The Dispatch Podcast - Tired of All This Winning | Roundtable

Episode Date: August 1, 2025

Megan McArdle joins Steve Hayes, Jonah Goldberg, and Sarah Isgur to discuss President Donald Trump’s various trade deals and their effect on the latest economic numbers. The Agenda:—Thank you, Scott Bessent—Texas’ mid-cycle redistricting—DoorDash discourse—Parsing Israel news coverage—Famine is a plural word—The new political tribes—NWYT:What are our hosts’ favorite movies? Show Notes:—John McCormack for The Dispatch: ‘We’re Just Hoping the Ship Sinks’—Michael Brendan Dougherty’s National Review—Jason Furman’s New York Times piece The Dispatch Podcast is a production of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Dispatch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including members-only newsletters, bonus podcast episodes, and weekly livestreams—⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by Regency app for details. Maybe It's Mabelene is such an iconic piece of music. Hit the track. Everyone in the studio that I worked on this jingle with all had, like, childhood stories or memories. Yeah, we're around either watching these commercials on TV or sitting with our moms while they were doing their makeup, and it became really personal for us.

This episode is brought to you by MewMew, introducing Mutein, the new feminine fragrance by the iconic fashion house. Mutein captures the youthful, unconventional essence of the Mewew-Mew girl, brought to life by a gourmand, intimate and enveloping scent of wild strawberry and brown sugar accords. Mutein is not a statement, but a knowing glance, a sweet rebellion, lighthearted and laced with wit, a gesture made for oneself. Discover the new fragrance, Mutein, now available in Canada. Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Steve Hayes. On this week's roundtable, we'll discuss the U.S. EU trade deal and the Trump trade agenda more broadly, the Gaza humanitarian crisis, the makeup of America's political tribes and coalitions, and finally, and not worth your time that we think is worth our time on movies, films, and things we'd watch

again and again and again. I'm joined today by my dispatch colleagues here Isker and Jonah Goldberg, as well as Megan McArdle from the Washington Post. We're going to jump right in on trade. I want to read some headlines from the popular press here in the past couple days. New York Times, quote, Trump is winning his trade war. What will that mean for the economy? CNN with a tweet, U.S. consumer confidence rose in July, suggesting Americans feel a bit more confident about the economy because of President Trump's tariff agreements. And the Wall Street Journal, quote, Forget Taco, Trump is winning his trade war. Megan, I want to start with you. Pretty good week of press for Donald Trump as it relates to trade. We have some trade lines, trade deadlines upon us

here in the next 24 hours. But he's gotten some deals. He's made. managed to push American trade partners into agreements that seem beneficial to the United States? Is he winning the trade war? I think we are going to get tired of all of this winning, right? I mean, it sort of depends on how you define winning. He has done deals that put high tariffs in other countries and lower tariffs on U.S. goods. That will be good for U.S. exporters. I don't want to take that away from them. But we all have to pay 15. percent more for the stuff we're buying abroad, which is a fair amount of stuff. And it's not just the proverbial Chinese chotchkes that you buy at Target. There's a lot of foreign goods

in our supply chains. We buy parts and metals and raw materials from elsewhere. We turn those into finished goods. So exporters who use those parts are going to hurt. And so are the people who buy their products domestically. And so I wouldn't call these wins in the traditional sense of like, we are better off now. It's more like winning one of those crazy ultra-marathons where you like die at the end of the race, but you did get the metal first. But I will say this, is that it is better to do these deals than not given the alternative. Right.

It is better to have certainty. A huge problem that I've been hearing from manufacturers Allspring is that they don't know what the price of things is going to be. That they need to make their sourcing decisions and they can't because the dispatch had a wonderful piece by John McCormick about the guy who bought a piece of equipment. And while it was in the middle of the ocean, it got slapped with a huge tariff. So he was kind of hoping the ship would sink before it arrived and forced him. to pay for a machine that he could not possibly justify the cost of at the new cost. And so it is good that we are resolving some of the uncertainty that those companies have been suffering under.

It is bad that we're going to be paying more for stuff and that we are snorling up supply chains and in some ways making American manufacturers worse off rather than better off. I will say, Jonah, to that point, when I did a reported piece on tariffs and the wine industry, wine imports from Europe in particular. I was struck by the number of importers here in the United States who told me, hey, look, we don't love the tariffs, we think they're bad for us, at a certain percent they're cost prohibitive and we'll put people out of business. But having said all that, we do want this certainty. So if you're going to do it, just do it, get it over with, tell us what the number is, we'll adjust, we'll charge our customers, higher prices, and we can move on. Is that the main problem?

I mean, when we had economists predicting back in April when we had the market reacting to, you know, the big tariff announcements, were they reacting more to uncertainty than the tariff policies themselves? And is that why we are not seeing big market reactions and people are sort of relieved almost by this moment? First of all, I just, I mean, just the absolute shocking coincidence that you decided to. do a trade story about wine is just really I'm still stunned it's like Sarah doing a story about owls just because it fell on her lap just happened to be really important trade in owls is vital to American security I think that the discussion is missing a really important point Liberation Day April 2nd when Trump announced all of this stuff people freaked out so they're going to be this is going to wreck the economy there's going to be in a recession all that kind of

thing. People now forget that Trump backed off of a huge amount of that stuff, right? He did chicken out on that stuff. Not so much because of the stock market, because of the bond market, but nonetheless, he did back off. And so the beneficial effect of that is that it's not even, when people say, oh, it could be worse with the stuff that we're getting now, that's not a hypothetical. It was worse, right? What he wanted to do was much, much worse. And now he's settling for these more or less bilateral things.

And people are relieved from that. I think the certainty point is entirely valid. But I also, I think that one of the things, so like my friend Michael Brendan Doherty had this, post up at the at national review where he says look at all these all these european leaders are talking about how trump beat him how trump won how they took them to the cleaners right all this kind of stuff and michael's absolutely right that it's very interesting that they're saying this but because they're saying it doesn't necessarily mean it's true because one of the things

that non-Maga people, both in domestic politics, but also in international politics have learned, is the trick that the MAGA types learn first, is that you always have to praise Trump. You always have to say he's the winner if you want to get anything out of him. And so even if the Europeans took Trump to the cleaners, they would still say Trump beat us, because that's the only way to get Trump to sort of commit to the deal. The other part of it is that we really don't know a lot about some of these deals, and some of the things we do know are just impossible. Like, Europe is not going to buy $750 billion worth of energy from the United States over the course of Trump's term, not because they're not going to honor, they don't want to honor the commitment or anything. Just literally, they don't have the ability to absorb.

They don't have the bandwidth to do that. And neither do we really to ship that much. And then you add in some of these other things. So one of the problems with this stuff is that everybody understands Trump wants the headline. He wants the press release. He wants the top line number. He wants to be able to boast that he said he did these things. And the actual details matter less.

And that cuts both ways. And so I think he's had a great political couple of weeks on the trade stuff. I think the market likes that he's kind of just getting this out of his system and maybe we'll move on. I think the market likes more, the deregulatory stuff. like the EPA is doing. But I think we'll know what we'll have a much better sense a year from now what this actually did and didn't do to the economy. And there will be some wins and there will be some losses for Trump.

The other last factor is that one of the reasons why Trump backed off and is being more reasonable is that Peter Navarro is in the gimp suit in a box at the bottom of the pawn shop. And Scott Besant is the guy who's actually running economic policy and he's a lot better than Navarro. Can I talk brass tax politics? Sure. Not markets, not trade deals.

Here's how the world works. I'm going to simplify this a little, but we have a midterm election coming up in November of 2026, right? So about a year and a little bit away. Senate races, statewide races, tend to be a little bit more on name ID. There's a bigger incumpancy advantage because of the name. name ID advantage, statewide races do tend to still be a little bit suey generous to the race itself. House races, on the other hand, tend to rise and fall with the popularity of the president and things like, wait for it, how much stuff costs at the grocery store and at

Walmart? That is the whole ball game here, Steve. Like, the trade deals can look good or Europe can say whatever or the markets are fine, the house is going to rise or fall based on whether people feel that they are paying a lot more for things and they can afford less stuff. Now, there's an important caveat to this, which comes to Texas. Texas is doing something that we haven't actually seen before, which is mid-cycle redistricting. Mid-cycle meaning, like, we do the census every 10 years, and then you redistrict right after the census. And Texas is, like, cool, we did that. And now we want to do it again. And they put out their map, which could net Republicans five additional seats in Texas. This is really, really important. These are

districts that they've newly drawn that Trump won by double digits in most cases. This is throwing the whole midterm for the house, control of the house, into chaos. Republicans barely control the house right now, as you remember. Like one guy gets the flu and the whole thing's off. Republicans, if this map stands, if it passes and all of that, all of a sudden they could pick up five seats, but then Democrats in California, in New York, they're going to try to do a mid-cycle redistrict as well. It's actually quite complicated there. They may not be able to do it. And remember, everyone's running out of time because primaries are going to start

relatively soon. But this is all to say, this conversation, there's like the substantive part of it, which Megan and Jonah have heroically done. But like, I don't, I actually do think Trump cares about some of that stuff because he cares what those people think about him. But at the end of the day, the success or failure of this experiment will be judged, in my opinion, maybe even should be judged on how Republicans do in the House races in 16 months. Fair. I think that's a fair point. And the political implications of this are significant. Obviously, there would be, you know, if Republicans do better than history might suggest they should do, it would undoubtedly be because of the pocketbook issues that you're talking about,

including and maybe especially trade and inflation. But it also could have other factors if they succeed in pulling this stunt in Texas. And if there's not the retaliation that Democratic governors in blue states like now, New York and California are promising. And to be clear, I think prices are high enough for people and people are frustrated enough with inflation that they're still feeling that if the elections were held today, Republicans would lose the House, I mean, handily. Yeah, I think that's right.

I don't think that's going to get better. Yeah, it's not going to get better. And we're getting indications in new economic numbers, particularly on inflation, that it isn't getting better. A friend of the dispatch, Jason Furman, had an op-ed in the New York Times. in which he sort of took experts to task to a certain extent on sort of the sky's falling predictions about recessions that they made back in the spring when Trump was first rolling these things out and accused some people of having what he called tariff derangement syndrome. I plead guilty. But he also noted in the same piece that the economy has grown more slowly than anticipated, 1.2% annualized GDP.

versus 2.1% predicted. Inflation 3% rather than 2.2% and persistent, not going anywhere. Megan, where are we on the price questions? Because in some cases, you're seeing things at the grocery store that don't cost as much as they used to. And you're seeing things like gas, much cheaper than it was at the beginning of the Trump administration. are we are we five come on first i mean first we leave to jonah first we leave to jonah and megan the substantive thing by your own admission and now you're making fart jokes look now that i'm not hosting i'm just here for the lulls you know i mean that's great i suppose jonah is lolling but megan Back to the substance and economic policy numbers, please.

Yeah, look. So some things have gone down. I am no longer considering selling a kidney in order to get some eggs this week because the avian flu epidemic has receded a little bit. And so you're seeing things like that. You are seeing something decent on gas prices. On the other hand, overall inflation is still up. And there are a number of reasons for that.

but I think the big picture is that we lived through this incredibly weird period from 2008 to about 2020, 2021. And that is where interest rates just kept falling. Nothing happened to inflation. It looked like you could just, the Fed could just print any amount of money. The federal government could spend any amount of money. Nothing. We still enjoyed low prices and low interest rates. And that period ended during the pandemic. I think that period's a little mysterious and lot of ways. It's not really clear why that happened, but it is definitely over. And so what we're seeing now is we had all of these inflationary influences in our economy. We were running big deficits. Monetary policy was reasonably easy. And the Fed is now, you know, for a bunch of

reasons, including the fact that the economy is not growing very fast, reluctant to hike rates to ring that last bit of inflationary pressure out of the economy. But there's a risk that at a low level, inflationary expectations have become what's called unanchored. So basically the idea is there's a lot of things that go into inflation at its heart. The Milton Friedman adage that inflation is always in everywhere a monetary phenomenon, I think, is basically true. If there are too many dollars in the economy and we haven't, we pumped dollars in the economy, we haven't made more stuff, then except in odd circumstances where we are producing below

the economic capacity of the country. you're going to see inflation because you just have too many dollars chasing too few goods and services. But part with something that contributes to inflation is when people start to expect inflation. Because if they think that inflation is going to be higher, they think about that when they go into their wage negotiations. They think about that, you know, companies think about that when they start going and negotiating contracts to sell things, right? In the future, they say, well, I need some higher prices in order to offset. set the fact that the dollars that you give me in the future are going to be worth less

than the dollar that I'm getting right now. Paul Volcker, when this happened in the 70s, Paul Volker, then the Fed chair under Carter and Reagan, had to raise interest rates. At one point, they were 21 percent in order to ring those expectations out in order to recreate a credible commitment that no, inflation just ticks along right about 2%. You can count on that. It's not going to be much higher than that. set your wage contracts and your forward contracts accordingly. So it seems like one problem may be

that people are starting to expect a little more inflation than they used to. But I think the broader problem is that we've still got all of this like low level inflationary pressure, right? Inflation is not where it was during the pandemic. But it is higher than it should be. The Fed is not hitting its own target. And people don't like that, right? Because while wages and prices do adjust, they don't adjust instantly, and they don't just for everyone. If you're a journalist, you're probably not getting a raise unless you get another job. And so you just sit there and watch inflation eat the value of your paycheck every month. And that's true for a lot of industries.

And those people get mad and they vote on their madness. And I think, you know, we also have the nuclear aspect of all of this is going to be Christmas. because all of these suppliers, you know, retailers order their Christmas stuff months and months and months in advance. They all had to place orders when the tariffs were uncertain. They had no idea what anything was going to cost. And when consumers go to the stores to start buying those presents, they are going to find gaps on the shelves for stuff that they want but can't get

because suppliers, retailers pulled back. They're going to find higher prices. It is going to be a very unhappy making, experience for the American voter. And I think that is probably going to carry in the midterms next year. No one likes to go to get their kid and Nintendo Switch and realize that they can't afford it. Just to make Megan's point, but for, you know, me, like babysitters now cost $30 in my neighborhood. That number's not going to go back down to the 20 that it was when I had a child five years ago. And that makes going out to dinner more expensive.

So then I look at Grubhub, and the cassidia that I wanted last night at 10 p.m. With Husband of the Pod gone was $20 for a cassidia. You know, Sarah, you can buy tortillas and cheese at the store. But not the delicious pulled chicken with the separate side of sour cream and guac. Because if I buy sour cream and guac and all that for one person, it's more than $20. That's the problem. Oh, no, are we doing DoorDash Discourse? worse now. I try not to do it. I really... Any babysitters, Sarah?

I do, actually. If you know anyone who doesn't... I can do it. I'm in. I'm in. Do you like lightsaber battles that will leave you bruised? The thing is, your two boys are more pop culture fluent than Steve is. So it's going to be a problem. Nate requested the Darth Vader soundtrack on the way to camp this morning. I will say boys like boys really like boy babysitters. That was true when I was babysitting back in the day. So quick point before we move on. The, I do think we're having this moment where Trump is able to point to all these deals and say,

look, I'm basically getting what I want. But tariffs will do what tariffs do, I think, to Megan's point. And we're going to see the effects of those now that the deals. Yes, we have more certainty, but we have more certainty that will, I think, inevitably lead to higher costs passed on the consumers and all of the things that we know that tariffs are doing. And then the longer term implications here is that you're watching sort of the world and once reliable U.S. trade partners looking for new trade partners. So this is going to have, I think, implications well beyond the price of groceries, the price of goods at Christmas. You're seeing, and, you know,

the United States is the world's greatest economy. People are going to want to trade with us, regardless. But as you're seeing our traditional trade partners looking for other places to do their deals, I think we will see long-term implications for that. And those implications won't be good. One last point on that is that, I mean, I'm always open to correction from Megan on this stuff. But one of the problems is that Trump has never understood that foreign direct investment is the flip side of trade deficit, that when other countries, sell us a bunch of stuff, they get dollars. And then the dollars, they got to spend them somewhere.

And the easiest place to spend them is in the United States. And so they make investments in the United States. Trump, some of these trade deals, he's getting these promises from people to spend, I mean, it's unclear to me what exactly this Japan thing is. But like, he's getting these promises of these people to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign direct investment in the United States. Those dollars have to come from somewhere. And either they come from trade or they have to buy dollars on the global market.

It's not like you're going to buy a factory in Indiana with yen or euros. You've got to convert them into dollars. And so there's going to be higher demand for dollars, which has all sorts of downstream economic effects that Trump has a very difficult, which I have a hard time understanding. But then again, I'm not pushing for all these policies. But it's like, you know, there's that saying in business you can have it good, you can have it fast, or you can have it cheap, but you can only pick two. Trump has a sort of similar thing when it comes to trade stuff. He wants like four things, but three of them can't happen simultaneously with each other. And either we're going to make everything here or we're going to use tariffs to force down trade barriers and we're going to trade more.

I mean, it's like that kind of stuff. And I don't know how this is going to end, but the idea that you can make straight line predictions that's going to end really great or really terribly, I just don't buy. Yeah, I'm always happy to provide corrections when you're wrong, Jonah, but in this case, you are correct.

Look, when you buy it, when you invest in America, you are effectively giving people yen. Now, you're not really giving it to like the guy with the factory in Indiana, right? Right. But someone now has a bunch of yen. What are they going to do with that?

What are they going to do with that money? They were going to spend it on imports. And so your trade deficit goes up. These things have to balance the net investment in the United States and the net purchase of imports. They have to be the same. They have to be the same number. And so, yes, this is exactly.

He has a bunch of, and I think this is like broadly true of the whole kind of mega, idea about trade, which is that the people who favor his policies, they have an idea of America and America they want to get to. And that America looks a lot like America in about 1960, except with better televisions. And more accessible porn. Well, I think they vary on their position on porn accessibility, but publicly they might. Publicly, yeah. Fair enough. And I think, like, you can't get there from here. You cannot arrange, thank God, to have Europe bombed flat, to have China be mired in Maoist revolution, and to have America look like it did with a much younger workforce.

None of those things are possible. And so I think the, you know, like, I actually get the vision they're working towards. I don't even disagree with all of it. But I just think the idea that, you know, these. levers are going to get you there is false. And it's an example of the great policy syllogism. Something must be done. This is something. Therefore, this must be done. We should, just as a matter of cleaning up after the elephant, as it were, point out that what Donald Trump is saying about some of these deals is immediately contradicted by what these trade partners

are saying about these deals and the details, including some of the claims that he's made about the deal with Japan. All right, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be back soon with more from the Dispatch podcast. 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

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roundtable discussion um moving on uh joad i want to go back to you on this because uh i heard you say something uh this week that i think captures where a lot of people are as they read the news coming out of gaza over the past couple weeks um you said something and i'm paraphrasing you can tell me exactly how you said it um that it's just hard to know what's true at this point There aren't many journalists in Gaza. We've been hearing reports since October 8th from the Palestinian side of this battle, that there is a humanitarian crisis that people are starving. I think there was reason to be skeptical of some of those reports early,

certainly as we uncovered the ways in which Hamas was manipulating data and playing to the cameras. But it now seems that we really are in the midst of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. what should people who are taking this news in think about what's going on there? I'll start up front. I don't think we're in a position of famine and I can return to that, but it is a humanitarian crisis and it is getting worse. And it's getting worse in ways that it hasn't in the past. There was a really good piece in Horat's this week, which looked at the prices of food in Gaza. and during pretty much almost every other claim of famine,

and there have been many or hunger crises that there have been many, the data on what prices of food cost in Gaza markets did not support it very well. This time it does. There's been a massive increase. So for the people who get very, very angry, including me and some of my friends, at the way the media has burnt all its credibility on the Israel stuff,

that doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong about that. And it doesn't mean that Israel has a policy of starvation or any of that kind of thing, but it does mean that there is a serious humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and that warrants attention. That said, I was on CNN, the early morning show, the 6 a.m. show earlier this week, and I got into a little thing, basically making the point, as you summarized, that I really don't trust anybody.

I don't trust the UN. I do not trust most of these aid organizations, which are deeply hostile to Israel, deeply compromised by the UN. They have all sorts of business and financial and psychological incentives that steer them awry. They have a long record of playing footsie with Hamas

and of lying, of lying in big ways and small, of helping shape a narrative that is anti-Israel. So I do not trust them. Doesn't mean they're wrong. I just mean I don't trust them. And I was making the case that time and again, and, you know, Steve, you can probably do chapter on verse on this better than I can. But like, we have had foreign policy done by image, by, you know, by some scene. I mean, I still remember when I first came to Washington, the scene of the vulture approaching the kid in Somalia. And that's one of the reasons why we sent in troops there. The pictures from the TED offensive. And you can go out a very long list of this kind of thing. And I was making this point. And Audie calls. Hornish, the host was pushing back, and it's all fine, whatever, we continue to argue about it during

the commercial break. And then, like, three hours later, it turns out the New York Times ran on its cover on its front page, and not just ran it on the front page. I mean, a massive picture, a photo of this horribly emaciated and suffering little kid, and they claimed that it was because of starvation. And they later in the day corrected their reporting to say that this kid actually has a whole bunch of maladies, including muscular dystrophy. And it also turns out that they crop the picture to keep out, to cut out, the same kid's remarkably well-fed brother. Now, if the family was starving, if the kids were starving, why wouldn't a journalist ask, hey, how come he doesn't have all his ribs showing? Do you like him more? Like, what is going on here? Right? And instead,

the group thing kind of took over. And so, like, one thing just to keep in mind, if you're using your critical faculties, and there's all sorts of other things to keep in mind about, like, you're talking to out a terrible story this week about, oh, well, two background Israeli officials say there's no evidence that Hamas hordes food, which is just a lie.

I mean, maybe these Israelis said it, but there's, like, countless hours of video of Hamas-backed armed gangs, raiding convoys. And if you read closely the way the New York Times describes this stuff, it's so expertly worded so as to be defensible while still being untrue. Hamas has this incestuous relationship with UNRWA and other aid agencies where they take as sort of a tithe or more than a tithe a lot of food aid. People in Gaza know where Hamas warehouses have been, you know, in various periods, and Hamas hordes this stuff. but the thing that keep in mind is famine is a plural word when one person starves it's called starvation but famine is mass starvation it should not take this much work to find a photo ready

starving person if there's mass starvation and if there's mass starvation it shouldn't turn out that you have to keep because this is not the first time the New York Times or other media outlets have done this it should not turn out like oh it turns out there's other reasons why this child looks like this. All the children should look like that if there's actual famine going on. Meanwhile, as Bernard Henri Levy pointed out recently, like hundreds of thousands of people are dying of actual famine in Sudan, you know, like now. And no one gives a rat's ass because it's not about Israel. Sarah, what about that the media credibility point that Jonah makes? I mean, I do think it's, you know, as we're seeing increasing evidence that, you know,

everybody, including the Israelis, believe that there is a humanitarian crisis, whether or not it's famine, whether or not it's mass starvation. There's something going on, and it's worse than it was three months ago. And yet, you see these kinds of reports, the kinds of correction that Jonah points out, which is, again, not an isolated thing, unfortunately. What should people believe as they're watching television news, as they're reading newspapers. Well, at this point, most Americans seem to get their media from a bubble that they have built around them. What's fascinating to me is how those different bubbles are reacting differently to this shift, whatever the shift is, whatever the shift is, whatever it's not. And certainly within right-wing, more MAGA-influenced media, you're seeing a very big shift in how they're talking about this issue.

You know, what is it here? 70-plus percent of Republicans approve of Israel's military action in Gaza. By the way, overall, that number is like 32 percent for all Americans. So huge partisan issue. I mean, this is becoming abortion. You know, it took, like, 20 or so years for abortion to really sort the two parties and really 35 years, if you want the complete sort, you know, when Roe v. Wade happened, there was no prediction, really, of which party you belong to based on whether you considered yourself pro-choice or pro-life. And then, obviously, like, Republicans for Choice was still a very powerful organization in the late 90s. Republicans for choice no longer exist.

There are not people in the two parties who don't vote along party lines anymore. One pro-life Democrat in the House from Texas 23. Okay. So that's my point is that that's what Israel is quickly, I mean, so quickly compared to the abortion issue, becoming in the two parties. But something kind of weird is happening on the right in the media. You're having these, the biggest MAGA influencers seem like they're turning on. on Israel, Netanyahu, the whole kit in Kaboodle, Megan Kelly, Charlie, whatever his name is. Kirk.

Kirk, thank you. And here's the part that's going to be interesting to me. Trump has been pro-Israel from day one. Will he follow where his people are going? Because I think the MAGA influences, of course, we've seen them follow where their people go, for sure, every time. And this is a real dividing line for under 40. And then even among the right under 40s, they don't like what they're seeing. Whether it's true or false or anything else, doesn't matter.

We're just talking politics now. So now you see the MAGA influencers turning. And the question is, will you see Trump say, like, no, this is an actual thing that I care about and you will follow me? Because we've seen that plenty of times where, you know, just take Epstein, for example. Or will this be one of those things where he's like, meh, I don't care that much. If y'all want to go this way, I'll go this way with you because it's turning really, really quickly in those MAGA circles. So what should people believe?

I don't know. But it gets to a point about diversity of media diet and that there's like a meta media diet conversation as well. You're not just trying to get to the truth of the matter asserted. You're also trying to get to what other people are seeing as the truth of the matter asserted. two different ways to read the media cycle right now. And no matter which way you read it, it's bad for Israel. I'll tell you that.

Yeah, Megan, speak to that. There seems to have been a pretty pronounced shift. I would say, as Sarah points out, among the kind of MAGA right, and I would say potentially for reasons of anti-Semitism. You've had people on the right, prominent spokesman for the MAGA right, for the new right, including and especially Tucker Carlson leading in this direction for a while, I think Tucker's basically been making anti-Semitic arguments now for months, years, and he has many imitators who people who look at his audience and say, I would like that, and they follow him and they

do some of the same things, mimic some of his arguments. On the other hand, you know, this is, Israel's more isolated internationally as well. You had Emmanuel Macron in France, declares support for a Palestinian state, Canada followed, UK following. And Israel does seem to be more isolated. What did these fights mean in terms of where Israel is both in terms of its popularity in the American populace, among American voters, and also in terms of, it's positioning globally. Look, Israel has always been

at risk of isolation globally. But I think what's happening in the United States is a big deal because the United States has always been a place where Israel enjoyed an incredibly high degree of support, not just among our large Jewish population, and those of us who grew up on the Upper West Side and felt kind of

like honorarily Zionist, but among evangelicals who have been a big part of that, much bigger component of their support than Jewish voters for the conspiracists. And I think that that is shifting among the under 40s. I'm going to bracket the question of anti-Semitism just because it makes me so upset to talk about the rise of anti-Semitism on both the right and the left. And I'm not talking about people who are critics of Israel's policies. I am a critic of many of Israel's policies. I'm talking

about people who have transferred their criticism of Israel's policies, or de novo generated crazy, hateful conspiracy theories about Jewish Americans and Jews worldwide. I think Israel has to deal with this humanitarian crisis, because look, Havivro de Gore did a good video interview for the free press. And the free press is by no stretch of the imagination, an anti-Semitic conspiracy site. very wise is extremely bot Zionist, extremely pro-Israel. What is happening there is deeply worrying whether people are starving now. If this goes on and the prices, we are seeing signs of developments that mean people will be

starving in the future if Israel doesn't do something. They have to get the aid in order. I understand why they wanted to cut UNRA out of the loop. The Washington Post had an excellent article last week on how Hamas uses aid to fund its operations and how the cutting off of that aid has put Hamas under, like it was already under pretty big financial pressure. And it's now that financial pressure has increased because they don't have the ability to steal the aid and then resell it. That said, when Hamas stole the aid, it did resell it in the Gaza Strip. It used it to finance its operations, but people were

getting the food. Israel's humanitarian substitute is not getting enough food into the strip and it is not getting it to places. It is creating the opportunity for security incidents, where desperate, hungry people are mobbing sites. And that is, the soldiers are reacting somewhat understandably by trying to keep them back. And then things go sideways really fast. And this is not acceptable, even if you think that Israel is justified, it's not acceptable. Because Israel does need international support for what it's doing. It needs U.S. support going forward.

And so if they cannot clean up the humanitarian situation quickly and get enough food into the strip to keep people from starving, they're going to have to end this war because I think that if they don't, I think Trump is probably going to go with the influencers and end it for them by cutting off arm shipments. So I generally agree with that. And the last point about Trump is obviously true. I mean, I think the picture on the front page in the New York Times is one of the reasons that Trump said from Scotland, you can't fake this. It looks like it looks like starvation to me, right? which is kind of ironic, but Trump is often moved by pictures. He intervened in Syria in his first term because of pictures.

I would just add, though, that, yeah, the burden falls on Israel, but it's really important to point out to some people out there, not necessarily anybody here. Don't sub-tweet me, Jonah. No, but Hamas is the government of Gaza, right? And there's a reason why it walked away from the negotiating tables a couple weeks ago. And now, and just, I think yesterday or this morning

and said they're not going back until Israel handles the famine and all this kind of stuff. It's because they're winning the PR war. This is always what they think, though, which is also interesting. Like, all the time, Hamas thinks they're winning the PR war internationally.

And it is not turned out that well for them over the last two years. That's true. They were not winning with October 7th. But they're winning with this, I think. They're getting a whole bunch of countries in the EU and elsewhere saying that they're not, you know,

Akir Starmor says that if nothing changes, he's going to support a Palestinian state, right? So that's what Hamas is hearing. They feel like the political momentum is on their side. And so think about it for a second. That means the actual government of this country is fine with letting more people, more Palestinians starve. They're not fine with it, Jonah. They want it. They need it.

Right. But that's my point. Right. So there. It's a feature, not a bug. Right. It's always been a feature. Civilian death is a feature.

Right. So it's their policy to let their people starve, and it's Israel's fault because they're starving, right? The only thing that's ever asked of Hamas by the international community, by anybody is release the hostages, not like release the flower from Hamas warehouses, not, you know, protect the aid convoys when they come in. It's just simply that they're, it's Aesopian. They're supposed to be scorpions, and it's entirely the burden on Israel to feed these people.

And when they send in truckloads of convoys and they get ransacked by Hamas-backed gunmen that creates this chaos, creates opportunities for Palestinians to get fired on, that's the government of Gaza's policy, and yet the blame for it squarely falls on Israel. And so while I agree with Megan that, yes, Israel's got to do something about this and that's unfair. It's sort of the pottery barn rule. It's, they got to deal with this. That doesn't mean... Wait, sorry, what's the pottery barn rule?

Huh? You broke it. If you broke it, you bought it. Oh, okay. Colin Powell called it. I didn't know that was a pottery barn rule. I thought that was just, you know, when you take kids to stores, you kind of know. In the first Bush administration, Colin Powell said it's the pottery barn rule. If you break it, you bought it.

like I want to be careful about what happens here. And then Pottery Barn had to come out with a statement saying that's actually not our policy. But by then it had stuck. So all I'm saying is that the coverage of this, the stuff that drives the New York Times, the stuff that drives a lot of mainstream media coverage about all this, works from the premise that literally everything bad that happens in Gaza is either the deliberate policy of Israel or the unavoidable consequence of their blind eye to suffering, when in reality the policy of suffering and the blind eye to suffering

almost far more lands on the lap and on the heads and on the souls of Hamas than it does of Israel. That's definitely true, but you have to say, I mean, Benjamin Netanyahu was pushing back on those accusations this past weekend when he was sort of refuting claims that Israel's got a policy of starvation. But then he too went too far. He said in an interview with Daystar, what a bold-faced lie. There is no policy of starvation in Gaza. And then he added, and there is no starvation in Gaza. Well, there is starvation in Gaza. And I think he diminishes his credibility when he makes claims like that, even if there's no policy of starvation in Gaza, which I think is, is also true. Netanyahu, by the way, notably going on with MAGA YouTubers, by the way,

which then had a whole lot of backlash within the MAGA YouTube universe. So, yeah, Netanyahu, not having a good week. If we were one of those shows that did, like who had the worst week, definitely putting Netanyahu is my number one. We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be back soon. 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.

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Check. Close the garage door? Yep. Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision? No. And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection, and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web?

Uh, I'm looking into it. Stress less about security. Choose security solutions from TELUS for peace of mind at home and online. Visit TELUS.com slash Total Security to learn more. Conditions apply. we're back with the dispatch podcast but before we return to our roundtable i want to let you know what's going on elsewhere here at the dispatch this week on advisory opinions sarah and david unpack new rulings on foster care gender identity and first amendment rights and they predict which will get to the supreme court search for advisory opinions in your podcast app and make sure you hit the follow button now let's jump back into our conversation speaking of american politics uh sarah i want to start this final segment before we get to not worth your time with you. Your friend, our friend, Kristen Soltus Anderson, and Eschelon Insights, put out a new assessment analysis of American political tribes. And it's fascinating. Bear with me for just a second

while I walk people through these new eight political tribes to give them a sense of what echelon found. And then I want to ask you about it. 17 percent. they categorizes hard rights, staunch conservatives across the social and economic spectrum who take consistently anti-establishment policies. 11% moderate right. Take right-leaning positions on most issues, but trust experts, support free trade, pro-gay marriage, believe there are obstacles for women. 8% new Republican populists socially to the right, economically to the left. 14% middle American optimists, middle of the road on most issues. 10% young and disillusioned, female racially diverse, skeptical of regulation, but for a robust welfare state, anti-establishment

on the left. Then 12 percent American institutionalists. Firmly pro-establishment, this cluster is unified by a belief that the system basically works. 11 percent are called electability Democrats, left-leaning on most issues, but diverges from unpopular left-wing positions like defunding the police and trans athletes in sports. And then finally, 16 percent hard, left. The name says it all, socially and economically liberal, largely pro-establishment. Sarah, you spent a lot of time thinking about this stuff. What was your reaction to their assessment of the American electorate now in those eight political tribes? Okay, well, every time I see their thing and like the actual percentages of like who's

been moving up and down, the libertarian line, Megan, is so sad. It's like, Like, there's barely a pulse down there. And I don't consider myself a full libertarian, but like, come on, do better. We are a tragically discriminated against underrepresented minority. But the good news for those of us who identify as libertarians is that being a libertarian means never having to say you're sorry. No one ever does anything you want. There's never any, like, bad side effects of your policies that you have to explain away. because they never happened.

Also, who would you say sorry, too? There's only 5% of the entire American electorate that identifies as libertarian. Like, y'all don't exist. So we can just hang out in, like, our imaginary world where, you know, we've privatized the police and the roads, and we don't even need roads because there's flying cars everywhere,

and it's awesome, and you guys would totally love it, except everyone's too stupid to come there with us. And the fact is, let's just be honest, among that 5% you're all screaming at each other about what the true libertarian position is. So it's not like you're all happy with each other either. No, we actually like each other. But like I definitely, I periodically, because I am about as far like as government friendly as you can be and still even plausibly identify as a libertarian.

And so I regularly get kicked out of the movement. But I have had, like, many exciting evenings where we spent six hours debating how insurance companies could substitute for the government in, like, dealing with crime. And you just haven't lived until you've stayed up all night with Red Bull and some anarcho capitalists. All right. So one of the other things they found, Steve, was that the hard right and hard left are only one third of their respective parties. Yeah. And my reaction to that was, a third is a lot, a lot, especially when we're talking about their potential voters, not their most likely voters and most importantly, their primary voters. And so when you look at the primary voters, that hard right and hard left become even more visible, more vocal, and I think more prominent just in terms of numbers as well.

So one third extremists in both parties, I think is, like, potentially an American deal breaker. Yeah, in some ways, isn't that like the best understanding of our politics at this moment? And we should point out that one of the things they did was this is a screen for verified voters, right? I mean, these are likely voters. These are people who are voting. So when you're talking about it. They are voting, but it doesn't mean they're voting in primaries. And I do think there's such a big difference when it comes to.

the incentive structures and where parties move as the amoebas that they are, who votes in primaries is far more important than who votes in general elections. And like just emphasizing that for our listeners who maybe are frustrated with both parties, parties move with their primary voters, not their likely voters. That's why we need to abolish the primary system. Preach. Well, maybe, but whatever. The point is, here we are.

The libertarian has ideas of how to make it. better that aren't going to happen. So there's a newsflash. Vote in the primaries now. Don't be with Megan and just sit there and be like, we should get rid of them as you don't vote in the primaries. That's not going to work, team. I didn't want to go to the prom anyway. But yeah, so just to make the very obvious point, Steve, our political parties are not based on principles. And I'm not sure most people really understand that. So, So let's be clear, if you were to actually have sort of a political science course on conservative and liberal, you would actually maybe have something more like conservative

would be in the middle. Liberal, meaning individual rights would be on one side, and authoritarianism would be on the other side. And every policy would fall somewhere kind of along that spectrum. The two political parties are all over the place on that spectrum because they're these amoebas that are constantly trying to they're they're directed by their primary voters and then in the general election they like amoeba to go grab you know something that's sort of near them but not quite part of them yet that's my like best annie dillard explanation of how political parties shift and change so the republican party at 1856 literally has nothing in common with the Republican Party of 1980, which has very little in common now with

the Republican Party of 2025, because they're not principled and they're driven by their primary voters. And so if a third of your total voting potential is crazy, then that's going to have a pretty big and potentially catastrophic influence when it's in both parties. So, Jonah, two questions to you. One, is Amoeba a verb as? as Sarah suggests by her usage. And two, is she right in her analysis of these shifts, particularly on the Republican side? I mean, it is the case that what we would describe as Republican and right-leaning voters in this assessment don't really look much like the Republican voters of 1980. A crown of gold, Jonah.

Sound money is actually probably the biggest unifying thing between the Republicans of. It's like someone paid you to, like, is there a drinking game going on to say the most Republican, I mean, libertarian thing you can think of at any moment? Is someone playing libertarian bingo out there listening to this? I play libertarian bingo every day, Sarah. Clearly. And I get out there and I win. So, first of all, I will allow amoeba as a verb.

So Sarah says the Republican party, the parties are, don't have principles. and which calls to mind, of course, when we're talking about lacking principles, Josh Hawley. And so Josh Holly, I learned this week, wants to take the revenues from the tariffs and turn them into a rebate

where he just cuts checks for like $600 to every American. Now, if we had one of our good Hill nerds here, we would point out that this is problematic because the scoring from the CBO says that the revenues from that are the thing that offset this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and that that wouldn't be any as deficit neutral as it already is, and it's not deficit neutral. To be clear, that what Joan is saying is they've already spent the money. Right. They've already committed the money that they got. Well, they expect greater revenues than will actually happen.

And they've already spent that money. And they spent it, right? That's how this works. Holly wants to basically say the word refund while spending money direct or borrowing money to give to Americans. This is pure, it is pure Zoron Mondami wealth distribution, not even redistribution necessarily because it's borrowed money. And there is nothing in the grand history of the grand old party or of American conservatism, big C, small C, Medium C. C is for cookie. It doesn't really matter.

There is just nothing grown up about this. It is William Jennings Bryan meets Zora Mundami, nonsense left wingery, but because it goes to his Bubba constituents as he sees them, he gets to call it right wing. And it is like I can do chapter and verse on horseshoe theory and how all forms of illiberalism are based just different flavors of the same kind of stateism, but...

Statism. That's the word I was looking for, not authoritarianism. Thank you. Sorry. Yeah, statism. Statism. And the second you stop being liberal, classically liberal, or as Megan was a libertarian, even though I think there's a difference between libertarians and classical liberals, which we can debate outside. But the second you move away from that basic conception, you know, whether you want to call it a metaphysics or political philosophy, you start to become illiberal by definition. And right-wing illiberalism and left-wing illiberalism are more about the costumes that you wear and the shibbolists that you speak and the constituencies you want to reward than has anything

to do with a principal difference in public policy. And we are seeing that Steve Bannon, look, I think the guy has hooves, but he is at least honest when he says he's a Leninist, right? He's honest when he says he wants a New Deal style, big government, you know, approach to politics, because he does. And he's a right-wing Democrat of the old school. He's more like George Wallace in a lot of ways. And I think the problem is there's an enormous amount of lag time for Normies where they just don't see it. You know, you mentioned earlier Marjor Taylor Green coming out against Israel.

I think it's hilarious how you have all these people who say Marjor Taylor Green is a gargoyle and she's insane and she's a whack job and then she comes out against Israel and they're like oh maybe I was misjudging her or maybe the fact that the whack job now takes your position may may want to make you like revisit your position rather than revisit whether or not your opinion of Marjor Taylor Green but we'll leave that. I mean, she is the Jews controlling the weather woman. I mean, she's the one who floated that conspiracy and now you're seeing people line up. This is not really on our tribes, but interesting nonetheless. Megan, let me go to you on this. Setting aside for a moment, the difficulty you have with the sad moment of, you know, small 5% libertarian popularity. What is it that that? accounts for the pulling away. I mean, I think it probably was true that, you know, sort of pure-ish libertarians in 1980 to use Sarah's year were not that much different than where they are today. What I think is notable in what the echelon analysis describes, and there was another interesting analysis done by Rit Tashara looking at sort of what's behind the numbers. And they both note that the shift away. from libertarian positions, classical liberal positions, small government positions,

should we say, among the rest of Republicans. And I think that's what's notable. And to Sarah's point, those are the people who increasingly make up this hard right section are people who are not really that concerned about small government. What accounts for that shift? Is it just simply Donald Trump? Look, I think part of the shift is that different people are in the parties now, right? the amoeba has osmosed some groups.

Interesting verbs. While other groups have broken off and been osmosed by the other amoeba. And so I think you have seen a, first of all, the population has gotten more educated, which has meant that we have more of the kind of college educated professionals who often voted Democratic, even in 1980. Second of all, the working class has broken away from the Democratic Party and it's started to migrate into the Republican Party. And those people have always had suspicion of elite institutions.

I think that problem has gotten much worse. I mean, trust in American institutions has really been declining dramatically for decades since the Civil Rights Act. So part of it is just a compositional shift. It's not even the voters change that much, is that they're in different places. and those coalitions have different priorities. In 1980, our priorities were sorted on ideology, on economic ideology primarily, although there was also a social conservative and a defense element of that.

But that Republican Party was held together by anti-communism, right? You've got the three pillars. You've got the social conservatives who hate godless communism. You've got the economic conservatives who hate communism. And you've got the defense hawks who hate Russia. Russia. And between those three, they had a coherent coalition, which allowed the Democrats to be actually a kind of looser and less coherent coalition than the Republicans were. And I think there has been a slow decline since the fall of the Berlin Wall where that coalition just didn't make as much sense. But I would also say this, is that I think for me as a libertarian, when I think about the depressing fact that, We haven't really boosted our support among the population as much as I lightheartedly hoped when I was young and full of them. I think of our job, and I actually think that this is true for classical liberal conservatives who are not on board with the Trump train, or even if they voted for him or kind of skeptical and don't agree with a lot of his policies, is to be kind of libertarianism in abeyance.

The reason the libertarianism had a bit of a moment in Ronald Reagan was that the answers that we had were the answers to the most pressing problems the country faced at that time, like inflation, and sound money, Sarah, but also over-regulation and stagnant growth. This drinking game is resulting in alcohol poisoning. So, yeah, I haven't even gotten to ranting about Keynesianism yet. Hayek. Hayek. Hayek. Hayek. Okay.

Bingo! I and Rand. No, she's another column. I'm not one of those kind of libertarians. So, look, I think the ideas will be relevant again. Donald Trump will make them relevant again. Tariffs will, it's not going to be the economic holocaust. that I think some people kind of got the idea was going to happen from the tariff coverage.

I really tried to avoid this, both on the editorial board and as a columnist, saying, like, these are bad. They harm American consumers. They harm American manufacturing. They are not a good way to do China containment policy. But I did not try to give people the impression that if you got 15% tariffs, the American GDP was going to drop by 15%. We'd all be living in caves. Actually, I mean, even if it dropped by 15%, we wouldn't be living in caves.

We'd be back to like 2004. I was not living in a cave back then. I don't know about you. But like these are bad policies and they are going to create a bunch of problems. And so our job is to nurture the flame of classical liberalism and free markets and individual liberty

and freedom and decency and institutional norms and patriotism and hold them there. Still alive. flickering, but still bravely giving light until the public is ready for them once again. Wolverines! You're saying there's a chance. Finally, not worth your time this week.

I was, as I want to do, reading pop culture magazines from the UK this week, including one called Far Out. magazine, which I read, you know, really daily to get my pop culture fix. Okay, none of that's true. I don't read any of that. But this popped up, this article popped up on my Google News feed, and I thought it was interesting because it touched on a conversation that Jonah and Chris Steyerwalt and I had last week. It's about Mel Brooks and far out reports that Mel Brooks watches one movie 12 times a year,

once a month and has done this for years because he likes the movie. But interestingly, it's not his favorite movie of all time. That's a Ginger Rogers Fred Astaire film. And it's not even in his list of top 10. It's gladiator. I was going to bet Shawshank Redemption, but okay. Well, that's just because if you're, you know, you get stuck on TBS or whatever, like it's on forever. Also, it's great, Sarah.

watching. So here, here's my question to you. And I'll start with you, Jonah, to give Sarah and Megan a moment to think about this. What is your favorite movie of all time? And separate question, not necessarily the same thing, which movie, if you had to watch a movie once a month for the rest of your life, which movie would that be? Yeah, I remember the conversation different about, like, it could be only one movie you watched over and over again or something like that. So that's fine. It's a new conversation. I'm in charge of you.

I understand. I get it. My, bless your heart, Steve. But my answer at the time was a little cute, which was favorite movie of all time, was Godfather. And the movie I'd watch over and over again was Godfather 2. And because Godfather 2 just has a lot more stuff going on in it. If I wanted to broaden it out a little bit, I don't know, I'd stick with the Godfather,

but for the movie I'd watch over and over again, you know, Gladiator is not a bad candidate. Yes, it is. And neither is Shawshank. But I'm going to freak out people and go with. with the movie Diggs Town. What? Which you've never even heard of. It's a long con movie about boxing.

It's got James Woods, who I can't stand these days, but I love that movie. And I could watch that hungover on a Sunday afternoon in perpetuity. That was not what I expected. Mm-hmm. From Jonah.

Sarah. If it's only one movie a month and I can watch other stuff, then it's a much different question in my head. So I expected a different question. You got a different answer. Deal with it, Bucco. Fair enough.

So I have two favorite movies. I've watched them many, many, many times. I would love to watch them once a month. I would love to watch any movie once a month. That's not in my schedule right now. I did watch Happy Gilmore, too, though. And I got to say, like, well executed. Did anyone else watch it yet?

No, I'm planning on it, though. I'm excited. Like, I don't, I mean, there were like some real. laughs like laugh out loud stuff it was it was good i mean it's not um revelatory like you know but whatever uh my two favorite movies are the philadelphia story with katherine hepburn and zero dark 30 with jessica chastain i will watch them in fact i will commit steve to watching only those two movies every month for forever i would love that life um because they balance each other so perfectly and i think that jesska chastain is the reincarnation of katherine hepburn

And I'll let everyone in on a secret, which makes it not a secret anymore. But my husband is saved in my phone as Dexter Haven, C.K. Dexter Haven from the Philadelphia story. So I have to type that in every time I want to call him. Then why is he saved that way? I don't know. I think it's fun. He's YAR. Exactly. Thank you, Ben.

Megan! Yes! I knew we were soulmates. Yeah. Do you just like Jessica Chastain because she's now going to Harvard? And you love Harvard? Wait, she's going to Harvard? Sarah. What? She is. She's going to get a master's in public administration. If you guys want to know anything else about pop culture and celebrities, let me know.

I'm happy to update you anytime. What else can I tell you? Megan, what's your answer? Favorite movie and movie that you would watch 12 times? a year, once a month? Philadelphia's story, very solid choice. One of my very favorite movies. Not quite my favorite because I have aggressively middle-browed taste. My favorite movie is a movie called Witness.

I love Witness. Great movie. One of the great movies of all time. It's like, it's a quiet little movie. It's not, you know, it's not that well-known. But it's just like a beautiful, first of all, it is beautiful. And second of all, it's just an incredible meditation. It's about the Amish and a cop who has to go into hiding with the Amish after an Amish boy witnesses a murder.

And it is beautiful. It's an incredible meditation on community. I love this movie so much. I could definitely watch that once a month for the rest of my life. My choice for once a month for the rest of my life is actually a different beautiful meditation on community and family. A movie called A River Runs Through It. Oh, wow. one of the early, early Brad Pitt movie.

And I'm going to be honest, I picked this in part because, like, look, even if you get tired of the dialogue, you know what's going to happen. The photography of Montana, which is in fact, I believe, North Carolina, but we'll let that slide, is just incredibly gorgeous. And I could happily sit there with a volume off and just watch the movie for two hours. Yes, it is an incredibly beautiful movie. Brad Pitt is at his most incredibly beautiful. phase of his acting career.

Is that an intake of breath? Wait. Well, I mean, also like his biological career. Yeah, there we go. Wasn't Julia Ormond in that movie, too? Speaking of Beautiful. No, no. You're being a different movie called Legends of the Fall.

Get up and you call yourself a pop culture colonist. Sorry. It's so weird for me to make a mistake like that. I would rather watch Legends of the Fall over and over again than River runs through it, to be honest. But that's just me. You know, de Gustavis, not as disputantum, but I'm going to be honest, I will think a little less of you for that. I was really obsessed with Sabrina, both Sabrina's, the Audrey Hepburn and the Julia Ormond version.

So I can't really watch anything with Julia Armand that's not Sabrina. I thought that Julia Armand and Sabrina was pretty poor, but that's just me. Julia Ormond, like, saved me in high school because I have not so much anymore. Old age has taken its toll. But, like, when I was in high school, I looked kind of like a chia pet, except that I had extremely long hair because I had a very traumatic haircut for my freshman year where it looked great. She didn't know how to cut curly hair. It looked great when she was bludging it out. And then I swear to God, as soon as I washed it, it looked like the left side of my head was trying to migrate over onto the right.

It was the worst haircut I've ever had. And I capped that off by getting super chunky over the summer between the end of eighth grade and the beginning of ninth grade. We have the same life except that's me freshman year of college. I cut all my hair off to look like Giulio Armand in Sabrina. It did not work because I have curly hair. And then I gained a bunch of weight. So awesome. Yeah.

And we'll put pictures of Megan and Sarah in the show notes as well. I have burned. We won't. We actually will. We actually won't. During this unfortunate time for me. Like, I'm six foot two. I finished growing.

I didn't realize you have to stop eating when you're done growing. And it was bad. That lesson gets hard, I will test. Yeah. But then I, then I capped all of this off. There were a lot of old oak trees on our campus. I walked onto campus. I got three feet.

I got not even three feet. I got like three steps onto campus. I stepped on an acorn, sprained my ankle and had to be wheeled to the infirmary by the nurse in front of all my nurse. No, Megan. I shattered my kneecap, was in bed for six weeks, pre-surgery, and then also post-surgery. So, 12 weeks. When I was staring up at the fan, a piece of dust came down, scratched my cornea. So I had a full leg brace and an eye patch.

Oh, my goodness. We are like identical life twins. So anyway, if you imagine the trauma of having all of this curly hair, which took so long to, I refused to. I refused to. I refuse to cut my hair for six years and by the end it took so long to dry that I used to have to wake up at five in the morning if I wanted to go out that night in order to wash it. But in this intermediate period where I merely looked like cousin it with a perm, it wasn't great. And there were none of these like advanced straightening techniques that we have now. And then Julia Orman comes along. She's got all this curly hair. And it was fantastic for me. And for like a summer, I was super in. And then she went and cut it off for Sabrina. So I have never forgiven her for that

movie. So I just want to tell Sarah, I mean, it's too late now, but it's a niche community, but there are dudes who are into chicks with eyepatches and leg braces. You may not want to date them. Now thanks to the internet, you can find your people, Sarah. That's right. Someone's swiping the right way for that picture. Steve, will you end this already? This went, yeah, this went a little far from, from favorite movies. I will answer the question on the movies. and not weigh in on my awkward phase. I'm probably in it right now is actually the worst part.

I don't feel strongly about these things because I'm a much less sophisticated and analyst of such questions on pop culture and film. My favorite movie still, I think, is Bottle Rocket. Old school, love it, have watched a lot. I don't think it would be my choice for once a month, but I loved it. Probably my choice for the movie to watch once a lot.

A month for the rest of my life would be airplane, in part because I've watched it probably close to once a month for this part of my life. And I never cease to be amused by airplane and all of the silliness. I know we got a wrap, but you are one of the few truly unapologetic. I would say I'm another one, but you're more so fans of the Naked Gun movies. Are you going to see the Naked Gun remake? I am out of pure curiosity. It's hard for me to imagine Liam Neeson in the Leslie Nielsen role. I just don't see how it works. But I will try. I mean, I am old school. I used to watch the reruns of the files of the police squad on which Naked Gun was loosely based. So I'll watch it, but I'll watch it with skepticism. That's it for this episode of The Dispatch podcast. long, little crazy, but fun anyway.

Thanks for listening to this week's episode. Have a thought or want to share a comment or question about what you heard today. Please email us at roundtable at the dispatch.com. That's roundtable at the dispatch.com. We'll talk to you next week. Thank you.