The Ricochet Podcast - Who's Afraid of Naomi Wolf?

Episode Date: March 19, 2021

This week, in an unparalleled act of commitment, we persisted and Naomi Wolf is our guest this week. It’s a fascinating, surprising, and yes, hopeful conversation and we’re very grateful she agreed to join us. But see what you think. Then, the delightful Deb Saunders –on hiatus from covering the White House– joins us to talk about how the current White House is covered vs. the last one and the... Source

That's charming. It's absolutely great. That's just fantastic. I have a dream this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. I can say quite clearly, don't leave your town or city or community. With all due respect, that's a bunch of malarkey. I can say quite clearly, don't leave your town or city or community. With all due respect, that's a bunch of malarkey. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Democracy simply doesn't work.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long and Peter Robinson. I'm James Lalix, and today we talk to Naomi Wolf about biofascism and Deb Saunders about signing off. So let's have ourselves a podcast. I can hear you! Welcome, everybody, to the Ricochet Podcast number 536. It's the flagship podcast of the Ricochet Audio Network empire. Join us, why don't you?

And by that we mean join the site and become part of the Ricochet Audio Network Empire. Join us, why don't you? And by that we mean join the site and become part of the most stimulating conversation and community on the web. You'll wonder why you ever wasted time on Twitter and Facebook once you discover what Ricochet and the secret little member feed lurks for you. As ever, we're here with the founders, Peter Robinson and Rob Long.

Gentlemen, hello. How are things? Hello, hello. Hello. That's not a candidate, right? rob long gentlemen hello how are things hello hello hello i'm i'm i'm just fiddling around with the zoom my zoom thing what what's going to happen when this is all over are we going to use zoom still i mean zoom is like i'm now i i now don't think it's i think it's got to be better right i mean isn't it time now for someone to come up with something to make zoom look like a tinker toy well in the back of everybody's head is the thought that this is somehow being routed through a chinese server and they're taking our words transcribing them and also just cutting them up so that they can be used in the chinese server i kept i instantly

flashed on somebody bringing me a hot and sour soup that of course is precisely the sort of embedded anti-Asian racism that led to the shooting today, this week in Georgia. I have some special feelings about that. The murderer's name, the psychopath, or whatever you want to call him, I don't think any words are bad enough, but his name is Robert Long. I can imagine. It's just a different way to look at Google now for me. It certainly is. I mean, if there's anybody out there who commits a heinous crime and he's named Jim Lekas,

a lot of people would think it was me because of the historical mispronunciation. My name would lead into that. Peter Robinson, however, is one of those. has to be a serial killer peter robinson uh no doubt i haven't found one yet i used to think that there was just me until google came along and it turns out there's a peter robinson who plays lounge piano in washington dc by the way he's a very good pianist. I have since sat in on him in person. There's a Peter Robinson who writes very good mystery novels.

A Canadian. For quite a while. A Canadian or Englishman. Oh, maybe, I can't remember. There's a Peter Robinson who's the Deputy Prime Minister of Ireland. Quite a lot of them. And they're all really in one way or another classier than I am. So I have, I have quite often sat back and taken credit in particular, loved your last novel. And I reply, thank you so much,

but this is not going, this is not the way things are playing out for you, Rob. No, it's not. It's not because exactly. Uh, it is horrible. I mean,

it's also weird because I mean when that when the the unfortunate use of words however you want to describe it of the of the atlanta police chief or the police chief in charge who said that the the robert long was having a bad day that this was all over the it's a very cop thing to say it's is a cop thing to say. But I kept thinking to myself, no, no, no, no, no. I'm having the bad day. It's a bad day when someone with your name does something reprehensibly evil. It's something else when that person does that thing reprehensibly evil.

We have to keep our language right. So I did feel like, no, no, no. I think this is a perfect example of the difference between a bad day and doing something, acting in a way that is incredibly unforgivably evil. This is a Mel Brooks line. Comedy is when you fall down the manhole. Tragedy is when I have a hangnail. I'm glad we're seeing this through the proper perspective.

Well, we'll know when the guy has his middle name announced, which we have to bestow on all serial killers. I discovered the other day while going through one of those heritage sites online where you find out who you're related to. third it has his middle name announced which we have to bestow on all serial killers um i discovered the other day while going through one of those heritage sites online you know where you find out who you're related to i never cared about that until i started finding out who i was related to i was tracing it all the way back to middle europe and i i found that there was a guy with my last name different spelling leakless and his first name was tetris which is of course the you know the addicting game where you fit all the little parts into everything. And the idea that somewhere back there was a guy named...

Centuries ago? About 100 years ago, there was a guy named Tetris Lylix. I just... I like that fact, and I'm thinking I should have had a son. I would have named him that. This doesn't bring up a question. I guess I've been wanting to ask forever, and I've never...

What the hell kind of name is Lylix? Who are your people? What's this? What are you? You say that rather accusing not accusingly we're just like i've been waiting for a while and i want to know years it's a sort of czech hungary this middle europe czech um hungarian thing when i could what i trace where the people where the names come from i can see that now i can start to bubble up from um right i mean mean, long, Robinson standard names. Lilacs is just a confusion to all for the way it's spelled.

Every week I get a letter from a reader at the paper saying, we have a bet in the household. Is it Lilacs or Lilacs? And I tell them, as befits somebody who's in modern journalism today, it is lie. Emphasis on the lie. Well, we mentioned children. We have now a plan

put forth, voted upon, House voted 228 to 197, nine Republicans crossing the aisle to pass the American Dream and Promise Act. Now, I fully expected

you two being miserable conservatives are opposed to both dreams and promises. But let's just see exactly how this goes. It creates a pathway to citizenship,

as they say, for about 2.5 undocumented immigrants, including those in DACA. And this is the other thing, is that it currently gives, you know, here you go, come on, you're going to be here permanently. For the people who have temporary protected status due to humanitarian crises, and as I'm sure you know, there's a lot of people who have that status that go back a long ways. I mean, people who've been here because of Liberian unrest for 20, 30 years. Where do you stand on this? Is this the last thing? Is it finally after this, we're going to secure the border and get serious about immigration,

but first we have to make all these guys legal? Or is just this the first step in the next wave of however many people? I'm very happy to think my way through to what we do with the people who are already here, in particular the DACA kids, but not kids anymore, many of them who were born here. But what I do feel absolutely insistent upon is the sequence. The borders, the rule of law must be established at the borders before we talk about anything else. This is the way it's running with a crisis at the borders, people streaming into the country. I don't know exactly what the numbers are. It's hard to count them apparently, but from report after report after report, I have the impression, even in these days, if enough press sources agree, there must be something going on, that because Joe Biden has said welcoming things, people are streaming toward the southern border.

And at the moment that they're streaming toward the southern border to say, well, if people are here in one way or another, in an undocumented or ill, we'll wave a wand and give them a pathway to citizenship. That's just all wrong. It's just all wrong. Now, how you handle the politics of this, here I sit in California. Rob has made an escape. James has never been tempted to come, but here I sit in California. It happens that for a piece I was working on the other day, I spent a couple of hours on the phone with Pete Wilson, who was governor from 1991 to 1999. And Pete Wilson, an honorable man, tried to do something difficult, but honorable in politics. And that was, as illegal immigration was taking shape in the 90s, he tried very hard to draw a distinction between those who had come to this country legally, who he made it clear and to this day makes clear are more than welcome. The Republican Party needs to appeal to them and so forth, while at the same time opposing illegal immigration. And you know what? That turned out to be an act of political jujitsu that was just too complicated to pull off.

And lots and lots of people who had come to this country legally, I'm talking, of course, overwhelmingly of people who came from Mexico and points to South Central America, even if they had done so legally, even if they had done so a couple of generations earlier, felt for the people who were coming here illegally, had cousins, friends, people back in the home village. And the Hispanic vote cratered in the, for the Hispanic vote for Republicans in California cratered and has never since recovered. All of that is very serious because

when you permit people to enter the country, you're not just inviting workers. You're not just inviting disadvantaged people to give them an opportunity to make their lives better. You are extending an invitation to people who will govern you, who will vote in elections and choose the course of the country, including the laws under which you must live. This is very hard. Well, Rob, first of all, I should note that if people are lucky enough to be watching this on Zoom, they have to note that Rob is wearing what appears to be Soviet Navy outfit, which I've always thought was quite sharp. Well, they turned off the water today for a bit, James.

And so I had to like, I basically sort of, this is my unshowered morning t-shirt and sweater. It's a good look. Well, I agree with Peter. Is that what you're going to ask? I was going to ask that, and I know that probably is the case, but I was also going to ask you how you feel about the Biden administration's decision to sort of clamp down on the publicity. We're going to cancel the ride-alongs. We're going to kind of just, you know, press, just go away.

Just please. I mean, I hate to do this, telling the press that they can't. All of these things in the previous administration would be seen as signs of insincerity, if not imminent fascism. Yes, fascism. Right. Was that a question? I don't know. James, you're verging on the rob long tripwire the narrative yeah you're getting very close to saying that's all gone well it's just that's exactly why i did yes but in this case i think that i mean i don't think i still think it's i

don't you know that i'm not moved by those arguments but in this case i think it is interesting because what what peter said at the end was exactly correct was that it's hard and pete wilson was hard for pete hard for a governor because the governor cannot secure the border the governor cannot isn't joined from securing the border there's not much a governor can do about the border so if you're a governor with a border on mexico or canada for that matter you just you just have to kind of look to Washington and say, you're going to take care of this, right, fellas? That's what you're supposed to do. And they didn't do it.

It is so hard that, in fact, I think, surprisingly, the Biden administration, or maybe not surprisingly, maybe they knew, I don't know how cynical they are, that they knew that there were going to be kids in cages. There will be kids in cages in the next you know month two months six months 12 months 20 36 months and so instead of actually dealing with the problem which is people streaming across the border or people being attracted to coming across the border amassing on the border instead of dealing with that problem i mean there's only two ways to do

it right one way is to build a fence or a wall or put people there to keep people from there. Or the other way is just to let everybody in, right? Neither one of those things is palatable to a Democratic president for a whole lot of reasons. So instead, they've decided to do something really nice. We'll do a nice thing and we'll make a lot of publicity about the nice thing that they're doing, which is the the american dream promise act and all that other stuff that's gonna be all the nice stuff and then maybe no one will notice that they're still building cages on the border and that is precisely what's going to happen i suspect except that in this case i i hope i think that the um far left crackpot left wing anti-biden

faction which is gets bigger every day um will be the first people to point a light to it and say, hey, wait a minute. I thought this was supposed to be bad. And then they'll say, no, no, no, no. Don't look over there. Look over here at this American Dream and Promise Act we just passed. That may work, but I suspect it won't. I suspect that now in 2021, 2022, 2023, most Americans are going to believe only one thing in unison, which is that it is very, very hard. And you're probably going to have to do some kind of amnesty. And you're probably going to have to do some kind of wall.

And you're probably going to have to do some kind of kids in cages. Well, somebody else said on Twitter the other day, they're also going to have to just clean out ice because apparently Trump gave the ice union the full free reign union sympathizer, of course, that he was. And so you've got to extirpate root and branch the people in ice who are enforcing these illegitimate and uncharitable laws. You know, and spring cleaning is something we've all thought about because it's getting warmer and you look around and you think it's time. It's time. One of my spring cleaning rituals is to move some plates from downstairs to upstairs. That's right.

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got that great ButcherBox meat in the fridge. And we thank ButcherBox for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. And now we welcome to the podcast, Naomi Wolf, Rhodes Scholar, former advisor to the Clinton and Gore campaigns and author of eight, count them, eight New York Times nonfiction bestsellers. Following her first book, The Beauty Myth, she became a leading spokesman of what's spokesperson, spokesman, listen to me. There you go. That's exactly what she's had to fight against all of her career. A leading spokeswoman for what has been described as the third wave of the feminist movement. Naomi, thank you for joining us. I got to warn you, though, here at Ricochet, we believe in the individual over the collective, a national civic identity that transcends ethnicity and creed. In other words, Nazis, you know, and if

we're not, you know, if not that Nazi adjacent. So, you know, there's going to be a lot of bad stuff coming your way for talking to such sorts and types as ourselves. But we hope it's going to be worth it. You're on with Rob Long in New York and Peter Robinson in California, who is chomping, champing at the bit, I should say, for the first question. Peter? Naomi, we've never met, but I've read your work and been aware of you for years. And I think I have disagreed with perhaps 80 or 85% of the positions you've taken.

That said, I wanted to invite you onto this podcast to say thank you. And I do mean that because where we do agree is on the right to the necessity of speaking out, taking positions, taking public positions, arguing in public. And you are one of the liberals. I don't know whether you call yourself a liberal or progressive. Actually, you can adjust my vocabulary. I'd be happy to have that adjusted. But you have just refused to go along with this new thing. And I actually, honestly, if I could send a note to every person I think of as an honest liberal, I would. But here you are. So thank you. Wonderful.

I mean, I want to thank you, of course. I just joked before the podcast started that I'm describing of, you know, civic identity that transcends ethnicity and gender, belief in freedom of speech and expression, belief in, you know, I'll throw in kind of constitution above party, that those are radical values or not values that we all agree on as Americans, whatever our other ideological beliefs or policy beliefs. So I see a realignment happening. I think there's more, I hope there's more of me than me. I'm in touch with a number, I can't say it's a huge number but there are other liberals who are looking around at what's happening you know the kind of language and policy coming from the DNC and and and kind of asking where what is happening that that the left or what's called the left is splitting so dramatically from traditional liberal values and traditional American values. So, you know, I hope that left and right can continue to unite in dialogue.

Just because we don't agree on everything doesn't mean that we shouldn't, you know, be united to save our country. So I have one more question before. I know Rob and James have questions as well. This is a biggish one, though. Back when I was in college, which is getting to be a good long time ago now. It was President McKinley, I think. Yes, exactly.

The lit crit people were in the English department. And they smoked cheap cigarettes and posed like French intellectuals. Yeah. And they were irrelevant. I mean, interesting, but irrelevant. And now they dominate the universities. They're thinking the patterns of thought dominate the universities, dominate big tech. I'm speaking to you from Northern California and now seem to dominate. Surely they remain one wing of,

but they seem the dominant wing of the Democratic Party. And my question is, how did that happen? How did a fringe view within wider American liberalism, but a fringe view, take over? Oh, that's a tough one. I mean, I don't know how you're defining lit crit. It's, you know, when I was a graduate student in the 80s, I loved those folks. I tried to be one of them.

I smoked those cheap cigarettes. You know, I wore that black. And it had a very specific meaning, post-structuralism, the idea that, you know, criticism was more important than the original text. Yes, yes, right. And everything was postmodern and it was all semiotics. And, you know, that's potentially quite a dangerous, useful but dangerous intellectual approach because it does suggest that everything is relative and there's no ultimate meaning or truth or fact that we can all agree on. But you're right, it did no harm when it was just applied to language or it only harmed language and the study of poetry. I don't know that it's that that has metastasized to take over every

other sane, reasonable value on the left. I just always want to note that the right has its own fanaticism and extremism and, you know... Stipulated, Counselor. Stipulated for sure. Thank you. But it's important always to say that, right? Yes, of course. To me, it's important to always be transpartisan and kind of consistent in being impartial in critique. But I think that other kinds of extremist and dogmatic and kind of fanatical discourses have proliferated. I think tech is super scary because I see it as,

and I just wrote an essay about this that was posted on AIR's website today. It's a new introduction to the end of America, updating it for now for the biofascism, which is a phrase I coined, I hope it will become generally in use, that I see around us. You know, big tech has a scary discourse and approach because they really don't care about human beings. It's all about the platform. It's all about market share. And I see a lot of policies that we're seeing now that are leading to record profits for the tech bros have to do with kind of killing off human spaces, killing off classrooms and human teachers, killing off, I don't mean literally, but, you know, supplanting them through policy, especially in democratic states, making sure we can't gather in the state of Massachusetts, where I am right now, in my synagogue, you know, or a church or a mosque.

You know, because every time humans gather in human space, the tech bros lose money. That's their view. So they're trying to drive us all onto platforms. The DNC, honestly, I think we're seeing the influence of China. And there's very good work that has been done by people I really respect that have identified primary documents about huge amounts of influence flowing, you know, to educational organizations, to the DNC, to state leaders, from, you know, bad actors who are not our friends, who are kind of dissolving traditional American values around the individual, around liberty and human rights, and supplanting them with a more kind of Marxist-friendly,

you know, discourse. And I am the daughter of a card carrying, you know, communist. I mean, I'm the daughter of that great generation of Americans who really believed for a while that communism was a good idea, you know, then kind of took a step back with Stalin, but I'm not a reflexive, you know, dogmatic anti-Marxist, but it really scares me. I just, I'll just wrap this up and I'll say, I'll say that I, I mean, this riff, I just got off the phone with a beloved young adult who's at a very expensive institution. And he was like, well, it's all about harm reduction. We're talking about the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. I'm like, harm reduction. It's about inalienable God-given human rights. And he's like, well, you know, really, the ideal society is one that limits harms. That is not an American discourse. And I'm seeing this dissolving, and it feels like almost intentionally, you know, attacks on monuments, attacks on history, attacks on our shared values as Americans. And I don't think it's for good reasons.

I think it's to weaken us, you know, at a time when China wants to be the main superpower. Hey, Naomi, it's Rob Long in New York. Thank you for joining us. Okay. I have a bunch of questions before. So what is biofascism? Glad you asked. It's so I have been writing, you know know since march of last year about my concerns that this formerly very real pandemic is being used and exploited um by people who profit from our fear and it it's not a new argument i made the same argument during the bush years and the obama years about the exploitation of terrorism and fears of terrorism to limit our rights and freedoms. So what I'm seeing is that, you know, bad actors, as I mentioned, including big tech,

including big pharma, including Bill Gates, are exploiting policy around the pandemic to limit our rights and freedoms and to kind of remake uh otherwise free society in in ways that are beneficial to them and not beneficial to us and our rights and liberties so biofascism i mean really when you know the governor of new york issues an email every 30 days saying he's extending emergency powers with no oversight, no overview, and then says you have to have a vaccine passport to go to a baseball game or go to a soccer game in New York State. That's against the Americans with Disabilities Act. It's against our constitution, but it's also the ground for biofascism in the sense of a society in which rights are doled out by a central merger of government and corporations

based on our biological status, and a society in which the state does things to our bodies that it decides it has the right to. I'm sorry, Rob. I'll return Naomi to you in just a second. But you immediately remind me of Eisenhower's farewell address when he warned us of the military-industrial complex. Eisenhower's argument, the Cold War is real, but there are people within our society who have a profit motive to exploit it. We need to keep an eye on them. Are you saying the same thing or something different? It's roughly the same thing.

Again, it's not a new warning. You know, I've been absolutely consistent from the end of America in 2008, you know, that the war against terror, the global war on terror was being exploited and hyped. It's absolutely standard. As Rahm Emanuel says, never waste a good emergency. You know, Naomi Klein wrote the book Disaster Capitalism, you know, and I've been in those rooms as a former advisor to Vice President Gore and to the Clinton campaign. I've been in those rooms where people are looking at crises and, you know, you're not doing your job as a political consultant if you don't figure out how to maximize the benefit of any crisis for your own client or your own party. I mean, I'm sometimes called a conspiracy theorist because I've been in those rooms and seen that that's the job of political consultants to take, you know, horrible events or positive events and exploit them. There's an old saying in congressional campaign, you know, media consultant

circles, which is that when you're in trouble, what you really want is a cop funeral. Because then you can go to the Oh, God, it's a very dark thing. But it's really true, right? So I'll share a little anecdote, just maybe this is in some way connected. I would travel came back. I mean, I had COVID in December, I'm, you you know team dripping with antibodies i'm basically a superhero at this point but i come back from my trip and i have to fill out the form in new york state and they give them your number they keep texting me and saying are you quarantining and i said to the guy when i filled out but you know i have i had it like two months ago i had it right where do i where's the box i check that says i had it you know 23 million people have had it. And he said, we don't have that.

There is no way to legitimately opt out of like being supervised. I have to receive the text. And if I say stop or you can say, say, say, say stop and no more text, then they're going to knock on my door. Well, why are you asking us to stop? So I I'm with you. I can just talk to you. You mentioned a young people like, you know, I have a consistent problem with in my experience. Older people. I mean, older, like 30 and above, maybe 35, maybe 40. They kind of recognize that we live in a world of risk, that we take a risk every day, that we go on the subway, whatever we do. It's like risk. There's some risk involved in everything. It's the younger people that I hear more harm reduction like vocabulary from. The younger you are, ironically, the more terrified you are of this respiratory disease, which really, frankly, if you're young, you have nothing to worry about.

Why are they more terrified than my 82-year-old mother? Well, look what is happening in schools. I mean, first of all, just before we move on from your experience being tracked and traced, I mean, that's a violation of your Fourth Amendment right to privacy. It's a violation of your First Amendment right to assemble freely. But more seriously, and I'm a CEO of a tech company, a small tech company, so I understand this, the vaccine passports are track and trace. They don't care about your status in terms of the virus. Ultimately, that is not the goal. The goal is the data. And once you have that system, once you have that platform,

everyone's signed onto it, it is no step needed to have a social credit system, geolocation, all of your networks. Suddenly it's blackmail. All of your, exactly. And you cannot opt out of it. And that's what they're pushing, pushing in Europe.

And they're pushing it in Canada. So why do young people love it so much? I don't get it. Like, you know, and that's what they're pushing, pushing in Europe and they're pushing it in Canada. So why do young people love it so much? I don't get it. Like, shouldn't young people, aren't they the hippies in the punks now? No, they're not. Right. Young people are being propagandized kind of more intensely than people out of school.

And also we've had, I've had 58 years to be free. You know, I know the difference. Whereas, you know, a 16 year old has had 15 years, most of them, you know, many of them pre verbal or just figuring things out. So, but, you know, in school, there's really systematic child abuse going on. You know, children are being forced to wear masks. My stepson, who's nine in Massachusetts has to wear a mask outdoors. There is no science justifying this. Out of doors. And I interviewed a PPE OSHA specialist who said children are going to be having months of speech therapy because kids learn to speak

looking at other people's faces and mouths. So they're being masked all day long. They're being told not to touch each other. They're being kind of trained in this kind of Chinese Communist Party style fear of the world, fear of their impulses. Think about what this is doing to future generations if they're home on distance learning, which is up $300 million for just one company since March. They're not learning how to form teams. They're not learning how to resist authority in any way. They're being told that following authority is the only way to survive and that other human beings can kill them or that they can secretly kill their grandmother just by hugging her, which now there's no science

to back up asymptomatic transmission at all. So this is an intense indoctrination and we can't be surprised that they believe it, but it's our job as adults to help break the spell. Okay. So I know James wants to get it. Let me just get quickly. I was indoctrinated as a kid. All my teachers were liberal. All my professors were liberal. They were Marxist. They believed that the Soviet Union probably had a better idea of what's to go,

what should happen in the world than President Ronald Reagan, who was going to blow us all up in a nuclear war. And then in 1988, the Berlin Wall came down. Or 89. 89. 89. The Berlin Wall came down. Or 89. 89. 89. The Berlin Wall came down.

And it was a watershed moment for people of my generation. Like, well, wait a minute. But wait a minute. They were wrong about that. What else are they wrong about? People say the same thing about 9-11. Is COVID a watershed moment? I mean, there's a headline in New York Times.

Republicans tend to underestimate COVID risks. Democrats tend to exaggerate them. Most people are on the side of underestimating them. I mean, honestly, if you think it's an opportunity. information streams. And, you know, what I get from reading primary sources that are not the New York Times and NPR is a debunking, a systematic debunking of the mythologies around COVID that the New York Times is really more guilty than any other publication and perplexuating. So I don't believe anything they say about coronavirus, partly because they accepted tens of millions of dollars of Gates money. And so has NPR, and so has the BBC, and so has The Guardian. There's been a systematic buying by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation of our news outlets, but especially those on the left. So if you don't believe the New York Times, congratulations, you're on your way to becoming a Republican.

I hope not. That's the bad news. I know. I don't believe Fox all the time either. Well, that's why. I know what you mean about the people who wear the masks outside. I don't. I live in Minnesota where it would be 20 degrees below zero.

There's no life anywhere and people are still walking around with a mask. Well, I passed a couple of people the other day, maskless. They looked at me and I felt like I was one of those juvenile delinquent beatniks in an old American international picture. The kind of guy that bongo start playing in the, on the soundtrack, whenever he shows up and the, the wife clutches the children to her like this and they move along. I felt dangerous, which is kind of cool. But on the other hand, I hated the fact that this is all this accumulated distrust that we've had of each other. And it is wrong. But you said about 17 or 18 things in the course of the last 20 minutes, and I want to get to every one of them individually. So strap in here. I'm kidding. I should say that I only have a limited amount of time.

Right. So I'm going to make this short. Like Peter and Rob, who prefaced what they said, when I was young, when I was in college and a good Democrat and a good liberal, all of my good Democrat liberal friends expressed our ideas within the framework of believing in American exceptionalism. We were still patriots. Now it's flipped on its head where American exceptionalism means that America is an exceptionally evil representation of a monstrously evil thing called western civilization and when you spoke before about loving the lit crit people the gramsians and the frankfurt school blew it all up and into it flowed everything else and there's really no something we can grab on to more ourselves here's my question to you and because you've been a lifelong liberal and i believe me i'm of the same age and I get the predicates that you started with. One of the things that drove me away from it was the idea that the state, which is now

imposing upon us all of these restrictions and by emergency fiat saying, you can't be open, you cannot gather, the state and the power of it. Does this make you rethink the liberal ideas about giving power and authority to the state in the degree that liberalism seems to depend upon. I mean, honestly, yes. You know, I don't think that it's a good idea to give unrestrained authority to corporations and, you know, completely unregulated capitalism. You know, I studied the 19th century.

It was bad for children in workhouses and starving old people and so on, slaves. At the same time, I'm very, very worried about the power of the state now that we've seen, you know, under the best of intentions, quote unquote, you know, rampant totalitarian legislating. You know, this is why bipartisanship is so important. I mean, usually we're in dialogue with each other, we can correct each other's worst excesses, you know, the legislative process in a divided Congress can, you know, we can rein each other in. There's none of that now. And absolutely right now, it's not just the state, but the state in a kind of Mussolini 1920s Italian fascism form of merger of state and big tech is doing everything possible to suppress dissent, to track us, to manage us, to intrude on us. And by the way, you know, those elderly people and the people who are worried about you wearing a mask, masks, I've read the aerosol studies. I'm such a nerd. I'm always saying I've read the aerosol studies. Sometimes it's a good idea to protect an immunocompromised person, you know, in a closely

sealed room with no ventilation, you probably should sit more than six feet away from them or, you know, not breathe directly in their faces. But what, what is scary is that we've lived through waves and waves of disease with those decisions being personal decisions, right? Because we have individual rights and we behave with decency and common sense as we did in the HIV pandemic, the cholera pandemic, the typhus pandemic, you know, polio, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, I'm terrified of the power of the state. And I'm mostly terrified at the dissolution of the civic ideal. And I'm definitely critiquing my own side, because there is valid criticism to be aimed at capitalism and the West and American, you know, 600 dirty wars. But underneath it all, democracy is the best idea the human species ever had.

And America is the best idea that democracy ever had. And we need to come together to protect that ideal and not throw out everything precious we have in a rush to critique it. We are going to Photoshop an eagle descending on your shoulder in this thing here perfectly. You're absolutely right. The people who stared at me were in their 30s they weren't elderly sorts they were the sort of people who've embraced this whole safetyism and the like you know as a and i you know i've worn a mask indoor since this began i put so much hand sanitizer on my hands i'm surprised the bones aren't showing

but when it comes down to when we look and i agree with you about being suspicious and of of corporatism of what capitalism can do. I hate how Walmart killed the small town Main Street. I don't like how Amazon kills the brick and mortars. But Amazon and Walmart can't make me do anything. The state can send a guy to my house in a car with flashing lights, and he can. So that's the distinction a lot of us on the right. But you don't have to buy that to be on our side. This is something that we can agree upon. And after we've solved the problem and gotten back to American basics, then we can start strangling each other over the verge. Exactly right. I mean, now is not the time to let partisan differences keep us from working together against an enemy that is much scarier than either side getting into power with normal checks and balances. And that is a complete

totalitarian takeover via a lot of bad actors working together to suppress all of our freedoms under the guise of this pandemic. Gentlemen, I'm so sorry. I should probably hop off now. But it's been a great pleasure and honor to speak to you. And I hope that we all have many more conversations across many divides going forward. We will have you on when the ninth book shows up. Thank you, Naomi. Thank you so much, Naomi. Thank you. Take care. Bye.

I'm not kidding about the people just glaring at me. And we'd watch. Are you sure that's why they're glaring at you? Because maybe they've recognized you, they've read something No, that's the other thing, is that since This whole thing with the mask began, I never get recognized

In the store anymore, and also because My picture no longer resembles me, there's this Dorian Gray thing going on, but It used to be I would get it a lot But now that I have this stupid illustration Which doesn't look like me, and I'm masked up I never get that, hey, aren't you such and such Which is a pity, because I really just Sort of could live off that for days as every writer does.

Being recognized in public is a great thing. But unfortunately, no, that wasn't it. They were just afraid. Now, I can understand that because life is fragile, perhaps. And if you're seeing some guy swagger across the street, breathing all over the place, and you're not 18 feet away, it might make you rethink how things are going. But here's the deal. You don't have to be paranoid about these things to understand that the fragility of life and the importance of the things that you hold dear means that you ought to protect them. And one of the ways that you can protect them, one of the best ways you can protect them is life insurance, especially term coverage. And you know what? It is surprisingly affordable. Why not ask yourself this? Why not pay just a little each month to protect the ones you love? If you're asking yourself this question a lot, well,

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Go to ladderlife.com slash ricochet. That's L-A-D-D-E-R-L-I-F-E.com slash ricochet. Ladderlife.com slash ricochet. And we're thanks to Ladder for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Now we welcome back to the podcast, Deb Saunders. I'm just going to go right to a column she wrote in the Las Vegas Journal two weeks ago, quote, after 30 plus years writing for daily newspapers, four years of covering Trump and five weeks covering Biden, I am out of gas. Covering Trump was like riding a roller coaster and covering Biden looks like running a marathon after a roller coaster ride. Thanks for joining me on the roller coaster. I'm getting off here. Deb, I am a newspaper columnist. And when I leave that job, there

will be a series of fingernail scratches from my desk on the carpet to the elevators because they will have to drag me out. Why? Okay. That's not fair. Are you just refilling the tank at this point until you can dive back into it? Because that's certainly understandable. Yeah. I'm refilling the tank. I mean, the deal is when you cover a White House, it's crazy, even the Biden White House, because it's you're always on a treadmill. You always have to make sure that you don't miss something that's happening on your beat. And you're just you're just you're just plugged in all the time. That was insane during the Trump years. I don't have to tell you that. And everybody said, oh, Biden will be easier. No, he's a president. He may be less voluble and hard, you know, harder to get a

good story out of sometimes. But it wasn't easier. And I just, you know, it's a burnout job. If you look at who's in the briefing room now, a lot of those people were not were not there a year ago. There's a lot of turnover. And I just decided I needed to take a break and, and just recharge because it's, I'm, I am, I'm out of gas. I wish I weren't. I wish I had all the energy in the world, but I don't. Okay. Deb, Peter here. Is Donald Trump out of gas? Oh no. No, I mean, so this is, this is, go is go ahead no that's a good question that that is a

great question he's i don't think he's out of gas but you know that he's not in the picture anymore he's not president he doesn't have the sway with people that he had and i sort of think that every think of him as an electric car that doesn't get to recharge. And bit by bit, he's just going to lose the attention that he had before. And the amount of people who want to be near him is getting smaller. There are people who worked in that White House who worshiped the guy, who were not real happy at how he left. Didn't like what happened on January 6th, didn't like a lot of the things that he did. And the orbit around him, it's smaller,

and it's being staffed by people, staff, not quite the word. It's people who are the most likely to never tell Trump he's wrong ever are the ones who are going to be in that orbit. And it's just a shrinking world. I'm sorry, one more question. I want to talk about Biden and I want to talk about Deb Saunders. But there's this last question about Trump that's sort of mandatory for somebody who covered him. And the question is, if you're Mitch McConnell and you're trying to figure out a way forward for your coalition, you're trying to figure out a way forward for your coalition, you're trying to figure out how Republicans can recapture the Senate in two years. Or if you're Tom Cotton or Ben Sasse, I don't want to presume upon these fine senators, but if you're a member of the next generation in the Republican Party or Ron DeSantis, who's thinking, well, maybe, maybe I'll run in 2024.

Is Donald Trump, can they all say, that man is not going to be around to complicate the calculations. He'll run against, he'll campaign against Liz Cheney in two years, and then he'll just be, he'll be gone. Is that your feeling? Or is Trump going to come roaring back after playing a few rounds of golf in Mar-a-Lago? No, I think he's done. I mean, I really do feel he's hurt so many people in the Republican establishment. And they don't, he's not in the White House anymore. They don't have nearly as much to fear. There are candidates for president who will definitely want to play up to his base, and they will embrace him. But there are others who will think, nope, this is baggage. And I

don't think I can win the White House if this guy is on my team. Got it. Rob? I sort of, I definitely agree with that about Trump. I mean, in order to stage a comeback, it's going to take an enormous amount of work. A first term out of turned out office politician. He would have to go to he'd have to beat Lisa Murkowski in Alaska like he promised to. He'd have to beat Liz Cheney, which is not going to be easy. Those are things going to be kind of hard. That's a lot of heavy lifting. That's a lot of risk. And he just is a guy who's averse to that um that said and i know it was exhausting but isn't it a i mean you i'm overstating it i mean aren't you a little spoiled you had this great story for four years and then this other guy

comes in it's not that interesting i mean isn't it a little bit like like i know it's exhausting but like every day is not yeah a roller coaster and people like especially reporters like a story i mean isn't it a quiet period that's true um but so i was the white house correspondent for the las vegas review journal that means a one-person bureau and breaking in a new White House is no picnic. OK, so I hear what you're saying, but I was and I was I really was pretty out of gas. But but, you know, by the time that January 20 rolled around, but I gave it a shot. I thought, OK, I'll try. try and um you know it's it's a lot of work focusing and uh dealing with all the new elements and and and getting to know a whole new team and a whole new way of dealing with things and i just realized uh i'm sorry guys but i wasn't enjoying it

and it was a long four years for all of us i mean okay so but then as someone who had a front row seat to what you have to arguably say it was the most interesting presidency ever um who who on the horizon seems like there's never going to be a trump like trump but who's there are other other national leaders politicians even like out of left field candidates you think might be approach that level of interesting? I hope not. Ron DeSantis, I think, I mean, Peter mentioned three people that I would definitely look at Ron DeSantis and Tom Cotton, Ben Sasse. I mean, there are other maybe who knows, maybe Liz Cheney becomes the answer. You never know, right? Right. But people after Trump didn't want, we were told, did not want interesting in the sense that Rob and the rest of us find kinetic, let's say.

They wanted normalcy. They wanted something ordinary. And they got it, supposedly, in Biden, who got retconned into this kindly uncle as opposed to the snippy jerk that he's been his entire career so do you think do you feel discern infer a sense of protectiveness about biden from the press corps because he's he's got to succeed uh he has to do well and he has the right characteristics and he means well which is important he's not evil to the core of his marrow like Trump. So they're protective of can't tell. We're so used to the rancor from the Trump of people who cut their teeth and got their careers going by confronting the Trump White House. They've moved on to something else. And one of the reasons that happened is that it's customary for networks to put the people who cover the campaigns to cover a new White House because they have the contacts and they know folks. And so a number of the people that covered the Biden campaign. And I think also it just it's different. It's just the the confrontational manner just isn't there.

I mean, I'm a conservative. People know that. And I don't expect the Biden people to treat conservatives the same way they treat friendly press. But they have been civil and professional and courteous. And I can't say that at all times about the Trump press team. I mean, they just – I'm sure that the Biden press people think of the press as the enemy, but you can't tell watching the briefings. So, Peter here again. So, so the shouting is gone, but there's still a level of professional journalism taking place. Okay. Can I ask a question which may reveal either naivete or even a touch of ill will on my part? So just smack me if the question itself is out of bounds. But the sort of the big journalistic question that I think would be in my mind if I were in that room is that whereas Donald, during the Trump administration, shouting incivility, all of

that, but story after story after story was a variation on this theme. Donald Trump is in charge. Bob Woodward's story about Trump going over to the Pentagon and shocking the generals. Well, actually, that was a story about the commander-in-chief asserting his dominance over the Pentagon. Whatever you say about Donald Trump, and there's a lot to be said, and a lot of it is impolite, he was in charge. And with Joe Biden, here I sit in California, I get snippets of him on Twitter and on the news and so forth. He's 78 years old. He's trim. I'll give him that much. He's not put on a lot of weight over the years, but boy, does he walk stiffly. And- He just fell down the stairs going up there.

He did just now, literally so? Yeah, about an hour, about an hour or so ago. I worked in a White House. It was a long, long time ago. But if a president is not making decisions, other people will. And so to me, the question is, who is really, actually, functionally in charge here? And that's a big question for the professional journalist. It has to be got at sideways and delicately, but that's sort of a question that deserves reporting unless I am just falling for fake news on Twitter and Joe Biden really is competent and in charge. The Biden White House doesn't leak the way the Trump White House did. So there are all these stories that came out about Trump that were, I don't think they were all accurate, right? Many were serving for different staffers. And you're not seeing that with this White House. You're seeing more discipline. They're keeping that kind of thing behind closed doors, which is what you're used to, right, Peter? Jim Baker did the leaking himself in the old days. So, so I mean, you're right. I, I, I just think it would take, um, I think that

you'll be seen, especially after the fact that he tripped going up the stairs to air force one today. I think you're going to see more and more, more people looking at that, but it, it takes a little while to get into that room and to get that kind of thing. People are covering the Biden campaign. They've got an edge on that stuff. But I don't think that this is a story that you will see the story and you'll see more and more on the story. But it's going to take a little while to squeeze the juice out of the lemon. Hey, Deb, how will we know when. What are the signs when I mean, the hive mentality, again, you can correct me on that

if you, if you don't like that term, but when the hive mentality of the sort of White House press core, the national political media, media, how will we know, what will be the signs that that hive mentality is now turning more critically and maybe even against Biden? Well, March 25th is his first news conference. So I would think that that would be a good time to see exactly what's going on there. So I was just looking a few things up before I talked to you all. And Donald Trump's first press conference was February 17. And Joe Biden's putting it off.

And I do think that they're really trying to ration how much he's in front of the cameras. Because and they're doing that because they, you know, obviously, he stumbles and they want to keep that back. So it'll be really fascinating to see what happens on March 25. How long will that press conference last? Because you remember during the campaign, you know, they'd call on select journalists and everything. So stage managed. Right. And I now one of the things that's been really beneficial to President Biden is the coronavirus, because it means that they can really keep him away from people a lot and that the briefings have 14 people, which Jen Psaki kindly calls on everyone.

But it'll be interesting to see how many people they let into probably the East Room for that news conference, because is it going to be 14 people who are just on the rotation that day? Because of coronavirus, the Whiteless Correspondents Association has limited how many people get out there. And it could be really small. Will they open it up to more people so that that let's say there are 40 people there. And how long does he talk? Trump talked for one hour and 15 minutes about that.

How long do you think Joe Biden's going to go? I don't know, half an hour. That'll be really fascinating to see that. And does he call on people? He looks at people and calls on them. Or does someone call on people for him as happened during the campaign? Or they, you know, they told him who to call on. So, you know, I think we're going to really see a lot when this happens. And I don't think we're going to see a lot of press conferences with him. I think he'll be wearing a mask so that they can actually cut his audio, use a professional impersonator while he's talking about a dog that he had when he was seven. I definitely wouldn't let you go, but first we've got to ask, what's next? Are you going to come back in two years and be the official beekeeping columnist, or are you going to take up auto racing? What? What are you going to do? What's next?

I'm sleeping right now. I'm just catching up. You know, I expect to be back, but I've decided, no, I've been in this business for 30 plus years, and I had to maybe think about what I want to do. When you grow up. When I grow up. So I haven't decided, but I'm taking offers later, but don't call me until April.

Okay. All right, everybody. Take note. We'll have you back. We'll find out what you've been doing, and it'll be a pleasure then, as it's been a pleasure now. Deb Saunders, thanks for joining us on the podcast today. Thank you. Tell Wes we said hi, too. I shall.

Bye-bye, guys. Peter's right. You wonder who's running the joint. That's the thing. Kamala Harris, she may be the one who is doing so. And a lot of people don't like that idea. Biden himself said in a statement the other day, he referenced President Harris, but then sort of corrected himself and went on as if he's just stating what everybody knows. But I tell you this, sometimes if you're in a business, you know who's

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Well, gentlemen, before we leave, what's on your mind that you've been burning to say that you've been, you've been aching to do. I know that Peter wants to talk about the Snyder cut of the DC. Yes. And Rob,

of course we got to mention again, Rob has got martini shot going on. I do. Yes. Are you doing the thing like dateline and podcasts where they're just unloading their entire back catalog three a week because it seems like it but i did a bunch of them i just been doing about a month and a half recording them so that when you went to subscribe i mean they're only four minutes you it seemed like there was it was populated so

like you can catch up because people would in the old days when uh public radio would podcast would release them a podcast people just save them up and listen to four or five at once because they're short um and i want to give my listeners that opportunity it is but it is the four minutes you are a master of of the short form peculiar but in some ways quite admirable format it's like seeing the ten commandments inscribed on the back of a stamp there you go that's good yeah well the art of i think the art of miniaturization i think it's too i mean i also like i i feel that way that's my feeling like oh people say what about tv shows like well it's a the first five episodes are slow but it gets good in the sixth episode or the first season is not that good

and the second half but you have to watch them all like i have to why i think we all let's get going let's you know right four minutes is enough for me anyway right right i sometimes people will say to me like well you want to uh uh we'd love to if you want me to write a piece for them like um yeah you know we're looking for something between you know 25 and 3500 words i said or hawaii you know i guess 800 would be fine okay i'll do the 800 just you know you tell a story you make it have a couple insights then you finish the story and you're out that's how i like to read so i that's what i would like to write. It is worth noting every so often that people who want Rob unencumbered by me and James on this show or by John and Jonah on Glop can go to Martini Shots or they can go to his column in National Review, which we mentioned so seldom, I would only be saying the same thing with every issue. I turned to Rob first and it always is just it.

If I were producing one page that were that good, I'd have to write 10 pages and cut and cut and cut. But you being you, I know you get it from the get go. You do it at the last minute. It helps you make sure that make sure the deadline is right there. So you just you don't have time to do 10 of them. You have to do one of them.

But it's like a verbal cartoon. Like it's anything you think about. Well, what would happen if this happened? Or, you know, you project yourself into the future or back in the past. Those are the easier ones. I did one for a long time. I did one for Trump where it was the Kellyanne Fitzpatrick show. I just wrote it like a sitcom.

And she was kind of Mary Tyler Moore. And and then I then went to them when she had some family troubles that sort of erupted, I just stopped. Some family troubles. I just stopped. It wasn't funny anymore. It's not funny to me. It seems mean.

When it seems mean and not like skewering, to skewer somebody is okay. Even to skewer them in the eye is okay somehow. But to be mean just because they're in trouble doesn't seem right. But when does it do and when do you start it? Oh, well, see, I know. James and I have very different views on this.

You mean the National Review piece or Martini shot? Either one, but National Review since that's what Peter was talking about. National Review. For James, I mean, I know James is a professional. And so I hate to share my incredible indolence. It is due on Monday. I turned it in on Tuesday.

You read it on Tuesday? I turned it in on Tuesday. You turned it in on Tuesday. Okay. And they just let you do that. I'm terrified something's going to happen on Monday. Well, because it's like it's one thing. I'm'm terrified something's going to happen on Monday. Well, because it's like it's one thing. I'm just terrified something's going to happen on Monday.

And make a magazine that comes out every two weeks somehow seem less than timely. Or yeah, have the joke be already done. I'm trying to think of what will be funny on Friday when people get it. And if it's a replay of something, it just turned out it wasn't such a big story. yeah i mean also i put everything i think the same thing too i mean you know that everybody in the twitter sphere and all the and online and the blogs and every everyone has seized

on the thing and had their way with it so you either have to come up with a completely unique way to do so or you just have to hope that perhaps the national review audience isn't tired of this, or they're reading it because Rob Long wrote it. I mean, for example, I mean, you could take the most obvious thing going on in politics today and you wouldn't want to read it,

but then somebody says, no, Rob Long wrote that. And then it's like, oh, well then I'll read it because, you know, it's going to be funny. So Rob, you've become the Colgate Palmolive of commentary. What I like about it is I can phone it in. Squeeze a little from the tube. Yeah, exactly right.

By the way, I would like to, we're at the end of this podcast, but while I'm praising my co-hosts for their output, I would like to lay claim to a closing segment on some future podcast to praise James and his, what annoys me about James, even more than it annoys me about Rob, is that James is effortlessly, as far as I can tell, effortlessly prolific. The Strib isn't enough. His National Review isn't enough. He has a website with writings and musings. It's just- You're very kind. You're very kind. Thank you. Yes, but I'm working myself into a bad mood, which could last all weekend. You're not as good as that's what you're basically saying. Yes. Well, tell that to my wife, you know, who tell you, you're just impressed with the prodigious amount that I can accomplish in the

world because you know what she sees is me typing away. And then there's the fence that doesn't get fixed, which really, frankly, I got to do right after this. Cause the dog got out. Did you know there's a cedar shortage? I found this out. There is a shortage of cedar wood that is affected. Wait, wait, wait. How did you find out that?

I mean, of all the strange facts to mention, how did you find out that there's a cedar shortage? Every time you come in contact with anything that has to do with home renovation, you learn things. I've learned, for example, I mean, I learned for example, I have to replace some tile on my bathroom and it turns out that the three quarter inch tile that I wanted has not been made since the Roman fricking empire. So everything has to be, so everything has to be taken up and replaced with a one inch tile. Whereupon the fine construction lady that we have who, when I went to the tile store, they said, who are you dealing with? I told him, he said, oh, the Russian, the Russian lady.

And I thought to myself, I don't think she's Russian because the last part of her name is Chuk. She's probably Ukrainian. So I talked to her, I asked her, are you Ukrainian? She said, yes, I am. I said, oh, and so we start talking, you know, swapping Ukrainian stuff. She tells me that if we're going to replace everything

with a one-inch tile, we might have to bring up the radiator, to which I said, all right, so we bring up, so we bring up the radiator. What's it is? She said, that's a thousand dollars. You go into instant doc Brown mode again. Why can't you just unscrew it and move it over there? No, I got to bring in somebody to drain every single ounce of fluid from the house. Then they remove it. Then they bring it back up. And with a two-story house like this and a plumber, it's a thousand. So you learn things like that. You learn about tile.

You learn about plumbing. You try to get your fence done. You learn that there's no cedar to be had because everybody stayed home and did that. I'm also, I learned everything about Samsung appliances and the problems that they had with the compressor and the ice maker when I was doing that. So I have a store of useless knowledge.

And the only thing I can do is buttonhole people and say, do you know there's a cedar shortage? Do you know that those, did you know that the standard measurement on a tile when they say point to point is not lengthwise. It's actually from the individual points of the hex. I learned that this week. I mean,

so yes, a font of absolutely unclassifiable and useless knowledge. But there you have it. And I'll forget it all because next year I'll have other. Oh, oh, we have squirrels in the attic. And I thought it would still. Oh, you've been letting you've left them over there. Oh, my God.

I mean, for years since I moved in where they are. I thought I had I thought I had apparitions for years because I would hear the occasional thumping in the walls. And I think it's an old house. I know somebody died here. It's probably him. It's fine. But now it's getting to be just they're manic. They're crazed.

They're on meth. They're running everywhere. And I've had to call these guys, and they came by. And did I mention this last week? The guy that I was talking to said, we've got a really great company. Our boss, he's the head of the North American Critter Control Company. We go to classes. We learn about zoonetics.

Didn't I mention this? No, not zoonetics. That I would have. And so did I. I stuck out. I said, you're the only guy I've heard say zoonetics or even know what it is, you know, in my lifetime. And he laughed and he said, well, he said, I guess we're some educated hillbillies. And I, at which point I thought, I liked the characterization, but with, I did say this last week.

And I know that Peter agreed with me without educated hillbillies, nothing gets done. Everything falls apart. Trees don't come down. Oh, I have to have a tree removed too, because the city came by into my backyard and put a green striper on it because it's dead. In my backyard, without a warrant, walked in and said, your tree's dead. There. So here is my home improve story.

It turns out that a possum has taken up residence in our backyard. And this causes the dog to bur, wildly, wildly. And my wife is convinced because possums look, they look like inflated rats. They're really unattractive creatures. They're very unattractive creatures. So she's after me to deal with and I look them up. And it turns out that the lifespan of a possum is two years. You can wait.

And so I have a plan. I'm going to wait it out. Has your dog ever caught any of the possum chilling? Because my dog caught one, and then I made him drop it. And I thought, oh, you bad, bad dog. You killed that poor possum. And when I went back to get the little possum baby and throw it away, it was gone. You know why? Yes. You know why? Because it,

because it played possum. Because it played possum. Say what you like. Say what you like. It's good eating. Well, you and your Southern foodways thing. Southern foodways alliance is working in a promo here. So you are in an apartment building in New York city. You don't have vermin problems. You don't have. Oh, of course we do.

In fact, we have. I'm in a townhouse. That you have to pay for. Is that what I mean? Or do you have to. Are you the super? No, no. But we recently had a moth infestation in the house.

And so the people in the house, they live downstairs. They're friends of mine. They own this townhouse. And they said, look, we've got to get somebody in to come and they're they are very nice people and they tend to be they're very environmentally sensitive and so we got these two very sensitive moth killers in who were very sensitive and then were sort of terrified at like i had little moth traps around and they're like oh this is very bad for you bad for your red blood cells okay um'm like, okay.

And so they changed them out, and they said, you've done very well in keeping the moth infestation down, which is true. I've been pretty vigilant. But there was a carpet down in the, I guess, down on the parlor floor or the ground floor that had been infested. And so they removed it, and they they took it and they sent it away. But they were, they, the way they spoke of the moths was with a lot more respect and gentleness than I would have. I would never speak of a moth,

but I just kind of like the idea that even in New York city, you can find people who just, what do you do? I try to coax moths away from people's expensive sweaters. So yeah, it's such a, it's such a pre-war thing though, moths. I mean, the old cliche of somebody taking a coat

and it's got holes and there are actually moths flying around with little cartoon lines behind them. And growing up, I had those moth balls. I think, what are they? Something sort of paraffin soaked in naphtha, which is smelling awful. It was a fixture of life to fight moths. But you're in 2021 still battling against moths,

which seems somehow charming in a New York sense. New York City, we battled mice and rats, but not mice and rats together. So we had a little mouse somewhere in the house. It's like a little mouse. It runs around, and I have these little green traps. And every now and then you see the mouse and you make sure that you try to move the trap to where the mouse was and then you never see the mouse again uh the mouse just comes in every now and then just to make sure that there's

that it's still an inhospitable environment for him james did you hear did you hear the phrase that rob used downstairs on the parlor floor that You're at the parlor floor. James, you and I are just educated hillbillies, but that is generations of long. It certainly is. I see very fine carved scroll work. You know, I see lace doilies. The parlor, just gentlemen, just so you know, in a townhouse, Brownstone, where there's a stoop, they don't all have stoops, where there's a stoop.

The stoop goes to the parlor floor. That means the first floor. That means it's where guests, where you would receive. And the downstairs is the garden floor. And that is where the help would come. Like you would never go in the garden. My God, the garden floor. No, never. And that's where the kitchen and these old buildings are the same. That's where the help would come. Like you would never go in the garden. My God, the garden floor. No, never.

And that's where the kitchen and these old buildings are the same. That's where the kitchen is. That's where all the stuff is that really makes the house work. You know, Rob is one of those guys who, if it ever came to an American remake of Upstairs, Downstairs, could hire out as a technical advisor. I think it's fascinating. I live right now on the top floor in the third floor, which was the maid. For the children or servants? Servants.

You can tell it's the servants, first of all, because the ceilings were very low. They popped them up the top because this house was owned by an artist for a long time. It's really bright and airy. Very high ceilings here. They raised it in 1910, 1920, whatever it was. This house was about 1820, 18 here but they raised it they raised it in like the 1910 1920 or whatever it was because this house about 1820 1840 um and so they raised it really yeah but you could tell

that it's that it was like for the irish maid because there's one fireplace in the front in the in the it's a working fireplace in the living room and then there's in the dining area room there's a another fireplace but it's for coal and there's a bunch fireplace in the living room. And then in the dining area room, there's another fireplace, but it's for coal. And there's a bunch of coal fireplaces still in the city, in the state of New York especially. And you're not allowed to use them because they're not properly ventilated. Is there a special...

But the idea was that... And this apartment gets cold. It's cold when you don't have... There was no heat. The heat was the one coal. Was the coal. Poor little Irish lass who's doing the sewing and the darning.

Did you have a little staircase or a little small, little narrow staircase? Yeah, there was a tiny little staircase you had to use. That's been closed off for years. I have a tradesman entrance in this house. Not a good way to live, I think. No, but I have a tradesman's entrance in this house that goes downstairs from the coal and the rest of it because they weren't going to come in through the regular ways. It is a different style but again you know it's you have absorbed the the parlor idea through generations of dna from the you know of east coast elites i believe right

that's peter's kind of i mean yeah but but in my in midwest thing i had a line in a column we were talking when i was talking about daylight savings time and how when i was growing up it was a little bit more of a pain to change all the clocks. I said, we had three clocks in the house. Actually, we had four, but there was one in the living room and that clock was for company, so nobody looked at it. And I thought, when I wrote that, I thought there's a lot, some people are going to get that and some people who aren't, but in my generation, that was it. There was just, you know, that's the stuff for company you never use the dishes that you know the so anyway we should probably well i know we have to wrap up for you in the old days though what i loved about it and

what makes it more i think actually more efficient and more honest is that you had a public space yes parlor floor that you could either be in or not be in but it had nothing to do with whether you're home or not so you'd come and visit somebody and you leave your visiting card and that person may could say oh no i'm sorry mr robinson's not at home now you know mr robinson's up here he's up here you could probably see him from the window but he's not home he's not available and then maybe if you if you were you'd okay, well, you sit here in the parlor, and then I will summon Mr. Robinson. But the idea was that nobody – there's not this obsession with being authentic or being honest. The idea was that we had these polite buffers in between us.

The whole tradesman entrance was practical because the tradesmen, especially if they're delivering coal or oil, they were so sooty and oily and everything you didn't want them to come up from the basement but also just the idea that there's a that that we we all acknowledge the truth these people didn't live in a fantasy land but they they had these structures to keep everybody kind of living together in some kind of you know reasonable peace and happiness but at the same time they accepted at the same time though they accepted the idea of people just showing up at your house which i always baffled you were at home if you if you look at old sitcoms if you look at all people just come companies come over they just show up and nowadays people are so hesitant to intrude upon one another that a phone call as opposed to a text is regarded as too much of an imposition but then if not only did they come over but

there's endless cartoons and lore about the guests who won't leave. And I look at all these, and it just churns me in the gut like the sitcoms about the boss coming over for dinner. It's like, just tell them to go. Right. Also, now it's the guests who won't come. They won't come. It's amazing how deeply that's ingrained. It's so ingrained in us that if you look at, if you kind of food press which i do like if you read any kind of food journalism

or food or recipes they're always saying this is a great thing to have if you know for unexpected company comes over when does that happen like nobody ever does that whereas you used to have cars you'd say like you know mr mrs james lilacs right at home at home yeah that was the phrase and then i would know if I wanted to call him Mr. Mrs. James Lylex or Mrs. James Lylex, I would come Tuesdays and that my Tuesdays at three 34.

And that was just normal. Well, calling her, that would be as great a faux pas as me calling. No, no, I know. I know.

Peter before Rob, Rob Long is the last remaining resident of the island of Manhattan. He says to himself every so often, Edith Wharton, it's been downhill ever. It has been. Oh, it has been.

And she lived around the corner. It absolutely has been. The Lucius Beeb of the modern era. And we're appreciative of it. All right, gentlemen, we got to wrap up. I know we could go on and rambling forever,

but we got to, we got to keep this, you know, short go on and rambling forever, but we got to keep this short or otherwise the wonderfulness will just spoil people completely. However, before we go, I got to tell you this, and that is we are sponsored by whom? By Bambi, by ButcherBox, and by Ladder. Support them for supporting us.

And of course, you can always listen to the best of Ricochet. Check your local listings at Radio America Network. And it's me, and it's also Rob Long this week, who is doing a martini shot. Take a minute to, no, take five minutes. Take an hour to go to Apple and give us five-star reviews and copiously detail the reasons that you love us. The reason for that, of course, is that more people come to Ricochet and more people discover

what a great place it is. The more people sign up and the happier we are, and we continue to go on and on and on. And this brings us to the end. So thank you, Rob, Peter, for guests. And we'll see everybody in the comments. On the front seat next week, Rob. James, see you back. See you soon. See you soon. Through the chill of winter

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