Feel the Burn

Summary

Detailed Summary of "Feel the Burn" Episode - The Commentary Magazine Podcast

Release Date: June 9, 2025

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1. Introduction to Current Events in Los Angeles County

The episode opens with host Jon Podhoretz delving into the recent deployment of 2,000 National Guardsmen to Los Angeles County. This decision, made by the Trump administration despite objections from Governor Gavin Newsom, aims to quell disturbances that have erupted in various jurisdictions within the sprawling LA County. Podhoretz emphasizes the vastness of LA County, noting its resemblance to an "empire" due to its coverage of multiple jurisdictions spanning 50 miles west and 30 miles north and south.

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2. Conflict of Visions on Law Enforcement

Podhoretz presents a theory that underpins the federal and local responses to the unrest:

• Acceptance of Violence: When officials like Governor Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass assert that they can control the situation, they implicitly accept a certain level of violence as a part of maintaining national order.

• Demonstrations as a National Compact: These leaders view protests and demonstrations, even when they escalate into violence, as fundamental expressions of the popular will, harkening back to historical movements like the civil rights era and anti-Vietnam War protests.

Notable Quote:

"They are willing to accept...that when people get angry or upset about things, they're going to have demonstrations that are going to turn violent...the certain level of violence is acceptable for the preservation of our national order."
— Jon Podhoretz [03:49]

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3. Historical Context and Comparison to Past Movements

Matthew Continetti draws parallels between current events and previous protest movements:

• Major Movements Discussed:
  • Anti-Globalization Movement: Began in Seattle at the tail end of the last century.
  • Anti-Iraq War Movement
  • George Floyd Protests
  • Omni Cause: Emerging around October 7, 2023, it appears to be evolving into anti-ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) actions in Los Angeles.

Continetti notes that, unlike the largely peaceful anti-war movement, the other protests have experienced significant violence, highlighting a shift in the nature of activism and its acceptance among mainstream liberals.

Notable Quote:

"And the inability of the left to stop, or rather the inability of mainstream liberals to stop it, is really striking."
— Matthew Continetti [07:22]

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4. Democratic Narrative on Law and Order

The discussion critiques the Democratic Party's handling of law enforcement and their narrative around protests:

• Selective Historical Understanding: Democrats draw on selective historical events to justify current stances, often downplaying or ignoring instances where their actions may have contributed to disorder.

• Blame on Trump Administration: There's a recurring theme where Democratic leaders blame the Trump administration for escalating situations, such as deploying the National Guard, thereby positioning themselves as upholders of peace and order.

Notable Quote:

"Critically, the public is behind deporting people who are here illegally... But enforcing federal law and having elected Democratic officials blatantly claim and hold themselves up as honorable for not allowing that enforcement."
— Christine Rosen [13:39]

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5. California's Longstanding Governance Issues

Continetti and Rosen highlight California's enduring challenges, attributing them to over-the-top liberal governance:

• Illegal Immigration: Described as a "30-year problem," California's sanctuary policies have allegedly led to increased violence and disorder.

• Wildfires and Rebuilding Efforts: Recent wildfires have devastated parts of Los Angeles, with minimal progress in rebuilding, exacerbating public frustration.

• Homelessness and Crime: Persistent issues in managing homelessness and rising crime rates further undermine the state's reputation as a progressive stronghold.

Notable Quote:

"California has had this issue for 30 plus years. There was a brief period...net zero illegal migration...since then it's continued."
— Matthew Continetti [29:19]

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6. The Role of Celebrity Activism and the Omni Cause

The podcast transitions to discuss the influence of celebrities like Greta Thunberg in political activism:

• Greta Thunberg’s Flotilla to Gaza: Thunberg and her group attempted to deliver aid to Gaza, only to be intercepted by Israeli forces. The episode criticizes her actions as misguided and lacking understanding of the complexities involved.

• Normalization of Political Violence: Rosen and Continetti argue that such celebrity-led initiatives contribute to the normalization of political violence, undermining legitimate forms of protest and exacerbating public resentment.

Notable Quote:

"Greta Thunberg has become the embodiment, the human embodiment of the leftist radical pathology."
— Abe Greenwald [46:06]

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7. Impact on the Democratic Party and Future Implications

The hosts express concern over the Democratic Party's trajectory:

• Erosion of Public Trust: By associating with or failing to curb violent protests, Democrats risk alienating centrist voters who prioritize law and order.

• Political Suicide Risk: Continuing the current path could lead to significant losses in elections, as voters may no longer support a party that appears to condone lawbreaking in pursuit of ideological goals.

Notable Quote:

"It is an act of political suicide for one of the two major parties in the United States."
— Jon Podhoretz [63:03]

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8. Law Enforcement and Executive Powers

Rosen emphasizes the necessity of enforcing law through the executive branch to maintain social order:

• Equal Application of the Law: Demonstrating that unlawful protests are met with appropriate legal consequences ensures citizens feel protected and that rules are applied uniformly.

• Emergency Powers Justification: The use of National Guard and other emergency measures is portrayed as essential to prevent vigilante justice and maintain civic coherence.

Notable Quote:

"Seeing that behavior punish with the full force of the law...breeds a sense of resentment about the fact that the rule of law is not applied equally."
— Christine Rosen [58:06]

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9. Conclusion and Final Remarks

In wrapping up, Podhoretz and Continetti reiterate the dangers of prioritizing ideological agendas over public safety and the rule of law. They warn of increasing public frustration leading to more extreme measures by ordinary citizens and potential backlash against the Democratic Party's current strategies.

Notable Quote:

"The Democratic Party...have become ideologically committed to the idea that law breaking is morally superior to law keeping."
— Matthew Continetti [63:04]

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10. Additional Discussions and Recommendations

Towards the episode's end, although primarily focused on advertisement segments, there are brief mentions of cultural figures and media, including a critique of Bono and praise for his daughter Eve Hewson's acting career, further underscoring the hosts' stance on celebrity influence in politics.

Notable Quote:

"I am about to disrecommend a work... Bono Stories of Surrender...it's just boring."
— Matthew Continetti [64:53]

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This episode of The Commentary Magazine Podcast presents a critical examination of contemporary political unrest, law enforcement responses, and the broader implications for the Democratic Party in the United States. Through detailed analysis and pointed critiques, the hosts argue that current liberal approaches to managing protests and upholding law and order may lead to significant political and social repercussions.

Transcript

[Jon Podhoretz]

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[Matthew Continetti]

Hope for the best, expect the wor.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Some preach and pain Some die of thirst no way of knowing which way.

[Christine Rosen]

It'S going Hope for the best, expect.

[Jon Podhoretz]

The worst welcome to the Commentary Magazine Daily Podcast. Today is Monday, June 9, 2025. I am Jon Pothoritz, the editor of Commentary Magazine. Please go to commentary.org and subscribe so that you can read the wonders and glories of our articles and blog posts. They're in there too. And almost 80 years of our archives featuring some of the greatest articles, short stories and works of the 20th and I would say the 21st centuries at your disposal. And as Matt Conley constantly reminds us, please go to our YouTube channel Commentary magazine Podcast and subscribe there like Also, this is very important to surfacing our podcast video podcast to the algorithm so that other people will be served it up and can enjoy it the way that you do. And if you're not even interested in that, you could go to Apple, to itunes and give us, as Rich Lowry would say, a glowing five star review. And if you don't like what you hear her, please forget that I said anything. That is my tribute to Rich Lowry's ordinary introduction to his podcast, Necessary Podcast. The Editors Our editors here are Executive Editor Abe Greenwald. Hi Abe.

[Abe Greenwald]

Hi John.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Former editor of the Washington Free Beacon, our current Washington Commentary columnist and Director of Domestic Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, Matthew Catanetti. Hi Matt.

[Matthew Continetti]

Hi John.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Former senior editor of the Weekly Standard and now our social commentary columnist and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. A Senior Fellow, big, big Cheese Fellow, Christine Rosen. Hi Christine.

[Christine Rosen]

Hi John.

[Jon Podhoretz]

I'm going to throw out a theory here. We're going to get to the scenes in LA over the weekend and the political fight that's going on over the Trump administration's decision, among other things, to announce the deployment of 2,000 National Guardsmen over the objections of the state's governor Gavin Newsom, to quell the disturbances in LA County. Which I should say, by the way, before I get much further, that LA county is a it's not the city of Los Angeles, Louisiana county is gigantic. It stretches 50 miles to the west and 30 miles south and north like it is, it's nine or 10 different jurisdictions. So when you sometimes hear, as you heard over the weekend, that, oh, no, L. A is peaceful, some of L. A is peaceful, but other parts of L A County, which is this geographical. I don't even know what you would call it, it's kind of like an empire.

[Matthew Continetti]

It's, though formation.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Yeah, it's no downtown L. A Big, you know, expanded out, you know, as an. As an empire to take over half of Southern California. Nonetheless, here's what I propose to you. When you hear Gavin Newsom, the governor, say, we have this under control, we have enough law enforcement people to control this, when you hear the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, saying, there was no reason for any of this, we can control this, when you hear congressmen, other people saying this, they mean it, by which I mean they are willing to accept, as part of our national compact and our constitution and everything like that, that when people get angry or upset about things, they're going to have demonstrations that are going to turn violent in spaces and that that is acceptable, that the certain level of violence is acceptable for the preservation of our national order, and that demonstrations and protests are so wonderful in their root and at their. In their marrow because they, they. They hearken back to the civil rights era, and they hearken back to the protests that helped turn the country against the Vietnam War. And they're just wonderful examples of the expression of the popular will, that they mean it when they say it's okay for people to set cars on fire, to throw incendiary devices at members of law enforcement, both local and federal, that it is okay to set cars on fire, that it is okay to shut down highways, that it is okay to trespass, it is okay to spray graffiti on buildings, and that this is something that has become an axiom in blue states across the country from the time of the George Floyd protests onwards. So I think we actually have here a genuine, what Tom Sowell would call a genuine conflict of visions about what it means to deal with law enforcement in the United States. And a lot of this is liberals thinking that if you don't like ice and you want to protest policies of the. Of the sitting administration relating to how it handles immigration, that if those demonstrations tip into violence, disorder and decay, that's a kind of tax that you gotta pay to be an American.

[Matthew Continetti]

Well, and you should resolve them through negotiation and dialogue and peacefully. You don't want any consequences for the people who engage in violence. That's the liberal mentality. We can resolve these differences peacefully. So you'll see Mayor Bass yesterday saying, keep, keep on holding to your anger, Angelenos. Keep. I know you're angry and frustrated at this horrible crime against humanity that Donald Trump is perpetrating by enforcing federal law, but just do it peacefully. Just do it peacefully. But if you do it, what she leaves out is if you do it violently, we're not really going to do anything about it. Right. I think that there's been four major protest movements this century. The first was the anti globalization movement beginning in Seattle, targeting, which began really.

[Jon Podhoretz]

At the tail, very tail end of the last century. But is was, you might say, major event of the 21st century, like the sign that the politics of the 21st century were going to be radically different from the politics of the 20th century.

[Matthew Continetti]

Right. Then there was the anti war movement, the anti Iraq war movement. Then there was the George Floyd protest, and now there's the, what we've been calling the Omni cause, after the writer Mary Harrington, kind of beginning after October 7, 2023. And now it seems to me to be folding into this anti ICE action that's taking place in Los Angeles. Of the four, only the anti war movement, I think, could be called a mass, mass movement. And as I recall, it never really collapsed into violence. But three of the four, all, all are violent. And the inability of the left to stop, or rather the inability of mainstream liberals to stop it, is really striking. And finally, also striking is the curlicue logic by which Donald Trump is responsible for everything. So Governor Newsom of California said yesterday things were fine until Donald Trump became and got involved. I don't think.

[Jon Podhoretz]

So.

[Matthew Continetti]

This all started because there was an ICE raid in a part of the Los Angeles county that is heavily Hispanic. And using social media, protesters came out and tried to stop the raid. They tried to stop the enforcement of the law, and they tried to stop this not by, you know, sit ins or by singing Kumbaya. It began by blocking cars, by violently attacking the ICE officers. And the police did not have control. And we know that the police, the lapd, did not have control because yesterday, at the beginning of the third day, so to speak, of this chaos, the LAPD sent out an alert saying, everybody, all hands on deck. We can't do this. That's precisely the moment you need the National Guard in order to prevent things from getting out of control and having an ICE building or a police precinct burned down, as was the case in Minneapolis in the summer of 2020.

[Jon Podhoretz]

It's worse than that. Just quickly. It's worse than that because the lapd, Friday night. Right. We're recording this Monday morning.

[Matthew Continetti]

Yeah.

[Jon Podhoretz]

So you're saying the LAPD chief said yesterday, this is totally out of control. We do not have control. Right. Friday night, all watches, all. All watches were kept on board. In other words, if your time was up, your eight hours were up, you were not allowed to go home. The entire LAPD was basically put on alert that they had to stay in place or do whatever it is that they were doing because it had gotten out of control on Friday. On. Not Sunday, not after three days. Sure. On the first day, the LAPD was saying, we're outmanned and not outgunned, but out rocked or out, whatever. And of course, we know that we're not going to be given the okay to, you know, like, get to mix it up. So we just need bodies. We need bodies. No one go home. And that's around the time that Bass and Newsom started in with this litany that, you know, this was a. This protest was honorable. And then Trump calls in the guard, and then it's all Trump's fault.

[Matthew Continetti]

I think it was Trump's. They were saying it was Trump's fault by sending ICE in, by having the.

[Christine Rosen]

Raid in the first place. This is an important point because the narrative construction in real time that's happening among Democratic leaders, the protest movement left, and the dominant media, which is obviously all on board ideologically with this, is so selective about understanding history and understanding criminality. Everyone in this country illegally has already broken the law. The purpose of these raids, according to the Trump administration, is actually to catch not just criminals, but people who have. Have feloniously re entered the country after having already been caught and released back over the border. That change, if you come back after you've already been here illegally and sent home, that the next time you're charged is going to be a higher charge, for obvious reasons. So they actually have these warrants. They're going into places and trying to recapture people who've already entered the country illegally more than once. And that's what the protests are about with the ICE folks. But the interesting thing here is that we saw this exact same narrative construction in real time during the George Floyd riots. People, media standing there saying, the real problem are the people responding to the law breaking, and we cannot and we won't. I think this will be a very interesting test for these Democratic leaders. People aren't buying that anymore. They're seeing these waymo you know, driverless cars called to the scene and torched. They're seeing Mexican and Palestinian flags waved while people burn and spit on the American flag. Those are images that they can find instantaneously on social media. And then they hear Gavin Newsom preening and saying, oh, you know, the real problem is the. That you're responding to these accidents of violence. Nobody's buying it. And I think that's an important shift from the George Floyd era, as well as the fact that the public is behind deporting people who are here illegally. Now, most people are focused. They want to see the criminal element removed first. That is what the Trump administration has been focusing on and doing well with. But they also want to see repeat offenders who keep coming across our border illegally punished. I do think the rhetoric coming from people like Stephen Miller in the White House is not helpful. One thing they could also point out is how they're going to punish employers who are illegally hiring these people, knowingly hiring folks. There's another, a bunch of ways, rhetorically, that they could respond slightly differently. But enforcing federal law and having elected Democratic officials blatantly claim and hold themselves up as honorable for not allowing that enforcement. The American people don't. They are not on the side of this argument from the left.

[Abe Greenwald]

Yeah. This kind of feels to me like a bit of a sort of the Trump administration getting a redo of 2020. You know, during the George Floyd riots, it was scandalous to suggest in print that the National Guard should be sent in anywhere.

[Matthew Continetti]

Right.

[Abe Greenwald]

Today, the administration does it. And I think Trump knows that there was something off in the way his administration responded to the chaos in 2020. He said constantly, I am your law and order president or something very literal like that. And, you know, but the administration actually never did anything to rein in the chaos. And we just saw it grow and grow and grow and grow, ebb and flow over the intervening years. And I think this is really about kind of rolling back the idea that mass violence is part of the cost of doing business in a democracy.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Look, I think that is a brilliant point because it's not just Minneapolis. Right. It's not just Lafayette park, which was the subject of Tom Cotton's famous op ed about calling in the National Guard that led, among other things, to the creation of the free press and the destruction of the reputation of the New York Times editorial page and maybe the New York Times reputation as a news gathering institution altogether. But it wasn't just Minneapolis. It was, of course, Seattle. It was CHOP in Seattle. You remember this zone In a city that was taken over by.

[Christine Rosen]

That was the summer of love, John, remember?

[Jon Podhoretz]

Right, yeah. In 2020, Seattle, Portland now.

[Matthew Continetti]

And they'd have nightly fights between Antifa and the federal agents in like a government building. And there again the mayor of Portland was saying it was Trump's fault for trying to protect the federal property.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Right. So I think we then the reason this is a do over is that the consensus, and it wasn't just a consensus on the, you know, on the left, but kind of in the world of what do you do in these unprecedented situations is may like controlled forest fires, like maybe the best thing to do is to do nothing that you don't know what the consequences will be if you say deploy the National Guard in an incendiary situation. History of deploying the National Guard during the Vietnam War was of course off, was at moments tragic, led to tragic conflicts that were, you know, that created mythoses about the evils of the federal government and its behavior and the essentially the demonization of these poor 1920 year old kids who were just National Guardsmen and had to were turned into law enforcement officers when that was not, you know, what they had signed up for. All of that is a real thing. And it was a real thing in 2020. And now after 2020, you know, sorry, we saw what happened when we didn't do it and we didn't do it despite the accusations against us that we were monstrous and irresponsible, in fact we were responsible. We did what the experts said was the wiser course in the middle of a pandemic and everything being so crazy and it was a failure. And though obviously Democrats were more on the side of the protesters than they were of ordinary people. And we, the Trump people were more on the side of ordinary people than the protesters could really run as the guy who stopped the madness in America in 2020 because he didn't do it. Now stopping this madness is elemental to his success as president.

[Christine Rosen]

Well, look, the normalization of political violence on the left, which is a constant theme in our conversation is an important one, is this is playing out again. But there's been way too much normalization of political violence on the right as well. And one of the, one of the distractions we're seeing in the discussion today about the National Guard is, well, why didn't Trump call them out on January six? So this is. So a lot of his moral high ground was eroded by his behavior on January6. It's just, it's just the case because calling for the National Guard in one case, but not the other when it was asked for. And that's actually another important point. One of the things that people are picking over is the fact that Newsom didn't request it. And this is unusual for a president to send troops in without the request of the local officials. But in this case, the local officials have already publicly stated multiple times over that they're happy to violate federal law and to prevent federal officers from doing their job. So I do think that, that, that again, that there's a lot of harking back to the civil rights era by Democrats. I don't think they're actually proving the point that they think they are in doing that.

[Jon Podhoretz]

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[Matthew Continetti]

They'Re on the other side. Exactly. In fact, in Governor Newsom's statement, he says that Trump's decision to take over command of the California National Guard, as is Trump's right, violated state sovereignty. State sovereignty. State sovereignty, which was the calling card of the anti civil rights Democrats during, during this, during the 50s and 60s 50s is when Eisenhower brought in the National Guard to integrate the Central High School in Little Rock. So a couple things about 2020. First, John, as you mentioned, the pandemic played a huge, huge role yesterday. Some of the protesters blocked I think the 101 one of the major highways in LA and you could see the traffic. And when finally authorities removed the protesters, people were cheering in their cars. In the summer 2020, there wasn't much traffic. People were home. I think that led to a certain detachment from what was going on. I mean, I recall looking at what was happening in the chopped autonomous zone in Seattle almost with bemusement because it was so strange. And of course we were all in our houses or just going out to parks. And the staggering hypocrisy that the only legitimate form of social contact was protest and or violent protest I think was hitting home. And the second thing on 2020 is it's true that Trump is, I think, correcting from what the mistakes he made in waiting too long to assert federal control over the disorder. But the riots still helped him. We that was of course the subject of the left wing data analyst David Shore's famous paper that got him fired from his left wing institution, that he showed that whenever there is widespread social disorder, the right benefits and even Trump's position that he took against the riots throughout the summer of 2020 I think helped him win more votes in 2020 than he got in 2016.

[Jon Podhoretz]

For example, the successful arguments I think now Christine said The American people aren't going to buy it. We'll see. You know, we don't really know where this is all going to land over the long run. But to me, it seems to me that the successful arguments that are being made about Trump's enforcement in the second term of immigration law or, you know, emergency powers used to do things, is that he is not following the law, that the plane flights, that the, you know, the detentions of people mistakenly who are then not returned to the United States. And we can talk about that in a minute about the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States, all of that, there's some bite and some punch to the idea that he is going around the limits that a president is bound by to get his way. And so he's behaving lawlessly in some fashion, and that this is unnerving to people of goodwill who think he's going too far. And so a lot of polling suggests that people think they support the Ames generally, but think he might be going too far here or there or the other place. This is exactly the reverse. Going after people who are in the country illegally, using the border, immigration enforcement officers whose job it is to do just this, and then claiming that that is lawless and that defending them and protecting them is. I don't know what it is. It's God's law. It's sort of the law of kindness and, you know, good spirit or something like that. That argument is just not going to hold if you, and it means that you then have to extrapolate, go down the road and say ICE is the Gestapo.

[Matthew Continetti]

Well, they're doing that.

[Jon Podhoretz]

I don't think they are doing that. That is where. And so if we're talking about political consequences over time, I'm now going to go back to the 60s and 70s when liberals in the left bought into the argument that police officers and American military personnel in Southeast Asia were criminals, that they were using extra legal means to detain people and they weren't Mirandizing them properly, and they were committing ghastly war crimes in the jungles of Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia, and that ordinary people looked at this and were repulsed by the fact that these working class people who sign up to protect everybody or who were drafted out of their high schools to go and fight for their country are being abused, character assassinated and accused of vicious monstrosity by these long hair, you know, rich limousine liberal monsters. And that is the. This is the tipping point for the Democratic Party in 2025. If Trump can make the. If their behavior allows Trump to make the case that the Democratic Party cannot be trusted because they are on the side, they are on the side of lawbreakers and on the side of disorder and that they are fomenting disorder in pursuit of their ideological agenda, he is going to solidify that argument in the minds of voters who don't otherwise care that or aren't thinking about this.

[Christine Rosen]

And this is where I think he risks making a strategic and rhetorical mistake. I support his enforcement of immigration law, but to reach those voters, not the ones who are already like loving the rhetoric about migrant invasion that he puts on Truth Social, but for those voters, the ones who gave him this last election, the message to them is, you might not like how we're having to clean up this mess, but the mess was created by the Biden administration deliberately flouting its responsibility to control our border. It allowed everyone in, it lied about it. It has not tracked the people it let in. It's a security risk to our country. Some of these people were on the, on the terrorist watch list. So saying that over and over again, that's what the normie voter is supporting him on. Because they look around, they go, you know, yeah, they're or saying if you want to be a sanctuary city, fine. Every, all the migrants go to the sanctuary cities. And you figure out economically how to support all these people who are in the country illegally. I mean, there are lots of ways to do it without talking about migrant invasion. That's the rhetoric of the very strong anti immigration right that doesn't want to see anyone here from another country. And that is also not a feasible position for most people.

[Matthew Continetti]

I think that California's problem has been in the making long before Joe Biden and it's California.

[Christine Rosen]

This is like a 30 year problem.

[Matthew Continetti]

30 year problem of illegal immigration. And it's just one of California's problems. So the first thing I'd like to say is about California. I mean, it is kind of proud. The, the Democratic political establishment, which is essentially a monoculture since Arnold Schwarzenegger shifted left after the 2006 election, is very proud of itself for being the standard bearer of progressivism in the United States. But look at the state of the California Republic. You have this violence over the weekend. You have a city that's clearly not controlled by the political authorities there. The fact that you have this huge population of illegal immigrants who are waving Mexican flags as they try to interrupt ICE actions and that's a failure of government. And it comes after just six months, after These terrible wildfires which burned much of the city down, the city of Los Angeles down. And has the rebuilding started? Is it back to where we want it to be?

[Christine Rosen]

There have been five permits issued, Matt. Come on.

[Matthew Continetti]

Exactly. So there's not only the failure of the political authorities in California to prevent and, or stop the forest fires from taking exacting such a toll, but also the failure to actually rebuild correctly. Then on top of that, you have just kind of the state of the state where it's been bleeding out citizens, residents for decades now because of its over the top liberal governance. I mean, this, this is the problem child of the United States. It's not something to be proud of. And when you read Kamala Harris's statement where the Democratic nominee for President in 2024 says that unequivocally that what Trump is doing here in trying to enforce immigration law is, is evil, borderline evil. And because she stands with our immigrant neighbors, you know, I'm not, I guess that means illegal immigrants as well. Again, making no distinction between citizens and non citizens or various levels of residency in the United States. I think it's a marginalization of the Democratic Party that we've been seeing playing out. And that leads to my other point I wanted to make, which is, you know, I, I, as people know, I love reading old magazines. And when I was studying journalism, as, while working in journalism, I would read the back issues of the great American Spectator magazine. And in the 70s and 80s, the American Spectator had a section called they still have it, but they had a section called Current Wisdom, which was hilarious quotes from left wing activists or Democratic politicians showing how out of touch they were. You could fill an entire Current Wisdom on some of the stuff that liberals and the left have been saying over the past 72 hours. The idea that what Donald Trump did over the weekend is a rehearsal for canceling the midterm elections next year. The, the, the logic that enforcing the law and trying to prevent civil unrest is authoritarianism. That's authoritarianism. The prediction that Trump is going to use this federalism fight to become a dictator. The, the mostly peaceful canard, which you see again and again as these masked protesters waving Mexican flags or Palestinian flags, throw cinder blocks, had cops from highway overpasses and use potentially lethal fireworks. We are seeing the loony left in its fullness. And this is, this is a problem not just for the Democratic Party. It's a problem for the country.

[Abe Greenwald]

You know, like, I just was like, I think what makes the left, what drives them so crazy is that, you know, they're all, they are so hyper focused on rhetoric, message, what language to use, how do we talk to get our point across to the American people? We just need to shape the message the right way. And then in Trump, you have almost the inverse, which is like we're going to say whatever. We're just going to say whatever we want. The message comes across in action and the voters or the American people have sort of learned to kind of disregard the message, the spoken Trump message, and wait for the action and then sort of assess it on that. Assess, assess Trump on that basis. And that's just like, that is just maddening for the other side because he sort of slides, you know, he sort of gets. He sort of messages without paying any attention to messaging. And it works.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Donald Trump in 2024 got 45% of the Hispanic vote watching not only the politicians in California, but the politicians in New York and New Jersey both, who both places having substantial Hispanic populations and have primaries coming up in the next couple of weeks. You would imagine that they still believe that Democrats get 70% of the Hispanic vote and that they are going to solidify returns at the polling place to them by siding with the illegals. And I think this is not only is it insulting, since voters by definition are citizens of the United States, and if they are themselves immigrants, it means that they have gone through the laborious process to become citizens of the United States, including the laborious process of entering the country legally, not just getting citizenship through an amnesty or something, but coming here legally, following the rules, getting a green card, finally becoming citizens. And this argument that is being made that there is no distinction to be made between them and people who are here illegally, who are trying either to jump the line or who are not committing themselves to the United States, but are here sending remittances home and have no role or stake in the American national experiment is an act of partisan suicide in the long term. It would be as though you said to me in 1972 that, you know, I stand because Mayor Kahana, running a vigilante group in Brooklyn, was breaking the law. You should support Mayor that, you know, politicians should support Mayor Kahana because he's there for the Jews. So all Jews are like Mayor Kahana. All. You know, this is an insult to extrapolate from a political controversy involving one part of a group to the law abiding vast majority of law abiding people who just want to get on with their lives and who might even harbor a certain higher level of resentment toward the lawbreakers. Then, you Know, the white supremacists do. Who is it worse for if the 101 is shut down? Is it worse for a, you know, Hollywood movie producer who's trying to drive his kid to a, you know, to an away baseball game or to a, you know, domestic worker who's got to get to her job or to some, a factory worker who's got to get to his factory or a guy who runs a push, you know, a food, food court cart who's got to get to position his food cart on his corner. All these kinds of things when you privilege crime over order or over citizenry, fall heavily, most heavily, on the people who have the least resources to combat the effects of the crime. Right. It's if you don't, you don't. You don't do something about crime in the worst neighborhoods. The people who suffer aren't the people on the Upper east side of Manhattan. They're the people who live next door to the criminals. And this is how the Democratic Party lost the American center for Remember, Lyndon Johnson was the last American president to call himself a liberal until 2008. It was 44 years from Johnson's election in 64 to Obama saying, yes, I'm a liberal in 2008. Now, Democrats controlled House, controlled the Senate, whatever there were, you know, this, this wasn't a. But when Americans got together to vote in a plebiscite nationally about who should run the country, there were land. There was landslide after landslide after landslide for law and order Republicans until a conservative Democrat came in and said, I'm actually so conservative that I'm going to put a retarded man to death so that I can win your vote. A man with an 80. I'm sorry, you're not allowed to use the word retarded anymore. A mentally disabled man who thought he could save his dessert for after his execution. I'm putting him to death so I can show you how serious I am about this. Not a liberal. Right. So they don't look at history and see where they're walking down a path to, with, with a, with a president. They should be able, given his irresponsibility and recklessness and other issues, they should be able to contest. And best. They are walking into his buzzsaw. They are ceding the idea of what it means to live an ordinary life as an American to him and his party because they have become ideologically committed to the idea that law breaking is morally superior to law keeping.

[Matthew Continetti]

Yeah. And that citizenry has no meaning. Right.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Well, that is the ultimate Right.

[Matthew Continetti]

I mean this, there's no meaning. Come over, come over the borders doesn't, the border doesn't matter. California has had this issue for 30 plus years. There was a brief period between the end of the, between the financial crisis in 2008 and the first migrant crisis in 2014, where there was actually net zero illegal migration in the United States. But since then it's continued. And like I left out other crises California's had. This is the same. I don't understand why I am supposed to take moral guidance from Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, who in addition to letting her, you know, 30% or whatever of her city burned down just six months ago, has been unable to deal with the homeless, homelessness crisis that is raging in Los Angeles, has been unable to deal with the crime in Los Angeles that's been terrible since 2020. Why? Why is she a moral authority? It raises the question, John, that you discussed about who are they talking to? I think they're just talking to themselves. I really do. I think that's what liberals do is just try to police the boundaries of language amongst themselves and then every so often they're able to bully the rest of us into following it.

[Christine Rosen]

But there's also, there is another group that they are, they see themselves as part of. And I think you're right, Matt, talk with amongst the group, but they, but, but apply its lessons to everyone in a way that, John, you're right to say is going to be political suicide. Do you remember in the 90s, the same time that you started seeing the rise of more conservative Democratic politicians like Bill Clinton, you also saw the rise of language about global citizens and about an NGOs. The real increase in funding for NGOs. A lot of what we're seeing play out now is also the long thread of these NGOs that don't just provide funding and money to more radical extremists, smaller groups in a trickle down way, but also provide a kind of parasocial sense of identity for a lot of young people. Now that's where the Omni cause thing comes from. It's like our world is terrible, the United States is terrible. So we can attach ourselves to these causes and it doesn't matter. They can shift from being pro Palestinian, anti Israel to, you know, pro climate change, you know, stuff. And they, they all have the same tactics though, which is to block the one on one to set things on fire or in the case of, you know, our international NGO celebrity, Greta Thunberg, to sail and, you know, pass a Blockade there is that has grown alongside a Democratic party in the United States that has tried to occasionally assert its more thoughtful acknowledgment of voters views.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Well, why don't we move on to Greta Thunberg and her flotilla of liberation. The flotilla of liberation coming to Gaza to go to Gaza. I mean, I don't even know what their plan was. When they got off the ship they.

[Matthew Continetti]

Said they were going to bring food.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Oh yes, they were bringing food. Because it's not as though the Israelis, this group, this food organization that Israel has set up with American contractors has not been distributing more than a million meals a day for a week. Unless Hamas gets in the way and makes it impossible for them to do so, as happened the other day, literally a million meals a day are being distributed under Israel's aegis to the enemy population of the country, with the country, whatever the territory at which they are at war in a historically unprecedented act and event in world planetary history. It's working, it's happening. But thank thankfully Greta Thunberg and other people on this boat, they love to send boats to Israel, right? There was this famous flotilla boats in 2011 led by the Mavi Marmara coming from Turkey to also do something to help Gaza or whatever. So what happened? So the boat came closer and closer and closer and then finally when it was sort of like getting a little close, so basically the Israelis boarded the boat, you know, said hi, here's some water, here's a sandwich. We're just going to tug you in and maybe we'll help to make, you know, some provision for your return back home. We're not arresting you, we're not doing anything. We're just, you know, this is the war zone and you know, you really can't come into a war zone like that. Greta Thunberg then, you know, smiling, ate her sandwich, drank her water. So since they were, and then said she had been kidnapped. Which to speak of the insensitivity of the use of a single word involving the trigger of the conflict that she was deciding she could interpose herself in when there are 23 people in those tunnels who are probably very near death and bodies of another, I don't know, 59 more who are sitting, who are there awaiting proper burial shows how the Omni causes supposed large hearted understanding of what it means to be human, gives way to the genuinely despicable moral ugliness at the root and center of their mission.

[Abe Greenwald]

Greta Thunberg has become the embodiment, the human embodiment of the leftist radical pathology. She, she, it's all right there in her. Every time she appears, she seems off. I mean, in terms of her mental or emotional state, she is desperate for attention. She is completely ignorant and she is hysterical and childish. The fact that she remains this permanent child is like the per. Is the, is the perfect emblem. It makes her the perfect representative of the Omni cause in this way. And talk about what I think is a net negative for the left, I think she's out there. Her being the Radical's global ambassador is, I think, gonna be something that people will look back at and laugh at or if you're on the other side, regret.

[Jon Podhoretz]

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[Matthew Continetti]

Applying the other symbol is Luigi Mangione. And there you kind of have the two halves. I mean, the violent psychopath side and then the kind of just performative, hysterical side. Thunberg showed up about a decade ago with her hysterical proclamations of impending global apocalypse.

[Jon Podhoretz]

And so she's 13 years old.

[Matthew Continetti]

She was 13. She became the symbol of the Green New deal. And after October 2023, she shifted into anti Semitic, pro Hamas protest. I think it's time to take her away her kid card. She's 22 years old, so she's been a legal adult now for four years. So again, this type of moral blackmail that I think the left tries to commit against everyday people can't be justified, can't be tolerated, and especially not with her anymore. I remember when she first showed up on the scene. The Washington Free Beacon ran a piece critical of her and also her speaking style. And we received a scornful email, a lecturing email from a very prominent reporter in the United States saying, how dare we go after Greta Thunberg, because after all, she's on the spectrum. Hence, we cannot criticize Greta Thunberg, and she's a child. Well, I won't identify the reporter, but I will say, sorry, lady, no more. It's 2025. I can say whatever I want about Greta Thunberg. She's 22 years old. She's like a menacing joke. And I'm not going to submit to the scolds any longer.

[Abe Greenwald]

But, you know, very quickly, that's another important aspect of what she embodies, which is the victim as well.

[Matthew Continetti]

Right?

[Jon Podhoretz]

Yeah.

[Christine Rosen]

Yes. Well, and it's interesting. There have been a few signs in this most recent couple of days of people on the left acknowledge or saying the quiet part out loud about what they see happening, the extremism of it. So you've seen a couple people say, either on social media or in statements, you know, let's not burn things down. Let's remain peaceful. Like, don't chuck rocks at the federal officers. Let's show them that this is a peaceful movement. And just like Luigi Mengioni showed them, the logical consequence of their rhetoric, that's not possible. It's actually that genie's been out of the bottle in part because as we were talking about earlier, since 2020 and since the lack of a crackdown on attacks on federal office buildings and federal officers, there is no, they don't see any sort of risk in doing this. And in fact, they get a lot of positive attention from the more extreme activist groups for doing what they're doing. They believe they're on the right side of history. And history is important here because a lot of the, what Abe was saying earlier about the kind of careful use of words and oh, the harking back to, you know, oh, this is just what Hitler would do or this is what, you know, this other terrible historical figure would do. The very careful selective amnesia about history here is important. And the Democrats are the one practicing that. Trump doesn't care about history at all. Like he, you know, he has his, he wants to do his Garden of Heroes, but basically he is not someone who's historically minded. The Democrats want to see themselves as being on the right side of history and yet they're very selective about what they choose. What's her name? Heather Cox Richardson, who has this very, she's a historian who has this very popular newsletter. If you read, as I have done, how she portrays this for her many, many, many readers, that's exactly what she does. She very carefully selects data points that make it look as if this is a long, slow march toward authoritarianism rather than showing the complicated back and forth, forth of what Democrats have done in terms of immigration policy, what the state of California, as Matt said, has done with regard to everything. It's all very selective, but it creates a very self reinforcing narrative for them.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Look, as a, as a propaganda tool, even as a self propaganda tool, Greta Thunberg a decade ago was extraordinarily effective for a very simple reason. First of all, the cause was global warming. And global warming is an arguable phenomenon. I am skeptical of it. But obviously this has been a matter of major discussion. There is scientific evidence for it, but whatever you want to describe, you know, 150 nations believe it's happening or setting policies to combat it. And she came along as the embodiment of this argument that I am a kid, you are the, I am one, a representative of the, of the people that you are bequeathing this world to. And you might be bequeathing to me a lifeless shell of fire. And so I am standing here as a renewed version of Joan of Arc to say save this planet for people like me. Now that's a very emotionally resonant argument for a lot of people. And it has the advantage of having some kind of a pseudo scientific polish to it. When she moves on from that to the Omni cause, she's just a kid opening up her rotten little mouth about things she doesn't understand about Gaza and Jews and Israel and starvation and genocide and. Has she read a book? We have no idea. She's clearly never really been to school. She's been an international celebrity her whole life. There's no one on earth who needs to get a lecture from Grant Thunberg on what's going on in Gaza. She doesn't know what's going on in Gaza. She couldn't have found Gaza on a map until a year ago if even she could find Gaza on a map now. And so this idea that you just get famous and then you can open up your mouth and talk about things that you. This is celebrity culture at its. At its finest. You know, it's like when you're, you know, Meryl Streep. So you could start talking about the evils of Alar or something like that because you're Meryl Streep. She has no standing in this matter. She has no knowledge. She is just somebody who was famous for something else who has now adopted this. And that is the Omni causes strength. And it's like terrifying downfall weakness for the people who support it, which is that since everything is the same as everything else, you know, the, the people who. It's just like, oh, I saw you at the Palestine rally and now you're going to be at the ICE rally. And then you're going to be at the other thing. You're just an extra. You're all just extras in, in a. You know, in The Cecil B. DeMille Battle of the left to show. Never before in human history have we seen so many people how to protest so much. And the, the effect of it over time is to wear it back and to make people go, oh, no, not again. Not another highway being shut down. And you shut down my highway over October 7th, now you're shutting down my highway over ice the next time you try to shut down my highway. And I got road rage because I've been in this for three hours. I'm gonna take my car and run you down. I mean, that's the other thing that is gonna start happening, which is that ordinary people are going to start taking extra legal measures of their own because their lives are being interfered with constantly by this, you know, sort of like this itinerant army of anti western, anti American, anti ordinary life haters. And yes, they are going to encourage activity against them.

[Christine Rosen]

Well, and this is actually, this is important because actually most people aren't interfered with by These activists, if you live in a blue city or blue state, you might. I've encountered some of them. Obviously they've shut down roads around Washington off and on over the years. But what's important is seeing that behavior punished with the full force of the law. And that's what average people who see a little clip on social media or on local news or, you know, cable news, they look at that and they go, well, that's, that's wrong. Like they shouldn't block a highway. That's bad. But what happens to those people? Absolutely nothing. And that over and over again has bred a sense of resentment about the fact that the rule of law is not applied equally to people who do things like that, because their causes viewed as just by the prosecutor in LA or New York or wherever, and their own behavior, which if they did that, they knew they'd be swept up, arrested and prosecuted. So that sense of a two tier system of justice is exactly why we do have allowable emergency powers that the executive can enforce, including if they're a governor or a president calling in the National Guard. That's to stop the kind of retributive, you know, vigilante style of justice. It's why George Bush brought in the Guard after the Rodney King verdict. I mean, these are, or, you know, sent them at the request of California, but those are, that's what's important because I might not be affected in my daily life, but seeing that behavior, just like seeing lots of people shoplift without prosecution, it wears down people's civic sense of coherence and their sense of connection to their fellow citizens. And it's bad, it's just really bad for social order to see that over and over again.

[Jon Podhoretz]

The line involving free speech. When the understanding of free speech got expanded from the early 1960s onward so that censorship laws fell by the wayside and you know, Lenny Bruce once probably would never have been prosecuted and books were no longer banned and all of that. And then also, you know, political marches of a noxious order, the most notorious being the Nazi party march through Skokie, Illinois. The community with the largest percentage of Holocaust survivors living in the United States was the. The argument of the First Amendment absolutists was, I may despise what it is you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it, because your right to say that has a connection to my right to say what I want to say. So I am not morally in favor of your views. Your views are disgusting. But our Constitution says you should be Able to say what you have to say or assemble in the way that you have to assemble. The oddity of what's happened in those years since, by the way, peaceful assembly. That was disingenuous. A lot of that I defend to the death. You're right. That was because it was an effective line. It was kind of hard to argue with. Right. You disgust me. But you have a right to say what you have to say. Sort of like what you would say in an ordinary conversation with somebody in a living room instead of like throwing a chair at their head at a cocktail party when. When things got heated. Okay, now we have your views. I support your views and will defend to the death your right to say them. Like I, you. You know what? You go out, you shut down the one, you go ahead and burn a car. Go ahead. Not only do you have the right to say it, it's Trump's right, your right to do it.

[Matthew Continetti]

Trump made you burn that way. Mo.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Yeah, I mean there's this one quote I think I have to read out because it is the perfect encapsulation. Cuz it's not from an activist, it's not from a politician. It's from a news anchor in LA on ABC7 and I had it here and then I.

[Matthew Continetti]

You tweeted it to us.

[Jon Podhoretz]

I did. So I'm going to find it.

[Christine Rosen]

Also, can I just say, for those of us who are freaked out by Waymo, it was a very. I was so conflicted watching those cars burn.

[Matthew Continetti]

Because you should be pro Waymo. And this is why. Because the Waymo, you know, first they'll come for the Waymos. Christine.

[Christine Rosen]

I mean, it was bad. I do not support what they did, but yes.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Okay, so this is the anchor of ABC LA Channel 7. It could turn very volatile if you move law enforcement in there the wrong way and turn what is just a bunch of people having fun watching cars burn into a massive confrontation and altercation there. According to the anchor of the local newscast and the second largest city in America, it is acceptable for people to just be having fun watching cars burn. The fact that they're watching cars burn, an act of vandalism and massive property damage in the hundreds of dangerous fire risk.

[Christine Rosen]

Can we just add the fire risk?

[Jon Podhoretz]

Yes. So the problem here is that law enforcement is going to cause a massive confrontation and altercation with people who are just standing there, literally. What is the phrase watching. What is the phrase from. From the Dark Knight. They just want to watch the world burn. Yeah, they want to watch. And that is what is now fire to the world.

[Matthew Continetti]

I mean, you know, but that is.

[Jon Podhoretz]

What, that is the logical end argument from where I began talking on this podcast, which is that it is the idea that there is something morally elevating about committing crimes in pursuit of a common leftist ideological agenda that is, I think in the long run, an act of political suicide for one of the two major parties in the United States. And, and it's terrifying because tens of millions of people vote Democratic. Like, you know, I don't like that. This is where, you know, the governor of the largest state in the country, the governor of the, of the fourth largest state in the country, that's New York, kind of also implicitly echoes this idea that ICE has no right to enforce federal immigration law in her state because she doesn't want to anger interest groups interstate, that kind of thing. Like, this is not, this is horrible for our good public order horrible. It's a delegitimization of law by people who are sworn officials sworn to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America and all laws sworn and all, you know, and all matters foreign and domestic involving public safety. So that's where we are right now. Matt, I believe you. You are, you are taking, you are, you are pulling a card I don't know that you've ever actually pulled before. You are more of an enthusiast in the recommending game, but you are actually going to do what I do occasionally and actively disrecommend a work.

[Matthew Continetti]

I am about to disrecommend a work, John. Interestingly enough, it relates to what you were talking about regarding celebrity culture just a moment ago. Over the weekend, I took about an hour and a half of my time to watch a new documentary on Apple TV plus called Bono Stories of Surrender. This is a filmed staging of the one man show that Bono, the lead singer of rock band U2, performed when his memoir Surrender came out a couple years ago. And I watched it because like many people who were born in the 80s, grew up in the 90s and before, if you grew up in the 80s altogether. I'm a fan of U2. Really like U2 really kind of between the period of their first album Boy and the album they put out around, gosh, I think over 10 years ago now, 15 years ago, called no Line on the Horizon. But in between those two periods, I really am big YouTube fan and I was able to kind of countenance the political activity commentary of Bono. So I wanted to see him sing some of his songs. Well, he doesn't really Sing the songs and that's why I'm just recommending it. You hear a few pieces of the songs that we all like. If you're a YouTune fan, you know, New Year's Day, Streets with no Name and so forth. Even some early songs. Electrico, one of my favorites. But really, you know, it's. It's an unending monologue by Bono, who is over dramatic, has an ego the size of Jupiter and just is boring actually telling some. Also it's kind of weird that you'd think there'd be an interesting life he's led, but actually, no, I mean he's mixed up. He's mixed up in of course, Irish politics, which are fascinating on their own. And he has views on that. And. Okay. And then he had. He had a, you know, very. It seems complicated and even antagonistic relationship with his father. But at the same time it's never clear what the disagreements necessarily were over. I guess it was his choice of career to become basically a punk rocker who then becomes a global megastar. I just don't get it. He spends 20 minutes talking about Pavarotti and you know, I like Pavarotti too, but there's no drama there. So I have to do it. I have to disrecommend this documentary. Don't watch it. Bono Stories of Surrender. If you like YouTube, just listen to the old albums.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Very quickly though, if I could make a pitch for other Nepo babies, I would like to say that Bono's daughter, whose name is Eve Hewson, who is an actress, one of the co stars of the wonderful Apple series Bad Sisters, which is about. Which is her murder mystery involving a family of sisters, one of whose husbands seems to die of natural causes. But an insurance adjuster is sure that he's died of unnatural causes, which in fact he has. And she is enchanting in it. She is an absolutely delightful actress. You would never know she was much. Doesn't look like Bono. Her name does. Is not, you know, Eve Bono. And. And I just think she is the. She is the cat's pajamas. And I would be remiss if I did not mention. I have to say, and I hope you will excuse me, not only Nepo babying but also like giving a shout out to my dear friend. The movie producer Antony Bregman produced a movie in which she starred called Flora and Son, I believe, also available on Apple tv, about a teenage mother of a teenage son and how she becomes a.

[Christine Rosen]

Guitar lessons. Isn't that.

[Jon Podhoretz]

And becomes like a. Becomes a singer Joseph Gordon Levitt's in that.

[Christine Rosen]

It's cute. It's a good movie.

[Jon Podhoretz]

It's a wonderful movie. And she is wonderful. So we are trashing Bono today, which is fine with me, but Eve Hewson is well worth your. Well worth your time. So we will be back tomorrow for Christine, Matt and Abram John Paurtz. Keep the candle bur.