The Dispatch Podcast - The Cult of The College Protest | Roundtable

Episode Date: May 3, 2024

Can you compare the pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses to January 6? What about 1968? Or 2011? Sarah is joined by Jonah and Steve to debate these questions and discuss Trump’s Time magazine interview. The Agenda: —Nostalgia for the Civil Rights protests —Do we have political parties anymore? —Protests become violent —Whose fault is this? —No Jewish hummus —The UNC frat bros’ Iwo Jima moment —Trump’s Time interview —Ron DeSantis bans lab-grown meat Show Notes: —Kaitlan Collins interviews J.D. Vance on CNN —Serge Schmemann: Student Protest Is an Essential Part of Education —UCLA wins the award —Jonah’s Wednesday G-File —McKay Coppins: You Should Go to a Trump Rally —Ross Douthat: There Will Be No Trump Coup Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Sarah Isger. That's Jonah Goldberg and Steve Hayes is here also. We'll see. We've got plenty of stuff to talk about. So I want to start with a provocative question. Jonah, is it fair to compare what is happening on college campus? campuses right now and the pro-Palestinian protesters tactics to January 6th on the right. Oh, yes, but with caveats, right? I mean, like, we should always remember Kevin Williamson's wonderful line talking about when people would say, well, what about the riots, the George Floyd riots where they burnt down things like big box stores and, and, uh, Kevin's response was, well, there's just a difference between a coup d'etat and a coup

de target. And so the intent behind January 6th is special. The stuff that's going on in college campuses did not deprive the United States of the ability to talk about the peaceful transfer of uninterrupted peaceful transfer of power. That said, there's an enormous amount of sort of double standard stuff going on here. Caitlin Collins, my CNN colleague, got a good zing into j d vance where she was like let me just get this straight you think people who break into buildings unlawfully and violently and vandalize the place should get uh prosecuted under the law and he's like yes absolutely she's okay because you you raised money for people who did that on january six which i thought was totally fair game right and so i thought you were going to ask is

the comparisons to the 68 campus rebellions fair or accurate and my answer was going to be no but you didn't so anyway on the January 6th thing well now I have to ask that I just think it's one of the dumbest friggin comparisons it's everywhere wait why which direction is it dumb

well I mean look I mean in terms of the political backlash potentially the political backlash thing is real and legitimate and that's all fine and it's a good point and I've made it and lots of people made it that like these things blow back I'm talking about the nostalgics, you know, the people who, you know, there was an op-ed in the New York Times or at the beginning of the week by Serge Schmeman, I think it's, I think he'd say his name,

was on the editorial board who was at Columbia in grad school in 68, and he's, is, the piece was literally titled, protest is an essential part of education. And I think that is extremely dumb, but it is part of this larger nostalgia for 68. You can still find people saying that the 68 anti-war riots, our protests, stop the Vietnam War. And I was like, well, man, they tapped the brakes on the Vietnam War because the Vietnam War went on until 1975, and the protest got Richard Nixon elected, right? And so, moreover, the protests in 68 were about things that actually affected the actual people protesting, you know, it was about the draft, you know, chief among them. And the stuff today is, is people are so much more forgiving of it because they

are nostalgic for 68 and they impose upon it those narratives. And they really just don't fit. This is, this is protest as cosplay. The stakes are, this is all sort of a, this is, this is moral bravery on the cheap for a lot of these kids. And it stems more from the BS pedagogy of the schools than it does from like a serious issue that affects their lives. And that way I think the analogies are bad. Okay, Steve, we've got two other analogies to throw out there. I mean, Jonah touched on one of them a little, which is the George Floyd protests. Or Occupy Wall Street. I'll let you sort of pick which one on the left you want to pick. And then obviously these students believe that they

are carrying on a tradition from the civil rights era. And they make the comparison openly and all the time, you know, this is Selma without the dogs in the water, said one student. What about those comparisons? And feel free to touch on the 68 comparison and the January 6th comparison if you'd like. Yeah, I mean, look, let's just stipulate that some of these students who are undoubtedly sincere in their beliefs and are there because they're protesting what they see is a great injustice unfolding in Gaza right now. Fair enough. And can point to things to support their case. Those are not, I would say, as a general rule, the people who are speaking for the protesters. The people who are speaking protesters seem to fall largely in two groups. One of them are students who don't really

know what they're doing there. They might have some romantic visions about sort of being the successors to the 60s civil rights protesters. But as a general rule, I think there are a good number of the protesters who are there because it's a social event, because they know people who are going to protest because it's a big thing that's taking place on their campus right now. That, I think, is the charitable view. The other group, and I think the more problematic group, are people, protesters who are actually in favor of what Hamas has done, what Hamas does, and what other terrorists do. I mean, these are these open anti-Semites who are not making a principled case, but are making a case for exterminating Jews. And it's, you know, we talk a lot here on this podcast and at the dispatch generally about doing our best to avoid nutpicking, which I can't remember Jonah if that's a term that David coined or. No, I asked him about that. He helped popularize.

I like it. I mean, it's basically the practice of picking the most extreme argument of people on the other side and amplifying that argument and pretending that that's what your opponents believe in a debate or discussion or whatever. We do our best not to do that. But there's no other way to see what a good number of these protesters are doing, but that it's, sort of an active argument for exterminating Jews. And I just don't see how, you know, the civil rights era protests. I mean, I think some of the stuff that happened on Columbia was excessive. Certainly there were, you can point to accesses on the part of the protesters at a number of different places. But, you know, I think they had a very strong moral argument to be made there. Hey, let's treat everybody equally. there is no moral argument that says we should exterminate these people.

And that's, I think, what some of the protesters are effectively arguing. Jonah, just from though a very practical standpoint, these students are getting what they want. The schools are negotiating with them. They're getting the attention. Isn't this actually very effective? I don't know. You have to go case by case, right? I mean, clearly at UC, we're recording this on Thursday morning, and I was on set watching them tear down the UCLA campground.

I don't think those kids wanted to lose their encampment. But yeah, I mean, I think the tendency in so many different spheres of our politics and culture to ignore the old advice about careful what you wish for is just so astounding to me. And these kids wanted to be the center of attention. They claim that they're doing this on behalf of Gaza and the Palestinians. But the conversation in America isn't about Gaza and Palestinians anymore. It's about free speech and the tradition of protest and these kids. And it seems to me that that's how they like it. And so they're actually, not only are they hurting Joe Biden, not only are they

turning big swaths of the country against them and their cause, they're distracting people. I mean, the national chatter, the national conversation was much more pro-Palestinian six weeks ago before all this started than it is now. These guys are doing exactly what they think. It's another example of the sort of the collective action problem that ruins our politics.

What's good for Marjor Taylor Green is bad for the GOP and bad for the country. What's good for these, and I'm just totally done being sympathetic to the protesters in any way, even the ones who are sincere because they're so misguided and how they're doing it that I think if I were passionately pro-Palestinian, I'd be really pissed at them. But these kids, they're getting the incentives, they have the incentives, they want to be performative, and it's hurting the cause that they claim to care about. It's hurting the schools that they claim to care about.

The administrators are so besotted, so insorcelled with nonsense nostalgia about the, and the, and ideologically screwed up pedagogy about the importance of protest that they deserve all of this, but it's, it's, none of this has been good for anybody who has good faith, noble, um, desires. And the, and the sincere protesters keep showing up to protest alongside the people who are calling for the eradication of Jews. Like, they show up every freaking day, and they're okay with that. It would be like if I were protesting against racial preferences in higher education and standing next to Nick Fuentes, I mean, I'm not going to keep showing up if it's the

neo-Nazis making the same protests. If they're on my side, I don't want any association with them. The fact that the sincere ones keep showing up, I think suggests that they're either willing to be dupes. or they just are not thinking very straight. So, Steve, Jonah has a point about this actually fitting into our politics perfectly, though, whether it's AOC, Marjorie Taylor Green, Matt Gates, any number of examples that I can point out from all of the sides where the personal incentives are just overwhelming the group

incentives. And so as the power of the two political parties has, I mean, now declined to the point that I think it's kind of hard to say that we have political parties. There's certainly a designation on ballots. And there's a thing called the Republican Party, you know, National Committee and the Democratic Party National Committee. But they're now being run by individual candidates so much versus a separate party structure. I don't. They're weak brand management firms. But like, are they, they even pretending to be that anymore? I really think they're just the campaign arm of the candidates versus what parties used to be, right? They're no longer gatekeepers. I don't think they're brand managers. They don't have policy. More on the Republican side than the

Democratic side, I would say. Well, so this was my question. Like, is that just because Donald Trump happened to the Republican side first and that these protests are actually proof that it's just as likely and just as flourishing on the left? They're just hasn't been a Donald Trump yet. Bernie Sanders is not Donald Trump. So when you compare 2020 primary and Joe Biden winning the primary, it's because there wasn't a Donald Trump option. Yeah, I think that's fair. I think it's hard to know. I mean, Trump was such a unique phenomenon when he sort of landed on our politics in 2015, that he's distorted everything there is around. And, you know, if we would have predicted, you know, even

when it became clear that he was going to be the Republican nominee in 2016, if we would have predicted that the Republican Party would sort of set aside its platform at the convention and in effect say, yeah, whatever this guy thinks. Like, that's not how it's ever been. So Trump was so, such a huge presence and so unique and his following so cult-like. And Barack Obama certainly, there were cult-like elements to the support that Barack Obama had, but it was, I said it was nothing like what we've seen with Trump. And, you know, in a weird way, Biden is the antithesis of that. There is, there is no cult of Joe Biden. It's not like there are, even the people who are working for him in the White House who work for him for him for him

for him for him, they like the guy. They think he's effective. You know, a lot of people who work directly for him are undoubtedly enthusiastic about the guy. But if he wasn't president right now and he went and gave a speech at a rally somewhere, you know, would more than a couple dozen people show up? So I do think it's more true of Republicans than of Democrats that the party sort of just melted into this personality cult. But I mean, I think you raised an interesting question. I'd be interested in your thoughts on this. I mean, it seems to me that And, you know, you don't want to overread these events or, or engage in wishcasting. But given the sort of failure of Marjorie Taylor Green on trying to remove Speaker

Mike Johnson and the open hostility that's being expressed towards her by her fellow Republicans, and given the frustrations that you're seeing from some Democrats at the fact that these protests have become this sort of made-for-TV moment, which I think many Democrats, particularly Democrats in competitive districts, don't want to have to embrace, certainly don't want to be lumped in with. You know, have we reached the point where some of this performative stuff is just too much? And it's just seen as performative. And the serious people on both sides can say, hey, we got stuff to do.

Jonah, I feel like one of the pushbacks to my point is that in 1916, we did have strong parties and yet, you know, make a different, you know, point out the difference is all you want between 1968 and now, but the political ramifications certainly have a high probability of being the same, meaning that a faction within the Democratic Party causing so much national news of chaos, violence, et cetera, weakens an incumbent Democratic president who can't seem to control it. but that was in an era with that was very different politically from ours

in every other respect so am I wrong? No, no, I think that aspect is right. I mean, I don't think the weak parties thing I mean, the point I was just making about the weak parties thing was had more to do with the fact that across our political, cultural landscape,

we have a collective action problem where the incentives for the individuals, actors, or specific factions to do what's in their benefit has gotten completely, out of control, and there's no larger institutional force that can impose

order on that. But they couldn't impose order in 1968. Like, if the Democratic Party couldn't figure it out then, why should we be blaming them for not figuring it out now? But that sort of gets to the point, which is that in 1968, the issues that people were protesting were big

enough to break a strong party. Like, this was like, you know, the friggin draft was unpopular. The war in Vietnam was really, unpopular. Plus, you had all the civil rights stuff still exploding. You had, you know, two factions on the, in the Democratic Party, you know, a legitimate and real center left that, you know, actually had slightly right of center Democrats still in the party back then. And then you had a very serious left that, and I'll say this, as something.

of a getting to the back defending the the the pro-Palestinian i would argue pro-war protesters the hardcore left in 1968 was much closer to real domestic terrorism than these guys are um you know the the weather underground you know people people glorify the black panthers but they were essentially a quasi-terrorist criminal militia um that yeah they ran some soup kitchens Hamas runs soup kitchens. Congrats. But the interrelationship between the serious left and essentially criminality and domestic terrorism was real.

And those centrifugal forces came to a head in 68 at the Democratic Convention and pulled it all apart. What I think is sort of remarkable about this moment, and this is true with the crazies on the right, too, is that with the exception of January 6th, where the constant cosplay and fantasizing actually got translated into reality, so much of this is virtual Potemkin, very online stuff. I mean, the number of people who talk about secession on the right compared to the number of people who would be willing to actually pick up a gun

and do something for secession is like $10,000, $100,000 to want. How do you know that? What? I believe it. Yeah. Okay, I believe it. All I was going to say is that you can still, with that ratio, you can still have a bunch of violent people do violent things and it be very bad. But you look at the ratio of the people who have been prosecuted for January 6 compared

to the number of people who showed up to protest on January 6. And it sort of gets my point. Similarly, the guys who are protesting on college campuses right now, they talk a big game about being radical this and in solidarity with. terror is that, but if you actually tell them that we're not going to have your quinoa bowl delivered to you while you're occupying the building, they freak out, right? They, they, they're willing to do a lot of things, but so long as they're not suspended and that or they get, but they have to get amnesty, right? And, um, and so a lot of it is play

acting from these people. In 68, it was much more real. Now, it could get real here. I mean, that's the, that's the dangers. The more you talk this way, the more permission you give yourself to go from the realm of rhetoric to reality. And that's how lone actors get activated. They believe this stuff. The guy who went and shot up comet pizza. All he imbibed in the media was this stuff about the pedophile ring working out of this pizza shop to the point where he jumped from the screen to reality and brought a gun in there. That's a real danger. But I think the Democratic Party a lot of the problems we have today it's kind of ironic you're talking about weak parties

and all this kind of stuff the reason we have weak parties is because the left faction won that fight in 68 and in 72 George McGovern change the rules for the Democratic Party about how it was going to work and as he put it I opened the doors to the Democratic Party and two million people walked out and then Republican Party in its infinite stupidity

decided to copy a lot of that stuff and switch to primaries too, and the primaries are the main driver of what weakened these parties. 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 platform that makes getting life insurance fast and easy to protect your family's future in minutes, not

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Well, fast forward a week. Now, first of all, there's the violent clashes with the police who have tried to clear these encampments. And the schools then like back off and then they do send in the police and then they back off until sort of things get bad enough that they send in the police. once and for all. The other part of what's going on is the schools that are telling the police not to engage and then allowing the encampments to continue, allowing

students to prevent Jewish students from getting to parts of campus. We've now seen in California violence really break out when a basically pro-Israel counter-protest group violently

attacks the encampment of the pro-Palestinian group. Now, they say that they did that because the previous day, a female Jewish student was beaten unconscious by the pro-Palestinian encampment folks. And around and around, I think we can go, but there's no question that a large group of pro-Israeli students wanted violence. They came in and started it in that sense, like in that moment. And the school still stood by. I mean, is this just now the Anarchy? How are we supposed to condemn this violence? Who's now responsible? Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's so, it's it's so ironic and maddening when you think how many schools

over these past couple of decades equated speech with violence and, you know, thrust themselves in front of people who would make speech that the administrators didn't agree with are now confronted by actual violence and sort of stand back and won't won't don't don't want to get involved yeah i mean i i don't know i i you know we've we've talked about this a lot offline you worry that what we're seeing here and the intensity of of these disputes will spill over into broader violence um i mean i i have when i look forward to november um and try to imagine various outcomes in the presidential election in November, it becomes harder and harder for me to imagine us getting through November

to the inauguration of either Trump or Biden without seeing real political violence. I don't say that to be alarmist, but the scenarios that we're looking at in the sort of, you know, you feel like we are sort of on, I don't know what the right analogy is. is dry pine needles everywhere and one match, one spark can just light this thing for a long time. Could the campus protests be that? I think if we see more violence, you get this in fits and starts.

Does it build? That seems entirely possible to me. And you layer on top of that, the kind of rhetoric that we're getting from the campaigns, themselves. If you look at the things that Donald Trump is saying, he was asked directly in this big interview he gave the Time magazine about whether he would, about whether violence would be appropriate after the election. And he in effect said, yeah, if the election is not fair, you know, maybe violence is necessary. That's a bad paraphrase. He said, if we don't win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of the election.

And the question he was answering was about political violence, whether there would be political violence. And he was not only sort of not down talking, and I think it sounded like he was talking it up as a legitimate response. I think in that environment, when you see things like what we're seeing on campuses around the country, there's a reason to be concerned. No, I agree there's a reason because I just make one point about the stupidity of the situation that they're in, because it is such. At a macro and micro level, this was such an unforced error for the country. Most college kids, most young people don't go to college. Most college kids don't go to elite universities. Most elite universities aren't, still aren't bedeviled like this.

But because, again, of this cult of the college protest and this constant desire to replay history and revisit 68 and boast and brag about the glories of social protest. The media could not resist a handful of protests and gave them wildly outsized coverage. Professors and administrators who don't like protest and are ideologically sympathetico with the kids yelling about Israel. gave these things oxygen and attention because they were secretly, I think, kind of proud that they were having protests and isn't this great? And doesn't this show that we've admitted the right kind of, you know, socially justice, social justice warrior, enlightened conscience kind of

students. You know, this is why we're in this business. And so everybody magnified and amplified the importance of these things to the point where it had its catalytic effect and it took on a life of its own, and then all of a sudden, deep-pocketed crazy left-wing philanthropist types and also sort of who knows how much money from Qatar and places like that, starts pouring in, and it turns what was probably mostly grassroots into a mixture of grass and astroturf. And again, the press loves covering this. It is made for cable news kind of thing. But we've covered it a ton, right? I mean, you wrote about it a couple times. We've talked about it here. are we part of the problem?

Yeah, well, to a certain extent, well, no, because it's, I mean, to a certain extent, maybe. But like, the problem is real, right? At some point, you cover this stuff and it takes on a life of its own. It becomes an animating myth and passion. I think a lot of our stuff has been, you know, trying to tell the truth and expose facts

about what's really going on and not to glorify the culture of protest. But, you know, there are countless college textbooks and documentaries that are all treated, this kind of thing as purely heroic. So, Jonah, so I want to push back on something you said earlier then. Because you said, you didn't feel bad for these kids, even the ones that were sincere out there, right? Because they're standing next to the bad people at this point.

I totally understand that. But in the same vein, as you said, like, these students have, they were picked for their record as activists, not for their records as having intellectual humility or curiosity. Like, they were chosen for this. they were then put into a little petri dish where they were told social justice protest is the sort of highest moral thing you can do

and this thing going on in Israel is a form of apartheid and by the way don't worry too much about the history because like let's focus more on social protest than we do on the actual facts but like they absolutely have been inculcated into the idea that it is the same as apartheid the way to fight apartheid

was through social justice protest and it worked and they ended apartheid through this. And so then these students are like, one plus one equals two. This isn't that hard. So they do the thing. And at first, their professors and even the administration are putting out statements saying how great it is. And they're not doing anything about it. They're allowed to break the rules because this is good rule breaking. The weather gets nice. So now more people are out there. And then the school's like, hey guys, like, uh, could you like take down your encampments? and they're like, no.

And the school's like, okay. And then that goes on for another week. And then the school's like, we're going to call the police if you don't move the encampments. And they're like, no. And school's like, okay, we won't call the police. And then another week goes by. And they're like, no, you really have to move the encampments now.

Why would the students think that what they were doing at that point, like, A, that the police were really going to get called, B, that there were going to be any consequences whatsoever, and see that what they were doing was now wrong. Like, when were they supposed to learn along this timeline that they were the bad guys or that they were even breaking the rules? It's not clear to me that they were on notice that they were breaking the rules because the school kept telling them they were breaking the rules while then also winking and telling them to keep breaking the rules. So it seems really weird to me to then call in the police and drag them out and arrest them or expel them, et cetera, and then be like, well, they were on notice. No, you were telling them they were breaking the rules while all.

also telling them that it is a moral good to break the rules. Yeah. So look, I mean, if you're asking me, should I have more sympathy for those kids than I do for the college administrators who screwed them? Yes, but this is grading on a curve because my disdain for the college administrators who did this is much greater and more profound. Look, I get the, you know, you're basically making a, a well-articulated root causes argument that these kids don't know any better because this is what we taught them. But it's not just it's what we taught them. It's like along the way. Like yesterday, you were told.

Yes, I agree. I agree. And that's outrageous. And told basically there wouldn't be consequences because on paper they were told there would be consequences. And then in reality, over and over again, right after they would say there's going to be consequences, there were no consequences, seven times in a row. And then the eighth time there's a consequence.

That has to be really confusing. That's like the opposite of how you train a dog, Jonah. I agree. And that's why sometimes you just have to take out the gun. Don't. Don't. Steve got so mad at us when we said we were going to steal man,

Christy know, and talk about what would have to happen for Jonah to shoot Zoe in the head. This is like the protests, just running over the administrators. But I was, but this was sort of my point is that this was all preventable

if the school's just simply from the get-go, has had clear rules and enforced them, right? Which is why this hasn't happened at a whole bunch of other schools. Which is why it hasn't happened at all. Because the students were confused at those schools. And I know that sounds like I'm infantilizing them. But actually, like, truly, I believe these students had every right to be not just confused,

to actually believe that there wouldn't be consequences. They got amazingly mixed signals. I agree. And it goes further. I mean, you know, there was a great piece out yesterday or today. demonstrating how the schools have sought out these kinds of students. This is what they prize in students. This is what they want when they recruit students.

They go and they say, do these things. We like this activism. And then they're surprised when it comes back to him. There's this really terrific piece. He's the worst. You don't listen to A.O. David and I have been saying this for a long time. But we've also seen other schools talk about what they value in applicants.

and emphasizing things like intellectual humility, curiosity, etc. And guess what? Oh, my God, they're not having these problems because they didn't accept a bunch of students who were locked into a worldview. So it's both. I want to read, so Northwestern, my alma mater. You know, Columbia is getting a lot of attention for what I think are, that they win the prize for the most mixed signals to their students.

We're going to call the police, but we don't call the police. We applaud you, but also please stop doing this. Like, great. Gold medal to them for that. UCLA wins the award for stupidest way to handle it, which is just telling the police not to intervene no matter what, and then just allowing the two groups to brawl. That's a terrible plan.

So gold medal to you, UCLA. But I have to say that Northwestern, I think, wins the overall competition. What's it in gymnastics? You have the individual events, and I'm handing out gold medals for those. But for the overall team medal, my alma mater wins the gold medal. They had an encampment like every other school. They sent the same mixed signals telling them they needed to take down the encampment or they were going to call the police.

They did not call the police. They allowed professors to hold their classes at the encampment, including forcing their Jewish students to attend those classes or else obviously they'd be missing class. And then they negotiated with the students, and I've talked about this before, they acceded to several of their demands, including but not limited to,

full ride for Palestinian students, a commitment to hire Palestinian faculty, allowing a student from the protest on the investment board to vote on where Northwestern should invest its money. And my favorite, of course, the dining hall demand. And it's very unclear in the demands, but I've talked to a Northwestern student. The protesters demanded that Sabza Hamas be removed from the dining halls

because it's made in Israel. So the Jewish hummus is gone, y'all. So you'd think that Northwestern, by acceding to all these demands, got something like the end of the encampment? But they didn't. The encampment is still there. So, I mean, this is amazing.

Now, you have the president's advisory committee on preventing anti-Semitism and hate. Seven members have stepped down. This is from their letter, it is essential that the university develop appropriate and timely recommendations to address and prevent anti-Semitism and hate. However, in light of the university's leadership not to utilize the committee for its stated purpose, we can no longer continue to serve in this role. And as they noted, you know, they've negotiated with what I think many of us would call a hate rally,

struck a deal incentivizing further rallies like this and didn't even bother to consult the anti-Semitism task force that might have had something to say about all of this. So congratulations, Northwestern. You have really embarrassed all of us

and I think devalued our diplomas. Is that detail on the hummus true? Is that really true? I mean, that's just like there are moments yeah, there are moments where like, you know, sometimes this is complicated and, oh, there's claims and counterclaim. And then you hear something like that.

It's not the most important thing that we're talking about. But it's so stark. It is just, it's such an example of complete hours. No, it is. That's what I'm saying. It's like, it's, it's, it's over simple. They're bigger issues. But to, to the response from the administration to students who are routinely on a daily basis

articulating genocidal views toward Israel is to remove Israeli hummus I'm just like you can't make it up

it's insane like somebody should be fired about that honestly somebody should lose their freaking job over that that is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard I'm staunch proponent of academic freedom

that is totally absurd As of today, Jewish students are still being forced to attend class at the encampment site. After the negotiated deal was to remove the encampments, what they got, for those who think I'm maybe being unfair, they did take down the tents, but they're now just, they have sleeping bags. They are still allowed one tent as an organizing tent. So, I mean, the encampments are still there, right? Like, the problem wasn't the tents. At least that wasn't my problem. Imagine negotiating about this shit?

Can you matter? Like, it's just so stupid. I wrote about this as a G-File yesterday, but this woman who's a grad student with an emphasis on stuff that for 99% of Americans sounds like one of Charlie Brown's teachers talking. I mean, it's just totally incomprehensible and penetrable nonsense. Jonah, I'm a pretty well-educated person. I read it three times and could not understand it. And you kind of tried and I read your attempt. Yeah.

I'm just, my IQ is not high enough. It's like you asked ChatGBT, GBT, to see. say, render some intellectual sounding gobbledygook, right? Yes, it didn't, yes, that's exactly, it sounded like those fake papers that people would submit with jargon, and everyone's like, ooh, they've got all the jargon in the right places. I have no idea what any of it is. Or, in fairness, it was poorly translated from German. But anyway, she became famous because she's demanding that while she's speaking for the people

illegally occupying a building who've been told to leave, or the police will. come and her demand is you have to send us food and beverages because that's her words basic humanitarian aid and the ingratitude for all of Western civilization inherent and like just everything stupid you can imagine about the sense of entitlement but Jonah also like when I mean again I I lived next to the dining hall and sometimes I would sleep through dinner I would take a nap and I would miss the hours of dinner which by my memory were something like 4.30 to 7

like it was really early and like if I'm going to go out I need to take the map you know if I miss dinner at the designated location where they serve dinner then I didn't get to eat the dinner that I had paid for you've been denied your food

you're like Elon Omar's daughter I'm so confused by the lot even though because they're like well we signed up for a dining plan like yeah so did I man like and I didn't get to eat there a lot because if you didn't get there by seven you didn't get the food but you see naps are different naps are our choice they are compelled to protest genocide by occupying a building I was pretty tired Jonah all I'm saying is as a matter of social justice it's basic humanitarian aid Sarah I can say the words as many times as you like because that's the only argument there is it's just to say the words and hope people will get

Jedi mind tricked into thinking it's like a serious thing. Wait, can I read her dissertation topic? My dissertation is on fantasies of limitless energy in the transatlantic romantic imagination from 1760 to 1860. My goal is to write a prehistory of metabolic rift. Marx's term for the disruption of energy circuits caused by industrialization under capitalism. I am particularly interested in theories of the imagination and poetry as an interpreted through a Marxian lens in order to update and propose an alternative to historicist ideological critiques

of the romantic imagination. And this would be a shocker. Prior to joining Columbia, I worked as a political strategist for leftist and progressive causes and remain active in the higher education labor movement. Oh, you don't say. The most important thing is that we forgive her student loans. Right? I mean, like, that's the other thing.

That's the, I mean, we're going to tie it to politics is like we're putting forward the face of students. Well, again, I'm serious. It's a very tiny, unrepresentative sample of actual college students and of young people at a time where Biden is fighting tooth and nail to illegally forgive student loans. And people are like, these are the people, like, I can't get my home, my business pickup truck for my landscaping business.

I can't get my truck loan forgiven, but I'm going to forgive the transatlantic metabolic shift. lady who's breaking the law, we're going to forgive her alone. It is the unforced error of cultural stupidity and all of this is just mind-boggling to me. 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. With Squarespace, is cutting-edge design tools, you can launch a website that looks sharp from day one.

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piece together a bunch of different tools. All seamlessly integrated. 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. Okay. But there was some good news. So over at the University of North Carolina, the American flag had been taken down to hoist up the Palestinian flag, liberation flag. I don't know what the flag actually technically is. And a group of fraternity brothers didn't like that. And so they went and protected the American flag and put it back up on the flagpole. There's sort of an Iwo Jima-esque photo of all of these, you know, dudes in their critter shorts. They're making sure the flag doesn't touch the ground. John Nune

who I believe used to write at the weekly standard Steve Hayes and is now national security legislative aid to Tom Cotton Yep got the idea to start a GoFundMe page

for these frat bros so that they could throw the best rager ever to celebrate their patriotism well this GoFundMe page has just of our recording raised $350,000 and this note has now been appended

a program note for all of you who bleed red, white, and blue. We have identified a world-class event planner named Susan, and she is already hard at work. She worked in the White House and knows what she's about. Another fine American is wheels down in North Carolina tonight and working to identify all of our noble-born barachos who stood down the frumpy hordes with nothing more than a pastel shirt and a smile.

GoFund has dispatched a member of their team to work closely with us and ensure your donations do as God intended to show these guys enough fireworks to blow their Oakley Aviators straight off their faces. I was concerned they wouldn't have, like, there's only so much money you can spend on a rager to invite your frat pros to, but actually fireworks is a great idea

because the whole campus is going to see it and they're going to know why it's happening and it will cost a ton of money to do a great fireworks show. So, I don't know. It is bringing me a little joy that, like, That, to me, it's not civil disobedience because they're not breaking any laws, but it is a form of counter protest that I think is far more effective than, for instance, having a roving gang of Jews beat the crap out of the people in the encampments. That's not very effective. Now, you know, we're just condemning violence on both sides. But the rager fireworks show sounds awesome and I think is proving the point more than anything else going on right now.

And talk about creating good incentives elsewhere, right? That's right. You have frat bros campuses across the country, raising American flags. Of all the things they could be doing, this seems to be among the best. Oh, and I'm sorry. I should, it wasn't barachoes. It was brocachoos. Bro chachos.

Noble-born brocachios. Barachos would have worked, too. I know. Barachos would have worked too, right? Um, okay. So Steve, I want to spend just a few minutes on an interview that Donald Trump gave to Time magazine. It was wide ranging. It was very Trump and very 2015 Trump, I think, in the sense that what Donald Trump does is you ask him sort of a tee ball politician question where they are supposed to answer only one way. You're like pinning them in. And Donald Trump, like a raving. bull will always go the other way if you do that to him.

Especially 2015, Donald Trump. That's what gave him the energy and attention. And I think focus of a lot of voters who were like, he's different, he's authentic, he's not playing their games, because he literally wasn't playing their games. Okay, so I'll just read some of the Trump's answers to these questions. I called him J6 Patriots. When I asked whether he would consider pardoning every one of them, he says, yes, absolutely. He says, if the Supreme Court said that a president doesn't get immunity,

then Biden, I am sure, will be prosecuted for all of his crimes. On mass deportation, he says he would rely mostly on the National Guard. If they weren't able to, then I'd use other parts of the military. Then he's asked about whether he would override the Posse Cometatis Act. Trump says, well, these aren't civilians. Okay. The reporter, when I ask whether he would be comfortable with states prosecuting women for having abortions beyond the point the law permits. He says, it's irrelevant whether I'm comfortable or not.

It's totally irrelevant because the states are going to make those decisions. And Trump does not dismiss the possibility of political violence around the election. If we don't win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of the election. So A, you know, has Trump changed as a candidate? Is this still effective for Trump? Is he getting the same level of attention, I guess, is the first part of the question? And the second part of the question is, is the media, doing anything differently? Have they learned any lessons? Are we seeing changes in how Trump is covered? Because Mike Warren and I for The Collision this week surveyed all of the late night shows, you know, John Oliver to S&L, to Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, all of it. And it was sort of

interesting because I think you can see a distinct shift in how Trump is being covered at least by these guys. And in fact, Bill Maher has come out publicly and said he's going to cover Trump very differently and less. And John Oliver has basically said he's going to going to, with, you know, some exceptions, not cover Trump at all because there's other stuff going on. And in fact, this is part of the problem is the covering the inanity of every detail of, you know, as John Stewart was noting, like, it's not the OJ car chase when he goes to the courthouse every day. It's a commute. So, yeah, has Trump changed? Has the media changed? Steve? So I don't think Trump has changed. I take your point that that, that,

This is reminiscent of Trump 2015, sort of breaking all the rules. But I think the thing that Trump is doing now, and this really came through in this Time Magazine interview, is making arguments that are so radical that even Trump in 2015, the norm breaker, wouldn't have made them. I mean, the things that you read are Trump just openly embracing this authoritarian way that he's running for president. And he's been saying it often enough, I think we'd be foolish not to take him seriously. I think this is what he wants to do. And I think the interview was really a good one. I think it was one of the more effective interviews of Trump that I've read in a long time because the reporter went in and said, let's sort of set aside a lot of the hype around your candidacy. Talk about what you're going to do if you're reelected.

And you went sort of issue by issue point by point. one additional one, sort of beyond the ones that you read, he was, Trump was asked, would you fire a U.S. attorney who didn't prosecute someone you ordered, you ordered to be prosecuted? And Trump said, it depends on the situation, honestly. And the reporter said, so you might. And Trump said it would depend on the situation, yeah. So he would fire a prosecutor who didn't prosecute somebody.

Trump ordered him to and Trump in every one of his rallies talks about how he's going to use, the Justice Department to go after his political enemies. I mean, that's a kind of thing that, that's new. Like, we haven't seen that from a major political party candidate before. And I think actually the, the way that you're describing what those late night hosts are doing, I mean, I don't really care much about the late night hosts. I don't think they're that influential. But I think the media should be doing the opposite.

It's not that they're influential. It's that I think they show us, they show. they show us the zeitgeist, right? They show us what people are going to find funny or worth tuning into. They almost are the reflection of voters, I think more than news media. I mean, maybe.

And if their point is, hey, we don't want to be making light of this guy who's saying he's going to use the Justice Department to go after his political opponents, fair enough. I can see where they would think that's not appropriate to make light of.

I think we should have the opposite. I think we should be covering Trump more. I think we should be taking seriously what he's saying more and more. I think there's a divide in the Republican Party. I've talked about this with our Nick Cotogio. He's written about this before. The base of Trump's support

reads an interview like this or listens to what he says at a rally. And I think really what was interesting about this interview in some respects was it was just consistent with what he says at the rally. but it reached a broader audience because it was in a Time magazine interview. And, you know, what Trump is saying, I think, is alarming. And he's not deviating from it.

He's not sort of covering it. He's not backtracking. He's not softening it. There aren't any euphemisms. He's telling you what he's going to do and what he's going to do, I think, is alarming. So in that sense, I think we should be covering Trump more. I think we should make a point of covering Trump more. The base of the Republican Party sees the stuff and hears the stuff that Trump says in an

interview like this and loves it. I think other Republicans, those who are not part of that core Trump cult base, will be alarmed by this. I think independents will hear this and think, boy, that seems too far. So I think it's important to cover it just so people have the facts. And so that people aren't surprised that when Trump is elected, this is what he does. It shouldn't be surprising to anybody if he does the things that he's saying he's going to do. And as we've been saying for a long time, he is running as a quasi-authoritarian.

He's just not apologetic about it. So your original question was, has he changed? Has the media changed? I think media has changed a little. But you're not going to get the media to turn away from the catnip that is Donald Trump on trial. a hush money case with porn stars. It's just, that's, I mean, you know, you just, you can't, it's like asking Winnie the Pooh to give up honey.

It's just, it's not going to happen, right? But I think Steve's wrong about Trump. I think he has changed. I think he's gotten worse. I think to Trump's benefit, or to his credit, and I'm grating heavily on a curve here, but in 2015 and 2016, Trump didn't know how little he knew. And he knew very, very little about how government works, about how politics works, about the powers of the presidency.

You know, this was at a time when he was still talking about how he was going to be a very strong president on Article 12 of the Constitution. Spoiler, there is no Article 12. Now he's been surrounded by people like Michael Flynn and talking to people like Steve Bannon, who themselves have become wildly, much worse. as bad as they might have been and more radicalized. And he's taking advice with people like Tom Fitton, who's not even a lawyer, right? And Roger Stone has his ear. And he's surrounded himself in his sort of Mar-Laga Elba with yes men and sycophants.

And he has the confidence of having been president once. And so he thinks, he never thought he had to really take people's advice before, but he did, right? And he surrounded himself with sort of circuit. breakers and checks on them, they're going to be gone, right? He now has made it very clear that he only cares about loyalty and wants to sniff out people who have good conscience. I know we're not supposed to talk about the Christy-Nome thing, but one of the theories about why she bragged about doing this was to signal to Trump that she's willing to do anything asked of

her no matter how messy or grows, right? And while it may not have been the case, it's not implausible either. You know, it's like reasonable people can differ on that interpretation. And, and so I think he's definitely gotten worse. I do think it's, there are a couple of funny things in the Time Magazine interview. I mean, one is, and I understand the National Guard is different than the Marines, but he says, well, I don't talk about the military. I like to talk about the National Guard. Just for the record, the National Guard is the military, right? It's just like straight up part of the military. It's got a dual nature role kind of thing.

And then there's like the stuff where it's the kind of thing where if you have made peace with Donald Trump, you no longer hear. It's just white noise and it doesn't bother you anymore. But the time reporter asks him about whether he's going to, where he's going to come down on the metapristone, the abortion pill. And he says, oh, we're going to have a fully worked out plan on that in two weeks. and then the reporter calls him back two weeks later. And he's like, oh, yeah, we're going to have that in about two weeks. You know, he's like, that's what he says when he doesn't have an answer.

And he's used it brilliantly in the sense that it's worked for him. Like, I used to have this argument of whether or not Bassett Hounds were smart. And my argument was always like, they get everything they want. That's a kind of, that's proof of some kind of intelligence, right? Donald Trump says two weeks, the press forgets, loses attention, politicians forget the base forgets they're satisfied with the answer and he moves on it's the kind of skill you develop you know selling condos and definitely thought you were going to say something else the press has learned how to um spot that a little bit which i think is a sign it's changed a little bit

but uh the trump you see if you're willing to see it is the trump you're going to get if he's elected yeah to be clear we don't disagree i i'm with you i think he's gotten much worse i think this the The way that he's talking and the way that he's campaigning, this is why it's, McKay Coppins at the Atlantic had a really terrific piece maybe two months ago and said sort of the most important thing you can do if you're a civic-minded American is go to a Trump rally. Like, listen to what he's saying and take it seriously. You know, it's the old literally seriously thing. And, you know, so many Trump supporters for so long.

And I think you still get this from the Trump supporters who are elected Republicans who, you know, privately say that they are worried about them or they don't like them or they worry about political violence and publicly say they're for him, their sort of last remaining dodge is, oh, he's just saying this stuff. Like, he's not going to do it. I just think we don't have the luxury of imagining that anymore. I think we should plan on him doing it. He's been saying it for long enough. He's tried to do these things before. I mean, you know, there were, there were a lot of Republicans who in the days before the 2020 election laughed at those of us who raised concerns that Trump was going to try to steal it and was going to try to remain in office and said,

oh, that's silly. That's sort of Ross Douth at the New York Times had a column about this. There's been a quote that's circulating from Patrick Ruffini at Echelon saying, you know, that's crazy to think that he would do this. You people are hysterical. You're alarmist. And of course, that's exactly what he did. And he would have succeeded, but for some of the guardrails that are in place and the courageous actions of a few individuals, including and especially Mike Pence. I think we should, we should believe that Trump is going to try to do these things. It'll be weird. It'll be zigzagging all over the place and ad hoc decision making. But he knows what he wants to do. I mean, there's a reason that he, that the central theme of

his campaign has been for six months, continues to be to this day retribution. That's what he says he's going to do. We should take him seriously. All right. Not worth your time today. I've talked about Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom being different sides of the same coin when it comes to free speech. And that really it's a metaphor, not a metaphor, it's a larger conversation about the left and the right, both wanting authoritarian, illiberal powers, just wanting them to pursue different causes, you know, their own. So I was especially horrified

when I saw Governor Ron DeSantis signs legislation to ban lab-grown meat in Florida. As one person put it, I'm not a vegetarian, but I feel like this is low-key, psychotic. You should not even have the option to eat a steak without making an animal suffer. This seems

counter-conservative in several respects. I mean, most obviously, right? Like, free markets? I'm curious if you'll think that Ron DeSantis has tapped into something in the conservative movement, represents a different part of the conservative movement, or

just isn't a conservative when you add together his social media legislation, the band social media companies from removing content that he wanted up there to now, like, you can't buy lab grown meat if you want to because beef? I don't know. I'm pretty horrified by it. So I did not know we were going to be talking about this. And I haven't followed this. But what is the argument that he offers for banning it? I mean, like, what is the point is what's the public policy rationale.

Okay, so here's what Ron DeSantis said. I'm not sure it's going to be a good answer to your question. Today, Florida is fighting back against the global elites plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish or bugs to achieve their authoritarian goals. Our administration will continue to focus on investing in our local farms and ranchers and we will save our beef. So he's preventing their authoritarian goals by having his own? Yeah, sorry. Look, I think it's ridiculous. I, look, I've written many times about the just incessant desire among greens and the journalists who love them to get people to eat bugs.

It is a perennial. I think it's embarrassing. It's one of these things that the sort of elite climate change press does not realize how ridiculous they sound. Don't know. Just don't forget that when the dispatch first started, we did make several of our staffers eat cicadas. We didn't make them. We kind of did. We, we, we, we, we, we, we invited them.

We encourage them. I think actually the idea, if we're being real, started with them. Yes, that's true. Okay, there was cicada alfredo. Yes. And there was a cicada charcutory board. Yep. Yep.

But, um, my point stands. And I'm going to say, is where is the evidence that anybody is trying to force people to eat lab grown meat, right? I mean, I follow this issue a little bit. We are very far away from actually replacing the cattle industry in this country with lab-grown meat. I'm not saying it's 50 years away, but both in economics and technology at scale, it's a while. And so, yeah, I think this is just really crappy culture war signaling. I think DeSantis is giving into his Twitter-trollish, you know,

understandings of the electorate and being a right-wing statist. I mean, unless someone comes at me with some new argument or new evidence that I'm unaware of about anyone trying to force anybody to do anything. It's domestic protectionism, industrial policy with a ready for Fox and Friends hit flavor. Steve, last word to you. Yeah, I mean, look, this is part of, you know, there's this sort of green movement pushing this lab-grown meat as the answer to climate change and any of a number of environmental concerns. And there are arguments, you know, for subsidizing the production of this kind of meat, you know, which I think go way too far. but yeah i mean i don't think i don't think you need to ban it why can't you just let people choose

whether they want to consume it or not um i think most people if you try it i've not had the the latest version of this which has gotten quite a bit of hype but if you've tried these impossible burgers um they're not burgers and they don't particularly taste like burgers and burgers are good yes but they're not made of meat this is meat right this is actual meat it's lab-grown real meat using protein strings to make meat. It's cow. It's just not from killing a cow. It's from taking a little sample of a cow and then growing those cells using, you know, food, different food.

And to be honest, look, I am much more sympathetic to doing this at scale. If you could solve all of the various issues, I worry a lot about health things. but like there's a lot of cruelty in agra culture you know big business stuff and um i i don't love the idea of getting rid of all of our cows i don't think that's coming anytime soon but if at the margins you could you know do it without the air because this isn't going to grow you a steak it's growing you ground beef basically a substitute for your meatloaf and your hamburgers and stuff like that. But it would at least cut down on some of the agriculture practices that are maybe also a health risk in terms of antibiotics, other potential health problems. So yeah, I just, in your

right, Jonah, it's not nearly cheap enough to replace ground beef in the market. It's not nearly scalable enough that you can produce enough of it to then bring down the price to compete with ground beef in the market. So the only reason to ban this is a signal to the people you think are going to be in favor of not allowing other people to choose something. It's weird. Yeah, it's weird cultural dog whistle stuff. I don't like it. Don't like it.

And with that, we'll talk to you. I mean, look, Steve, which would you rather me talk about? Holocaust terms or sex stuff? That's a good question, actually. It's a good question for your therapist.