The Ricochet Podcast - Shut It Down

Episode Date: January 19, 2018

We’ve got the great Shelby Steele on the podcast this week (read him fantastic WSJ column Black Protest Has Lost Its Power) to discuss the NFL and (the lack of) racism in the culture. Then, the indispensable Jim Geraghty guides us through the politics of shut down. Finally, finally, a real sports discussion: Vikings fan boy James Lileks on his home town team. Music from this week’s episode: Shut... Source

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It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson. I'm James Lilacs, and today we talk to Shelby Steele about race, Jim Garrity about the shutdown, and your hosts discuss football. Yes, let's have ourselves a podcast. Bye-bye. Welcome, everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast, number 572. Whoa, you said that's too many.

What happened? Did I fall asleep? Yeah, you did. It's many years hence. We're being ruled by the robot head of Bob Barker for many years since the Great Purging. Nah, I'm kidding. It's number 386, and it's brought to you by the fine people at The Great Courses. Hey, you can start off the year right by signing up for The Great Courses Plus,

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And we need you. It costs something to maintain the website and to put up these podcasts. Not a vast amount, but more than James and I have kicking around in our pockets. And so nobody here, I assure you, is attempting. Rob and I used to dream of getting rich. Nobody's even dreaming. We just would like Ricochet to be able to pay for itself so that we can keep it going. Please join. It's a wonderful effort, a modest effort on behalf of free speech and interesting conversation and vivid civility here in the U.S. of A.

Ricochet, we need you. Did you say livid civility? I said vivid. I hope I said vivid. I like the idea of livid civility. First thing in the morning here in California, who knows whether my lips are working. I know the feeling, but livid civility would be somebody whose face was flushed, whose veins were pounding, but yet could not bring themselves to be saying the words

or the bad things or castigating their foes with stupid little nicknames. Well, here we are. The objects of the day, the subjects, the moment. None of this stuff is going to matter in a week. Shut down, for example. Are you terrified, Peter, of the looming end? The thing that will actually kill people and hence makes, I think, Dianne Feinstein unsure whether or not she'll vote for it? We've had, what, I think half a dozen government shutdowns over the last quarter of a century. To be honest i have not noticed any of them uh what the press of course is falling into the hands of the democrats trying to inflame us all about what a horrible thing it would be for

the government to shut down what happens and i remember this from my days in washington is that people who occupy not who perform non-essential services – that was the term of art. I believe it's still used. People who occupy non-essential services are asked not to come into the office. Do you know how much of the federal government is non-essential? Most of it. Most of it. As Ronald Reagan used to say, we should be grateful that we don't get all the government we pay for. It's way over – of course, it suggests a problem. Most of it. are going to insist upon, then shut the government down. The military continues to function. Social security checks continue to go out.

The important stuff continues to happen. Supposedly, however, this is really bad for Republicans because it shows that they are unwilling to compromise. I can't figure out in my own limited way up here, so far removed from the hustle bustle of the nation's capital, why, if you've got the presidency and the Congress congress in the senate you can't pass a budget why why why is there a shutdown looming at all but i did appreciate the press conference this morning by two members of the trump administration who pointed out that the previous administration had and they used the word weaponized the

shutdowns they had advised everybody to make it painful for people because that's how they scored the most points. The minute you have the government shut down, you've got some guy who takes out barriers and puts them around the Washington Monument and I presume tells tourists to avert their eyes and look downward. Sorry, you can't look up at that monument. The government is shut down. I mean, I almost expected it to go that far the last few times. But is this – I mean what do you – Peter, what do you think people out there in the voting world beyond the Beltway think this is about? Because if you're in DC, if you're in the company town, this is great drama. But if you're not, it's not only mysterious.

It just seems stupid. Yeah. I mean I haven't seen polls on what americans think or whom they blame at this point the big government shutdowns the dramatic government shutdowns took place during the clinton years and the republicans thought republicans newt gingrich was the leader of the republicans they had recaptured the house of representatives in 1994 and the general thinking on the republican side was that the president would get blamed for it. And that didn't happen. The Republicans got blamed for it. And the thinking then was, as far as I know, this is accurate, that that is because the president

has greater access to the bully pulpit. The president is more able to get his message, his side of events out to the American people. Well, now the Republicans have the president. And it strikes me as at least likely that the Democrats will be blamed by large segments of the country for all of this. But I return to the point. I just don't sense a side. Here I sit in California. There you are in Minneapolis. We are both removed from the overheated rhetoric of Washington.

I don't sense – let's put it this way. This government shutdown has been looming for two days, three days. It has not even been mentioned in a single conversation I've had here in my life in California over the last three days. I don't get the feeling that the country is, to the extent that people think about it, they're a little disgusted that Washington remains so dysfunctional. I don't get the feeling that anybody's frightened or infuriated with one side or the other. What about you? No, I get the same feeling that it's typical of the ruling class that they have to perform

these elaborate stork dances before at the end as we know more money will be borrowed more money will be spent and everybody will get essentially what they want what's interesting is what this is being what are the central issues here i mean is this all about the daca i think so okay to the democrats it's all about daca right so the administration it's all about the wall and immigration reform. Which is actually a fairly stark way of looking at the differences between the two sides now. Yes. One of them is interested in national integrity.

I'm sorry, racism. One of them is interested in racism, which would be the only point, of course, you'd want to secure your borders. And the other side is interested in compassion, which is the only reason that you would ever possibly want to support the program that they're talking about. So, you know, it's citizens versus non-citizens, status versus not status. It is clear, but that's really not the argument we're having. I don't think that's what's seeping out beyond the beltway. I think, again, if it's a company town, you report this like some exciting news, you know, some shakeup in the executive office, some change in the HR policies while everybody else who buys the product 100 miles away goes on with their own life. That's just how it seems.

All right. You mentioned the wall, though, and Trump was under fire this, no, i phrased that incorrectly uh the president was accused of having changed his tone his mind his details on the wall and he denies that that indeed is the case um do you think so i am willing to take his word for it uh there were two events took place one was that last week he held a meeting on immigration with Democrats and Republicans. He kept the cameras in the room for 45 or 50 minutes and conducted the meeting. The way I read that myself was that he was simply demonstrating to the country that he is completely sane, entirely in charge, perfectly capable of running a meeting even about a complicated subject such as immigration. However, to some people, he sounded only too reasonable to the Democrats during that meeting,

and that was one source of the feeling that he's walking with. He then denied that and said, no, no, no, no, we didn't make any deals in that meeting, as indeed they did not. I still insist on the wall. And then yesterday, General Kelly, his chief of staff, was quoted as having told a couple of some members of Congress that the president's view, original view on the wall was uninformed. I think uninformed is the quotation that his views have evolved, that we're all coming to understand that a wall need not necessarily represent a physical wall, but simply represent a metaphor for stronger border controls. And as the sun set here in California yesterday, a story has appeared, including one in the Wall Street Journal, saying that the president was furious with his chief of staff for suggesting that his opinions on the wall had evolved. He wants a wall.

So it seems to me as though Donald Trump is pretty clear about where he stands. Anytime you get the feeling that somebody from the administration has been sent out to soften the views, the president yanks that chain right back in and makes it clear that he hasn't softened his views. That's one interpretation. It could be entirely it could be entirely right i think it's also possible that the president was uh mad because somebody had described his previous positions as being uninformed um that can't stand i mean that has to be corrected right away there's no such thing as the president possibly being uninformed about everything he's right and he knows more than anyone else that's i mean just as obama was a better speech writer than a speech writer the president knows tax

policy and immigration policy and construction policy and wall policy better than anyone else. Only he can fix it. Trust him. So I think if Kelly had gone out and said that the president's original proposal was a brilliant strategy for securing the border, and in subsequent conversations, we've had ways of implementing the president's ideas in novel, in unexpected fashion. I think that would have been perfectly fine. He could have evolved all he wanted as long as he'd flattered the president sufficiently at the beginning of the premise. But that's just my opinion. But hey, you know, all right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because we'll see. We will. I mean, the way to get the president on your side and to make him like you is to flatter him. The way to to anger him is to seem like you're not a fan and you're not admiring.

And I find this seeping into radio hosts who I really used to enjoy listening to. We're now angry with me because I don't admire him. I'm required now to admire him. And pardon me if I get a little twitchy about this, but sorry, I'm not required to do that. I am, however, required to improve myself. And sometimes that means listening to people who know more than I do. And there's lots of them out there, right? Probably for you too. You know, if you would like to better yourself and listen to people who can tell you when, hey, you know what, that thing you said, not so. Well, that's my goal for

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The Ricochet Podcast. And now we are pleased and honored to bring to the podcast Shelby Steele. He's a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and is the author of Shame, How America's Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country. Welcome, sir. Well, thank you for having me. Shelby, this is Peter Robinson. Wonderful to have you back on the podcast. Wonderful to be back, Peter. I owe you one.

You wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal a week ago today, and your column carried the headline, Black Protest Has Lost Its Power. You were talking about the protests of NFL football players who were taking a knee during the national anthem. Let me quote a couple of sentences. It's not surprising given the history of black protest, the importance of protest in the black movement. FBD doesn't stand for friendly business ducks. Or for the freelance beatbox department.

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Bet responsibly. 18plusgamblingcare.ie FBD doesn't stand for friendly business ducks. Or for the freelance beatbox department. FBD stands for support. We support businesses and communities across Ireland. Visit your local branch to talk to your FBD insurance team and see how we can support your business.

FBD Insurance. Support. It's what we do. FBD Insurance Group Limited, trading as FBD Insurance, is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. It's not surprising, quoting you, that these black football players would don the mantle of protest. The surprise was that it didn't work. They were not speaking truth to power, rather they were figures of pathos,

mindlessly loyal to a black identity that had run its course. What they missed is a simple truth that is both obvious and unutterable. The oppression of black people is over with. Shelby, I cannot conceive of a more outrageous or radical sentence for an African American, for anyone, but particularly for an African American such as you who've dedicated so much of your life to civil rights, to right. It's done. The oppression of black people is over with. Explain yourself. Well, I think one of the really the most obvious social transformations in history has been the transformation of America from a society that was openly racist, that had slavery, had segregation, so forth, to a society that confronted itself, fully confronted itself in the 1960s, and has continued

to do so since. And so there's been a profound moral transformation in white America. It's a different white society. White America is different than it was before. It has reformed. It has changed. It has become better, more open, more inclusive, so forth. And yet, you know, so much of our politics is still based on the notion that we're that blacks are

still victims so racism that racism is around every corner it is not you simply do not meet white americans today who are racist who are openly racist and determined to keep you down so the reverse of that is more likely to be true. So I'm trying to think, Shelby, if your point of view were recognized and widely absorbed, for example, we celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day this past Monday. And I don't know how you celebrated the day. I looked at various statements on Google and so forth, and the theme was still, all these years after the civil rights movements, the theme was still, we shall overcome. And your point is that that day should much more represent a celebration.

We have overcome. We have overcome. Yes, indeed. It is amazing. In my lifetime, I grew up in segregated america so i know the difference uh this is not segregated america this is wide open america and that is is again a something of a mixed blessing uh because the finally at last come in to freedom to a society that is open to you when it was once close to you is scary as hell what what do we how do we handle this the one thing we never ever had to to handle and almost four centuries of oppression was freedom. And do, do we have

the attitudes, the values, the principles in place to be able to handle freedom? So far, we have not done a very good job. Um, by most socioeconomic measures, blacks are farther behind whites today than they were in the 50s, in the 40s. So we haven't done, freedom is a challenge for everybody, for human beings, period, as individuals, as members of groups. And one has to really be, gird one's loins and become serious and frank with oneself in order to thrive in freedom. And who are, I'm trying to think, there was a, I'm just trying to think of some of the speeches that I heard on Monday.

This is very crude and I wasn't paying close attention. I was just skimming the web and seeing how people were celebrating the day and so forth. It would be something like nine speeches out of 10 denounced racism. Uh, we have so much more to do and blacks are still prejudiced. Okay. So there's that. And I'm just wondering, you know, what is the duty of a white American like me, middle-aged white American? I was born during, well, I was born just as the civil rights movement was taking off. Now, we've just had eight years of an African-American chief executive. For goodness sake, that proves that racism is no longer a problem. But isn't it then – aren't you concerned that the next impulse is let's start cutting that welfare stuff, this redistribution from white America to black America, a very crude way of putting it, but that's one way of putting it, of billions of dollars of redistribution that's taken place over all these decades. It ought to just stop. Do you want that to happen?

Right. Oh, absolutely. I do. Oh, you do? I do, indeed. There's no way I can get to the right of you, Shelby, on this stuff. It's not right and left for me. There's no way to move ahead and still think somehow that your fate is in the hands of the government

and the programs the government is going to offer you, welfare and diversity and affirmative action and all of that. All that stuff keeps alive the idea that you're a victim. And so it puts blacks in a position that we've been in now for 50 years, where as we gain freedom, we deny freedom. We insist on being, we literally insist on being the victims of ongoing racism in American life, when that simply is not remotely true. The truth is, of course, we're scared as hell. Four centuries of oppression will bring about certain areas of underdevelopment in a people.

We have those problems of underdevelopment in a people we have those problems of underdevelopment uh we don't have a a we have a history much more about survival and uh and and overcoming than about building a life and freedom uh that that is our remains our our main challenge so that that we, what we're afraid of now is if we, is that we'll lose our moral leverage over America if we say what I just said, which is that oppression is over with. That then whites will wash their hands and move on and have fun and we'll be left there languishing. That's the mindset. That's the challenge of black America. That's what we have to face up to. You can't be free and then put your fate back in somebody else's hands. It won't work.

And so as long as you have that illusion, you will suffer. Blacks suffer now more than ever. James Lollx here in Minnesota The Huffington Post Had problems as you might imagine With your Wall Street Journal piece And said the problem Is that you're quick to blame African Americans

For their own problems But you don't A. Understand what the problems are In the first place And B. You offer no solutions What are the solutions? As you see them Take responsibility for your own life number one

raise children who are well educated and have a value system based in responsibility for their own lives and building lives that are meaningful and rich in an open and free society

where they have every kind of opportunity available to them. And stop looking, using your victimization, holding on to it as an excuse for not doing that, for not facing freedom. This is the big challenge. You know, history is not fair. If you've been oppressed, then the idea is that the same forces that oppressed you are going to somehow redeem you. They're going to become humane, and they're going to lift you out of your suffering.

No. As I say in the piece, freedom is just freedom. It's not uplift. It's not transformation. It's just freedom. And if you don't know how to seize it and make it work for you, then you will suffer.

You will languish in freedom. And that's what Black America is now doing. We are now free finally. We have completely overcome. There is no serious argument in America for reinstituting racial segregation. And yet we scream louder than when I was a kid and we lived in segregation, we didn't scream this loud. That is a measure of the fear that has taken over black America, a very understandable fear, but a fear nonetheless. So the people of the Huffington Post are simply once again

holding on to the idea of black helplessness that can only be redeemed by whites and encouraging they're encouraging blacks to keep putting their fate in the hands of other people of good white people so what it what an absurd ridiculous to how where are you where you going to go with that other I think of I think of the Jewish situation. Another group that has been woefully oppressed throughout history. One of the things that gets them through is the fact that they never have given their fate up to another power. They've survived, and if they move into an area and there's no schools there, they will have one in somebody's basement.

They will get the job done. Well, you know, I'm an open-minded person. Let's learn from that. That's what we have to do now. Well, the Huffington Post and the left would say, I mean, you just touched on education because that was one of the first things you mentioned, the necessity of education and instilling in people a desire and a love of knowledge. Right. I feel that that's not possible when you have decades of systemic racism that have underfunded the schools and that the educational gap can be explained by insufficient funds. Well, that's absolutely ridiculous.

The reason that you have bad schools is because black parents allow their schools to be bad. When I was a kid, my parents organized all the other parents in my elementary school because it was a horror chamber, really, a segregated school, the first desegregation lawsuit in the North. And all the students boycotted and did not go to school. And events just went on and on. I won't bore you with all the details, but they won that fight. And the school fired all the teachers, put in a new principal, and began to try to seriously educate kids.

Why aren't black parents doing that today? Why do you tolerate a school that is paid for rather lavishly, actually, by the government? Why do you allow it to sit there and not educate your children? And beyond that, why haven't you started that education before they go to school? Why haven't you been reading to them? Why haven't you been exposing them to the broader culture? When you do those things, no bad school system can defeat you. When you don't do those things, no school system can help you.

This is the reality we live in. So the Huffington Post is just that old, exhausted liberal idea about school funding. My God, I started out teaching in public schools, and the problem was never funding. The problem is incompetent, disinterested teachers and administrators who are there to collect a check and don't have any faith in the children, don't waste their time trying to teach them, and therefore have become partners in the oppression of these children. It's black people who are responsible for these lousy public schools in the inner city. And there's nothing anybody else can do.

They refuse to teach their own children. And we all know this. We all know this. And we act like, but we can't say it. And so we're like the Huffington Post. We run around like a dog chasing its tail, making up all kinds of excuses for black people not doing what free people are supposed to do. It's cowardice. It's what it finally comes down to. Peter here again. You just said we can't say this. Let me tell you, I can't say that for sure. No white person can say that. I mean, just as a matter of the practical politics of the moment, there have to be black leaders who say that to the black community, right?

A white leader would be shouted down. He would, no message would be, would get through to anybody. Well, so will a black leader. Well, that's what I was going to say. What's the response to your column been among African Americans? Well, just absolute outrage. Okay. You know, because, well, why would you get that angry? Well, because there's

truth there. Right. At LiveScoreBet, we love Cheltenham just as much as we love football. The excitement, the roar, and the chance to reward you. That's why every day of the festival we're giving new members money back as a free sports bet up to €10

if your horse loses on a selected race. That's how we celebrate the biggest week in racing. Cheltenham with LiveScoreBet. This is total betting. Sign up by 2pm 14th of March. Bet within 48 hours of race. Main market excluding specials and place bets. Terms apply. Bet responsibly. 18plusgamblingcare.ie We've lived up to the dreams that we once had. We've not lived up to the dreams of the civil rights movement. We've let ourselves down because we have been seduced by this guilty larger society that keeps offering us crumbs and little meaningless things.

And so we've sold ourselves out. And so the anger that you see now is really self-anger. It's anger at the self. They're not really mad even at white people. They're really mad at themselves. And as I understand it, last time I looked at the figures, there's a pretty good argument to be made that about half of African Americans have figured it out and have made it into the great American middle class.

And yet, as a political matter, we know that more or less all African-Americans vote in solidarity, vote Democratic, vote for the welfare, the middle class, leading the American dream, still won't, in some basic way, stand up and say, I got here by hard work. We got here by getting an education before we got married and staying married after. I don't understand if you've got roughly half of black Americans who've made it, why there are essentially no voices but that of Shelby Steele.

Well, fear is a powerful force. You're right. More and more blacks are moving into the middle class and really understand what I'm saying and what others like me are saying. And yet they know that, as I say in the piece, black authenticity has been defined as black victimization. If you are a victim, you're a true black. If you begin to overcome your victimization and become successful in American life, your authenticity as a black, as a member of the group is questioned. And so successful blacks feel, um, are just as afraid. Whites are afraid of being called racist. Blacks are afraid of being called Uncle Tom's. I see.

And so as they know right away, if they talk about black responsibility, they're instantly going to be called Uncle Tom's and they're going to be marginalized. And the group, they're going to be held in suspicion by the group. They're going to be unwelcome and so forth. They're going to pay the same price exactly that whites would pay. It's that kind of fear that makes them live really dishonest lives. Their lives are based on principles that are effective in a free world. But they can't say that.

It's unutterable. Shelby, last couple of questions here. By the way, you sound great. And it's been a while now, but the last time you and I saw each other, you'd been through a terrible health problem, and you just were still recovering. Shelby's back. That's good for everybody.

Thank you. So last couple of questions. I don't know how to put these questions in any other than the crudest possible way. But Donald Trump, good or bad for African-Americans? That's the first question. And here's this last question. Does Oprah Winfrey face a particular opportunity to do good in this country and particularly for African-Americans to demonstrate what can be achieved through hard work? What do you think of Trump and Oprah, Shelby?

Well, let me take Oprah first. She might be effective if she was able to or willing to question this orthodoxy of black victimization. If she were able to say, hey, we're free now, and we have to deal with freedom, we have to change, we have to transform our culture into a culture that's not trying to survive oppression, but a culture that's trying to move ahead in freedom. If she were to do that, God knows that would be a wonderful thing. That would be truly, she would be a transformative president.

Is she going to do that? There's nothing to indicate that she would dare utter that kind of statement, even though it's blatantly obvious to everybody. If she were, that would be a cultural mandate, wouldn't it? Everybody would be behind that, I think. But I seriously doubt she will ever do that. As far as Trump goes, I think the good thing about Donald Trump, number one, he is obviously not a racist.

There's nothing racist about anything he's ever done or said. And what is interesting to me, what makes him fascinating in the racial scene, is that he doesn't really care about race. It's not a big deal to him. He's a businessman. He knows about the economy. That's a good thing. That's a good thing because it means he's not going to play racial politics, and he certainly doesn't. once or twice a week that the opposition uses to call them racist. Well, that is good for blacks to see that America is bigger than they are.

America has a greater human mission in this world. And it did make a profound mistake with blacks. But it's moving on. Become a part of that move forward is what blacks have to do. So Trump is moving forward to the business of running the country. God bless him. Wish he wouldn't make these faux pas because they're used against him,

but he does, and so I guess we'll have to live with it. But black people should. Look at the job situation. Black unemployment is lowest in history under Donald Trump. That's the guy I want to see in there. That's the question many people are asking. If indeed we see a historic reduction in African-American unemployment, is Trump going to get the credit from the African-American community?

Well, he stands to get the credit. Whether he'll get it or not, I don't know. It depends on the measure of fear, how fearful we are at this moment. And that's hard to say. But I think most black Americans have the same feeling I do, which is that we've sort of come to the end of an era of putting our faith in other people's hands and so forth and so on. And we realize now that the government is not the answer. We're going to have to be the answer ourselves, and we're going to have to create and generate wealth and so forth in American society.

I hope we get there. I hope we get there. I hope we get there sooner rather than later. But it's going to still be a while because that group is so entrenched and whites are still so timid and so afraid of saying. Most whites certainly know that what I'm saying here is true. They're tired of being called racist all the time. And blacks like myself are tired of being called Uncle Toms. So that's new.

That's a variable. I hope it will grow. Shelby Steele, thank you for joining us today. And we usually tell people to follow him on Twitter, but I don't think you're on Twitter because you're a grown man with a life, right? I'm grateful to have a life. So I'm not on Twitter, no. Thank you for joining us, sir.

Shelby, what a pleasure. What a pleasure just to talk to you, but what a pleasure particularly to see you. Shelby's back. Well, thanks so much. Shelby's back. That's my takeaway. It's a good to be back. It really is. I'm a lucky man. Give our love to Rita. I will do that.

Thank you. Thank you. That was great. One of the things that he talked about was white timidity and how perhaps the people who are angriest at white people these days are white people, or at least they want to be conspicuously shown to be aware of why they should be angry at themselves. Right, Peter? Exactly. So you have all of these discussions, these new terms about

white spaces and whiteness and this obsession with whiteness, which seems to be an academic's way of saying, I get it. I get it very much. And they're pathologized whiteness. And to be all you have to do nowadays really is just say that it's problematically white. These are whites, et cetera. And, and it, it, it signals to the proper people that this is something where you should realize that something is wrong here, but there's different kinds of whiteness, right? And sometimes you, you want to kinds of whiteness right and sometimes you you want a kind of whiteness that that surpasses the dingy yellow film you get from a bad toothbrush and that's why oh oh oh i had no idea go james go go i don't want to interrupt a thing of such beauty and

delicacy i'm just saying that uh white teeth are something prized by all because it's a sign of health, it's attractive, and the rest of it. But you know, you have different kinds of it. Let me do it. Go, go. You've really been taking lessons from Rob, haven't you? What I'm trying to tell you about here is quip. Now, when it comes to your health, brushing your teeth is one of the most important parts

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We now go to our friend Jim Garrity. Of course, you know him from National Review. He's a conservative blogger and regular contributor to National Review. He's the author of National Review's Campaign Spot blog and Morning Jolt newsletter. He's also the host of the Three Martini Lunch podcast, which is available right here at Ricochet. And Jim, how are you doing? Well, it's great to be with you guys. I, for a long time, I live in the northern Virginia area.

A lot of my friends and neighbors work for the federal government. They seem to think I'm a lot more plugged in than I really am. And so they say to me, well, is there going to be a shutdown? And I say, nah, you know how this always works. They always do another continuing resolution. We may fund the government for the rest of our lives with these two-week resolutions. But obviously, you know, here as we approach the midnight deadline,

it may not be that case. The House passed a continuing resolution that would have funded the Children's Health Insurance Program for six years last night. As far as, you know, the Democrats in the Senate are saying they will not vote for it. They will, in fact, filibuster it so that they will not. They will vote 60 votes, not 50 votes. And the Democrats are voting against keeping the government open because they oppose shutting

down the government. That doesn't make any sense. But that's their argument because they also want to save DACA. And I think this is what happens when Democrats are utterly convinced that they will never really come out on the losing side of a government shutdown fight because the press will almost always portray it

as these reasonable, good-hearted Democrats fighting with these miserly, mean, cruel Republicans who want, you know, class trips to the Smithsonian to be canceled. And Jim, Peter here. Jim, is it your argument that the Democrats are correct about the way the press will portray this? Or is it your argument that they are playing a playbook that is now out of date? We have a president now who, by all indications, a couple of comments he made

yesterday, Mr. President, Mr. President, what about a government shutdown? And instead of saying, oh, a government shutdown would be a terrible thing, we must all do what we can to what we must to prevent it, Donald Trump just said, I think twice yesterday, well, we'll see what happens. Trump is daring them in a way that previous presidents, certainly Bill Clinton, did not dare Newt Gingrich. How much does he change the dynamic? I was going to say there's two factors that I think make this a little bit different. The first is that the Department of the Interior has already said they're going to try to keep national parks open as much as they can.

During the last shutdown fight in 2013, it was very clear that the Obama administration wanted to pursue shutdown theater, right? uh... during the last shutdown fight in two thousand thirteen it was very clear that the obama administration wanted pursue shutdown theater i think they put their return here at every way to maximize the pain of the public problem to ensure that uh... victory lots of high-profile photo ops and good example of the people we are really upset with republicans because the shutdown no doubt was republicans fault

uh... probably the most vivid example of this for the barriers around the World War II Memorial down at the National Mall. This is an open-air memorial. It's a bunch of columns and arches. There's no building you go into. The only thing you need somebody there is to tell the kids to get their feet out of the reflecting pool, basically. And they decided to put up these barriers around it. And I think at one point it turned into this dispute. People just started moving them and saying, no, this is an open-air monument. You can't close something that people walk through.

It would be like saying people can't walk near the Washington Monument or something like that. So you're already going to get that aspect of it. We have an administration that wants to minimize the pain to the public of a government shutdown instead of having an administration that wants to maximize it. to the public of a government shutdown instead of having an administration that wants to maximize it. So Democrats won't have that little bit of leverage in the media fight. And the second thing which I think makes a difference is that, look, I think the polling indicates that most Americans, like the DACA kids, doesn't want to deport them, buys into this idea that, oh, they're mostly valedictorians

and these perfectly good little moppets who, you know, shouldn't be sent back. But I don't know if this is a hill they want to die on. I don't know if they're willing to put up with the government shutdown for a long stretch over this program. I think when the Republicans aren't saying, no, no, you have to kill DACA, you're saying, look, we're going to, you know, we're going to keep DACA going in exchange for some border security, maybe some wall funding, some very reasonable requests, I suspect. I don't think the ground that Democrats are fighting on is as strong as they think it is.

But I'll be honest, I don't know. I don't feel like I know how this is going to shake out. I wouldn't say this is a slam dunk win for Republicans by any stretch of the imagination. Well, if the media can find some DACA children who were denied entrance to the Smithsonian because of the shutdown. There you go. They have the demonization completely, absolutely right. I mean, there's the World War II, the Sailors Memorial on the mall, right, Jim? It's okay.

It's got the guy with the duffel bag, and it's got the anchor, and it's got the rest of it. I mean, they would, if they could, if they wanted to weaponize this. I think the Obama administration may have put barriers around that as well, even though it's just something you look at. Now, I remember it as the place where my wife got her pocket picked and her wallet stolen. So if they want to close that down, I think it's something that they can, it's a public service. I believe under the shutdown, even the pickpockets have to go home. Really, it's a something that they can it's a public service under the shutdown even the pickpockets uh have to go home really it's that strict under the Obama rules yeah oh man I didn't know that they were that intent well of a peace with this cruelty and desire to inflict pain on

the American people which of course is the Republican agenda because that's that's how you get re-elected yeah um there they want consumers to no longer be financially protected is that right and i believe that a budget request recently made shows that they want consumers to be financially abused manipulated taken advantage of and defrauded do i have that right jim this is over the consumer uh financial protection bureau right right which can do which can set up under early under obama and richard cordray was there before, you know, basically as training wheels for running for governor of Ohio. Elizabeth Warren loved it.

I think she was one of the first administrators there. And is this where Mick Mulvaney is like, now, okay, we're all set with funding. We don't really need any more money anymore. Yes, yes, he's requested no funding for the coming quarter. You know, look, this is, first of all, so this kicked in in, what is it, 2009, 2010, the Obama administration set it up. Did everybody feel it? Do you suddenly feel more protected as a consumer? All of a sudden, you know, your car stopped breaking down and stuff stopped coming to you in the mail.

You stopped getting those emails from Nigerian princes. Life just totally changed under the Consumer Protection Bureau, didn't it? You know, it's like night and day. emails from Nigerian princes. Life just totally changed under the Consumer Protection Bureau, didn't it? It's like night and day. It's kind of like the anti-bellum. The formation of the Consumer Protection Bureau, man, that just changed everything. My suspicion is that most Americans didn't notice it, didn't feel it, and will not notice it if it disappears either.

By the way, just in Mulvaney's defense, if this is the way to put it, CPFB receives its funding from the Fed. Mulvaney submitted his request for funding to the Fed and said, we need no money for the next quarter. Why? Because we had so much money that there's still $177 million in the bank, and our operating budget for the coming quarter is only $145 million. We'll still have $30 million in the bank at the end of this quarter after operating with no additional money from the Fed. What a guy! In Washington, this is being portrayed – the press is portraying this as an outrage, a draconian act against this vital consumer protection agency. Well, Jim – They were overspending and now we have plenty of money in the bank. We won't overspend.

Unbelievable. But isn't the point of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to make sure that credit card companies don't collect more money than they should by force and then sit on it for a while? I mean, you've got the CFPB who's using taxpayer money and has more of it than it needs. But also, isn't it possible, just indulge me here, that many of these federal agencies could survive temporarily a government shutdown with money that they have to carry forward? Or is that some crazy illusion? No, some obviously depends from office to office. One of the things, first of all, if you are the Democrats and you think you're going to get a lot, you have great leverage through a government shutdown,

you probably don't want to have it start at midnight on a Friday. Because you have two days in which everybody's off to begin with, and no one's going to notice. So the first 48 hours of the government shutdown, you know, most federal workers work Monday through Friday. Yes, you know, you might have the kids go to the Smithsonian on the weekend or something like that. But by and large, most Americans won't notice it. So if they were really foolish, they would have started a week ago. So there would have been a three-day weekend.

Martin Luther King Day would have been off, and everybody, you know, they still wouldn't have noticed it for the first 72 hours. I would actually argue that most of the time, and based on these, you know, the ones in the 90s and the one in 2013, you can actually shut down the government for a good 72 hours before people start really noticing it, really getting irritated, things not being processed the way they would or something like that. So there's a part of me like, look, if the Democrats want to do this as a symbolic gesture for the DACA crowd, for the pro-immigration, pro-legalization, pro-amnesty crowd, and say, look, we tried our best. We used every tool in the book. We even shut down the government. And if they fall back to the table late sunday night fine yeah i agree or even one day i think it could where i think it's a slightly more dangerous

uh... situation here is the idea that they're totally convinced the public to be on their side that they get the media uh... pushing the narrative that they prefer and that uh... yeah i i don't think that the republicans we're going to okay well we'll keep DACA as it is and not expect any concessions on border security. Because that's giving away the store when they have the majority in their land. It's also like they put on an extremely reasonable offer

on the table with the one-month continuing resolution and six years of children's health insurance program. You're going to see Democrats insisting that Republicans aren't funding the children's health insurance program. You're going to see Democrats insisting that Republicans aren't funding the children's health insurance program, even though all the Republicans are voting to fund it, and the Democrats are not. So the question will be, do people

buy into this narrative that the Democrats are going to try to put forward, or do they kind of say, wait a minute, if you guys want to keep the government open, why do you keep voting no on these continuing resolutions? Jim, Peter here. One last question, a little bit larger question. The politics of 2018. For the past year, Donald Trump's first year in office, it seems to me that

everything in politics was in the back of people's minds, pegged against an alternative scenario that still seemed quite vivid. This could have been Hillary. Who does he think he is? She could have been there. What do they think they're proposing? This would have been the agenda. Now we're at the point where everything is going to be measured against its effect on the midterms in November.

And it has to be said that the special elections that have taken place in Virginia for some house, for governor in Virginia, some house assembly seats in Georgia, Republicans have been getting pretty well wiped out. Is there a gathering feeling that this is going to be bad, a bad year for Republicans, that they might even lose the House, that even the Senate might be in play. Is that becoming the quiet background consensus in Washington? I can give you the good news or I can give you the bad news, and I'll start with the bad ones. It wasn't just Virginia.

There was a special state Senate election in Wisconsin earlier this week. You look back to November, the last couple of months in 2017, two seats in Georgia, one in Oklahoma, near Tulsa, up in New Hampshire, generally pretty red parts of the country. Democrats managed to flip state legislative races. And you might say, ah, you know, Jim, this is only a state legislative race. It's in the middle of winter in Wisconsin. Turnout's really low. People don't pay attention to this stuff. You know, you shouldn't read too much into it. The problem is that back, you know, traditionally, Republican voters are the ones who pay attention to stuff like this. They're more likely to turn out in special elections. They're more likely to turn out in non-presidential years.

And the Democrats are turning out in these races. So this is a red flag. This is a good reason to worry. All other things being equal, and yes, you can argue about candidate quality and things like that, but generally this says that the Democratic grassroots are fired up and that they are paying attention. And as we saw in Virginia in the state legislative races, you can lose a bunch of seats that you were not expecting to lose if the Democrats have fire in their eyes and are in a mood

where they're going to walk over broken glass in order to vote against your guys. That's the bad news. And I think Republicans should be very worried about the midterms. I do not think anybody should be saying, yeah, this is going to turn out to be okay. The good news, and this is a piece that is currently on the editor's desk at National Review Online. My hope is it goes up either this weekend or early next week. It is a massive lengthy piece where basically I looked at all, I think there are up to 34 House Republicans who are retiring. In some cases, they're retiring to run for Senate or run

for governor or things like that. But it's a massive amount. And I looked through it district by district. And honestly, guys, I've got to say, having looked at all of them, what is the district, what's the history, what do the Republicans usually win by, how did Trump do, how did Hillary do, how long has it been since the Democrat has occupied this seat? Look, I got four of them, two in California, one in Florida, one in Washington State, where I think, yeah, the Democrats are going to get that one.

Four more I put in the maybe toss-up category. And the rest of them, probably about 20, are pretty darn Republican districts. Now, places like the suburbs around Dallas and Houston, the three of the most conservative districts in Pennsylvania, where Schuster is retiring and Barletta is running for the Senate. The districts in Ohio where you've got Rauchy retiring to run for Senate. That's another one where they're all fairly conservative districts. The ones where Republicans usually are winning 10, 15, 20 points.

But they're not that competitive. Now, does this mean Republicans are definitely going to keep them? No. Look, we've seen crazier things happen. We've seen Dave Brott beat Eric Cantor. All things considered, if you're a Republican and you have to defend an open-seat race, you'd probably feel pretty good about that. This is generally pretty friendly territory.

And there are at least four House Democrats retiring that I'd put in that toss-up category. New Hampshire's first district and a couple of districts in Nevada that are pretty evenly split. So the odds of Republicans, when you hear, oh, there are 34 House Republicans who are retiring and Democrats only need 24,

yeah, but they've probably only got eight to ten out of the retirements that they have a really good shot at. So, based on that, the outlook for Republicans in the House might be a little better than the conventional wisdom would suggest. And hopefully you'll be able to read that on National Review Online pretty soon. And check my math

and see if you agree with my assessment of the district. Well, the good news is better than the bad news is bad. Thank you, Jim. I feel better as I head into the weekend. Let better than the bad news is bad. Thank you, Jim. I feel better as I head into the weekend. Let them shut the government down. We're okay in 2018. Well, it all sounds hopeful.

Let's just wait for that all-important Bannon endorsement to see exactly how that affects it. Because, look, what are the odds of us messing up the primaries and nominating the wrong kind of candidate, right? That never happens. You got that. The problem with you, Garrity, is that you always sound so cheerful when you're describing dire things, and you always look so cheerful when you're describing dire things, and that's why we like you. We'll see

you down the road and read you at NR, and of course, everyone, sign up for the Morning Jolt and follow Jim, etc., etc. Thanks for being on. Talk to you later. Always enjoy it, guys. Thanks for having me. That's true. I usually get to see Jim once a year on the National Review stuff, which is always fun. The larger the ship, the harder it is to find him, but it's always a pleasure to hoist a glass with a fine Irishman.

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that's awaytravel.com slash ricochet20. Use the promo code ricochet20 at checkout for $20 off any suitcase. And our thanks to Away Travel for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Well, Peter, before we go, I assume you're a football fan. I know that you bleed. What is the color of your team out there that you would be bleeding? Hmm.

The team is not – no, it was just the 49ers had such an appalling year that I've had a blood transfusion. I no longer bleed 49ers gold and red. I don't know. I am very tempted in these next two weekends to root for your team, the Vikings. By the way, so I have a question. Yes. Four seconds on the clock. Vikings down by two points, as I recall.

One play left in the game, and the Vikings have not even made it quite to midfield. This is last weekend. The game against the Saints. The Saints, who've been trailing toward the end of the third quarter, middle of the third quarter, the Saints were down 13 to nothing. Now we have four seconds left in the game. The Saints are about to win. What happens, and what is the reaction of James Lilacs as he watches it happen? Well, before it happened, it was awful because we first, first half, we had the game in hand.

And then of course the other team, which was good, came back and it did. You've been smug, admit it, you Vikings fans. No, I am. I am. No, I am never that way. I'm always in agony until it's like 64 to nothing in the third. Then, then I can relax. But, but no, I never assume that way. I'm always in agony until it's like 64 to nothing in the third. Then I can relax. But no, I never assume that because this stuff happens.

You have a kick blocked. You have an interception. You have a stupid interception. And all of a sudden, momentum changes. All of a sudden, you can feel the legs go out from under your own team, all of these things. Well, it's one of those back and forth last moment plays where you you throw get it down field get out get out of bounds stop the clock and then we'll kick but what happened was apparently if i'm looking at the photographic evidence it's been sent around on twitter the ghost of prince descended and confused

one of the blockers who laid down and no greater love hath a saint than to lay down his life for the Vikings because the receiver not able to believe what he'd just seen ran and the rest of us who were watching could not believe what we were had seen we were momentarily lifted up by the reception and the fact that it was inbounds and there wasn't a flag but that but but that but that but but then he's running kept Kept going. And everybody in the room, all of us, stand. And it happened so fast that all we could do was just scream. And so for a good solid minute, we just simply screamed and then went outside in the snow and screamed. Came back in and hit each other and screamed, as men do. And knocked craniums together and bumped chests and high five and the rest of these

smashing things that leave you bruised and then screamed some more so it was great um it was a galvanic moment for the state it was yeah i have no idea what's going to happen on sunday and it's going to be not fun because i'll be sitting there with my guts in a knot waiting for the worst to happen but if we make it to the super, to our beautiful new stadium and our wonderful – the whole world is going to be looking at us anyway at the Super Bowl thing, or at least so we think. It's amusing. Let's talk about this coming weekend.

Let's talk about tomorrow for just a moment. The Vikings have a superb defense. Doesn't that give you some confidence as they go up against the Eagles? The Eagles have an offense. They have a quarterback who's just got a kind of preternatural ability to put the wall where it needs to go. But you're okay against that. You've got one of the best defenses in the game and one of the best offenses. If everybody's healthy and they're feeling their mojo and they can get some stuff off start quickly to make them feel as though they've got this in hand or at least feel confident.

Yeah, that'll be great. So my argument is that the Vikings defense can contain, at least limit the damage done by the Eagles offense, but the Eagles defense is not going to be able to contain your offense. I'm thinking the Vikings win. I'm hoping the Vikings win. I'm hoping the Vikings win. I never, I went into this last with my friend, the giant Swede were coming, recumbent on his sofa saying it was going to be, I think he said it was 34. It's going to be a 34, 10 game and, or 38, 34, whatever, some absurd score. And I, I, I simply could not countenance that amount of optimism because I've just seen this too long. I, I,

I walked away from the Vikings for many years because I was just tired of having my heart broken. It's not a legal marriage. However, legally I am required to tell you and pleased and honored, honored to do so that away travel, the great courses and quip are sponsors that you need to patronize because they will make your life better.

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There's a podcast listener tier for you that's – if you're not yet part of the Ricochet family, that's only $2.50 a month. Unbelievable. So there you go. A suitcase from Away Travel, a course from The Great Courses, a great toothbrush from Quip, all of the stuff you've heard, Shelby Steele, Jim Garrity's inside information. Is this not worth a quarter of $2.50? I think maybe we can make the argument that it is. Peter, thank you for being here as ever, and we'll see everybody in the comments. James, since you view since you view as normal,

what you feel it as normal when life tortures you and then gives you a grim outcome, you're a North Dakotan living in Minnesota. The great skies are gray. And that's, here's my prediction. My prediction is the Vikings win this weekend and they play the Patriots in the Superbowl and lose.

Does that make you feel better? Does that make you feel better? Does that make you feel better? Yes. This is pretty much kind of what people are thinking is the best case scenario. Okay. Well, have fun this weekend anyway, James. I will. We'll see everybody at Ricochet where I will cry or exult or point, but I won't taunt.

I'm not one of those guys who taunts because I don't frankly know enough about anything to do so. Thanks, Peter. We'll talk to you next week. Next week, James. Tack it up, tack it up, buddy, gonna shut you down. It happened on the strip

where the road is wide. Two cool shorts standing side by side Yeah, a fuel-injected stingray and a 413 We're revving up our engines and it sounds real mean Tack it up, tack it up, buddy, gonna shut you down Declining numbers at an even rate At the count of one, we both accelerate My stingray is light, the slicks are starting to spin,

but the 413 is really digging in. Gotta be cool now. Power shift, here we go. Superstock, I was whining out in low, but my fuel injector steer is really starting to go. To get the traction,

I'm riding the clutch. My pressure plate is burning, that machine's too much. Ricochet. Join the conversation.