The Ricochet Podcast - The Washington Nationalists

Episode Date: November 22, 2019

We’re down a homme this week (details about that in the show), but we’re still full to the brim on compelling and clever conversation with our guest National Review editor Rich Lowry, who stops by to talk about his new book, The Case for Nationalism: How It Made Us Powerful, United, and Free. Is America an idea or a nation? Or both? It’s a wide ranging and detailed conversation (as planned... Source

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Coming down in three, two, contract. It's funny, sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is because people are lining up for food. That's a good thing. First of all, I think you missed his time. Please clap. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson, Rob Long's off, I'm James Lylex, and today we talk to Rich Lowry about nationalism, impeachment, and much, much more. So let's have ourselves a podcast. Welcome, everybody.

It's the Ricochet Podcast number 474. I'm James Lylex here with Peter Robinson. And as much as we would love to say that Brother Rob Long is with us as well, Unfortunately, he's in Paris. Peter, are you consumed with envy, or do you just like the fact that Rob is in his element, strolling around the boulevard, brushing the croissant crumbs from his velvet jacket, and being the flaneur that we know he is?

Flaneur, flaneur. Oh, I like that. I was about to use a slightly different word, although you being you, you'll be able to draw out the fine distinctions between the two. I was about to say... slightly different word, although you being you, you'll be able to draw out the fine distinctions between the two. I was about to say— Let me guess. A boulevardier? Exactly!

If ever there was a natural-born boulevardier, it is our friend Rob Long. Now, James, distinguish between a boulevardier and a flaneur. I think it may be the quality of the streets that they walk around. You like to think Boulevardier is up and down the Champs-Élysées looking at the elegant Belle Epoque architecture and bridges and the rest of it. And the flaneur is more content to wander the Demimonde and look at the lesser-known places. That's just my thought. We should get a true Parisian like Claire Berlinski here to tell us about that. Yes. Parisian like Claire Berlinski here to tell us about that. So we can suppose that Rob Long

boulevardier by day, flaneur by night. I look forward to him telling us what Paris is like these days, because the last time I was there, it was kind of trashed, frankly. And it was not that impressive. I mean, it was still beautiful. Whoa, really? I don't know. We stayed in the 15th, and it was nice. It was Paris, but

there was a stained mattress that was sitting on the street corner for three or four days or so. I think I remember seeing a random shoe here and there, and you expected the fountains to be spraying their wonderful life-bestowing water everywhere, but nobody did. It just felt a little careworn, that's all. At time of year, James, when was this? This was in July. In July. In July. In August, of course, the explanation would have been that all the Frenchmen themselves had gone south to the Mediterranean for their annual month off. And they would have shut Paris down because why leave it running for the American tourists? That's right.

I don't think the French would really say. But if we don't have the fountains going, the American tourists will have a bad impression of Paris. Whatever are we to do if the Americans think poorly of us? Yeah, well, whatever Rob's there, he's enjoying himself. And I'm sure that he's fortifying himself with plenty of caffeinated beverages so that he can stay up and watch the impeachment hearings live, even though it's 4 a.m. in Paris, because we know that Rob is hanging on every single word that affects the future of Donald Trump. But those of us here in the States who have been dipping in and out or reading the coverage or hearing it described elsewhere, Peter, correct me if I'm wrong in any of this. I think it is possible to believe both that Russia meddled in the election because they're chaos agents and that also Ukraine was giving some information to the Hillary Clinton campaign because they wanted her to win.

So it can be Russia and it can be Ukraine both. It is also possible to believe that Donald Trump was trying to ferret out the corruption because he believed that there was some skullduggery done against him in 2016 and the Ukes were involved. And that this high-minded objective is not inconsistent with also believing that he wanted to put the wood to Joe Biden. It is possible to be not a fan of the president's way of comporting himself in office, which we're all used to now and doesn't seem to move the needle one way or the other, to believe that and to also believe that what the Democrats are doing is sheer political fear that is not rooted in a pitiless search for truth, but actually is a pretty craven and naked example of

trying to hang them with some stuff. And the Democrats seem to think that it's going to go well for them. And I'm not seeing that that is how it plays out, especially if there's a trial in the Senate. What do you think of what I just said? I agree. Unusually, usually I can find a little something with which to disagree. James, this time I can't find anything at all with which to disagree. I've dipped in and out of the impeachment hearings, or I was doing so at least at the beginning of this week. You know what?

I just quit. And the reason I quit is as follows. They have not established, they have not come close to establishing the hearings, anything like an impeachable offense. On the contrary, it became clear by about, I don't know, witness number three, that what was really going on was, just as you said, an attempt to twist every fact and to place every fact in the worst possible light to damage Donald Trump politically. But also, and here I talk about Lieutenant Colonel Vindman and the various foreign service officers who've testified, Fiona Hill yesterday, they disagreed with Donald Trump. They didn't like Donald Trump.

They thought he was doing a bad job of being president and doing a bad job of running the foreign policy of the United States. That is not impeachable. Actually, to a certain extent, it's normal. The permanent bureaucracy almost always disagrees with the chief executive and the political figures that he brings in. But the Constitution is such that the elected president gets to run things, no matter what the foreign policy experts may think of it. Fiona Hill's main point yesterday, according to the front pages of the newspapers this morning, Fiona Hill's main point yesterday was that she disagrees with the Trump administration in their reading of what the Russians were attempting to do in 2016. Well, you know, I'm sorry, but that's a yawn.

It is not impeachable. It's not even close to impeachable. That's item number one. Item number two is, the politics of this are also boringly clear in a certain sense. The impeachment hearings have done nothing but make those who already detested Donald Trump detest him even more. And there is some evidence, of course, those who were with Donald Trump are still with him. They view him as far more sinned against than sinning. Frankly, that's my rough, my own rough view. And then to the extent that you've got a few percentage points of people in the, who even at this late date, haven't quite made up their mind. It looks as though there's polling evidence suggests that the impeachment hearings are actually helping Donald Trump, helping the man, not harming him.

The whole thing, I guess my main point at the moment is that it's all become rather boring. And the press has, as long as the hearings are being held, the press from Fox News to CNN, from the Wall Street Journal to the New York Times, maybe even to the Strib, your own beloved organ in Minneapolis. But the press has an incentive to try to keep the story alive, to try to make it interesting, to try to make it look provocative, to try to make it interesting, to try to make it look provocative, to try to make it look as though it's producing news. I understand that, but none of it is true. It's not provocative. It's not producing news. So that's my view on impeachment, James. I'm railing. I'm going on and on about it, saying that nobody should. Well, you should. What's interesting to me is that the whole Democrat approach here, to spend three years attempting to set Donald Trump on fire and then push him over the bridge into the river when they could have actually been coming up with one program after one bill, one idea after the other.

I mean, there's the Mexican-Canadian trade agreement, which would seem to be a win for everybody. But they don't want to do that because, well, it gives them a win. But I mean, where are the – where's the idea? Where's the joy? Where's the enthusiasm? Where are the new proposals? Not that I necessarily want them to pass, mind you. But if they were really interested in getting our attention positively, they would be doing something legislatively or attempting to that would indicate that they are something more than a platoon of Javers pursuing this man across the length and breadth of the land.

Nancy Pelosi has been Speaker of the House for something like 18 months now. The Democrats should by now have passed a dozen pieces of major legislation that expresses their point of view about the way the country should be run and sticks up for what they view as their constituencies. It's clear from listening to the Democratic candidates that there's a consensus in their party that taxes on the rich should be higher. The House should have passed those tax increases. If it get voted down in the Senate, if by some miracle made it to the Senate, Trump would veto it, of course. But that's what they should be doing. There should be an infrastructure bill that they should have passed, even if it wouldn't have made it through the Senate. They should have a dozen major pieces of legislation to their credit, outlining where they stand and what they actually intend for the future of the nation, and instead, nothing. On that point, Donald Trump is not only correct, but pertinent. That is

exactly the important political point to make right now, that one party is lathered up attempting to attack the president on a very, very thin case and doing nothing. Perhaps it could be that they don't want to put forth some watered-down versions of what they really want to do and then have them defeated. I mean, if they do that, then it's hard for them to up the ante a little bit farther down the road. I mean, if they come out with a whole bunch of climate change stuff that they say they're going to do and declare that it's absolutely necessary and then next year turn around and say, oh, well, actually, we have to do more. People might wonder why didn't you try to do that the time before? In other words, they can't really come out and be everything that

they want to be because people don't want it. The reason Nancy Pelosi doesn't have a dozen major pieces of legislation that she's moved through the House is because she's a shrewd politician. And she knows the things that would be popular in the country would be unpopular with the Democratic base, and the things that would move the Democratic base would be unpopular with the country. And so she is stuck and trying to pretend as though everything is Donald Trump's fault. This horrible human being has made it impossible for us to get the nation's business done. Not so. What's really going on is that the Democratic Party has moved so far to the left that it's out of sync with any reasonable assessment of the center of the country.

And Nancy Pelosi, shrewd politician, knows it and is trying to hide it. Well, they can't hide it for long. That's what the debates are. The debates sort of rip off part of the mask and tell us what. I mean, essentially, what we have here, and I hope that we will have, is a good, robust debate in 2020 about two competing ideals, one of which wants to grant the maximum amount of freedom economically and personally to the individual, and the other which wants to take it away and subsume more power in the arms of the state. So it's going to be fun to watch because

there's nothing that the Democrats want to give except for free stuff that isn't free because somebody else pays for it. And it all comes part and parcel with the restrictions on life and speech and behavior and mode of travel and the rest of it. It just makes you wonder at what point did they lose their minds and what point did they decide that the state must be absolutely everything? You know, I miss Rob because I actually had a segue in there somewhere. You mean I stepped on it by not recognizing it? No, no, no, no, no, nothing, nothing of the sort. I just, I don't know what it was. I wanted to go back to the mattress on the street. I wanted to bring Rob back. I wanted to mention that, but I couldn't because of course a mattress in the streets of Paris is a symbol of many things, perhaps the

decline of the country, perhaps some wonderful spat between a husband and his mistress. The wife comes home and throws the bed out of the window, which is kind of hard to do if it's a big one. But the fact of the matter is, is even a bed in the street of Paris would be a good place to sleep if it had bowl and branch sheets. I'm not recommending that you go to Paris with some bowl and branch tucked under your arm, but heck, you wouldn't find any better sheets in any part of that country than if you had the

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a cold at the moment. Rich, thanks for joining us, and congrats on the book. Thanks so much. I would like to start by saying, you know, of all the people who can defend nationalism, you're the one who isn't allowed to because, you know, you're an American guy, you are on the right, and that brings all sorts of horrible connotations of nationalism. But let's start by defining our terms here because it means many things to many people. When we talk about nationalism, what are we talking about? So you want to get textbook. A lot of people think loosely that patriotism is the word that denotes everything that's positive about national

feeling and nationalism is the word for everything negative. That's completely unjustified. Textbook definition, patriotism, root of the Latin word patria, same root as patriarchy, goes back to father, fatherland, love of our own is basically patriotism. Nationalism is a little different. It's the idea or doctrine that distinct people united by common culture, common history, often a common language, should govern a distinct territory. And that doctrine really defined the modern world. So it's fallen into bad odor amongst the left because they believe that nationalism – well, if you're a transnationalist, according to their creed and their ideas, surpass national boundaries, then there's something mulish about nationalism. There's something to be extirpated and swept away because it keeps us all from joining hands across the globe.

But it's a necessary glue for any society, isn't it? Yeah, that's what I think. And it's old and natural and very powerful. If not national, the least national feeling is, I have a vignette in my book where I discuss it at some length of passage, you know, Joan of Arc, who, you know, has a vision of an angel, 1425, she's going to clear the English out of France, you know, because the French should govern France and not the English. And that's a very, that's a very basic thing. And it's also part of the mainstream of the American tradition. I don't think you get the revolution without nationalism because the core contention of the American revolution is that there's a distinct

American nation that should govern itself, shouldn't be subsumed in an empire. The Constitution is a nation building and a nationalist project with Hamilton and Washington and others realizing we needed a strong and capable national government or we're going to fall apart into disorder and disrepute. And we don't have victory in the Civil War without nationalism, which underlines the legitimacy of the nation-state. So it's a tradition. The taproot of the American tradition is really Hamilton. It runs through Lincoln, runs through TR and FDR and Reagan in different iterations. So, Rich –

Go ahead, James. I have to take one. Because we're talking about the beginning days of the American nation. It's not just the sense of the country as a nation, as a geographical entity that has a couple of shared attributes. There's a cultural element that produces it. Absolutely. And it's remarkable that so early in its history, America was a very young country. It had already developed a culture that would abide for centuries and continue to do so, we hope.

But that's a necessary part of it, isn't it? And that's perhaps the part that's difficult to nail down to everybody's satisfaction. So if we're going to come up with an explanation, a description of the American culture, which then is given expression by nationalism, what are the top elements of that culture, would you say, and some of the ones that we perhaps forget that are necessary but not always so evident? I think the most important cultural attribute is the English language.

And language is just, it runs very deep. It's very important to people. One reason that empires couldn't be sustained is there's always an argument over what's going to be the dominant language, what's going to be the official language. And even in the more contemporary context, nice, pleasant Canada, where nothing ever happens, was almost torn apart a couple decades ago by the fact that Quebec very seriously considered going its own way, in large part because it's a French-speaking province with its own distinct culture. Because of that, plopped down into English-speaking country. Look at the contention in Spain right now over the status of Catalonia, also driven by the fact that they speak their own language. So the language is the most important cultural glue. Then there's a whole

bunch of other things, you know, reverence for our founders, for our national heroes, common cuisine, common dress, common understanding of our history. And the hypothetical I use, a tourist example, when I'm discussing this with folks trying to illustrate what I mean, is if an African-American meets a white American on the steps of the Paris Opera House tonight, they instantly have more in common than anyone around them, even if they're from different parts of the country and have different politics, because they instantly can communicate. They dress largely the same. They like largely the same food. And they just have this enormous common stock of cultural predilections and tropes and knowledge. So is that the entirety of what America is? No,

but it's an indispensable part of it. It's interesting you mentioned cuisine, because we were just discussing France, where Rob Long is at the moment. And France has a variety of cuisineisines. Of course. But they're all recognizably French. You could say perhaps for China. India is the same thing. But America, a lot of the different cuisines that we have are informed by other sources, by other nations.

And that would seem to be symbolic of a great deal of the American culture is the way it's syncretic. It takes from other places and makes it its own. Absolutely. You know, it's open and organic. And again, a very slight personal example I use, I grew up in Northern Virginia. When I was growing up, there was one Mexican restaurant that was within, you know, reasonable driving distance. It was a treat to go there. I remember one year I was like, I want to go to the Mexican restaurant for my birthday. Now, you know, there's a Chipotle every 10 blocks, which is an indication of how the cuisine and culture has changed, you know, over the last 40 years. So that's a good thing. But there is kind of a molten core to the melting pot that you can't afford to lose. And one thing I've been, I shouldn't

have been surprised, but a little bit surprised by the reaction to the book on the left is the very rejection of the idea that there is such a core, that that is somehow exclusionary or the cruder versions racist. So, Rich, this is it's Peter here. is that you and James Lilacs and I agree so completely that I have to say I've been about as puzzled by the attacks on you or as surprised by the attacks on you as you have been yourself. So let me just—I've got here Washington Post, not really hard left, but sort of center left, I think. And even they just—who is it? Carlos Lozada. I don't have to have to admit I don't read the post enough to know him, but apparently he's a regular book reviewer. And here we go. Just because national this is him writing about your book, reviewing your book, just because nationalism isn't always racist or violent or militaristic, that hardly offers license to disregard how often it stokes those sentiments. So in writing a book called The Case for Nationalism, apparently Lozada thinks you're either— I guess the minimum case he's making is that you're ignoring how often nationalism can turn nasty. And Rich responds?

Yeah, so I would say a couple things. One, every form of human organization is flawed because we're humans and we're fallen. So let's go subnational. So our tribes better, you know, tribes where it wages vicious wars of extermination against one another in our red and tooth and claw and as exclusionary as you can possibly get let's go higher up on the scale empires they've never been small d democratic um they they've and very often haven't been very uh pacific you know the roman empire they closed the the gates of janus denoting that they're at peace you know just a couple times the entire course of their history so what's the alternative to the the—so the nation-state isn't inherently

hateful or militaristic any more than human beings are. So these other forms of organization are flawed as well. And I think there's a reason that our sort of conception of the modern nation-state rose up at the same time as modern democracy. And the nationalists in the 19th century, people forget this, were liberals because they wanted the nation to have its rights and claims over and above a monarch or over above an imperial overlord. They had a vision of a unified nation with common citizenship and equal rights and popular sovereignty. Now, it was distorted, and it can be distorted and abused,

and it was, especially in early 20th century Europe. But the fact that we now have a world order more defined by nation states than ever before, with a greater sense that borders are sank or sank than ever before, has coincided, knock on wood, with a great period of international peace the last 50 years compared to all of world history. So I just don't buy it at all. Sure. Yeah, go ahead. No, no, I'm just trying to think here. Again, I'm trying to, what is it that's really driving the, because it's not just that you've come in for high-minded disagreements. People have been slamming this book. Congratulations, by the way, because if you can judge a man by his enemies,

we should nominate you for the Nobel Prize for Best Enemies of the Year, Rich Lowry. I think I have some competitors, but thank you. So what about this, Rich? Is this really what it comes down to? If nationalism means anything, it means controlling borders. It means recognizing that what is within the borders is important. And the obvious corollary is that the borders themselves are important. As you just said a moment ago, sacrosanct. And in the American context, at this moment,

anyone who says the borders matter and we need to enforce the rule of law right there is open to charges of racism. Is that really what's going on? It's a big part of it. I mean, the broadest critique, and Jim was getting at this a moment ago, is that it's somehow small-minded to feel a special attachment to your nation. So the criticism of nationalism and tribal only makes sense to me from the perspective of so-called citizens of the world. But there is no such thing as a citizen of the world. I mean,

there's no universal nation to be a citizen of. You know, if you get in a jam around the world, get kidnapped or something, the world doesn't come save you. Your country does because your country cares more about you than anyone else does. And that's just inherent, I think, to reality. And so a version of this related to this is the idea that borders are somehow small-minded and exclusionary. They are exclusionary. But the reason is the same reason your family in some sense is exclusionary, right? You just care more about your immediate family than you do about your neighbors. That doesn't mean you have anything against your neighbors, doesn't mean you have contempt for them, doesn't mean you're going to

invade their yards, but you just have a more intimate connection with your own family. And a nation is kind of that writ large on the international stage. So the anti-nationalism case involves inherently us versus them. I don't think that's necessarily true, but when we're getting to the pronouns, the us is also connected to we, and you don't have a, you know, if you can have an us, you need a we, and having a we is very important. And, you know, all major statements, statesmen throughout American history have realized and aspire to that. So, okay. Sorry, James. I've got him. I've got him. I actually want to pursue. Okay. So a moment ago, you mentioned the trouble in Spain. Well,

you said Canada, the French-speaking Quebec, it's just very hard for a nation to absorb or a nation to work if there are two languages or more spoken in any numbers. Canada has the trouble with Quebec. Spain has trouble with Catalonia. I'd add the Basque region. Basque is also a distinct language. That's a problem for Spain. Okay, so do you subscribe to the Samuel Huntington thesis?

Samuel Huntington, the late Samuel Huntington, he's been dead for at least a dozen years. He was a major political scientist at Harvard who's been largely forgotten. And here's why he's been largely forgotten, because his final work was so politically incorrect. And his final work warned strongly against immigration, and in particular, Mexican immigration. And he noted that we were in danger of a bilingual situation here in this country, whereas all previous waves of immigrants relatively quickly dispersed across the country. Immigration from Mexico and Central America is different in that it clusters in the Southwest. And he predicted this. Gosh, his book must be almost 20 years old now. Yeah, he predicted this.

And of course, he's correct. We do have large clusters of Hispanic communities in the Southwest. You could walk down the California Central Valley or from certain neighborhoods in Southern California all the way over to through El Paso down to McAllen, Texas, and never have to speak a word of English. Is that a problem for your book? Are you on Huntington's side? Yeah, he's hugely influential in my thinking, as he has been in so many other folks, and prescient, obviously, in so many things. I think he did predict like by 2020, you know, that the Southwest could be going its own way. So that obviously hasn't come to fruition.

But the essential insight that you want to avoid ethnic enclaves talking a foreign language and developing and growing over time is absolutely right. And the way we avoided it in the early 20th century, when we had a big wave of immigration kind of on par with what they're experiencing now, is one, you had immigrants from different countries that spoke different languages. You know, it's like, I don't think any 10%, I don't think any immigrant group was over 10% for one language. You know, it's German, Italian. It was all mixed up.

That's right. And there's this huge machinery of assimilation. I spent some time in the book talking about the Americanization movement. It was just corporate America, nonprofits, education bureaucracy, such as it was at the time, schools. Everyone is pitching in to, we're going to help assim, these people and demand that we assimilate these immigrants. You have two world wars, which actually hugely assimilative events. And then, you know, for some bad reasons, we had a 1924 law that reduced numbers.

So you had to have out marriage from these groups. You just couldn't marry the next Italian American lassie coming on the on the boat. So I think now the problem is, and there's nothing against immigrants from Latin America or Mexico, it's not to say they're bad people or anything, but you have a dominant language among immigrants and you have high levels continuing for a long time and a time when the culture and the machinery of assimilation is really worn down. So that's why I think we need to pay attention to immigration policy and craft it just with our interest in mind. And again, this is kind of the basic banal nationalist insight. You know, our people, our citizens, people already hear their interests matter more than we care about them more than other folks around the world.

I have one more question before I remand you to James Lilacs once again. And that is, so I know in the book, and we should name the book again, The Case for Nationalism, How It Made Us Powerful, United, and Free. In the book, you were at pains to draw a distinction between the case for nationalism and the case for Donald Trump, which is not the case you intend to make in the book. You make the case for nationalism. However, the question arises, if we need to reassert our national identity, if we need to reinvigorate the instruments, the whole mechanism of assimilation, the only political instrument for doing so on offer right now is Donald J. Trump, and he deserves our support. Is that an argument that you'd be willing to live with?

Well, I would say a couple things. So his nationalism occasioned the book. I hadn't really thought about it. I just shared the same lazy assumptions as most people do about nationalism prior to the rise of Trump and especially his inaugural address, which got me thinking about it. I wrote a piece with Ramesh on the cover of National Review and then really, really delved into it. So he prompted my thinking about this more carefully. I think when he's on teleprompter, when he gives these speeches at the UN and says, you know, we all represent distinct and valuable cultures and we're going to respect you. And all we ask is that you respect us. Unassailable. His Warsaw speech, best speech of his presidency. A key insight that was shared with Rousseau, which might be the only time Trump has ever shared anything with Rousseau, but the idea that the Poles can never be truly partitioned, occupied, wiped out because they're so Polish. As long as they keep their

religion, their language, their culture, their mores, they can't be absorbed, even though they're in the worst part of your worst situation in Europe and been subjected to most horrific kind of abuses over the centuries. The problem is, you know, nationalism has an inherent kind of unifying appeal that Trump, you know, when he's out on his own and out on Twitter and all the rest of it, doesn't represent at all. And he throws away what I think would be the potential of nationalism and his populism to kind of jump, jump racial lines more than a stereotypical or conventional Republican politics could. And I come back to

a prominent example of the last couple of months, you know, the whole West Baltimore kerfuffle when he said no human being would want to live in West Baltimore. Well, human beings live in West Baltimore and they're Americans. They're Americans. They're head of state. So that kind of thing is really bad. Trump, Trump general, just outside of his nationalism, you know, he's been a rock on really important things. Longstanding concerns that have shocked me that he's been so reliable. Abortion conscious rights. Yes. Judges, the conduct. And it's not just the tweets. I mean, he sort of has a constitutional, a institutional view of the presidency, which is a big problem. I think that's a significant downside. But then we're not, you know, we're not in 2015 when we ran our against Trump issue and all the alternatives in the primaries were other Republicans.

You know, the only viable alternative is going to be who's coming down the pike out of the Democratic primary. And they're more or less moderate, relevant, using the term relatively, versions of what's coming down, better to say, I guess, more or less versions of leftism that's coming down the pike. That's the leftism that, you know, rejects our constitutional order as kind of a fundamental thing, as a commitment of a movement. And so you might get a president who's more polite than Trump and careful about his or

her tweets. But it seems to me likely that represents more of a threat to things we believe in the long-term interests of the constitutional order than Trump does, although he makes me really nervous. Well, we'll get back to contemporary politics in a moment. But if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to your book. Yes. Oh, yeah. Wait, I'm the author. I'm supposed to be saying that. Yeah, exactly. You mentioned Poland. Eastern European countries are excoriated for their nationalism because it's seen as religious in nature and also because they don't want to go down the Merkel route of assimilating immigrants into the population. Not assimilating, but importing. So that's bad nationalism.

We look at France and we say that's good nationalism because the French are cool. We look at Britain and say that's good nationalism because they have the crown and they're very quaint and all the rest of it. But different countries express the nationalism differently and get a different pass for it. Why is that exactly? Is it just the American tendency to romanticize other cultures they know little about? Or is it because of that sort of liberal queasiness about being, modern liberal queasiness about being too proud of where you happen to be from? Well, I underlined in the book that my main line of defense is of American nationalism, which I do think is better than other versions abroad. But they're twisted and maligned forms of nationalism. I think Serbian

nationalism would be the foremost example of this that was kind of twisted by conspiratorial thinking and violence from the very beginning. Russian nationalism has always been caught up in a neo-imperialism. Some people – I'm not an expert on Russian history, but Russia was basically an empire before it was really a country or a nation state. And that's clearly part of his DNA. Same is true of China. With regard to, I don't spend really any time trying to adjudicate, you know, the current governments in Hungary and Poland. But, you know, the nationalism is caught up in a populism, and the populism—I'm a conservative, so there's a strain of populism in me, but I'm uncomfortable with it.

And I'm a liberal in the kind of classical liberal conservative American sense. So parts of that make me uncomfortable. Britain, I think, is like the greatest contemporary example, though, of a nationalistic initiative. It's just Brexit was a decision. We've always governed ourselves. And the question here is who should have ultimate authority, Brussels or Westminster? And it doesn't—I don't know why it's even a question. Of course it should be Westminster.

And it's so fundamental a question. It's easy for me to say because I'm not going to be there and have to suffer any of the downside. But, you know, if you have to suffer a recession or some tumult to establish your sovereign independence again, that's just a hugely important goal. And in the sweep of history, you know, whatever the downside of a disorderly Brexit would be, it doesn't compare to the upside of being, once again, a free and sovereign country, which, you know, one of the beauties of England, it's been that forever. One of the beauties of their system, too, is they can toss out their prime ministers with frequency and it doesn't seem to upend the stability of their underlying institutions. Here in America, however, we have a process that's undergoing impeachment that is quite different.

What's your take on what's going on with impeachment right now? Granted, the country may not be as fascinated by this or as moved as people in D.C. seem to think or New York. What do you think? Yes. I mean, I think you basically did it. And I mean, the call is not perfect. You can see kind of implicit pressure or quid pro quo in the call. And then there's—at first, I was like, OK, maybe it's just the call, and there's no follow-through kind of disorderly Trump administration fashion. But clearly they held up the money or pressure Ukrainians for these investigations.

And I think that's improper. I think it's been a mistake to Republicans kind of defend indefensible ground on this. And, you know, if this were just the Iran-Contra hearings, you know, to Peter, another ancient reference. Yes, exactly. They would, Democrats would be scoring a home run, I think, just exposing facts and exacting damaging revelations that are driving the news. But that's not all they're doing. And I just don't think this episode, where ultimately the Ukrainians did get the money, didn't commit to anything, didn't investigate anyone,

it can't bear the weight of impeaching or removing a president for the first time in our history, within the 12-month window of a re-election bid, that he has a really good chance of, or at least a substantial chance of winning. And we'll see, you know, need to wait a week or so to see some major polling about how the last two weeks of public hearings have landed with people. But like early indications are certainly the momentum towards impeachment and public opinion has been checked and maybe it's sagging a little bit. Right. One more before I hand it back to Peter. Totally unbiased question here that I expect you to answer with complete honesty.

Do you think that the Ukrainian kerfuffle is worse or less bad than uranium one or the Iranian deal? Yeah, I never was totally 100 up on on that uh uranium one um i mean there's definitely i mean there's just a stench of uh corruption you know and self-dealing to both of the clintons which was part of the reason that she lost. The question I bring up sometimes when I'm sparring with folks on the other side is, so, okay, we're supposed to believe now that you, progressives, really care about constitutional propriety and you're really offended that Congress appropriated this money and Trump held it up for two months for this not really great reason. So where were your complaints or objections when Barack Obama literally, unilaterally

wrote immigration law? There was not one peep. I don't remember any Democratic Congress complaining. I don't remember any op-eds. So it doesn't make what Trump did better. It doesn't make it right. But just the hypocrisy, and this is one of the characteristics of our era—is just astonishing and is what obviously drives a lot of Republicans towards Trump, even if in other circumstances

they might not be so sympathetic to him. Hey, Rich, Peter here. I have kind of a closing question for you, if I may. I'm sort of indulging myself here. But the case for—and the name of the book, again, I want to keep saying this because it's a podcast. People won't be able to see it. The Case for Nationalism, How It Made Us Powerful, United, and Free. Okay, here's my closing question. You are editor of National Review.

You are the successor of William F. Buckley. You run the magazine that has done more than any other intellectual organ in the history of this, in the contemporary history, beginning in the second half of the 20th century to the present, to define conservatism, to investigate, create new policies, and so forth. Furthermore, although we've been making jokes about how old you are, you're at the prime of your career, by which I mean you will be editing National Review after Donald Trump is gone, whether he leaves us in a year or in five years. And so the question is this. How do you see your job as editor of National Review when it comes to the question of what will conservatism be? What is our job to sustain and to hand down such that when Donald Trump is gone, something will remain?

Great. I see my job as impossible, Peter. In one word, that's how I see my job. I'm used to not being able to satisfy all the people all the time, but I can't satisfy anyone, it seems, on most days. So this is where I am in that, you know, this is one of the weird things about the Trump phenomenon, because, you know, a lot of my colleagues are, I'm not a big Trumpist. A lot of my colleagues are even more dis more disenchanted, obviously, than, than, than I am. But we were, you know, some of the smartest and creative minds that work for us, you know, Resh Purnoor, others were, you know, for 10 years, like conservatism needs to be freshened up. You

know, it's not the 1980s anymore. It's not just, you know, we can't just chant Reagan's name, expect that to mean anything. And, and then And then you had Trump running against people who were basically—they weren't chanting Reagan's name literally, but that was sort of the approach of Ted Cruz and a couple others. Totally stomps them without spouting any of the cliches or the tired lines and pointing the way to something new clumsily and oftentimes pointing the way in a wrong direction. So I think my take is we need to do serious thinking and kick the tires of our assumptions. So I welcome Tucker Carlson's monologue, you know, that caused that big debate. I think Soura Bhamari, he's a colleague of mine, because he edits my column for the New York Post. I didn't like the way he personalized his point in the attack on David French. But this whole post-liberal thing, let's have a debate about it. The latest thing, Marco Rubio's common good speech. We need to suss all this out. A big, wild, and crazy thing has happened.

Doesn't mean we need to throw out everything we believed prior to this point. Obviously, we shouldn't. But it does mean we need to think through, one, just practical electoral politics. It's a coalition that has been getting more working class over time. And Trump just accelerated that trend. And maybe geographically, we'll have to look to the upper Midwest over time rather than the Southwest. What does that mean? And how do you, and this is one reason I wrote the book, so I want to get a reference at least to my own book by myself once, The Case for Nationalism. How do you integrate a nationalism and a populism into conservatism and into the party's program

without throwing away other things that are important in a way that'll make it appealing in a post-Trump era. So I think all this is important. My current posture, let's welcome the debate. Let's have it vigorous. Let's assume good, you know, it seems to be impossible these days. Let's assume the best intentions of people on our own side who tend to disagree with us and hash it out in a healthy way. But I don't, you know, Peter, I don't know. I don't have any idea what's going to happen.

I kind of think Trump's going to win. You know, I give him like 50 percent chance. But if he doesn't, you know, we are going to be in a totally different environment. We'll pass the event horizon into another age. Yes, that's right. And no one can really predict what exactly that's going to feel or look like. Yes. Well, after this fast –

That sounds to me like a pretty easy job actually. Why don't you take the rest of the day off? Well, after a fascinating and free-ranging conversation, I'd like to end with a question I think is from the 30,000 feet perspective, looking down at it all broadly, taking it all into consideration. Is it possible that you could shave 300 words off Rob Long's column and give them to me? And keep in mind, we're going to take a little snippet of this and send it to Rob. So the answer for that is yes, less Rob, more Lilacs is what we're thinking in the future.

Imperial ambitions, James. I'm disappointed. Nothing I've said has had any impact on you, clearly. Thanks, Rich. It's been a pleasure. Rich Lowry, editor-in-chief, impact on you, clearly. Thanks, Rich. It's been a pleasure. Rich Lowry, editor-in-chief. Happy Thanksgiving, Rich. Same to you. The Case for Nationalism, How It Made Us Powerful, United, and Free.

There you go. Lots of fun. We did not get to... Did we get to talking about whether or not... No, we didn't. We were all over the place, but we didn't discuss whether or not CrowdStrike is actually also working for the Republicans. Have you read that today? This is part of the whole CrowdStrike is not a real big problem. We shouldn't worry about it.

It doesn't matter who they were founded by, who they know, et cetera, et cetera. The RNCC uses them, et cetera, et cetera, as if to say, look, they're so deep in the swamp you can't possibly say anything against them. They're working for both sides and all the rest of it. But when it comes to that sort of cybersecurity, ouch, ouch. Oof. You ever – Peter, have you ever just sort of stepped on your leg wrong and turned your knee and you got a sharp pain? Oh, that happens to me two or three times a day. That's how I felt about that segue.

I really did. And it's going to – I'm going to have to rub some camphor on it, but that was a segue to get us to something that we all need to think about because when it comes to computers and cracking and hacking and the rest of it, you may not be a victim yet, but who knows what's around the corner. We're always being warned about, you know, e-skimming, for example. You heard about that? That's when a cyber criminal will watch your online shopping carts in order to steal credit card and debit card information from the websites and the mobile apps. Fiends. Other information captured often includes the names, dates of birth, account numbers, passwords, location information.

They can find out all this stuff. The targeted businesses for e-skimming include retailers, ticket selling sites, travel-related companies, utility companies, and the vendors to provide online ads. There's a whole constellation of things out there that could possibly come back to bite you. Every time you bank, you shop, you browse, you can be vulnerable to cyber criminals. So you've heard us talk about LifeLock, right? They're a pioneer in identity theft protection. Now, Norton, a pioneer in consumer cybersecurity, has joined forces with LifeLock to help protect your cyber safety. A Norton 360 with LifeLock membership provides an all-in-one protection with device security,

identity theft protection, a VPN for online privacy, and more. If there's an identity theft problem, they have specialists who will work to fix it. Now, no one can prevent all cyber crime and identity theft or monitor all transactions at all businesses, but Norton 360 with LifeLock is a powerful ally for your cyber safety. Thank you. with LifeLock at Norton.com slash Ricochet. And our thanks to Norton, LifeLock, for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Well, we don't have a long poll, do we? Peter, if Rob was to provide a poll at this moment, given his Parisian setting,

what do you think he would be, what questions would he be asking? He would ask the escargot or the langoustine. That's right. And it would probably come down to both. And I don't think Rob has ever given us a poll question with both. We do usually have a member post of the week at this time, and our post – there's been so many good ones. Yeti always asks, what is your Lilac's pick of the week? And sometimes I want to do the ones that find some small little corner of the site that just shows how we got guys who know everything.

Or sometimes it's one of those broad things that sums up the Ricochet spirit. And the one that I picked today was by Dr. Bastiat. And it's the paradoxical popularity of progressive professionals. Do you know why I picked that one, Peter? Alliteration, perhaps? Do you know why, Peter, I picked the paradoxical popularity of progressive professionals, right? It's like a radio challenge to hit all the explosives without blowing out the mic. It just has to do with—it's a question that keeps vexing us.

Why do—I mean, I'm sure the left thinks the same about the right. Why do they think the way they do? What are the attractions? What are the appeals? And why do the young people in particular— left thinks the same about the right. Why do they think the way they do? What are the attractions? What are the appeals? And why do the young people in particular? It's the age-old question. Why do the young fall for these things? Or are they actually quite smarter than us?

And why do they not realize the internal contradictions of what they're saying? And it went on for about 35 comments or so, which is medium for a post. But it was just a fascinating conversation. And I don't say that just because I was in there pitching away at it, but I just defy anybody to go to that post, read the conversation, read the level of sophistication and thinking by the people who put it together and responded to it and compare that to any other comment section or any letters to the editor of a newspaper. Go to the New York Times, for example, when you look at the letters and you will find people ranting and raving and just blowing out their biases out every available aperture. And you just realize what a gem

Ricochet is. This is where Rob would come and make the member pitch, too. But I'm just that's one that stuck in my head there this week. And again, if you asked me five minutes later, it would have been another post that was just equally as interesting and equally fun. So, Peter, you have in California $6 gas. I saw this tweeted the other day. Whoa, I haven't paid $6 myself, but that's because I don't. I only have cars that I and my children only have cars that take regular. And regular is just a hair under four bucks as of yesterday.

I don't know where this was. This may not have been in your neck of the woods, but it was some part of California that somebody tweeted out and pointed out also that this is the price of gas that you used to see in dystopian movies about the future. Yes, that's right. You know, I think in the Will Smith, I Am Legend movie, just before Manhattan was abandoned, the gas stations were having $6.50 gallons of gas

because society was collapsing. And Gavin Newsom, from what I understand, is promising to look into this and figure out why gas prices are so high, which I can't say it without laughing. Gosh, it's an absolute mystery, isn't it? Isn't it just, though? Unbelievable.

Unbelievable. And the rest of us, I mean, here's the thing. I know that California is beautiful and has and illustrative of the American experience? And can you please stop it? Can you please not do that? Because we kind of like it. Yeah, exactly. Believe me, I'd like to stop that. Believe me, I would.

Hello? Yes. But do they care? I mean, some states care very much what other states think about them. Minnesota, of course, we get indignant whenever somebody disses us as not being the best in just about everything, which is pathetic and ridiculous, I know. But California has been the promised land, the golden state. It's been the place where our dreams go. And do they realize, or is it just that it's become so bifurcated in terms of the chattering classes and the people who have to struggle daily under the grind of what the state imposes upon them? So, I mean, here's the way it works out. There are two or three different California. There is coastal California, and coastal California, for many people, remains prosperous.

San Francisco is filthy at street level, but two stories and up, it's a very prosperous, remarkable place. The interior of California is completely different. That's still almost dominated by agriculture, politics different, culture different. And then you've got, this may be what troubles me most about it, you've got an increasing, it looks more and more like a South American country in the sense that you've got an upper class, people who are doing extremely well on tech and show business and to a certain extent in Southern California energy. And then you've got recent immigrants and agricultural workers. And California has the largest, we have, what do we have? We have just a little under 12% of the population,

but close to 30% of people who are receiving welfare benefits of one kind or another. So poverty in this state, at least as defined by the federal government, is a very serious problem. Does California worry about what the rest of the country thinks of it? In a word, no. The press is still pretty celebratory. The Democrats, which this is the coastal elites in league with the various unions, especially public workers and teachers unions who run Sacramento, they don't care. The state is going on toward 40 million people. It's a country unto itself. And no, it just doesn't care. And Californians who do care tend to leave. You had a great image there,

is that the streets may be filthy in San Francisco, but two or three floors up, everything's nice and prosperous. That's exactly right. That's like your dentist saying, well, the nerve of your tooth is really healthy. All the enamel is gone, but the nerves, you know, it doesn't. And of course that never happens to people who use a Quip toothbrush. Your enamel is going to be great. You know why? Well, Quip, you know, the Quip you've heard about, you probably have a Quip and a beautiful smile like Peter's can

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Floss? Yes. Now I floss. Well, Thanksgiving is coming up. We're going to be off for next week. And I feel we have to ask some deathless questions such as, Peter, what is your favorite Thanksgiving dish? My favorite Thanksgiving dish is a dish. It must have a name, but it's a dish. I think my mom got the recipe off the side of a package in the old days when, in any event, it's oysters and sort of saltine crackers and clam chow. mother who would have turned 103 this year. And she and I had this little thing going at Thanksgiving because we were the only two people, no matter, there were Thanksgivings when I was a kid when 20 members of the family would turn up and my mother and I were the only ones who'd like

this oyster dish. So we all, there was one item on the table that we knew we would get just as much of as we wanted. It was a little, reminds me of my mother, whom, as I say, I adored. And my wife, now the case is that I'm the only person at the table who likes this oyster dish, and my wife humors me. So that's mine. What about yours? Well, it's these zombie traditions that you can't get rid of, and you're happy that you don't. That's true. I mean, when I was growing up, Thanksgiving, I always had a relish tray, which in Fargo, Dakota, meant some sliced pickles, celery.

Celery, my God. And radishes, radishes being very exotic and almost too peppery for the Norwegian palate. But there you had it. And, you know, I really don't need celery at all. But if there isn't some sort of relish tray at the table, just like if there isn't a shuddering cylinder of cranberries gel that comes out of a can with the ridges of it still intact in the side, somehow it's not Thanksgiving. It's odd what you require. But it's all part of the wonderful folk ways of food. Lefse, I think I would be bereft if the Thanksgiving didn't have lefse.

Oh, really? Oh, so you do keep some of the old Norwegian creations alive. Ohfse, I think I would be bereft if the Thanksgiving didn't have lefse. Oh, really? Oh, so you do keep some of the old Norwegian traditions alive. Oh, yeah, I love it. Now, lefse, is that that terribly smelly fish dish? No, no, that's lutefisk. Yes, yes. It's a potato pan. It's just this potato-y thing that's rolled out

and cooked and fried, put in a pan. I don't know. I never had to make it, so I have no idea actually how you get it. I just know that it would be there on the table, rolled up with butter, cinnamon, and sugar. Oh, that does sound delicious. And so you would be able to actually have dessert while you ate your meal. That's the thing. I mean, Lefse could function as sort of a precursor of dessert while you ate your Thanksgiving turkey.

So I love it. So now I have to go to the store and buy it, of course. The aunt of the family who made the best lefse passed away this year, and now it's all store-bought for me. And where will you have Thanksgiving? Will you have it at home in Minneapolis, or will you go up to North Dakota? I'm having it at home, and I can't be happier. And will the gnat be back? She will.

That's going to be the great thing. She's coming back from Boston. We're going to fly in, help her mom make the turkey the next day. And we're having a couple of friends over because it's an endless kaleidoscope of people. It's never the same group twice. And so at this time, we're having over some friends. And it's just going to be there this time. I'll have a great Thanksgiving because I can't stand playing games.

Games are for people who can't talk. Do you know, speaking of the post-Thanksgiving dinner events, I am so proud of myself. Really, this is, I want this one on my tombstone. I thought, I was listening to the Glopp podcast the other day, yesterday, I think it was, and John Podhoretz said Ford versus Ferrari is great. Right. Old fashioned, not a lot of profanity, no Newton, just a terrific American story based on tech and car racing. And I pulled myself together and bought tickets all together in the theater, first and second row of the balcony, which is where you want to be for the Thanksgiving evening showing of Ford versus Ferrari. And I've got every single member of the family.

Actually, they've all agreed. So if anybody tries to back out now, it'll be a death sentence. I pulled myself because, of course, in ordinary times and in ordinary, it would be Thanksgiving afternoon. We'd be sitting around full looking at ourselves saying, actually, does anybody care about that football game? What about the others? And we'd be looking for something to do. And I've done. Really? I can die a happy man. Actually, I can die a happy man the day after Thanksgiving.

I'm very proud of you. And I hope that your wife is able to stomach the film because apparently what I understand is that it's so off-putting to women because it takes place in the 60s. It's about two guys engaged in a car competition, and there aren't a lot of speaking parts for women in it. As a matter of fact, there was an article, I forget which journal it was, which says that it describes a time and a culture that needs to die. Okay. So wife and two daughters, James, will you just keep that part quiet for another week, please? The idea that they might find something that stirs their common humanity in a story that doesn't necessarily concern them. I think we're going on a limb here. Anyway, having gone to the end of the limb and now getting out the saws, we should conclude.

Rob will be back a couple of weeks. We won't be here next week. And we advise everybody to go to iTunes and give us five stars. Thank you very much. And we advise everybody to go to Ricochet, take a look at that main feed and think, oh, what marvels are there behind the curtain? And then sign up for mere pennies of pittance and find access to the member feed where all sorts of fun stuff happens and get to join the Ricochet community. Keep us here so that in 2020, 22, 2024, we'll be discussing the election and the culture with the same brio and decency that we do now. Damn it. Peter, it's been a pleasure.

Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to the Eddie as well for doing his usual fine technical job. And I just heard him slam the door and leave. And I hope that made it, as they say. Peter, we'll talk to you in a couple of weeks.

Next fortnight. Next fortnight. Happy Thanksgiving, Chaps. Happy Thanksgiving. I can't treat you the way Sweet land of liberty To thee I sing Land where my eyes

Oh, my Father died Land of God And of the human's pride From every every every every mountain child Let freedom freedom

be The light of the light of God Father, Father of liberty To me I'll stay Yeah. Protect us Protect us Protect us Oh yeah yeah yeah Let freedom ring Yeah Whenever the Lord says

Let it ring Hear it ring All over the world Let it ring Yeah yeah yeah Let it ring Universally Yeah, yeah, yeah Baby You don't have to live No, I'm gonna be Baby

Yeah, yeah Baby Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring I heard somebody say From the rock play of Georgia, let me All the way to the alligator mountains. Stand up and let it rush more. Yeah, let it rain.

Yeah, let it rain. Let it, let it, let it, let it, let it rain. I'm not alone!