The Dispatch Podcast - The Escalating Crisis in Ukraine

Episode Date: January 27, 2022

The problems in Ukraine are getting worse. Our hosts discuss what led to the current situation and the role President Biden played in getting to this point. Then Sarah, David, Jonah, and Steve talk about two issues that are not getting enough attention as we head to the midterms: immigration and crime.   Show Notes: -TMD: Germany Drags Feet On Ukraine -Uphill: What Price Will Putin Pay for a Ukraine Invasion? -NATO spending requirements -Crime stats -San Francisco Mayor crime speech Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the dispatch podcast. I'm Sarah Isger, joined by Steve Hayes, Jonah Goldberg, and David French. We're going to start with the latest updates coming out of Ukraine and Russia and President Biden. But then we want to talk about the issues maybe not getting as much attention, heading into the midterms, crime, immigration, other things that may be top of voters' minds, even if they're not top of mind in Washington. Let's dive right in. I want to get into the weeds, I think, a little bit more on what's happening in Ukraine. What's causing some of these issues in a larger sense, not in a 22 sense.

NATO's open door policy, the idea that any country in Europe with unanimous consent can kind of just join NATO. And this is one of Vladimir Putin's main objections. He wants that policy to end. Set aside Vladimir Putin's desires for a second, though we're all very interested in them now, I suppose. But is the open door policy that is causing all this kerfuffle actually and separately a good policy for the United States to be defending? And I just want to read you a couple statistics. I don't know what the right facts. Since 1997, NATO has nearly doubled in size. Only one third of the alliance members fulfilled their spending obligations in 2021.

And the most recent inductees, Montenegro in 2017, North Macedonia in 2020, have a collective GDP, about half the size of Vermont's entire economy and a total population around that of Brooklyn. Will you talk to us a little bit about the open door policy and what it meant back post-World War II, what it means now? Sure. So the first point I would make is to take issue with the premise to a certain extent. I don't think we can point to the open door policy as the cause for the current problems. I mean, I think this is what one of the things that Vladimir Putin has cited as the cause for his provocative behavior, but this has been around for a long time. And he's simply

including it in a longer list of things that I think he wants to be able to cite to allow him to do what he wants to be able to do. But I think your bigger question. He wants to end the United States' involvement in Europe because he wants to be the hegemonic power in Europe.

And the open door policy is a way to if you shut that down, you can sort of shut down NATO really in a meaningful way. And he wants NATO to shrivel. So it's like, I agree it is not the cause. but it is something he needs in order to get to what he wants. Yeah, I don't, I mean, I don't think you could really shut down NATO by reversing the open door policy,

but I think you could halt its continued expansion, which is the first step to shutting down NATO and to reduce in the U.S. involvement or the U.S. presence, significant presence in Europe. I think the open door policy itself is a fine and totally defensible policy. In the United States primary or one of the United States primary purposes in bolstering NATO in being the presence that it's been in NATO is to prevent exactly the kinds of things that we're seeing now from Vladimir Putin. So to the extent that the open door policy creates broader consensus across Europe and its consensus that's consistent with U.S. national interests, I think it's a fine policy and there's no reason for the United States to back away from it. I do think you make a good point.

This is one of the few times I thought Donald Trump made a good point on NATO and its membership and NATO and its payment obligation. If you have countries that don't meet their payment obligations, I think you have to seriously consider kicking them out of NATO. Now, at this point, and when Trump was making these arguments, that's a lot of countries. But if you're calling them payment obligations, there's an inference that you can make there and that's that these countries have agreed to do these things. Can I push back very quickly on that just to make it conversational for a second? They're not payment obligations.

They're spending obligations, right? I mean, that was one of my critiques of Trump is that he made it sound as if these were like, this was a country club and Germany was in arrears on its dues. Everyone's supposed to be above 2%, I think, is the number of GDP on military spending, and they were behind on that. But, I mean, your basic point is right.

I just think it's the wrong phrase. No, you're right. You're right. And it's, of course, important to be precise. These are spending obligations rather than payment obligations, but it is the case that I don't know, I don't have the exact number available offhand, but a good number of NATO countries are not meeting those obligations.

This was long agreed to terms for continued NATO membership, and they're failing to meet those. I think it's entirely appropriate for the United States to press them on that. And then Steve, though, okay, so if these countries aren't meeting their spending obligations, to me, this goes to like what is the purpose of NATO and the purpose of having other countries join NATO, because right now it feels like the U.S. is taking on the obligation to defend these countries and even countries that aren't in NATO, like potentially Ukraine, but then those countries are taking no efforts to defend themselves. Yeah, I mean, I think, I wouldn't, I guess I wouldn't disagree with your general description of the dynamic there, but I would also

argue that that is not new either. I mean, it doesn't matter to us. It doesn't matter to us in a significant way other than that these are obligations if say you know montenegro or belgium for that matter whomever meets its obligations in terms of what the united states role would be in the event of a conflict the united states is is the leading country we we drive the agenda we make most of the payments and if there were some need for uh actual armed conflict we would lead it so I'm not that troubled just in a practical sense at the imbalance there because it's existed from the outset. Can I jump in on this point?

Because I think we need to, whether or not say Montenegro spends 2% of its GDP, which is, you know, the general target is utterly irrelevant to the defense, the health of NATO is a defensive alliance, but what is really relevant, Germany. That is what is really relevant. So you have Britain with a nuclear deterrent. It spends more than 2%. France with a nuclear deterrent, aircraft carrier strike group, Britain, two aircraft carrier strike groups.

France spends 1.85%, always right around that 2% mark. Then you have Germany. And Germany, which used to be, and a lot of people forget this, the West German army at the height of the Cold War, was a formidable force. It was very formidable. It's not been the case that Germany, Germany has been completely neutered since World War II.

Germany doesn't just only spend 1.3 something percent of its GDP. Its forces are not in a state of readiness. It is, its forces are not in the condition that they should be. And when I think of a NATO defense problem, I'm thinking Germany a heck of a lot more than I'm thinking about any of these other countries. And it just so happens that Germany has the most wobbly right now of our NATO allies in this current crisis. But David, I wanted to ask you, I mean,

Vladimir Putin, talk about nothing new here. Vladimir Putin's eyes on Ukraine are nothing new either. I mean, we have a 2008 and a 2014 invasion that were largely unrebuffed by the West. I mean, this is Crimea, this is the proxy war in the Donbos region. why now all of a sudden are we saying, aha, here but no further? And it, I mean, again, it reminds me a little bit of a toddler. Like you can't set new rules if you're letting them, I, for instance, I've been letting Nate walk around with food in the living room. And then yesterday he wanted to walk around with a fish stick covered in ketchup. And I was like, no, no, no. And he's like, what? But I walk around with pancakes all the time. Is Vladimir Putin, my toddler? Well, so there's also the question of scope and ambition. So 08, Georgia, 2014 Crimea and Donbos, both greeted with international outrage, but also in a position where if Putin was going to say

he had sort of maximum real world leverage, it would be in a place like Crimea, which is heavily ethnic Russian. Everyone knows that Russians believe that that port is. That port is, is absolutely vital to them. The difference here is we're looking at, so the world was upset in 2008 in 2014, but the scale of what we're looking at here is a large scale land war in Europe with the possibility of gobbling up a big part of Ukraine

or dominating it so thoroughly. That is not Russian. That is not ethnically Russian. This looks much more like the prepping for an old school, War of Conquest kind of conflict that can spiral out of scale, because I've also seen this could be larger than the invasion of Normandy? Well, that's, I mean, that's no, no, no, no, no.

Not, not Normandy. No, no, no, no. No, what we're talking about is, you know, about 140, 130, 140,000, 140,000 Russian troops. So we're talking about much more something on the scale of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It's much more the scale that we're talking about. Which are you talking about 1991 Iraq? The invasion of Iraq itself, not Desert Storm. So Desert Storm was 1008, 2003 was 180,000.

Is that right? Around that number. I can't remember. It was below 200. And Desert Storm was larger. Desert Storm was larger than this. But, you know, we're also talking about a Russian military, essentially unleashed in its near abroad, with some of the most impressive artillery assets in the

world. I mean, we're not talking about pinpoint warfare here. Like we're not talking about counterinsurgency warfare. We're talking about a real force-on-force military invasion, the scale of which and the devastation. So what you also have to realize, 140,000 Russian troops today in 2022 is a far more deadly force than a far larger number of Russian troops 40 years ago, 50 years ago, because just the weapons are better, the weapons are more capable, the troops are more capable, that the aircraft are more capable. I mean, we're talking about a top flight near peer, in some cases peer military force. massed on the border of a European country. And the scale of it is just something way beyond 08.

It's way beyond 2014. And it's really reminiscent of 20th century and late 19th century conflict where European nations would just invade each other to try to deal with their political problems. And that's one of the reasons why it is so alarming. And the other thing is I don't actually think anybody is saying this far, no far. You can't do this. Who's saying we're going to go to war? I mean, nobody's, nobody of any consequence is saying we're going to go to war. Everyone is talking about deterrence, deterrence, deterrence with kind of, quite frankly, relatively, you know, most of the deterrents so far measures have been pretty small ball.

So that's what's so alarming is, is looking like he's massing there. he might bite off a huge chunk of Ukraine and we do what? The world does what? So Jonah, Vladimir Putin in my mind is one of the best political consultants

that America has ever known. I mean, I think his read of American politics is as good or better than the vast majority of people who work in American politics. And I think you have to look no further than Russia's role in trying to affect and disrupt the 2016 election

with inflaming racial tensions online to see just how clever some of it was and what a nuanced understanding of American politics he has he doesn't face re-election problems, a midterm, a political party

that doesn't care when he shows up at the hill and asks for legislation. Them's not Vladimir Putin's problems, but he knows exactly what Joe Biden's problems are and how he views America's position as incredibly weak because of domestic issues, but therefore weak internationally. And so reading from Fiona Hill's op-ed in the New York Times recently, you know, she's saying criminal officials have not just challenged the legitimacy of America's position in Europe. They have raised questions about America's bases in Japan and its role in the Asia-Pacific region.

They have also intimated that they may ship hypersonic missiles to America's backdoor in Cuba and Venezuela to revive what the Russians call the Caribbean crisis of the 1960s. Vladimir Putin doesn't seem to be that interested in Ukraine except as a way of forcing everyone to pay attention to him. Does Vladimir Putin win this game? Well, look, I think he's already put a lot of points on the board. And I just had my colleague at AI Leon Aaron on who has always thought it was ludicrous the idea that Putin would do a full-on invasion of Ukraine. And I'm not sure he's right about that, but he makes a good case. And Leon knows a lot about Russia. He grew up there.

He talks to people in Ukraine and Russia all the time. He works with all sorts of civil society groups. And his point is that Putin can't afford in Afghanistan in Ukraine. And the thing is is that Ukraine has a long history of really vicious partisan insurgency when invaded. And part of the problem for Putin is that Ukrainians are much more beloved in Russian culture than Afghans are. And images of dead Ukrainians, which are basically indistinguishable, it's like what would the images if England sent troops? into Scotland today, you know, like images of dead Scots is just a different thing than images of dead Pakistanis, not that they aren't all equal in the eyes of God and whatnot. So he's

very skeptical of that, and I'm somewhat persuaded. I've always been kind of, you know, I took a position from the beginning that it would be really dumb for Putin to actually do a full-on invasion because the risks for him would be huge. That said, look, I mean, Joe Biden did more damage to NATO than Putin has in that press conference last week. When he talks about how there are divisions in NATO, that's gold for Putin, right? Saying that stuff out loud, saying the quiet part out loud about divisions in NATO, basically intimating that Germany is not, not that we didn't know this, but to acknowledge it, you know, one of Biden's great sins and all that was he played, he played the role of pundit, which is an increasing problem with a lot of friggin politicians,

where like instead of taking a position and saying this is our line he says well on the one hand this and i don't know it depends what crucial walkershaw county thinks about you know that kind of thing and it blows up the the that's not his role and i think the best example of this sort of getting at the politics stuff is this um the minor incurred minor incursion gaff right which was something of a kinsley gaff to some extent in that let's put it this way he they've worked really hard to clean that up they've now said an invasion is an invasion is an invasion and that they're sending troops in part i think to compensate for the fact that he screwed up so badly in that press conference which if you're ever sending troops to

compensate for a bad press conference it means it was a bad press conference and um but here's the thing like Putin is going to do a minor incursion no matter if you want to to regardless of what happens in America. But because Biden said that, you're going to have a lot of Biden's political opponents, rightly and wrongly, depending on how they do it, saying, look, Joe Biden gave Putin permission to do this. This is Joe Biden's fault. Now, I don't think it's Joe Biden's fault. It wouldn't be Joe Biden's fault. But in politics, it would be fair game. And so already the prospect of actually having bipartisan unity simply because of Biden screw up in that press conference has been undermined.

So has, and this is where I think Leon is absolutely persuasive. Putin loves, he's long loved these one-on-one mono-mono press conferences summits with American leaders, because the message he's telling his own people, the thing that sustains him in power is this message that really the only equals we have in the world are the United States of America and maybe China, right? and that this is the glory days of the old superpower rivalry where we were the alternative to America. Their whole foreign policy strategy is that the little countries

aren't our concern. We great men will decide this around tables in Yalta or wherever. Ukraine is part of our near abroad. We don't need to consult with Ukraine. We're going to consult with the other mob boss that matters, which is Joe Biden. And Joe Biden keeps giving him these PR victories. And where Leon's position was from the beginning, when Russia started moving troops and all

that, we should have sent out a spokesman from the State Department or the Pentagon and said we're very concerned about this. Obviously, NATO will not permit any aggression against NATO members and we consider Ukraine an ally and downplayed it and not rewarded this with, you know, reaffirming the narrative that Putin wants, which is that he is the, he's the driver of history, and he has no equal in Europe, his only real equal is the presidents of the United States of America. And instead, we've signaled that NATO is fracturing. It's, and that it is, it is, it is, it is not the reliable, sure-footed consent,

you know, in lockstep military alliance that are East European allies like Poland and, and, and, and Hungary and others need it to be to survive against Russia. So he's won enormously. And if he can find a way to sort of save face and exit from this already, it's already been a PR coup for him. And it leaves him the opportunity to go back and do it again closer to the next election. All right. Quick reaction from Steve and David.

Yeah. I mean, what you've just described, Jonah, has sort of long been the reality. I mean, I think, you know, one of the fundamental challenges that Joe Biden faces is, you know, even if he had been a stronger leader in his first year in office as it relates to foreign policy and national security challenges, he would have had a credibility problem if he stood up and said, we will not permit under any circumstances a Russia incursion into Ukraine. Because very few people believe the United States was prepared to go to war over this. Secondly, Vladimir Putin is well aware of what happened in 2014 when Joe Biden as vice president,

Barack Obama as president said, we will not under any circumstances permit a Russian incursion into Ukraine. And then we kind of shrugged our shoulders. Say, I hear some sanctions. This is bad. We didn't do anything about it. And then I think you look at this in the context of what happened in Afghanistan. And I don't think you can you can overstate the significance. Now, the buildup began before that. So there's not a causal relationship there. But if Vladimir Putin had been mostly emboldened before, I think, watching our fecklessness in Afghanistan and Biden's unwillingness to take on hard challenges and eagerness to sort of withdraw without regard to, I would say, the national security interests of the United States,

but also the perception of the United States as weak. Vladimir Putin was undoubtedly taking careful notes, looking very carefully at that. You combine that with the things that we know about the Biden administration's approach to this problem, including, as we've talked about before, David Ignatius's reporting about sort of back room proposals that would give Vladimir Putin most of what he wanted, his public announcements in the press conference, as Jonah notes about divisions in NATO. In some ways, this is teed up as nicely as it could be for Vladimir Putin. Now, Biden has spent the better part of the last week trying to recover from the gaffs of his press conference and, you know, insistence from senior administration

officials that NATO is in fact united, that we're actually going to go after Vladimir Putin personally, that we're considering new and creative sanctions that really would cripple the Russian economy. You know, fair enough, but it all feels like too little too late. If you wanted to deter Vladimir Putin, you had to have been doing it for the past year. And for most of the past year we've been sending the opposite messages. I think those are the ones that will be louder were heard louder in Russia than whatever scrambling Joe Biden and his team have done in the last week. You know, I think I keep going back to, and I've got to tweet up in front of me, it's from John Kerry, April 8th, 2014. We will not hesitate to use 21st century tools to hold

Russia accountable for 19th century behavior. I remember when that was said, and that was kind of a theme at the time, that these guys don't know what they're dealing with because when you have boots on the ground and you plant the flag and you say, mine, somebody's going to have to move you or it's yours. And that's the thing that Putin understands. If I plant the flag and say, move me, nobody's going to move him. And the question right now is, is he willing to take the risk to go ahead and plant the flag and essentially the whole of eastern Ukraine leaving a rump state in the West and just saying,

move me, is it worth it to him? Is the cost going to be worth what he gets? That's the calculus. And too many people these days seem to. to have forgotten that there is such a thing as power politics, that, you know, war is an instrument of politics or diplomacy by other means in some people's minds. It is not a separate moral category that is unthinkable for resolving disputes, especially when you're Vladimir Putin. And you don't have a lot of economic power, let's be frank, although he has some

disproportionate and influence because of energy on Europe. He doesn't have the economic power that Germany does, say, to affect policy, certainly not that the United States has or China has, but he has one heck of a military by the standards of his country's GDP. He has a heck of a military, and he has a will to use it. And I just feel, I just keep thinking that we're not caught up with the idea that that kind of power politics can still exist. And then the very idea that some folks in America are just freaking out that we might be sending a few thousand extra troops to NATO countries, not to Ukraine, to NATO countries to signify we're resolved to defend NATO, tells me that these guys don't understand how power works if somebody's willing

to exercise raw power. And so it just feels like. like in many ways Putin is playing a, not just use the word game, but he is pursuing a tactic or a strategy that an awful lot of people just can't grasp their mind that it exists these days. Yet it does. 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 months. Ethos keeps it simple. It's 100% online, no medical exam, just a few health questions. You can get a quote in as little as 10 minutes, same-day coverage, and policies starting at about two bucks a day, build monthly. With options up to $3 million in coverage, with a 4.8 out of five-star rating on trust pilot and thousands of families already applying through Ethos, it builds trust. Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos.

Get your free quote at ethos.com slash dispatch. That's ethos.com slash dispatch. Application times may vary. Rates may vary. All right. I'd like to talk about issues that aren't getting enough attention, at least in terms of how much they will factor in to what I think will be sort of top issues that voters are concerned about in 2022, and particularly issues that I think the White House and or the Democratic Party

is ignoring at their peril. So I want to start with immigration, something that, frankly, we haven't talked about a lot on this podcast. You know, it has remained a top 10 issue, 2016, 2020, when you ask registered voters to name issues that are very important to their vote. Immigration was at 70% in 2016. It was still over 50% in 2020. And let me read you some statistics from December. 178,8,840 illegal immigrants were apprehended attempting to cross the U.S. Mexico border, making this the highest total for December in Department of Homeland Security history. Two million illegal immigrants have been caught attempting to cross the border since Biden, took office. More illegal immigrants have crossed the southern border in the last three months

than in all of fiscal year 2020. Jonah, am I right that this is a creeping problem that the administration should be talking more about? I think you're right that it's a creeping problem. And I think it's a problem that the administration is terrified to talk about. because it's it catches them it's a it's a bad 70 30 issue in the sense that the base is on the side of the 30 and the swing districts in this country are on the side of the 70 and they've also been burned by this border stuff from the beginning uh you know with the kamala harris screw ups root causes and all this kind of stuff so i do think it is a um A potent issue. I also have this, you know, I'm sort of an obsessive about this point about how pandemics make people crazy. And, you know, we were talking about this before recording. There's a strong argument given a labor shortage of increasing legal immigration. And legal immigration is, should be considered a completely separate issue from illegal immigration. And conservatives used to emphasize this greatly. They know, longer want to. And I just seem to, I think amidst the pandemic, there's no natural constituency anymore for increasing legal immigration, except for the small business groups, which are going to keep their head low for other reasons. You have sort of the nationalist

right saying how, you know, you know, saying immigration in and of a itself is bad. You have aspects of the sort of labor left that they won't say it publicly, but don't like the idea of bringing in cheap competitive labor. And so I don't know what the Biden administration could actually say about it. And the problem is saying nothing could be worse than saying something. But if you don't know what to say, it's just, it's not a great issue for them. And all you need is another giant photo op at the border, which you're going to get between now and the election because it's going to get warm again. If the Biden administration isn't prepared. I mean, I kind of think disaster for Democrats is baked into the cake at this point for 2022.

But minimizing it is still maybe possible. And so if they're not planning on something to deal with the next border crisis, you know, they deserve. of whatever they get. David, so Fox News poll, 59% of Americans disapprove of Biden's handling of the border. That's 64% among independence. Republicans have a 16 point margin against Democrats on who handles border security better. Not surprising there. But I guess my thought is I don't think voters can tell you what the Biden administration is doing on border security, what they're really even saying on immigration, to the extent they ever talk about it, like, nobody notices. They just, they seem to choose not to make news, which I totally think that Jonah's right as to why they

get squeezed by the left and the middle of their party. The problem is that would be all well and good then to keep your head down, but there will be events outside of their control. And if those events happen, which I think Jonah is exactly right, we're looking at April to June, I assure you, Immigration will be front-page news at some point in those months. And then the Biden administration will have nothing to really fall back on and say that they've done and perhaps more concerning. If no one's really thinking about that now, then they're going to get caught flat-footed to have nothing to say when it does happen.

Sort of this inevitable, known, unknown, as Donald Rumsfeld would say. You know, I'm just really, this issue reminds me of how much, in many ways, the Democratic Party has been crippled or has been prevented, it prevents itself, not prevented, prevents itself from making common sense statements because in part of the overhang from Trump. Because Trump made such an important point about border security, because the centerpiece, everything was about the wall, everything that wasn't about the wall would turn into something about the wall. Remember, if somebody said something negative about Trump, he'd say, the wall just got five feet higher.

So because Trump made the wall such a centerpiece of his policy and basically a centerpiece of the identity of the Trump movement itself in many ways, the Democrats have crippled themselves from being able to just say common sense stuff about border security because the bottom line is outside of the left fringe of the, of the party, you don't have much of a market for an idea that a border of a country should be super porous. You might have a market for an idea that we should have more legal immigration or less legal immigration for this reason or that reason. You might have a lot of people who believe, hey, yeah, more legal immigration is going to be better for us for reasons, ABC, D, and E. And I tend

to be much more in favor of more legal immigration. But it's a really heavy lift to say, to your average set of Americans who are not highly steeped in the blue bubble that, hey, you know, I'm not saying open borders, but it's functionally kind of sort of open borders and you're really, really mean and cruel if you take the alternate position in spite of the fact that everyone knows that this kind of stampede to the border and the risks that are being undertaken and the environment there can be very dangerous people for people. And the trafficking can be, you know, the coyotes can make things very dangerous for people. This is not, this sort of quasi sort of open border thing is not a compassionate policy. It's just not. And so, but this goes back to something

I believe we talked about last week. This description of Biden as a centrist in the way that you could kind of describe Bill Clinton as a centrist is not accurate. He's smack in the middle of his party. And his party moves left, Biden moves left. And this is one of the reasons why he, he's, we're unlikely to see any big time sister soldier type moment on the border or crime or anything else we talk about. Because he's just right smack where his party is, whereas Bill Clinton could sense out and be right smack sort of where the critical mass of America was. And that's a very different thing. And so the Democrats are in many ways imprisoned by their desire to decisively turn the page from Trump, when the reality is Trump

or no Trump, you got to control your border and you can't have it quasi open. Steve, let's talk a little bit about the Republican Party's evolution on these issues. I mean, back in certainly 2014 heading into 2016, Ted Cruz was putting out plans to increase legal immigration while, of course, eliminating illegal immigration, this was sort of a mainstream position of the far right of the Republican Party, really, with the exception of Senator Jeff Sessions, who again, I worked for, so all disclaimers there. But, you know, Jeff Sessions was the one saying, yeah, but even increasing legal immigration will drive down wages for the lowest income Americans. And so legal immigration has problems. But nobody was listening to Jeff

Sessions, pre-Donald Trump. And now I don't know that you can find a Republican who will really talk about increasing legal immigration. You know, you might find some who would say they would be interested in moving to a merit-based system of legal immigration versus chain migration. But even that, no one's really talking about it loudly, at least. And so my question to you is, in a moment where the economy is in a, has a problem right now, and a unique problem where at least some economists would argue that the inflation is being driven by labor shortages. I mean, most economists, right?

I mean, I'm not sure that's really disputable, right? Yeah. So is the Republican Party going to go back on this? Or are they only going to talk about illegal immigration? What's happening on the right? No, the Republican Party is not going to go back on this. No, what's really interesting, take your time frame and push it back two more years to 2012. So we've captured now the past decade of Republican evolution on this question.

Remember, right after the 2012 presidential election, Sean Hannity went public with a dramatic reversal, said, I have rethought immigration. I'm now basically for amnesty. I'm for past the citizen. I'm for whatever. I'm sure this is Sean Hannity, of course. thinking as a partisan, because the default position was that Republicans couldn't compete in a country with a growing slice of Hispanic voters, Republicans would be uncompetitive.

And then Donald Trump came in in 2016 and took very much the opposite attack, demonized Hispanic voters, demonized immigrants of all kinds. illegal and legal, didn't really make the kinds of distinctions that a thoughtful person would make. And it worked. And Republicans watched it work. I think now you have a, the split on the Republican Party is the split between people who still, I would say very quietly will make arguments in favor of more legal immigration, Pat Toomey, other sort of more libertarian-minded Republicans, and those, on the other hand, like Tom Cotton, who has long made arguments not just against illegal immigration, but more legal immigration. I mean, this was, Cotton had

differences with the Trump administration on this, actually, and spoke out against what the Trump administration was doing in some respects. I think that the challenge, so no, I don't answer your question directly. I don't expect Republicans will turn on this. They think what's been happening has been working. And I think that the strength in their argument is somebody who like David strongly favors more legal immigration. I favor more legal immigration in virtually all contexts. I particularly favor more legal immigration in the midst of a labor shortage. But if you're a Republican office holder, again, depending to a certain extent of where you're running for office, but Jonah's right. I mean, this is a 7030 issue in many swing districts and swing states.

Certainly in red states, it's advantageous to be closer to where Trump is than where Biden is, and we can't really actually articulate what Biden's policy is because it's unclear that they have one. I think if you're a Republican, you have learned over the past six years that the better argument is to be against immigration broadly and not make all the distinctions that we're making in this discussion. And I think the real challenge for Democrats is it's a mess. It's a total mess. What is the policy? There's no policy. They have been fumbling and stumbling for a policy for a year.

And you look at the things, we talked about this year before, you look at the things that the Biden administration said in advance of the inauguration a year ago. It was a mess back then. It was a muddled collection of, you know, basically banality. that we're going to do nothing to solve the problem, but we're going to make the Democratic base feel better. I just don't, if you're a Democrat, I think you'd be crazy to talk more about immigration because what would you say?

See, I could I just sort of in the spirit of the question, which is like things that people aren't paying attention to that are going to need to be paid attention to. I agree with everybody. Look, the weirdest thing about this moment, and I'm not going to do both parties, want to be minority parties again. But the Democrats can't, as David put it, Democrats can't say reasonable things about illegal immigration. Republicans can no longer say reasonable things about legal immigration, which is a really screwed up way to have a productive conversation about immigration.

And the thing that I think is the missing ingredients in all of this is we are right before our eyes, but it's moving so slowly that it's sort of, like, remember that character from Guardians of the Galaxy who thought that if he stayed absolutely still, he was invisible? If sometimes when, when, when, when, yeah, that's right, when social trends move so slowly and we're not accustomed to seeing the signs for them, they're kind of invisible.

We are seeing a major shift. It's gotten some attention among Hispanic voters towards Republicans. They are not pro-Republican now, you know, as a group, but they're becoming increasingly indistinguishable. They're on their way to becoming indistinguishable from the median voter generally, which is a disaster for the Democratic Party. Asian voters are even a bigger problem.

And I think one of the unseen things that could spell more likely doom for the Democratic Party is the way that various ethnic minorities are reappearned, praising the Democratic Party and the Republican Party in the face of crime. If you look at the numbers about Asians Americans, how much the Asian vote in various Asian neighborhoods in New York moved in 2020 towards Trump, it should be terrifying to the Democrats. Similarly with some Hispanics

and, you know, San Francisco, the Washington Post just reported this morning. In 2021, there was a 567% increase in reported hate crimes against Asian Americans. And Democrats don't know how to really talk about that, in part because most of the people committing these hate crimes are not white Americans. They're disproportionately black. And this cuts into this all intersectionality thing. And so I think one of the things, and meanwhile, if you're going to have Republicans constantly downplaying even legal immigration of Hispanics at a time when Hispanic,

are trying to move towards them, there's a real chance that heading at least into 2024, if not 22, both parties are caught with the wrong vocabulary to talk to the voters where they are. You know, Asian Americans hate the idea of getting rid of gifted and talented classes in schools. They hate the idea of, you know, of gearing everything towards, you know, purging white supremacy when they see whites, they don't see the white supremacy problem the way other groups do. And they actually think that like these old notions of merit aren't racist. They're why they came to this country. And anyway, I just think we're kind of due for a big, what the Confucius, what Confucius called a rectification of the names, because the language we use doesn't

fit the political reality anymore for both parties. And don't forget, of course, you also have, as David and I have talked about in advisory opinions, the Harvard and North Carolina affirmative action cases coming up that has forced Democrats and liberals to say that there is no discrimination against Asian Americans in education and particularly in higher education in missions, which just flies in the face of most Asian American parents and what they feel set aside the legal. Also the facts. Also the data. Flies in the face of reality and truth. I would argue the law. But set aside how the case should or will come out. Simply the lived experience in your talking politically here, it's forcing Democrats. And again, like liberal educators to come out

and say, nope, there's nothing to see here. And even if you don't know the data and you certainly don't know the law, like, you're like, but I know my experience. And I think that that's a bad position for Democrats to have to be in on this. David, okay, one last thing from you. Yeah, super fast. I'm always, I'm obsessed with the idea of who do people listen to in their sort of immediate circles and in their real lives. And one of the things, I think that is really hurting Democrats, is a lot of elite white progressives have sort of labeled the most, the more radical you are, if you are an activist or a person of color in American politics, the more authentic you are. That it's the radical voices that are the really

authentic voices. And they overprivilege those voices as representative of communities. When the reality is often completely the opposite, a lot of the radical. that you're going to find in academia are way out of step with sort of the median black family in the U.S. or the median Hispanic family in the U.S. And it has led people to make some really big mistakes about sort of where entire, you know, entire cultural groups of Americans are on the spectrum. This is the Latin X issue, which interestingly, the Democratic Party, it seems like, party leaders have now come out and said, stop using Latin X.

So you will still have some fringe, again, in academic circles, for instance, or otherwise maybe still using that term. But the Democratic Party has made a very smart move on that and something that felt very, you know, 1996, like, oh, well, this is a politically bad thing to do. So we're going to stop doing it. It's shocking only because you see it so infrequently from either party right now. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot track side.

So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and varied by race. Turns and conditions apply. Learn more at amex.ca slash Y Annex. Quickly, an issue that is getting a lot of media attention right now, but not getting really much in the way of attention from politicians. Frankly, I think on across the spectrum is the crime issue.

It's leading news reports a lot of days. Here are just some carjacking numbers. New York City quadrupled over the last four years. Philadelphia quadrupled since 2015. New Orleans, 281 carjackings last year up from 105 in 2018. And then, of course, you have Chicago. 1,800 carjackings in Chicago last year. the most of any large city

it was the most it's like six a day yeah over the last 20 years it's impressive math Jonah wow five times as many as in 2014 and their closure rate is I mean this is this is arguably worse only 11% of carjacking offenses resulted in arrest down from 20%

just in 2019 and only 4.5% of offenses resulted in even charges. Now, like in Georgia, now note there's a Senate race there. Homicides jumped 55% last year. If you look at the cities with the largest increase in violent crime rates from 2019 to 2020,

the number one state is Pennsylvania. Georgia, interestingly, coming in at number three. A lot of these Senate states are just high up there. North Carolina is certainly in the top group there. So this is your lightning round. What will happen in 2022 on the crime issue politically? Steve? I think Republicans will make a big deal of it, pointing out that many of the places that have seen a rise in crime generally will be the argument you get from Republicans are in blue cities. Cities run by Democrats. therefore Democrats are soft on crime, therefore elect Republicans.

I think that's the way that the argument is likely to go in its political form. The data are a little more complicated. We've seen a rise, a pretty significant rise in violent crimes, but not the same kind of rise in property crimes. And we have a terrific piece coming out Thursday from Charles Lehman from the Manhattan Institute, looking carefully at shoplifting and looking carefully at what, we've seen in San Francisco and elsewhere as it relates to property crimes. As a as a as a as a factual matter, it's really interesting to dive into the data and try to understand what's at play. I mean,

obviously during the pandemic, property crimes weren't as prevalent because people weren't out and about. And to a certain extent, people were receiving more money from the government. There's and people were in their homes, which makes it harder to rob them. Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. on the the that's that matters in terms of understanding reality and what actually is happening but in looking at perceptions i don't think people are are making distinctions between the rise in violent crimes and property crimes i mean i certainly don't think that people running for office will stop and make those distinctions and when you have sort of video after video of you know, these break-ins in in San Francisco that you see videos of where you get a, you know,

a group of eight to ten people going in and ransacking a place and stealing, you know, whether it's a target or a jewelry store or what have you, those play enough and it creates the perception that there has been this dramatic increase in shoplifting in those kinds of crimes. That's not, we're not yet able to say that based on the data that we have and this is a this is a point that that layman makes in this really great piece for us I think to a certain extent it's not unlike remember the summer of the shark where there was a sort of a panic about the dramatic increase in shark attacks because they were getting so much media coverage I think it was 2001 I think it was actually shortly before 9-11 and if you actually

looked at the data there was no increase in fact the shark attack numbers actually had decreased to a certain extent. I don't know that we're yet at the point where we can say that that's what's happening on the shoplifting. But certainly the prevalence of these videos and the distribution, the virality have created a perception that violent crime is up. You can look at the numbers. And shoplifting, look at what's happening in San Francisco. And this is horrible. But David, how do Democrats respond to any of that? FBI statistics showing the numbers for intentional police killings in 2020 to be at a record high. Well, I tell you, if I'm a Democrat, I am right now hoping and praying that Eric Adams and London Breed succeed. So London Breed last in December, a lot of people may have

missed this. She gave a speech, should we just call it the bullshit speech, where she basically said, look, this BS has got to end. This has to end. And I announced a state of emergency, I believe in the Tenderloin district. Eric Adams is about to roll out a major safety plan here. And so you're seeing on two coasts, the two, to the most, you know, New York is the most consequential, arguably the most consequential city in the U.S. San Francisco,

one of the most consequential. They're run by Democratic mayors, of course, and they've got a hope that these guys can succeed. And, you know, fortunately, since the crime wave of the 1990s, we kind of actually have a lot more data on what works. We know that police presence works, that seeing more police officers, that just the idea that they are in right on the corner or walking around in a store or immediately present has a positive effect. And then here's where, Sarah, those closure rates you mentioned, are so appalled. and so destructive. It isn't actually the severity of punishment that deters crime nearly as much as the certainty of punishment. So in other words, the idea that if you

commit crime, you will get caught is far more of a deterrent than if I can commit this crime. I probably won't get caught. But if I do, I'm really going to suffer for it. It's not something that is traditionally as much of a deterrent as if I commit the crime, I'm going to get caught. So we have a lot of knowledge as to how to deal with this from a police point of view. And it's that much greater presence. And increasing, and that presence, by the way, increases the sense that if I commit a crime, I'll get caught.

So we're going to have to see if they succeed. But if I'm a Democrat, I am absolutely riding on Adams and breed as a model. if it works, to say, look, Democratic mayors can, can create order in cities. Jonah, problem that's similar to the immigration problem you laid out, the 70-30 problem, is that the Biden administration also has to ramp up their investigation of police departments. So they've launched investigations into Louisville, Phoenix, and Minneapolis police departments for discriminatory practices, et cetera, things that I don't think anyone's defending

except that to open up a police department for an investigation can cause with Jim Comey, the former FBI director, called the Ferguson effect, right? That if you tell these police departments that we've got, you know, an eagle eye on you, we don't think you've been doing a good job,

we think you're all racist, that great, they'll stay in their car. They're not going to get out when they see something that may be suspicious, but they're not sure. They'll just drive by, slow down maybe. whereas before they would have gotten out and asked some questions. And so the Ferguson effect is less police presence, crime wave following what happened there. And so the Biden administration

launches these investigations. They have to, under the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, at the same time trying to say that they're also investing tons of money in helping local police departments, hire more police officers, but which message breaks through? Yeah. So, you know, earlier when the slow lightning twins were talking at one point, David, because this was supposed to be a lightning run, right? It was. David said, did this thing about how Biden's not Bill Clinton, blah, blah, blah, it was basically, that's the column I just wrote about how he's, that we're so far have been missing so many sister soldier moments, right? I mean, like the Biden administration had so many opportunities

to have just, they don't have to be fair, although there's so many opportunities that would be fair. You could actually pick and choose just the right one. But some of the, you know, Bill Clinton could have cut this Gordian knot that you're talking about while, you know, on the one hand saying we are going to fully investigate the few bad cops that are out there. But on the other hand, we want to give the good cops every resource imaginable to do their incredibly hard job and protect America, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The right words are really easy to say if you are not terrified that a bunch of kids on their Twitter machines are going to make fun of you. And unfortunately, I think the Biden administration is terrified of a bunch of Twitter kids making

fun of them. And so they don't know how to talk about this stuff. And I will say that this is one of the, just in terms of sticking with these sort of things that we're not really looking for don't expect um like it took a long time for the mainstream media to make peace with grotesque amounts of urban violence um and having grown up in new york city in the 70s and 80s it was really remarkable how the mainstream media just thought that this was the natural way of things for people to be murdered all the time and um uh they actually did a new york times actually did a famous piece where they attacked Rudy Giuliani because the crackdown on violent crime and drug dealing in certain communities was culturally insensitive because those communities just lived that way.

And the thing is, all of the reporters who, you know how there's this tendency, economists talk about this sometimes about how the mainstream sort of financial press and political press, they always define rich as, just slightly above the highest pay scale of elite reporters in Washington and New York. And so, you know, like, you know, middle class includes exactly as much as like the lead political reporter at the New York Times makes. And if that goes up, so does the definition of middle class. A lot of these reporters and media figures have never lived in cities with serious amounts of crime. And they are not necessarily, they cannot necessarily be counted on,

to not be shocked by insane amounts of crime. All these reporters, in New York, they take the subway. There has been a increase, or at least a increase in coverage. It might be a shark effect thing. People getting shoved off a subway platforms. That's got to terrify these people who grew up in a safe New York or have only ever lived in a safe New York. And the media climate for the Biden administration

to sort of ignore the crime issue may not be as, favorable as they might expect because lots of young people in urban America are young professional people who were doing sort of gentrifying urban homesteading in marginal neighborhoods are now being are now witnessing what it's like to feel really scared walking home at night and that could affect media coverage in ways that we really haven't seen in a long time and it could even create a certain kind of moral panic that could catch a lot of people off guard. I mean, that was lightning.

But let me, let me, let me, let me just say. This is the moral hazard, you know. It's like you break norms, then I break norms. And then, you know, all of a sudden we're fighting over saltines with hammers. That's true. The quick point I would just make to piggyback on that is that is one thing that distinguishes that that's a difference between crime and immigration as issues. because I do think you're right, reporters will pay a lot of attention to crime issues

because it's happening in the cities. They're not going to pay a lot of attention to immigration issues other than Fox probably and conservative media. In our polarized world, I think that can still make immigration a fairly potent political issue because people in those swing states will still listen. All right, I asked each of you to come today with a specific plan of how you would change the NFL's overtime rules. Jonah, I'm going to start with you.

You're going to start with me. Very excited. Well, look, my conventional boring solution is just to have an additional quarter where both sides get possession and do it that way. Wait, wait, hold on. An additional quarter?

Because a quarter doesn't mean that both sides get possession. You mean play out a full quarter, or do you mean mandate that if somehow over the course of that quarter, only one side gets possession that somehow the other side then gets more time. I want real rules here, Jonah. All right. Well, let me switch to the rule that I want rather than my conventional one. We can, you can, you can, you guys can tweak my additional quarter thing.

I think they should do it sort of, sort of dodgeball style where, because you don't, the, the, you can't go too much longer, right? So take the football, put it on the 50 yard line, have. special teams in each end zone you blow the whistle or you and both special teams have to run to the center and whoever gets the ball first starts you know they get to whoever gets the ball in the end zone next after that wins so everyone you know they put their fastest guys on they try to do it they have a possession they get four downs if they don't do it and it flips possession and it's just sudden death but the real advantage is being the first one to get possession of that ball I think they did something like that in the XFL, right?

Where they lined up two, yeah, literally for possession purposes, they lined up players on opposing teams and then set the ball, you know, 15, 20 yards down the field and had them race each other to see who could get the ball to determine the possession. That was called steal the bacon when I was in elementary school. All right, David, what's your rule? College rules. The college overtime rules are fantastic and don't even. then start with that. All right. Explain them, David. All right. Well, this is, let's just tell, I have to confess

something here, listeners. So on the advisory opinions podcast, we were talking about these overtime rules. And then I knew that, you know, I had known that the rules had changed in college from the traditional overtime, traditional, the more recent rules. And I'd forgotten, I just blanked in what they were. And I botched them so completely that Caleb, producer Caleb, legendary producer Caleb, edited that out of the podcast to preserve my reputation. So thank you, Caleb, but I had to just go ahead and confess. But it's you start on the 25 yard line. First time, each team gets a possession. If you're still tied after that first time, the next time you start in the 25 yard line, if you score touchdown, you've got to go for two. And then after that,

you're going competing two-point conversion attempts. And so that is, that's a system. It's super easy. Also terrible. Steve, do you have the right answer to this? Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Glorious. Honestly, the college rules are terrible and it's, I don't like them for college, but I certainly do not accept them for the NFL. Yeah. Like, you set the college rules as the thing that you, everybody should avoid. Yes. And then you start your thinking from there. So the right, the right answer is you play an entire quarter. Yes. And you determine possession of the ball, the first possession of the ball, and whoever has the most points at the end of the quarter wins the game. You determine first possession of the ball by giving

first possession, not based on a coin toss, but based on home field advantage. It's part of what you earn if your team has done better to earn home field advantage. And it also has the advantage of allowing all of the two different parties, everybody involved, to understand what the incentives are as you make decisions as the game ends. So if you're the opposing team and you score at the end of possession, you score a touchdown and you're one point down, you could kick an extra point to tie the game, go into overtime, or you can go for two and win the game, it incentivizes the opposing team,

I would think, to go for two so that they aren't worried about not having as many possessions in overtime. That's the answer. Here's the problem with yours, which is, I don't think NFL players want to play an additional quarter

in the regular season because of potential injuries, just exhaustion, whatever else. That's a lot more time on the field that they haven't banked on. So I would take your plan, make it the playoff rule

and then I actually don't really care that much what the regular season rule is but I kind of understand the not wanting all your players have to play an additional full quarter so if they want some sudden death thing you know frankly like do the college rules for all I care at that point

but in the playoffs playing the extra quarter has very little of the downside that it would during the regular season the only problem with even your plan in the playoffs which I fully sign my name to is what happens when it's a tie at the end of the additional quarter. Trials by combat.

Each team picks one player and they fight. To the death. If one of the players taps out, you know, yields, according to the rules of chivalry, then that's fine. Otherwise, do the death, yes. Yeah. Steve, how do you fix that?

Another quarter. Yes. Play another full quarter. Play another full quarter. Then it really happens. to be playoffs only. You can you can get around the, you know, what would certainly be the NFLPA Players Association arguments, objections to this plan by allowing the game, the expansion of the game day rosters so that teams can suit up more players to play in anticipation of possibly

having to play more players in overtime. Well, and for instance, in politics, you can raise money just for a recount that you cannot use during the primary or the election. So you could have suit up rules that say people are only suited up in the event of a recount in this case a tie. And I think that's a great way to do

it. For once, our political rules come in handy. I listen to Steve to punditry on special report and CNN on this podcast for over 20 years. I've been on probably 8,000 hours of conference calls with Steve. This is

by far, like a whole other category, the most reasonable I have ever heard him. Reasonable and persuasive. I mean, I like, literally, I'm sitting here kind of like mouth open, like, huh, this is what persuasive Steve sounds like. It's been so long I'd forgotten. I mean, what does that say? You and I usually agree.

So, I mean, what does that say about your views? Yeah, but you just don't make a good case for my position. Fair. Okay, that's fair. Steve, does Aaron Rodgers come back understanding that basically nothing that happened in that football game was Aaron Rogers' fault?

Some of it was Aaron Rogers' fault. They would have won, but for, I mean, any single one of the special teams massive screw-ups. For sure. But if you have the NFL MVP, the league's best receiver, a strong offensive line, arguably the best running back

duo, you can't score 10 points in a game, in a playoff game. With home field advantage at Lambo, you can't do it. And Aaron Rogers has had this problem again and again and again. I still think the coaching was too conservative and they should have opened up the playbook, allowed him to be Aaron Rogers more than he was. But when he was Aaron Rogers, when he missed some throws, you can't throw, you can't throw two passes to wide receivers, not named Devante Adams,

in the entire game, particularly if you lobbied for the team to pay $5 million to one, Randall Cobb, who really didn't do much all year. I think he comes back Not terribly thrilled about it To be honest I mean he's he's great I think he's arguably the most I mean he's the most accurate passer

One of the best game day players Quarterbacks in NFL history But how much is the off You just get so sick of the drama Yeah the off field stuff Doing his own research into all the stuff And listening to all the wrong people That there were millions of people

rooting against them on the field because he's not vaccinated. I'm not sure he's not wrong. And I would think the Packers' front office, you might want to take that into consideration. I mean, I think he's given a black eye to the organization, which has not had to deal with stuff like this for a long time. David?

Look, I mean, Steve, in Tennessee, we will take this problem off your hands. Derek Henry and Aaron Rogers would be, and AJ Brown. Julio Jones probably not. but that'd be that'd be a formidable offense yeah if you're tired of it if it's just too much controversy I mean just come on down here and he can hang out with candace owens because you know she's like and Tommy Lauren I believe and I think they've all moved down here so

I mean I don't want to just let the guy walk but if if it's the case that you know teams are willing to give up up to three first round draft picks for a 38 year old Aaron Rogers, I'm for it at this point. I don't think Jordan Love, his backup is the answer necessarily, but take what you can. All right. And with that, perhaps more heated on the NFL than on some of the other issues we discussed. But nevertheless, thank you all for joining us. Thanks for listening.

And of course, if you're a member of the dispatch, hop into the comments. Let us know what you're thinking about, what questions you have. We read them. And if you're not a member of the dispatch, there's your incentive to become one. You can complain to us in the comments section on the website, the dispatch.com. 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, your writing, or a new project, Squarespace brings everything together in one place.

With Squarespace's cutting-edge design tools, you can launch a website that looks sharp from day one. Use one of their award-winning templates or try the new Blueprint AI. which tailors a site for you based on your goals and style. It's quick intuitive and requires zero coding experience. You can also tap into built-in analytics and see who's engaging with your site and email campaigns to stay connected with subscribers or clients. And Squarespace goes beyond design. You can offer services, book appointments, and receive payments directly through your site. It's a single hub for managing your work and reaching your audience without having to 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.