The Ricochet Podcast - Life On Mars

Episode Date: July 27, 2018

This week, we visit with Republican candidate for Senate in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Beth Lindstom, who’s running a valiant attempt to unseat someone by the name of Elizabeth Warren. No idea who she is. Then, our old friend Toby Young stops by to discuss his recent experience with the digital pitchfork and torch mob on the internet and what we ought to do about it (do read his fantastic... Source

Looking for reliable IT solutions for your business? At Innovate, we are the IT solutions people for businesses across Ireland. From network security to cloud productivity, we handle it all. Installing, managing, supporting and reporting on your entire IT and telecoms environment so you can focus on what really matters, growing your business. Whether it's communications or security, Innovate has you covered. Visit Innovate today. Innovate. The IT solutions people. Orthotics, designed for your unique feet. If you want to free your feet and joints from pain,

improve balance, or correct alignment, book a free foot assessment at footsolutions.ie or pop in store today. Foot Solutions, the first step towards pain-free feet. 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.

We're financing. We'll have to pay you, so... No, no, no, no, no, no. I got... Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson and Rob Long. I'm James Lylex, and today we talk to Beth Lindstrom, running against Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts, and Toby Young, who's facing the Twitter mobs in England. Let's have ourselves a podcast.

Bye-bye. What's Burrow? Well, owning a couch from hell is like a rite of passage when you're young, right? After all those years of suffering, you owe it to yourself to experience the comfort and quality of a Burrow couch. Customize your own Burrow and get $75 off your order by going to burrow.com slash ricochet. And we're brought to you by Lending Club. Now, for decades, credit cards have been telling you to buy now and pay later with lots of interest. Well, despite your best intentions, that interest can get out of control fast. Go to LendingClub.com slash Ricochet now. And we're brought to you by HelloFresh.

HelloFresh is a meal kit delivery service that chops and plans and delivers your favorite step-by-step recipes and pre-measured ingredients. You just eat, cook, and enjoy. Or maybe cook, eat, and enjoy. The order is up to you. $30 off your first week of HelloFresh. Visit HelloFresh.com and enter the promo code RICOSHAY30. And we're also brought to you by – well, Rob's here to introduce a new tortured bit, which will go on for a while. It's where some of the people behind the scenes at Ricochet conspire to make Rob say good things about Trump.

It's not even some of the people. It's only one. It's Max Ledoux, who's director of technical operations, which I was not aware we had one of those until I saw this copy. So he's also apparently director of making up very, very interesting – technical operations doesn't even sound close to what he does actually. I mean he does that plus a million things more. But he's written a member pitch that I'm going to read now partly, and he thinks it's hilarious that I'm going to say nice things about Donald Trump. I will say nice things about Donald Trump anytime. I'll say a nice thing about Donald Trump right now. He made the Plaza Hotel really nice when he – and he is – that was a really great tax bill. Did anything happen today that you can say that's nice about Donald Trump?

Max, there – no, it's 8 a.m. where I am, but probably no. Max, James Laddick's here in Minneapolis. Don't you think that the renovation of the Plazaaza was a tad gaudy, though? I mean, guilt everywhere. Guilt and guilt. Guilt everywhere to begin. Not always. Say what you want about Donald Trump, but he told Kevin where the telephone was. Oh, there you go.

Oh, that's right. That's right. I'll just take the first part of it. Here at Ricochet, we've always tried to fill a need that we saw on the right for something. News analysis, intellectual discussion, soothing voices along the lines of what NPR does for the left. You know, just that we're not going to get any money from the government. That's that's kind of how it works. Unless, of course, Donald Trump would like to send us a billion dollars the way he's sending farmers a billion dollars, just like Walter – President Walter Mondale would do.

Of course, we'd accept that just as they will, but he's probably not going to do that because I said last week he's mentally – I just saw the copy right now, so let me start it again. This is too long. This is too hard for me to read cold, okay? All right. Let me start it again let's start too long this is too this is too hard for me to read uh uh uh cold okay all right um let me do it again ready three two one here at ricochet.com we've always tried to fill a need that we saw on the right for something news analysis and intellectual discussions soothing voices along the lines of what npr does for the left just like npr is free to listen to over the airwaves ricochet audio network is free to listen to at ricochet.com itunes stitcher google play or your favorite podcast app however unlike npr we don't receive any federal funding and of course we wouldn't want to take any unless donald trump elected send us a billion dollars like he is for

the farmers to make up for his idiotic trade policy that max didn't write that but he should have um that we would accept because of course it's a, all socialist liberal presidents like to lavish federal subsidies on things. Why not us too? But he's probably not going to do that because, of course, we are not in an important state that he's losing. And as I said last week, he is mentally ill, even though in reality he's the best, most conservative president of all time if you are mentally ill as well. You know, Max, and Max wrote this. He's even listening to this. He is a big Trump supporter and he keeps on trying to slip in pro-Trump statements into

these member pitches like I am Ron Burgundy. But it's not working because everyone knows where I stand on Trump. But that's, you know, what's great about Ricochet. We have pro-Trump members and not pro-Trump members. And we have some squabbles sometimes, but we all try to get along because we're all on the same side of the aisle when it comes to the important stuff. And we have some squabbles sometimes, but we all try to get along because we're all on the same side of the aisle when it comes to the important stuff. And we have a code of conduct at Ricochet. So if any of us gets a little excited, we have moderators who step in and remind us to calm down. And they are the lifeblood of this place, believe me. Look, we do have expenses.

It takes money to run the best conservative center, right? Discussion website and podcast net podcast network. Believe me. So if you're already a member of Ricochet.com, we thank you and ask you to try out some of our sponsors products, which, of course, James so artfully describes, especially today's sponsors. And please use the coupon codes. They know that we sent you. But if you're not a member. Well, we thank you for listening.

We hope you'll also try our sponsors' products. But please also become a podcast listener member at the ricochet.com slash join for just $2.50 a month. It's a way for you to support the podcast that you're already listening to for free. And you will also be able to join the conversation by commenting on podcasts at ricochet.com. And you'll be able to read our member feed as well. And we really need you. So ricochet.com and you'll be able to read our member feed as well and we really need you so ricochet.com join pause the show right now because a lot of people have been planning to do this and haven't done it but now's a perfect time to do it pause the show right now go to ricochet.com and join thank you and if you don't pause we'll pause for you ready three two one oh i can't take any

more dead air that That's just painful. If you spend a little time on the radio, you know that's a hard thing to endure. But one of the easiest things to endure in life is the genial gentle temperament of Ricochet's own Mr. Roberts, Peter Robertson. Peter Robertson? Peter Robertson.

I'm just going to put it all together to make you our sort. I mean, Rob is the excitable East Coast nervy guy, right? And you're the laid back metal California founder. Oh, really? Oh, is that what it has come to that? It's come to come to total distortion, I guess. Just kidding, because it'll be fun when eventually we ramp you up and people say, what happened to that nice man? He got passionate about things. And we know you're passionate about things, Peter. And here's something we're all passionate about this week. You can talk about whatever scandals, whatever collusion, whatever missteps, statements, what counts as the economy, isn't it? I mean, what really matters in the political equations at the end of the election cycle is the economy.

And we're doing pretty good. We're doing extremely well. The latest report is up over 4%. GDP growth in the last quarter. Quarters get adjusted, sometimes up, sometimes down. But the economy is doing extremely well. More notably, it's not just doing well at the top and it's not just doing well at the stock market.

It's doing well at the stock market uh it's doing well for at the level of employment unemployment is at the low depending on which group you're talking about unemployment overall is very low unemployment for some one group in particular african-americans is at the lowest point in something like over three decades however that ain't all there is in politics i'm sorry to say uh the latest polls show Republicans losing ground. Donald Trump's very, very, very bad week last week showed up in his approval ratings. He's down to the low 40s from the mid 40s. More to the point, as far as I'm concerned, what I care about at the moment is holding out of the House and, if possible, picking up a seat or two in the Senate.

The generic poll shows the Democrats back up by seven, eight percent. The general thinking is Republicans can hold out of the House if the generic poll shows Democrats with a lead of three percent or less. And it's very hard for Republicans to hold out of the House or pick up seats in the Senate. Senate's a little trickier because it's much more a matter of state by state races, but still harder for the Republicans to hold the House if the Democrats have a lead of 7 percent. And they're at over 7 percent right now. Long time until November, but still.

The economy is great. All the president had to do was let it rip. And my new campaign plan for Donald Trump is go play golf. Just stay on the course. That actually is a very good – that's good political advice for a lot of presidents. I mean they always find that most presidents do better when they're – they disappear and they shut up. Shutting up is a great, great option. But unfortunately for most politicians and this this president really in specific, that's impossible. But it would be a really smart move.

It would. It would. Well, now, wait a minute. I'm supposed to be the pro Trump guy here. I'll think that over, James. Get on with the show. I'll come up with something no i mean look like the weird thing about donald trump is that um half of the advice you did that or half of the criticisms that you make and make of him you can make i mean of any president they're just political criticisms i mean the the strange thing is when you're sometimes when you're arguing with like you know those kind of wide-eyed crazy anti-trumpers they look at every single thing and every single indication as validation that he's just terrible, including really kind of the most boilerplate political events that you could imagine, like having trouble holding on to the House in the midterms.

Barack Obama had trouble doing that. Bill Clinton did. Ronald Reagan had trouble doing that. George W. Bush had trouble doing that. Having trouble doing that is not a sign that you're in trouble. It's – or a sign that you're in trouble. It's – or a sign that you're uniquely incompetent. The same thing that the pro-Trumpers have that problem too, that any criticism of him is sort of tossed away and like, no, you don't understand.

He's playing five-dimensional chess. 60 percent of what this president does is just, in my opinion, good policy by a politically inept – or inadroit person is sort of generally crackpot. make no sense of anything going on regarding russia or the cool or the collusiony stuff i don't under every roundup i read byron york has the best pieces yes i agree about it just most most yes but i'll read them and then read them again and read them again i still don't get it i don't get it what is what do we – what – if it's all true, what does it matter? I don't – it seems like at the most it was a dirty campaign trick that was not even really that effective. I mean does anybody really think that he won because Russia – Yes. Oh, a lot of people do think that.

And not only do they think that, but they're under the belief that Donald Trump is an agent of Putin. That they've got all of this information on him. Compromise. Compromise. And they're making him do their bidding. And when you point out that nearly everything that this administration has done in foreign policy is inimical to Russian interests from our energy output. It does not compute. It's like, well, it doesn't matter.

There was collusion and he's got something on him. I think they're expecting at some point down the road that all of a sudden Donald Trump will rip off his mask and cackle madly and say, I recognize the consumption of Crimea. I'm stopping domestic energy. I'm taking everything away from the polls. It's nuts. But on the other hand, you have what we saw yesterday, this week ongoing with Cohen saying that daddy knew what Sonny was going to do when it came to meeting with a Russian agent, which is not exactly, again, proof that they hacked the election and stole it from Hillary, but that their instincts were stupid, that they made really boneheaded, naive decisions when it came to talking to people. I mean, how dumb do you have to be to go and talk to a Russian lady who says – and then just tell everybody it's about an adoption law, which is nonsense.

But you're right, Rob. I mean, nobody can make a lot of sense of this, and it just drones on and on and on, and nobody pays really that much of attention to it. As I wrote in the Post in a ricochet, it's like your refrigerator compressor coming on and then going off and then coming on and then going on. It's just a sort of background noise. When the ice maker tumbles, yeah. When the ice maker tumbles, when the ice maker actually bursts, that's different. That's different. That's different. But for the left, every single time Rachel Maddow opens her mouth, it's 100 pounds of ice chundering into a motel bucket in a small closet. revealing what actually people actually said to each other or the inner workings of the DNC had any impact on anyone voting at all. I mean the weird conflation of Russian meddling and also the bots on Facebook spreading rumors and lies – the bots on Facebook spreading rumors and lies is true.

We know that that happened. Yes. Yes. And we know that that happened in not only in the United States in the 2016, but it happened in Prague in 1937. That was it's still not i don't know i don't know who who goes to jail i mean maybe you go to jail if you uh violate uh you know fec financing rules campaign finance rules and you use um looking for reliable it solutions for your business at innovate we are the IT solutions people for businesses across Ireland. From network security to cloud productivity, we handle it all. Installing, managing, supporting and reporting on your entire IT and telecoms environment so you can focus on what really matters, growing your business. Whether it's communications or security, Innovate has you covered. Visit Innovate today. Innovate. The IT solutions people.

Don't let foot pain or discomfort hold you back. At Foot Solutions, we specialize in high-quality supportive footwear. And use the latest scanning technology to custom-make orthotics designed for your unique feet. If you want to free your feet and joints from pain, improve balance or correct alignment, book a free foot assessment at footsolutions.ie or pop in store today. Foot Solutions, the first step towards pain-free feet. Looking for reliable IT solutions for your business?

At Innovate, we are the IT solutions people for businesses across Ireland. Thank you. Whether it's communications or security, Innovate has you covered. Visit Innovate today. Innovate, the IT solutions people. Campaign contributions to pay off, you know, your girlfriend, I guess. Although even that feels like a fine to me. But maybe if you really hate the guy, you put somebody in prison. I mean, that could happen. But again, the weird thing about all of this stuff is that it functionary has not gone to jail or paid a giant fine for election law, federal campaign finance law violations? I mean the answer is probably I think no. Well, no, and what worries some people is that Mueller's investigation is ever-expanding.

Now we're to look at tweets and whether or not they constituted the obstruction of justice. Now we're going to look at whether or not Trump declared in his taxes the coins that fell out of his pocket and in between the sofa cushions. Speaking of which, if you've ever – Oh, wow. Oh. Speaking of which, if we're going to come to that. That's fair.

That's fair. Speaking of which, all right. We have a guest to get to in a short amount of time. And I simply – I wanted to – it's knowing – it's that moment when I know that Rob's guard is down. And sometimes instead of – And you usually use that moment to couch your – Right. Yes, precisely.

Instead of putting up the rapier and saying, I'm guard, I just took my gladius, my short Roman knife, and just stabbed him right between the ribs. Anyway, on that note, yes, speaking of couches, everybody's got a story about the couch that they hated, the couch from hell. It was too expensive. It was too heavy. It was too cheap. It was too worn. It was something they picked up on a boulevard in college, and they never got rid of it. You know, I had one of those, and mine was a futon couch of all things, so it was uncomfortable for your back, and it hurt your butt and your spine.

Listen, only if Burrow had been around when I was in college. It's amazing how a Burrow couch in your office or your home will give you a sense of style and comfort. Everything about it is easy. Well, let me tell you about this. You owe it to yourself, frankly, to experience the comfort and the quality of a Burrow couch. Burrow brings style and comfort to a whole new level, and it ships it right to your door, fast and free. Have you ever tried to get a couch up with a friend up the stairs, up the stairs around the corner? You don't have to worry about that with Burrow.

Your relationship with your couch will never be the same from the moment you open it out of the box. They're ergonomically designed, so I'm comfortable while I just sit with my feet tucked around the edge. I have a burrow chair. That's right, they make chairs, too. And it's great for reading and curling up if you're my wife. You can customize your burrow to match your style

by selecting the color, the size, the armorist height, and the leg color. I got the light Scandinavian modern color because, frankly, there's one room I'm going to do entirely in sort of mid-century modern, and the burrow fits right in. Shipping, it's fast and it's free, unlike the rest of the furniture industry. And did I mention that it's got a built-in USB charger?

And you may roll your eyes at this and say, oh, what does it? Oh, let me tell you all the things that don't have a built-in USB charger. But if you're right there reading something on your pad or your phone and you go low on power, you can plug into your sofa, which is really kind of awesome. Listen, 30 days of cozy enjoyment on your comfortable burrow, risk-free, or try out Burrow at one of their partner showrooms today. Customize your own burrow and get $75 off your order by going to burrow.com slash ricochet. That's B-U-R-R-O-W dot com slash ricochet for $75 off your order by going to burrow.com slash ricochet. That's B-U-R-R-O-W.com slash ricochet for $75 off your purchase. Burrow, they make the luxury couch for real life. And our thanks to Burrow for sponsoring this, the Ricochet Podcast. I got to tell you, it was easy to set up and I

love to look at this thing. It makes Ikea look like a complicated sort of genetic sequencing program. You're going to love your borough. Borough.com. All right. Joining us now, Beth Lindstrom, mother, wife, and small business owner. She was the first woman executive director of the Massachusetts Republican Party, and she served as director of the Consumer Affairs and Governor Mitt Romney's cabinet.

She has an MBA from Northeastern, and she is currently running for the United States Senate in Massachusetts as a Republican against, what's that name? Oh, yes, Elizabeth Warren. You can help Beth at bethforsenate.com. Beth, Peter Robinson here. My colleagues, James Lilacs and Rob Long, are going to want to jump in, but let me get in the first question, which is this. Are you running to win? Can it really be done against Elizabeth Warren in that most liberal of states, Massachusetts, in this year when Republicans seem to be having trouble? Or are you running for fun to make a point? What are you up to?

No, absolutely running to win. And the notion that she cannot be beat is absolutely a myth. I mean, her negatives have started at 40 percent for about two to three years. And that is something that is a reason why I got into the race, because as a sitting U.S. senator, to have a 40 percent disapproval rating is pretty high. And this is what I'm hearing going out around this state. I mean, people have a visceral reaction to her, and that is what's important here. She absolutely can be beat. When you look at the numbers here in Massachusetts and you take some of the Democrats out of the equation and look at unenrolled, which is 60% of our voters here, her negative skyrocket. So absolutely. And I will say I have been a Republican for 30 years. I've helped elect three Republican governors and I ran Scott Brown's first race here when he ran and won as a U.S. senator. So it can be done. Absolutely. All right. So you just mentioned Republican governors. Charlie Baker, your current Republican governor of

Massachusetts, according to numbers I looked at just the other day, has the highest approval rating of any governor, Republican or Democrat in the entire country. How much of that is Charlie Baker and how much of that is ordinary people in Massachusetts just getting tired of the Democratic establishment? I think it's a combination of both. and that's what I hear, too. Charlie has the ability to work with many people, and when I was up in Governor Romney's cabinet, that's what I did also, being able to work across the aisle and to create relationships. That's what it's all about, and that's what he's been able to do. And that's why he's so popular, because he's actually delivering results for the people here in Massachusetts.

Unlike Elizabeth Warren, who cannot create a relationship, she's incapable of doing that because people don't trust her down there. When you look at the Regulatory Relief Act, and she threw 16 of her colleagues under the bus when they were working together in a bipartisan manner. So, yeah, absolutely, People are tired of it. But they also like I said, there's a big chunk of unenrolled independent voters in the middle that that really like unenrolled. Maybe Massachusetts unenrolled may be a term specific to Massachusetts. What that means they haven't registered to vote yet or they simply haven't declared in one party or the other. So you have to do a voter drive in addition to getting yourself your name recognition. No, no. Explain that unenrolled.

What do you mean by that? So it's really kind of interesting because a long time ago, a couple of computer tech guys created a party called the Independent Voter Party. So when you call people independent in Massachusetts, which normally you would say everywhere else, it could be confused with the Independent Voter Party. So most people call themselves unenrolled. I see. But they're still themselves unenrolled. I see. But they're still independent. Got it. Okay.

Hey, Beth, it's Rob Long from L.A. Thank you for joining us. So I have a couple questions. One, this is sort of maybe silly, but I know you worked for Mitt Romney. I'm an old Bay State resident, not during Rom Romney but under Dukakis and Weld and – I think Dukakis and Weld pretty much is when I lived there. So I'm really familiar with the state, but my memory of the state is old, right? So I have an old – but if you were working for Mitt Romney and you were the director of consumer affairs, does that mean that at some point your name was in that famous binder? Yes.

Matter of fact, so let me tell you this story. I actually helped Mitt. I was an advisor to him as he ran for governor. He was in Utah, and I went over to his house and started his campaign, starting the convention and then running many large events, running his inauguration for him. And then I went to work for him on his cabinet. So, yes, actually, and I felt so bad for him because truly this was back when we didn't have a lot of email. It was just starting. So he wanted to be so inclusive of, you know, many women to be involved in his cabinet. So he, he asked for resumes and they were put in binders. And

unfortunately that was just him being honest. And yes, I was in the binder. That's good. I guess that was the first thing I thought of. So the second thing is, is there's a the leader of the Republican Party right now, the national leaders, the president, United States. How how helpful is that right now in Massachusetts or how unhelpful? And how do you plan to thread that needle? Because if I'm Elizabeth Warren and I'm running against Beth Lindstrom, I'm going to use your name maybe one time out of ten. And nine times out of ten, I'm going to say Donald Trump. Yes, she cannot wait to run against Donald Trump. She's had on her website, help me stop Donald Trump.

When she was at the Massachusetts Democrat Convention, she mentioned Massachusetts once and always talked about Donald Trump and said, if I'm getting under your skin, just wait. I'm just getting started. So her aspiration is to run for president and to run against Donald Trump. So I'll remind everybody that she's not running against Donald Trump. But where I stand on the president is I say I will be with him when it's right for the people of Massachusetts, and I will be against him when it's not. But I'll always respect the office of the president. And I say also that I've served on boards, and I've served on many executive teams. And if you always check the box or if you never say anything, then you're not doing your job. And I would believe that the people in Massachusetts would want someone who's got an independent mind, gather data, gather the people around the table, and come up with a solution.

And most times people nod their heads and they say, yep, yep, I get that, I agree. And I do agree with the president on many of his issues, tax reform, immigration, deregulation, what he's doing in North Korea. But I do say, on the other hand, I disagree with the three Ts, and I call that tone, temperament, and Twitter. So people start nodding their heads again and they say, yep, yep, we agree with all that too. Now do you think – Massachusetts is a weird state because you have two problems. One is you've got to get Massachusetts Republicans to nominate you, right?

So you've got a primary in September. And then you got to run against the big dog. Yes, absolutely. But in our primary, independents can vote. So we go from a convention of 2,500 people now to a voter turnout that could be from 150 to 300,000 people. And that's where independents can come and vote. And they are interested because this year, actually, our governor does have a primary. There was a gentleman who got on the ballot, so Charlie Baker doesn't take anything for granted.

And he'll get out the vote for his folks. So there will be a lot of attention. There's not much attention on the Democrat side here for that governor's race. So there will be, and the U.S. Senate race really is the primary to watch here. Now, I have, since our convention, encouraged my two opponents to debate, and they've been hiding. They've been ducking. And so we've accepted about nine invitations, and I will show up. And if there's empty seats, that's what's going to happen to our opponents. But yeah, they're shying away. But primaries are good. We need to show people our differences. And I'm all agreed on that. I got one last question. So are you from New England originally? Yes, I actually grew up in Connecticut, but my father was from Worcester and my mom from Sutton and spent many summers up there.

So, yeah. So you can use that against her? I've been here in Massachusetts a long time. You can use that against her? Well, I think it's a fact. I mean, as somebody who's been in the state for a very long time, I moved here right out of college. I went to UConn undergrad and I moved here right after. So I've been in the state a long time and been traveling around the state and listening to a lot, a lot of people who truly don't believe that she shares their values. And this is what's showing up and she knows it. And that's why she's been

doing these town halls in year six to show that she's in touch, but she's not because she is running for president. And that puts her in conflict with everything that would be supportive of how people really feel in mass. That was really my last question. It's like how – it is clear that she's doing a lot of town halls, but she's also doing a lot of town halls in Iowa and New Hampshire. How tough are you going to be about that? Well, we've already had – I believe we have a PDF maybe on our website at bethforsenate.com that shows every state that she's been to. And they're all swing states for the 2020 presidential election.

So clearly she is running. She went from saying she's not running for president to saying, I am running for the U.S. Senate in 2018. Well, of course, everything is present tense. So she needs to be honest with the people of Massachusetts, and I will absolutely challenge her on her honesty because that is something that people truly believe that she's not being with them. Ms. Lindstrom, James Lilex here in Minneapolis, Minnesota. You know, when we here in the Midwest think of Massachusetts, we think of coastal elites and working class salt of the earth types. In Minnesota, though, usually thought of as a liberal bastion, the outstate, the rural and the industrial parts of the state went Trump. We got purple. In Massachusetts, is there a comparable population that's not urban, not connected to schools, not connected to the media, not connected to finance, but is out there farming or working in a small factory

or a mine or the rest of it that is also trending purple. I mean, when you said that Warren wasn't their type, it's not just cultural. Here is a disconnect where people feel you don't care about us. You don't get us. You don't care. Is that going to turn Massachusetts purple someday? Well, I can't predict that. But what I do know is what I hear. And I have been out to Western Mass. I've been out to the Berkshires. Yesterday, I was down in Fall River, Massachusetts, and I was

going around with a former ex-mayor who was a Democrat who said his Democrat mother this time said, I cannot vote for her. He helped her in 2012. That's not going to happen again. Don't let foot pain or discomfort hold you back. At Foot Solutions, we specialize in high quality supportive footwear and use the latest scanning technology to custom make orthotics designed for your unique feet.

If you want to free your feet and joints from pain, improve balance or correct alignment, book a free foot assessment at footsolutions.ie or pop in store today. Foot Solutions, the first step towards pain-free feet. Looking for reliable IT solutions for your business? At Innovate, we are the IT solutions people for businesses across Ireland.

From network security to cloud productivity, we handle it all. Installing, managing, supporting and reporting on your entire IT and telecoms environment so you can focus on what really matters, growing your business. Whether it's communications or security, Innovate has you covered. Visit Innovate today. Innovate, the IT solutions people. Don't let foot pain or discomfort hold you back. At Foot Solutions, we specialize in high quality supportive footwear and use the latest scanning technology to custom make orthotics

designed for your unique feet. If you want to free your feet and joints from pain, improve balance, or correct alignment, book a free foot assessment at footsolutions.ie or pop in store today. Foot Solutions, the first step towards pain-free feet. So we are seeing this sea change because people feel she's not the same person she was in 2012. And let me say also, when she won and beat Scott Brown in 2012, it was a presidential year. That's very tough in Massachusetts. Obama turned out the vote. He won by 23%.

She only won by 7%. So she was a flawed candidate behind that. But she did win the woman's vote by almost 20%. So that's why I say to my opponents, what's your 20-point plan to be able to compete? And that's why my pitch is that I'd be the best person to go up against her in the general election. But there are a lot of pockets where things, the dynamic of the cities and the towns are changing because they are feeling the effects of tax reform. They are seeing, I'm a small business person, I see the effects of tax reform. They are seeing, I'm a small business

person, I see the effects of people spending more money. And people are seeing this and they say, yeah, now I don't feel so left behind because I am seeing some of these benefits of these tax reforms. And that's huge. Beth, Peter Robinson here. One last question, if I may. I know you've got to go, you've got a campaign to run. What's the what's the strategy in the general against Elizabeth Warren? I am going to assume that you're going to write off Cambridge. You can't write off Boston. The population of Boston, you've got to pick. What do you do? You try to get a third of the voters in Boston and then win big in Worcester. Well, what's what's the strategy here for that state?

Sure. And Worcester is a very, very red county. So Worcester can be one. The Cape is huge. Middlesex County up in Lowell area. And there are some conservative Democrats up there that are with me. So you have South Boston, you have West Roxbury. You can get those corners. I've actually been on Haitian radio. I've made some new friends in some of these communities. Really? Is Lowell still heavily Greek? There's a lot, yes. And those people would tend to be pretty conservative Democrats, right? Is that the way that still works? Absolutely. Okay. And you have a shot there.

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. We have a lot of friends there because it's about Elizabeth Warren and where she's going. And people ask me all the time, what has she done? They cannot name anything. And then you tie that with how her tone and temperament is. And that becomes such a negative. So that's why there's opportunity. And I have met so far about 10 Republicans from Cambridge. So they do exist. And they do exist. But but but that's that's who I am. I don't mind going into uncomfortable situations and say and say, here's who I am. I am a right of center. I'm a moderate. I'm someone who will listen, who will be sympathetic, empathetic. And I'm doing this to be helpful to Massachusetts. I don't have an agenda such as Elizabeth Warren has. That's the difference. Someone who is able and has a proven record of being able to work with other people,

create relationships, and be able to produce results. And when being able to work with other people, create relationships, and be able to produce results. And when they hear that, they're like, yeah, that sounds good, because if she's running for president, she's leaving us behind. Beth, you know what? You sound tough, and you sound like you're having fun. And I like both of those. Good luck. Good luck, indeed. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. We look forward to you being demonized as much as Mitt Romney was at the time, which means that you're successful and that you won and you're doing good things. We'll talk to you later. I'm sure it happens.

Thanks. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Thanks so much. Thank you, Beth. Bye-bye. What fun to be a Republican in Massachusetts. At some point, though, don't people look around and say, wait a minute, Elizabeth Warren is an academic type who really holds me and my culture in contempt. But I guess I better vote for her because the other guys are evil.

Rob, Peter, I'm weird. It's very weird. And the same thing works on the right to where they look at the opposition and say, well, the alternative to this is just simply confiscation and statism. Therefore, I have to hold my nose and vote for this person. Oh, my God. You know, it makes you not really want to think about 2018, let alone 2020. So what do you do to amuse yourself? Oh, you look at your finances and then you scream and you go back to politics because

it's less frightening than your finances. Maybe that's because you kind of lean in that credit card a little bit more. You know, for decades, credit cards have been telling you, buy it now and pay for it later with just a little bit of interest, maybe 23%, 27%. You have good intentions about paying it off, but the interest can get out of control fast. With Lending Club, you can consolidate your debt or pay off your credit cards with one, one fixed monthly payment. Doesn't that sound good? It does.

Since 2007, Lending Club has helped millions of people regain control of their finances with affordable, fixed-rate personal loans. No trip to bank, no high-interest credit cards. Just go to LendingClub.com. Tell them about yourself, how much you want to borrow, pick the terms that are right for you, and if you're approved, your loan is automatically deposited into your bank account in as little as a few days. Lending Club is the number one peer-to-peer lending platform with over $36 billion in loans issued. So if you're looking at those cards, if you're looking at those balances, here's what you do.

Go to LendingClub.com slash Ricochet. Check your rate in minutes and borrow up to $40,000. That's LendingClub.com slash Ricochet. Check your rate in minutes and borrow up to $40,000. That's LendingClub.com slash Ricochet. LendingClub.com slash Ricochet. All loans made by WebBank, member FDIC, equal housing lender. And our thanks to LendingClub for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. And now we welcome to the podcast Toby Young. He's the British journalist and former director of the New Schools Network, a free schools charity toby is also the author of how to lose friends and alienate people

which is an account of his stint in new york as a contributing editor at vanity fair magazine and a columnist at the spectator he served as the judge in seasons five and six of the tv show top chef by the way and co-founded the west london free school He's a newly minted editor, associate editor, at Quillette.com. And you can follow him on Twitter at Toadmeister. Toby, we understand that your reputation was set on fire and put into an industrial shredder. Tell us what happened exactly. Well, at the beginning of the year,

I was appointed to a new higher education regulator, a public regulator. And I was I was it was a 15 person board and I was one of three right of center appointees to this board. So the other 12, lots of enemies of the present government thought this was an opportunity to score a hit. So people immediately started trawling through everything I'd ever written, my Twitter feed, everything I'd posted on social media, trying to come up with evidence that I wasn't a fit and proper person to sit on this board. And I thought it was a Twitter storm that would blow over within 24 hours. But nine days later, when I eventually resigned from this board, I was leading the BBC News. So it became, it was the first political scandal of the year i mean it's a pretty slow news week um but nonetheless um uh uh it was a a pretty grueling experience for me and not only did i

end up resigning from the office for students but um of course uh that emboldened uh all the people who come after me who then immediately started demanding I resign from various other positions. And I had to step down as a Fulbright commissioner. I was stripped of my honorary fellowship at Buckingham University. And I had to stand down from the charter schools charity I was running and also the charity I'd set up, the various schools I'd co-founded sit within. So I lost five positions in total as a result of this particular scandal. Which is quite extraordinary. And as you wrote, it's cognitive dissonance that all of these people who've never known you, who've never met you, this is the first day here, suddenly believe that you're a very, very bad person. And none of us like to think that we're a bad person.

So you have to square what they're saying with your knowledge of yourself. But you also wrote, and this is what's interesting, this is the great split right now on the right about the tactics of using the so-called social justice warriors against them. There are those who say, look, new rules. They come after us. We can come after them. And it's going to be trench warfare and mutual immolation for as far as the eye can see. And you think that's a bad idea, right?

Yeah, I'm not particularly sympathetic with that because I've gone through it myself. I mean, the witch hunter's credo is that you should be judged by your worst moments. If you've ever suffered from a lapse of judgment, if you've ever tweeted something inappropriate at 4 a.m. after several glasses of wine, then you should be defined by that. If it was something about a woman's breasts, for instance, as it was in my case, then you are a misogynist and nothing you could possibly do, nothing you've done up until this point can absolve you of that sin. Effectively, particularly if you're a white heteronormative male, you effectively suffer from a form of original sin so deeply imprinted on your soul that you are irredeemable. And having been placed on that ducking stool and gone through that experience, I wouldn't wish it even on my worst enemies.

And I don't think it's fair that anyone should be judged according to some momentary lapse of judgment rather than what they are like in the round, the totality of their behavior. And of course, that doesn't apply to murderers or child molesters and so forth. But if it's just what you breached particular politically correct speech codes, then I don't see why someone should be as harshly judged by that as, for instance, James Gunn has been, the guy who's just been defenestrated by Disney because of tweets, inappropriate things he said on Twitter 10 years ago. For Gunn, it was a body of work.

I mean, it just wasn't a one-off little pedophilia joke he'll advise while hammered. It was a series of things that he wrote in order to establish himself as the edgelord du jour, and it came back to bite him. It wasn't like Bernie Sanders, who could get away with one strange little piece in the newspaper in college about women's rape fantasies. If Bernie had 10, 15 years of that behind him, he'd be in trouble. So the standard then is the one thing ought to be excused, but the body of work ought to be examined. Is that not fair, really, going forward with this new rule situation? Well, I mean, if you're going to examine someone's body of work, shouldn't you examine their entire body of work and not just the body of their Twitter feed and things they've said after kind of midnight. I mean, I think it's difficult. I think the problem is that the standard of public discourse has sunk so low

and everyone is now so vulnerable to ad hominem attacks that, you know, if we on our side embrace those tactics and start trawling through the social media feeds of our political opponents with a view to dredging up inappropriate things they've said, then we are just stooping to their level. I think we should take the higher ground and try and engage in a much more meaningful

and substantial way. Now, I think the strongest argument I've heard for adopting these tactics is that it's the only way to stop them adopting these tactics. But I'm not sure it will. What I fear happening is a kind of ever-spiraling decline in the quality of public discourse in which everyone is just being constantly policed. Their trash is being gone through. Everyone is searching for evidence that they are horrible people. I think that there's an essayist and blogger called Freddie DeBoer who came up with the phrase offense archaeologists. And he was he was saying that's what liberals have been reduced to. But I think we should take advantage of the fact that liberals have been reduced to crawling through people's intellectual trash and ridicule them for it and not actually engage in that behavior ourselves. The background here for people – I mean I think people should know that – I mean you've written sometimes painfully honest, wonderfully here, but was anybody surprised that – you had a few tweets there that were a little bit sharp. Was anybody surprised, truly surprised, or is this pure political opportunism?

I think – yeah. I mean you're quite right. One of the things which did for me is that I put all my sins out there. I've been a self-deprecating memoirist for years. By the way, we should link to these books. They're great. They're really, really good. I mean if you haven't read – you have not enjoyed Toby's writing of this kind. You really, you cheated yourself. You got to read it, but go ahead. I mean, so I, for instance, in my book about crashing and burning in New York at a Vanity Fair, I just have all these friends and alienate people. I talked about how I'd made an inappropriate remark

during the induction tour of the building. So someone had said, the woman showing us around had said, you know, if you ever get lost, you can always consult the model in the lobby, meaning the model of the building. And I said, oh, really? Which one? You know, ha ha, silly sophomoric remark, not exactly Harvey Weinstein territory. And one of my office mates left a memo on my desk the following day. It was like office guidance on sexual harassment. And it was about how inappropriate jokes could be offensive to some people. And I reproduced this anecdote in the book.

And that was actually dredged up by a... Looking for reliable IT solutions for your business? At Innovate, we are the IT solutions people for businesses across Ireland. From network security to cloud productivity, we handle it all. Installing, managing, supporting and reporting on your entire IT and telecoms environment so you can focus on what really matters, growing your business. Whether it's communications or security, Innovate has you covered. Visit Innovate today. Innovate. The IT Solutions people.

Don't let foot pain or discomfort hold you back. At Foot Solutions we specialise in high quality supportive footwear and use the latest scanning technology to custom make orthotics designed for your unique feet. If you want to free your feet and joints from pain, improve balance

or correct alignment, book a free foot assessment at foot solutions. I are popping store today. Foot solutions, the first step towards pain free feet. Labour politician in the House of Commons. There was an emergency debate about my appointment to the office of Students, and Labour's shadow minister for women and equality dredged up the fact that sexual harassment had been placed on my desk. But she garbled the timeline. So in her telling it, it happened 12 months ago whilst I'd been running this kind of, you know, this government-funded charity. And this was an example of what a terrible, reprehensible person I was, totally unsuited to serving as a public regulator.

But it was because all this stuff was out there. I mean, it didn't take very long for these offense archaeologists to dig up all these stories about just how inappropriate a person I was. And the reason for my appointment wasn't because I was, you know, a particularly upright, respectable journalist. It was because I've started these or helped to set up these poor schools. So, for instance, in the secondary school, the charter school that I co-founded and which opened in 2011, 83% of the graduating class, the first class has gone through the school, have got college offers. And 63% of the graduating class have got offers from Russell Group Universities, which are equivalent of the Ivy League. And 40% of those kids are from disadvantaged backgrounds.

So, you know, I've done a decent job, and the people I've worked with on this project have done a decent job of creating a really good group of charter schools. And that's why I was appointed to this body. But you understand how incredibly delicious and tantalizing it is and satisfying it is, really deeply soul-satisfying it is, to turn those tactics

on your political opponents. So here, it's the, you know, the James Gunn was fired from Disney, not because Disney suddenly discovered that he had made – and they weren't inappropriate remarks. They were pedophilia jokes, which any probably in some way retaliation for something else. I mean to arbitrarily disarm I think is one of those things that people are like, well, wait a minute. All these decent people being sort of dragged through the streets.

Maybe we should do some dragging ourselves. Doesn't it take someone to stand up and say oh they were i mean put it this way aren't the villains really the people who asked for your resignation not your political opponents but your political allies aren't the villains of this in this case uh the disney the executive of disney who didn't know how to say oh the, the guy made some jokes. Well, yes. And I think, I mean, some of the some of the one of the toughest things about what I went through was when people who I thought were on my side kind of joined the Twitter mob calling for my scalp and people I'd considered political allies immediately kind of backed away. Not all of them. I mean, there were

certainly some exceptions and good, loyal friends, even some politicians who remained loyal. But for the most part, as you can imagine, you know, they were cowed by the mob in essentially throwing me to the wolves. And I think the problem is, wouldn't it be better if they were, instead of just being cowed and then retaliating by going after their opponents who've committed similar infractions, wouldn't it be better if they said, look, that was 10 years ago. In my case, some of the stuff they were dredging up about me, some of the stuff I'd written dated back to 1988, so it was 30 years old. I think it would have been much better if they had said – and not just for me. I think also generally for the political climate, if they had said, look, this stuff is irrelevant. This was years ago. This was long before he'd been a part of this particular body. That would be asking for courage, which people don't have.

And it feels to me like that's the true deficit here is that no one has the shrugging courage to say, oh, get off it. This is ridiculous. No one seems to be like that's the true deficit here is that is that no one has the shrugging courage to say oh get off it this is ridiculous no one seems to be saying that instead they and but but on the other hand everyone's thinking it i guess that's what i mean to say is that there's not there's no one who i mean no no no no normal person who read the story of toby young and didn't think oh get off it we've done this you know i've read his book his worst stuff this was funnier and worse stuff in this book. Isn't it just a courage deficit more than a mob deficit? It is a courage deficit, but surely as high-minded commentators, our job is to try and stiffen the backbone and inject some steel into the backbone of people on our side politically rather than just engage in the same underhand tactics. One argument against engaging in these underhand tactics is that it puts decent people off actually participating in the public square.

And that applies to the left and the right. We need a higher caliber of politicians with a bit more courage. A higher caliber of people in the public arena. And let's not be quite as censorious as we had been toby peter robinson here there is a degree of bitterness among people who used to consider themselves friends and viciousness in the press that did not in this country that did not exist before donald trump question to what extent if any to what extent is what you have gone through a result of or in one way or another emerge has emerged from brexit from what brexit is doing to british politics

is there an analog between donald trump and brexit well um i think there is an analog between Donald Trump and Brexit? Well, I think there is an analog, but I also think that Trump's victory has had an effect on the way in which politics is conducted in the UK. I mean, I was a prominent campaigner for the leave side, leaving the EU side in the EU referendum a couple of years ago. And that made me a particularly unappealing regulator of universities as far as the British professoriate is concerned. They are overwhelmingly pro-EU and regard anyone who doesn't share their point of view in every particular as a sort of racist bigot. So they were particularly unhappy about the fact that this Brexiteer, which I am, had been appointed to this regulatory body that's going to be regulating them. But I think it has certainly poisoned the atmosphere in British politics with everyone at each other's throats.

And Remainers in particular are absolutely furious that they lost the EU referendum. I think it's the first kind of major political contest that they've lost in perhaps the post-war period. So they were absolutely raging. And that certainly kind of has fueled a kind of frenzied unpleasantness. But I also think that one of the reasons I got into difficulty is because I was a white heteronormative male being appointed to this public body. And that meant that, you know, I think as far as lots of left-wing critics were concerned, I inevitably must be a homophobe and a misogynist and an apologist for white privilege because, after all, it must be because you're a privileged person and you benefit in some way from this structural inequality,

and that's your only possible motive for defending it. So having decided that that's who you are, I think partly that has been one of the toxic legacies of Trump's victory. It's been to polarize politics along these identitarian lines, and it's fueled the rise of a kind of identitarian regressive left everyone who who kind of ticks those demographic boxes if you're a kind of apex predator in the identitarian food chain as i am being a white heteronormative male then they automatically saddle you with these toxic beliefs and then search for evidence

that you possess them i mean people were people were finding tweets that I had kind of made, dating back to the Oscars in 2009, about some of the female presenters and the clothes they were wearing, and reproducing those tweets, calling me a misogynist, and then adding the hashtag MeToo, as though that was absolutely indistinguishable from Harvey Weinstein's kind of predatory behavior. And I think that's like the feminist equivalent of playing the race card. You know, next time you use the MeToo hashtag,

if you're going to use it about locker room banter and not just rape and sexual assault, don't be surprised if it doesn't elicit the same moral outrage as it did, you know, six months ago. Well, speaking of the race card there, Toby, in your description of the self-criticism session you were expected to have, you didn't mention your own racism. So you've got a blind eye, a blind spot towards that. And we expect you to apologize for that or perhaps not. Quillette.com is where you'll find Toby's work and we can't wait to read it. If you haven't been to Quillette, it's a fascinating, thoughtful site

with lots of marvelous essays to read. It's not just a little quick listicle series like BuzzFeed. No, it's good intellectual fodder. Toby, thank you for joining us on the podcast today. We hope to have you back soon. Thanks, Toby. Thank you.

Best of luck, Toby. Okay, cheers. I should say the books are really great, so we should put the links there. But when you read the books, you think to yourself, the books are so painfully honest. You think, well, no one has ever said or thought anything about Toby that has been meaner than things that he's thought and said about himself. Right. that has been meaner than things that he's thought and said about himself. It's just so strange, this sort of painfully honest character who had to pay the price for this. Go ahead. Sorry.

No, go on, Rob. I was just going to say that while Toby was talking, I got a little newsflash that Leslie Moonves, who is the chairman of CBS, has been accused of some kind of sexual misconduct. And it is impossible to read that article. And I think that's part of what's happening here. Without understanding it as a business article, which is that he's in the middle of a battle for CBS, the control of CBS and what happens to CBS.

And there is no way that there is not a business angle and a maneuvering angle in this instance. Oh, but Rob, Rob, Rob, how can you suggest such a thing when the reporter is Ronan Farrow? Well, all of that is true and all that is possible. And these things may be true. But the timing of it is almost exquisite, right? year old owner and curmudgeon who sits atop a complicated stock ownership scheme that includes Viacom. This is the best day you've had in months because the irony of these things is that this is all inside baseball, but it's all true, is that you can't get rid of Les Moonves because he is the most effective executive in the entertainment business

today. There really are only two, and there's Iger, Bob Iger, who runs Disney, and there's Les Moonves, who runs CBS. They are the most accomplished, the smartest, the most strategic, and the most long-lived for a reason. But you can't fire him, and you can't say to the marketplace, hey, I'm going to take over this thing because I'm Sherry Redstone. I'm kind of an unstable person, and I have a crazy relationship with my dad, and we sue each other all the time, and I'm now going to take over this company and combine these two companies and run the whole thing because the market will respond negatively to that. So you have to find a way to get rid of the option.

I don't have the option to have Leslie Moonves run the whole thing because, of course, he's been compromised. That's the most interesting thing to me, and I know I'm a total cynic, and I'm sure I'm going to get lambasted for this, but that is the most obvious reason for this story to come out on this day at this time. Well, now begins the reputational archaeology, or whatever the term was, going back to find all of the curdled bits of his past that can be dredged up,

and he can be the new bad guy. It's like trying to make dinner, and you go to the fridge, and instead of going for the nice fresh meat that you've got there, you go to the back of the produce drawer to find the most hilly withered peppers and the rest of it to put it together.

How do I poison it in the well? I personally don't have that problem because of HelloFresh. HelloFresh is a meal kit delivery system that shops and they plan and they deliver your favorite step-by-step recipes and pre-measured ingredients. So you can just cook, eat, and enjoy. There's something for everyone with HelloFresh's selection. They offer three plans to choose from, classic, veggie, and enjoy. There's something for everyone with HelloFresh's selection. They offer three plans to choose from classic veggie and family. You'll feel confident when you cook HelloFresh because they've got simple

recipes that are, well, they're outlined on pictures. So, you know, if you're new at this, you can figure it out by looking at it. If you're a accomplished cook,

you can figure out the pictures are what you aspire to as you go through the step-by-step instructional cards. It's quite easy. All the instructions come pre-measured in handy labeled meal kits, so you know exactly which ingredient goes with what recipe and when and where. You won't spend all night in the kitchen because the recipes only take about 30 minutes to make. Plus, each week there's a 20-minute meal on the classic menu for when you really don't have more time than that. And finally, you can enjoy not having to plan dinner.

You can enjoy not having to spend money on takeout for an easy quick night. You don't have to worry about gathering ingredients week after week and having stuff left over that goes rotten. No, with HelloFresh, you get delicious filling meals delivered right to your door every week for less than $10 per serving, plus free shipping. Your account's easy to manage. You can choose your delivery date to match your ever-changing schedule.

You can pause your delivery for when you're on vacation. It's all up to you. HelloFresh has a special offer to listeners of the Ricochet podcast, and I know you've been hearing me talk about this, and I hope over the months your mouths have watered collectively as you think, it can't be that good. Yes, it is, and now it's even less money.

For $30 off your first week of HelloFresh, visit HelloFresh.com and enter the promo code Ricochet30. One more time, to try HelloFresh and get $30 off your first week, go to HelloFresh.com and use the promo code Ricochet30 at your checkout. And we thank HelloFresh for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. You know, back to Toby, we were talking about reputations being set on fire and destroyed and the rest of it because of old tweets, all of the, it's regrettable when it happens, when something old is dredged up. I mean, the James Gunn stuff, as we were saying, was sort of deliberate and ongoing. And it makes me wonder whether or not the end result of all this is actually a good thing in that people no longer see themselves as,

I'm here to shock the bourgeois. What a novel concept, eh? people no longer see themselves as uh i'm here to shock the bourgeois what a novel concept eh people no longer see themselves as brave truth tellers who've got to tell really stupid obnoxious offensive jokes just to show they can one-up sarah silverman this week instead everybody has in the back of their mind sort of a 1950s movie studio publicist yeah who lays a hand on their on you on their hands as they're about to tweet and says, this isn't a wise thing to do. You've got a reputation to think of. I mean, when I tweet, I keep in mind that I have my own reputation, my employer's reputation. I mean, I don't say these things because I don't want to be that offensive, wacky, way out there guy. But I also

know that if you want to cultivate a good impression and feeling amongst folk, this isn't what you do. Maybe there's a chance, there's a hope that that will reinstall itself in the consciousness. I don't know. I don't know how you do that and also have a sense of humor. I mean Sarah Silverman is one of those people – Sarah Silverman has two terrific jokes. I mean she's got more than that. But two really funny ones that I've always thought were really funny she starts on one of her comedians she goes you know i was uh raped uh by a doctor

which for a jewish girl is bittersweet oh now that's sarah silverman she's progressive and big obama supporter and i mean okay it's a funny joke it's dark and nasty and probably I don't know. I don't know many. There aren't that many funny things that are that funny that are are in fact inappropriate. And then she does another one, which I thought was really made me laugh. I'm going to mangle this one. She just listen. I I'm very I just want you to know that I've I finally got the courage to accuse, you know, my boss at work of sexual assault. And everybody applauds. It was really, really hard. It was really one of the hardest things I've ever done because it didn't happen. And then she goes – and OK. Yeah.

All right. But Rob. How many Helen Keller jokes have you told? I've told a million of them. I know. I know. In the context of the Helen Keller jokes or the dead baby jokes. Oh, sitting around with your with your pre-adolescent friends. How did she burn her face? Answering the iron. I mean, first of all, you can't even tell that joke now because people we don't have phones like that anymore but i don't know sitting outside the ben franklin reading comic books with your friends you know about to put playing cards in the spokes of your bikes and telling these jokes that just

so and sarah silverman telling jokes which are dark and edgy and funny in a club context or a place where people have gone to pay money to experience what they know is going to be the sarah silverman experience gestalt opinion all of that stuff is different than twitter and when people take things like sarah silverman's joke and spread it on twitter all of a sudden they're broadcasting to a pre-outraged audience that didn't pay the money that didn't say i'm signing up for the show it's all of a sudden spreading out far and wide and broadcasting something out of context and i mean i'm not saying that sarah silverman shouldn't tell that joke i'm saying that she probably shouldn't tell that joke on twitter and i don't you but i would say this that the in the as – I mean this is a statement I cannot defend and there's no evidence for it and it's just absolute like complete conjecture and probably idiotic, right?

It's an idiotic hot take, but – and I think it's other people who made it. If we are forced to live in a world where what we know is true and what we know isn't important, suddenly we have to act like is true or false and important, right? So we have to pretend to be offended by jokes that we laughed at a year ago. We have to pretend to be offended by things that we already knew. We have to constantly shift our taste and boundary lines between what's acceptable and then what's actionable almost weekly, right? When we're forced to do that, we get mad. And somebody who is blunt and frankly, I mean, in a very real way, courageous even to the point of being reckless is a very attractive cultural political leader. The reason why he's there – I mean I hate to bring it back to politics but he's really there in the White House and one of the it. But the people who are doing these things are not exactly advancing the cause of human civilization. What they're doing is taking glee and destroying what few little barriers we have left between us and complete utter debased discussion.

I'm not pretending to be offended by anybody. What I'm what I'm and I'm not you. There are few. I don't think there's a single joke you can think of, Rob, that I won't find funny and abhorrent. I can't do that. It's my job. other and what we talk about within a certain container so that it's not all you know all against all that it all devolves down to nothing but idiocracy f words that's what i mean and willful stupidity will so if you make a joke about uh you know anne frank or helen keller or

pedophilia for that matter, you are then in, you are making a political and moral statement in favor of that perspective, even though everybody knows it was a joke. There is that, there is that problem. James Gunn faced that, which is this sort of like our willful suspension of your awareness of what a joke is so that you could accuse him of advocating these horrible things, which he wasn't doing. No, I'm just advocating that maybe you don't try to let,

I mean, it's like if you didn't find the pedophilia jokes funny because they were so edgy and out there and he's just being, if you didn't file them, find them funny, there's something wrong with you. You have to adjust downward your moral status in order to find this stuff. And that, that, that's how many, how long have I been talking about civility and all the rest of it? And it's become tiresome and I'm such a cliched North Dakotan,

but there you have it. That's, that's, that's why I think that there should be, um, just a, a general sense of self limiting behavior on Twitter for the sake of public discussion. I think that's true. I think that's true. I mean, my job is to sort of sit around and make jokes, and my job is often to sit around and make jokes when I don't have an appropriate joke for the place that I need it, right? And I sit around with a bunch of other people whose job is to do that, and we make a lot of jokes, most of them i mean 80 of them are are shocking and would be right oh i know but if we're but if you put a layman or uh you know what we call a civilian

in the room they would just be they would just the the level of cruelty to each other sometimes is just uh you think it's hilarious right i work i work i work in a newspaper so i'm accustomed to that but what frightens me is that the young generation does not seem to have that same desire to really abuse each other and speak in foul language like the older generation. We'll have to train them. Hey, we have a question for Peter Robinson coming up that I think he can answer in one word, and I'm going to ask him to answer this question in one word. Before we tell that question to Peter, I have to tell you that this podcast was brought to you by Burrow. Wonderful sofas and chairs. Lending Club, where you can get a loan to pay off those ridiculous credit card loans. And HelloFresh. Delicious. Use the coupon codes. You'll find them at Ricochet.com and of course you did, go over to iTunes. Give us a nice little review. Those reviews will help other people find the show, and that means they'll find Ricochet, and that means, of course, that they will contribute and join. Money flows.

The site continues. Everybody is happy. Here's my question for Peter Robinson. You ready? Peter? I'm ready. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Okay. Today, this week, we discovered that there may be a large lake of liquid water on Mars,

which raises the question, is there life on Mars? My question for you, Peter, should we spend a lot of money to go find out? No. That's exactly what I thought. All right. Thank you, everybody. We can argue that. I would love for the comments to be nothing more than this,

which shows that everybody made it to the end of the show, which would be grand. Whatever you want to talk about, we'll see you at the comments at Ricochet 3.0. See you next week, guys. Next week, boys. It's a god-awful small affair To the girl with the mousy hair But her mummy is yelling no And her daddy has told her to go

But her friend is nowhere to be seen Now she walks through her sunken dream To the seat with the clearest view And she's hooked to the silver screen But the film is a sad thing for For she's lived it ten times or more She could spit in the eyes of fools Cause they ask her to focus on

Singers fighting in the dance hall Oh man, look at those gay men go It's the creepiest show Take a look at the Oh man, meaning of the wrong guy Take a look at the Old man Leaning on the wrong guy Old man Wonder if you'll ever know

Who's in the best Selection Is there life On Mars Ricochet. Join the conversation. It's on America's tortured brow That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow And now the workers have struck for fame

Because Lenin's on sale again See the mice in their million hordes From Ibiza to the Norfolk Roads Blue Britannia is out of bounds To my mother, my dog and clowns But the film is a sad thing for Cause I wrote it ten times or more It's about to be written again

As I ask you to focus on Say hello It's fighting in the dance hall Oh man Look at those cavemen go It's the creakiest show