The Ricochet Podcast - How Sweet It Is

Episode Date: March 24, 2018

First, apologies to all of our faithful listeners for being 24 hours late with this edition of the Ricochet Podcast — we were felled by technical issues yesterday with the first half of the show. But this one is worth the wait: first, Original Cast Member Rob Long is back from making TV great again and has been seated in his rightful place in the host chair (from Miami Beach, no less). Then... Source

From the sun and fun, the capital of the world, Miami Beach. We have special news for you. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. Are you going to send me or anybody that I know to a camp? We have people that are stupid. There are a lot of things that I'm unhappy about. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson and Rob Long.

I'm James Lilacs, and today we talk to Ross Douthat and Byron York, the sacred and the profane. Let's have ourselves a podcast. Welcome, everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast, number 394. I'm James Lilex, and I'm happy to be here because I can tell you about Bombfell, an online personal styling service that helps men find the right clothes. You only pay for what you keep, and there's no charge to send your returns back either.

$25 off your first purchase. Visit bombfail.com slash ricochet. And we're brought to you by Quip. When it comes to your health, brushing your teeth is one of the most important parts of your day, and Quip knows that. So they've combined dentistry and design to make a better electric toothbrush. Get your first refill pack free at getquip.com slash ricochet. And we're brought to you by The Great Courses. You can get unlimited access to over 9,000

lectures that you can watch or listen to whenever you want. Sign up for your free trial at thegreatcoursesplus.com slash ricochet. And we're also of course brought to you by Ricochet itself. And there are some weeks where we cast our mind out into the possibilities of the world and think, if only Rob could join us from

some large, equitably, chain-standing alone in a vast auditorium. And then we think, no, those days are over. Those days are gone. Wait, James, I'm here. I'm stunned. And you are where exactly? Because the echo is tremendous.

Yes, the echo is tremendous. I'm sorry, I'll have to fix that. I am in Miami. I am delayed here, of course, because of the snowstorm in New York. And so that's what happens. You just have to suck it up and stay in Miami. I am delayed here, of course, because of the snowstorm in New York. And so that's what happens. You just have to suck it up and stay in Miami. Well, Peter, you're not in Miami. You're in California. But between the three of us, we span the entire country. And so it's not an East Coast thing to join Ricochet. It's not a West Coast thing. It's not a flyover country thing. It's the thing to do. And somebody tell everybody why it's the right thing to do.

Rob? Well, I would be happy to. Look, there's a million ways to consume content, right? We have podcasts. We have TV. We have all this stuff. And what we do know about Facebook and all those places is that they want to connect you. They want to spy on you.

They want to use your data. We don't do that here. If you like the podcast you're getting, you like the Ricochet podcast, you like Glop, you like the stuff we're doing, we would like to ask you to chip in to help keep it running. That means about $2.50 for a podcast listener, $2.50 a month. It's not that much. And you will be striking a blow for independent and center-right and I guess what do we call ourselves? Like liberty enthusiasts.

The League of People Who Do Not Mind Being Left Alone, thank you very much. Yes, exactly right. That's a pretty long acronym. But Peter, you guys, you founders, you're not coming together or cobbling together some devious little app. No. they're cobbling together some devious little app that will have an end user license agreement that enables Ricochet to capture everybody's phone number and the duration of the calls that they make to their friends. That seems to be the way that people are going. Ricochet is not about that.

The point is not to gather your data and sell it to somebody else. The point is to make a community that we can, like the monasteries of Ireland during the Dark Ages, where the lights of knowledge can be saved. So join already. $2.50, it's cheap, for heaven's sakes. Rob, you're in Miami. Tell us exactly, well, why is your business, I suppose. Well, I think the why is obvious.

It's 70 degrees and sunny. I think that should be clear. And it's freezing cold in New York City. I am here just on R&R, but I love Miami. Miami is a great city. It's actually one of my favorite cities. And whenever I come here, I have that situation where you get to a place and you think, why don't I just live here? But alas.

What makes it great? I mean, why don't you go to St. Petersburg or Fort Lauderdale? Well, look, Miami is – first of all, it's a cliché now to say it, but it's true. Miami is the capital of Latin America. It is the place where not just Central America but South America – it's a great city for – it's a magnet for all the people there, the artists, the thinkers, the writers, everybody. The brains really – I mean, that's because America is in many ways a giant magnet for brains. The brains in a lot of those countries want to be in Miami. They want to at least have a foothold in Miami because that's where the freedom is. That's where their entrepreneurial risk capital

that we all love so much, but also just the intellectual risk capital and the artistic risk capital is in Miami. So it kind of creates this very, very cool, very interesting American city where you are getting a glimpse of what's this huge continent, half a continent, you know, the huge half a globe beneath us, which we tend to see only in terms of, you know, disaster and strife and service workers coming across the border. And we tend to sort of ignore or forget the fact that it's this incredibly interesting place that has been obviously ruined in many ways by socialism and by kleptocracies and by the psychopaths that have been their leaders.

But that doesn't crush the spirit. And so a lot of that spirit ends up in Miami, and a lot of that stuff is really cool. And I hear nothing but Anglo privilege in your voice, too, when you speak of that part of the constant beneath us. There is no up and down in space, Rob. It's simply the way we pointed ourselves to think that they are beneath us. But you're right.

There is something fascinating about studying the reasons why Central and South America have not thrived in the way that the United States, perhaps Canada, have. Yeah, mostly it's because they've had Doltish leaders. I mean, if you go back in history, you look at, I don't know, I mean, 100 years ago, there were Bolivian tin zillionaires and Argentinian playboy polo players and Brazilian centimillionaires marrying European aristocrats. Nobody made this giant racial argument. When Lucy married Ricky in 1950, nobody

said, oh, it's an interracial marriage. No, because Latin America wasn't broke. It may have been messed up by dictators, but it wasn't broke and it wasn't in the thrall of crackpot socialism. Those countries hadn't decided to flirt with being clients of the perverted economic theory of the Soviet Union. They were all thriving in some ways. Until they were. Yeah, until they were.

They were all thriving, and in many ways, they were richer per capita than the United States in the 19th century. So, you know, the disaster of Central and South America is a disaster firmly, I think, placed at the foot of international socialism. Or you could say they had the misfortune of being founded by Spanish instead of the English and the French. The French brought law courts and bureaucracy, and Spain brought sort of a different characteristic that shaped their culture. I think that's not deniable, is it? Peter, you want to take that? Yeah, well, we wade into deep waters, and the waters off Miami aren't all that deep. Hear a word on behalf of Alexander Hamilton, who refused to permit the United States of America to default on its loans early, early on. And from that moment to this, the United States has a has a stable. I know you might not have thought so in 2008, but we have a stable banking system. And what that means is that everybody who has a little bit of money in Venezuela or Chile or Argentina or Bolivia puts some of it in Miami.

The United States of America has an economic system that, although it seems very malleable and dangerous to us, seems rock solid to much of the rest of the world. So what you have there is, call it Anglo-Saxon if you wish, but it does date all the way back a couple of centuries to decisions by the founders, and in particular Hamilton, that he would establish what even Britain didn't have at that time, which was an absolutely reliable banking system. And that's actually, when we talk about Miami as the capital of Latin America, what it comes to first in the Latins' minds is that's where they can put their money and then go get it when they want it.

It's a reliable banking system. All kinds of other things follow from that, including, and I wanted to hear James about this, what I find, I don't even know quite why I love it as much as I do, but I just love the feel of Miami. Flat, sandy palm trees, the causeways looping over bodies of water. And then the architecture today, if you stand at any distance and by any distance, I mean just two or three miles and look at the skyline of Miami and then shift a little bit and look at the skyline of Miami Beach, I am pretty well convinced there's not a single building you can see that's more than 15 years old. And in other places, that would be an invitation to just a kind of architectural cacophony. But in Miami, it seems to work.

How come? It would be a Qatar catastropheau a qatar catastrophe right hard for us um we have a lot of money pouring in and you have a lot of big stuff going up in miami it does work because they got the some of the best art residential architects and it is a playhouse and a show house for all that stuff but uh it was made famous perhaps during the credit sequence of miami vice when we saw a building a glass glass-reflective building, with a hole in the middle. It was so awesome. Right. I think it was called the Atlantis Building.

It had a palm tree in this hole and a spiral red staircase, which just said everything about this exciting new city. And when you match that Memphis-style, it was called, that's the design school, not the city, with the old Art Deco, Art Modern, with the curved, streamlined buildings, then you have a completely unique mix, and they saved that stuff. I mean, there's that historic district that saved those final buildings.

It's the greatest concentration. It's like if you went to the World's Fair in 39 or 33, you saw how the world was supposed to be and look, but it never turns out that way. It did there in that you have a district with all of these buildings that mirror the same style, and it's wonderful. But you also have a lot of swank, over-the-top, fountain blue, Morris Lapidus stuff from the 60s, which unfortunately is the stuff that's getting knocked down because nobody values it as much as they do the Art Deco stuff.

And at some point, we're going to turn around and say the 60s stuff, garish as it was, was of a time and a mood and a place, and you can't not see it without hearing the Jackie Gleason theme for some reason. No, I think it's true. I also think that what people are discovering in methods of construction, it was all about light. As beautiful as the Art Deco stuff, the Art Madurean stuff is, the methods of

construction were so heavy that the buildings are sculptural. You like to look at them, but being inside them is not so great because the windows are pokey and small, whereas those great 1960s modern style or even modern style or international style buildings, the construction was reinforced concrete mostly. And so you have this beautiful walls and windows. And now we kind of like roll around and take it for granted. I mean, of course, we see them all the time now. But at the time, just the idea of openness and windows and light and sun coming in in a place that is all light and sun and sky.

It was air conditioning. I mean, it was the greatest boon to human civilization is air conditioning, which, of course, some scolds want us to do away entirely because it's making the polar bears drown. You know, the polar bears, they'll figure it out. That's my theory. They'll figure it out. But again, the great thing about Miami is I think is that it's a place where America shows its – it has created a playing field, I think, for the best of the world to come and play, and the worst of the world, too. I mean, Miami's had some trouble with crime and drugs and smuggling and all sorts of things, so it's not unmitigated good. But I think to look at a city like that, it should be a symbol of what's great about America and what has always been great and what has always been attractive and appealing about the place.

Quite true. And another thing, really, when you think about it, that's great about America is the luxuriant facial hair that we have, which brings us to John Bolton. We're going to get to him in just a second. But I do want to say this, and that's an important thing that ought to be mentioned, is that Rob, for example, you're on vacation, right? I am. I am. mention is that rob for example you're on vacation right i am i am right which which which means probably that you know you're you're you're walking through airports eventually with your

suitcase looking for an outlet right um i well that's i know you're i know you're doing a segue to a to a to a uh a product and i would like to say i like'd like to agree with say yes, but in fact I am not looking for an outlet when I'm rolling my way through a suitcase. That's good for you. Hey folks, when you go on a trip, Romphel is what you want to do. I was trying to make Rob think I was going to the suitcase commercial when I'm actually going.

I thought you were going to the way travel. I know, I wanted to unman you. I wanted you to be unsure as to where you would go with this. You totally won. Right, well I did. I have unmanned Rob. But I wanted you to be unsure as to where you were going with this. You totally won. Right. Well, I did. I have unmanned Rob. But if you want to be manned up.

I played a long game, Alex. I played a long game. I'll get you back for that. All right. Here's the deal. Bomb felt. We're talking good clothes. We're talking better clothes than the ones you probably have.

How does it work? Well, it's easy. You complete the simple questionnaire, and then you're matched one-on-one with a dedicated personal stylist. Things to remember. Bomfeld never charges above retail. They offer free shipping and free returns. They have convenient home try-on, and they have the ability to preview and edit your stylist's picks before your order ships. What more do you want?

Bomfeld's approach, I'll tell you what more you want. You get this. It's called keep more, get more. So with each shipment, the more you keep, the more you save. For example, if you keep four items of clothing, you get 20% off. If you keep three items of clothing, you get 15% off. If you keep two items, you get 10% off your order. And it's completely flexible. You can receive clothes when you want, and you can pause or cancel at any time. Four simple steps to the process like this. One, sign up online at bombfell.com slash ricochet.

Answer a few simple questions about your measurements and your preferences. Two, set up your order. Tell your stylist what you want. You want button-down shirts? Tell them you want two shirts. Need a pair of jeans? Say, you know, toss some jeans in the mix. You're in control.

Three, get a preview email from your stylist with individual picks, and you'll have 48 hours to make changes or even, you know, cancel, change your mind. And four, get your clothing. Ah, the fun part. You'll have 48 hours to make changes or even you know cancel change your mind and four get your clothing ah the fun part you'll have seven days to try it on pay only for what you keep card isn't charged until you decide what you're going to keep and the shipping both ways it's free and i uh you know mentioned before about uh need a new pair of jeans when you go to bomb fill by all means just tell me to eat a new pair of jeans because i'm still wearing the ones that i have on from them and they fit the moment I put them on

and they've never lost that fit. They've never gotten too big or too tight after the wash. They're just the best jeans I've ever had. So, special offer to the listeners of the Ricochet Podcast would be this. We have a special deal that is $25 off your first order. But you've got to go to bombshell.com slash ricochet and sign up. That's spelled B-O-M-B-F-E-L-L dot com slash ricochet for $25 off your first purchase. One more time, that's bombshell.com slash ricochet.

And we thank them for sponsoring this, the Ricochet Podcast. And now we bring back to the show Ross Douthat, columnist for the New York Times, one of National Review's movie critics, co-host of the Projections Podcast, and he can often be heard sitting in for Rob Long on the Glopp podcast as well. His new book is called To Change the Church, Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism. It arrives very soon here to talk about it. We're happy. Hey, Ross, how are you doing this day?

We heard children in the background earlier. This is going to be like one of those BBC shows where they're talking to the South Korean guy in the small child watching, internet sensation. You know, I did a lot of CNN via Skype from our house in Connecticut, and I'll tell you, I lived in deathly terror

of exactly that scenario. But I've gone out on the back porch. I think I'm okay. They're streaming something inside, obscenities, random HP Lovecraftian curse words. I'm not sure what, but I'm outside. The kids have to be okay. From a deeply committed Catholic. Hey, Ross, it's Rob Long, and congratulations on the book. By the way, I also have a question. I'm a church-going Episcopalian, which I guess probably means close to Satanist in certain perspectives, or atheist, I suppose. Why? No, no, no.

The Satanists have the deeper traditions They haven't been around since the Reformation They've been there since the beginning They believe in something, right They have real convictions That's right Alright, so I'm not even at that level But I am at sort of a level

What does it matter to me If the church Theolic church is going through convulsions i mean big deal so what the what are the big issues in the catholic church they seem like um you know i go to the church i go to is upper east side manhattan the uh the rector is a female the associate rector is a a man who was married to his husband by the rector in that church, and everybody says, you know, it's cool, whatevs, you know? Why does it matter to me, or should it matter to me, that the Roman Catholic Church is undergoing

a crisis? Well, I mean, it should matter in part because the Roman Catholic Church is, for better or worse, depending on your perspective, still the big one, right? I mean, there's a billion Catholics worldwide. Half of all the Christians in the world, roughly speaking, are Catholic. And the Church exists in sort of complex relationships, dialogue, influence, and so on, with basically every other Christian church in the world. So what happens in Catholicism has inevitably ripple effects, influence, and so on all over. In your case, it's interesting because, of course, part of what's happening in Catholicism right now, or this is the argument of my book, is that there's a sort of attempt at a kind of Episcopalian or Anglican model for dealing with all of these vexing

cultural, social, sexual questions that every Christian church and really every religious body has been arguing about since the 1960s. And part of what Pope Francis is trying to do is, in a Catholic way, sort of figure out how to not get to quite the point that your congregation has reached, but get to a point where debates over same-sex marriage, debates in Catholicism over divorce and remarriage, that's sort of the big one that he's opened up, where those debates aren't that big a deal, because the Church basically says, well, look, we've got these doctrines, you know, they're in a book somewhere in Rome, they represent the ideal that we want people to follow,

but we're basically making pastoral exceptions all over, and we're going to effectively have a kind of truce with the sexual revolution based not on a sort of formal change the way the Episcopalians, or at least your branch of the Episcopalians, have changed, but based on a kind of, you know, a kind of wink and a nod, you might say. And that could be interpreted as, you know, as a kind of vindication for your, you for your upper Manhattan parish and sort of laissez-faire approach to these questions. So if Francis is a huge success,

if this ends up working—and of course, I'm very skeptical, as you can imagine—but if it ends up working, it will mean, in effect, that the path that your church blazed was the path that the most important and influential body in global Christendom was ultimately going to follow, too. But just to clarify that, I mean, I would just say two things. One, you know, in the Roman Catholic Church, there's the idea of being of divorced people getting a separate or a specific communion. And in certain Episcopal churches, certainly mine, in the Eucharist, you know, there's three services on Sunday, and it's really only, I think it's only the 6 p.m., which frankly is the one I usually go to. Sunday mornings are stressful for me for a lot of reasons.

They explicitly say that the eucharist is for everyone not just people who are baptizing confirmed not just people who have been through certain rites but but it's for everyone and i don't think they say it i say i don't think because i'm not up at nine for the nine or the 11 15 but i suspect they don't and that's a small subtle uh adjustment um but what i really want to ask you to ask about and i promise i'll wrap it I suspect they don't, and that's a small, subtle adjustment. But what I really want to ask about, and I promise I'll wrap it up here, is what do you mean by succeed? I mean the church I go to is a huge church. I have never seen it filled.

Tomorrow is Palm Sunday, and Easter Sunday is a week from tomorrow, and I'll go to those probably in the morning, and I don't think they'll be filled then either. So for all the loosening and the relaxing, and I'm making the counter-argument, it doesn't seem to have had any effect on the attendance, if that's the metric that you're using. Is that the sign of success? I mean, I think it's reasonable. I think the argument for these kind of liberalization moves is ultimately rooted in the idea that this is the kind of change necessary to do Christian evangelization in the 21st century, basically. And in that sense, there is, I think, an assumption built in that these steps can be seen to have worked if they bring about renewal, growth, new evangelization, and so on. Now, you know, you can say, well, the steps should stand and fall on their own merits. And, you know, if you only have five people in your church and you're, you know, you're doing the right thing, then God is with you and so on. And that's, of course, a reasonable argument, but a big part of the push in Catholicism for change right now

is, I think, rooted in the idea that this is how you bring young people back to the Church. Or in the case of divorce and remarriage, this is how you bring people in second marriages who feel like the Church is judging them. This is how you bring them back to Church. You say, look, you know, there's a path back to taking communion for you, you know, you don't need to get an annulment or go through all these, go through this longer process. So in that sense, you know, there is a sense in which Catholicism under Francis is potentially attempting a version of what churches like yours and like mainline Protestantism in general attempted across the 60s and 70s, a sort of, you know, a kind of moral reformation Sunday in your church, which is that for whatever complicated reasons, that hasn't worked. And, you know, America is filled with people who seem like they should be the target audience for a Christianity that's

much more relaxed about sexuality. It's filled with people who are spiritual seekers and sort of, you know, not atheists and, you know, not Richard Dawkins types, but sort of people who are spiritual seekers and sort of, you know, not atheists and, you know, not Richard Dawkins types, but sort of people who are interested in religion, who have some belief in God, who pray and so on. And for whatever reason, the liberalized Christian churches haven't been able to bring or keep those people in the pews, despite all of the changes that they've undertaken. And my sense is that the same will happen or, you know, probably will happen with Pope Francis's proposed renewal as well, that they're just, in the end, I mean, this is me as a theological conservative talking,

but in the end, I think there's just too deep a tension between sort of the sacred texts and scriptures and traditions of historic Christianity and post-sexual revolution life. And people know that that tension exists. They feel that that tension exists. And to the extent that churches pretend it doesn't, people sort of, you know, they sort of see through that. They think it makes more sense, and indeed it does make more sense, I think, to sort of do a kind of spiritual but not religious bricolage of different faith traditions rather than sort of, you know, be part of a tradition that's abandoned the sexual ethics that are still right there in the New Testament. You know, you don't have to flip very far in the Gospels or Paul's letters to see the stuff that liberal Christianity wants to sort of blur or leave behind.

Right. Ross, Peter here, as Holy Week comes upon us, I have been reading for the first time, I'm embarrassed that I didn't know it existed, but I've been reading for the first time a series of meditations that have come down to us known as the sadness of Christ. And it's a series of meditations on Christ's passion that Thomas More what is wrong and where to find the courage to do what is right. reforms, if the current reforms become enacted or ratified or validated, then St. Thomas More will have been beheaded for nothing. That would be the strong way of putting it, yes. And I mean, I think that's the danger. Yeah, I think you, a world in which Catholicism basically takes a kind of, you know, sort of winking,

we have these teachings, but, you know, we, they're just an ideal and we don't, we don't, you know, if, if you fall short, we don't really sort of, um, we have, you know, we have alternative paths for you and so on. That kind of approach makes much of the Catholic path kind of unintelligible. And more in the debates about marriage and the Eucharist and everything else during the Reformation are one of those things. It just sort of becomes somewhat mysterious why and how Catholics died as martyrs for these principles that now are being sort of, you know, sort of effaced in the name of accompaniment and understanding and so on. And look, I mean, these are hard challenges,

and I think, you know, in writing this book, I tried, maybe not successfully, but I tried to write it from a posture of humility. I'm a lay Catholic journalist criticizing the Pope. I'm not a theologian. I certainly could be wrong about all this. And that's why you have to start out with the possibility that actually see in, you know, the places that are sort of where this liberalization is furthest advanced, Germany in particular, Northern Europe in general, it's hard for me to see how that Catholicism is in real continuity with the church of the last 500 or the last 2,000 years. Hey, Ross, one more question, if I may, about the book. The book, again, is To Change the Church, Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism. This Catholic says it's a brilliant book, To Change the Church. Official pub date is next week, but you're already getting reviews.

And the criticisms break down into two basic categories, I think it's fair to say. From the left, you just got reviewed in Commonweal, the Jesuit magazine. The argument is, well, Ross doesn't actually know what he's talking about. He hasn't done his research. The book isn't very well sourced. And from the right, the argument is, how dare he take on the Supreme Pontiff? We are all meant to be – we are all meant to – I think I'm not getting as much of that from the right.

You're not? Okay, so... Well, part of it is that there are other... I mean, the book is written as... It's written from a conservative perspective, but it's written as a kind of partially even-handed explainer of what's going on and what the stakes are and so on. And obviously people people like some of my reviewers to the left can disagree with that explanation. But the theory is to write a book

that is sort of understandable for anyone interested in Catholicism who wants to get what the stakes are at the moment and why conservatives are so critical of Francis and why there's all this turmoil in Rome, cardinals against cardinals and so on. And I think at this point, I think at this point, the Francis pontificate has sort of extended itself far enough that most of the conservatives who are wary of criticizing the Pope are nonetheless interested in a kind of fairly even handed account that accepts that he can be criticized. And then the left, I mean, yeah, I'm getting some criticism that says, you know, I don't know what I'm talking about, but I think the more common criticism is, oh, dear boy, you're being naive.

The church has always changed and will always continue to change. I think that's the more, that's, I would say that's the more commonplace argument, that sort of Ross is very sincere, and he takes these things a little too seriously, and you need to have more of a historical perspective and say, well, the Church is always changing, and then we pretend it hasn't changed. And this is, I mean, again, I think there are reasonable points in there. The Church has indeed changed. But there's also, in liberal Catholicism, a failure to sort of figure out, well, what is, you know, how much does truth actually matter here, right? Are we trying to get at truth? Are we trying to be faithful to what Jesus actually said? Or are we just trying to always adapt to the cultural matrix in which we're in? And I think that adaptationism is what's been taken too far under Francis and in the liberal side of things on the church generally. Yes, we're only 48 hours from the Palm Sunday liturgy in which the most chilling line in all the liturgy, Pontius Pilate, what is truth?

All right, politics. James? No, Rob wants to come back. Okay. rob wants to come back okay i want to come back i have because what you were just saying about the way people uh talk to you about francis and they say oh come on it's always changing you're taking this too seriously and then in front of your book you say um when people say what do you have against both francis they aren't usually paying close attention to the battles between cardinals and theologians

or whether his agenda is far sighted or potentially hierarchical nor are they focused on his governance of the Vatican where Francis is a reformer without major reforms and the promised cleanup may never actually materialize um is Pope Francis a Trump figure?

Is Trump a Pope Francis figure? Are these our new kinds of leaders where there's a lot of noise and conversation, and the argument always seems to be this person is going to do long- of course, very fraught territory, and in terms of personal morality and values and everything else, the Holy Father and Donald Trump are very different. But if you look at them as political actors, if you treat Roman Catholicism and the American constitutional order as sort of systems within which leaders act. There are obvious similarities. They are both sort of populist figures. Francis is seen as described as the people's Pope and Donald Trump. We all know about Donald Trump and they both have, you know, their, their everyday management style is similar. Francis sort of works with a very tight circle of advisors and bypasses the formal structures in Rome and doesn't, you know, and it's as a sort of deliberate carelessness. I think he sees that as sort of a strategy for opening up and loosening up the church in much the same way that Trump's admirers like his sort of norm-busting style. And part of what you think about them depends on,

again, what you think about the shape the system was in beforehand. The more of a mess you think American government is, the more likely you are to be forgiving of Trump. The more out of touch and out of date you think Catholic teaching is or was, the more likely you are to sort of extend a lot of understanding and sympathy to Francis. And they're both operating in a moment in general in the West of sort of anti-institutionalism, the sense that the systems we have aren't working. There's scandal everywhere.

There's corruption everywhere. And they're tapping into a similar spirit of the age, you might say. And Rob was stunned to silence by that. I was actually on mute, I'm sorry. I think that's... Should we expect a wave, just to broaden it out, should we be expecting a wave of this kind of populism everywhere? In the sense that there was a wave of anti-communism

between the Pope and the Prime Minister and the President, to use the title of John O'Sullivan's wonderful book about John Paul II and Thatcher and Reagan. Is there a Trump-Francis-Luce X? Who's the third? Or is it all just too simplistic? I think, well, it's not too simplistic, but it's different in that Francis and Trump are, in terms of their practical ideas, opposed, right? Yes.

Trump is a nationalist. Francis is an internationalist. Trump is anti-immigration. Francis is pro-immigration. You go down the list. Outside the realm of Catholic doctrine in terms of political actors, they're opposed. But I think if there were a third figure, it would be if and when a real populist figure takes power in a major Western European country. And that may not happen. You know, it may never happen. But whether it would be a Jeremy Corbyn in Britain or a Marine Le Pen in France, that would sort of get you to the point of calling this wave, saying this wave has reached its peak. Because right now, populism, it governs Eastern Europe. It's, you know, it's gaining ground in the Mediterranean, as we saw in the Italian election. It's been sort of held at bay, notwithstanding the Brexit results, in central, western, northern, or sort of west-central northern Europe. And that would be sort of the breakthrough moment for populism if a populist ruled in Berlin or Paris. And we aren't there yet.

Last question, Roz. You say we're not there yet. You say that it doesn't seem likely. Is that because just the sclerotic smothering hand of the Western European democracies is so heavily clamped down upon the people that they're simply not going to let it happen? Or is there something in the culture of those places that says we're not going to step over that line? Well, I think it's unlikely to happen in Germany because Germany, for all the disarray following Angela Merkel's immigration decision to let a million migrants in, for all of that, Germany is still the winner in the European system.

Germany has come out well from the EU and its structures. There isn't sort of the kind of incentives that there are in, say, a Greece or an Italy or a Spain to sort of say, oh, this system is terrible for us. It hasn't been terrible for the Germans. The Germans have been running things. France is more complicated, and I think there's more potential for a populace taking power in France. But some of it is also just the system, you know, the electoral system. You know, multi-party systems are actually in certain ways harder for populists to take power because there isn't this kind of polarization where, you know, if Trump had been running as, you know, a champion of a populist party,

he would have been more easily isolated, I think, than he was once he got the nomination of the Republican Party. And similarly, it's easier to isolate a Marine Le Pen in French politics than it would be if there were just a two-party system where the National Front could effectively take over one party. So there's just a lot of moving parts. I don't think it's at all impossible for the populist wave to keep rising. I think for it to happen, though. Obviously, there's strong growth in the U.S. right now. So I think you'd need another shock before people would be willing to take whatever the next step would be. To Change the Church, Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism is Roth's new book. And we'll hear you in the Projectionists.

We'll hear you sitting in for Rob, of course, until they finally just get rid of Rob and install you permanently. Ross? I just need – I only work for Cheers Royalty. Well, it would be called the G-Dop at that point. Ross, in parting – You're going to do a job Americans won't do. I have to say, Ross, Peter here, I am in awe of you, but it has nothing to do with the book. On Tuesday, Rob and James, Ross Douthat was a clue in the New York Times crossword puzzle.

I was. I was. It was a life-changing moment. Wow. It was also the only answer that I was able to get. Tuesday was hard, I thought. All right. Ross, thanks. It was a peak moment for my stepmother and others who do it every single day. It was like being a Jeopardy clue. It's when you actually know you've arrived in American culture. You've arrived.

Congratulations. Thanks, Ross. For better or worse, God help America. Thank you, guys. There he goes. That's extraordinary. I wonder if they were attempting to do that on purpose or if it was just a happy coincidence that when they looked at the way the puzzle was fitting together, it happened to be an actual name of somebody in the paper. What do you think? I mean, Peter, have you – Peter Robinson would seem to be one of those perfect things that goes across the length of the crossword, wouldn't you say it would be if anybody had ever heard of me but nobody has which means they can't rock but pat sajak our friend pat sajak is in one way or another in the new york times crossword puzzle it seems to me at least once a month for some reason either pat or sajak it seems it's he's there all the time but this was the clue was new york times columnist dalvit

one two three four letters ross even i could get that one. Well, I'm waiting for Rob to show up as a, you know, cheers Latin philosophy. The art is short. The Rob is, you know, whatever. Four-letter words. Four-letter words, Alex. Four-letter words. Boy, I tell you, if somebody

had to buy a vowel on Pat's show and they were wanting to do, you know, answer a question about a particular electronic toothbrush, they'd have to buy a vowel on Pat's show and they were wanting to answer a question about a particular electronic toothbrush, they'd have to buy two, the U and the I, because Quip, Q-U-I-P, is actually about the best thing you can do for your mouth, for your teeth, for your gums. It's a lovely little device. Let me tell you about it.

Now, you know that brushing your teeth is one of the most important parts of your day, and Quip, they know that. They've combined dentistry and design to make a better electric toothbrush. Quip is the new electric toothbrush that packs just the right amount of vibrations into a slimmer design at a fraction of the cost of the bulky, big, traditional electric brushes. It's got these guiding pulses that alert you when to switch sides. It tells you that you're done with that side. Move over to the right side.

So you always get the right amount of brushing effortlessly done. Quip also comes with a mount that suctions right to your mirror and unsticks easily to use as a cover for hygienic travel anywhere. You know, put it in your gym bag. You know, sometimes you throw it in one of those things you buy at the store and it's the aroma, it's just, it's not attractive. No, you don't have that problem with the Quip. And because the thing that cleans your mouth ought to be clean itself, Quip's subscription plan refreshes your brush on a dentist-recommended schedule. They deliver new brush heads every three months for just $5,

and that includes free shipping worldwide. You never replace your brush when you should, and when you go to the store, it's generally more than $5, right? So how can you go wrong, especially when Quip is backed by a network of over 10,000 dental professionals, including dentists, hygienists, and dental students? Now, most toothbrushes don't get named one of Time Magazine's best inventions of the year, but Quip did. Find out for yourself why.

Quip starts at just $25, and if you go to getquip.com slash ricochet right now, you'll get your first refill pack free with a Quip electric toothbrush. That's your first refill pack free at getquip.com slash ricochet. That's spelled G-E-T-Q-U-I-P dot com slash ricochet. And our thanks to our friends at Quip for sponsoring this the ricochet podcast well now we have to talk about things going on in washington because i understand there's um there's controversy this week and has to do with money and politics and influence now you can just take that phrase and repeat it endlessly but whenever you want to talk about those things uh you want to have byron on right byron york chief political correspondent for the washington examiner fox News contributor, author of The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy.

And very soon, he's going to have his own podcast right here on Ricochet. Hey, Byron, how are you doing? How are you today? Doing well. Doing well, thank you. Well, what is, boy, you know, juggling all of these things. There's the budget. There's the refusal to Trump to sign because of the DACA.

And there's this Russia thing thing this mccabe thing which keeps grinding on you are watching this mccabe was trying to investigate sessions on his own people who's saying that what actually is going on here is the exposure of a an attempt to decapitate the government to rewrite the election results and that when this all comes out, it's not going to be Russian bots and collusion. It's going to be the deep state and what they tried to do to Trump. What do you think? Well, we certainly found that the Justice Department did take some criminal referrals very seriously. You remember Charles Grassley and Lindsey Graham referred Christopher Steele, the former British spy who authored the dossier. They referred him to the Justice Department for a possible criminal investigation.

Don't think anything's happened about that. Jeff Sessions to the Justice Department, Andrew McCabe jumped on it and started, this was really kind of gobsmacking news, started a criminal investigation of whether he had lied to Congress. So, you know, I think, I don't want to be, you know, sensationalist, but there appears to be a good deal more to learn about Mr. McCabe's time in office. So Byron Peter here. So the story rolls on and on and on. It seems to get worse and worse and worse for the FBI, the intelligence community,

to some extent for the Justice Department itself. But against this, we have the backdrop now. The Republicans lose the seat in the Pennsylvania Congressional District where there was a special election. Western Pennsylvania, Trump carried it by 20 points. The Democrats just won it by a few hundred votes. That's a swing of 10%. And in all the mid-year and off-year elections that we've seen so far, Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, now Pennsylvania, the Republican – there's been a big swing against the Republicans.

And it seems fair to say that the correct way to bet, if you had to bet right now, is that the Democrats are going to recapture the House of Representatives. And if they do that, the correct way to bet would be that Speaker Pelosi, whatever she thinks about the politics of it, will have no choice but to start impeachment hearings. In other words, this sub-story, the inside Washington story of, you know what? Looks as though Donald Trump was right about something else. He may be a jackass, but he was right about this. He was right about that. The FBI was out. It's just, does it matter as we watch this tidal wave shape up and begin rolling toward the beach? Well, on the first part of your bet that Democrats won the House, I mean, it does look like a pretty good bet. I mean, historically, we knew that, right?

Yes. Historically, we knew that the opposition party picks up a lot in a president's first term. We also know that presidential job approval is a very important indicator of how the party is going to do. And Trump's is, I guess, I didn't check RealClearPolitics this morning. It's probably around 40, his job approval. We also know that polls have been misleading about Trump in the past, so maybe that's not true. But I think one thing that could either comfort you or terrify you is that this may be already baked in the cake.

I remember going to a lunch with John Boehner. It was 2010, and I think it was in the spring of 2010. Now, remember, Republicans are going to go on and win 63 seats in the House. Huge victory. Huge victory, right. Huge. And so this is about April of that year. And Banner just leans back, you know, smoking a cigarette with a glass of wine. This thing is baked in the cake. We're going to win. And, you know, there are a couple of aides who are just mortified that he would be saying things like this. But it actually was baked in the cake. And so this may already be settled right now that Democrats are going to win.

Now, on the issue of impeachment, clearly there are a lot of Democrats who want to do it. I think probably enough to make it happen. But I think as we go further toward the election and get into the real campaign in the fall, I think it'll be really interesting to watch. Are Democrats pledging to impeach Trump if they're elected? get into the real campaign in the fall, I think it'll be really interesting to watch. Are Democrats pledging to impeach Trump if they're elected? Are those candidates who are out there making this a big deal? Think back again. For some reason, I'm having 2000. This is a I'm having flashbacks today. This is a 2006 flashback. Remember, Democrats won the House, huge victory, Nancy Pelosi became the speaker. And in that election, in that campaign, there were a number of Democrats, not as many as today, but a number of Democrats who wanted to impeach George W. Bush. There was something called the

Downing Street memos, which allegedly proved that Bush lied about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and all of that. And John Conyers, who stood to become the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which originates articles of impeachment. Conyers wanted to impeach Bush if Democrats won. Pelosi was so worried about this effect on their electoral prospects that she came out in the fall and said impeachment is off the table. Now, could that happen again? I don't know. But I do think you'll

see a lot of Democrats pulling back, not wanting to talk about this, believing it might not be a very popular thing to do, even in places where they're likely to win seats in the House. So, yes, I think a Democratic victory looks very, very possible. Impeachment, I would put a bigger question mark by. By the way, while we're talking about Democratic victory, we've been talking about the House. What about the odds in the Senate? The bet is still that the Republicans would hold it by a seat or two, isn't it?

Yeah. I mean, look, you've got a 51-49 Senate right now, and so it doesn't take much. So yes, Democrats have a lot more seats to defend. It looks like Republicans can pick up a couple that would cover any they might lose. So I mean, I can't see if Republicans keep it. I don't think they get any better than 52-48, which they had before Alabama. And, you know, it's possible. I mean, in the 2000 election, I think, which was super close, of course, we ended up with a 50-50 Senate for a while. Right.

Until one of the Republicans switched parties. Right. can switch parties right so so byron it is fair to say that ugly as things are we're headed into an even uglier campaign and when the democrats capture the house things will get uglier still is that not i mean seriously as journalists you you should all be delighted because the story just gets bigger and bigger and bigger but as citizens we should we should be bracing ourselves, shouldn't we? Isn't that roughly right? You know, I think you may have it the other way around. I think it's I think that I think that that the voters have basically shown a preference for divided government.

Once they have united government, they develop a preference for divided government. Yes, got it. And so clearly in 1993 and 1994, after Bill Clinton's had just one half a term of fully united government under Democrats, they elect a chaperone for Bill Clinton in the person of Newt Gingrich. That was quite a decision. And so in 2000, after Bush has had united government on the tiniest of margins, in 2002, he keeps control, but only really because of the after effects of September 11th and the preeminence of national security

as an issue. And so in 2008, when Obama's elected, his first midterms in 2010, darned if they don't take the government away, part of the government away again. So, I mean, there's a pattern here. And obviously we don't know what's going to happen. Something unexpected could happen. But voters kind of like divided government. So I don't think this is maybe a disaster for them.

This is kind of what they want. Hey, Byron, it's Rob Long. Welcome. Good to talk to you again. I agree with you. Voters, they like two things. They like divided government, and then they like to complain about gridlock.

That's the state psyche of the American voter. Can we just talk about some of the events of the day? How likely is John Bolton to take that job of National Security Advisor? Already, the New York Times has been reporting this morning, there's Cambridge Analytica ties with John Bolton. Is he going to make it? I mean, clearly the president likes to hire people who are Fox News analysts. Is he going to be the latest one to make it, or do you think he's going to drop out?

Oh, well, first of all, this is a non-Senate-confirmed position. And I believe the likelihood of Bolton actually becoming national security advisors is 100% unless something really unforeseen happens. I think the Cambridge Analytica thing is basically BS. I mean, Bolton did form, he thought about, you know, he thought about running for president in 2016. And he basically didn't because he was worried for, you know, maybe in 2014 and 2015 that the Rand Paul wing of the Republican Party, which he's very opposed to, the really non-interventionist wing, would get more power and more momentum than they actually turned out getting.

So he had actually considered running, and to do so, he formed a super PAC, and he used it to give money to candidates. You know, it favored his strong national security views. And I think Cambridge Analytica did some work for him, but, you know, there's no scandal there. Yeah, there's's no scandal there. Yeah, there's just no scandal there. So let me just run a little equation by you, see what you think.

The White House denies that Rex Tillerson's gonna get fired, and then he's fired. They say that there aren't going to be any changes to Trump's legal team, and then there are big changes to Trump's legal team, and then there are big changes to Trump's legal team. They say McMaster is not in any trouble, and McMaster gets fired. They say that there's no way

that Trump's going to fire Robert Mueller. What's the likelihood that Trump fires Robert Mueller at this point? Well, I still think it's fairly low. But, I mean, you make a very persuasive case there. All those things happened after the White House said they weren't going to happen. And we've had these periodic frenzies of speculation that Trump is about to fire Mueller. And I am one of those who thinks that firing Mueller would be politically disastrous. It would just be the worst thing that Trump could do. As a matter of fact, if you want my theory of why Trump may be winning his fight with the special counsel, I give it.

But the way to not win would be to fire Mueller. So, you know, I tend to think that he's not going to do it. And by the way, a lot of the talk about getting rid of John Dowd, the lawyer who did not want Trump to speak to Mueller, and in favor of DeGeneva and Tenzing, who are more open to that possibility. I don't think either of those is predicated on the idea that Mueller is about to wrap this thing up in a matter of a single-digit number of months with the finding of no collusion and a few small collateral indictments. Small and collateral from the point of view of President Trump, not, of course, from the point of view of the people of Flynn or Manafort. That's one argument. The other argument is, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Honorable man, he may or may not be, but he's a special counsel. And those creatures simply go on hunting and fishing until they can find some big indictments and he is out of control.

What's actually happening? Well, I would go halfway between those. We don't have to make any decisions about whether he's honorable or not. He is, I think, susceptible to special counsel syndrome, which involves mission creep, which involves staying in the business too long, which involves charging people for crimes that don't have anything to do with his original assignment. So I think all of those do apply to this special counsel's office, and we're seeing them. On the other hand, look at what he has done so far. First of all, the indictments of the 13 Russians and the three Russian entities, that actually had to do with the 2016 election, so somewhat within his authority. He has indicted or made plea deals with three people who were very, very high in the Trump campaign

and who you would have expected to be involved in a collusion scheme had one existed. And I'm talking about Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and Richard Gates. As a matter of fact, it's kind of hard to imagine a collusion scheme that these guys don't know about, that they're not part of. And yet he has charged all three with criminal acts. And none of them are criminal acts that involve collusion, coordination or conspiracy with Russia. So so far, the collusion forces, the collusion team is not doing so well in Mueller's indictments. Now, you know, one may be coming as we speak. A big collusion indictment may be coming as we speak, but I think he could kind of make an argument right now, especially since we know that he seems focused on the issues of obstruction, that he's not going to charge anybody with collusion. If he didn't charge Flynn, he didn't charge Manafort, he didn't charge Gates with collusion. If he didn't charge Flynn, he didn't charge Manafort, he didn't charge Gates with collusion, who was colluding?

By the way, he didn't charge Papadopoulos with it either. And Carter Page is a wild card out there. We don't know what's going to happen with him. He hasn't been charged with anything yet, but we don't know what's going to happen. And then, one more thought. As far as the president himself is concerned. This is all a political process. He is not going to be charged with a crime and dragged into a courtroom. He would be impeached. of collusion, right? If there's none of that, and yet Trump has been accused of obstruction, it's a very hard political case to make for obstruction of justice over a crime that didn't happen. You've heard Trump already test drive defenses. He said, you know, they attack,

they attack, they attack, and when you fight back, they call it obstruction. You go to the Senate, where most of the people aren't lawyers. We think of Congress as all lawyers, but they're not. They're politicians. And you say, are you telling me I'm going to be impeached for obstructing an investigation into something that didn't happen? I think it's a very powerful political argument for the president. And here again, it's all a political process, which is why I think Trump may actually be looking okay in this investigation as long as he doesn't do something like fire Robert

Mueller. Right, right. And to convict in the Senate requires a two-thirds vote. They would never get close to two-thirds without some underlying crime. These are basically citizen legislatures. I looked this up the other day. In the mid-19th century, 80% of members of Congress were lawyers. Today, it's about 37%.

So there are a lot of citizen legislators in Congress. I mean, they're full-time members of Congress now. Unfortunately, we don't have a part-time Congress. We have a full-time Congress, but they didn't come from the online. You mean they put in more work but have much less idea what they're actually doing, roughly. Yes, that's right. So listen, Rob and James want to get another bite at you each, I think. But I have one question that I just can't resist.

James Comey's book is coming out, and it looks as though at about the same time, the IG report, the inspector general, will issue his report. Who's going to win? Well, you may think that because you read an article by me saying that. Correct. Correct. Yeah, as always. Now, you know, you just can that because you read an article by me saying that. Correct, correct. Yeah, as always. Now, you know, you just can't listen to this guy. I'm telling you, you can't believe this Byron York guy because now it appears that the IG report may come out more like around the 1st of May.

And so Comey's book, I think the publication date is April 17. Big rollout, primetime rollout with Stephanopoulos on ABC. And then he goes to the late show with Stephen Colbert. And then he goes on The View. And then it's time for Rachel Maddow. Big rollout. It's an interview with David Remnick in New York. Tickets $97 apiece. You know, I think that there's going to be significant pushback, depending on some of what he says.

Certainly, the Inspector General report is not going to look great for the FBI's handling of the Hillary Clinton email affair. And by the way, if some of your listeners, some of my Twitter followers think the IG report is going to be about the whole thing about Trump-Russia investigation and all of that. It's going to be about the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But there's a lot for the FBI to look bad about in there. And so I think it's going to be incredibly interesting to see this kind of confluence of the IG report and the Comey book and book extravaganza rollout. Well, speaking of going on television, we've got Stormy Daniels. I never thought I would see the day when a porn star going on television to allege having an affair with the president while his wife was nursing their newborn would be the least important story of the day. It's just sort of chatter.

It's a footnote. People, if you want to say something, I mean, this is the used Trojan baked in the cake. People factored this in an awful long time ago. But that's how it is. So there's no fallout from this, is there? I mean, he was right. He could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue or have a stand up in the alleyway and it wouldn't make a difference to people. It's just that's who

he is. I knew it. Hillary was worse. But there has to be some sort of fallout for this. Or isn't there? Well, we'll see. I mean, we'll see what she says. First of all, on the story, you know, Stormy Daniels' story about meeting Trump

in the golf tournament and all of that. she's actually told it before and told it in fairly great detail to a magazine called In Touch in 2011. Just look it up. You can read the whole thing. She goes on and on and on about his tastes and what they do in the hotel room and all of this stuff. So I don't know how much else she's going to say, except it'll be on TV. The interesting parts, I guess, for us serious political people, will be, you know, the Trump payoff.

You know, they dropped hints that somebody threatened her. And so it'll be interesting to from the fact that the Supreme Court ruled that he had to answer this private lawsuit. And so here we are, president, private lawsuit. And there's more against Trump that he will have to deal with as well. But as I went back and looked, there were tons of people, this is the Paula Jones. Tons of people, including Democrats, saying to Clinton, just settle this case. Pay this woman some money so she'll shut up and go away. And Clinton wouldn't do it. He had a chance to settle it for, I think, $25,000, and he wouldn't do it. And then after the impeachment trial, after this had all come to one smoking ruin, he pays her $850,000 to settle the case. So, I mean, there's kind of a tradition now for a president to pay off a woman to be quiet. But we'll see how it works in a Stormy Daniels case.

So York to Trump, pay her off, you fool. And the other ones, too. I mean, you know, because remember, you remember it, don't you? Everybody who was saying... I'm too young myself, of course, but Rob remembers. Thank you very much. Everybody who was saying to President Clinton, settle the case, please.

We're begging you, settle the case. What were they saying? They were saying pay her some money to be quiet, you know? Hey, just to What were they saying? They were saying, pay her some money to be quiet. Hey, just to go from elevated matters to sort of more filthy lucre, as we say, this said, I'm not signing this. I'm thinking about vetoing it. It doesn't have anything I want in it. And then there's sort of all these sort of tons of types on Fox News this morning, et cetera,

and the usual sort of amen chorus, amening him vigorously. Now it looks like he's going to sign it. We don't know if he's going to sign it or not, but it looks like he's going to sign it. And if he signs it, you know, I'll sign it about probably the next 10, 15 minutes. So by the time anyone's listening to this podcast,

it'll already be done. But two thoughts, two questions for you, Byron. One is what's your prediction? Is he going to sign it or not? And the second is how long can the president do this to his supporters, get them all riled up over one thing and hugely supportive over one thing and then betray them, essentially? Is there any moment at which the Fox and Friends, they'll say, well, you know, before I before I agree with the president, I'm going to first find out for sure what he's going to do.

Well, this actually could be the shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue question. I mean, is there some sort of thing like not building the wall that is actually finally the thing that he could shoot on Fifth Avenue and get in trouble for? Yeah, I think he's going to sign it. I don't think there's a whole lot of uh choice right now but it does appear that he really uh kind of got taken in this and i some of it's kind of baffling i mean yes trump had talked about getting more money from the military all the time and they got more money from the military that's what republicans had talked about and trump had also been fairly honest about look i had to give Democrats a bunch of stuff so we

could get money for the military. They just demanded it, and that's what I had to do. Actually, that's a fairly frank admission of the way the system works. So I have no trouble with that. But for his followers to have screwed up the wall thing so much, when it appeared there was a very clear deal to be made, which is wall for DACA. $25 billion in an escrow account or a trust fund or whatever they call it, $25 million, signed, sealed, delivered. Money's there for the wall in exchange for DACA. Doesn't get it. Doesn't get it. Got what, $1.8 billion for border security? And Nancy Pelosi said if he wants to call it a wall or think he's got money for the wall, he can just do that. So it's disastrous on that level and on a bunch of other levels and certainly all the the actual fiscal conservatives fiscal hawks in congress and certainly trump is not a fiscal hawk we all

knew that are you know pretty appalled by it but on the other hand they being appalled is something they do fairly regularly it's around spending bill time byron you know i'm just thinking ahead to the the day when America says we want to return to normalcy and elect the most boring people possible. And we're back to discussing just dull financial tables and the rest of it. But you'll still manage to make it interesting. And we thank you for that. Thanks for coming on the show today. And we'll talk to you later.

Thank you, guys. Thank you, Byron. Bye-bye. Thanks, Byron. That today. And we'll talk to you later. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Byron. Thanks. Bye-bye. Thanks, Byron. That's my theory. Okay, thanks, guys. You know, you're not going to have – I mean, if there's impeachment, it's not necessarily specific things that Trump has done. It's just the existence of Trump that motivates these people.

Yes. I mean, it's just the very absolute fact that he's there and his existence on planet Earth. Even though, of course, they were perfectly content to watch him on television and applaud him when he was a good Democrat. But now, no, he is the enemy. He is the worst thing ever to happen in the history of the world, which you might say if you didn't know anything about the history of the world. If you want to know more about the history of the world, I advise you pronto to go to The Great Courses Plus. Yes, this is an ad, and here's how it goes. The Great Courses Plus is an easy and it's a fun way to learn from some of the brightest minds,

top professors, experts about virtually anything that interests you. You can brush up on your world history while you're driving. You can explore the universe from your living room. You can learn how to take better photos while you're on a walk. Unlimited access to 9,000 lectures, over 9,000, that you can watch or listen to whenever you want. We recommend, for example, A History of Eastern Europe. One lecture in particular you might find interesting, given the recent elections in Europe, is called The Origins of Nationalism.

And in this lecture, after considering distinctions between civil and ethnic nationalism, you'll study a number of 19th century revolutions that swept across the region and reflect how defeat in these revolutions paved the way for empires. You can't understand the 20th century without understanding the 19th. There's so much to discover in The Great Courses Plus, and as one of our listeners, you'll get a free trial to watch or to listen to any of these fantastic lectures. But you need to go to our special URL, start exploring today, and show your support of our show by signing up for your free trial at thegreatcoursesplus.com slash

Ricochet. That's thegreatcoursesplus.com slash Ricochet. And we thank them for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Well, gentlemen, before we go out, have you deleted Facebook yet? I've actually given it thought. I'm not sure how to delete it. You can't. They still have the stuff.

Rob, how about you? Well, I have not deleted it, but I'm never on it. I don't do anything on it. Neither am I. I like Instagram because it's just a picture. I can scroll through pictures and I just like that better. I like Twitter because random people I don't know get on and make complete fools of themselves. That's true.

The way that people feel compelled to be their worst self on Twitter, I just find absolutely fascinating. But what we're learning maybe apparently is that Facebook

swung the election for Donald Trump. Nobody has ever seen a meme, a story, a quote, a line, a funny picture

on Facebook that made them vote contrary to their political instincts. Or am I wrong? I agree. I think you're absolutely totally right. I mean, I think that there's an enormous amount of data

and there are enormous amount of conclusions that you can draw from that data that people are discovering exist. And they are terrified. It doesn't mean that those data companies, Facebook being one of them, are somehow nefarious. It's just that there's an extraordinary amount of things I can know about you if I know who your friends are,

where you are, and what you've clicked on. And I think people just, we all have to think we're individuals and we're unique and in order to know something about me, you need to know stuff, you need to know stuff. You need to know specific details about me, and that just simply isn't true. We're not all precious snowflakes.

We're, in fact, highly quantifiable, highly classifiable, highly predictable unoriginal organisms. People on Ricochet were saying, gosh, we need another social network. We need another one where people can get together and talk and share things, and it's not necessarily political. Sometimes it is. We need to get away from these enormous machines that exist only to hoover us up. If you're not paying anybody money, then you're the product, right? If you're giving this to people, then they're selling you to somebody else. If only there was a place where people could contribute their own money and have skin in the game, as a great man once said, that place would be Ricochet. So dump your Facebook.

Dump your Facebook. Go to Ricochet. Sign up. And if you also want to encourage the best person you can be, thegreatcourses.com. Quip for toothbrushes and bomb fill for your clothing will make you somebody with white teeth, a smart head, and a sharp look as you walk down the street. What other site brings you opportunities like this? And, hey, folks, if you enjoyed the show, you can go to iTunes, leave a little review. Those reviews help surface the show so more people listen, more people join.

And how much is that podcast listener tier, Rob? $2.50 a month. It's basically free, but you are right. If you don't want to be a product, you should be a member. That's what we offer you. We don't sell stuff to you. We don't collect any data. We just take a little bit of your money and we give you great content and a great community. And we like to think that we figured it out. Well, Rob is in Miami and he's got to go to the airport. So on behalf of Rob and Peter, I'm James Lallix here in Minneapolis and saying,

way you go next week, boys. Thanks. Thanks fellas. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 Ricochet. Join the conversation. Outro Music you you