Against a blood-red backdrop, President Biden gives an urgent campaign speech, warning that America is becoming semi-Nazi Germany, Donald Trump is partial Hitler, and our almost democracy is on the precipice of kinda revolution.
Sooo, we're still not getting Moynihan's uncensored questions and thoughts about the whole "We apologise for the unspeakable harm Ben Shapiro's presence has caused at our podcasting conference" debacle?
I'm really disappointed in you guys and expect you to DO.BETTER next time.
Michael is going to promise stuff, a whole lot of stuff, great stuff, in fact. Probably some of the greatest stuff in American history. But don’t expect it. He promised us books, an episode with Welch on 1989, he once said he’d pound my very tall, blonde girlfriend, but those ships have never come in.
Makes a great show though, he does bring this one into port, almost weekly.
This isn't really directly related to the episode, but I think you guys should try to get Roland Freyer on the pod. Seems like he fits perfectly into your guys sweet spot of "Someone we have substantive disagreements with but who is intellectually honest and willing to have a serious conversation about those differences". I think I probably fall more on your guys' side of most issues, but I think a conversation with you guys would be really interesting.
This feels like the start of an ongoing series in which Welch pontificates on the sexual adventures buried in the lyrics of "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" and Moynihan counters with a direct claim that "Basketball Jones" is about adolescent boys sharing oral sex with homeless men. Kmele will counter that "Get Low" is about the indignities of working for a home cleaning service and that "skeet skeet skeet" is the sound of a Windex bottle.
Is the Redbox Army Faction scandal over? Has Kmele stopped receiving terroristic hate mail over his standards? Can a man in America have standards again?!?!
I didn't watch the speech (college football is back!) but after reading some highlights I'm left wondering why our political class is so desperately stupid? To the extent that anyone is still on the fence about Trump, attacking him is not going to persuade them to support Democrats. What exactly do the Democrats hope to accomplish by shining an even bigger spotlight on Trump? Why can't they understand that he feeds off of this sort of thing?
Bet the Dems *want* Trump to feed off of this, because the more he does things in public, the more bonkers he gets (and the more the reflexively anti-Trump chunks of the legacy media like NYT, WaPo, MSNBC, etc. can hyperventilate about him and whip up passion in the portions of the Dem fanbase who pay attention to them), and the worse the GOP does.
It's why Biden and the Dems, at the same time they're giving speeches like this, are funding the primary campaigns of the most bonkers Trumpers out there; because they think they can beat Trumpers, and don't really believe the "ZOMGZ THE NORMS ARE GOING EXTINCT!" rhetoric
Make all elections national and sway the independents. I think MW did a very good job in this ep of formulating that particular hypothesis. Boy, the backdrop though, they fumbled that royally...
This really is the best time of year -- college football hope springs eternal, evenings are chilly enough for brown beer and fires, we're closing in an a proper 50-50 split between day and night. Things are as they should be.
As a Penn State fan I could do with fewer hypertension-inducing games like that, but I'll take the W. Fuck Pitt.
Also, maybe fuck Dr Pepper? I couldn't tell if their latest commercial about conference realignment was trolling traditionalists like me or giving voice to our complaints.
Trump isn’t The Rosenbergs - he is Harold Martin. Nobody ever found evidence that Martin intended to do anything with the hundreds of terabytes of classified data he brought home with him from the NSA. He was a weirdo who stashed it in his garage and his car. But he still got 9 years. I am not a fan of Trump getting prosecuted because it only will make people crazier on both sides. But let’s not pretend it’s nothing - to Moynihan’s point, when ordinary people have done it they’ve gone to jail.
Can we acknowledge how wrong Eli Lake’s initial “every president does this” analysis was regarding Mar a Lago? Just because one side exaggerating an issue doesn’t necessitate downplaying it.
Eli said so many things in the episode that are worth revisiting. Was a shining example of why it's bad to bring on guests who are so willing to have hot takes on breaking news
I understand being frustrated by broken norms. But for decades, the elected politicians and the bureaucracy have de facto supported open borders, and the best the republicans you guys are okay with can do is support amnesty. What about those broken norms? People are frustrated that our country effectively has no border, and the longer this goes on the worse things are going to get.
Part of that conversation probably should include the impact of current process’s slow and labyrinthine nature. I’ve wondered, if less illegal immigration would occur with faster and simpler procedures. Yet, I can’t recall the immigration debate ever discussing that possibility or evaluating the current system’s rules.
It gets less likely with time too imo, as the right becomes more and more for less total immigration, including legal, overall due to the inaction of their representatives to the torrent of illegal immigration. Dominic Cummings made a very interesting point in Andrew Sullivan’s Dishcast, that by the Johnson administration gaining actual control of immigration, the public issue with immigration went away and they were fine with legal immigration. To get to the point of having support for legal immigration reform, we will likely need to deal with the illegal immigration problem first. And not by mass amnesty! It’s at least something to think about.
And personally, I hope that immigration reform deals away with birthright citizenship. That is being abused beyond belief.
If you mean on the podcast? Sure! That sounds fun.
If you mean, "a substantive national conversation" like the "national conversation on race," absolutely not. No, a "substantive conversation" in that sense only lampshades the last 40 years of non-enforcement of what is, for better or worse, the law of the country. A "substantive conversation" in that sense only keeps the status quo in place which has another undocumented population approximately the size of San Antonio arriving in the country every few months.
The GOP base keeps telling its politicians that it wants strict enforcement of the immigration laws on the books, and their politicians keep going "yeah, but business doesn't want that, and enforcement might do things that make us look mean" and welching on their campaign promises.
It’s very frustrating especially when it’s clear GOP elites want amnesty, not deportation or enforcement. We know exactly how that went last time… the problem only got much worse.
Damn it Kmele stop being so reasonable I’m trying to be mad
Also, if you guys are taking guest suggestions, Oren Cass or Saagar Enjeti would be people I’d love to see. Two right wing people who haven’t gone batshit insane
People illegally working on student visas, mass migration over the border with little to no recourse, visa overstays and frankly I would personally add the children of illegal immigrants. Birthright citizenship needs to be changed it is being abused beyond belief.
Altogether, the whole ~30 million illegal immigrants in the country, as we as the legal visitors/students that illegally work (and I’ve worked with quite a few).
The 10 million comes from the census, there’s a 22 million number from an MIT study, and the 30 million comes from a study of various things such as remittances from a couple of bear sterns analysts, with the addition of the average number of people entering per year after that. The analysts came to 20 million at the time, and Ann Coulter goes deeper into the numbers to get to 30 million in her book Adios America. It is likely much higher now, so I would consider that a lower bound. I find the 30 million more convincing but IMO the 10 million is laughable because it has been the same for decades while we have seen millions of people still coming g over illegally year after year.
Not nearly in the numbers they arrive, and it’s much harder for the people coming from all over the world, which Moynihan even mentioned in the pod in reference to his reporting for vice, to return to places like Bangladesh
You mean other than the drug war/Mexican civil war spilling over our borders, the lack of assimilation, wages being stagnant and things like the recent case where a 10 year old was repeatedly raped by an illegal Guatemalan??? Yeah what could the issues possibly be
Would you rather she was raped by a legal immigrant or a naturalized citizen?
The drug war is the problem, not the immigration. Wages being stagnant?! Wtf are you living that wages are stagnant? Target is paying $24/hr starting here. Also, that argument has never held water regarding immigration.
She would likely not have been raped by an American, as most American groups have a much lower rate of raping children.
No, the Mexican civil war and a lack of border enforcement are what allow it to cross into America.
Anyone who thinks supply doesn’t affect the cost of labor is a someone disconnected from people have worked real jobs. And yes I am aware wages are finally rising, after decades of stagnation, but if you haven’t noticed not only is the fed bizarrely trying to kill that, there is a strong push to “fix” the “labor shortage” aka flood the job market with immigrants to push down wages.
Just throwing this out there with respect to immigration and crime: Ousey & Kubrin (2018). Immigration and crime: Assessing a contentious issue. Annual Review of Criminology, 1, 63-84. (https://prohic.nl/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/82-27juli2020-ImmigrationCrimeMeta.pdf). Part of this paper is a meta-analysis of the immigration-crime relation. Personally, I think it is pretty fair/honest assessment of the literature.
Have been a fan of your great podcast for a year or so now, and you are still the only podcast I pay for, in these poor times so must it be.
There is golden entertainment in your old archive that I am catching up on!
I was listening to your episode 31 just now, with my noisecancelling headphones, when at the end a fu**ing loud noise were doing a dynamite bang in my ears, and I now truly understand Matt's issues with his ears a few months back now.
The same bang made me spill a whole fu**king cup of coffee all over me as well, god damn! From now on I have to listen to the old episodes via my speakers, in stead of thinking I am involved in Putins world war III every time I listen to your old episodes... Being from up north of Norway originally, where we do nothing but swearing, I am glad my kids were not up yet this sunday morning to listen to my colorful language!
Well, since I had to yell out to you, I might as well ask you a question I have been thinking about for a while now. I have been a liberalist myself since late 80s, and even do a very niche liberalist podcast myself here in Norway (Liberaleren Podcast), it really is the best therapy there is, and way cheaper than a shrink!
So, here goes, I am in a bit of depressing mode, when it comes to the future of liberalism as a whole, perfectly demonstrated by LPs disgusting picture of John McCains daugther by her fathers coffin, with the text "happy holidays". How can the reputation (if there is any left?) of liberalism survive when so called representatives for said liberalism is shitty insane people? Is liberalism with political parties now over? Is the next stage to focus only within thinktanks or even within the corporate world? Insane Trumpists and neocons have taken over this lovely world of ours...
I find the state of the liberalistic world completely depressing these days, what do you guys think of this? And, is there a "solution" going forward? How can true liberalism survive?
Sooo, we're still not getting Moynihan's uncensored questions and thoughts about the whole "We apologise for the unspeakable harm Ben Shapiro's presence has caused at our podcasting conference" debacle?
I'm really disappointed in you guys and expect you to DO.BETTER next time.
Michael is going to promise stuff, a whole lot of stuff, great stuff, in fact. Probably some of the greatest stuff in American history. But don’t expect it. He promised us books, an episode with Welch on 1989, he once said he’d pound my very tall, blonde girlfriend, but those ships have never come in.
Makes a great show though, he does bring this one into port, almost weekly.
Be well, Duchesse.
so glad to see the Fif'dom isn't going to let this one go!
This isn't really directly related to the episode, but I think you guys should try to get Roland Freyer on the pod. Seems like he fits perfectly into your guys sweet spot of "Someone we have substantive disagreements with but who is intellectually honest and willing to have a serious conversation about those differences". I think I probably fall more on your guys' side of most issues, but I think a conversation with you guys would be really interesting.
Agreed, he’d be a great guest. He was on Freak-a-nomics this week, recommend the listen.
Yeah, well that’s great for their listeners. I only care about us.
Agreed. I would love to see him on the pod. Haven't had the chance yet to dive into his paper on police use of force, but its on my list.
He will be a great guest.
This feels like the start of an ongoing series in which Welch pontificates on the sexual adventures buried in the lyrics of "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" and Moynihan counters with a direct claim that "Basketball Jones" is about adolescent boys sharing oral sex with homeless men. Kmele will counter that "Get Low" is about the indignities of working for a home cleaning service and that "skeet skeet skeet" is the sound of a Windex bottle.
Is the Redbox Army Faction scandal over? Has Kmele stopped receiving terroristic hate mail over his standards? Can a man in America have standards again?!?!
This comment is going straight to DVD.
Every time I pass a redbox, I fantasize about pranking Kmele somehow. Thank God I don't live near an Apple Store.
I didn't watch the speech (college football is back!) but after reading some highlights I'm left wondering why our political class is so desperately stupid? To the extent that anyone is still on the fence about Trump, attacking him is not going to persuade them to support Democrats. What exactly do the Democrats hope to accomplish by shining an even bigger spotlight on Trump? Why can't they understand that he feeds off of this sort of thing?
Bet the Dems *want* Trump to feed off of this, because the more he does things in public, the more bonkers he gets (and the more the reflexively anti-Trump chunks of the legacy media like NYT, WaPo, MSNBC, etc. can hyperventilate about him and whip up passion in the portions of the Dem fanbase who pay attention to them), and the worse the GOP does.
It's why Biden and the Dems, at the same time they're giving speeches like this, are funding the primary campaigns of the most bonkers Trumpers out there; because they think they can beat Trumpers, and don't really believe the "ZOMGZ THE NORMS ARE GOING EXTINCT!" rhetoric
Make all elections national and sway the independents. I think MW did a very good job in this ep of formulating that particular hypothesis. Boy, the backdrop though, they fumbled that royally...
Man, both the backyard brawl _and_ the Penn State-Purdue game were bangers last night. I'm so happy it's back.
Definitely sounds like it was better use of my time than watching Biden's speech.
This really is the best time of year -- college football hope springs eternal, evenings are chilly enough for brown beer and fires, we're closing in an a proper 50-50 split between day and night. Things are as they should be.
As a Penn State fan I could do with fewer hypertension-inducing games like that, but I'll take the W. Fuck Pitt.
Also, maybe fuck Dr Pepper? I couldn't tell if their latest commercial about conference realignment was trolling traditionalists like me or giving voice to our complaints.
OJ - If I Did It
MJ - If I Diddled
I can’t wait for Thriller emails
I'm not wrong about this.
He was THE featured artist on the Free Willy soundtrack. Seems like a pretty clearly a pattern of behavior.
Oof. *Seems pretty clearly like a pattern of behavior. (Me no makey good editing.)
We know. It’s the other two who do and say all of the wrong.
Oh, I don’t think you’re wrong, I think there will be some enjoyable responses
I mean, lyrics like “The phallus stench is in the air” are kinda unambiguous. ;)
Yes. Yes you are.
It kinda doesn’t matter whether you are right or wrong, it’s a theory that is once heard, never forgotten.
Also, they don’t make them like Vincent Price anymore.
If ep 193 taught us anything, its that accusing Kmele of being "wrong on this one" might get you a pre-show phone call.
Who among us?
Trump isn’t The Rosenbergs - he is Harold Martin. Nobody ever found evidence that Martin intended to do anything with the hundreds of terabytes of classified data he brought home with him from the NSA. He was a weirdo who stashed it in his garage and his car. But he still got 9 years. I am not a fan of Trump getting prosecuted because it only will make people crazier on both sides. But let’s not pretend it’s nothing - to Moynihan’s point, when ordinary people have done it they’ve gone to jail.
Given the performance of the Artemis rocket, the goal of putting a woman of color on the moon is simply racism.
Here’s the thing, Kmele. It’s not that MJ’s “Thriller” was so massive, it just appeared so because the kid’s hands were so small.
Can we acknowledge how wrong Eli Lake’s initial “every president does this” analysis was regarding Mar a Lago? Just because one side exaggerating an issue doesn’t necessitate downplaying it.
Eli said so many things in the episode that are worth revisiting. Was a shining example of why it's bad to bring on guests who are so willing to have hot takes on breaking news
I understand being frustrated by broken norms. But for decades, the elected politicians and the bureaucracy have de facto supported open borders, and the best the republicans you guys are okay with can do is support amnesty. What about those broken norms? People are frustrated that our country effectively has no border, and the longer this goes on the worse things are going to get.
We need to have more substantive conversations about this.
Part of that conversation probably should include the impact of current process’s slow and labyrinthine nature. I’ve wondered, if less illegal immigration would occur with faster and simpler procedures. Yet, I can’t recall the immigration debate ever discussing that possibility or evaluating the current system’s rules.
It gets less likely with time too imo, as the right becomes more and more for less total immigration, including legal, overall due to the inaction of their representatives to the torrent of illegal immigration. Dominic Cummings made a very interesting point in Andrew Sullivan’s Dishcast, that by the Johnson administration gaining actual control of immigration, the public issue with immigration went away and they were fine with legal immigration. To get to the point of having support for legal immigration reform, we will likely need to deal with the illegal immigration problem first. And not by mass amnesty! It’s at least something to think about.
And personally, I hope that immigration reform deals away with birthright citizenship. That is being abused beyond belief.
If you mean on the podcast? Sure! That sounds fun.
If you mean, "a substantive national conversation" like the "national conversation on race," absolutely not. No, a "substantive conversation" in that sense only lampshades the last 40 years of non-enforcement of what is, for better or worse, the law of the country. A "substantive conversation" in that sense only keeps the status quo in place which has another undocumented population approximately the size of San Antonio arriving in the country every few months.
The GOP base keeps telling its politicians that it wants strict enforcement of the immigration laws on the books, and their politicians keep going "yeah, but business doesn't want that, and enforcement might do things that make us look mean" and welching on their campaign promises.
If they fix the issue, they can't use it to raise funds. Every issue is now abortion in that sense.
It’s very frustrating especially when it’s clear GOP elites want amnesty, not deportation or enforcement. We know exactly how that went last time… the problem only got much worse.
Damn it Kmele stop being so reasonable I’m trying to be mad
Also, if you guys are taking guest suggestions, Oren Cass or Saagar Enjeti would be people I’d love to see. Two right wing people who haven’t gone batshit insane
Are you referring to illegal border hopping and the lack of deportations/convictions of law breaking or legal immigration levels?
I'm not proud of it, I admit, but when I hear "effectively has no border," I tut-tut and tisk tisk gently to my laptop screen.
School me, bro.
People illegally working on student visas, mass migration over the border with little to no recourse, visa overstays and frankly I would personally add the children of illegal immigrants. Birthright citizenship needs to be changed it is being abused beyond belief.
Altogether, the whole ~30 million illegal immigrants in the country, as we as the legal visitors/students that illegally work (and I’ve worked with quite a few).
Can you tell me where the 30 million comes from? Most numbers I see are closer to 10ish million illegal immigrants.
The 10 million comes from the census, there’s a 22 million number from an MIT study, and the 30 million comes from a study of various things such as remittances from a couple of bear sterns analysts, with the addition of the average number of people entering per year after that. The analysts came to 20 million at the time, and Ann Coulter goes deeper into the numbers to get to 30 million in her book Adios America. It is likely much higher now, so I would consider that a lower bound. I find the 30 million more convincing but IMO the 10 million is laughable because it has been the same for decades while we have seen millions of people still coming g over illegally year after year.
You know they leave, too, right?
Not nearly in the numbers they arrive, and it’s much harder for the people coming from all over the world, which Moynihan even mentioned in the pod in reference to his reporting for vice, to return to places like Bangladesh
Open the borders and watch all the not bad things happen. If we have defacto open borders now, what's the difference?
You mean other than the drug war/Mexican civil war spilling over our borders, the lack of assimilation, wages being stagnant and things like the recent case where a 10 year old was repeatedly raped by an illegal Guatemalan??? Yeah what could the issues possibly be
Would you rather she was raped by a legal immigrant or a naturalized citizen?
The drug war is the problem, not the immigration. Wages being stagnant?! Wtf are you living that wages are stagnant? Target is paying $24/hr starting here. Also, that argument has never held water regarding immigration.
She would likely not have been raped by an American, as most American groups have a much lower rate of raping children.
No, the Mexican civil war and a lack of border enforcement are what allow it to cross into America.
Anyone who thinks supply doesn’t affect the cost of labor is a someone disconnected from people have worked real jobs. And yes I am aware wages are finally rising, after decades of stagnation, but if you haven’t noticed not only is the fed bizarrely trying to kill that, there is a strong push to “fix” the “labor shortage” aka flood the job market with immigrants to push down wages.
Just throwing this out there with respect to immigration and crime: Ousey & Kubrin (2018). Immigration and crime: Assessing a contentious issue. Annual Review of Criminology, 1, 63-84. (https://prohic.nl/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/82-27juli2020-ImmigrationCrimeMeta.pdf). Part of this paper is a meta-analysis of the immigration-crime relation. Personally, I think it is pretty fair/honest assessment of the literature.
I’ll give it a read when I get a chance, thanks
Very different than broken norms around democracy
Given the long term impacts of immigration in a nation, particularly the way it changes a nation culturally and politically… agree to disagree
* Thriller is a GREAT album... The credit should go to Quincy Jones though. Thats his record.
My 84 year old dad said his 9/11 was Pearl Harbor...
God damn boys!
Have been a fan of your great podcast for a year or so now, and you are still the only podcast I pay for, in these poor times so must it be.
There is golden entertainment in your old archive that I am catching up on!
I was listening to your episode 31 just now, with my noisecancelling headphones, when at the end a fu**ing loud noise were doing a dynamite bang in my ears, and I now truly understand Matt's issues with his ears a few months back now.
The same bang made me spill a whole fu**king cup of coffee all over me as well, god damn! From now on I have to listen to the old episodes via my speakers, in stead of thinking I am involved in Putins world war III every time I listen to your old episodes... Being from up north of Norway originally, where we do nothing but swearing, I am glad my kids were not up yet this sunday morning to listen to my colorful language!
Well, since I had to yell out to you, I might as well ask you a question I have been thinking about for a while now. I have been a liberalist myself since late 80s, and even do a very niche liberalist podcast myself here in Norway (Liberaleren Podcast), it really is the best therapy there is, and way cheaper than a shrink!
So, here goes, I am in a bit of depressing mode, when it comes to the future of liberalism as a whole, perfectly demonstrated by LPs disgusting picture of John McCains daugther by her fathers coffin, with the text "happy holidays". How can the reputation (if there is any left?) of liberalism survive when so called representatives for said liberalism is shitty insane people? Is liberalism with political parties now over? Is the next stage to focus only within thinktanks or even within the corporate world? Insane Trumpists and neocons have taken over this lovely world of ours...
I find the state of the liberalistic world completely depressing these days, what do you guys think of this? And, is there a "solution" going forward? How can true liberalism survive?
I worry about the future of liberalism as well. Mary Harrington isn't sanguine about its future:
https://unherd.com/2022/09/am-i-really-a-threat-to-democracy/
I appreciate the throat clearing around Michigan. We are idiots, but also not idiots as Moyn qualified. :D
You have great accents.
I’ve never met an idiot from Michigan, just a lot of friendly, ethnically Polish, fans of sausage and beer.
Well I ain't polish, but I can be for sausage and beer. 👍😁