress is broken or
you know, is not asserting its authority like it should
be here. But it's also true that the constitution gives
taxation to Congress and foreign policy in many ways to
the executive and throughout our country's history we've had, you know,
even just to your Reagan reference, short term tariffs to
stave off Congress from doing more protectionism. Well, if Congress
wanted to do more protectionism, it was within their rights, right.
And yet people kind of understand that there is this
role for the president. It's evolved over time in war
powers and foreign policy in general, and it would be
good to have some clarification so we know what the
set line is and what that means going forward, both
for people who you know, would push for a more
authority for the president to enact tariffs or those who
think that's a bad idea.
Speaker 1: There is no conception of the founding or the Constitution
where the president is empowered to declare emergencies on literally
every country on earth, to institute tariffs or to raise tariffs.
Because the Ontario Province read an ad he didn't like,
these are not emergency powers. And I really hope that
the Supreme.
Speaker 2: Court generally, like you know, the president frequently in very
specific tariffs on specific people, you know, sanctions, Oh, we
don't like Putin, so we're going to sanction him, his family,
any business he's associated with. And there's a foreign policy
angle to tariffs in general. So if another country is
it continues to bother me how much people care about
Americans placing tariffs while caring not at all about other
countries placing tariffs. And so part of this tariff policy
that Trump is putting forward is in response to unfree
and very unfair trade practices imposed by other countries. And
so there is you know, there's again a foreign policy
angle to this that you know there's a way to
avoid war by enacting tariffs. There are, and similarly with
sanctions and stuff.
Speaker 1: So I just think I have to push back. I'm sorry,
but thank you for bringing this up because it's been
bugging me. First of all, sanctions are not taxes on Americans.
Sanctions are sanctions. Terrorists are taxes on foreign imports. It's
very clear delineation of that in the Constitution. But more
than that, Donald Trump doesn't put tariffs on countries for
emergency reasons or even unfree trade, because I forget how
many countries they were that he put tariffs on that
had lower reciprocal rates than we did. He likes tariffs
as because he thinks it allows us to be self
sufficient and he believes in protectionism. He has since the
eighties when he first got in talking about the Japanese
and politics. And the idea that all these tariffs are
emergencies or would rise to the level of a national
emergency is just false. Canadas are one of our great
gred you know. Second, I think, largest trading partner, and
we are lowering ourselves and acting like these socialist countries
when we start taxing American consumers. But that's a different debate.
The debate I think we should be having is what's
an emergency? What's foreign policy should I think American consumers
should be able to buy whatever they want. I don't
understand how why the government is allowed to tell an
individual that they can't buy something that's made better if
they like it better from Japan. And you know, I
understand if there's a like when we talk about Ronald Reagany. Yeah,
he puts some very short term tariffs on semiconductors, for instance,
because there is some kind of at least plausible national
security reason to do something like that. There's no national
security issue on avocados or whatever else. Trump is is tariffing.
I mean, if you want to pass those tariffs, Congress
should do it. Anyway, if you want.
Speaker 3: To be wealthy, you have to have a wealthy mindset.
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Speaker 3: Walk away from easy money. Ignore most of the headlines
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Speaker 4: Check out the watch Dot on Wall Street podcast with
Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: I want to live in a world with free market
where nobody is applying any tariffs to anything. It is
also true that some of what you mentioned here points
to similarities between sanctions and tariffs. You know that they
are done for the primary purpose is usually to compel
a change in a policy by a country or or
a group of people without using military force. The primary
point of Trump's tariffs is not to tax the American people,
you know. And and also it's not like it's not
like the most massive tax on the American people. Not
that not that that should change anything. There. The nature
of a sanction and attax and I'm sorry, the nature
of a sanction and a tariff is a restrictive measure
imposed by a government on international trade. It's a it's
a form of political pressure. Sanctions frequently mean trade embargoes,
just like a tariff is related to that, and they're
kind of specific. You know, you have a tariff on
a particular country or a particular industry in the same
way that the sanction can be very specific as opposed
to broad taxation on you know, the entire citizenry. So
I think that it's more complicated than people really on
either side like to talk about. I agree that taxation
is given to Congress, that that's a very strong argument
against presidents imposing them, you know. Latterly, I just think
it's also a form of political pressure for the benefit
of the entire country, to say, what you've done to
American producers, you know, we will no longer tolerate that,
or you're using your power to threaten us. And yeah,
avocados can be like I'm not you know, I don't
know what the specifics are, but it can be any
good that can be related to national security. And I
think it's naive to pretend it can't be.
Speaker 1: Canada and Mexico.
Speaker 2: I think Reagan, I don't think Reagan imposed tariffs or
either Bush imposed tariffs, just you know, like as a
short term solution to keep Congress from doing more protectionism.
I think that presidents have found them to be a
very useful thing for political pressure.
Speaker 1: Well, anyone who's anyone who's interested. At the Washington Examiner,
I wrote a very long, deep dive into Reagan's views
on tariffs. I went through his diaries, I went through
his autobiography. I went through every policy in every tariff
that he embraced him why his reasoning was for doing it.
If they're interested, I don't think he liked tariffs at all.
I think he hated them and he loathed to use them,
and he only did so too. I don't know about
the bushes. I didn't look into that, and I don't
really care, because if they were tariffing people, I think
they were wrong. But I guess the bottom line. First
of all, a tariff is by definition attacks, it's tax
on Americans. It's collected by the treasury on this side
to the border. But here's the thing. I just think
that politicians and we should demand this of them. And
I know it sounds idealistic, that they should uphold or
try at least or think about upholding the Constitution, not
constantly looking for cynical ways to circumvent what is clearly
not there, you know, to do things that are clearly
not within their purview. So I think this tower of
stuff and JD. Van's threatening the Senate, I can't even
believe this stuff is happening because in the old days,
if you threaten the Senate, they would band together and say,
we're not just in a partisan alliance, where this is
the Senate is an institution, but no one really cares
about that. I don't really blame JD. Van's because Obama
did this to Democrats and they went along with everything
he wanted. Boy, we're veered off the little list here.
But you also talked about Christian nationalism, which is a
very interesting topic to me. I think with the way
the left defines it, I would be a Christian nationalist,
but there are Christian nation lists out there who are
theocrats in this essence, I think I agree. I think
that the Founders wanted civil society to be Christian, and
I don't mean like any denomination really though they didn't
like Catholics generally very much. But I think they wanted
us to be a moral people. Even Adam Smith first
made an argument about moral people being involved in freedom
and trade. But I don't think it's safe into government.
Government's already too big. And there are more and more
Christian nationalists out there, I mean real ones, not the
ones that like.
Speaker 2: Again, I need definitions because I truly don't know how
to have the conversation without it.
Speaker 1: Christian nationalist is someone who wants to involve Christianity as
a form of governance in some way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but see that's even that I think the devil
is in the details U pun intended. So Americans kind
of got syoped in recent decades into acting like if
you are in any way influenced by your belief system,
that that's a violation of our separation of church and state.
Christians believe that the law that God has given us
is for the benefit of everybody, not just us, but
for everybody. So and that it's written in people's hearts.
You're not supposed to kill. This ultimately is not something
that Christians believe because people said it somewhere, you know,
a couple hundred years ago, but because God says it.
And that's not in contrast with having with with governance.
It should be applied to governance. You should have laws
that are God pleasing because they are good for everybody.
And so I need to know more.
Speaker 1: You know, Well, that's an opinion you have, and if
enough people I agree. By the way, you know, in
theoretically that there's absolutely zero wrong with letting religion, even
any religion, influence your voting. That's part of who you are.
A thinking person has faith or or whatever. So the
idea that you're not allowed to like, for instance, say
I'm against abortion because God says it's killing is nonsense.
On the other side, there are a lot of people
out there these days, I think that say stuff like
Indians from India aren't good Americans, or that you know,
Hindus are this or that, or that they shouldn't be
or that a certain kind of religious person shouldn't be
allowed to serve in Congress or whatever, And there's a
lot of that out there. I think those people qualify
as some form of Christian nationalists. I think it's wrong.
Now if you say we should change our immigration policy,
that's a different story.
Speaker 2: So that that latter example that you were just giving,
that's what I was referencing when I was saying, why
don't you start doing it in your little town first,
and then you see how it works and see if
it's popular with a larger group of people.
Speaker 1: I have to say, the local politicians that I've met
in my life are often more fascistic than the national ones.
They're like the worst sometimes, so yeah, it would be
great if good people started getting involved. Molly, I don't
know where we were. I was going to go off
on prep schools and play the main catty. We took
a little good turn there, I mean a diversion there.
So anyway, I think his campaign is in big trouble.
That guy. You want to talk a little bit about
some other races quickly since we mentioned him, So the
big races right now are in well, New York City
is important. I think it's important. I don't think mm
Doney's going to turn New York into a Muslim you know,
province or something, but I think it's important about what
it says about the modern left and all their support
for it. The New York governor supports him. Hakim Jeffreys
now has endorsed him, like major players in the Democratic
Party have DS have endorsed this guy who's an anti
semi a terrorist apologist at best, and that says something
very bad about their party. I think he'll win, though,
and uh, I think we agreed. We spoke about this
last week May we did.
Speaker 2: And there's just one other thing I want to mention,
which I learned a couple of days ago, which is
that there are about as many Muslims in New York
City as Jews in New York City.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and also.
Speaker 2: It's a large city for Jews. Like I don't know
how many millions of Jews there are in America. I'm
thinking like six million and one million of them live
in New York City. And similarly, I think a huge
percentage of the Muslims in the country live in New
York City. Just interesting. So one of these it plays
into the race, right, like a lot of people are like,
how could the Jewish city of New York elect a Muslim.
It's like, because it's not so Jewish anymore, it's very Muslim.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I saw one of these podcast or
kind of people say, like forty percent of Jews are
going to vote for Mom Donnie. They deserve what they get, essentially.
But the problem there is that many Jewish people are
incredibly secularized in New York. I don't think they even
really consider themselves Jewish in any kind of recognizable way
as far as tradition or anything goes cultural or any otherwise.
And then of course there's just like there was an
at the other day, four rabbis from Mom Donnie right,
And there were four at first glance, first four women
rabbis who I wouldn't I don't even accept as rabbis frankly,
but one of them was a transgendered rabbi. I had
noted that. I was happy they at least had one
male rabbi there. But then I looked into the male rabbi,
and this male rabbi doesn't even believe in God. So
and then you know, a lot of Jews have adopted
socialistic attitudes, not new, but I think forty percent of Jews,
meaning sixty percent, are not voting for him. It's pretty amazing.
Forty percent of everyone in New York is going to
vote for Mom Donnie, forty percent of every basically every group,
because he's a demo credit candidate and they like socialism.
So anyway, let's talk about Virginia. So in Virginia, I
just forget the guy's name. Is it J Jones who's
running for ag AG J Jones? He wants to He's
the guy who texted that he wanted to kill his
very specific text about killing his Was it his opponent
or was it another Democrat?
Speaker 2: It was the Republican Speaker of the House. Okay, it
wasn't his opponent or a Democrat, but it was a
Republican Speaker of the House.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he has fallen behind in polls, but Spanberger,
I think is still up relatively comfortably. I would say
she is a piece of work. I keep seeing that
ad where when some sears asks her to comment on
the J. Jones texts and she won't. She just smirks
and looks off into the distance. She won't answer any
questions a matter of support for prefer allowing biologically you know,
biological males and girls, locker rooms or anything like that.
She's just terrible. She's probably going to win. People keep
talking about Virginia like it's a purple state. I just don't.
I just think it's a blue state.
Speaker 2: You know, it's so blue, and yet right now it
has a Republican governor, attorney general, and lieutenant governor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have to say, it seems to be like
they want. I think he's done a great job. But
I think he won because of the school issue up
north there right. I just think at Post COVID there
was just this incredibly ridiculous anti parent movement going on
that he latched onto. That really smartly, and one I
don't know if he would win today any again. And
then there's the race in New Jersey where the Republican
is Jack Ciarelli who's running against Mickey Cheryl. Is that
our name? I don't know how many times in my
life I have been told that a Republican is going
to finally catch you know, the Democrat in New Jersey.
Not that they haven't ed Republican government in the past,
but that was a different kind of world, and that
in other states as well, where where that are very
solidly blue states that I am, I'm skeptical, but he
looks like he's made up a lot of ground and
that he's around five points behind her.
Speaker 2: So on the reason to be positive about him, he's
a good candidate. He overperforms his polls historically, so pollsters
frequently have trouble polling races, but in New Jersey in particular,
it seems to it seems to have a real systemic
flaw that makes Democrats look like they are more likely
to win than they are. They still win, but they
have a hard time calculating the whole vote total thing.
And Chittarelli way overperformed last time. He ran for governor,
and the mood of the country and the state I
think people think has improved slightly for him. He's just
a good candidate and he's running a good race. The
reason why you shouldn't be optimistic is that Democrats are
still far, far, far better than Republicans at ballot harvesting
and ballot operations. They understand that you don't win elections
based on conventional race models of trying to make the
best case for what you will do and persuading people
to show up to vote on election day. You win
based on how many ballots with your name get into
the ballot box. And those can be from people who
know that they're voting and people who don't really know
you know. So Democrats are really good about going into
low propensity areas, low propensity to vote areas, and getting
those ballots filled out and getting them in the ballot
box in a way that wouldn't normally happen in a
completely free and fair election. And it is time consuming
and expensive to do ballot operations. But in an off
yr election where you only have to get Prop fifty
passed in California, and then the new Jersey governor and
the Virginia races like the It's just much easier to
run that kind of operation. And so I would expect
that Republicans who seem to think that all election problems
got solved in twenty twenty four because Donald Trump won,
when that's so not true. It's not even funny. He
just is a massively popular figure. They are easing up
way too much on ballot operations. I mean, they're doing them,
but they're not doing them at the level that they
should be doing them, because that's how you win elections.
Speaker 1: Now, I lived in New Jersey twice actually in my life,
and people realize it's essentially a suburb of Philadelphia in
a suburb of New York. So there's it's a difficult
state for Republicans. I mean, there were a lot of
obtainable votes in the middle of the state and in
the outlying suburbs, but there's a it's basically New York
and it's basically Philly, and that's a tough, tough position
to be in. So I think that's those are the
main races really the people are paying attention to. Right now,
let's talk about Grocopedia.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, okay, so I didn't even know about it.
I don't know how I missed this that it was
being created, but apparently Elon Musk a couple of years
ago set out to create an alternative to Wikipedia, and
that is clearly needed. Wikipedia is just a hotbed of
leftist activism and lies. I have not read my my
Thing there, my bio there in years, but when I
read it years ago, it just was It was mean.
It was as if it were written by the people
who hate me the most, and it was also factually accurate,
and there's nothing you can do about it. You are
either in the in group, in which case you are
heavenly and wonderful, or you're in the outgroup. And so
I think, you know, a couple of years ago, it
was like focusing on how I opposed the Russia collusion hoax.
I was one of the primary people to fight back
against that, which I'm very proud of. But it was
presenting this as if that meant that I was a
conspiracy theorist because I had successfully destroyed that conspiracy theory,
so you know, and then as a teacher at Hillsdale,
I I've learned just you know, nobody at Hillsdale whatever
use Wikipedia for sourcing, but you just kind of start
thinking about how much that is the first stop for
people when they are going to write something. They might
look at what Wikipedia has to say, and it sets
them on a particular trajectory that can be very bad.
So I am thrilled that he did it, and I
started like looking at it because I was. I was
in the shower yesterday and Mark was reading me my
Grockipedia and it was surse. First of all, it was
incredibly long and detailed, but surprisingly very accurate and neutral.
And it's weird to read a neutral you know, there
are people who love you who are like, oh, she's
the best, and there are people who hate you and
she's the worst. And this was just more like, this
is her background, this is what she does, this is
what critics say, this is what supporters say, and it was.
It was wonderful. I'm sure it'll get destroyed because this
is the very first iteration of it, and I'm sure
as it continues it'll get worse. But I was really
happy to see it. And then I was looking, you know,
other entries up and was also pleasantly surprised to see
how neutral, how rigorously neutral, it was.
Speaker 1: I agree with you on Wikipedia. My page there, I
haven't looked at it in a while, was incorrect factually.
And I remember looking years ago at the Federalist page
when I worked at the Federalist and it had COVID,
you know, a list of COVID conspiracies that the Federalists
had engaged in, and all the conspiracies had actually turned
out to be true, but no one had updated, you know,
the page. So it's a very politically driven site. It
has its history on let's say, like Israel or Zionism
is completely fictitious, you know what I mean, And that's
just something I'm interested in. I did like to go
to it because it has like if you go to
a band page, it has there every album you know,
and it talks about it. It's like a lot of
good information like that's not political. But I've tried to
not go there because I hate the other stuff they do.
I went to Grokipediatrical for a spin and it was
seemed pretty good. But my problem is this, it's driven
by AI. I think right, and I have had a
lot of problems with AI. I think AI is getting worse.
That includes groc which is actually my favorite AI. I
was using AI as like a supercharged search engine, like
a Google, but supercharge where you get tons of information
and links and all of that. I did a piece
on Mamdanie and I put in, you know, I was
looking into his debt and him and quotes, and it
spit out like ten fake quotes. To me, Yes, so
you cannot really trust AI. It's too easily manipulated. So
I say to AI, these are not real quotes. What's happening,
And it like profusely apologizes to me the AI and
gives me spits out more fake quotes. So I've been like,
I tested out quite a bit in that sense, and
it doesn't really work. So that's why I'm slightly skeptical
of a Krockipedia, But it so far is from what
I've seen, is definitely a big improvement over Wikipedia, which
is just a leftist site which I can't trust.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned the bands, and when I was touring
around last night on the two places, uniformly, Grokkipedia was better,
except like it didn't even have entries for some of
the things I was looking for, Like I wanted to
see what the plot of the movie The Accountant was
without having to watch the accountant. I couldn't find anything
in Grokipedia, whereas Wikipedia just tells you the entire plot.
It's not always like the best description, but it at
least kind of gets you a general understanding of it.
Someone posted what the two sites say for George Floyd,
and I thought it was interesting. So for Wikipedia, it
says George Perry Floyd was an African American man who
was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota,
during an arrest made after a store clerk suspected Floyd
had used a counterfeit twenty dollars bill. Derek Chovin, one
of four police officers who arrived on the scene, knelt
on Floyd's neck and back for nine minutes, fatally asphyxiating him.
After his murder, a series of protests again and police brutality,
especially toward black people, quickly spread globally and across the US.
His dying words, I can't breathe became a rallying slogan.
So pretty typical Wikipedia type entry.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: For Grockipedia, it says George Perry Floyd was an American
man with a lengthy criminal record, including convictions for armed robbery,
drug possession and theft in Texas from nineteen ninety seven
to two thousand and seven. On May twenty twenty, Floyd
was arrested in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after a store clerk reported
that he had used a counterfeit twenty dollars bill to
purchase cigarettes. During the arrest, which involved resistance from Floyd,
who repeatedly stated he could not breathe. Even before being
placed prone, officer Derek Chauvin nelt on Floyd's neck for
nine minutes and twenty nine seconds while Floyd became unresponsive.
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner ruled Floyd's death a homicide
due to cardiopulmonary arrests complicating law enforcement, subdual restraint, and
net compression, with contributing factors including severe hypertensive a theisclerotica,
cardiovascular disease, fentanyl intoxication, and recent methamphetamine use. Toxology tests
detected eleven mg over mL of fentanyl in his blood,
a level associated with overdose fatalities in individuals without tolerance.
Chauvin was convicted in twenty one of second degree unintentional murder,
third degree murder, and second degree manslaughter receiving a twenty
two point five year sentence. Floyd's death, widely disseminated via
bystanderd video, precipitated extensive civil unrest across the United States
and internationally, including riots causing billions in property damage, alongside
debates over police use of force, the role of Floyd's
health and substance abuse in his demise, and systemic issues
in law enforcement interactions with suspects exhibiting non compliance or intoxication.
So that's just the beginning of each one. You can
tell that the Grockipedia is much more detailed. It's longer,
and that was something I found when I was surveying
the two sites, but also just written more neutrally like.
It includes the same information, but it includes a lot
of other information that gives you a fuller perspective. Yeah, no,
I do.
Speaker 1: In that instance, for sure, I wonder where they're pulling
from or I mean, obviously there are algorithms and very
complicated things going on. I don't understand about how it
can keep its language neutral through AI and so on,
but yeah, I'm all for it. I'd love to have
an alternative to Wikipedia, which frankly sometimes is just very
easy to use, especially like you know, some historical event
you don't know a lot about or whatever. I try
to use others like Britannica or but then I noticed
it has almost the same wording, so I think maybe
they share information. I just quickly wanted to mention we
don't even need to talk about this. How happy I
was at JAVIERMLA when a landslide election in Argentina that
will allow him to continue his libertarian experiment in that country.
I would call it it. It heartens me because usually
when you have a crisis cause by status government policies,
voters want more statism to fix it, and this is
you know, it happens all the time. This is the
opposite is happening there, which is a real outlier in politics.
Speaker 2: In the world.
Speaker 1: And I just really hope that he succeeds because he's
one of my favorite people. Let's also talk about the
abortion pill.
Speaker 2: Okay, so it's kind of a longer story. Going back
to Barack Obama, he fast tracks approval of mefapristone, the
abortion drug with certain regulations for safety. So methhapristone, which
is far and away the most common way to kill
an unborn child these days, also has things like it
can cause heavy bleeding, serious complications for women, including hemorrhaging
and other things. There's also the issue that because it's
a pill that can be just ground up and putting
people's food. There are a lot of examples of people
just getting it, Like people who love abortion will just
send it out in the mail to anyone who asks,
and that can include a father who's sexually abusing his daughter,
or a sex trafficker, or just like an angry boyfriend
who doesn't want to support the child that he created
by having sex with his girlfriend. You know, like all
sorts of bad people can use it, can get it
very easily. Oh sorry, I skipped a bunch. Obama had
certain regulations in place, like you were supposed to visit
a doctor both before you take the pill and after
so that they can monitor. You were supposed to find
out the gestation of the child and location of the pregnancy.
Sometimes a pregnancy can develop in a place where it
would be dangerous for a woman to take an abortion pill,
even more than usual because it's a neck topic pregnancy
that's taking place outside the womb. So all sorts of
issues where you might want to have a doctor in
play well, then Trump comes into office, Then Biden comes
into office, and he removes a lot of the regulations
protecting women from the dangers associated with MEFI pristone. Trump
comes into office and does not reinstate those common sense
regulations and also tells people that they're going to finally,
like actually review mepha pristone for safety reasons, and a
cursory safety review will just objectively speaking, will definitely change
the regulatory framework for the drug, because there are drugs
with far fewer complications for people that are much more
highly regulated, and yet nothing's really happened on that. So
pro lifers who genuinely appreciate Trump one and understand that
Trump two is far better than Kamala Harris or Joe Biden.
Also we're like, you know, they're an important part of
his constituency and they would probably like to start getting
out and working in midterm elections and stuff like that,
and they're waiting for just the most basic things that
were promised to them to be done. Usually, HHS is
a department that when Republicans are in power, pro lifers
have a really strong role there. Because of MAHA, rf
K has like a different you know, he's obviously not
a social conservative, he's not a pro lifer ish person.
So it's been a little like of a delicate dance
to make sure enough people who care about human life
are in there, and they feel like they are a
very natural fit with Maha, meaning you know, people who
are pro life tend to just care about human life
at all points in the quality of life and stuff
like that too. But there's been just a bunch of
slow walking of it, and a lot of people think
it's because Trump and Susie Wiles. A lot of people
with reason to believe this think Trump and Susie Wiles
are concerned about the political implications of imposing reimposing those
common sense regulations from the Obama era or the first
Trump era, or getting a report that shows just how
bad methipristone is for women getting a government report, and
so they, you know, I think they're kind of like,
wouldn't it be great if this could come out after
a year from now and then they might do something
on it. So it's just kind of an interesting political
battle that's taking place. And Jordan Boyd and I had
a piece on it because Trump's polster pulled sixteen hundred
likely voters, and a majority of them were pretty strongly
pro abortion, and yet also a very strong majority of
them supported you know, like having the label on the
abortion drug explain the complications, or having a doctor's visit
be a required part of administration of the abortion pill.
Speaker 1: Around Reportedly around sixty three percent of all abortions are
done through medication, which amounted in twenty twenty four to
six hundred thy fifty four around lives. The White House
says that it's powerless really to do anything because the
FDA is just following the law, which is not true,
because the FDA put the regulations in place in the
first place so they could return them if they wanted to.
I always feel like you're baiting me with your description
of what MAHA is. I know you're not, but let's
face it. Rfk was More has told the American people
that Thailand oil is more dangerous than the abortion pill.
He has made a bigger deal, a fraudulent deal in
my opinion, over Thailand al than he has a pill
that kills over six hundred thousand that you know, lives
per year. So I think pro life should be pretty
mad about that. This was their big issue when RFK
was in front of the Senate. This was the big
issue that GOP focused on.
Speaker 2: David, I do want to say, though, pregnant women should
not take thailanol. That's like a long stay anything. I know,
at least when I was pregnant, I was told that.
So I don't want to Your point right now is
not about whether pregnant women should take tilandal. Your point
is that RFK said that there were really strong, robust
studies correlating thailand Al with autism.
Speaker 1: There is no robust study doing that. I don't want
to argue about this, but.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, I'm not saying there is. I'm making a
point that I just want to make sure nobody listening
thinks it's safe for pregnant women to take tailan al.
It's actually not. And it's something that I was told
when I was pregnant, and thilan Al itself will say so.
Just that's a separate issue than whether it causes autism.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. Never ever listen to me about medical
advice or anyone else. Talk to your doctor and all
of that. But the idea that there are a robust
studies showing that thailand all creates autism there are none.
There's one Harvard study done by someone hired in a
lawsuit against Thailand. All and moreover, high fevers during pregnancy
are incredibly dangerous, right, and tyln ol is something the
only taught thing that some pregnant woman can take to
help with hyper I'm just saying it's very commonable.
Speaker 2: That's why I just can everybody like talk to their
own doctor if they're pregnant, because it is totally possible
that my doctor was wrong, and I haven't been pregnant
in a long time, so like it could have been
like an old, outdated thing.
Speaker 1: I'm not a doctor. My My only point is RFK
was more interested in that than stopping an abortion.
Speaker 2: That's a very good point, yep.
Speaker 1: So, Molly, another topic, I saw you were mad online
that National Review had a piece on its what is
its seventieth anniversary edition where one of the writers, I
think Rachel lu had some negative things to say about
Phylis Shlapley.
Speaker 2: So I will be totally honest that I don't really
read National Review anymore in heabit for some time, but
a lot of friends worth sending around excerpts of a
piece that they recently ran in their seventieth anniversary issue.
First off, that's kind of crazy, seventy years of a
publication and one of them. So there were very few
articles written by women in this issue, which is kind
of a long standing problem for a lot of conservative media.
I think they tend to be Actually, it's almost all
political media tends to be overrepresented by men, which is
not necessarily a problem, but it can sometimes be a
problem that the views and perspectives of the vast majority
of conservative women are not showcased like they should be.
But on their cover they had two women mentioned, along
with a litany of men who were writing for this
special issue, and there was a piece about Phyllis Schlaffley
that has a lot of people sad, I would say
sad or angry. Phyllis Schlaffy is one of Conservatism's greatest
activists and really inspired generations of women to defend family
and home and conservative values and Christian values in the
public square. I know many of them. I am one
of them. She was someone who really set the stage
for fighting against that Rockefeller Republican domination of the Republican Party.
She was very influential in the very Goldwater race Choice
not and echo and pretty much single handedly stopped the
era from becoming a constitutional amendment, which was just such amazing,
wonderful work. And there's a piece that decries her as
a propagandist who sought her own power, and people who
knew Phylish Laffey or who studied her, they just don't
think that's accurate. She frequently didn't care about who got
credit for the work she did. She did a lot
of like behind the scenes trenches work on the Republican
Party platform, organizing women to for political action, and she
was a good figurehead of it, and like you have
to be that, but she wasn't really seeking her own power.
She was seeking preservation of the home and the family unit.
And she is loathed and reviled by the left, but
you know, very much honored by particularly women on the right,
but all conservative like many conservatives just adore her, and
so they were sad to see the way she was
being treated as saying her legacy is just that she
supported Trump at the end, which first off, is not
a huge problem, but there's a line in it that says,
like its longest surviving legacy will not be conservative principal
or intellectual integrity but a power hungry populism. And I
think this is an issue where it's also it's related
to why I wrote the book on Justice Alito. You
see people on the right act like there are two options,
power or principle, and they're pitted against each other as
if they are necessarily in conflict. And for a lot
of conservatives, they want power and they want principle, you
know they are They're in the movement for a reason.
They want their ideas enacted, and they want to be
successful in enacting them. And this idea that you can't
have both, or that you're just there to like write
essays and host you know, talks on it as opposed
to actually implementing the ideas. Like it's very much an
idea that I think people tie to a National Review
style conservatism, but that a lot of people kind of
got fed up with and Phyllis Schlaffley got fed up
with it in the sixties and like did something about it.
And it would just be nice to see her being honored. Sorry,
I said. It's like people associated with National Review people
associate it with like the bad part of National Review.
People also understand that National Review itself was very important
in helping Goldwater and advancing a principled conservative movement that
by definition had a lot of people attached to it
and was popular. And so I think people are just
kind of sad to see it, particularly in an issue
like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean I what annoys me is that there's
a bigger outrage and I'm not pointing at you, among
most conservatives when they see something like this. Then there
is when the biggest conservative voices host nazis on their
show or say the most horrifying things. Then we're told
we have to be quiet. We're all on the same team,
We're never go against anyone on the right. But someone
reassesses that Philishafflee was a success, so as people think
and everyone has a meltdown. I just find that part
of it annoying. So that's all I have to say
on that. I think the essay is wrong by the way.
I disagree with it. I think that she underestimates chef
Lee's arguments. Rachel Lou basically calls them fascile, I think,
and I don't believe that that's true. I think she
was writing for a popular audience. It's like, sometimes I
may have deeper thoughts on something. But I'm writing a
column for an audience that doesn't want to hear intellectualizing,
so I get that. And she was a different person
at the end of her life than she was at
the beginning. We have to look at a person's you know,
we have to look at the whole career, not just
where they ended up and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Yeah, I think the article actually unintentionally showed how
important she was to the very end. I mean, she
was influential. They're endorsing Trump at the end. But I
think why people are expressing sadness here is because we
take it personally because phylish Laughley meant so much to us.
And I was texting with someone from church who his
I hope it's okay to say all this, But his
sister died while campaigning for Chip Roy in Texas and
like in a car accident, and she was a beloved,
obviously beloved member of the family. And he had said
that Phyllis had a special place in his heart because
his sister, Rebecca watched her documentary on Hulu by herself
before going to knockdoors on the campaign where she died,
and it probably played a significant role in her decision
to go instead of stay home. And I think that's
true for a lot of us. Sorry for it's like
so emotional. I'm so sorry, but a lot of us
don't really want to be doing political activism, but we
know it's important in part because like the men haven't
stood up and done what they should be doing. And
we care about our country, we care about her families,
we care about babies, and we care about big women,
and women like Phylish Slafley should be honored. And I
do know that the author of the piece is, you know,
part of a larger battle that's going on right now
about whether feminism is compatible with conservatism. And many of
us do not feel that way. We do we are
not feminists. We think it's a dangerous ideology that cuts
against like everything about what it means to be a woman.
And other people are feminist and want to advance a
feminism that they say is compliant with the Roman Catholic
Church or other things like that, and that's a big
battle that's going on, and Phylish Slaffley is kind of
like an avatar there that they fight against, but it's
part of it's part of like a very real battle
right now, and Carrie Gress has written beautifully about this
and is a very brave woman who gets attacked like
Phylish Lafley got attacked by feminists for speaking out against it.
I don't know, I don't even know why I'm so
upset about it. I just very much honor Philish Slaffley,
and I want people to recognize her as such a
great conservative activist who gave a lot to help out
the country, and we need more people with her courage
and not people who just snipe at her. And it
would be great if people that you want to be
on your own team didn't use like opportunities to go
after her and instead continued her advocacy for women in families.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about culture. That it was a wild episode,
Mollie Kaika quickly mentioned, I finally got around to going
to my state concealed carry course to you know, because
there's so many Nazis around in America. I feel like
I need to be packing. Yea and the guy. It
was amazing. The class is huge. Now when I say class,
I mean very easy class. The state where I lived
does not have very you know, it's not Maryland, it's
not DC, it's not New York. Or anything like that.
But you have to ticket class and the class the
teacher was the most conservative person I think that I've
ever run across in my life. This person was preparing
for war with Antifa. I thought it was the funniest thing,
but quickly I want to say. The class was packed
and it had all kinds of Americans, I mean all races,
all ages, from some people in their seventies to people
maybe you know, early twenties, and it was really heartening
to see and thinking about getting a Block forty three
X with an extended mag But if listeners have better
options for a Carrie concealed carry weapon, they should email
the show and give me some advice. I only have
one thing I watched. It was called It's a show
called Foundation, based on Isaac Asimov's book. It has some
of the ideas of that book. That book is I
think a classic. I love reading it, but it's structured
in a way that's almost a history where this takes
those ideas. At first, it felt like, oh, here we go,
this is going to be another woke show, but it wasn't,
and it's okay. I would if you like sci fi,
I would recommend it. It's beautiful to look at, and
the story has held my attention, and that's all I have.
Speaker 2: I don't have much myself. I have once again spent
much of my week traveling, and yet I did start
watching a show with Mark that I kind of like.
It's like a total network TV drama but just made
a little bit prettier. It's called Hotel Costiera, and it's
about an American former marine who how do you say that?
Retired marine who is a hotel's private detect. He kind
of is helping out the hotel owner who's searching for
his daughter, but also gets involved in other, you know,
things that are happening at the hotel. So it's like
fantasy island set on the Amalfi Coast.
Speaker 1: And it's like episodic or is it like a soap opera,
an art with an arc or both?
Speaker 2: I think that each I've only seen two, so each
one had its own thing happening in it, but also
there's a an arc that goes longer, and the guy
who's in it is very handsome and he has a
lot of extra marital relations. I would just say like
it's it reminds me of of Bond movies, you know,
where you're like, how many women did this man sleep
with in this one movie? I think in one episode
there were two women that he had extramarital relations with.
So that's kind of stupid, but it's okay. And oh
and I'm continuing to watch Slow Horses.
Speaker 1: Which is, oh, yeah, I love that show.
Speaker 2: I just love Gary Oldman, continue to love him and
hate everybody else in that show.
Speaker 1: I was thinking the other day when I was watching it,
that why are we spending so much time with these
other people when Gary Oldman's available? Right, It's not just
that he's a good actor. That character is just fantastic.
I should also mention I had mentioned this show earlier,
but I just want to mention it again. It's called Rome,
and I had tweeted out that I love the show.
I think it's just one of the best shows. And
I think it's twenty year anniversaries this year, So it's
about you know, it starts with Julius ces are basically
crossing the Rubicon, and then you know the assessin and
you know the history into Augustus, Marc, Anthony, Cleopatri all
that the second season really like accelerates the story all
of a sudden, and it's just kind of even though
it held my attention and I liked it, it is
it was weird, right it would jump ten years or whatever.
But I later learned people told me a line that
they knew it was going to be canceled, so they
had to like wrap five seasons up or four seasons
in that one season. So that's why it is that way,
and it makes me made me think how great it
would have been to have five seasons of that show.
It's just one of the best shows. And the only
reason I mentioned it because you mentioned the sexual content
of the show you watch, and this has near pornographic
sexual content occasionally, which is off putting actually, but otherwise
the show's I think one of the best HBO has
ever ever made. So that's all I have. If you
have better suggestions, you can email us here at radio
at the Federalist dot com. Get you and we'll see
you next week. Until then, be lovers of freedom and
anxious for the Fray.
Speaker 2: Only get you into.
Speaker 1: To get you on my back times.
Speaker 4: He was funny,