Explore every episode of the podcast The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg

Jonah Goldberg convenes with Thomas Chatterton Williams to dissect and diagnose the problems plaguing America’s oldest ally, France. Tune in as Thomas and Jonah discuss French discontent, Emmanuel Macron, capitalism, state spending, Palestine, rioting, the protests of ‘68, organized envy, Marine Le Pen, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, mass deportation, radical Islam, the Red-Green alliance, and the end of the Fifth Republic. Show Notes: —Thomas Chatterton Williams’ last Remnant appearance —Summer of Our Discontent: The Age of Certainty and the Demise of Discourse —Tyler Austin Harper Remnant —Lola-Fleur Whittaker video The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We here at The Remnant tend to evaluate statesmen according to the Lincoln-Wilson spectrum: The good ones are more like Abraham Lincoln, and the bad ones are more like Woodrow Wilson. But because Jonah Goldberg loves a good argument, we’ve invited friend-of-the-show Professor Steven Smith of Yale University to throw a few wrenches in our statesmanship formula. Listen in as Steven and Jonah discuss the difference between statesmanship and leadership, national education, stateless statesmen, crisis, noble ambition, Charles de Gaulle, Claremonsters, illiberalism, the boringness of leftist ideology, and demagoguery.  Show Notes: —Steven Smith: On Statesmanship —Previous Smith Remnant —Laura Field: Furious Minds —Laura Field Remnant The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Let’s be honest: If you’re not getting canceled every couple of days, are you even living? We don’t think so. We’re T minus 10 days until the midterms, and Jonah Goldberg is raring to kick grass and take names on some of the discourse’s most cantankerous issues. Listen in as he tackles the podcastsphere, his preferred midterm losers, Abdul El-Sayed and Islamophobia, Vivek Ramaswamy and the Amy Acton ad, Trump’s egoism, The Social Reckoning, Trump’s fruity comments, the Christian right, gay MAGA, and religious hypocrisy.  Show Notes: —EconTalk Podcast —Napoleon III Remnant —Friday’s DisPod —Jonathan Martin in Politico: “Vivek Ramaswamy’s Trump Act Could Be His Undoing” —Vanity Fair: “The Art of the Deal: Jared Kushner’s Hacked Phone Revealed His Secret Negotiations—Including More Than $700 Million in Transfers” —Wednesday G-File The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It may disappoint frequent Remnant listeners to learn that most episodes are not recorded in a speakeasy. In fact, recording a Remnant is one of the few occasions that can draw Jonah Goldberg away from such establishments. Nonetheless, listeners will be pleased that on this occasion Jonah is joined in a speakeasy by none other than economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin. They talk about GDP, inflation, federal stakes in private companies, Friedrich Hayek, the knowledge problem, Social Security, the federal budget, K-12 education, one-party governance, political transparency, business leadership, The Wealth of Nations, and the microcosm/macrocosm distinction.  Show Notes: —Marco Rubio in the Washington Post: “Why I believe in industrial policy — done right” —Douglas Holtz-Eakin’s homepage —The Argument The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conventional wisdom will tell you to be well rested and sober before an interview to ensure peak performance. Jonah Goldberg, however, discovered long ago that he’s at his best on three minutes of sleep, a couple shots of Fireball, and a fistful of Alka-Seltzer tablets. Today, Jonah has prepared himself accordingly because he wants to be in shipshape for The Remnant’s favorite soft Marxist, Tyler Austin Harper. Join Jonah and Tyler as they dive deep into unfettered capitalism, underwater basket weaving, spoiled DSA kids, socialism, New Deal liberalism, the working class, Democratic Party capture, new ideas, civil society, hobby inflation, administrative bloat, and the technocratization of the humanities.  Show Notes: —Austin Harper in The Atlantic - “Why Do Rich Kids Love Socialism?” —Jonah’s response G-File —Daniel Bell - The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism  —Tyler Austin Harper’s April Remnant appearance —Bhaskar Sunkara, Ben Burgis, and Mike Beggs - The Blueprint: How Socialism Can Work in the Real World —Joseph A. Schumpeter - Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dear listener: There are few places Jonah Goldberg hates more than O’Hare International Airport. Yet, in a sad irony, he has spent a significant percentage of his life sitting in a Chicago terminal waiting on a plane. Though Jonah is not generally inclined to process his life through song, today’s Ruminant kicks off with a slow, mournful dirge memorializing his travel nightmares. But fret not; Jonah quickly recovers himself and holds forth admirably on all manner of subjects, including the Vladimir Putin diesel deal, Ukraine and the West, Cornell, Ilhan Omar, politicians and the media, silos, James Talarico, NatCons, J.D. Vance, Katie Zacharia, bad socialist policy, and governing like a grown-up. Show Notes: —Friday’s DisPod —G-File: “High-Minded Words for a Low Form of Politics” —Andy McCarthy in National Review: “What to Make of the Trump DOJ’s Investigation of Ilhan Omar” —Wednesday’s G-File —Jonah’s LA Times column —Jesse Singal in The Dispatch: “Fractured Realities” —Dissent Magazine: “Know Your Enemy: The Post-MAGA Midterms?” —Last week’s Ruminant  The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Old men griping about the new generation is an old, venerable tradition, and Jonah Goldberg can grouse with the best of them. Unlike the other old men, however, Jonah gets to talk to one of the few people who can actually answer the question, “What’s wrong with the kids these days?” and back it up with data. The American Enterprise Institute’s Daniel Cox joins The Remnant to take us on a whirlwind tour of the gender divide, cultural expectations, parenting, LinkedIn, generational change, attention infidelity, TV, dating, sexting, teenagehood, social media, surveillance culture, porn, OnlyFans, incels, the manosphere, social malaise, third places, chivalry, class, and preaching what you practice.  Show Notes: —Generation Uncoupled: America's New Gender Divide and the Crisis of Human Connection —GQ - “The Laptop Boyfriends Can’t Stop Watching YouTube in Bed” —Rob Henderson Remnant —Jonah’s G-File: “I Think We’re Turning Japanese … I Really Think So” —Wired - “I Went Undercover as a Secret OnlyFans Chatter. It Wasn’t Pretty” —Jonah’s most recent book, Suicide of the West —Sarah Isgur’s dating Remnant The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While The Remnant has played host to many remarkable historians over the years, few have taken us on a more incredible ride than Simon Sebag Montefiore. As such, we’re proud to bestow on Simon our newly formed, not-really-endowed chair of Middle Eastern history. Tune in to hear Simon and Jonah Goldberg rove across time and space, covering Iran, Saudi Arabia, the 1979 revolution, the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Israel, antisemitism, moral hysteria, Western obsession with Jerusalem, colonialism, nationalism, ethnicity, modernization, Islam, historical perspective, and, most importantly of all, the proper pronunciation of Turkey.  Show Notes: —Simon Sebag Montefiore - The Cauldron: The Making of the Modern Middle East —Jerusalem: The Biography —Jonah’s last book, Suicide of the West —James Scott - Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed —Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn: The Intelligent American’s Guide to Europe The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Happy Saddam Saturday! Just kidding, we don’t do that kinda thing around here. But you know who does? That’s right, Jack Posobiec and his fellow alt-right goons. And while today’s Ruminant features more than enough of such nonsense, Jonah Goldberg doesn’t leave the high-minded among you hanging. Tune in to hear about nationalism, the Middle East, the French Revolution, Yoram Hazony’s Israeli NatCon, socialism, J.D. Vance, Trump’s short hand, the death penalty, abortion, slavery, and Hegseth’s firing-squad spectacle.  Show Notes: —Simon Sebag Montefiore - The Cauldron: The Making of the Modern Middle East —Jonah’s America 250 essay for The Dispatch —Jonah’s book, Liberal Fascism  —Jonah’s book, Suicide of the West —John Podhoretz on Yoram Hazony’s scheme —Jonah’s death-penalty column —Hannah Arendt Remnant The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Notorious misanthrope Jonah Goldberg is skeptical of the power of friendship in politics. Winning him over will be no easy task, but if anyone is up to the job, it’s friend of the Remnant and Hannah Arendt scholar Roger Berkowitz. Listen in as Roger and Jonah duke it out over friends, enemies, Zionism, the Nazis, fear of the people, facts, truth in politics, Alexis de Tocqueville, Madisonianism, local governance, the distribution of power, and much more.  Show Notes: —A World We Share: Hannah Arendt and the Power of Friendship in a Broken World —Who was Hannah Arendt Remnant —Jonah’s last book, Suicide of the West The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While AEI is filled with a lot of smart nerds, a select few have earned the Jonah Goldberg title of “great sage.” Nick Eberstadt is one of these sages, and he joins today for a banger of a Remnant on poverty, misery, social science, the economics of the family, Hungary’s pro-natal policy, the fertility crash, phones, generational stereotypes, technological adaptation, the entitlement problem, and North Korea. Put down the Tik Tok and listen up, kids.  Show Notes: —Adam and Eve After the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution —Men Without Work The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today’s Ruminant Jonah makes his old man proud by holding forth on the new right’s attempted rehabilitation of Richard Nixon. Along the way, he also hits on dog movies, the problems of polling, the midterms, the red undertow, the death penalty, Sen. Eric Schmitt, and the uncertain future of the GOP.  Show Notes: —Heart of the Beast trailer  —Far From Home: The Adventures of Yellow Dog Trailer trailer —Roger Berkowitz: A World We Share: Hannah Arendt and the Power of Friendship in a Broken World —Jonah’s Los Angeles Times column —Jonah on Left, Right, and Center —Kevin Williamson’s death penalty piece —Friday’s DisPod —Jonah’s Wednesday G-File —Kendall: “The Two Majorities” —Dan McLaughlin in National Review: “Nixon’s Not the One” The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dear listeners: For years, you’ve been asking us to get Bill Nye the Science Guy on The Remnant, and we have heard you. Today, we are pleased to present … Wait, what? Oh, I see. Apologies, listeners, but we appear to have had a bit of a mix-up. I’m sorry to say that Bill Nye wasn’t available, and instead the booking agency has sent *checks notes* Tony Mills! While Tony is sadly unwilling to drop Mentos into a 2-liter bottle of soda and stand over it with his mouth open (yes, we did ask), he is absolutely willing to bring the heat on science, AI, and the doom of humanity. Listen in to hear Tony and Jonah Goldberg discuss science funding, the politicization of research, COVID-19, historical reactions to pandemics, germ theory, gatekeeping, algorithms, romanticism, and (P)doom. Show Notes: —Remnant wherein Jonah made erroneous comments about pandemics —The American Enterprise Institute’s AI Ethics Council —Jonah’s last book The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This October will mark three years since Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza, igniting a complicated web of wars and regional conflicts across the Middle East. Jonah Goldberg is joined today by the authors of a new book that takes readers inside the minds of Israel’s decision-makers during these struggles, unveiling the complicated dynamics behind some of Israel’s biggest successes and failures. Join Jonah, Elliot Kaufman, and Yonah Jeremy Bob and they discuss Bibi Netanyahu, Iran, October 7, the beeper operation, the Biden White House, international opinion of Israel, Operation Midnight Hammer, Rafa, Hamas, Hezbollah, the 2015 nuclear deal, Students for Justice in Palestine, and why people get so deranged about Israel.  Show Notes: —In the War Room: The Inside Story of Israel's Fight Against Hamas and the Iranian Axis —School of War Podcast: “Why John Boyd Still Matters”  —Benjamin Netanyahu: Bibi: My Story  —Jonah’s LA Times column  The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You remember the scene: Robert Deniro’s wife screaming at him in their apartment for being a jerk about the steak and flipping the kitchen table; Joe Pesci trying to calm them down; the neighbor calling them a bunch of animals; Deniro threatening to eat the neighbor’s dog. It’s exactly what you expect from director Martin Scorsese. But you know what it’s not? It’s not what Jonah Goldberg expected to find himself in the middle of after walking in the door the day the Stephanie Slade Remnant aired. What’s that? You want more context? Well then you’re just going to have to tune in to this rager of a Ruminant, wherein Jonah not only recounts his domestic dust-up over drag queen story hour but dives deep into Trump Derangement Syndrome, Xi Jinping at the White House, the autopen incident, Nikole Hannah-Jones, progressives, teachers unions, Nick Kristof and the rape dogs, Macklemore and Israel, Jonah going woke, rationalism vs reason, family, fusionism, the Western Massachusetts lesbian bar, and how we’re all both conservatives and liberals.  Show Notes: —The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11 —Jonah’s review of The Enemy at Home —Wednesday G-File —Nikole Hannah-Jones article  —Jonah’s book, Suicide of the West —Jonah’s book Liberal Fascism —Thomas C. Leonard: Illiberal Reformers —Jonah’s LA Times column —Slade Remnant —Friday’s DisPod —School of War podcast: “Why John Boyd Still Matters” The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What can and can’t the government do? Can it ban softball on Sundays? Or perhaps prohibit little old ladies from having Bible study at the local library? What about drag queen story hour? Can it—horror of horrors—tell you that you have to mow your lawn? Joining The Remnant to help us sort through these thorny political thickets is Stephanie Slade, author of a popular new book about fusionism. Listen in as Stephanie and Jonah Goldberg cover the dissident right, Frank Meyer, Brent Bozell, liberalism, libertarianism, virtue, and everything in between.  Show Notes: —Stephanie Slade - Fusionism: Liberty, Virtue, and the Future of the American Right —Reason magazine —Dan Flynn’s Frank Myer biography  —Fusionism excerpt in The Dispatch —Slade on David Bahnsen’s podcast  —Jacob Levy - Rationalism, Pluralism, and Freedom —Helena Rosenblatt - The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As faithful Remnant listeners know, we try to avoid having politicians on the show. It just gets kinda awkward when you have to publicly rake them over the coals for eating mac and cheese on camera. But being good Burkeans, we know that all rules have their exceptions. Gov. Spencer Cox is one of those exceptions. He joins Jonah Goldberg on the show to talk about his new book, Off Ramp. Along the way, they cover political division, technology, Mormonism, social media, local politics, the 10th Amendment, executive power, contempt, cancel culture, congressional reform, coalition building, governorships, and the greatness of Utah.  Show Notes: —Cox: Off Ramp: How to Be a Peacemaker in an Age of Contempt —Ben Sasse Remnant The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gentle listeners, we know you’ve had a hard week, and we want to bring you a pick-me-up. Today’s episode has a little something for everyone: a riveting cult story, nudity, sports gambling, racist-bigot bashing, fanatic Texans, AI-pocalypse, an epic history of progressivism, and, most tantalizing of all, a detailed discussion of the myth of left and right. Tune in to hear Jonah Goldberg ruminate about being a grown-up, the long-forgotten BDX Cult, originalism, AI torts and liability, the social question, Bo French, bourgeois morals, Indian Americans, racism, the AP stylebook, and the left-right spectrum.  Show Notes: —9/11 G-File —Jonah’s “Canines of 9/11” piece in National Review —AO pod wherein David French defends George Bush —The Sweeney G-File  —Jonah yapping about AI —Jonah’s first book, Liberal Fascism —Tim Carney: The Big Ripoff —DisPod on AI —Erick Erickson’s newsletter —NR editorial on Indian bigotry —Lewis brothers: The Myth of Left and Right —Jonah dunks on Macklemore The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Despite repeated floggings, First Mate Steve Hayes is once again up to no good. With Capt. Jonah Goldberg having gone ashore to purchase more books about Abraham Lincoln, Hayes has seized the helm of the HMS Remnant and is once again joy-cruising with his friends. And while most of the freeloaders Steve invites aboard are scalawags and ne’er-do-wells, there is one particular exception.  Jim VandeHei, the co-founder and CEO of Axios, is on deck to talk about how to simplify our lives in an increasingly complicated world. Jim and Steve cover how to confront and eliminate unnecessary tasks, prioritize what matters, and achieve informational simplicity in the age of AI, and discuss what the future of news reporting holds.  Show Notes: —Simplify: Do 50 Percent More with 50 Percent Less —Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More With Less —The CEOs of C-SPAN, Axios, and The Dispatch on journalism and civil discourse The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Remnant has many dear old friends: Yuval Levin is the best-looking; Chris Stirewalt is the best kisser. But the oldest, going back to Episode 1, is Ben Sasse. Ben joins today’s pod for a conversation that traverses the high and the low, the sacred and the profane, starting with Gilligan’s Island and running through the healthcare system, scientific research, morphine, affluenza, being an adult, the effects of different media on our brains, screens, schools, the need for strong institutions, good and bad parenting, primaries, AI and work, and Senate reform.  Show Notes: —Not Dead Yet podcast —Neil Postman: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business —The Dispatch editors: “The Coming Post-Trump Reality” —Jonah’s 9/11 G-File —Napoleon III Remnant The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Coming off of a discussion about 9/11 on the DisPod, Jonah Goldberg is feeling ruminative and somber. Accordingly, he has decided to address one of the most important foreign policy issues of our century: the cheese-eating surrender monkeys. That’s right. Freedom fries forever, baby. And if that’s not exciting enough, The Dispatch’s legendary Francophobe-in-chief doesn’t stop there, taking up the Texas Trumpapalooza, the Media Research Center, Abdul El-Sayed, pinkwashing, the Muslim-Queer alliance, progressive Jews, Justice Antonin Scalia’s brilliant take on the Constitution, lawless e-bikes, and video podcasting.   Show Notes: —DisPod on the 9/11 anniversary —Chris Stirewalt Remnant —Jonah’s LA Times column  —Jonah on NPR The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today a *very sober* Jonah Goldberg is joined by the *mostly sober* friend of the pod, pickled alligator aficionado, and notorious West Virginian Chris Stirewalt to talk about the midterms, the Alaska primary, GOP expectations, J.D. Vance’s presidential campaign, right-wing social engineering, the Trump midterm convention, postliberal eggheads, post-Americanism, free money, America’s dirtbag political ethos, and … America the Sandwich.  Show Notes: —Jonah on NPR —Jonah’s Los Angeles Times column —NYT: “More Americans Are Identifying as Democrats Ahead of Midterms” —Stirewalt: “Could Vance’s soccer mom bonus nudge married women back to the GOP?” —The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition  —Jonah’s book: Suicide of the West —The Dispatch Editors: “The Coming Post-Trump Reality” The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thought we’d forgotten about Venezuela here on The Remnant? Think again! As prone as Jonah Goldberg is to getting distracted by the finer things of life—Old English dialects, zombie movies, etc.—he’s kept a weather eye fixed southward on our Bolivarian neighbor. Jonah is joined today by James Story, the former ambassador to Venezuela, to take us deep into the recent history of U.S.-Venezuelan relations, Nicolás Maduro, Delcy Rodríguez, a possible democratic transition, the oil deal, the Venezuelan diaspora, Marco Rubio, the boat strikes, the professional foreign service post-DOGE, and Pax Americana. Show Notes: —The Dispatch: “The U.S. Boat Strikes, One Year Later” —MS Now: “The U.S. drone strike in Venezuela marks a dangerous new era” —Jonah’s LA Times column on the oil deal —Anthony Scaramucci Remnant The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peacefully anchored on the Potomac, the HMS Remnant rocks gently from side to side. Captain Jonah Goldberg, peg leg and all, stands at the prow gazing at the darkening horizon. To the west, the storm clouds of AI apocalypse are gathering. In the east, a midterm squall quickly bears down. In such portentous circumstances, there’s only one thing for a man to do. Captain Jonah retires to his cabin, lights a cigar, pulls down his dusty copy of Memoirs of a Superfluous Man, and girds himself to talk about Gloria Steinem. Listen in as Jonah ruminates on Bill Buckley’s respectful listening, the freaky Hugging Face incident, Maria Bartiromo, the radicalization of the elderly, Albert Nock’s antisemitism, social Darwinism, Herbert Spencer, blood libel vs. blood guilt, Marcionism, Fox News, J.D. Vance, pretextual moral outrage, and confusing conservatives for Republicans. Show Notes: —Kevin Williamson on Gloria Steinem in The Dispatch —NYT’s The Daily on the Hugging Face hack —Michael Wreszin: The Superfluous Anarchist: Albert Jay Nock  —G-File: “The Rocks and the Orgy” —Jonah’s NR piece on Albert Nock  —John Carey: The Intellectuals and the Masses —Thomas C. Leonard: Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era —Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch: “J.D. and Tucker, Abdul and Hasan” —Wednesday’s G-File —Megan McArdle’s book —Anthony Scaramucci Remnant The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Who do you call it when American politics has got you scartchin’ your head? That’s right—the Mooch! Anthony Scaramucci joins Jonah Goldberg on today’s Remnant to talk about how the last four presidential administrations brought us to where we are today. Listen in as they dive deep into the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, gerrymandering, Citizens United, China, the George Bush tax cuts, the status of the dollar, immigration capital, tariffs, Donald Trump, and the Marshall Plan. Show Notes: —Scaramucci: All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump —Scott Lincicome: “Testing the ‘China Shock’: Was Normalizing Trade with China a Mistake?” —Scott Lincicome in The Dispatch: “Getting the ‘China Shock’ Right” The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonah Goldberg is not a bigot. Yet, as we all know, there are exceptions to every rule. The French are one of those exceptions. In particular, Jonah sees the cheese-eating surrender monkeys’ refusal to embrace America’s foremost gift to the civilized world—air conditioning—as an offense against all reason and good sense. Nevertheless, being a fair-minded man, Jonah is willing to give the French a hearing. Having no desire to talk to an actual Frenchy, however, he’s turned to the next best thing: an American who lives in France.  Sweat beading on his forehead, Thomas Chatterton Williams joins The Remnant not only to make apology for his adoptive country’s backward ways, but to dispense his usual authoritative takes on politics and culture, covering race in France, the Rassemblement National, radical Islam, integration, accents, Woke 1, Jason Arday, 80/20 issues, policing speech, The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan, and Jonah’s ideal zombie movie. Show Notes: —Francis Dearnley Remnant —TCW in The Atlantic - “France’s Best Argument Against Racism Isn’t Working” —Robert Nisbet - The Quest for Community  —TCW - Self-Portrait in Black and White —Colin Gorrie Remnant  —NYT - “A Decorated Historian’s Research Comes Under Fire” —Jesse Singal in The Dispatch - “The Cascade of Dysfunction That Helped Doom Jason Arday” —Jonah’s G-File on The Odyssey —Tom Holland - Dominion —Colson Whitehead - Zone One —Max Brooks: World War Z The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the first time in like, 100 years, Jonah Goldberg is bachin’ it up. With no dogs and no wife, The Ruminant is on time and cooking, diving into the Kennedy Center, the Indiana Dunes, Korean War-era debates, Donald Trump as the establishment, the three “M’s” of the midterms, postwar politics, sovereigntism, Canada, John Ratcliffe’s trip to Russia, Vladimir Putin’s designs on Europe, and guilty white liberals.  Show Notes: —School of War - “Inside America’s Fight for Drone Dominance” —School of War - “Our Foreign Policy Divide Began with the Korean War” —Friday’s DisPod —‘Me-too Republican’ G-File  —Ukraine: The Latest —Etymologist Remnant  —Wednesday G-File —Tyler Austin Harper Remnant  The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There’s a certain ache in the bones—no, more like pain behind the eyes brought on by fatigue with the world—that overtakes a man when he’s gone too long without talking about etymology. We here at The Remnant have been feeling that deeply, and we know you have too. That’s why Jonah Goldberg is sitting down with fellow word nerd Colin Gorrie to talk about everything he’s ever wanted to know about language. Jonah and Colin cover Old English dialects, prescriptive vs. descriptive, the world’s biggest language, Latinization, early dictionaries, class, accents, linguistic hygiene, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, metaphors, the euphemism treadmill, borrowed words, Shakespearean coinages, Australian English, gender in language, Basque, and the hardest European language to learn.  Show Notes: —Colin’s Substack —Colin speaking Old English  —John McWhorter Remnant —Paul Bloom - Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil —George Lakoff and Mark Johnson - Metaphors We Live By The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After basically pirating Jesse Walker’s ideas for several months now, Jonah Goldberg has decided it would be only fair to have Jesse aboard HMS Remnant to talk shop and swap yarns. In between sips of Captain Morgan and bites of the finest hardtack, Jonah and Jesse delve into the depths of the Remnant bingo card, pontificating on libertarianism, the myth of left and right, intellectual hyperlinks, conspiracy theories, populism, group pluralism, the rhetoric of unity, federalism, and the freedom to exit.  Show Notes: —Walker - The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory —Ron Bailey Remnant —The Individualists: Radicals, Reactionaries, and the Struggle for the Soul of Libertarianism —Nash - The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 —Lewis Brothers - The Myth of Left and Right —Lewis brothers Remnant —Walker review - The Myth of Left and Right  —Walker in Reason: “The Anarchist and the Republican” The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dear listener, I must ask you to take a seat. I fear you are not prepared for what I’m going to tell you. Jonah Goldberg appears on the show today… with… written notes. Granted, they contain about five words. But they exist! On paper! Marvel of marvels! And so it is with this boy-scout level of preparedness that Jonah embarks on his weekend ruminations, covering Jon Ossoff, Natalie Harp, savvy political baiting, Jason Arday, Jews and liberalism, race, social justice, group performance, Jacobin tariff rhetoric, data centers, and the Dupont Circle farmers market. Show Notes: —Jesse Singal in The Dispatch: “The Cascade of Dysfunction That Helped Doom Jason Arday” —Jonah on the Call Me Back podcast —Cliff Asness in Commentary —Jonah’s book: Liberal Fascism  —Polling on data centers —Wednesday G-File —The Next Right: “Brian Kemp Doesn’t Apologize for Free Markets” The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

General Jonah Goldberg can’t get war off his mind, so instead of losing another round of Battleship, he invites Hal Brands, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and hallmate, to discuss the ongoing war in Iran and whether or not we have an exit strategy, a possibility of a world war, and our commitment to allies. Show Notes: –Hal Brands’s upcoming book: The Landscape of Power: Geography and the Rise and Fall of Nations The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You thought it was over. After the Napoleon III Remnant ran nearly two hours, observers and pundits the world over said this had to be the end. How could anyone, even Jonah Goldberg, have an appetite for more? But wait—who’s that dark figure lurking in the wings? Oh no. It’s … Kevin D. Williamson.  Apparently Jonah’s chemical addiction to 19th-century French politics stirred something in Kevin’s mind, so much so that the man began writing a book about “the sacrosanct presidency.” And they say deeply fruitful intellectual friendships are dead. But don’t worry, gentle listener—if you’re sick of Napoleon III, there’s plenty more to feast upon at this Remnant smorgasbord, including democracy, Henry VIII, anarchism, individualism, competing rights claims, Woke 1, civil rights, and the American ethos.  Show Notes: —Napoleon III Remnant —New Yorker article on data centers —Kevin’s book: The Smallest Minority: Independent Thinking in the Age of Mob Politics —Jonah’s book: Suicide of the West —Willmoore Kendall: “The Two Majorities” —Aaron MacLean Remnant  The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After spending four days deep in the Adirondacks, Jonah has emerged like Rousseau’s noble savage: reflective, in touch with nature, and ready to talk for two hours as a disembodied podcast voice. If that seems incongruous to you, don’t worry—you’re not alone. Listen in as disembodied Jonah pontificates on disowning the establishment, J.D. Vance’s prospects for president, the iron law of oligarchy, elites, Locke vs. Rousseau, the general will, Tucker Carlson, the DSA, the Michigan Senate race, the meaning of progressive, etymological conundrums, Wisconsin politics, Iran, the meaning of The Remnant, the superfluous men, and Albert Jay Nock. Show Notes: —New from The Dispatch: The Next Right —Burrito G-File —Friday’s DisPod —Daron Acemoglu Remnant —Acemoglu: Why Nations Fail —Jonah’s book: Suicide of the West —Jonah’s book: Liberal Fascism  —Russell Moore Remnant —Rosenblatt: The Lost History of Liberalism  —Jerusalem Demsas Remnant —Open Primaries newsletter —Wednesday G-File —Nock: Memoirs of a Superfluous Man —Jonah’s NR piece on Albert Nock —Nock’s essay: Isaiah’s “Job” —Nash: The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s time to be honest: Jonah Goldberg can’t remember if he’s ever had a Nobel Prize-winning guest on The Remnant. If that shocks you, calm down. It’s called getting old. After today, however, Jonah can say with certainty that he has, as he is joined by Nobel laureate in economics Daron Acemoglu. Listen in as Jonah and Daron light up the Remnant bingo card like a Hanukkah bush, covering liberal democracy, community, subsidiarity, the welfare state, status, prosperity gaps, AI, automation, China, abundance, the working class, Zohran Mamdani, and the Democratic Party. Show Notes: —Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty —What Happened to Liberal Democracy?: Remaking a Politics of Shared Prosperity —Daron Acemoglu in Financial Times: “Liberalism can win back the working class. Here’s how” —Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History —Jonah’s book Suicide of the West The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonah Goldberg scratches an intellectual itch in this 90-minute interview with British historian Edward Shawcross to discuss the rise and fall of Napoleon III. Is this the start of modern politics? Can we compare Trump to this unlikely political victor? Are elites and foreign powers the favorite boogeymen of populists everywhere? Stay tuned for a brief history lesson and indulgent wonkery.  Show Notes: —Edward Shawcross’s book: The People’s Emperor: The Unlikely Rise and Spectacular Fall of Napoleon III —‘A dwarf atop a great wave’ —The Lost History of Liberalism Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonah Goldberg records this week’s Ruminant days before his excursion to the woods (Bigfoot sighting anyone?), to discuss international law, hubris, whatever the mess is with the Iran war, and “common good” conservatism. And he answers questions from listeners.  Show Notes: —How Trump Took the U.S. to War With Iran —Aaron MacLean Remnant  —Aaron MacLean and Mark Montgomery on School of War —The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Western Thought —Yuval Levin Remnant —The Neutrality Myth: Liberty, Order, and the Common Good —Jonah’s X thread on the DSA Send your questions to remnant@thedispatch.com. The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bleary-eyed, scrambled, and in need of a second overpriced venti black coffee, Jonah Goldberg speaks with Brendan Simms, a Cambridge Don-guy who wears fancy belts, about his new book, Return of the Great Powers, which discusses how the Russia-Ukraine war sparked how the Russia-Ukraine War prompted the West to act, China’s potential defeat if Russia loses, Trump as a mob boss, and technology as a driver of cultural change.  Show Notes: —Brendan Simms: Return of the Great Powers —Brendan Simms: Donald Trump: The Making of a Worldview —Francis Fukuyama: The End of History and the Last Man —Simms’ About Page The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Detractors frequently accuse Jonah Goldberg of being an irrelevant dinosaur. We at The Remnant are proud to say that only one of those accusations is correct. We are also proud to say that Jonah’s dinosaurness does not prevent him from conversing with young, hip, and cool members of today’s media landscape. “Prove it,” you say? Well, today we bring you a podcast with none other than Jerusalem Demsas, founder of The Argument and one of the coolest center-left pundits. Join Jonah and Jerusalem as they dive into positive and negative freedoms, the college landscape, the Democratic Socialists of America, Zohran Mamdani’s policies, the Democratic Party, housing, playing the long game, the battle of ideas, our broken epistemic environment, weak political parties, oligarchy, money in politics, groupthink, and technology. Show Notes: —The Argument  —“‘Feel’ as a Determinant of College Choice: Evidence from Campus Tour Weather” —Demsas: “Does the oligarchy exist?” —The Argument Podcast: What AOC and Bernie Sanders get wrong about the oligarchy The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As DSA and postliberal pirates storm the decks of the HMS Remnant, Captain Jonah Goldberg would seem to be in dire straits. Nonetheless, Captain Jonah—with an eerie air of calm—draws his cutlass, sets down his cigar, and smiles. Prepare, gentle listener, for a bloodbath. Today Jonah deftly handles every controversy on the docket, including Hasan Piker, Ukraine as Israel, the Michigan Senate race, Anthony Fauci, Covid in retrospective, rap music, Napoleon III, J.D. Vance, the common good, subsidiarity, the Constitution, and Hamas.  Show Notes: —Hasan Piker collar video —Last week’s Ruminant  —Friday’s DisPod —Rebecca Heinrichs Remnant  —Aaron MacLean Remnant  —Grayson Logue in The Dispatch - “Why We Can’t Move On From the Pandemic” —Matt Ridley Remnant —Matt Ridley’s book Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19 —John Barry - The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History —Jonah’s book Liberal Fascism —The Argument  —NYT Heritage Foundation piece —JD Vance’s book —Justice Scalia’s Congressional testimony  The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every once in a while, The Remnant staff need to remind Jonah Goldberg that we’re running a business here, and that he can’t just putz around with Pod, Chris, or Sarah on every episode. Sometimes, you need someone respectable; sometimes, you need an expert. Today’s guest—the expert to rule them all—is Ken Pollack, here to tell us all about the war in Iran. Join Jonah and Ken as they discuss pain thresholds, public opinion inside Iran, the fallout of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death, the ideology of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Persian nationalism, the original sins of the war, the politics behind the scenes, civil-war spillover, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, oil, exit strategies, and end games.  Show Notes: —Pollack’s forthcoming book: The Iraq Wars —Last Ken Pollack Remnant  —Aaron MacLean Remnant —NYT: “Inside Israel’s Secret Operation to Cultivate Ahmadinejad” —Pollack’s webinar: “US Policy After Iraq: Getting Lebanon’s Disarmament Right” The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here at The Remnant, our hate list is rather long: Woodrow Wilson, electoral primaries, German romanticism … the list goes on and on. But if there’s one we hate that doesn’t get enough air time, it’s Chinese communism. We hate Chinese communism. That’s why we’ve recruited from the ranks of America’s foremost anti-CCP institution—that’s the American Enterprise Institute, for those of you who live under rocks—to bring you the latest on Chinese grand strategy. AEI’s Audrye Wong joins Jonah Goldberg to discuss Beijing’s international investment, Chinese diaspora, influence operations, Taiwan, bribery, Chinese culture, American investment in Asia, Orbán’s Hungary, Russia-China relations, democracy, Han supremacy, and how Americans should think about countering the threat across the Pacific.  Show Notes: —Subversion and Seduction: China's Economic Statecraft —Zach Cooper in Foreign Affairs: “Asia After America” —Jonah’s last book The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First mate Steve Hayes strides across the deck, grinning maniacally at the cowering crew. “Mine” he crows to himself. “Mine! The HMS Remnant is finally mine! Muahahaha!” The crew, downcast, is near despair. Then suddenly, all eyes turn to the gangplank. Haggard, sunburned, stricken, and emaciated, Jonah Goldberg stumbles onto the deck, takes Hayes by the collar, and gasps, “Sand. Nothing but sand.” After recovering down below, Captain Goldberg is back at the helm and ready to dive into the Grand Canyon, advertising, Vegas, Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey, the Christianization thesis, black Helen, DSA, voter turnout, the stupidity of abolishing the Senate, “unfettered capitalism,” Hayek v. Friedman, conservative liberal or liberal conservative, Teddy Roosevelt, and postliberal collapse.  Show Notes: —John Podhoretz on The Odessey —Tom Holland on The Odyssey  —Matt Walsh tweet about The Odessey  —Charlie Cooke on abolishing the Senate —Jonah in Commentary:  “Socialism is so Hot Right Now” —Newsweek: “We Are All Socialist Now” —Escalon Insights poll on medicare for all —Live Sarah Isgur Remnant —Ron Bailey Remnant —Ask Me Anything Remnant  —Jonah’s book Liberal Fascism  —Live Yuval Levin Remnant —Irving Kristol: “The American Revolution as a Successful Revolution” The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does it mean to be an American? What is government for? What reforms will fix our political system? Join Jonah Goldberg, Yuval Levin, and 100 little policy gnomes at the American Enterprise Institute to find out! Jonah and Yuval cover America at 250 and reflect on the Bicentennial. They also discuss Graham Platner versus Ken Paxton, what it means to hold office, America’s 50/50 problem, unitary executive theory, the administrative state, civic virtue, election reform, Nixonian propaganda, and taking people as they find them.  Show Notes: —AEI’s America at 250 series  —Remnant on E. E. Schattschneider and primaries —Yuval talks to Ezra Klein —Lee Drutman on The Ezra Klein Show The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonah Goldberg has been chewing over how to reduce the number of gray hairs in Congress for some time now. Unfortunately, the best that he and The Remnant team have come up with is shaving the heads of all the senior senators, which, seeming somewhat impractical, led Jonah to call in an expert. Science correspondent and longtime friend of the show Ronald Bailey joins the merry band today to set us all straight on RFK Jr., vaccines, MAHA, DOGE, libertarianism, bad analogies for government, transhumanism, gerontocracy, term limits, libertarian Shangri-La, Francis Fukuyama, institutions, economic growth, Thomas Jefferson, invention, and Benjamin Franklin.  Show Notes: —Bailey’s book - The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the Twenty-first Century —Bailey’s book - Liberation Biology: The Scientific And Moral Case For The Biotech Revolution —Bailey in Reason - “Can America Get Out of the Gerontocracy Trap?” —Jonah’s book - Suicide of the West —Terrible Rest Is History podcast on Jefferson  —Michael Auslin Remnant The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s summer, and in honor of the backyard cookouts and pool parties that make our country great, Jonah Goldberg and Dispatch multimedia producer Victoria Holmes have served up a smorgasbord of listener questions to help people get through the heat (and smog … thanks, Canada). Listen in to hear about how Jonah changed his mind about writing another book, the life of a pundit, reading habits, camper vans, jobs Jonah could’ve had, public speaking, Ares vs. Mars, what voting says about you, annexing Canada, Israel’s nukes, despair as a sin, writer’s block, and much, much more.  Show Notes: —Proud to Be Right: Voices of the Next Conservative Generation —What is Conservatism?: A New Edition of the Classic by 12 Leading Conservatives —George Nash: The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 —Jonah’s book: Suicide of the West —The Monthly Mailbag with Jonah Goldberg The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Longtime listeners of The Remnant know well Jonah Goldberg’s hatred of the extremist, oligarchic, necromantic political conclaves holding our nation hostage, otherwise known as primaries. Nonetheless, listeners are left with many questions unanswered: How did populists seize the GOP in 2016? What should replace primaries for candidate selection? What will go down in 2028? Will Yuval Levin be on the ticket?  Here to put an end to all speculation is political scientist Seth Masket, who joins Jonah to talk about the Tea Party, Donald Trump’s charisma, Bill Clinton as a precursor to Trump, primaries, county-scale politics, party leadership, democratization, conventions, Trump’s influence over 2028, the next GOP presidential candidate, J.D. Vance, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment. Show Notes: —Masket: The Elephants in the Room: How Trump Voters Seized the Party from Republican Leaders —Masket's Substack —Masket: Learning from Loss: The Democrats, 2016–2020 —E. E. Schattschneider: Party Government: American Government in Action  —DisPod at the 92nd Street Y —Remnant on Weberian charisma The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’ve decided to go on a bit of a foreign policy spree here at The Remnant. And why not? Everyone needs a hobby. Today Rebeccah Heinrichs joins Jonah Goldberg to go deep on Iran, NATO, allies, Operation Epic Fury, realism in Ukraine, MAGA, isolationist failure, J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, Israel, national conservatism, antisemitism, and America’s posture in the world.  Show Notes: —Aaron MacLean Remnant —Francis Dearnley Remnant —Heinrichs in National Review: “Strengthen NATO, Don’t Wreck It” —Brendan Simms: The Return of the Great Powers —Iran: The Latest - Podcast The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonah Goldberg knows his time is nearly up. In a few days, his body will be baking in the Arizona sun, washed up on the rocks at some bend in the Colorado River, just the next casualty of mandatory fun time. Time to go out with a bang. Join Jonah as he steers the HMS Remnant into position for a ripping, boneshattering broadside into the Red Fleet of the Democratic Socialists of America. Along the way, listen as the doomed Captain Jonah ruminates on new liberal friends, policing one’s own side, Israel, socialists, bravery on the cheap, Graham Platner, institutionalized lying, courts finding the truth, and the importance of American wealth.  Show Notes: —Friday’s DisPod —Wednesday G-File —LA Times column —Jonah’s commie Twitter thread —Mamdani Celebrates America's 250 Years With Call for Unity and Democracy —Eli Lake on DSA —Nellie Bowles newsletter —Scott Lincicome in The Dispatch - “GDP Is Good, Actually” The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here at The Remnant, we strive to cover pressing issues that matter. Not content with copying and pasting other folk’s reporting, we go straight to the sources ourselves to bring their words to your ears. Today, we’re taking a deep dive into one of the topics that matters most to our nation, and to the world: the Annapolis Cup Croquet Match. You think we’re kidding, but we’re not.  But don’t worry—if bombs, bullets, and dead ayatollahs are more your thing, we’ve got you covered too. School of War podcast host Aaron MacLean joins Jonah Goldberg to discuss, in addition to croquet, what happened in Iran, isolationism, sovereigntism, Machiavelli, Chris Donahue, Palantir, Pentagon purges, failures in the Middle East, warrior culture, careerism, and the lessons our adversaries are taking away from Iran.  Show Notes: —School of War Podcast —Aaron’s last Remnant appearance  —School of War episode on chimps The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

June was a long month, and Jonah Goldberg is feeling entitled to a little bit of self-indulgence. Instead of turning to the bottle, however, he has opted for a rollicking, frolicsome ramble through the deep history of conspiracy theory. Jonah is joined by Andrew McKenzie-McHarg, author of the definitive volume on the topic, to discuss conspiracy theory (singular), etymology, secularization, 19th-century social science, the paranoid style, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Argentina, magic and science, antisemitism, apocalyptic thinking, Karl Popper, Richard Hofstadter, Karl Marx, World War I, Donald Trump, social media, institutions, and Catholicism. Show Notes: —Andrew McKenzie-McHarg - The Hidden History of Conspiracy Theory —Jesse Walker - The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory —Richard Hofstadter - “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” —Jesse Walker review of The Hidden History of Conspiracy Theory in Reason The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices