The Ricochet Podcast - The Time Shifters

Episode Date: April 8, 2016

This week, some insight into the TV viewing habits of your favorite podcasters, followed by the very smart opinions of Wall Street Journal Opinion Page Editor Bret Stephens. Then, #NeverTrump progenitor and founder of The Resurgent Erick Erickson stops by to make the case (as if we needed the help) as to why Trump cannot be allowed to win the White House. Also, Lazy_Millennial‘s post Bernie: The... Source

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Limitations and terms apply. See vodafone.ie forward slash terms. Hello, everyone. I don't believe that she is qualified if she is, through her super PAC, taking tens of millions of dollars in special interest loans. I don't know what's going to happen here.

I don't have any information on that. They don't understand what you're talking about. And that's going to prove to be disastrous. What it means is that the people don't want socialism. They want more conservatism. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast, one short of 300. Our guests, Eric Erickson from The Resurgent and Brett Stevens from The Wall Street Journal.

Let's have ourselves a podcast. There you go again. Welcome everybody to this, the Ricochet Podcast number almost 300. It's 299. And it's brought to you by, can you guess? It's by audible.com this week. They've got more than 180,000 audio books and spoken word audio products. You can get a free 30-day trial and a free audio book at www.audible.com slash ricochet.

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everyone owes it to themselves to learn and study the Constitution. After all, as we keep saying, you can't have free enterprise without freedom. And we're brought to you by Peter and Rob, who have, I don't know, it's like they compiled the most beautiful. Wait, you're at a loss for words now?

I was going to say they compiled the most beautiful, radiant code in the world and heaped it on a gorgeous silver platter and just ever so gently walked through the land distributing this wonderful idea to everyone to have. They're like the Johnny Appleseeds of conservative civility. Here's Rob to go on and on interminably for some reason. Why did you join? Just because you're civil doesn't mean I have to. You said it. You said it. If you are listening to this podcast and you're a member of Ricochet or just say you've been listening to it and you're thrilled that we're at number 300, here's how that happened.

We had a whole bunch of people working together and trying to get this to work, and we were the early podcasters, and we were starting. We have other podcasts going on. We have some great other stuff you should check out. None of it's free to us anyway, and none of it costs nothing. So if you are a member of Ricochet, you are doing your part, and we thank you. If you're not – well, look, what can I do? I can't hold a gun to your head. I can just say that you're not really doing your part.

So please go to Ricochet.com. Check us out. Become a member. You get a free trial, free month trial, so there's no risk to you. At least sign up for the Daily Shot. That's free. Great email blast. It gets in your email every day and gives you the things you need to know to make it through the day.

No risk. great community, civility. It's really worth your time. And just so you know, by the odd chance that you've just stumbled into this thing with no idea what's going on here, it's not just politics. There was a great discussion yesterday about architecture, Paris, modernism, where all of a sudden people you never suspected – well, not that you wouldn't suspect, but people who had never previously evinced any sort of great knowledge or interest in the subject suddenly hold forth and reveal this quantity of information and cogitation that just makes you think, oh, right. That's the great thing about Ricochet. When a topic comes up, all of a sudden people who have been your friends in the section for a long time just turn it into far richer, more multifaceted people. And speaking of multifaceted, there's the groggy Peter Robinson who we're going to now blow air horns in his direction to wake him up because you apparently were up this morning with your wife off on a jet plane. Soon to be back. How are you in California? I'm fine. I'm i'm fine what goes on

i have a question for the two of you and it's not on the run there's nothing about this question that's um standard for the flagship podcast but you just mentioned all the kinds of things that don't deal with politics that go on on ricochet rob i have an announcement and james i'd like to know what you make of this we and i don't just mean me you would find that eccentric but not unusual we my wife me and my kids it turns out except for the youngest, have simply stopped watching television. And by that I mean have simply stopped watching scheduled broadcasting. I realized this, what was it, the night before last, as the older ones and my wife and I were watching episode 7 of Bosch on Amazon.

And we had just exchanged texts that day, earlier that very same day, about making sure to record or download the moment it was available, The Night Manager, the new series, I think it's six episodes with Hugh Laurie. They've made a John le Carre into a six series. We suddenly realized it's been, as far as I can recall, a couple of months since any of us sat down in front of a television to watch something that was on TV at that moment other than a sporting event. It has all already happened. Yes, the last time I did that, I think, was 1986. Rob? Oh, come on.

1986? I haven't watched scheduled television since the invention of the VCR. I have. Time shifted everything. Because why do I want to watch it when it's on? The phone's going to ring. I'm going to need to get up and get something. No, I want to be able to pause it for as long as I possibly can.

But I know what you mean, Peter. What about your wife in the nat? My daughter watches nothing on broadcast television. She watches everything that comes to her on YouTube or Hulu. So she's gone to other platforms. And my wife uses the DVR for network programming, yes, but she regards the Amazon and the Netflix as being indistinguishable from that. My wife is the last holdout who will watch network series dramas, but she doesn't watch them when they're on. We've been time-shifting since

the invention of a medium that can record those little ones and zeros. Rob, that makes you a dinosaur, I'm afraid. Well, I don't do it either, but I mean, nobody does it. I was going to say to Peter, welcome to 2013. Soon as I opened

my mouth, I thought, oh. Republicans win the midterms by the way peter 2014 it's kind of exciting there's a high point i know you're gonna get very excited about the republican field don't um yet no that that is the way it's going there is no particular reason why you should have to watch stuff when it's on when people it's almost barbaric that a giant you know television network a programmer is going to say to you – usually one guy is going to say, okay, Thursday is at 9 o'clock. Here's what you've got to do. Either that or you miss it. That's a term that in business they call pricing power, right, where you have – you can – if you have pricing power, you're in a great position.

You could set the price of your product. And that's what network television had for years except it wasn't price. It was time, which is also money. You're going to sit and watch. And now, of course, it's distributed all over the place. You may not even be watching what we're watching. What you're seeing in broadcast networks now is what they're trying to do is they're trying to create programming that's indistinguishable, close or closely indistinguishable from those services that you're enjoying, Amazon and Netflix, at the same time doubling down on day-and-date programming that you have to watch, sporting events, concerts, those live musicals they're doing all that stuff award shows

that's um that's so they have these twin businesses in basically video on demand and then you sit you watch so in the video on demand business cbs and b and the big networks that supply them have i'm at this i'm making this as a statement. It's the form of the question. They have zero advantage over Netflix or Amazon Prime or YouTube. Zero. None. As a matter of – I'm asking, is that right? Do they have better access to the talent in Hollywood? Well, they have a bigger promotional platform. That's what held back a lot of those other places, right, is how much you're going to spend on promotion. But when you talk about Netflix, which has spent $2 billion, or Amazon, which has sort of unlimited funds for promotion, although Amazon stumbled a little bit in many ways, that's what gets you into the theater. That's what gets you to know about a show right uh so promotion and promotional platform is the most

important thing so if you're uh if you're netflix you your promotional platform is this weird algorithm i like x movies i they've noticed you've been watching certain movies or certain tv shows now they can serve you up things that algorithmically uh are compatible with that and that is a very very big business for them amazon doesn't really have that but okay and before we before we actually begin the podcast and go to the politics oh yeah this is not even a podcast this is just it's just reading my dream journal so so one more question for james and rob about this whole thing it has ushered in i know this because i read uh andrew claven on ricochet this new world of television is a new golden age of drama, right?

Long-form drama. But it hasn't – why has there been no advantage, as best I can tell, to comedy? The sitcom is somehow – is there something inherent in the sitcom, in the medium that you want to think that you're laughing along with the rest of the nation that comedy is not somehow for some reason that peter can't understand and is therefore asking this question about for some reason comedy is not going to be able to benefit as the as has drama from this new long form oh i don't know i think the house of cards is pretty funny that they expect me to believe a minute of it. It's conceptually hilarious. And oddly enough, I'm not sure that I agree with Andrew completely

because there are a couple of comedy shows that are brilliant. They're just animated, so people don't take them as seriously as the three-camera setup with your traditional sitcom. But maybe he's right. Maybe when people binge, they don't want to binge on comedy. They want to binge on a story that has hooks at the end of it that keep you going.

The sort of thing that, you know, you can't put a book down at the end of the night because you got to the end of the chapter and you absolutely have to find out what happens absolutely next. You know, and that carries over not just to books,

but to audio books as well. And people who are doing long commutes themselves or finally get to make a long dinner often will say I wish somebody would tell me a story well it's entirely possible that's where Audible comes in

they're offering you a 30 day trial membership and a free audio book if you just go to audible.com slash ricochet and browse the over 180,000 audio programs download a title for free and start listening it's that easy.

So go to audible.com slash ricochet. That's audible.com slash ricochet and get started today. Why? Why? Well, because did I mention there's 180,000 audio programs, including leading publishers, broadcasters, entertainers, magazine, newspaper publishers, business information providers. It's astonishing.

And if I were to recommend anything, I'd say go get a Harry Bosch novel. If you're a Bosch fan, and Peter referenced the series earlier, you may have an exception in your head of Harry, and I saw him as sort of square-headed Vietnam vet, a lot older than the TV shows and with a bushy mustache. Titus Welliver plays him perfectly. He's not what I expected in the least bit, but Titus has this trademark skeptical head cock that somehow captures the character better than many other actors who fit my mental conception could have.

It's a great series, and the second season is extraordinary, and it's been renewed for a third, so we'll see more of Jerry Ryan, too. Anyway, get a Bosch book. The writing isn't spectacular, but the plotting of these things is just, that's what Connelly

does best. There's not a word you can quote, and there's not a word, really, that you could take out without destroying the book. That's my choice. Anyway, Rob, the question would be, why aren't there comedies? Why isn't the Rob Long Comedy Factory, you know, turning away all authors? Why do I have time to do

these podcasts? I would say there are two issues there. One is the comedy is doing okay on video on demand. There's some big comedy hits. Or the streaming services have comedies. Hulu is doing really well with comedy. And I think

Amazon, not so much. But Netflix is doing really well has some great comedy The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is a terrific show HBO is the best comedy on the air right now which is Silicon Valley

but you're right in the sense that a lot of these comedies are now what we thought of as serial comedies meaning they connect but that isn't because they weren't popular before it's just because before you had four or five of serial comedies, meaning they connect. But that isn't because they weren't popular before. It's just because before, you had four or five people, literally four or five people, deciding what America thought was funny.

And I'm going to say something really controversial now. Those four people weren't funny. And so they decided years ago, America does not want serial comedy. Don't ever come with a serial comedy. So nobody ever did. They came with a multicam in front of an audience, shot in front of an audience. Well, that's an old format.

Some of these formats still exist, like newspapers, for example. Yeah, but that format came back. That format was considered absolutely dead in the 1960s. And it was brought back in the early 70s when All the all the family premiered if that was considered radical like incredibly edgy yes but my mission of newspapers was a crude attempt to transition to our guest who's patiently waiting oh i see okay okay there you go and that would be brett stevens here it's the global view of the wall street journal's foreign affairs column for which incidentally he won a pulitzer prize for commentary in 2013 paper's deputy editor page editor, I'm sorry, responsible for the international opinion pages of the journal and a member of the paper's editorial board.

He's also a regular panelist on the Journal Editorial Report, a weekly political talk show broadcast on Fox News. And his columns can be found at, well, if you're looking at this on Ricochet, there's a link to take you right there. Welcome to the podcast, Mr. Stevens. Here's Peter Robinson, eager for your insights on the world. Peter? Brett, Peter Robinson here. How are you doing? I'm fine. I want to get to your book, which I guess it's been out about, what, 18 months or so now, but we've never had a chance to talk to you about it. A PTSB mortgage gets you moving. Whether you're buying or building your first home or your forever home, our dedicated team can help find the rate that's right for you.

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Every year, thousands of people go to their very first concert. Our boosted signal at large events means they can always call a taxi to get home. Mom? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was grand. Do you think you could pick me up? Every connection counts, which is why Ireland can count on our network. Vodafone. Together we can. can help find the rate that's right for you. And with an online portal to track every stage of your application, it all comes together for a mortgage experience that's altogether more human. PTSB.

Apply online today. Lending criteria, terms and conditions apply. Over 18s only. Security and insurance is required. Permanent TSP PLC trading as PTSP is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Podcast, America in Retreat. So, tough question. From the book to the politics, at least as a way of getting into the book, where does Donald Trump figure into the thesis you laid out in America in Retreat?

You know, I started writing the book in 2012. The subtitle of the book is The Coming Global Disorder, or The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder. And at the time, a lot of people would have said, oh, that's far-fetched, and that's not where we are on the contrary. The world is largely at peace. I saw Obama as a closet isolationist, and I think his second-term foreign policy really vindicates that thesis. And I also wrote a chapter titled Republicans in Retreat, that was about the isolationist impulses in the GOP. Of course, at the time, I didn't see Donald Trump coming. I thought it was all going to be Rand Paul. But when you listen to Trump, he's picked up much of that mantle. If anything, he's gone a lot further than I think Rand Paul would ever dare to. It's more in the spirit of his father ron paul get out of uh nato

um uh stop uh stop acting as a uh defender protector of uh treaty allies like south korea japan the philippines uh and so on and so trump is um paradoxically or I think a point that hasn't been noted enough, Trump's articulation of foreign policy is more than anything an extension, a logical extension of Obama's than it is something opposed to the mindset of this administration. Brett, just on your fundamental thesis, back in the, gosh, you'd remember better than I probably, it was late 80s or early 90s, Irving Kristol wrote a couple of columns for the Wall Street Journal saying, if he were still with us, he'd be horrified to have me put it this way, but I believe it's correct. He was in some ways anticipating the argument that Pat Buchanan and Donald Trump are making now. And Irving wrote in the Wall Street Journal that NATO, our involvement in NATO ought to be scaled back or reconsidered. It made perfect sense right up through the 1970s when the European countries

we were defending, and we were defending them, were still poor and needed to recover from the war. But now they were, broadly speaking, about as rich and capable as we were. And although, yes, it was in our interest to defend the Europeans, it was also in their interest to defend themselves. And of course, everybody poo-pooed him. And I think Irving Kristol was, there was a kind of, he was just floating it for the sake of discussion. I talked to him about it a few years afterwards. In any event, there is this kind of problem, which I'm going to ask you to explain,

that we conservatives believe in spontaneous order. Things will be all right. They'll get without government intervention in all kinds of aspects of life, but most notably the economy. But somehow, but why doesn't it work in foreign policy? Why can't we just say, no, we'll stay out of it. It's in everybody's interest to find a way to live peacefully with each other. The Europeans will figure it out. The Israelis and their Arab neighbors will figure it out. We just and their Arab neighbors will figure it out. We just have to let spontaneous peace emerge. Why is that wrong in foreign policy?

Because the international order is not a marketplace, I guess, is the most straightforward answer. the incentives that apply in geopolitics historically don't always lead to cooperative engagement, don't always lead to a kind of a stable system. I wish they did, but this is one of the reasons why libertarianism, where I'm in agreement with much of what libertarians say on economic issues, falls down as a foreign policy prescription. What you have are countries and civilizations with fundamentally different worldviews, different ideas of what constitutes success or failure, what constitutes sufficiency or insufficiency. And so they don't operate according to ordinary rules. I mean, just consider the fact that Russia has become more aggressive as its economy is in

decline rather than less aggressive. I mean, so you would expect that a regime like Russia or a country like Russia facing economic pressure would scale back its foreign policy adventurism. The opposite has happened. And you can think of scores of examples along the same lines. Why did Argentina, when it was in the midst of its crisis, pick a fight with Great Britain in 1982? Look, Irving Kristol, whom I knew, was a brilliant man and right about many things and interesting about almost everything. But I don't think Irving, or I think Irving would be the first person to tell you that he was no seer. And in fact, it was, I don't remember the dates of the op-eds, but very early in the 1990s, we had a demonstration of the logic of that thinking.

There was a war in the Balkans, and the initial impulse of the Clinton administration was, let the Europeans sort it out. Turned out, they weren't up to the job. So it was only our intervention in the end that sorted out the Balkans. That may be a depressing reality of international life that so many people fall down on the job, but it is the reality, and that's what we've known since or should know since the Second World War. Without the United States as a backstop, as an ultimate guarantor of a certain kind of world order, you're going to see the kind of disorders that have multiplied in just the last few years. But hey, Brett, it's Rob Long.

Thanks for joining us. But do you blame the American voter? I mean, let's take it out of the political candidates for being exhausted by sort of looking at the front page and seeing the alphabet soup of terrorist or quasi-terrorist organizations of the Mideast, seeing pretty much zero progress, two steps forward, three steps back, essentially a dissatisfying conclusion to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That now even you'd hear Ted Cruz talk about, and I think even Donald Trump in many ways, are talking about terrorism the way we were informed early on in 2001 after 9-11 that we

should not talk about terrorism, which is as a police matter, as a criminal matter. Do you blame the American voter for just being exhausted with these overseas adventures? ISIS, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the vast explosion of jihadi groups that we've seen in just the last four years, and there are numbers that attest to this, all of that corresponds not with a policy of American intervention. It corresponds with a policy of American retreat. We're not in Iraq. Okay, we have 3,000 troops as trainers in Iraq. We're not really pursuing a serious policy in Syria. We've massively drawn down our troops from 160,000 or whatever to 10,000 in Afghanistan. And yet somehow it's the policy of intervention

that's being blamed for the failures of non-intervention. Although, to be fair, 9-11 was sort of, according to al-Qaeda or Osama bin Laden, was the direct result of 100,000 troops in the Muslim Holy Land. Yeah, if you credit Osama, if you take Osama at his word, which I think is a dangerous thing to do. Fair point. Right? I mean, the jihadis will always have a pretext. It will be the U.S. was in Saudi Arabia, or Israel is occupying the West Bank, or Spain is occupying the Moorish areas of Spain. I mean, it's one historical grievance after another.

And I think you need to just take those pretexts with a grain of salt they would be attacking you no matter what and by the way um just to the to your earlier point which i think is a valid one if we have five more san bernardinos um in in this country um i think americans will be saying why are we doing so little to stop them over there before they come over here? What happens when we start getting parastyle attacks here? So that's a good question because it does seem to me that certain parastyle attacks, the origin of those were in Brussels in Europe. And the San Bernardino attacks were – really the origin for them were in San Bernardino. Would more robust, more athletic, more definitive American actions in the other regions, Syria, all those places, you think that would reduce the number of terrorist attacks or increase it? I mean, put it this way, ISIS is losing ground, but becoming more adventurous in Europe. Why wouldn't they, as they lose, become more adventurous in the U.S.?

Well, ISIS isn't exactly losing ground. I mean, it's losing ground in some areas of Iraq and Syria. It's gaining ground in places like Libya. So it's morphing. But look, why is it that ISIS suddenly gains the adherence and radicalizes a pair like the killers in San Bernardino or the people who tried to shoot up the Pam Geller event in Garland, Texas? It's because, and here I'll quote bin Laden for you, but here I think he was being sincere, ISIS is seen, as bin Laden would say, as the strong horse. It's seen as a successful group. It's seen as a group that's done something that not even al-Qaeda ever came close to achieving. It's able to take thousands of radicals from Europe, from Minneapolis, from Indonesia, you name it,

give them military experience and training on the battlefields of the Middle East. It's been able to hold its ground now for going on more than two years. So it seems to me a weird argument to say, well, if we just sort of leave them alone out there, maybe they'll leave us alone here. That's typically not been the case. On the contrary, their success in the Middle East inspires a group like Boko Haram in Nigeria or other terrorist groups to swear allegiance to ISIS to give it strength. And it means that you're going to see more lone wolf attacks here in the United States because the radical Muslim communities in the U.S. aren't really large enough to have cell structures. And you're going to see more cell structure attacks of the kind we just saw in Brussels last month.

Brad, Peter here once again. If I may, just to return to the problem that Rob touched on. Hold on, I'm not sure. Can you hear me? I think I may have lost my hearing. Yeah, no, I'm hearing you. I'm hearing you. Oh, I see. Okay, sorry. Yeah yeah i can hear you sorry about that so here's the the political the problem of doing what needs to be done while sustaining public support the problem of doing what needs to be done in a democracy. In intelligence, we're in the position of saying to the public, and people like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, the original incarnation of Ted Cruz, don't like it. They see its political opening there. We're in the position of saying, give us broader powers than many of you are comfortable with, or because we're preventing even worse things from happening. Trust us. You have to say, trust us. Let us spend on the military. Let us send troops abroad. Or you put it just brilliantly in your

column maybe three weeks ago, four weeks ago, in which you sketched what the United States could do and should do in Syria. It was 700 or 800 words, brilliantly concise on a policy that would actually advance the American cause in Syria. And in your final paragraph, you said, of course, this won't solve the problem. But sometimes foreign policy is about preventing worse things from happening. But that's just very hard to sustain. I mean, I think Ronald Reagan at the end of the Cold War, people sensed that we were starting to win. But I mean, I think Ronald Reagan at the end of the Cold War, people could sense that we were starting to win. But the analogy, I think the better fit for the current moment is Harry Truman when the Cold War was beginning. And that man left office with approval

ratings that were in the tank. If you're a working politician, how do you approach the problem? Yeah, you see, you've put your finger on, I think, really the great question, the really great question. I mean, there were two cultural failures when it came to the war in Iraq, just to take one example. One, of course, is the Iraqi cultural failure. This is not a society that takes well to, you know, the gift of democracy or liberal democracy or much less liberal democracy. On the other hand, one of the great lessons of Iraq is Americans won't put up with 10-year wars. So we won't sustain the kind of time frame that counterinsurgency experts will tell you is required to really win in these kinds of wars. People generally say it's at least 10 years before

you can successfully defeat a counterinsurgency. It requires large numbers of troops. It requires a huge presence, and it has to go on sort of in a way that is more than just one or two or even three presidential terms. So we need to figure out how you can intervene to achieve targeted but limited results, definable results, visible results, without saying, therefore, we fix the problem. And, you know, I hate to say this because I'm not an admirer of his, but Vladimir Putin demonstrated that if you define what you're trying to do... Every year, thousands of students go on their first holiday abroad. Our 5G roaming in 80 countries means they're connected as soon as they land.

Just a reminder to wear sunscreen, love, because you're as pale as a ghost. Oh, and can you send me all your friends' numbers because their mothers are on to me. And always keep your cash in your bum bag, yeah. Every connection counts, which is why Ireland can count on our network. Vodafone. Together we can. Subject to coverage availability. Limitations and terms apply. See vodafone.ie forward slash terms. Looking for the ultimate

adventure challenge? GoQuest Carrick Mines is the indoor experience where fun meets excitement. With over 50 challenge rooms across GoQuest, test yourself in mental, physical, and skill-based challenges. Perfect for families, friends, corporate teams, and parties. For younger adventurers and families, there's GoQuest Junior. Book now at GoQuest.ie. You can accomplish it. You can use military power in limited ways to tilt the political or strategic or diplomatic landscape in a way that favors your interests without pretending that you're going to put the Humpty Dumpty of Syria, or for that matter, Afghanistan and Iraq, back together. Now, that's difficult to do because Americans like their victories

on the battleship Missouri. And I think part of that is saying, listen, we're in a long twilight struggle, but we have to fight it. And we have to fight it in a way that's both effective on the ground without trying to make the best the enemy of the good, and we have to fight it in ways that the American people are going to be prepared to support over the long term. Look, the U.S. has intervened in small ways all over the world to good effect. We got rid of Manuel Noriega, a bad guy in Panama. Nobody remembers that. We sent a lesson to Muammar Gaddafi in the 1980s about his support for terrorism. Those are the kind of interventions the Pan's or, you know, maybe at most, for instance,

what Britain was able to do in the Falklands, that we really ought to be looking for as models of a successful approach rather than the 10-year, all-in, we're going to fix everything type of approach. You know, sometimes it's better if you've got issues in your house, just fix the plumbing and wait till, you know, a few years later till you start tackling the kitchen. Right.

Brett, James Lylex here. I work at a newspaper and as you might expect, if you look around in this newsroom, you might find a liberal here or there. And one of them is, I always delight in... We find none here at the Journal.

Well, that's just it. I know. Thank you. I'm anxious to take a tour. One of them is – We find none here at the Journal. Well, that's just it. I know. Thank you. I'm anxious to take a tour. One of them is fond of telling me with glee that Trump is precisely what the GOP in as much as decades of admiration of European models, economic illiteracy, adolescent rage has produced this 70-year-old man who's tapping into what their party really is about. What do you think Bernie says about America today in as much as his anti-Wall Street rhetoric has got so many people beaming with admiration. Well, you know, what floors me, I'm now hiring young college graduates who have no living memory of the Cold War.

None. Now, they're smart, they know what the Soviet Union was, they're educated, but interestingly, after a decisive, not only strategic, but you would think ideological victory in the Cold War, we never took as a country the trouble to educate Americans about what communism, or for that matter, socialism, is and does in the way that we educated Americans after World War II about what Nazism and all of its sort of offshoots and variations is all about. And so there was never a pedagogy at high schools and universities explaining why does socialism always wind up being both autocratic, if not totalitarian, and why does socialism always wind up giving you the kind of economy we're now seeing in Venezuela? So I think that's a large part of the Bernie story, which is that we have 23-year-olds,

24-year-olds, and you say the word socialism, and it sounds like it's cute. It's not cute. It's a horror of its own kind on the same order as fascism. which is the result of uninformed voters who respond to sincerity, or at least the appearance of sincerity, passion, or at least the appearance of passion, but don't really have a set of guiding principles to understand what America is, what sets us apart, and why the things that we have done both as a government and as an economy have been so uniquely successful. Add to that eight years of really mediocre growth, and you're going to find a fondness for this kind of political or ideological foolishness. Hey, Brett, it's Rob again. You said something a moment ago, just really sort of hit me.

Why do you think we didn't celebrate winning the Cold War? Is that the only American war we've ever won that we didn't celebrate? Why do you suppose that was? Well, because the narrative, as I remember it, when it was being won, was that it was all Mikhail Gorbachev's doing. It had nothing to do with that fool Ronald Reagan. But was there a possibility that we were embarrassed by it, that we were embarrassed that we won, that still the left-wing progressive sort of very soft on communism intellectuals just kind of wanted to all be over? I think there was some of that.

I think there was – the triumph was so sudden, so complete, and in many ways, so unexpected. Let's face it, in 1987, it was a rare person who would have said the Soviet Union's got four years to go on this earth, and that's that. And also, I think part of it was to do with the fact that the intellectual class in America from the late 1960s on had been educated to believe that socialism was, at a very minimum, a decent alternative form of economic policy, of politics. And so they were not exactly inclined to accept the lesson of the Soviet Union's collapse. I mean, that's why you ended up hearing these idiotic comments about how the Soviet Union wasn't really a communist system. Right. It's never really been tried. All of this garbage.

Right. That's Bernie Sanders in my – Bernie Sanders should not be running for president. They should capture him, put him in a plexiglass case, and put him on display at the Smithsonian. He is like a mastodon found in the frozen tundra of Siberia. He is a perfectly preserved 1960s liberal. He's a red baby. He looks like a New York Review of Books David Levine caricature come to life. Exactly.

You know, he's a character out of, look, I mean, I think certainly in my case, every Jewish family had a Bernie Sanders. He's a true believer. We were, I know him slightly because we were at an award ceremony at the University of Chicago, which is our alma mater. And when we were asked to give speeches, everyone who received this alumni award gave this kind of gracious little speech about the university, and Bernie Sanders talked about the climate crisis,

the inequality crisis, and so on. And he's an ideologue of the kind that you sort of recognize. He's always on. He has one theme. He's been talking about the same stuff forever. I mean, most of us, as we grow older, we grow out of the fervors and convictions and passions of our teenage years. I mean, I read The Fountainhead when I was 12 years old. I thought it was a great book. A few years later, I thought, well, not really, you know, because we mature as individuals. We mature as human beings.

Bernie never did. He has that pure fire of the guy who thinks that wisdom is holding on to the convictions that you had when you were 16 years old. Yeah, that's why I'm trying to get my daughter to be as liberal as possible now. I want to give her everything she needs to reject to have a happy, sane, and prosperous life. Yeah, that's why I'm trying to get my daughter to be as liberal as possible now. I want to give her everything she needs to reject to have a happy, sane, and prosperous life. Brett, we thank you for showing up on the show today, and can't wait to read the next column in the Wall Street Journal. And we hope to have you again, regardless of what the election outcomes happen to be. Thank you. Thank you for the wonderful questions.

Thanks for having me. Thanks, Brett. Cheers. Guys, I've got to say something here. I'm looking at my Twitter mentions. I know that you are constantly stabbing your phone to scroll to see your Twitter mentions here. And I've got one from a new – well, here's the thing about my Twitter. Twitter is different than email, right?

When email backs up, you feel bad about it, and it's there waiting for you. How? When Twitter backs up and you've got all these mentions here, it's very easy for you to scroll and look at them and dismiss and they automatically the number ticks down. If there's only some place you could put some Twitter tweets into

like a black hole. Here's the tweet from a new member. It's addressed both to at Ricochet and at Lilacs. I love the podcast, but the lengthy buildup to sponsors is tiresome and distracting from the show's quality. Stop it. Literally, stop it is what he says. So let's have that in the comments then.

That could have been a long and winding segue. That sounds like a Lilacs bot, though, that did that. Robin, people really didn't know when to jump in on. But you were correct to note that I was indeed segueing to one of our sponsors. And why wouldn't you want me to get that as soon as possible? Because, frankly, this is something that's going to make your life easier. How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? I'm looking at mine.

I've got 83 in my inbox. I have 3,256 in my junk, so to speak, and I know that they are indeed that. I've got a SaneLater box with a little number on it that's completely manageable. And why do I have SaneLater? Because I have SaneBox. I've got the Sane black hole, which I know contains stuff I never, ever want to see and don't have to, because I've trained SaneBox to take letters from these people and put them into the black hole where they are crunched into oblivion and nothing remains. There's also a SaneNoReplies that tells me when I've sent something to somebody and they haven't sent it back to me. Thanks a lot, pal. I'm taking notes

here. And there's SaneNotSpam, which could be spam, but maybe isn't, and you never know. Well, here's the thing. If that sounds like an email box that you can comprehend at a glance to tell you what's useful and what isn't, then you're absolutely right. And that's what SaneBox is all about. I can't recommend this enough. Sorts through your email and moves all the trivial stuff into a different folder so the only messages in your inbox are the ones you actually want to see. What a concept. And aside from removing all of the junk so you can focus on the messages that matter, there's that aforementioned black hole thing which just whisks it off into oblivion and you never have to see those people again. Visit SaneBox.com slash Ricochet today and they will throw in an extra $25 credit on top of

the two-week free trial. That's right. You don't have to enter your credit card and your information unless you decide to buy. So there's really nothing to lose. Give it a shot. See how it sorts. See how your email no longer becomes an encumbrance and a barrier to happiness in life, but a productivity tool. Check it out today and let us know if you love the black hole feature as much as we do. You might even get to inbox zero, which I believe that Rob Long has attained Zen Master that he is. Yes, I have. I have attained it. Every day? Every day, Rob?

Not every day. But here's the thing about Sane is that you can achieve it every day because the stuff I know I'm not going to do that day, I just show it as Sane later or Sane tomorrow or Sane – I have all these different boxes – or Sane next week. I'm not going to do this now, so why am I looking at it? Just get rid of it. Right. And the feeling of like knowing that it's going to come back next week when you want to deal with it is fantastic. So yeah, pretty much every day, zero. Exactly. Sanebox.com slash ricochet and start doing all that email stuff smarter later.

And you know what? When you get your audible.com sign up up it'll pop up in the right folder too and you'll just see what magic this is we now go to one of the founders believe uh believe of the never trump eric erickson he hosts plan as evening news with eric erickson and it's on a 750 wsb previously served as the editor-in-chief of the conservative political blog red state and was a political contributor to cnn so uh he launched the resurgent a while ago which has got some fascinating pieces i wrote about one of them on my screen blog the other day about the never trump movement and we welcome him i believe for the first time to this the ricochet podcast hello eric i'm very excited to be here for the first time so eric uh you know i first encountered your work with Red State, etc.

You were always kind of, in a good way, a rabble-rouser and a disturber of the peace. How does it feel to be a member of the ossified, sclerotic chokehold on the Republican Party, the establishment? That went pretty fast for you, didn't it? I was waiting for my complimentary coffee mug and hookers and blowers, and they'd have the pain. Right. Yeah. Okay, so can we talk about that for a minute? A couple of questions.

One, I want to know how – because I ask that of everybody I know who has been kind of a – who's been out there making trouble for years, now suddenly is part of this Washington, D.C. crowd. I mean, do you go – have you just decided to stop arguing with people and just accept the fact that that's now going to be how they call you if they disagree with your views on this one specific candidate? Yes, and the primary reason is because I'm pretty sure that when Donald Trump fades, they will too. So there's no point in having that argument. Many of the people who are coming in making these claims are people who have never been active in politics before, and I'm pretty sure won't be if Donald Trump is not on the scene. Okay, so before – I know Peter wants to jump in, but I want to get into something I read last night. What we hear about Donald Trump is he's got this incredible Twitter army, all these followers on Twitter. It turns out a lot of them are what they call bots, right?

Yes, yes. A lot of them, even the people who they have Twitter biographies and they have pictures of themselves or their family, they're made up. They're fictitious. You know, interestingly, the New York Times did a report back in 2015 about the Ebola scare tweets and Black Lives Matter tweets. And a lot of them were coming out of a building in Moscow. They were Twitter trolls played, played, played, paid by the Kremlin. Oddly enough, a number of them are now Donald Trump tweeters. They were concerned with the two great viruses in the world. Eric, Peter Robinson here. I'm with Rob and apologizing.

We should have had you. This is our 299th podcast, which means we've been mistaken 298 times in a row, but you're on now. Listen, you just used what would have been nothing special a month ago, but is now a remarkable dependent clause in introducing a sentence. You said, quote, when Donald Trump fades, comma. Oh, you're sure of that? You said that as though it's something that we can still presume. Well, he will fade eventually. I mean, even presidents are term limited, thank God. But I don't trouble in Wisconsin, got only six delegates. As I recall, the number is six out of 42. However, and people like me and Eric Erickson were saying, okay, we've passed peak Trump.

But now here we go. Of course, of course, of course, he's in New York. He's in his home state. He's in a media market that has known him for a decade and a half and thriven on him front page after front page. All the media in New York knows that Donald Trump sells. And so they are complicit in selling him now. And the polls have him 20 and 30. I saw a poll that showed him 32 points up in New York. New York is, it's not what it used to be, but it's still, I believe by population,

the fourth biggest state in the country. He's going to win and win big in New York and sweep to the nomination. And the day after the nomination, his people are coming after you, Herrick. So you don't think New York, we're back in Trump. Let's break down the numbers.

Go ahead, go ahead. With Ted Cruz's win in Wisconsin, even if Donald Trump were to win all 95 New York delegates, which he probably won't do, because remember, there are only, I think, 17 that are statewide. The rest are by congressional district. Even if he were to win all of those, he still has to average every election night going forward 61 percent of the delegate wins to get to 1237. Up until this point, he's only averaged 48 percent of the delegate wins on election night. So, OK, so you're still pretty sure just on the math. That's persuasive. We get to the convention.

It's an open convention. And and then what? Doesn't he have an almost irresistible? Are you so are you in the camp of people are now doing the math at a very fine grained level? Are you in the camp that if we if it's an open convention, which is to say there's a first ballot that proves undecisive, Ted Cruz will have so many candidates. I beg your pardon. So many delegates were sympathetic to him that Cruz will win on the second or third ballot. Or are you in the camp that says, no, this is we're just in for a wild ride. Cruz and Trump will effectively have vetoes over candidates, but neither will be able to pull it off.

How do you see it unfolding? I'm in the camp that says Cruz can probably get it on the second ballot. I think what people forget is that the delegates who go to the convention, they're not the people who showed up for the first time in every single state with, I think, only 10 exceptions. It's the parties pick the delegates, and they do so by an interview process where the potential delegates show up, present a resume, and that resume is not what their job is but what they've done for the party. And so many of the people who want to be Trump delegates are new to the party that he hasn't been able to get those people to be delegates. One of the undercurrents that people miss, and I dismiss it as well because I'm not a big fan of straw polls, but when you look around the nation, Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Illinois, you name it, at the party conventions at the county and district level, they always run straw polls in election years. Ted Cruz has won almost all of them at the district and the level, they always run straw polls in election years. Ted Cruz has won almost all of them at the district and the county level per state. Trump has won very, very few of

them. The people who are voting in those straw polls are going to be the delegates to the Republican convention. And Eric, one more question before Rob and James get back in. We're talking politics. We're talking about the nitty gritty of politics at the moment. And one of the things that's wonderful about you is that you're terrific on principles as well. But I'm just talking nitty gritty here. The polls are mixed on how Ted Cruz would do against Hillary Clinton. If Ted Cruz wins the nomination, is this a glorious defeat that we're looking at, like 1964 when Barry Goldwater lost and yet sowed the seeds for Ronald Reagan to come along 16 years later? Or do you believe Ted Cruz could – Ted Cruz, who would, I think by – good lord, by – he would certainly be – I think we can – I think this is easy. He would certainly be the most conservative candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1980, and the country has she is so extremely distrusted by people, listen, the only person in American politics more disliked than Hillary Clinton

right now is Donald Trump. Well, that's true, although there's very thin air up there on the summit of his like. Hey, it's Rob again. So I guess what we're all looking forward to is – or not looking forward to but anticipating is something exciting, something interesting Stopa, has suggested, that Trump gets a little bit wiser and Cruz gets a little bit more realistic and they go in as a Trump-Cruz ticket? Oh, I'm sorry. I need to step away to throw up for just a moment. Well, here's the problem is because you have pretty consistent polls showing that a third to a half of the Republican Party will refuse to support Trump. And that includes with that third, regardless of who he picks as a running mate. So I don't think Trump would serve as vice president. His ego wouldn't allow it. And if he were president, it doesn't matter who the running mate is. A third of the Republican Party walks away, myself included. All right. So you are in the never Trump camp. So what are you planning to do on that Tuesday

in November when or if it's Trump versus Hillary? Well, if my choices are Hillary Clinton or a Hillary Clinton donor that the white supremacists like, I'll find a third-party candidate to vote for. Okay. Eric, Daniel Dresner tweeted out something yesterday that was interesting, and he said, it's amazing how any big-time politico who supports Trump

manages to look smaller in the act of doing so. Quite right. And you had a post about how Donald Trump brings out the worst in people, and let me quote, in fact, the most amazing part of it all is how many outright shills there are for Trump who refuse to actually admit they're on his team. That really is the most amazing thing about what a terrible candidate he is. There are two or three talk show hosts and a host of television personalities

who are nonstop mouthpieces for Trump, giving Trump nonstop access to their programs for softball interviews. But they claim they're not endorsing him. Just tune in tomorrow and the next day, the next day to watch Trump, Trump's people and Trump supporters say how awesome he is. All right, then. Well, let's name some names. Who are you talking about? Oh, I don't think I need to name names.

I think people already know who I'm talking about. Around the country, though, it is a very distinct phenomenon, the number of people who clearly support Trump but do not want to actually admit they're endorsing him. Why? Because they believe that there's actually a believable fig leaf of neutrality, transparent though it may be. Yeah, I think there's that. And I also think a number of these people still in the back of their mind are thinking this could go south and we don't want to get the blame for it. But yet we've had some people who have lined up and supported him. Is there any place for them in the conservative movement in the future going forward? Or are certain people... No, no, no, no. You see, that's the thing here. It's the other amazing thing about the people who've come out

to support Trump, the political leaders, all of them, and I'm not aware of really any exception, all of them are at the end of their tenure. I mean, Rick Scott in Florida has nowhere to go within the Republican Party. Jan Brewer does it.

Sarah Palin does it. Chris Christie does it. Jeff Sessions is old, and how many more terms in the Senate is he going to have? Without exception, every political leader who's come out to support Donald Trump, oh, and Scott Brown as well, their careers within politics have ended unless Trump gets elected. That's a big roll of the dice. So in other words, if Trump is elected, then we can expect an administration full of people who have reached their sell-by date and are sitting on the shelf. I always think it's funny when I'm on Fox with Scott Brown.

He always brings up that Donald Trump, he's going to appoint good ambassadors. No one brings up ambassadors. So Eric, as an observer of the conservative scene for a long time, sort of a wise man, let me ask you this. Assume, you know, fade out now, fade in, something happens. Whatever happens in November, it's not Trump as president and it's not a Republican as president. It's a Democrat. Let's just assume that that seems to be where the betting is. Let's assume it's President Hillary Clinton.

And forget for a minute just the vast damage done to America. But just think a little bit about the Republican Party, the conservative movement in general. Are we still a free trade party? Are we still, I mean, is the next Republican leader, no matter who it is, going to have to enact full-throated border security measures? I mean, what does the party stand for after January 2017? It's going to be a fight because you have a lot of Republican leaders in Washington, D.C. who still don't get it. They're perfectly happy, for example, some of them decide with Trump to stop Ted Cruz because they think they can remain in control of the party. And many of these guys are much more

interested in their own power and control than they are the principle and policy, while the country, the voters are picking up their pitchforks and torches and about to march on Washington. It would be a terrible thing if the Republican Party became a protectionist party. I do think the Republicans are going to have to agitate very, very hard for border security. And they are going to have to find a way to connect with middle class, blue collar voters in the Rust Belt in Appalachia and explain why their values are good. That's one of the difficult things listening to Republicans in Washington these days is

all of them, even Ted Cruz on the campaign trail and Marco Rubio when he was on the campaign trail, they talked about higher order principles and soaring rhetoric, and they didn't really get into the guy who's lost his job and can't find a new job. What's Washington going to do for this guy? You know, a few years ago I thought – I think I said it on one of these podcasts or in a post that it seemed to me there was a market opportunity for a full-throated uh patriotic democrat i thought it'd be a democrat i didn't it never occurred to be a republican somebody who was in favor of border security and and tariffs and but still a patriot right old line an old line democrat basically a jim well um uh yeah and that of course did not work that was That became an old line, Democrat running as a Republican. Was there a warning sign that we should have paid attention to? I mean both parties have been demonstrably, vocally free trade since Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton trounced Dick Gephardt. George H.W. Bush trounced Pat Buchanan. What weren't they paying attention to? These two parties, they show up and give the Republicans what they wanted, and then suddenly they were ignored again. Give us money. Give us your vote, but don't tell us what you want. We've got it. We'll listen to our lobbyists. There's a huge disconnect. I really think that the underlying issue with trade – maybe it's just me because I don't hear anybody else talking about this – but I think the real problem of the trade issue is people see that a lobbyist for a big business can go to Washington, get a carve-out in a loophole in a trade agreement or

at the tax code, and benefit themselves and keep the little guy from being able to compete against them. And I really think that the small businesses and the sole proprietors and the guys on the sidelines, they just really want to be able to compete against the big guys. And right now they see the big guys, their big vehicle is free trade with carve outs. And so if people in Washington will actually stand up for Main Street instead of Wall Street, I think they've got an end to still be free trade, but without the carve outs for the lobbyists. I'm of the opinion that Wall Street is Main Street in some ways, too. It's just we fail to make the cases well as we should. But that's for another podcast.

And in the meantime, between here and there, I advise everybody to go to TheResurgent.com, Eric's great new site, with, might I add, a really great logo. It's rare you see a logo that good these days. Why thank you very much. You did a nice job. And it's one of those clean sites that doesn't have 47 pop-ups telling you how to cut down belly fat with one weird trick. I mean, it's just a – Well, I'm looking at that, and I'm hoping I can continue the strategy of sponsorships, although I'm getting attacked for taking undisclosed money from Washington for putting up ads from groups in Washington. But I hope I get this going because that was one of the many, many, many reasons I wanted to start my own site was I hate going to sites where I have to eat this one thing to lose 50 pounds.

I know I got to lose 50 pounds, but I'm not going to eat that slug. But what is that one thing? Just as somebody who, I would eat it. What is that one thing? I guess I got to go to the other sites. It's one weird thing. I've been to those sites. It's just tapeworms. Thanks, Eric. We'll talk to you before and after the election, we hope, as soon as possible. Thanks, Eric.

Eric, thank you so much. God, I'm embarrassed. Why has he not been on? He should be like a monthly. He's smart. Anyway, I'm sure there's a more articulate way to say that, but I didn't say it the articulate way. You know what I mean about those websites though, don't you? There's one in particular that I go to these days, and I'm just never, ever going to go there again until they fix what it's like on a mobile device.

Because it loads up with a bunch of ads. It loads up with all these Facebook and Twitter little buttons so I can share and share and share alike, which I'm never going to do. And the minute you even look at the screen, it goes to another ad. Yeah, exactly. It shows up with all these Facebook and Twitter little buttons so I can share and share and share alike, which I'm never going to do. And the minute you even look at the screen, it goes to another ad. Yeah, exactly. It goes back, and your entire phone is taken up with everything but the story. And the minute you start to touch and scroll, you misjudge where it's loading, and you hit an ad. Yeah, what I wish is there's some way to suppress those ads and suppress those sites. There's a way to pass a law.

The government could pass a law that said they're not allowed to speak. We have a sponsor I don't know about, Rob, that you're leading me into. Could that be a law? Could such a law be enacted, James? I don't know. How could I find out? I don't know, Rob, what you're talking about. I'm just saying that the analog world is not like that.

Imagine if a newspaper, for example, just – it's like you open up your newspaper and all of a sudden somebody runs into the house and starts yelling about six inches from your face. That's exactly what it's like. Or you're at the National Archives and you're in the line. And when you finally get to the Constitution, you can't look at it or read it because there's all of these Post-it notes on top of it telling you what you should do to get – I'm sorry. Those are emanations of it. Those are the emanations of it. You were setting me up so nicely for it, but I just wasn't going to take it because I had my own path down. I know you were.

You not only don't like it when I – well, go ahead. I'm sorry. What I was about to say doesn't make any sense. Well, I don't need Segway Helper. I really don't. No, you don't. I don't need the extender pasta sauce cheese thing. You don't need setup.

You don't want an Ed McMahon. You just want to be your own Ed McMahon. Yes, sir. Hi-oh. Another reference that I hope 80% of our listeners don't get because that means they're younger. You hope that they don't understand who Ed McMahon was? Yes, I do. And if they're so young and they're off buying

lots of products like Casper mattresses and Sane Box, that's what I hope. You know, I haven't watched late night talk shows in so long and I don't even know if these guys have a version of the Ed McMahon or if the Ed McMahon banner... I mean, David Letterman's Ed McMahon was Paul Schaefer, who was Doc Seffensen.

So they combined the two into one character who just stood there and grinned an awful lot. Anyway, that Constitution I mentioned before, if you've never seen it at the National Archives, it's a beautiful building. It's a stirring experience. But you don't have to go to see it to read it, to understand it and know why it's important. But you should know what rights and liberties it provides. And that's why Hillsdale College, see, there we are, sponsor.

That's why Hillsdale College has made their Constitution 101 course available to everyone online for free. Because every one of you listeners owes it to yourself to learn about and study the Constitution. Can't have free enterprise without freedom. And speaking of free, you can sign up for free today. And once you start the course, you'll receive a new lecture every week to watch on demand, along with readings, discussion boards, and more. Nearly a million people have taken this course and given it rave reviews. So sign up for Constitution 101 at free cost to you at hillsdale.edu slash ricochet. That's hillsdale.edu slash ricochet. Did I mention it's hillsdale.edu slash ricochet?

Yeah, you've got to say these things three times every time. Well, the member feed, it's been lively. I did enjoy the main feed discussions. Claire has just been burning the house down between discussions of her new book to come, which is being crowdsourced, a wonderfully American thing. Yeah, great. And the talk about Parisian architecture and why after the war, beauty seemed to be a concept so foreign to the architects

that they couldn't wait to maul the gorgeous city of light. Lazy Millennial had a post about Bernie, and I wish we, you know, we need to talk more about Bernie because whatever Trump says about the right, Bernie says about the left. And I just remember seeing this online graffiti, some picture of Bernie.

It was a feel the burn, of course, which if you do, go to the doctor and get some penicillin. All right? Because that's just unnatural. And it showed him dancing like some funky guy with a big grin on his face. They have to imagine this character in order to get behind this wispy-haired, cranky old hectoring man. Like he's really some fun, dancing kind of joyful spirit.

Oh, Emma Goldman said, if I can't dance, I won't join your revolution. All right, Emma, go over there and get shot in the head. That's the collary to the old Soviet bullshit BS. Anyway, Lazy Millennial wrote, quote, the Democrats' best chance of winning in November the colliery to the uh to the old soviet bullshit bs anyway lazy lazy millennial wrote quote the democrats best chance of winning in november is arguably by nominating sanders who has a much higher favorability rating than clinton their next best chance is to consolidate around clinton

and have her pivot to running against the republicans while we're still figuring out our primary what they're stuck with now is watching a tired, coughing Clinton go negative on Bernie while Sanders' rabbit supporters continue to discover and highlight Clinton's many glaring negatives. And then there's a small chance Bernie might actually get the majority of pledged delegates and force Clinton's superdelegates to hand the nomination over to her over, quote, the will of the people. So is their situation like our situation? And how's it going to end up, Peter? I don't think it is. I mean, the likelihood of Bernie actually getting all those delegates is pretty small.

We always comfort ourselves that, oh, she's a terrible campaigner, but she wins elections. She just lost the one, she lost the primary in 2008. She's likely looking at the pivoting in November or pivoting after the convention is something that every political candidate has done since the beginning of political candidacies. named Trump with extremely high negatives, or she's looking at an extremely conservative Republican nominee, Cruz, who can easily be caricatured and will be. So she's in a good position. Not for the first time, I disagree with Brother Rob Long. I'm with Lazy Millennial. What's happening on the Democratic side, the only thing that's keeping us from devoting podcast after podcast after podcast to chortling about the Democrats' total disarray is our what I think is temporary disarray.

Hillary Clinton looks old, is old, is under tremendous legal pressure. It's virtually unprecedented for judges to permit discovery in FOIA cases, and yet two judges now are weighing into this question of her use of her own server and for State Department. The legal side of this just gets worse and worse and worse for her. And Bernie Sanders, as we've discussed with Brett Stevens and Eric Erickson in this podcast, is he's just a kind of walking fossils. He's in 1960s, not liberal, but socialist. They've got troubles. Now, I don't doubt for a moment that anybody they put up was likely to beat Donald Trump. But I think I'd agree with Eric Erickson that you can at least picture how Ted Cruz could beat Hillary Clinton. And one way or the other, between now and they're getting a

candidate, they've got a series of fiascos on their hands. I'm just still laughing. For a minute there, you almost went into sort of a Marine-style Arlie Irby full metal jacket cadence there with she looks old yeah what is you know i don't know but i've been told looks old looks old is old is old bad for you she's bad for you she's bad for me she's bad for me well let's hope uh let's hope the voters will make that chant peter i remain I remain splendidly, splenetically pessimistic. All right. Prepare the tablets. Prepare the arc. By the way, where are you?

Are you in New York for this primary? I'm in New York. I'm in New York. I think I will have to either get an absentee or return home to vote for the first time really ever bothering to vote in a Republican primary. California will lose. California. For once it makes a difference. The same thing here happened in Minnesota where people who just know that the state is going to go completely for Hillary

showed up nevertheless because they wanted to stop the tea guy. I'm still interested in how Trump plays in non-New York, New York, in the part that isn't necessarily Manhattan. And just because you've been exposed to somebody. Very good question. I mean, I'm sure he's a native son, et cetera, et cetera. But just because you've been exposed to somebody, if some of Trump's appeal is starting to wear on people because they're simply exhausted by the man, they're simply exhausted. I think that's no small thing. Yeah. But how can you have lived in New York for the last 20, 22, 25 years and not be completely and utterly done with the fellow? I mean, weren't you exhausted with him in 1986?

Apparently not. Well, I hope you're not exhausted with the best people. If you are, then you're already gone and you missed the best part which is this right here where we list our favorite sponsors again and tell you what the coupon code is. There's SaneBox, there's Hillsdale.edu and of course there's Audible.com

and in each case Ricochet is the coupon code that saves you money or gets you a trial offer on something you'll wonder how you ever dealt without it. Go to the member feed of course for more great posts

some of which are surfaced to the main feed, of course, for more great posts, some of which are surfaced to the main. You'll learn the distinction between the two if you're new to Ricochet and you'll find out which community you like to inhabit. And a community it is. A sane and civil place with people who work to make sure that it's not the usual trollish cesspool

that so much of the internet smells like today. Gentlemen, next week it's number 300. Number 300, yeah. What are we going to do? Should we tell everybody or should we just leave it be? No, let's tell them. Let's tell them.

So next week, we have on special guest Pat Sajak, who's been on many times. And my old friend, our old friend Harry Shearer will be on. And we're going to talk a little bit about politics, of course. But I think we'll also talk a little bit about some of the stuff we talked about at the top of the podcast, which is what we're all going to be listening to and watching and how we're going to be doing it in the next five, ten years. So it will be timeless. It will be a timeless podcast that not necessarily delves into the minutiae of political – James. Something that you can –

James, special note to James Lilacs. James, when we have Harry Shearer on next week, we will be having on someone who worked with Jack Benny. Exactly. So you get those questions ready. When he was a child actor,

he worked with Benny. We will be in the presence of showbiz history. Go back to podcast number 178 and i think i already discussed that fact but i would love to do old radio for with harry for an awful long time harry harry would do that uh forever well maybe maybe that's a ramble to do if i can have rob prevail upon him to give me some time and uh and if you can figure out if you can figure out how to get him to do the floor walker it's the best floor walker anybody still does exactly yeah exactly frank i think the name is frank nelson you're exactly exactly right exactly and if you google

the guy who says yes with many s's that's what pops up because Google is incredible, but also so many people want it to know. You will find in Gasoline Alley this week, I believe, an ancient strip that is now carried by about 23 papers. They've got a Frank Nelson character doing the arched eyebrows and the yes thing because that's how you get those young kids to read your pulp-picked publication. Throwbacks to a 1940 comedy routine but you know it is important because just because it happened in the 40s doesn't mean it's not relevant to our time now that goes for history

pop culture music all the rest of that stuff and the glories of the internet have made it all available to you and the glory of the internet have made this available as well and now we step aside so you can go back to the internet and write something glorious about the podcast you just enjoyed. Thanks to our guests and Rob, Peter, we'll see you for number 300.

Wow. Thanks, Next week. Each night I leave the bar room when it's over Not feeling any pain at closing

time but tonight your memory found me much too sober couldn't drink enough to keep you off my mind tonight the bottle let me down

And let your memory come around The one true friend I thought I'd found Tonight the bottle let me down I've always had a bottle I could turn to And lately I've been turning every day. But the wine don't take effect the way it used to. And I'm hurting in an old familiar way. Tonight the bottle let me down Ricochet! Join the conversation.

Come around The one true friend I thought I'd found Tonight the bottle let me down Tonight the bottle let me down