The Dispatch Podcast - Embracing Failure | Roundtable

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

Megan McArdle of the Washington Post joins Jonah and Sarah to discuss Trump’s *explicit* trial, vice presidential contenders, and the downfall of the Tea Party. The Agenda: —Vice presidential picks —Let’s keep the Burgumentum going!!! —Handgate and Marco Rubio —FreedomWorks closes up shop —Checking in on third parties —There are monsters inside of RFK Jr. —Man vs. Bear debate Show Notes: —WaPo's explanation of brain worms —Biden threatens to withhold military aid from Israel —"A Huge Gender Gap is Emerging Among Young Voters" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Isgara, and I'm joined by Jonah Goldberg and drum roll please, Megan McCartle. She is a columnist at the Washington Post and the author of the book, The Upside of Down, Why Failing Well, is the key to success. You know, I should say, like, you're working at the Washington Post now, but maybe, maybe you could, like, come here all the time. I love you, Pius. I've heard you. You're trans. Most importantly, this allows me to really turn the tables on Jonah. At the end of this podcast, Jonah has no idea the conversation that we're about to have about man versus bear. And for those of you who do know, I think this is going to be fun. If you know, you know. First things first, Megan McArdle, we're just so thrilled you're here. And so we're going to punish you for your generosity by talking first about the Trump trials

and vice presidential stakes. I'm curious. I've read some of these academic studies that vice presidents don't matter to the ticket. There's one study that found maybe Sarah Palin mattered statistically a little bit in 2008, but not enough that it would have changed the outcome. and, again, very little, even to like a political operative who cares about margins. Otherwise, there's been no evidence that any vice president has mattered. So let's start with the big question.

Does it matter who Trump picks? I think not. I mean, I actually think that in Biden's case, his vice president might matter, in part because people are really concerned that he might die in office or otherwise become disabled. And so they look at Kamala Harris and they say, is this the person I want to be pulling over me for the next four years. In that sense, that one's sort of different because we're not really, you know, normally when you're looking at a vice president, you're actually like, this person will be vice president.

How will they do as vice president? That's not quite what you're being asked on the Biden ticket. It's, are you good with this person potentially and more likely than ever before in American history becoming president? I mean, actually, the odds that he'll die in the end, this is so morbid, but the odds that he'll die in the next four years are not low. And so I think for Biden, it does matter. For Trump, you know, he's a spring chicken, right?

The odds that he will die in the next four years, also not low, but he's such a huge personality, right? I mean, for Republicans, this just is a referendum on him. And I think that that's going to be true for any swing voters that he attracts. They're going to be voting on one of two reasons, either because they kind of like the dude, not my personal cup of tea, but, you know, you do you. Megan is literally holding a cup of tea. Coffee. And there's no Donald Trump in it.

But then the other thing that is a referendum on how miserable am I about various things Biden has done, about the state of the economy, et cetera. And those two things, neither of those two questions really implicates, like, who is Donald Trump's vice president? It's just not, I think, where the party or the election is. Jonah, do you have Bergam fever? I always have bergum fever. You know, they have antibiotics for that now.

You know, look, I mean, if Bergham was a cowbell, just couldn't have enough cowbell. And this should tell you what his chances are because I can't remember his first name. Oh, Doug, it's Doug. Yeah. I think his first name is that Bergam guy, right? That's his ruling. Former governor of North Dakota ran for the GOP nomination. and for some reason talk of the town in Veep Stakes,

even though I don't really see the point, but yeah. I mean, sewing up the North Dakota vote would be huge. So I think I generally agree with Megan because I disagree with Megan at my peril. But I do think that vice presidents can hurt, right? So the question is not whether they matter. The question is whether they can help, right? Because they can definitely hurt, I think.

And I think, you know, Biden's work. political decision, which is becoming a more crowded field by the day, was picking Kamala Harris. I don't think he needed to do it. I think he was listening to people who told him he had to do it. And I think that's the story of the Biden administration in many ways, is him listening to people telling him that he has to do things that he doesn't actually have to do. But I think Trump could easily pick a VP candidate that hurts, right? He could pick someone that reinforces his Trumpiness. But Margie Taylor Green would give nobody any reassurance that, you know, he's going to be anything other than full-spectrum Trump. Doug Bergam reassures people.

I mean, we should give people some context. We're recording this on Thursday morning. Yesterday, Biden announced that he was going to withhold some serious military aid to Israel. And I have a lot of friends in the pro-Israel universe who are like, okay, I am now done with this guy. saying they're going to vote for Trump and all that. And a bunch of people, unconnected to each other, have said to me, the only thing that could change my mind or make me actually not pull the trigger for Trump right now, depends on who he picks his V.

Which I think is kind of interesting. And I don't know, plural of anecdote is not necessarily data and that kind of thing, but I do think Trump could easily pick someone who hurt him and picking someone somewhat reassuring, sort of the equivalent of Mike Pence, Mike Pence for understandable reasons, is not eager to do it again, would make some sense. I think it's interesting that like mortality figures in both of these in a way, look, if you're like, you don't love Trump, you're like, well, I'm 78, you know, I've got, what are my odds I could get if you pick someone who's more moderate who reassures

you, well, you know, there's a non-zero. It increases the expected value of your vote in a way it would not if you were 20 years younger. I guess when it comes to Trump, I think that people, often, not always, but often misunderstand like sort of the fundamental Trumpiness of the whole thing. Meaning, like, he picked Mike Pence. He likes to surround himself with people with real Republican shiny credentials

through his perception because, and people who then, like, therefore, have to spend all of their time praising him, someone who took over the Republican Party, who's not been a Republican their whole life. And it's that give and take that makes someone attractive to him. So, you know, I think that someone like a Marjorie Taylor Green wouldn't really fit that.

That doesn't provide him the shiny credentials that he generally likes. I mean, you look at his cabinet picks, et cetera. It fits that mold. Now, on the other side of the spectrum, though, is the Mitt Romney example, where he has Mitt Romney auditioned for Secretary of State for the purpose of embarrassing. him, making him sort of publicly bend the knee when he has no intention of appointing this guy's Secretary of State. And I wonder if you guys see anyone in that category right now on Veep Stakes? Cough, cough, Marco Rubio? I mean, when I heard that Marco Rubio was in the running,

I was like, does anyone remember Handgate? Like, I do. Yeah. Unfortunately, I think we all have flashbacks intrusively and at inappropriate times. I, yeah, I, I, I'm kind of in your camp on this, Sarah. I don't really see how the Trump Marco Rubio ticket would work. But I guess if I were Marco Rubio, I don't know, I guess I would tell myself, like, he's 78. It could happen. But Jonah, okay, I take Megan's death point. Trump's not running again in 2028.

let's assume you really want to be president bless your heart i know there's all sorts of oh you sweet summer child are you better off having ben trump's vice president to run for president in 2028 are you better off in the cabinet not having anything to do with him and you know obviously i'm sure it will matter to your analysis whether trump wins or loses in 2024 so if you were a you know republican senator looking for a promotion, what's your strategy? Yeah, I mean, I think if Rubio wasn't in Florida, right? I mean, this would be the ultimate, this would be the ultimate fulfillment, self-realization of Marco's constant reinvention is to, like, move to Wisconsin.

And so like to get around that constitutional stuff, we can't be in the same, from the same state, right, and say, oh, I was never really a Florida guy. You know, I'm totally down with the Packers. And, um, and, uh, part of the large Wisconsin Cuban, Cuban, that's right. That's right. Uh, you ever, you never had Cubano cheese curds? They're fantastic. So, um, I think that he, he would actually be smart, though, if he could figure out how to do it because, um, I don't think he has a direct path to the presidency without being vice president. And, and generally, I think, look, I mean, this, this gets my theory, which I think I've talked about on here.

I think there are people in Trump orbit who want to pick the most unacceptable VP possible that actually doesn't hinder their chances of winning, because what you don't want going into a second Trump presidency is someone everyone could live with as president, because that makes it easier to impeach Trump, and Lord knows he's going to do something that someone is going to call impeachable. And so you need some sort of Medusa's head, right, that you can hold. hold up and say, go ahead, get rid of me, but do you want this? You know? And so, like, Marjorie J.L. Green would be perfect for those purposes, but she would actually hurt the

campaign. I don't think Trump cares about governing. I don't think he cares about any of that stuff. And I certainly don't think he cares about unifying the party on the merits, which is one of the classic reasons to pick a VP. But he does care about winning, right? So if this campaign could convince him so-and-so will hurt your chances of winning, he's not going to do it. But beyond that, He wants, and I think you're right, he does like to humiliate people to take people of some prestigious status, real credentials, and show how even they sort of bend to his will and all that kind of stuff or suck up to him. So I think those are the two psychological tensions in him is the total loyalist versus proving I can corrupt anybody kind of thing. I think it is so

effective. Again, I'm not getting sort of a moral stance on this, but it, it weakens whoever that person is, and it strengthens him. Like, it's a, it's a double whammy that I think has been really effective for him. Okay. Lightning round then on this topic, Megan, who would be your VP pick for Trump if you had to put a nickel down right now? Oh, gosh, I've, I'm not prepared for this question. Doug Bergum, like, Bergamensum. Can we clarify the question for a second. Yeah. I mean, who will Trump pick? I think I'm still betting on Elise Stefanic, but maybe I'm, maybe that's, I'm, you know, I'm not like super close to Trump world. So a weak, Elise DeFonic pick, Jonah. Um, really tempted to say Christy no. I really

am. But, uh, don't you think the dog thing has, has justifiably destroyed her even with But going on TV and willing to just sort of take the grief. I think Trump admires that. And I think it's going to be, gosh, I don't friggin know. It's like the slowest lightning round ever. JD Vance. Ooh. I was going to do the McLaughlin, you know, wrong.

It's J.D. Vance. But now I can't really say wrong because the answer is J.D. Vance because he has the shiny credentials and he's been bent to Trump's will because J.D. Vance, of course, remember, was pretty never Trump. I mean, I don't think he necessarily described himself as never Trump, though I wouldn't be shocked if he actually did. But now he's full on Trump and he represents that new wing of the Republican Party, which would as just sort of a bonus. And I think, Jonah, you're mostly right about what Trump cares about. But let's add a slight third thing in there, a legacy that Trump truly remade the Republican Party permanently

in his image into that populist party that's not conservative, limited government, yada, yada, boring stuff, I think would be a bonus. And J.D. Vance is on the vanguard of sort of that populist

concept. So that's correct, although I'm just going to assume you got there for the wrong reason. Yeah, I was basically just wildly stabbing and I don't think it's the right choice, but I think, although on the remaking the Republican Party thing, we should just point out that we are now 12 hours out from the news, almost 24 hours out from the news, that Freedom Works has just unceremoniously closed up shop, spelling the true death

of the two parties. And they said so publicly and admittedly because of Trump. So the transformation of the GOP is proceeding. Megan, how much does this trial matter? Not the verdict, let's say, but what we're learning from the trial, Stormy Daniels testimony is I'm, I guess I'll just say, I'm sort of stunned. This isn't O.J. Simpson. This isn't even Michael Jackson's trial. Does anyone even know this trial's going on? Really? I feel like nobody's talking about it.

It's just not a part of everyone's everyday life, the way that, again, I just think, O.J. Simpson, it was like all you were going to talk about at work that day. Everyone was watching it. And if you weren't watching it, you were pretending you were watching it. I mean, this trial isn't on TV, so that matters. But, eh? Look, if this were a movie,

This would be the moment where, you know, like there's slow-mo, there's a Van Gellas soundtrack as the progressive left runs through a roaring crowd and snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. They managed to put on college protests that, I mean, you know, maybe they helped persuade Joe Biden to not to threaten to stop shipping arms to Israel. but they have completely diverted any attention from these trials. Now, like, I don't know how much attention they would be getting absent all of these college protests, but the college protests dominated the news cycle, and no one is paying attention to this trial. That said, I don't think that this trial would have mattered. My personal opinion about this trial is that it's BS.

I was more disturbed by the fact that Leticia James just basically ran on I'm going to find something to go after Trump with, and then she got elected and found something to go after Trump with, and then got what seems to me to be a ridiculously large verdict against him. But this is just silly. It's like, it's an incredible, look, I am now, I'm now opining on the law in front of the host of my favorite legal podcast. So, but like, it doesn't, it's not a strong case. You've got a New York jury. You've got, you know, New York judge. You've got, you've got Donald Trump doing everything he can to enrage the judge. But at the end of the day, like, first of all, my personal opinion is that procedural stuff, you never get a politician

on procedural stuff. And everyone thinks they can. Republicans thought that they were going to bring down Bill Clinton because he committed perjury. Now, they should have brought down Bill Clinton because he was abusing his power to like have sexual relationships with interns, but neither here and or there, the perjury thing did not matter politically and the fact that you belabored it actually just made people think it was petty and BS. And for all of the stirring sermons about how we have to stand up for the majesty of the law and perjury is wrong and here's why it's wrong. And I'm hearing the same arguments from Democrats. But like I found a subsection A like part B of this thing that shows. And here is like a dubiously relevant precedent

where I can, if I squint hard enough, show you how this has, like, happened before. Ultimately, everyone who is not a Democratic partisan thinks this is a political prosecution because it is a political prosecution and it is not going to move the dial politically. He might end up in jail because he's doing everything he can to make the judge mad. But I don't think that anyone who is not already deep in anti-Trump, I will pull myself to the polls, with my bloody fingernails if I cannot walk to vote against him is looking at this trial and it's like, wow, this is really changing my opinion of Donald Trump. I can't possibly vote for that man now.

Jonah, agree, disagree. Yeah, largely agree. I think the, I keep thinking about this, and we'll take the blue context out of it, but like there was this Eddie Murphy's, and I think an Eddie Murphy Raw where he talks about how if you're starving to death, a cracker tastes amazing, right? And he's, oh, my God, that's the best cracker I ever had, right? If you are starving to see Trump in an orange jumpsuit behind bars, this cracker of a case just tastes amazing, you know?

And so you watch people on CNN, you watch people, or I am a contributor, where I'm constantly asked to opine on a case that I don't think should have been brought, which is just that I also think, for the record, which I think we all agree with here, Trump is guilty of all the things, right? He's just not necessarily guilty of crimes, never mind felonies that, but the underlying behavior stuff, which he denies, he's guilty of all that. But it's, you know, like, if we're going to have politicians go to jail because they had affairs with women of loose morals, our prisons would be, there'd be whole prison gangs full of ex-congressmen, right?

Well, I mean, technically one could argue there are, but anyway. Fair. So, but anyway, I think it's the Trump addicted, anti-Trump addicted people are super into this, but they're just not that many of them. And so I, look, I think it's sorted and it's sleazy, and I don't think that helps Trump. I don't think there are a lot of people who are rallying to Trump, who otherwise wouldn't rally to Trump because of all of this. But it's just kind of a waste of time, and it distracts from the more serious cases that he's got against him. And I don't, I personally, I mean, it's not just Letitia James in the civil thing. It's bragging this thing. I mean, I do not like the idea of people running for office promising to go after one person um because it creates lock her up

lock her yeah no that's terrible too i mean like i i think all three of us are in the really luxurious position of agreeing with all the what aboutism we just don't think it lets the person we're criticizing in the moment off the hook right and and so i think it's i think it's really unfortunate. I think it's probably going to end in a hung jury. And I don't, I personally don't find it sufficiently. I think the reason why a lot of people are more people to answer your question by a lot more people aren't into it is because we actually know all the facts. Like, O.J. Simpson, first of all, murder is kind of interesting murder of your ex-hot ex-wife. First is the falsification of business records for the furtherance of concealing a crime.

Exactly. And like, the very definition of a porn star is to be overexposed. right? And so it's it's just not nearly as interesting as, you know, like there's no shoes to drop. Yeah, I think the only way this helps him is that, as you say, it distracts from the other cases. And I also think more broadly, it makes people kind of lump all of the cases into like Democrats are just going to do anything they can to, to prosecute him. And it doesn't matter whether the facts are good or whether it matters. They're just going to keep throwing. And so it actually, undercuts the legitimacy of the cases that I think are legitimate, which are not this one. What happens if it's a hung jury, Megan? What does the left say at that point? Well, I mean, it's going to be hard to argue that in Manhattan, the problem was that those MAGA, you know, those white rural rage men were just, I think that they're going to splutter. And eventually, I think, in like five or ten years, basically what will happen is that smart people

will be like, yeah, that case was a mistake. Right. But they can't say it now. They're just in the hopes that somehow this is going to come home for them, they're going to keep defending it. And then in 10 years, they're going to look back and be like, oh, yeah. So actually, that made it harder for us to talk to convince people about the things he did do that he deserved to be prosecuted for.

I just find, Jonah, the incentives to be really well aligned for a hung jury. because if you're the holdout, boy, if you ever wanted to be on TV, have a book deal, anything else, you're way better off as the holdout than you are as one of 12 who voted to convict the thing that everyone thought was going to happen anyway. Yeah. I mean, you could argue, because this won't happen, but like the real sweet spot is to be the holdout against acquittal. That is the money position, right? That gets you an invitation. theory here of all 12 jurors trying to position themselves for the book deal is amazing that gets you invited to the Harvard IOP I mean it's a whole next level of like you know rhinole nine roller yeah but what about the sort of Kyle written house-esque speaking to her on the right I mean you can travel the country speaking at Trump rallies from now on and get paid for it right my only point is is that

the real sweet point is you get better class of air travel and better hotels if you were the whole sole hold out for acquittal, but that's not going to happen, right? So it's like instead. Also, let's be honest, better celebrities. For sure, better celebrities. Yeah. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect your loved ones and give them that extra layer of security brings real peace of mind. The truth is the consequences of not having life insurance can be serious. That kind of financial strain on top of everything else is why life insurance indeed matters. Ethos is an online

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current, his approval rating right now, and his chances of re-election. One, the college protests. Two, the civilian casualties in Gaza. Three, Biden now confirming that they are withholding arms shipments to Israel that they previously said they would not be withholding to prevent Israel from going into Rafa, or at least if they do go into Rafa, they're not, you know, quote unquote allowed to use American offensive weapons. What matters, Jonah? I think they all matter less than the Biden people do. I mean, I think this, the, as I said earlier, right, the story of

Biden's mistakes is the story of listening to people inside a bubble, have a vision of politics and what matters that is not aligned with his actual political self-interest. And so, you know, the kind of people who work in the White House are, among other things, the kind of young people who think it's appropriate to protest their own White House and have a walkout protesting the White House, right? In masks so they don't lose their jobs. Right. I mean, those kinds of people think that these protests matter a lot on campus, right? I mean, we've seen a bunch of polling, including this Axios poll, which says that among college students generally, conflict in the Middle East ranks nine out of nine with only 13% saying it was the most important issue to them. But those 13% are wildly overrepresented in the very online progressive left among sort of campus activists, liaisons to campaigns, door knockers,

you know, the sort of volunteer forces that carry clipboards and matter to Democrats for organization purposes, community organizer stuff, and that kind of thing. And so those are the people that they're listening to. It's like, you know, I'm a broken record on the whole Latinx thing, but like most Hispanics hate the term Latinx, but most of the Hispanics that professional Democrats talk to use it all the time, so they think it's an inclusive term. So I think that they sort of have this bubble where they think the pro-Hamas sort of demonstrators are closer to where the youngs are than they actually are, and it skews their politics. That said, I think it is probably, it is true that as a general proposition, support for

Israel among young people is softer than it is among older people, whether those people are going to vote on it, I'm very skeptical. But where I think all this comes together is if the IDF has massive casualties, because they couldn't go out go into rafa the right way uh or the or the incursion to rafa fails or even if there are greater civilian casualties because they couldn't use precision weapons right so they had to do it with dumb weapons that is going to piss off all the israel supporters who have been holding their nose and hanging on to biden i know it is because i've been hearing from the last 24 hours oh yeah second i the thing i don't get about this what does it tallyrand send it's it's it's it's

worse than a crime, it's a mistake, right? Like, the idea that the people who are all in supporting for the Palestinians and for Hamas and all that kind of stuff, they are now going to be enthusiastic about Biden? I don't, like, what votes does he gain by doing this versus losing? And so I just think it's a complete unforced error. And all of those things that you listed about what matters most, their salience will change dramatically depending upon how things play out in Rafa. I mean, it's telling to me, Megan, that Hamas, when they said they, you know, quote unquote, agreed to the ceasefire deal with only minor word changes that one of the minor word changes was whether they had to turn over the hostages alive or whether they

could turn them over dead. Yeah. I look, I'm now like stuck with the, you do not in any, under any circumstances, got to hand it to Hamas. It's so easy to fall into that trap. But they have, but like, Simor has played this really well. For him, like, he's in a bad position. It was, I think, I think October 7th was a terrible strategic mistake. But he is playing a bad hand extremely well. Again, I'm not, not endorsing Hamas in any way, shape, or form.

The only thing worse than they got a hand it to him thing is to say, is do the Ron Bergen-do you think, I'm not even mad. I'm impressed, right? You can never do with Hamas. Yeah, I'm mad about October 7th. That was very angering act. But so I think that he, by doing that, he did create a bit of chaos. But I also think that the Biden White House was primed to make a mistake. And I'm with Jonah, not even, you know, like standing back from policy.

I don't see how, I don't see how this policy works, right? Like, Israeli opinion is so overwhelmingly in favor of going into Rafah. I don't see how you're going to stop it. Right. You can make it worse, right? But is, but Netanyahu cannot stop. First of all, Netanyahu can't stop the war. He says as soon as he does, they're going to remove him from office and then he's got all

this corruption stuff. Second of all, I don't, you're actually going to kind of harden the Israeli population behind him. Third of all, I just, I think the Israeli hard line is we're not leaving him off. in power. We're just not. They don't get to win. They don't get to slaughter nearly a thousand civilians and win. And we can have, like, you can have big arguments about whether this is a long-term good policy, whether this is, whether they are morally justified in the level of casualties they have inflicted on Gaza. But at the end of the day, I think that that's the geopolitical reality.

Now, look, I'm not a foreign policy expert. I might be, I might be wrong about this, but that is my take. The second thing is that I think, as you say, Jonah, the staffers, you know, I think I might even have said this on your, on this podcast before, is that a thing I did not appreciate four years ago when I thought about Biden's age was the way in which that was going to change the incentives of his staffers, right? For most staffers at this level, they are attached to a president and that person is their future career in the party because they will come out of the administration. That person will, will still be the senior leader of the party for a while. They will provide opportunities. They will. And that's not true of Biden. He's not the future of the party. Their future lies elsewhere. And so what would normally temper their own instincts to go with their politics, which are quite far to the left of the American public, is that Biden is not that far to the left of the American public and that they want to have a future with this guy. But he is not entirely in control of his White House. They do not have a future with this guy. And so,

I think you see he is holding various lines, but eventually they kind of slipped the leash. And my basic read on what has happened with this is that the campus protests didn't matter electorally, but that those people felt a lot of pressure from their friends. I think to the extent they mattered electorally, they were hurting Biden and giving into the protest was not going to help. Right. We're not going to make that problem better. It was going to make it worse because the protests are not, I think, very popular.

outside of the left who is already voting for Biden. But it put a lot of pressure on them. And I think that they then, that gave them the excuse they wanted to say, oh, no, we're going in a different direction. We're really going to crack down on Israel. We're going to take a stand. We're not going to. And I don't think that helps them electorally.

I think they panicked. And I think that they seem to have believed, and look, again, not a foreign policy person, but it seems to me like they actually believed they could keep. Israel in a holding pattern until November, which is insane, right? Like, there was no way that this was going to not happen. Something was not going to happen before November, and there was no way that Israel was going to freeze the conflict that long. Or they thought that they could get, they could get Israel to agree to a ceasefire in which they essentially got nothing in, I mean, in exchange for letting Hamas declare victory. And that also seems to me to be just kind of insane. I think when

And those insane things that they thought they could get didn't happen, you saw the panic move. And that's where we are now. Joe, I'm curious what you think domestically about the Jewish vote. Now, A, it's generally not concentrated in states that matter very much, especially now that Florida is not really a swing state anymore. But it's still Florida. It seems to me like if Republicans had nominated, let's say, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney, you know, pick whatever.

I would think the vote would have shifted pretty dramatically. But it's Donald Trump. Do you think that there are people out there who, you know, are Jews who have voted Democrats their whole life who are now going to be willing to vote for Donald Trump? Oh, for sure, at the margins. I mean, you just like you hear about, you know, red pill Jews because of October 7th that happens. I think a bigger consequence is among the donor class of the donors who are like, we're done with this guy, we've got to get rid of Trump, this guy's a mess. And a lot of those guys are like, Trump would be better.

And I personally kind of hate it that like this kind of thinking happens about Israel because it kind of plays into the stereotype. It's kind of like dual loyalty light. which I, you know, I don't like about it. And like, oh, it was fine for the border chaos. That wasn't going to cause you to change your mind. But this is the thing that is going to do it, you know, not Ukraine or whatever. Well, to me it seems less about Israel and more about the campus stuff,

that it turns out all these institutions that they were supporting and that were so firmly considered politically on the left. Oh, yeah, they hate Jews. Like, whoops. Yeah, no, I think that's right. I think it's very difficult to disentangle the sense of, my God, we've been suckers. we've been funding, you know, we've been building libraries at these places where they want to kill us, right,

and where they think we shouldn't be allowed to use the libraries because we're Jewish. And that is freaking out a lot of people. Also, just this raw sense of betrayal from good liberal and progressive Jews to be kicked out of the coalition of the oppressed and be called an oppressor, in response to the worst pogrom,

you know, since the Holocaust, is freaking a lot of people out. But I think, like the campus stuff, more broadly, and in the context of Israel, I think there are a lot of just also pro-Israel people out there who aren't Jewish, who are probably moving on this. The one place, I agree with you that, you know, Jews, the Jewish vote doesn't matter that much.

You know, and you're always looking for an opportunity to use the famous quote that Jews live like Episcopalians, but vote like Puerto Ricans, but, which was not, by it, Griffin Crystal with some other guy that Irving quoted all the time. Anyway, but in one place where they do have Jews that Jewish voters who care a lot about Israel? The Philly suburbs. Look, I love John, I love John Fetterman these days. Like, I've never done a bigger 180 on a politician in my life. But the fact that, like, there's a guy named Shapiro who's governor and, and that Federman knows, is a senator from a state with significant Jewish vote, significant Jewish vote is not part, is not absent from the equation. Also, there are a lot of, you know, there are Jewish voters in Michigan. Everyone wants to talk about Dearborn, but like the Detroit suburbs have a significant number of Jewish voters, and they have even more voters who are not Jewish, but who are pro-Israel.

I mean, again, 80% of Americans side more with Israel than they do with Hamas. I personally come from the point of view that says that 20% is messed up. But that's the cultural valence of this. And why Biden wants to seem like he's splitting the baby on this stuff is just politically kind of a mystery to me. All right. We're going to move on to the next category of politics on the ballot, the third parties. And Megan, I don't know how to explain this news story, but RFK Jr. announced that at one point he had brainworms. and that one of the worms has died after eating a portion of his brain

and it's just entombed in his skull. That is not what I had on my bingo card for 2024 is that the most viable third-party candidate polling 12 plus percent goes out there and is like, you know what the American people should really know about me? That there's a dead brainworm that's part of my brain.

Yeah. You may have suspected now you know. Now you know. I got to say, and we're still in this news cycle, so maybe just no one will care because that's not why you were voting for RFK in the first place. But this feels like a Ross Perrault-esque turning point

in RFK Jr.'s ascension, right? Like, as in you're, you actually are picking up quite a bit of momentum because people don't like their two major party choices. And then the third party candidate says something so obviously weird and disqualifying, that it's like, oh, never mind. I feel like if I were having this conversation in 2006, I would be like, yes, obviously.

And then Donald Trump. I mean, and then... Literally brainworms don't matter. Yes, our president talks to dead French presidents. I mean, like, we're, I think, at this point, we're past the point where I can confidently say that anything is disqualifying in a candidate. because everything, you know, like I remember in 2016 when I was like, oh yeah, making fun of

the parents of dead veterans, that's obviously, right? Making fun of Vietnam POWs for getting captured. Obviously, this guy's career is over. And then he was president for four years. And so I don't know, maybe what the public is looking for. It's someone who is open and honest about his brainworms, rather than telling the same old Washington lies about how their brain is warm-free. Jonah, you have Jill Stein, Cornell West, and RFK Jr., you know, polling above the margin of zero. I don't know. Just seeing me a few bars on how we will gauge, how third parties matter, how they're

affecting the race. We're still doing polling that's head-to-head matchups, which I guess is a little confusing because it's not going to be a head-to-head matchup. you have a healthy percentage of Americans who want to find a way to reject the two major party candidates. So do the brainworms matter if RFK is really a vehicle for your hopes and dreams? Yeah, I mean, look, I've been making references to the, you know, the monkey paw, you know, where you get a, it's a short story where you get a monkey paw, magic monkey paw, that grants wishes, but it always does it in a way that makes you regret what you wish for.

I think it's awesome that in a political era, marked by monkey pawism, that in a country that desperately wants a third party candidate to relieve us of this choice, that the first one in at least a generation to hit serious double digits turns out to be the brain parasite guy. I just think it is like a classic, that's what you wish for. I have so many medical questions about this story also. I mean, how are we not? like having wall-to-wall coverage, like, I should become a, like, medical expert on brainworms by the end of this news cycle. And yet I feel like everyone's shrugging. Like, what are these brainworms? How do you get these brainworms? I would like to say that the Washington Post has done a very fine article on this very topic, which explains that probably what he had is a tapeworm.

They get into your brain. They insist themselves. Eventually they die. And at that point, there's no point in treating them. You just leave them there. How did you get the tapeworm? How big of a hole are we talking? Usually eating pork, undercooked pork.

But like what brain damage is caused by having a tapeworm in your brain? That you should go to the Washington Post.com. Very fine value. Also, I believe there is still very, very affordable subscriptions available through Amazon Prime. And read our extensive and intensive coverage of the brainworm controversy. So my understanding is that Robert F. Kennedy has completely forgotten the letter H. And just has no knowledge of it whatsoever. Look, look, first of all, if you're interested in this kind of thing, I highly recommend the TV show.

There are monsters inside of me, which is kind of like a behind the music special, all about parasitic infections. Oh, God. Or the book Parasite Rex, which is a real winner. Do you guys sleep? Well. Why would I want to watch a documentary on terrible things like that? I think I don't want to runs, but it was on for many seasons, like, discovery. And it's like, it's, it's so inviating because, like, they always treated it as like

this unbelievable mystery that where are these worms coming out of my body from? Well, how did I get this? I mean, all these different things, right? And it's always really grotesque. And then, like, the last 30 seconds, the guy is like, oh, that's, and this is a true story. Oh, that's right. It's that time we were doing a riverboat Nile Safari. in Africa

and they served us on the dock some fresh water Covece. It's like, yeah, that's where you got your parasitic infection. Eating Nile catfish,

raw. We'll do that, do you? Anyway, look, I mean, we've done this a million times and it's, you know, the thing about the third party thing

is like we can talk about what the weather will be on election day and that will be as predictive of who wins as like where these various third party people will be because it's going to be so close unless something really dramatic changes.

And I think that the only really interesting thing other than, yes, the brain parasite and the possibility that like there's some sort of tiny homunculus inside of Robert F. Kennedy, sort of like the little alien in men in black that is like inside the big guy, is that it's now looking increasingly like Kennedy takes more votes from Trump

than from Biden. And there were a lot of people who thought it was not going to be like that, including me. And so it's funny to see Trump now attacking Kennedy as this crazy left winger, which I think is very smart

because by labeling them as a crazy left winger, it will attract more votes from the Biden base to Kennedy while peeling away Trump and Trump getable voters. But, look, I want to live

Like Cornell West, I mean, I'd say what you will about Robert, Robert of Kennedy, he's actually not bad on the Israel stuff for someone so far left. Cornell West is like literally treats, describes Hamas as if it were the freedom writers, you know, that this was a counter-terrorist uprising on October 7th, according to Cornell West. And I would just like to live in a land where politically, openly siding with terrorists who proudly rape and murder people and kill children in their beds in front of their parents. and all that kind of stuff, that support for those things would stand against you with voters. And so that's the depressing thing about the fringe people is that we still treat them as if they're, we treat them as they're as if they're not fringe.

And I think that's bad for the country and it's bad journalism. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the platform that helps you create a polished professional home online. Whether you're building a site for your business, you're writing, or a new project, Squarespace brings everything together in one place.

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Go to Squarespace.com slash dispatch for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code dispatch to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. All right, Megan, we need to do bear versus man. Do you want to set it up? Do you want to explain this? Yes, this is my favorite story of the week. Just published a column on it, which can be read at the Washington Post, fantastic values available in subscriptions right now. Is Washington Post hard up these days? I do my part.

So there was a, it seems to have originated with a viral video. It's 29 second TikTok video in which a guy asks a bunch of women, Would you rather be stuck in the woods with a man or a bear? Spoiler alert, most of the women say bear. Now, look, these are like young women who he has grabbed on the street. We don't know how many he had to ask in order to get all of them saying bear. And I think the appropriate thing is to take this in the lighthearted manner in which it was meant. That is not the experience that the Internet actually had.

Instead, men started getting offended, and then a bunch of women and men started explaining that, no, no, really, it's quite rational to choose the bear. One factual question, point of information, please. Is it in the setup for this? Because, again, I had missed this entirely. I was on a lovely trip to New York with my wife. Is it implied clearly that the man, both the man and the bear are hostile? No.

Literally the question is, would you rather? be stuck in the woods with a man or a bear no other information and so like I started when I saw this I was like this is stupid obviously you should pick the man

and then people started bearsplaining me and all of the variations on this are either statistical malpractice or they're like but you know I'd have bear spray

no there's no bear spray in the hypothetical also bear spray works on men and probably better than bears. So, you know, like, or I get it, you know, black bears are usually shy unless they have cubs or like, okay, so we get to pick a bear that doesn't have cubs, isn't hungry,

you're not near its food stash, why can't I pick a guy who's not a rapist? Right. No, there are circumstances under which I would pick the bear. Like, if the guy has a bunch of neo-Nazi tattoos on his face and is covered in blood, I would definitely walk towards the bear. But otherwise...

Yeah, but wait, but isn't it like veil of ignorance? Yes. You're taking your statistical chances of what kind of man it is and what kind of bear it is. Yes. And statistically, and this was the other thing, is like, people started math-splining how actually, if you look at, there were so few bear attacks and look at all of the men who are attacked by women who are attacked by men every year. And it's like, Numerator, denominator.

You can't just... You can't, like, the typical... woman in a typical year meets what I don't know thousands, tens of thousands of encounters thousands or tens of thousands

of men in her everyday life outside of a zoo she probably encounters zero bears you cannot compare these two numbers and say therefore the bear is less dangerous this is like it's like

as I said in the column This is basically like saying, look, it's much safer to eat tablespoons full of arsenic than to drive to the grocery store because over 40,000 people a year are killed in car accidents, whereas like three people a year die of arsenic poisoning. And like, but no one megadoses arsenic and everyone drives. You have to look at what the actual incidence of the behavior is to assess how risky that behavior is. But doesn't this worry you? Like, you know, we live in a self-governing republic here. Those people's votes count as much as yours. And the, you know, a lot of Americans

do not understand statistics, denominators, et cetera. Like, doesn't this actually point out a larger problem? Yes. A risk assessment? But I take comfort in the fact that in fact, these arguments were stupid, motivated reasoning by people who thought they were making a very important point about violence against women and we're in fact making a very stupid point about how women are irrational and can't do math and they're not the majority

that most people are not like this if you actually asked most people in real life not having primed them with by the way your political enemies are angry about this like right you know okay if you're in a parking garage with a strange man and a strange

bear ladies Are you going to ask the bear to walk you to your car? No, obviously not, right? And this is the thing. It's like, in fact, most people are completely rational about this. And if they were in the woods and they saw at one end of a path, a man and at the other end of a path, a bear. And they don't want to wander off into the woods, right? They're going to walk towards the dude and be like, dude, do you have anything that could help me maybe if necessary?

I protect wildlife where possible. but should the occasion arise, could you kill a bear? That is actually what the ladies would do. And like, I think the whole discourse is just poisonous and toxic. And what worries me is that it is an example of the way everyone takes everything to stupid extremes and claims things that are obviously false if you actually think about them for three seconds in a stupid attempt to like own the other side. But the thing that comforts me is that again, most people don't do this.

Most people are not, like, sitting at home being, like, all men. Like, on average, men, more dangerous than wild animals. Large, wild animals with claws that are like seven times the size of your hand. Most people do not actually think things like that or say things like that other than in Jets, which is how this whole thing should have been taken in the first place. I feel pretty good in the woods either way, to be honest. like, you know, like, we're, it's big wood. Now, I think if you, you know, change the hypo, right, to a room,

that's going to be a little different because then I definitely don't want to take my statistical chances of being in a small room with a grizzly bear. Like, that always will be statistically a bad choice compared to the dude. But in the woods, I just, I'm like, I don't think this matters. Like, I'm good. I feel. I think that that is also also true, right? Like, as the park service emphasizes, most bears do not want to attack humans.

The problem is that, like, sometimes you startle them and they rip your jaw off, as happened to a dude in Montana last. And, like, there are only, like, a thousand grizzly bears in the lower 48. But he found two of them, and one of them ripped his jaw off. And, like, look, guys,

some, a small minority of violent, terrible men do terrible things to women, and that is very bad. A woman has a lifetime risk of forcible rape of 16%, according to the most recent survey data from the United States government, and that is awful. So I'm not downplaying the fact that there is that small minority,

but it does not solve that problem to slander the vast majority of men who will not attack you as potential attackers. No, like, and the whole idea that like somehow we're going to like, this is helpful. Like most men don't do this. The men who, like, it's educational. Most men do not do this. the ones who do are not confused about whether maybe it's wrong to like attack a woman you find alone in the woods and what are the ones who would never do that supposed to do about it where like how does making them think about how vulnerable we feel how does that improve

the thing that actually do is punish catch and punish the violent minority but i don't actually understand how like introspection by men who would never do that in the first place is supposed to actually fix that problem. So, Jonah has thoughts. I have many views on this. So, first of all, as many listeners know, and you guys probably know, I have a spouse who is extremely well-formed views about bears.

And I should say men, but really about bears. And because she's from Alaska, which is not part of the lower 48, and there are a lot of bears up there. Every summer when I would go up there, they're up there for most of the last 20 years. There's always at least one story about some, it's usually like some poor Czech girl

working for one of the cruise lines goes out behind the dorms to smoke a cigarette and a bear comes along and eats her face. And so there are bear attacks all, not all at times, enough bear attacks that it's not shocking when there are bear attacks, right? And I think that like, it's like when my daughter and I would watch cartoons

and there was a friendly bear in it, And my wife would come in, it was like she caught us watching porn. And she was like, what is this bear propaganda, right? Because like they are, particularly about polar bears, which are just monsters, right? And so the median grizzlier polar bear is far, far more likely to cause harm to a woman, all other variables unknown than the median male, right? in the woods, right? So I agree with all the rest. Numerator, denominator, they told me there'd be no math,

so I don't want to get into details on that. But I do want to turn it on you guys, since I am outnumbered here. This is feeling a lot like my college years, you know, where I was the Rosa Parks of Gender Integration. Tom Hetzel had a really good piece in the New York Times this week about the incredibly widening gender gap

between young men and young women. And it feels to me like this whole controversy is a product of that, right? And I'm wondering, and also like when you see on these campus protests, they seem really disproportionately female. And I'm sorry, I'm wondering why you guys think that is. What is going on between young men and young women

that is causing this sort of cultural divide? They're not having enough sex. That's just true. Yeah. Statistically, we have a lot of evidence that this generation is not having sex. It's part of the reason why unintended pregnancies have dropped and abortions dropped.

It's not because the pro-life community just really won the argument. The kids just stopped having sex. Yeah, like, look, there's the war of the sexes, the battle of the sexes, is a longstanding trope for a reason. Men and women have competing interests, especially romantically, right? Not in all spheres, obviously. But the way those interests are united is by you form a relationship with one. and then you both want a lot of the same things.

And that's not happening. And also the, I think that they're, like, I can't believe that in my old age, I am turning into a porn scold, although I guess that's how it normally happens. But I was sitting in a coffee shop, I don't know, a while back. And I was sitting next to two lovely looking women who appeared to be in their, like, early to mid-20s.

And they were having coffee. and talking about life and jobs and, like, just talking about things that, like, annoy you know, they're like, man, don't you hate it when, like, you order the Uber and it says it's going to be there in like 15 minutes and then doesn't show up for like 40 minutes.

And as this goes on, I'm kind of like listening and working. And then one of them's like, yeah, and don't you hate it when a guy just starts choking you and he doesn't even ask? And I was like, wow. And I went to one of my colleagues who's in better contact with the young,

than I am. And she was like, no, yeah, that's a thing. Because I thought, I thought this was like some sort of weird. And it's like really a thing. And it's also a thing where I've talked to guys who are like, yeah, I hate it when women are like, please choke me, because I really don't want to do that. And they get upset. And so people are having their idea of what sex and relationships look like. Instead of being formed in the normal healthy way by teenage fumbling and elaborate fantasies, they are having them formed. by pornography, which is extreme and which sets up unrealistic expectations both of what is a healthy and safe thing to do. I mean, like, I said this online, and I got swarmed by the choking

people, which I didn't realize was a thing. I mean, I knew that that was a kink, but I thought it was a very small. And they were like, no, there's all sorts of ways to do this safely. I'm sorry, there is no safe way to strangle someone. Please don't do this. You could kill them. Or cause brain damage, right? Another thing is that this is apparently among women who do this frequently to the point of black, it's causing brain damage. Um, like lasting. Well, not to get too graphic, but the point, the reason that it causes euphoria is because you are cutting off the supply of oxygen to your brain. Yeah. Some supply of oxygen to the brain and that slight decrease in oxygen will cause a feeling of euphoria. That's a bad idea. That's your best case scenario. Yeah,

that's your best case scenario is that you're kind of killing some brain cells. Please don't do that. Right. Yeah. I mean, wasn't it David, David, David Carrey. Herardine's life ended poorly, right? Yeah. And I think that there's also, you know, like the dating apps, the way women seem to be behaving on these apps is that they're all swiping on like 10 or 20% of the guys. So the experience of actually both groups is bad.

So the median male experience is that it's almost impossible to match with anyone. And the median female experience is that you match with the guys who are matching with everyone and who basically assemble harems and then treat all of the women in them pretty badly, right? They use them for kind of casual sex

and then eventually they get bored and they move on and the women are like, why are all guys like this? And they're not all like this. The 10% that you're all swiping on are like this because you guys are letting them be like this. And so I think that and you know, there's also the thing of right,

like more women, women are better at school, They're better at a system that requires a lot of schooling. And so they're getting through, they're going to college, and then you have similar behaviors where because it's actually really interesting, there's a lot of literature on how having a slightly off proportion of men to women really massively skews dating behavior. So, and in a persistent way. So I remember once talking to a European guy who was like, dating an American woman is like being at Versailles.

There's all of these like rules about paying and asking them out and it's not like that in Europe. Well, America has this legacy of having had a lot more men than women for a long time because all of the immigrants were disproportionately men. So all of these immigrant communities would just have more men.

So that skews dating behavior towards stuff women like being courted. If there are too many men, which is the case... It also explains in part why America is historically so violent. They find any place that is if there's a ratio of 120 to 100 women any place, that's like a tipping point where men start competing for women's attention

by being violent and that holds up across time in Spain. So the good and the bad, as it were, but then if you tip it in the other direction, something that you, Jonah, may have some experience with, the men get harems, right? Because the women have to compete for two few men and the way that they compete is by doing what the men want,

which is more casual sex, less relationship formation. I don't say this about any particular man in the room, but just as a statistical average. And so those things, I think, are really skewing everyone's experience, whereas, again, the men who are not going to college are finding it very hard to find a woman who will date them. And so all of those things are really skewing people's perceptions of what the other gender is like.

And it would be healthier if we have, more balanced sex ratios and people were dating instead of staying home and watching porn because I am now just officially an old fogey and I'm embracing it. We're turning Japanese. Jonah, you were surprised to find something and we're asking the youngs. You saw something that said

the thing women hate to hear most is good morning. Yeah, so there was some viral video out there where there were all these pretty attractive women complaining about dudes like one of their big turnoffs is to be texted in the morning saying by someone saying, good morning,

I hope you have a nice day or something like that. And I gather the young's somewhat explained it to me and I got it somewhat from context that this is seen as thirsty, right? This is a scene as needy and showing, as they would say in sign-so language, it is giving up your hand, right?

Because you have to be, and I get this a little bit, you know, this was true in my day too, but being a little bit of a dick was a way to, like, seem more attractive to women. Can I tell you the real answer? Uh-huh. The real answer to this question is the Saturday Night Live sexual harassment video starring Tom Brady.

Like, the first rules of texting, good morning are be attractive. Don't be unattractive. Like, if a super hot dude with jacked arms and a six-pack text you some morning is like, good morning. Hope you have a great day. How would you feel about that, Jonah? Yeah. You just see my email box.

You're like, what are you doing right now? Do you want to come over? Whereas the problem is the dudes who normally text that are kind of thinking, good morning, I hope you have a nice day, like thirsty, et cetera. They're chasing. So context matters. But I will say I feel like I'm married to someone who occasionally would text me. Good morning.

I hope you have a nice day. And like he's hot. So I was pretty cool with it. down. Yeah, I'm going to go similar. My husband, like, sends me text when I'm traveling and, you know, and did before we, like, when we were in our early dating thing. And I liked it. But did you also get text from guys you didn't like saying good morning and you heard it in this whiny, needy, thirsty voice? Because I also found it really on a, oh, good point. I have been married. I've been married since 2010. I've been dating my husband since 2008. Like, I barely knew how to use text when we started. Do I get texts from guys? Okay, now if I got a text from a guy, I was like, good morning, I hope you have a good day.

I was like, I hope that you're trying to sell me like some vinyl siding. Or they're an intern, right? So my wife actually calls this the great bait and switch, where I was kind of an aloof guy while courting and wooing my wife. And then I turned into a giant, I revealed that it was actually a giant big softie and nice. guy, and she causes the bait and switch.

It was like, I thought, you know, you were, like, too cool for school. And it turns out, no, you're like the guy. You're a giant cuddlebug. I talk about puppies and stuff a lot. So, there you go. So you never know, ladies. These men are onions to be peeled. I'm just saying, ladies, well, it is true that a bear will not text you to say, good morning.

I hope you have a good day. Still, do not pick the bear. And in fairness, the bear will also choke you. So that's a draw. Yeah, but they're not, they're not subtle about it. And they don't do, they don't trim their nails like ever. Yeah. Well, that's what the clawing of the trees is for.

They, they eat only the tasty parts, right? They like, like, they, they eat just the stuff they want to eat for fun. And, and it's not fun when you're alive in that process. I just want to put that. Yeah. I had been, like, I had bear a tree. training when I went hiking in Wyoming. And I just, like, this was where I started becoming amazed that anyone thought,

because they're like, you know, there's the famous joke, right, is the two guys walking through the woods and they see a bear. And one of them, so the thing about bears is they can climb trees, they can pull trees down, they're faster than you are. There's no way you can outrun a bear. And so one of the guys sits down and calmly starts putting his running shoes on. And the guy says, what are you doing? You can't outrun a bear.

And the other guy says, I don't have to outrun the bear. I just got to outrun you. And, you know, they literally, the instructions they give you are things like, don't take your pack off because that might protect your vital organs. If it's a grizzly, lie down on the ground and play dead. But if it's a black bear, you want to look very, very big and wave your arms and talk so it knows that you're not prey. But, you know, on the other hand, if it's cubs are around or you're near its food stash, that's a bad idea. and you'll attract its attention. The instructions are very complicated and terrifying.

And I just, again, like, just, you know, don't, no one bears. From a safe distance, beautiful animals, but no one bears. I've heard all of the bear jokes, because again, going Alaska so much. Alaska. My favorite is, like, you know, they tell hikers to wear bells, because, like, that way the bear, because the one thing you don't want to do is surprise a bear. Start a bear, right? Right.

So you wear bells. and stuff that make jangly sounds so, like, the bear hears you coming and can get its cubs and get away if it wants to and all that kind of stuff. And then the follow-up to all this is, do you know how to tell the difference between black bear poop and grizzly bear poop? And the answer is, the grizzly bear poop is the one with all the little bells in it. All right, on that note, thank you so much, Megan, for joining us. This is a treat. a great treat and you should do it all the time you know I can't I'm like I do do it all the time every

day I listen to you guys so it's like I'm I'm I'm with you in spirit every single morning doesn't count you should be texting me every morning good morning I hope you have a good day I love you Megan oh right back out you sweetie goodbye see Jonah this is how the men get left behind Bye. Thank you.