The Ricochet Podcast - Too Much Monk-ey Business

Episode Date: March 24, 2017

Yep, it’s another super busy week (and day), but as tempted as we were to cover the breaking news as it happens, we decided to take a step back and invite our good friend Rod Dreher on to discuss his new book The Benedict Option. Along with regular guest host Larry Kudlow, we get into the weeds on the the future of Christianity, faith, and the authority of Scripture and the wisdom of the ancient... Source

We have special news for you. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. Are you going to send me or anybody that I know to a camp? We have people that are stupid. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast. I'm James Lylex with Peter Robinson, and Larry Kudlow is sitting in again today for Rob, our guest, Rob Dreher with the Benedict Option.

Let's have ourselves a podcast. Welcome, everybody, to this, the Ricochet Podcast, number 345, lo-fi edition, because I thought, why should I be the guy with a nice mic and everybody else is calling in on the phone? So I smashed my mic, and I'm talking on the phone like a regular Joe. We're brought to you, as usual, by the fine people at Casper Mattresses. You can try Casper for 100 nights risk-free in your own home,

and if you don't love it, they will pick it up and refund you every single penny. Visit casper.com slash ricochet and use that old coupon code ricochet as your promo code for money off. And we're brought to you by Away Travel. You know, your luggage should not cost more than your plane ticket, and Away Travel's luggage is designed with the highest quality materials, and it's still under $300. For $20 off that suitcase, you can visit travel.com slash ricochet. That's awaytravel.com slash ricochet, and use the promo code ricochet during your checkout.

And we're brought to you by ZipRecruiter. If you want to find the perfect hire, and why wouldn't you? You need to post your job on all of the top sites, and now you can. Ricochet listeners can post jobs on ZipRecruiter for free by going to ziprecruiter.com slash free trial. And we're brought to you by Ricochet, and here's Rob Long. No, I'm just kidding you. Rob's coming back next week, and he will tell you what you need to know, which is,

A, hello to everybody who's listening to this for the first time on Slate's Panoply Network. Welcome. B, he would say, you ought to join. You really should, because Ricochet is the home of center, right, smart, and civil conversation. We're more than halfway to a goal of 1,500 people, and you can be one of the 1,500 yourself. Three, you know, did I say

A, B, and three? I did. A Ricochet gift certificate is the best gift you can give somebody for the smart and civil person who wants to have good conversation, and we recommend you do that while you're at it over there ricochet exploring all the options might was a private daily shot free daily email newsletter great wiki tampa current events and see what's

going on in the center right side of the world and by now we've been able to get a couple of out of it and uh... the last peter robinson mr comedy i see with us. Peter, hello. Hello. How are you? Mr. Comedy. I'm completely at odds here. I'm at sixes and sevens with this mic and phone thing here. But Larry Kudlow will chime in here and tell me why this is good,

because now, Larry, I'm going to stimulate the economy by buying a new microphone, and planned obsolescence may have a salutary effect on the world, right? Absolutely. I'm just here as window dressing to laugh at peter robinson's jokes that's that's my whole role man and may i make larry laugh james do you have your permission to make mary larry laugh that's right you handle the jokes larry will give us the leg and uh and i'll just stand up in the back and uh and Yes, make him laugh, please. Larry, get ready. Here's what you should be in a good mood about. Here's what you should be chuckling about.

The House Freedom Caucus, the conservatives among the Republicans, are holding up the reform and replacement of Obamacare because it's not conservative enough. It doesn't repeal certain requirements. You're still going to have to accept insurance. Insurance companies are still going to have to cover all kinds of things that people don't need. The Freedom Caucus doesn't want that. They held up the vote yesterday. The president is insisting that the vote takes place today. And Larry, it's going to go down and it's going to be a conservative

triumph that will remake America along conservative lines. You should be glowing and chuckling with good spirits, right? Yeah, wrong. No, wrong, wrong, all wrong. Well, I will tell you this. The House Freedom Caucus has some great ideas. Look, that's those are my free market brethren. Those are your peeps. Those are my peeps. And they had a lot of good things. Now, a couple of points, Peter, quickly. The most egregious mandate left standing is the so-called essential benefits. In other words, and this has been the nub of the debate for two weeks now. And that just means they took out the mandatory purchase of an insurance package. Yes, that's good. But they left in the essential benefits, which was the one size fits all.

You know, if you buy a package, no matter what the price, you got to have, you know, all kinds of services you don't need. Pregnancy services, addiction services, you name it. And that raises the cost. And people don't want that. That was one of the key problems with Obamacare to begin with. And the Freedom Caucus is exactly right to oppose that. Now, having said that, at the urging of Donald Trump and his people working on this, that has now been removed from federal law. As I understand it, the big breakthrough yesterday was that the so-called essential benefits

package would now devolve to the states who could, through their regular, they all have regulatory insurance, regulatory departments. The states will make their own decisions about this. So it's not a 100 percent win, but it's about an 85 to 90 percent win. And so I like that a lot. And that that should bring over some votes. I mean, look, let's get serious here. If you vote nay on this bill today, you have just given Barack Obama lifelong entitlement. That's it. It's over. And that's fantastic. Can't get rid of Obamacare. So, Larry, hold on. One thing that really needs to be explained, and you know this in great detail. Why are we in the position? Paul Ryan

is saying, look, this bill isn't perfect, but it's the best we can do under these circumstances. Donald Trump is saying, vote for this thing. We'll come back and fix it again next year. And the year after that, we can. Why is everybody on our side? We control both houses of Congress. We control the White House. Why are we having to settle for good enough? What are these circumstances that everybody keeps talking about?

We have to live with and work with. I'm talking about Senate reconciliation. You've got to explain the Senate process here to get. Well, yeah, it's a little tricky. I mean, first of all, you know, I'm a longtime friend and fan of've got to explain the Senate process here to get to this. Well, yeah, it's a little tricky. I mean, first of all, I'm a longtime friend and fan of Paul Ryan, but I don't think he did a good job pulling this package together. Regarding reconciliation, let me start by saying this. I know it very well.

In the Reagan years, we invented reconciliation. That's how we got the tax cuts and the spending cuts in the military through. Now, Ryan, for some reason, has been badly informed about reconciliation. For example, he's been claiming that these extra regulations, let's take the essential benefits package, would not fit into reconciliation because it has no fiscal impact. That is incorrect. It is just plain wrong because it will affect the cost of the package. And that in turn will affect the demand for the package, the enrollments for the package. And that in turn affects all of the CBO numbers on spending and revenues, which is what reconciliation is all about. So speaker is incorrect. Furthermore, you want to have a chuckle. The Senate parliamentarian. I mean, I love this. This is this is like the this is like Amos and Andy or something that the Senate parliamentarian

who was a woman and was nominated, you know, she was appointed by the Democrats. She told a reporter yesterday, nobody has bothered to ask me. No one's asked her. Wow. Now, let me just go on for one more second here on this. Sure. Reconciliation can be whatever you want it to be. It's in the law and it's in the history. Number one, the deficit neutral bird amendment, so-called, has been broken just as many times as it has been enacted. That's point.

Number two, reconciliation can be whatever you want it to be, because if the Senate parliamentarian doesn't do what you want that person to do, then you know what? You fire the person and you put your own person in there. And the majority leader of the Senate, along with the president of the Senate, so that's McConnell and Pence, can make decisions on the parliamentarian. So Ryan is playing this weird game of saying he's in a straitjacket on regulations because of reconciliation. But let me make one more point. I've talked to a lot of people who know the technicality of this thing. You know, right now, at this late date, you could take whatever health care package gets through and graft onto it a package of business tax cuts.

It could be done at this late date. And I don't know why they don't do that, because that would change the political and economic composition of this whole story. So bottom line is the House leadership has completely botched the reconciliation story. So let me ask you, reconciliation. Let me ask you one more question, Larry. And then we've got a guest. And James is, I think James is fixing his mic in the background or trying to.

No, I'm here. Oh, you're here. Okay. So one more question from Robinson to Kudlow. Republicans in the Senate have already made it clear that if the Democrats attempt to filibuster the nomination or the vote on Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, the confirmation vote, that is, if they intend to invoke the rule whereby you have to have 60 votes in the Senate to get him through, then the Republicans are just going to use what is called the nuclear option and change the rules of the Senate so that you don't

need 60 votes. You can get a simple majority for confirming a Supreme Court nominee, and they're going to do it. Neil Gorsuch is going to end up on the high court, even if the Republicans have to overturn the filibuster with regard to Supreme Court nominations. why don't they just overturn the filibuster with regard to legislation as well? Why are Leader McConnell and Speaker Ryan and the President of the United States and all the people who are involved in this bill twisting themselves into the shape of pretzels to comply with this reconciliation process, why don't they just blow away the filibuster with regard to ordinary legislation, just as they're prepared to do it with regard to nominations to the Supreme Court? Well, that's a good question. I mean, that's a very

reconciliation, as you know, only requires 51 votes. Right. So that's already part of the law. In terms of the nuclear option, you know, I was very happy to hear Mitch McConnell say that they would use it to get Gorsuch through. I think that's terrific. Now, your other point is perhaps more interesting in the sense that you just end filibusters completely. And yes, yes. I see no reason why not. Oh, you don't see no reason why not. I don't have a problem with that. You don't have a problem with that. Now, listen, man, one of the reasons here's the reason, because the Democrats are you just look at the last century. Actually, I was asking that question. I was assuming you were going to make the argument that I'm going to make now. You don't have a problem with that. If you just look at it historically, Democrats are in the majority

in the Senate a lot more often than Republicans are. And if we didn't have the filibuster on ordinary legislation, we'd have card checks. We would be in a different country right now because the Democrats would have been able to move all kinds of legislation. Obamacare would be the least of it. The filibuster on ordinary statutory law is crucial to keeping this country even remotely conservative and free market, I think. You don't buy it? to keeping this country even remotely conservative and free market, I think. You don't buy it? No.

I think that the filibuster is a kind of 19th century remnant, and it's time to go. I mean, it's funny. I'm a Jack Kemp civil rights Republican, and I remember when those southerners, Richard Russell and all of them, used the filibuster to stop civil rights legislation, including the Voting Rights Act, which eventually did become law. I don't like the filibuster. And you know what? You'd get more action out of the Senate and the voters would therefore take notice and they'd throw the bums out more frequently. And by the way, in the last 20 years, Peter, we've had both the Senate and the House change hands many times, you know. So I don't fret about that.

I think the filibuster is a 19th century tool that was basically designed to allow the southern states excessive power to block all kinds of legislation. By the way, they tried to block JFK's tax cut. That was dopes because they were afraid they'd have. No, seriously, they were afraid. They were afraid tax cuts would give blacks prosperity. Can you imagine that? So no, I say, I say dump the filibuster altogether. No, those Democrats, those Democrats, of course, you were talking about who opposed the civil rights act. Those were really Republicans as we know now. And as far as the filibuster, I'm no. I'm kidding. No, no, no. Go back to your new phone or something.

But I'm telling you, this is terrible. No, no. It was the Republicans. It was the Republicans who gave... Larry, I know that's how it's being told. That's the story. That's the narrative. And if it's a 19th century holdover, it's possibly

uh... the problem is we have air conditioning in the senate now so they can stand there and talk later but i want to it goes back to narratives and there's something you said a little while ago the fact that you know they could put some tax cuts and business tax cuts on this and do it i can just imagine the aneurysms that newspapers and npr and everybody else would have if it came out. They came out with a package which gave money to corporations,

which of course is what tax cuts are to them, and at the same time took coverage away, took health care away from people. Listening to the news, this has been portrayed as, you know, the diminution of a mandate is being portrayed as taking away health care from people. If you don't force them to pay for something that they don't need, you are actually taking away a benefit that they want and need. It's like, I go to the insurance company and they say, well, you have to pay for, you know, snoring treatment, snoring abatement. And I say, but I don't, but I don't snore. I don't need this. And they say, well, how do you know you don't snore? And I'll say, because I sleep on a Casper mattress and it's the most enjoyable experience

I could possibly have. Genius. Genius. Wow. James, that's really your best moment, honest to God. Well, it's only because I'm well rested because I did sleep on a Casper, you know, it's a mattress that it's perfect, frankly, and it's sold directly to you, the consumer, which eliminates all those commission-driven inflated prices you're tired of paying.

It's an award-winning sleep surface. How many times can you say you slept on something award-winning unless you're a Hollywood model or something? It's developed in-house. It's got a sleek design, and it's delivered in a small, how the heck do they do that kind of box? In addition to the mattress, though, Casper also offers an adaptive pillow and soft, breathable sheets. Now, the mattress industry, those guys, big mattress, they forced you, the consumer, into paying notoriously high markups, right? I mean, but Casper's revolutionized this by cutting the cost of dealing with the resellers and the showrooms and all that and passed the savings directly onto you. They've got an in-house team of engineers.

They spent thousands of hours developing this mattress, and it's got supportive memory foam. You can figure out what that means, right? It gives you a sleep service with just the right sink. You go right sink into it and just the right balance so you don't feel like you're going into a vat of feathers. And it's breathable design, sleeps cool to help you regulate your temp throughout the night. Now, buying a Casper, which you should do, don't worry.

It's completely risk-free. Free delivery, free returns with a 100-night home trial. And if you don't love it, they pick it up and give you everything back. Casper understands the importance of truly sleeping on a mattress before you commit, especially because you're going to spend a third of the rest of your life on it. So obsessively engineered, shockingly fair price, supportive memory foam. Time magazine gave it one of the best inventions of 2015. In fact, it's now the most awarded mattress in the country, in the world, of the decade.

Free shipping returns to the U.S. and Canada. 100 nights, risk-free in your own home. And if you don't love it, again, people come and get it and give you all your money back. A little special offer here to sweeten the pot. $50 off any mattress purchased by using the coupon code RICOSHET at casper.com slash ricochet. That's casper.com slash ricochet with ricochet as your promo code. Thank you to Casper for sponsoring this, the Ricochet Podcast, and you will thank us for telling you about them.

Now, let's talk to Rod. Rod Drary is the senior editor, American conservative. He's written and edited for the New York Post, the Dallas Morning News, National Review, South Florida Sun-Central, the Washington Times, and the Baton Rouge Advocate. His commentary has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Commentary of the Weekly Standard, and more all over the place. And his new book is The Benedict Option. Welcome into the podcast. Hello, sir. Hey, it's great to be here. Is this our first time or our third time? I believe we've spoken before. You come out with book after book after book.

Is that all I mean to you? You don't even remember the number of times. Yes, well, I'm just saying. I don't know if it's seven or twelve. Because we've had many a conversation on things currency and otherwise, and now we have the Benedict option. It's a book. Well, tell us about it.

It's a testament to hope, as you say. this book is looking around at what I believe is post-Christian America, meaning an America that has lost Christianity, the Judeo-Christian tradition as its center, and is fragmenting and coming apart. I'm mostly interested in the church, that is, people who say they're Christians but who are not living in a way that, in my view, will help the Church to be resilient amid the crises we face. I point to St. Benedict of Nursia, the 6th century saint who met the crisis of the collapse of the Roman Empire by founding a new community within which to live out the Christian life amid the chaos. What he did without realizing what he was doing was laying the groundwork for the rebirth of civilization centuries later in Western Europe

by creating these communities that shone as lights in the darkness. Rod, it's Larry Kudlow. It's a great pleasure, by the way, and I'm going to read your book. I didn't even know of this book, but I love hearing this brief review of it. You know, I agree with what I'm going to read your book. I didn't even know of this book, but I love hearing this brief review of it. You know, I agree with what I'm hearing. I agree with every single piece of it. And I myself have been going around the country giving talks about an economics book that we wrote on JFK and Reagan.

But one of the things I point out was the absence of civility in American life, political life, cultural life. There's no civility. There's no respect. There's no manners. And people are having a hard time getting along. And you can see it in the culture. And so what I want to ask you is, how is the best way to sell this revolution in, I'll say, church, you know, originalist church principles? I believe, in part, we need to fill up the pews. You know, I'm very active in my Catholic church in Connecticut. The pews are, you know, half empty nowadays. And we built a new church.

I don't know how else to do it. I mean, I'm not a monk. I'm not the Benedict Option. I'm just a person who wants people to behave better. That's all. Behave better. Behave as the Lord would want us to behave. They don't do it.

Yeah, you're right about that, Larry. And I'll tell you, if you look at the statistics and the research, especially by Christian Smith, who's a sociologist of religion at Notre Dame, he shows that even people, Catholics and Protestants alike, who call themselves believers, they don't know the least bit about what the faith really teaches, much less are they willing to be a beat. What that means is that we have got to do a much better job of catechesis, not only catechesis though, but teaching ourselves and our kids and our communities the practices necessary to hang on to the Christian faith, and not only hang on to it, but spread it in these post-Christian times. I go to Norcia in the mountains of Italy, where St. Benedict was born. They have an amazing monastery there populated mostly by American monks who are living a traditional Benedictine life. These men are a light unto the world. And when the earthquake hit last fall and destroyed their basilican monastery, it did not slow them down one bit.

They believe in fighting for the long term. They are holding on to their faith. They're doing their daily prayers, and they are showing a sign of hope that we can outlast this. But we can't just keep going along to get along. We've got to really change our lives and our ways of living as Christians. Let me follow up on this one second before everybody comes in. In your summary notes here, you say today a new post-Christian barbarism reigns. Many believers are blind to it. Okay.

Then you say, and their churches are too weak to resist. Now, that is a rough but probably accurate summary. Why are our churches not teaching the Old and New Testament, the Ten Commandments, and, you know, civilized modes of behavior? What has happened to our churches? Yeah, Larry, I think because a couple of things. First of all, our church leaders are more interested in assimilation than confrontation. And secondly, the people don't really want to hear it. A Catholic priest that you probably know, a friend of mine, told me 10 years ago that if he stood in the pulpit and actually taught what the Catholic Church teaches, that half the congregation would walk out.

And I think this is a real challenge for pastors. This was a very orthodox Catholic priest, but he's facing a reality that American culture wants to hear a gospel of happy clappy. They want to hear a gospel of—they don't want to hear the cross. When they hear the cross, they really want the cross to be a warm electric blanket, as Leonard O'Connor said. But this kind of Christianity is not going to make it. It has disappeared in Europe, and it is fast disappearing in America. The church just wants to sit there.

And when I say the church, I mean all believers, Protestant and Catholic and Orthodox alike. They just want to sit there and think it's always going to be this way. It's going to be okay if we just sit here and wait for things to work out and keep voting Republican. And I'm saying, no, you've got to wake up. We're at an existential moment for the church in the West. I'm sorry. Go ahead, James. You're right about Europe. I mean, anybody who's been there and gone into the churches knows that they're A, numerous, B, beautiful, and C, they're empty.

There may be an old lady muttering in the back. There may be a couple of believers who've come from America who are having a mass with half a dozen of them, but generally they become museums. And there are reasons for this in Europe that are different than in America. One, there was a strain of anti-clericism that the French, of course, perfected. And two, there was a great crisis of confidence after the wars. And three, there are three reasons.

Three are the reasons. There is a replacement of God with state. And in America, we're not there yet, but we see now on the right a more, shall we say, generous acceptance of the role of the state as long as it does the things we want it to do. Is the turning away of the Republican Party from suspicion of big government going to be somehow, in the end, one of the things

that contributes to a more secularization of our culture? You know, James, that's a really good point, but I'm not sure how relevant it is to the ongoing collapse of Christianity in the country. I think that in part, as people come to see the state as being our big nanny, they quit being self-reliant and quit looking to the mediating institutions of which the church is one to help take care of ourselves. Remember, Tocqueville said that democracy depends on Christianity, on an active Christianity. If we lose that active Christianity,

then we may very well lose our democracy, whether it comes down to statism or some form of, you know, a violent breakup of the state. This could happen. I don't think it's going to happen in my lifetime. But Alistair MacIntyre, the great philosopher from Notre Dame said that we have lost the center in the West, and he sees fragmentation as inevitable. I think that we take so much for granted in the West, conservatives as well as liberals, that things will always be like this. But we know from our own history that in the Civil War, the country came apart over a very significant issue of slavery. And I think that we would be fools to take this for granted now. You look and see what's happening in Europe. Liberal democracy seems to be really facing a crisis point.

We may get that way here, too, because we don't have a shared sense of values. And we just look to the state to hold us all together. We can't even hold the state together if we don't share the same general moral outlook. You know, Rod, I don't know, for about the 15th year in a row, I will be present at Father Rutler's last words of Christ that he gives every year. It's a three-hour service. I don't know. I was there once, too. It's powerful. It's really unbelievable. And he's quite an extraordinary man, George Rattler.

But I want to go back to another one. Um, did you know, you knew father newstead, uh, father new house, new house. I mean,

yeah, yes, I did. All right. He wrote a book that absolutely parallels what you're talking about. You remember death on a Friday afternoon? Ah, yes.

I try to read it every Easter. In other words, I'm starting to tackle it now because his thesis, you know, in short is what you were getting at, particularly American Catholics, you know, want to always think the good life is wonderful. We're all well to do, et cetera, et cetera. We're not. But that's the attitude. He says American Catholics love to go through dying on Friday for us and our salvation. And that American Catholics ought to think more or at least as much about the Friday as they do on the Sunday. What do you think? I think that's right. And I think that has a lot to do with the crisis we're living through now. Just yesterday, Larry, I went to take some dry cleaning to my local dry cleaners,

and the woman behind the counter was a Nigerian emigrant and a Christian. We started talking about her home country and the enormous persecution Christians in the north of Nigeria are undergoing at the hands of Boko Haram and other Islamic militants. And this woman, she was a young woman, she said, all we can do is pray. And she started telling me about how the Christians in southern Nigeria are coming out to prayer meetings to pray for deliverance, to pray for strength. They're fasting in a serious way. And she said, God will deliver us.

Even if they take our lives, God will ultimately deliver us. I walked out of that dry cleaners thinking, my God, the faith of this immigrant woman puts to shame the faith of me and people like me who feel so sorry for ourselves and who only who get upset when we have lose a little bit of comfort. This is the kind of faith that can move to change civilizations. The faith of this immigrant woman. That's what we have to reclaim. But it's a kind of faith that can move to change civilizations, the faith of this immigrant woman. That's what we have to reclaim. But it's a kind of faith, Larry, that doesn't say everything's going to work out just fine.

We're always going to be comfortable. It's a faith that finds meaning and suffering. And that is Christian hope. That's a different thing from optimism. That is true Christian hope, the idea that, yes, we will have to suffer, but there will be resurrection beyond. I went through the suffering, Rod. I went through the suffering on the way to my conversion and baptism into the Catholic Church. The suffering is very, very important.

You have to somehow, I guess, go through it, live it. You got to hit bottom and then maybe you'll take some hope. And I guess my question to you is, you regard this book as a testimony to hope. Where is the hope? How are we going to change this? How are people going to understand that their suffering can end and that their life can be full of joy if they just follow a few easy commandments and maybe a little bit of knowledge about the gospel? How do we get this done? Well, the commandments, they're plain, but they're not easy because they call us to die to ourself, and that's always hard. But I hold up two examples in

my book, The Benedict Option, that are examples of hope. One is a Catholic community, a lay community in Italy, in a little town on the Adriatic called San Benedetto del Tronto. They call themselves the Tipiloski, which means usual suspects, and they're very orthodox in their Catholicism. They started their own community school, the Scuola G.K. Chesterton. They've started all kinds of things, and they're joyful. They love their Catholic faith, and they're not angry about it. I look to those people and the love they have for each other and the joy they take in their Catholic faith, and I say that is what we want. And they say we discovered nothing new.

We just went back to the old things that were preserved for us, but we had hidden away in a locked box. The second – I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, no. That was Peter Robinson clearing his throat. I want at you in a moment, Rod. Okay. Go ahead. Make your second point. Make your second point. The second, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, no, that was Peter Robinson clearing his throat. I want at you in a moment, Rod. Okay. Go ahead. Make your second point. Make your second point. Real quick, Peter. If you start a third point, I'm jumping right down your throat. Go ahead. This is the second point. The second point is on October 30th of last year, there was a

tremendous earthquake in Norcia and the Benedictine monastery and the basilica fell to the ground. The Benedictine monks there who are at the center of my book, The Benedict Option, they were living in tents on the side of the hill, and they watched it all happen. God preserved their lives because they had moved out when the first earthquakes came and made the basilica uninhabitable, and the monastery uninhabitable. But they look at the ruins of their basilica now, and they'll tell you, this is a symbol for Christian life in the West, But the only thing we have to do is to rebuild. And they can rebuild because they have been living day in, day out the liturgy of the Benedictine way of life, their prayers, their scripture study. They have built this internal

order into themselves simply by reading the gospel and living the gospel out so that they can look out at the ruins and not be in despair, but to see God's hand in it and to go forth and rebuild with confidence and faith. Rod, Peter here. Listen, I've looked over the reviews, some of the early reviews of the book. Actually, what's the official pub date? Let's sell a few books here. The official pub date is more or less now, or is it next month? It was March 14th. Oh, March 14th, okay. The secular publisher, Sentinel, set that pub date. I thanked them for it. They said, why? I said, well, that's the feast day of St. Benedict on the Orthodox calendar.

They had no idea. Okay. So here's the sort of consensus criticism, if there is such a thing. Let me state it and give you a chance to reply. And the criticism runs as follows. Dreher is telling Christians, not just Catholics, this is important, you said it once, but I want to repeat it, your book is not aimed specifically at Catholics, but believers of all denominations. Dreher is telling Christians to drop out. The mental image people have is of Benedict disappearing from a society all those centuries ago, building a monastery, monks joining him, and people just dropping out, secluding themselves, dedicating themselves to work and prayer, but entirely apart from the larger society.

And that's ahistorical. If you look at the monastic tradition in the West, Benedictines and monks of all kinds always remained. There was back and forth, you know, I don't want to go through all, but Charlemagne, you look at the people who were in his court advising him, many of them had monastic backgrounds. When the papacy hits the low point, two or three points, they actually call on monks to come and be popes. And so you get this constant back and forth between the monastery, which is the center of learning and culture for centuries. But they're always popping up at the court to advise the secular rulers to try to lend a hand, to try in one way or another to reclaim the wider culture, the secular culture for Christian values. And so that's the actual history. And it's just wrong of Rod to tell

Christians to go live in little communities and drop out. And Rod responds how? Rod tells them that they're wrong. Rod's not saying drop out, head for the hills, and live in these insular communities. What I am saying, Peter, is that given where we are in this culture and this time, Christians have got to withdraw somewhat from the mainstream so we can tell ourselves our own story. That's the line that Robert Louis Wilkin, the great early church historian, one of the founders of First Things magazine, said in 2004, that Christians in the West are losing our story. We have got to reclaim Christian culture. And the way we do that is by stepping back so we can immerse ourselves in scripture, immerse ourselves in church history and the tradition and the teachings of the church. So we can then go out into the world as all of us are

required to do. We're not monks, so we can go out in the world and bear the light of Christ to the world. When I was in Norcia, I was talking to the monks about the fact that they live behind, cloistered behind monastic walls, and they don't often come out, but they do sometimes after the liturgy to talk to people. And of course, they talk to pilgrims and give them spiritual advice. One of the monks told me the only way we as monks can be for these pilgrims who Christ asked us to be is if we spend a lot of time away in prayer and contemplation and studying scripture. The same principle, I believe, applies to the church today, that if we are going to

be for the world who Christ asks us to be, we have got to step back from this toxic culture, this toxic post-Christian culture, and strengthen our ties to each other and to the gospel and to our faith, so we can go out there and represent Christ to the world that desperately needs him. One more, one more, hold on, Larry, You talk. You got in plenty. Hold on. I'm going to be unchristian, Larry. Shut up. I know. Very, very nice, Peter. I want to give Rod the chance to push back. There's a sort of second criticism that's related. And this is this is sort of popping up in the reviews. There will be more reviews. It wouldn't surprise me if this point didn't get made more. So let me push again, Rod, and give you the chance to respond.

Here's the second criticism. Dreher's timing is off. When he wrote the book, it looked as though Hillary Clinton was going to be elected, and this secular regime, which had during the Obama years grown more and more self-confidently hostile toward traditional morality and Christian culture, was going to be further entrenched and grow even more self-confidently hostile toward traditional morality and Christian culture was going to be further entrenched and grow even more self-confident. But Hillary lost. Donald Trump won. Trump's going to get, Gorsuch is just his first appointment to the Supreme Court. Trump's going to get another couple. He's already, by executive order, various aspects of Obamacare. The little sisters of the poor are not going to be forced to provide contraceptives in their health care.

The whole notion that Christians were going to be permanently on the defensive, that the culture was going to remain toxic. It's all wrong. Things are just about to improve for the better. Stick with the fight. Don't withdraw. This is the moment of victory. And Rod responds. I say it's a false victory.

Look, they're right. When I wrote this book, I assumed like almost everybody else in the country that Hillary was going to win. And thank God we dodged that bullet. I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for the Gorsuch nomination. That said, I think one of the big problems that conservative Christians have made, have suffered from over the past 20, 30 years is thinking that the culture was basically okay and that if we just elected more Republicans and got the right judges on the bench, everything was going to work out in the end. I think that's really, we're deluding ourselves. That doesn't mean that we can't stay in the political fight. We shouldn't be grateful to God for whatever victories he gives us. But it

does mean that we should look at the Trump years insofar as he protects religious liberty. Use those years to prepare for what's coming because he's not going to be there forever. Even if he was a saint, he couldn't turn around these very deep currents that have been going through our culture for decades and even centuries. Look at what the millennials believe. They are very, very liberal on their social beliefs, and they're dropping out of religion in numbers that we've never seen before. This is going to impact the church and religious liberty decades from now in ways that a lot of Christians can't see because we look in Washington and say, ah, the Republicans are in charge, the crisis is over.

The crisis is not over. Use this time to strengthen your local church. Stay involved in the political fight, yes, but strengthen that local church. Strengthen your family and strengthen your Christian schools because we have got to be ready for the long duration. See, that's where I was going, Rod. I was going there, Rod. because we have got to be ready for the long duration. And the millennials will define the culture. I was going there, Rod. I want to just get this in because this may be in part a political issue. I don't disagree with what Peter is saying.

But I think it's much, much, much broader than a political issue. And I think, Rod, at least for me, okay, this is a Catholic Christian convert. If the politicians won't do it, if the church leaders and pastors, you know, won't do it, we have to do it, don't we, Rod? We have to do it. We have to show to our behavior and our beliefs and our faith, we have to show how to live by what I might call gospel principles. It is up to us each day. We can't wait around for some deliverance by a politician. I mean, I don't really see maybe the Republicans at the moment, you know, are into religious freedom and good for them. But Democrats can do it, too. It's not really there. It's us.

It's individuals and families each day showing people through their example what faith can accomplish. You know, you're right about that. I remember back in the year 2000, around that time, I was still a Roman Catholic then and was sitting around in my apartment in Brooklyn with one of my good Catholic friends, including a Catholic priest. We were having dinner together. And my Catholic friend and I were complaining about how bad the bishops were, how bad the catechesis was in the church, how horrible the sermons were, and on and on and on. My Catholic priest friend, our friend, said, look, boys, what you're saying is absolutely true, but that doesn't let you off the hook. You can go on amazon.com tonight and you can order a library to be sent to your front door that Aquinas couldn't have dreamed of.

There's all kinds of ways that the laity can get involved. It's your church too. If the bishops and the priests aren't doing what you want them to do, then you get out there and build it yourself. That's called being the church. That priest was right. He was absolutely right. Whether you're Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox, the renewal has to come from the bottom up if it's going to be real. And in fact, a Catholic church historian told me that every great renewal effort in the church's history has started with the people. Rod's absolutely right. And when you go to Amazon, buy his book, The Benedict Option. And we thank him for coming on the podcast today. It's been fascinating.

Hey, it was so much fun, guys. Thank you so much. Thank you, Rod. Rod, you've got to come on my radio show. We're going to talk for a half hour about all this. Love to, Larry. Thank you so much. You bet.

You know, he mentioned the millennials dropping out of the church in record numbers. He's absolutely right. And they're going to define the culture. And when the culture gets defined so far away from having Christianity at the center of it, all you have to do is go back and listen to, for example, some old 1940s radio shows. One that I was studying a while ago was sponsored by Kraft. And the man who ran Kraft was very much a believing, practicing Christian, so much so that he would give a two-minute Easter oration every year on the show. Two minutes of talking about the meaning of Easter, and not in some, you know,

bunny-centric way that talks about how nice it is to have pastels and springs and eggs and the rest of it. No, he got down in the nitty-gr degree of the gospel, and it was fascinating stuff. But if you did that today, I mean, that set a cultural mood by which it was permitted to be Christian, and it wasn't seen as being weird. And now you have these kids who've grown up in a secular environment who listen to Larry talking about suffering

and say, why should I suffer? The point of everything is to make everything easy. I don't need vinegar in my life. What I need is a more disruptive app on my phone that will summon the car quicker. Ease is what they are about, not suffering. Suffering will come to them and they'll have nothing in their quiver to deal with it, but it's a hard sell. They look at Christians and they look at Christians like people in some old photograph dragging a steamer trunk onto the Titanic and they're zipping through the modern airport with a little spinner suitcase that's as light as it can possibly be.

Speaking of which, Away Travel has designed a suitcase that itself is a model of what you want when you particularly have to go somewhere and need to take your stuff, and I would like you to buy one. You would like to have one. Now, Away Travel, they've created the perfect luggage. That's capital P and capital L, and you'll see what I mean when you get it. Their approach is simple. Create a special object that's designed to be resilient, resourceful, and essential to the way that you travel today. They use high-quality materials, of course, while offering a much

lower price compared to the other brands. And they sell it directly to you. That middle man, get out of here. There's four sizes, the carry-on, the bigger carry-on, the medium, and the large for extended stays, all made with premium lightweight German polycarbonate. Four 360-degree spinner wheels, so you can just twirl that thing with ease as you walk around. Carry-on sizes compliant with all major U.S. airlines. And both sizes of the carry-on, this is fascinating, they're able to charge your cell phones, tablets, e-readers, anything else that's powered by a USB cord.

How many times have you been in an airport and it's one of those ones that parsimoniously spaces out the power outlets so you can't find one and if you find one there's six people camped around it all you have to do is plug your phone into your suitcase it's so cool and it's a lifetime warranty anything breaks away will fix it replace it for you for life 100-day trial if at any point you decide yeah it's not for me but you won't return it for a for life. 100-day trial. If at any point you decide, eh, it's not for me, which you won't, return it for a full refund,

no questions asked, and free shipping, of course, within the continental U.S. I love this thing because it's just so stylishly designed. It's firm. It is not flimsy. No, no, no, no.

You don't fear it's going to come down the chute all busted up with your socks hanging out. And that USB port, I just absolutely love it. $20 off if you act now. travel away travel comm slash ricochet and use the promo code ricochet that away travel comm slash ricochet promo code ricochet for $20 off and you will practically get on the phone and make an airline

reservation somewhere just so you'll have the chance to use it you'll love it that much Larry we we got deals going on now here in Washington, and you are of the mind that Trump, who came into this saying that he was a dealmaker, is one on par with the sainted Ronald Reagan. Explain and defend, if you would. Yeah, I'm still processing the Rod Dreyer stuff, which is so dear to my heart. Look, I've just been tweeting all morning, basically, on this point. The Reagan idea, well, there were sort of two versions of it. One is his famous quote, give me half a loaf now and I'll get the other half later. And the other is another quote. If you and I agree 70 percent of the time,

if we agree 70 percent of the time, we are allies and friends. We are not enemies. And so to a large extent, I think one of the problems with the whole business of the House ending Obamacare and beginning with their own plan, is that the Republicans have to exercise bipartisanship among themselves. Realized beautifully put. Yeah. And, you know, and realize, Peter, that you're not going to get everything you want. All the various wings of the party have to come to some agreement about this. And the reason I'm praising Trump here, and as you fellows know, I I don't always praise him, but I think he's on his game right now. He spent the last week or so in meetings in

the Roosevelt Room, meetings in the Cabinet, meetings in the Oval Office, meetings on Capitol Hill, on the phone, on the phone with specific members, trying to make a deal, essentially trying to find the 70%. And I give them a lot of credit for that. And I don't know how the outcome is going to be this afternoon, but I give them a lot of credit. And I think this is Trump at his best. Yeah, let's pause on that point for just a moment. It is, I just think it's worth repeating because we've got this guy for another four years and we don't know the outcome of the vote today, but we've got this guy for another four years.

We don't know the outcome of the vote today, but we've got this guy for another four years. There's a lot to be said against Donald Trump. And for those of us who came up under Ronald Reagan, there's a lot about Donald Trump that's just hard to look at. But this guy has turned his first legislative test and he is working that town. He's working that town in a way that the town has forgotten could be done after eight years of Barack Obama holding himself aloof from the legislative process. What we've got here in my judgment, Larry, you can amend the record here if you disagree with me or if you want to add a few points. But what we have is the return of something extremely healthy. I'm with you. I hope the bill passes this afternoon. But whether it passes or not, we've got the return of something extremely

healthy, and it's known as politics. The House, they're talking to each other. They're fighting with each other. And what are they fighting about? Small points? Absolutely not. They are defining what the Republican Party and conservatism will stand for during these years as it attempts to roll back Obamacare and put forward an agenda of its own. These are important acts of political definition. What do we find worth fighting for? What do we stand for? And these guys are in and out of each

other's offices in the Senate. They're talking to each other. And Donald Trump is in the middle of it. He's on the phone. He's summoning people to the White House. It just moved on drudge that the speaker is on his way to the White House right now. i'm with you larry i have all kinds of reservations about donald trump of and i've gone into them in length on previous podcasts but at the moment i just think you have to admire the guy he's working it yeah you know he's doing it i mean i agree this is the best side of trump and no matter what happens in this health care thing, and I want to see a bill passed today because that's not the final bill. It just keeps the process moving and means we can repeal Obamacare and replace it with something that's market oriented. But coming back

to Trump, you know, Peter, this is retail politics, which we seldom see anymore at the presidential level. He's gone. He's gone. Mano, mano. Woman, oh, woman, oh. He's talking. Don't you love that? I'm so politically correct.

Personal, personal is what we should be saying. You know what? You're right. I amend that. But the point is, he is on the phone. This is what really impressed me, calling individuals to talk. And by the way, at no point, so far as I know, Trump has not yet delivered ultimatums, except that he wants to get this thing done today. All right. But he has not said, all right, we're going to do this. We're going to do that.

No, he has a lighter touch as a good negotiator does. He's saying, all right, this sounds like a good suggestion. Can we get some discussion on this? Maybe we can get some closure on this. He's done it with a deft hand and he's been open to all points of view. And this is another thing that's terribly important. You watch Trump dealing with the Republican Party in this way, in this difficult issue. And I kind of say to myself, you know, to my Democratic friends, and I have many as a former Democrat, Why don't you involve yourselves in this Trumpian process instead of hanging back and firing bombs every single day?

Why don't you get involved and try to deal with this guy? Get on the phone. Stop insulting everybody all the time. The Democratic Party would be a lot healthier. Now, the Republican Party, I think, will make a huge mistake if they vote nay today simply because that preserves Obamacare, probably the kingdom come. But having said that, I think many people in the GOP House particularly have come to learn that what Peter described, that process is possible. And we really haven't seen that in a very long time. To be honest with you, Peter, I think the last guy to do this was Bill Clinton. That's right.

Who was very, very good at retailing politics. Exactly. That's right. And surprisingly, as you know, we worked for Reagan. You know, Reagan also, he liked to make the calls. He liked to have the meetings. He liked to have the meetings. He liked to walk through the substance. A lot of people forget about that. And these are crucial aspects of leadership. So maybe if this thing falls flat on its face today, and again, I hope it doesn't, but if it does, at least we'll come away. We can take away something positive that the new president at his best, at his best,

can really be a powerful force for change and a powerful force to improve the quality of our politics. That is possible. But Larry, the reason that the Democrats can't get on board and try to strike some compromises, they're so invested in the narrative of resistance that this is Hitler come back to life, that you can't compromise with evil, for heaven's sakes. The man wants to do away with Meals on Wheels. You wrote a piece about this, and I want to ask you about it, because you were saying that the Meals on Wheels program didn't work, and this is an example of Trump's team looking at things and saying,

look, it doesn't work, we're not going to fund it. From what I understand, the Meals on Wheels theme got floated because an infinitesimal part of the Community Development Block grants went toward Meals on Wheels, and that's really what they were targeting. Is it wise to, shall we say, feed the narrative of Republican cruelty by making a point of eliminating Meals on Wheels? I'm trying to figure out who from the administration – nobody from the administration said we're killing Meals on Wheels, did they? Well, they haven't said that in that language, but they're defunding it so far as I know.

It does have something to do with the community development block grants, which also failed. I want to make also failed. Turned out to be nothing more than a pork barrel spending program. That's all it was. Now, I didn't write a piece, but I did get in a discussion on this, which was picked up. The Meals on Wheels thing is a very small piece, but my bigger point was this. We have seen an explosion, an absolute explosion in food stamps. Okay. We're now up to almost 50 million Americans on food

stamps with a gigantic cost attached to it. That cannot last forever. We cannot go that route. So, so food stamps and other so-called small entitlements, which are providing, unfortunately, incentives not to work. OK, that has to be changed. And Meals on Wheels is other food assistance programs into block grants and turn them over to the states and let the states regulate them and administer, I'm fine with that. But what I am saying is we cannot have unlimited, unsustainable federal entitlements to deliver food. We went through this, you know, years and years and years ago, post-grade society. This stuff doesn't work. OK, what works is providing job opportunities, good habits and good training. So people don't have to depend on this. But a country with nearly 50 million people on food stamps is not a healthy country.

So that's the basic point here. And Trump, and I'm going to give him some more credit on this, he is telling, you know, Mick Mulvaney and all the rest of these guys to comb through their cabinet budgets and programs and look at the stuff, weed out the stuff that is not necessary and either eliminate it or turn it over to the states where you'll have much more responsive constituencies and audiences and management. That's what I'm really saying. It's not that I want to take food out of babies mouths. That's what Democrats always say when Republicans try to reform something. It's about making this a more prosperous, opportunistic country. We have to go that way and not worry or obsess about putting food in people's mouths. We don't want anybody

to starve. I don't want anybody to starve. That's not the point. The point is, where are the incentives to create jobs, regulation incentives, tax incentives, moral incentives? Let's go back to Rod Dreyer, for heaven's sakes. Work is a virtue. Work is something to be cherished. Obamacare, one of the core fundamental moral failures of Obamacare is that the Democrats loudly proclaimed, if we provide you with this federal government assistance, you don't have to work. You can go out and, you know, and realize your fondest dreams and write books and play in the country. That's nonsense. That's utter nonsense. We need work is a virtue. Work is godly.

And therefore, let's focus on the incentives to work and create jobs rather than more handouts. That's really what I'm trying to say. As unemployment ticks down, yes, we'll have a greater, happier mood. But people are going to still say, well, where's the jobs, man? Who's hiring? Well, people are hiring. And you know what they're doing? They're going to ZipRecruiter to get those jobs filled. And if you're one of those people who's hiring, then you probably are wondering where you ought to put your stuff, because there's so many places to put it.

Posting a job in one place is not enough to find a quality candidate. Not now, not ever. If you want to find the perfect hire, you need to post your job on every, all, every universal job site. It was impossible before, but now you can, because of ZipRecruiter. You can post your job on every, all, every, the universal job site. It was impossible before, but now you can because of ZipRecruiter. You can post your job to 100-plus job sites, including social media like Facebook and Twitter, with a single click, like that.

Find candidates in any city, any industry, nationwide. Post once and watch your qualified candidates roar right into ZipRecruiter's easy-to-use interface. No juggling your emails, no calls to your office who wants to do that. Now, quickly screen your candidates, rate them, and hire the right person fast. Find out today why ZipRecruiter has been used by Fortune 100 companies and thousands of small and medium-sized businesses. And you being a Ricochet listener, yes, of course, we have something for you. You can post that job to ZipRecruiter for free, free,

by going to ziprecruiter.com slash free trial going to ZipRecruiter.com slash free trial. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash free trial. And one more time in case you didn't hear me, ZipRecruiter.com slash free trial. And we thank ZipRecruiter, of course, for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Well, as we wind up here today, so much stuff to talk about. One of the things on the member feed this week was talking about the NEA, Joseph Moore. I hope it's Moore and not Moray. He's actually a member of a board of directors of a small private museum and an art collector himself, man of taste.

He says that he's not particularly upset about the end of the NEA, that somehow we managed to make art before the NEA. It was brought along in 1965, and he also says you can argue that the state of American art was better before the NEA came along. Now, I agree. I don't necessarily think it's the NEA that did it. I think it was the changing of the artistic climate and a loosening of standards and theories and practices and a whole bunch of drivelicious art and thought that actually corrupted the art world. But he's right. You can eliminate the NEA, and you are not going to find a nation that is pitched into philistinism and unable to conjure notions of how to ennoble their souls. But yet, of course, when the NEA is cut, we're told that small theater groups in little towns that have the only thing that brings them together once a year is putting on Our Town,

that this is going to be the end of that, the end of art. Don't think so. But let me ask you guys. Peter, I'm guessing you probably would be content to see a pitchfork taken to the NEA. Content? I would be overjoyed. The NEA and PBS. Actually, in a certain sense, even especially PBS. Okay, so the question is, why is it that let's just take the small theater group in who knows where, in some small town in the Midwest.

Why is it that that theater should depend upon? Here's the test. The test is somebody in the adjoining small town, single mother, working two jobs to take care of a couple of kids. Should that woman be taxed, even at some tiny level, to permit theater, people who love acting in the next town over, to gratify their own? Of course not. That's just not something that any citizen should ask his fellow citizens to support. Should ask the government to use its coercive powers to force other people to support. Of course not. In a country that has gotten richer and richer ever since the NEA was founded, Not because of the NEA, obviously, but that was found in the 60s, I think. It was founded during the Johnson years. The country's gotten richer and richer. There are plenty of rich people who can replace that $148 million budget easily. It

should be pushed back into the private sector. PBS, don't get me started. We now have PBS. There may have been an argument for it back in the old days when nobody had more than two or three television channels. Maybe there was an argument for an educational channel that was government funded and was commercial free. The idea that PBS is commercial free, gone. Just look at them during fundraising drives when they're running the three tenors and it's just one long commercial after another in effect. And the idea that anybody needs them when we've got the Internet, everybody has access to 100 different channels, educational television, educational video products. Go to any major university. Every university has pushes stuff online now. There is no justification whatsoever for the people of PBS.

By the way, the people who work at PBS get paid pretty darned well. There is no justification for them to ask the government to use its coercive powers to collect their paychecks from their fellow citizens. Larry, tell me why I'm wrong. I know you're absolutely right. Look, we tried. This is 30-something years ago. from their fellow citizens. Larry, tell me why I'm wrong. I know you're absolutely right. Look, we tried, this is 30-something years ago, we tried to slash those budgets, and the whole town went up in flames and went berserk over this.

If you want to watch Masterpiece Theater, which I love to watch, watch it on Netflix, watch it on Amazon, watch it on one of a hundred stations now. You're absolutely right. And I want to add to it, you know, I'm married to an artist and married to a painter. She teaches, she paints in the classical, neorealistic mode. Okay, she's all classical stuff. So I will take some exception. I think the advent of these arts and humanities councils with the government politically correct influence has moved the arts in a very bad direction away from classical arts, away from classical humanities, away from classical teaching. There's too much. I'm going to be very blunt here. I just call it left wing art. So much of it's just crap. There's too much. I'm going to be very blunt here. I just call it left-wing art. So much of it's just crap.

It's absolute crap. It's not beautiful. It's not drawn nicely. It's not colored nicely. It's just abstract, post. It's just crap. And that's not only because of the government. I understand that. But it is partly because the government appointees tend to be people, you know, from the New York and the Los Angeles and the San Francisco art communities who have just helped to really damage beautiful art that ordinary people can admire with, in some cases, obscene art. We had a big battle here in New York City

with the Brooklyn Museum many years ago when Rudy Giuliani, to his great credit, just closed down the funding of the Brooklyn Museum because of the garbage that they were putting up. So there is a bad government influence. But on the whole, Peter, your market-oriented riff is exactly right. Let the folks do what they want to do. And if you want to watch, you know, Downton Abbey, which I thought was fabulous, you want to watch The Crown, which I thought was fabulous. It's very well made. Watch it on Netflix.

OK, it's right there. And you can decide. You don't have to coerce anybody. You want it. You can pay five or six dollars for it a night. And that's enough. Let's get this other stuff out of the government. We don't need it. Exactly.

Now, the Brooklyn example you're talking about is the, it was a work by Chris O'Feely, I believe, who was an artist who was using African techniques, and it incorporated elephant dung into a portrait of the Virgin Mary. And when you put those words together, people get upset, and he was saying he was using indigenous traditions to express religious point. So that was not something like a lot of the art that Larry talks about that was created by government. You're right, he was enabled, but he was enabled by government funding, $150 million here, $150 million there. But the destruction of the pictorial tradition in Western art was underway for half a century

before the NEA came along. I agree. I agree. It was an act that enabled people who were unable to do what your wife does, who could not draw, but used theory in order to take apart Western civilization. I mean, when you look at the way that the left has corrupted the arts, it has done so in order to destroy tradition in the name of some glorious, wonderful future that's coming to us. And that's not going to go,

that still maintains to this day because the arts have become like everything else so hideously, pointlessly, meaninglessly politicized. But there's a counter-revolution. Let me just say this.

There's a counter-revolution going on, okay? My saintly wife's practice, which is natural realism, it's classical stuff, it's 19th century stuff, is having a comeback. And they're not getting any money from the National Endowment for the Arts. And the government influence here has gone to the left. As I said before, I'm going to stay with this point. They tend to pick people from the major art centers, which happen to be left wing urban areas. We all know this. They don't pick people who come from a classical tradition. They don't. And that's very unfortunate.

The same is true with the Council on the Humanities. They're not teaching Western civilization. They're not urging the schools to teach the right kind of history or American history at all. And this is all of a piece. Therefore, I say in a free country, let us have the freedom to express ourselves in the arts and the humanities. Give us that freedom, but do not give us a government mandate to move in a certain direction in order to get a couple of million bucks. That's the wrongness of this.

It should all be abolished. I give Trump a lot of credit for putting it out there. And we have to change the terms of the discussion, though, because we also have to point out that your wife is now the revolutionary. Your wife is the one who is going against the tired, old, dead narrative of history. She's the brave one. She's the one overturning norms. Precisely. Yes.

That's why the bourgeoisie. She's Judy Kudlow. You can put a porcelain urinal in the museum once. You can put a Campbell's soup can up on a pedestal once. But every time you do so and you take away something from the previous standards, all there is is a continual rush to find something new to debase. And that's what, well, speaking of debasement, you could say that American pop music was destroyed by rock and roll and we're going to go out with this. I don't think so, but we'll go out with this. Chuck Berry died. Thoughts, Peter, you're a rock and roller from

way back. Uh, uh, uh, great. Uh, yeah, I'm a rock and roller from way back. Actually, Chuck Berry was a great music. He was also a great performer, wasn't he? When Chuck Berry, if you look at a YouTube of chuck berry performing you just feel more alive is that fair i think that's right i think that's right that was my era that was all our eras i guess uh chuck berry was a great rock and roller but um i'm gonna still bite this ankle of arts you know my saintly wife is married to somebody who spent whatever, three or four decades trying to bring back classical economics, classical economics, with the help of one of America's greatest presidents and a lot of smart young people who were tired of the government

driven economics. What Judy and her friends are doing is trying to bring back classical art. And if that makes us revolutionaries, fine. But all I'm going to say is, this can be done. Individuals can make change. I am so, I'm still processing our friend Rod Dreher and his comments

about spiritualism and the church and religious behavior. The solution is not government. The solution is us. Three private individuals who can choose between right and wrong, between good and bad, between beautiful and ugly. We are the solution, not the government. James, over to you to take us out next. But I also want to say something about Judy Kudlow. I'm going to put up a post on Ricochet and link to Judy's website. Yeah, thank you. And her work is just beautiful. And I'm going to say, just to whet everybody's appetite, something that's going to sound so strange that I think you'll find it intriguing. Judy's husband is one of the best dressed men in New York. And that's saying

something. And she has done still lifes of Larry's neckties and Larry's shirts. And as strange as that may sound, they are beautiful. James, over to you. Life falling on fabric is one of those tests of a great artist. You're great, Peter. Thank you. Yes, indeed. And to get back to what I was saying before, because I just wanted to mention this. You're right that Chuck Berry was a great performer

and a great rock and roller and invented a genre. But he was also a pretty fine lyricist, which we forget because the songs seem very simple. But he had a way of compressing things. I was listening to Too Much Monkey Business the other day, and he would just rip off a line like, Bender Yokohama been fighting in the war, army bunk, army chow, army close, army car. Ah, Too Much Monkey Business. And he just, one after the other, Army bunk, Army chow, Army clothes, Army car. Ah, too much monkey business. And it's just one after the other, a series of modern aggravations.

And he was just exasperated. Ah, it's just purely the man. And that's how we feel these days. Sometimes everybody, judging the Internet, feels like there's too much monkey business. But on the other hand, there are trends. Be there Larry's wife. Be there Trump and his deal-making. Be the return of politics, be people like

Rod telling us what the future should be, there are things that give us hope, which is why we show up every week and do the podcast, and which is why you should go to Ricochet, having been now listening to it, and contribute to the conversation. You'll have to join if you want to contribute. That's what keeps it smart and civil. Everyone has,

as Rod says, skin in the game. And speaking of the skin that is Rob, it'll be back next week. That's what keeps it smart and civil. Everyone has, as Rod says, skin in the game. And speaking of the skin that is Rob, it'll be back next week. That's right. Lots of skin filled with Rob Long to bring back the longness that we've missed so much. But, you know, to tell you the truth, I'm sorry to say goodbye to Larry with these co-hosts and gigs because it's just a great joy. And it's fun to have you on, and it's fun to listen to you, and it's fun to argue. And gosh, I hope Rob gets really successful so we can have you on again as much as possible.

Thanks very much. It's my great pleasure. You guys are terrific. And Larry, I'm going straight to confession after getting so rough with you during the Rod Dreher interview. Me? I'm going to church. All right, boys. Casper Mattress, away travel and zip recruiter dot com coupon codes.

Ricochet or free trial. We thank them for sponsoring this show. Give a look. You'll love their goods. Go to Ricochet. Join. Be one of the 1500. And we'll see everybody in the comments at Ricochet 3.0.

Running to and fro, hard working at the mill, never fail in the mill, yet come a rotten bill. Too much for business. Too much money for business, too much money for business. Too much money for business for me to be involved in. Salesmen talking to me, trying to run me up a creek. Say, you can buy it, go and try it. You can pay me next week. Too much money for business, too much money for me to be involved in.

Blind, half good looking, trying to get me hooked. Want me to marry, get a home, settle down, write a book. Too much money for me to be involved in. Same thing every day, getting up, going to school No need of me complaining, my objections overrule Too much monkey business Too much monkey business Too much monkey business for me to be involved in Ricochet.

Join the conversation. Hey, phone something wrong, dime gone, will mail, or the suitor operator for telling me a tale. Too much funky business, too much funky business, too much funky business for me to be involved in. I've been to Yokohama, been fighting in the war. Army bunk, army child, army clothes, army car. Too much monkey business. Too much monkey business.

Too much monkey business for me to be involved in. Working in the filling station. Too many tasks Wipe the windows, check the tiles, check the oil, a dollar gas Too much monkey business, too much monkey business I don't want your botheration, get away, leave me Too much funk and business for me