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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today is Friday, Friday, January 3, 2026. I'm Jon Pod Horowitz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.
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B
Hi, John.
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A
Washington Free Beacon editor Eliana Johnson. Hi, Eliana.
- [00:39]
C
Hi, John.
- [00:40]
A
And joining us today, Eliana's old podcast co host. And when I say old, I don't mean old. I mean former.
- [00:47]
D
Both can be true.
- [00:48]
A
Both can be true. And old, though you are not old, you are a young man. And the host of the Hill on Sunday and a columnist for the Hill and a columnist for the Dispatch, it is Chris Stahwalt. Chris, welcome back to the Commentary Podcast.
- [01:03]
D
Happy Snowmageddon, Eve.
- [01:05]
A
Yes, brother and sister, the amount of conversation that one is now obliged to have about the weather before weather happens. I don't think Mark Twain ever had that in his predictive bag of tricks because now we're talking about the weather as though the weather is determinable.
- [01:23]
D
And so for me, I see politics. I liken what I do to the weatherman. And a long time ago in news, the weather was like, I don't know, it's the wacky weekend weather. There's a guy over here who says that he knows something based on, you know, owl droppings and the Old Farmer's Almanac, that he thinks he can tell us something about what's going on. And the more data that became available in weather did not increase the amount of surety that news consumers have about the weather. Right. So the thought was that the data would go up and people would have more confidence in the weather. But the profusion of new data of D. Doppler imaging, blah, blah, blah, blah, the European model, the da da, da, it actually ended up decreasing. And there's a great story about the guy who's the number one tornado dude in Alabama, where being a tornado dude is consequential. He wrote about his experience of the better and better and more accurate the forecasting got, the less confidence people were having in him and he couldn't explain it. And I can explain it from the political point of view, which is the narrative that people want to impose on the story. They're going to impose on the story. Throwing more data at that does not make them say, well, you must know everything. It makes them say, well, I'll figure it out. What are you talking about?
- [02:52]
B
Also, it's really scrambling messaging. If you work in the news and are dealing with this storm because, you know, have to, I can't put out my ice out Sign.
- [03:02]
A
Fair enough. No, I mean, look, the other way of looking at it is that is that people are defaulting to this subject because it is so impossible to talk about anything that does not immediately get insanely political. And obviously, the weather does get insanely political because of global warming and things like that. Simple fact is that this remains one of the few pieces of news that really does have a direct effect on, like, people's daily lives as it's coming. And so therefore, I guess it's understandable. It's just like, you know, enough already. Like, Zoram Hamdani has already called off school in New York on Monday. We don't know what's happening. Yes, the forecasts are saying we're going to have eight inches. But, you know, like, really, like, you can wait until Sunday, nothing. It's not going to kill you to wait until Sunday just to make sure that things don't pass by. But, you know, he wants to make sure, as is the truth of all New York mayoralties, that you can, you know, you could solve the affordability crisis, but if you don't shovel the snow, you are going to be in big trouble now. Also, I just want to point out that we have been having conversations now for a year and, and accelerating conversations over the past two or three months about the job of the chairman of the Federal Reserve. Obviously, a big news a couple weeks ago when Acting D.C. u.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro began doing a federal investigation into the Fed and its chairman, Jay Powell over relating to overages on the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the Fed building, 100-year-old building complex. More $2 billion appears to have been spent on its rehabilitation. The question is, how is that even possible? Where is that money going? Has something untoward happened? But this, of course, was seen as part of the political war by the Trump administration on Jay Powell, whom it wishes to. It wants him to go away. Trump wants to appoint a new Fed chairman. And I only bring this up. I'm not a Fed person, I'm not a macroeconomics person, but I do note that according to everybody, the main pieces of data that the Fed relies upon to determine the health of the economy at any given moment and whether it needs to intervene by changing policy or direction or intensifying its policy choices. The Primary 1 is PCE inflation, personal consumption expenditures. And just to be bipartisan about this, Obama chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors guy Jason Furman puts it this way. He says inflation is moderating, though it is still above the 2% target, but its growth has slowed. It's now at like 2.7% annually. And consumer spending is booming, according to PCE data for October and November released today. And that's pretty much what you want. The Fed. That's something you would think you want to say, hey, the Fed is doing a pretty good job. They've been futzing around with rates here and there and other things. And what more can you expect the Fed to pull off than something like this? And there's Trump and the administration criminalizing the Fed chairmanship and looking to replace the Fed chairman with somebody more what it considers friendly. And I just think that's a very. It's a weird thing to do now, is all I'm saying.
- [06:38]
D
Yes, we've checked it out. We took it to the fact checkers. Accurate.
- [06:41]
A
Okay.
- [06:42]
C
So, yeah, couple of things. First, I think in talking about the fact that inflation is coming down, we should remind people that Powell did preside over one of the Fed's biggest errors ever, which is he did. They didn't see this huge inflationary spike coming. And then he did veer into policy advocacy when he subtly weighed in in favor of the stimulus during the Biden era. And so to the extent that he's doing the right thing now and having success now, he was part of the problem to begin with. Why Trump is picking a fight with him now. I think Trump's frustration is public sentiment, not actually the Fed policy, and he's taking it out on the Fed. I think he recognizes that Republicans are going to have a reckoning at the polls in 2026. And the problem for him is actually the lag in public sentiment because wage growth is still trailing inflation as a like, it's a overhang from the Biden era. And Republicans, I think, are going to pay for that in 2026. Trump understands that, and he is frustrated that that recovery is not happening faster.
- [07:57]
A
Look, fair enough. And the only excuse or explanation for Powell and the mistakes that he may have made were, of course, that we were in a completely unprecedented and unknowable situation whose global consequences were extraordinarily unpredictable. And he wasn't personally. He wasn't responsible for the fact that the administration chose to figure out ways to spend $6 trillion in the course of what it thought was part of it was trying to save the economy from the consequences of COVID And then part of it was also just the don't let a crisis go to waste. So there's a Covid crisis, so let's just, you know, spend trillions on green energy while we're doing all this other stuff that's not in his, that's not, that's nothing that he can necessarily control for if you have that kind of unprecedented spending, unprecedented CR and all that. All I'm saying is like we, there are all these conversations about which Kevin is does Trump like this week, does he like Warsh or does he like Hassett? Last week we were told he doesn't like Hassett, but he likes Warsh. Now there are a couple of other names that have been floated that might happen. And you know, Powell doesn't have to go. Like there's, we're having this conversation about Powell going and he doesn't have to go. He's on a, he's, you know, he has a 10 year term. I'm not quite sure when it, when, when it, when it concludes. But I mean, it doesn't have to go this week, it doesn't have to go this month. And yeah, it's a way of refocusing the attention on the idea that there's somebody out there to blame for macroeconomic problems. But you know, if Trump gets his wish and gets a pliable Fed chairman, and his point is do what you can to help me and the Republicans by pushing things in a good direction so that I can claim that I'm making things better, you're likely to end up in a situation in which things get worse, not better. The US Economy is an unbelievably complex machine. And the kinds of things that the Fed chairman has to balance or the Fed voters, the board of the people on the Fed have to balance, what are the tariffs going to be and what effect they going to have on consumer spending or, or on inflation and all of that. There are all these unknowables. We're waiting for the Supreme Court to tell us about the tariffs. I just think it's an interesting instance of Trump fixating on something, looking to find an external force to blame for really gigantic trends. We are going through some massive third industrial revolution here involving AI, the building of data centers, the collapse of, you know, the potential collapse of tens of millions of jobs due to the kinds of productivity increases that AI could present us with. And you know, the idea that picking one guy to replace another guy is going to solve your problem is this magical thing.
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D
I don't, I don't want to, you know, this is an August podcast and I don't want to bring clickbait sex appeal into this discussion, but let's talk about Humphrey's executor.
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A
My favorite. That's my favorite. It's important decision.
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D
It's hot right now.
- [11:25]
A
There, there's. Yeah. So Lin Manuel Miranda's next is Humphreys. Yeah, Humphreys, exactly.
- [11:34]
D
The in the court's hearing, in the Supreme Court's hearing this week about Lisa Cook I believe is the name of the member of the Fed board. So if you are a unitary executive kind of human, the Fed has a carve out and these are questions I take to my wife who knows about these things. So I can, I can state this with some, with some certainty which is the carve out is that because the Federal Reserve has no executive function, it doesn't have enforcement, it doesn't do anything on the executive side. It's not subject to being sucked into the unitary executive. Whereas the other made up agencies, the ftc, the fcc, the da, da, da da da, all are subject because they have executive function and they have, they're doing those things and that's a nice carve out for strong executive people. It's a carve out they need. Because the value of the Federal Reserve is the Federal Reserve's independence is unto itself. The there is value in having an independent Federal Reserve regardless of what the policies being put in place are because it provides what Washington very much lacks right now and has lacked for a long time, which is predictability. Right. These are the Board of Governors. We can make a guess based on what they're doing. They put out memos, right? They say you should know we're going to make a decision in three months that will probably be like this, but somewhere between this and this. And I don't think that the President's desire for a unitary Federal Reserve has anything to do with the numbers you're talking about. I do think Eliana is right about why the resentment that the administration feels towards the Fed because what they think, and there's some truth to it, is that decisions have been made. Looking at you, Ben Bernanke, decisions have been made in the past that augered to the political benefit of one party or the other. And this is sort of like the President with the jobs numbers. If you think they're all fake, why shouldn't they be fake for you? If you think that they cheated for the other guys, why shouldn't they cheat for you? And why do we bother paying lip service to independents or this stuff if it's all a scam and it's all crooked? And I think whatever the numbers said, I know this is a Greenland free zone, but I think it's Sort of like people kept saying, well, well, you could just have it right, we'll give you what you want, the Danes will give you what you want. Why don't you just ask nicely? And I think Trump's point is I don't ask nicely, I won't ask nicely. I want this. It's not about the outcome, it's about whether or not he is in charge of it. And I think he just wants to be in charge of the central bank.
- [14:22]
A
Look, fair enough. That's, I think you're absolutely, obviously that is the correct answer. As I'm saying, the weirdness here is that he probably couldn't get a better result over the past year from the Fed than the result that he is getting. Even if the Fed did everything that he would want the Fed to do, inflation slow rather than, rather, you know, if we deflated too quickly, that would have very serious economic consequences. So if we're growing and we have consumer spending growing and all this other stuff, even though the polls suggest that people are unhappy with this condition of the economy, as Eliana said, that's a lagging, those numbers are a lagging indicator. And you know, maybe, maybe it's just like a perfect sweet spot. Maybe things are going to look really good in June if this course continues to be charted and he'll be happy that the Fed has done what the Fed has done. I just think it's interesting that these numbers came out yesterday showing a successful pursuit of a policy over the past year that we are told Trump desperately needs to get charge of with a new guy who was more amenable to his. So that is today's.
- [15:48]
C
You know, real quick, it's probably worth noting in Chris mentioned the Supreme Court hearing on the administration's attempt to remove Lisa Cook from the board of the Fed in the administration's arguments there. Well, they are asserting that they have the right to fire her. They did concede on that the Fed is different from other boards bodies that there is a carve out for it. They did concede that the President does have to have cause to fire somebody from the Fed. He can't just fire for any reason and that it can't be a policy dispute. But then they said nobody can question what our causes. We decide there's no judicial review. And Amy caused Amy Coney Barrett to say because Paul Clement who was representing Lisa Cook said there was no due process here. She never got a hearing. And Amy Coney Barrett had said why are you guys so afraid of a hearing? And the question was like Was there due process for Cook? And that minimal process would have made a big difference in this case. And I think the thing that was sort of overhanging everything where the administration is arguing we can fire for cause, so long as it's not a policy dispute, was that the administration actually does have a policy dispute. Okay. They've been very public about it and that the whole thing appears pretextual because the administration has been so public about its policy dispute with Lisa Cook. So anyhow, I left that following this thinking that the court is likely to dodge the issue. I think Cook is likely to stay in her seat and they're likely to remand this to the lower court for a decision on whether Cook actually, whether there was due process, whether this is, whether they did have cause to fire her, etc. So my view is she stays in her seat for. I think she's very likely to stay in her seat.
- [17:54]
A
Right.
- [17:55]
C
I mean, proceeds through the course because.
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B
This was, I also like that they, that they, you know, they're complaining about Powell attending that the hearing, which is their way of, you know, planting the seeds of the accusation that he's impartial, that he's not impartial, that he's biased, that he's not, you know, independent and whatever. And it seems like I'm rubber your glue sort of response from the Trump administration, which is you say that, you know, that we don't respect the independence of the institution. Jerome Powell certainly doesn't respect the independence of the institution. So I guess he should go in that way. Like they, they're building a case against him, you know, not just off policy, but they're trying to find these sort of ticky tack things to deflect these specific accusations that they are already getting themselves about the situation.
- [18:46]
A
I don't even know why they bother in this sense, which is that I was thinking about this in relation to the testimony yesterday of J. Jack Smith, the special counsel who did both the Mar A Lago case involving the documents, you know, the Trump stealing the documents or refusing to hand over the documents back to the feds that he took with him after his presidency and moved them around Mar A Lago and put them behind locks. And then of course, the January 6th, the question of his involvement or lack thereof in the January 6th insurrection. Republicans. Seth, you're saying, you know, you're saying they're trying to make an argument or like put up a fight over X, Y or Z and rather than, and make a kind of facetious case, but they're trying to build A case. And for, for a year, Republicans desperately wanted Jack Smith, have wanted Jack Smith to come and so they could yell at him on Capitol Hill on the grounds that he had pursued Trump unfairly or unjustly. And it was just a terrible sin what, what he had done. And it's like they don't understand what they might look like to people who aren't deep in the weeds here because they gave Smith yesterday a platform to sit in front of Congress and say, Trump was guilty. Trump was guilty. Trump was guilty. Trump was guilty. You want me to come and talk to you? I'm coming and talking to you. My opinion is that Trump was guilty of encouraging and abetting the January 6th. So congratulations to the Republicans on the Hill who gave basically, you know, like threw a fastball straight down the middle for a, for a Democratically aligned prosecutor to hit over the fence. Like, they could have just let this go. Trump got elected president. The Smith prosecution was over. Nothing is going to happen. But they're all so inside their own heads about the terrible injustices that Jack Smith had done to Trump that they didn't understand what it might look like with Smith sitting there. Similarly, the Supreme Court hearing, again, for people, anybody who was paying attention, and even Chris's very interesting summary of the Humphreys executor problem gives you an indication of how difficult it is even to talk about this in an interesting way, explaining the difference between agencies that do perform executive functions and an agency that merely manages the financial condition of our currency, that kind of thing. And they're all trying to make arguments for people who are or whose positions are already set in stone. These are anyone who cares about what Jack Smith said, anybody who thinks Lisa Cook should or should not have been fired. These are people who are Trump partisans down the line and believe any argument that they make. So why are they even bothering to make an argument? They want to fire Lisa Cook because they want to be able to fire anybody, anybody. So they fire Lisa Cook and then they use this trumped up thing about how she had a mortgage on a, you know, she was taking a tax deduction on a mortgage for a place that she was using as a rental property. Like, really? Is that really. Lisa Goat fits the standard that it's not a policy dispute there, but they're accusing her of being a crook or a tax cheat or a scofflaw or something like that. And it may be true, but, you know, God knows, if you start, if that becomes a precedent for somebody like losing their position in Washington, God help tens of Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people who are doing exactly the same thing.
- [22:28]
C
Kavanaugh made this point where he said, if this is cause and not a policy dispute, come January 2029, it's a democratic president, will we not see every Donald Trump appointee to the board of the Fed fired for, quote, unquote, cause in a manner that is then, as this administration is arguing? Solicitor General John Sauer argued on that, totally unreviewable by the courts or anybody else.
- [23:00]
D
The question to J.D. vance was, if Mike Pence had the authority to void the results of the 2020 election, what would prevent Kamala Harris from. From doing the same thing in 2024? And of course, there's no answer because the. You know, as my old daddy used to say, you can be right or you can be happy, but not usually both. And what Republicans right now very much want is both. Right? They want both.
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A
Chris, I didn't know you were a Jew. I didn't know your father was. That is the most Jewish thing I've ever heard out of a stire. Walt. You can be happy or you could be right, but you can't be both. That is like the core essence of our people's views of life.
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D
But the question is, which one do you choose? And I think this may be. And I think this may be the difference which was. My father was strongly arguing in favor of happiness.
- [23:54]
A
Yes. No, that. Not. That's not big. On our. On our dance.
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D
I have to confess, there's a subset of journalism, imaginary Trump journalism, and I do not wish to engage in imaginary Trump journalism. There's a lot of it. And I not to pick on Ross Douthat's piece about what's the future from here, but a lot of. For the conservatism, but a lot of what's the future from here was based on imaginary Trumps. Right? And what if Trump was like this and then this happened and that might happen, and then this might happen. Donald Trump is unchanging. He is like himself, and only more so over time. If we imagine the past year differently, we would say, well, the Republicans won. They won by a surprising margin.
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A
They.
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D
They have the House, they have the Senate. They got it right. This remarkable comeback story for Donald Trump and the collapse of the Democratic Party, they got it. And if they had been able to say at that moment, you know what, let's not talk about the 2020 election. Let's not talk about any of this stuff.
- [24:57]
C
Let's.
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D
Let's forget it all and let's say that we're gonna move ahead and we're going with the past and we're just going to focus on the future. And we are, to your point, John, about the state of the economy, the rational response from a political standpoint in a midterm year would be everywhere, every day, all the time, talking about, man, this economy is actually really good. We put those tariffs on and everybody said it would be a disaster. But the truth is that the core economy has stayed strong and we've been through all of these vicissitudes, and yet here we are and we're making America great again and we're making it better and it's happening. But that's not the narrative that we hear from the party in power. And I think it's rooted in the desire by Donald Trump, principally, and a lot of people around him to be both right and happy. They both want to have a good or less bad midterm, but also want a structural, fundamental change in the way things are so that their point of view, their worldview will be on.
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A
You're right that Trump is unchanging. And the problem with his being unchanging is that he is unchanging in his complete inconstancy. Not that he's a stubborn old goat who, like, sticks to his guns. You know, it's like you don't know where his gun is at any given moment. It's pointed at the Danes, then it's pointed at the Norwegians, then it's pointed at the Greenlanders, and it's pointed at Mark Carney. Then it's pointed at wherever. And then, you know, and then he's like, no, I don't really have a gun. Don't worry, I'm not going to, to shoot.
- [26:29]
D
So my finger in a brown paper bag. Don't worry about it. It's fine.
- [26:33]
B
There was a really good, really interesting essay and I think maybe it was the Washington Post on the show Landman which said that what's great about Landman is that it's not a great TV show in the, in the traditional sense. It's that you never know what genre the episode is going to be.
- [26:54]
A
Right.
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B
It's like you don't know what it's about. And it's like, is it, is it about, you know, and then, you know, they use the example, John, you mentioned the other day about the, you know, the, the girl, the, the non binary roommate, Pagan and whatever. Apparently the, the next episode had the cheerleader daughter.
- [27:11]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [27:12]
B
Their friends standing up and she specifically stands up for her, you know, stands up to people trying to bully her for. So it's like what show am I watching? What is Landman actually about? Every episode is about something different. That's kind of what you're saying with the Trump situation, which is that like it's what is, what is the Trump show about? Exactly. And you don't even have a real expectation within certain confines because, you know, well, it's this type of show and.
- [27:37]
D
Trump, it's possible it's about Donald Trump.
- [27:39]
A
Right. But I will say, I will say this because, because Chris brought up Ross Douthat's op ed of a of of earlier this week, which was an effort to try to sort out where, where the, where Trumpism would be after Trump or did has Trump destroyed the conservative movement as it has been understood and you know, what, what will replace it? And our friend Jonah Goldberg, I think made the ultimate point here about the problem with Trump's inconstancy as a basis for understanding where, where the political movement on the right will go from here, which is, yeah, Trump has broken everything and you know, things have got to move forward based on where Trump was. It's like, oh, yeah. So in 1972, Richard Nixon wins 62% of the vote in a huge landslide, is knocked out of office BY Watergate in 74 Democrats win by a very narrow margin in 1976. And the anti Nixon, the anti Nixon opposed to every liberal reform that Nixon made as president. Ronald Reagan next election wins 40 states, 50% of the vote, a smaller number of votes than Nixon, but arguably in some ways a larger landslide. Even though Nixon won 49 or 48.
- [29:09]
D
State 84, Reagan is the goat 49 states and almost beat Walter Mondale in Minnesota.
- [29:16]
A
Right. So my point here is like this notion that Trump, Trump being there and winning and winning this landmark election in 2024 and going through whatever he is going through now because A, you don't know where politics is going to go, which was the subject of what we talked about yesterday, and B, ideas, Trump personalities, even when you think they don't anymore, what people say they want to do when they're going to run for office in 2028 is going to be vastly more important than whether or not they say I'm going to be like Trump. Because what is that even going to mean? Does it mean the Trump who hits Iran or the Trump who doesn't hit Iran? Does it mean the Trump who seizes Maduro in order to end a communist dictatorship, but then lets the communist remain president in Venezuela or the Trump who might hit Cuba to end the communist dictatorship that has been ruling there for more than six decades. There is no Trump. There will be no path to follow. And so the idea that Ross is very interested in blowing up the parts of the Republican coalition that he never really liked that much anyway, using Trump as the reason for the blow up and then saying everything's going to have to build on the precepts of a responsible nationalism or a, or a, you know, sort of like a, an internationalism that is also, you know, cautious or something. Like all this stuff that is like, yeah, you know, it should be like me. We all feel this way, right? Like, in the end, what it should all be like is me. And then I'll be there, and then there'll be a president like me, and that'll be great. And that's not the way it works, you know. Colder days, New Year, it's been a cold winter. This is the moment your winter wardrobe really has to deliver. And if you're craving a winter reset, start with pieces truly made to last season after season. And you know, I'm going to tell you that you need to talk to quints. Quince brings together premium materials, thoughtful design, and enduring quality so you stay warm, look sharp, and feel your best all season long. Not only do I have a Quint's puffer jacket, but after I had such a great experience with the puffer jacket, I got my son Isaac the same puffer jacket. Isn't that an amazing thing? Isn't that an endorsement? That's what I call an endorsement. So, look, I've had the sweaters. I now have the puffer jacket. Get them. Trust me. Each piece made from premium materials by trusted factories that meet rigorous standards for craftsmanship and ethical production. And that outerwear really is especially impressive. Down jackets, wool coats, Italian leather outerwear that keep you warm, but when it's actually cold, classic styles, you'll love that hold up year after year. So refresh that winter wardrobe with quint. Go to quint.com commentary for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Quint.com commentary now available in Canada, too. That's Q U I n c e.com commentary. So it does.
- [32:30]
D
It doesn't matter nearly as much what happens in elections as what people think happens in elections. And John, you identify. So after a victory, the political professionals, the tacticians will tell you it was our logarithm, it was our algorithm, it was our this, it was our that, it was our blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And Then the ideologues will say, actually it was our focus on this and when you lose an election, the reverse happens. And they say, well, if only they would have given us the money that we needed to reach out to the Filipino community, if only they would have done this, we would have won. It was actually the candidate's fault and it was the, it was, the ideas were the problem. And then the ideas, people are going to say we had good ideas, but blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We are going to get to see this year what the Democratic field for 2028 is going to be ginormous. It is going to be big because Democrats are convinced that the Republicans will not hold the White House again. Right. So the value of the nomination appears to be very high and the field will be very crowded. Right. In a world in which Andy Beshear, who seems like a very nice man, governor of Kentucky. Yes. A moderate, a profoundly moderate Democrat or Josh Shapiro, a moderate from Pennsylvania, who that these people are like, I don't know, a Rahm Emanuel, I don't know, maybe I'm getting in this sucker. I don't know what's going to happen. As they're lining up the battle this November will be among Democrats to say, why did we win? What was the cause of our victory? Elizabeth Warren gave a speech last week or two weeks ago at the National Press Club that was totally deranged from a, from a political strategy standpoint in which she basically told Democrats you have to embrace Mamdani style Democratic socialism across the country. Well, no, obviously that would be idiotic. What you would want to do would be do the Rahm Emanuel 06 where you say, hey, look, if you need a pro Trump life candidate here, if you need a candidate who is pro Israel here, if you need a candidate who is for moderate taxation and for immigration enforcement, do it, baby. If that's what it takes to win in Arizona, one find a candidate who does those things.
- [35:00]
B
If you need the 50 state strategy, our dean did that too.
- [35:04]
D
Exactly. A 50 state strategy that says we are not ideologically gatekeeping our candidates. That's what quadrennial elections are for. That's what presidential cycles are for, is sorting out who the party is. Right now all the party is supposed to be. The Democratic Party is supposed to be is not the Republicans. And I think, John, to your point about the argument over wither Republicanism, wither conservatism, what shall happen from here, it will depend on what people think happens in 2026 for both the Republicans and the Democrats.
- [35:39]
A
Absolutely. And you know, the other thing that's going to happen in 2026 is we are going to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the inception of the United States of America. And in an absolutely earthquake like op ed in the Wall Street Journal today, Richard Kahlenberg and Leif Lin have done a study of the most mainstream, boring, centrist, whatever you want to call it, journal, the American Quarterly, the flagship journal of the American Studies Association. So American Studies, of course, would be the broad grid of American history, American social history, American sociology, American anthropology altogether. And this is the journal published at Johns Hopkins Ethnomusicology. Exactly. So they studied, they did a study of the last of 100 articles published over the last three years or something like that by this journal. And they discovered, using various methodologies they describe in the, in the piece. But it's. Okay, let me just read quickly here. 80% of articles published between 2022 and 2024 were critical of America. 20% were neutral. None were positive. And when they say the 20% were neutral, they're being very kind, as they themselves say, to describe the neutral pieces as neutral rather than overtly hostile to America and the American experiment. 77 of the 96 articles they examined focused on racism, imperialism, classism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia and transphobia. Some articles went to absurd lengths to identify sins. One essay posited that thermodynamics is, quote, an abstract settler capitalist theory that influenced the plunder of indigenous lands and lives. Thermodynamics being, of course, the relation between energy, heat, work and temperature. Also gravity, colonialism.
- [38:00]
B
Can we talk about gravity? The sins of gravity.
- [38:02]
A
Now we're going into, now we're going back into Newtonian physics. Mr. Sokol. Mr. Sokol's famous article, hoax. Anyway, this, this piece, you have to go. If you don't have a subscription to the journal, get someone to gift the article to you. Read it. I say this as an earthquake because this crystallizes everything about the American liberal elite that will help us understand the incredible difficulty that liberal thinkers, liberals, liberal elites have in thinking anything positive about the greatest political experiment and country the world has ever and likely will ever see. Right now, in the year in which we should be, everybody is like, making plans for how we're going to talk about America at 250. And every publication is thinking about special issues and this and that and the other thing. And the world that they would rely on to help plan this out is coming at this academically from an entirely hostile frame. So the idea that America was born with slavery but ended it, you get no, you know, 80, 80 years in at a cost of 500,000 lives, no credit. The idea that these guys emerged in the middle of the 18th century to create a system that placed the individual at the center of the sort of our political understanding rather than the tribe or the leader or the king or the land. The most radical idea pretty much in politically, in human history. No credit what that means now. The fact that we live unbelievably freely, no credit, nothing. We stink. This country is lousy. It's racist, it's unjust, it's unfair, and it's horrible. And I'm really glad that people are putting meat on the bones of why we can't have a conversation about America across the partisan political divide that is about how great America is. Because they don't think America is great. They genuinely. They are trained. These are the academics who train everybody at the elite level to think about the country, and they think the country is bad. So.
- [40:25]
B
And more than that, they think the country is like. I think it highlights the fact that we're talking about. There's a lot of negativity toward America and, you know, Western civilization on campus. But there's also. It's another example of their. They are teaching nonsense. This is the other problem. To see the world through, you know, to see thermodynamics through a settler colonial lens or whatever is to teach people to go insane inside their own heads. Right? It's to teach people to. It's unthinking, it's unlearning. It's like the opposite of learning. It's teaching people to think in ways that will. Will mess up their ability to understand the world around them. You know, it's not just like, hey, that's wrong, or that's too negative. It's like you're teaching witchcraft in med school. It's. It's going to harm that person's ability to move through the world and understand what they see. And they are teaching this sort of thing and applying it to all these different subjects. You know, I remember writing a piece about the, you know, a TA and I think it was Columbia or somebody in an astronomy class, you know, making a whole thing about Gaza in the. Putting in a whole, you know, study guide to Gaza. And it was basically like, you know, we shouldn't. We shouldn't be looking at the stars at night. If the kids in Gaza are looking up and only seeing smoke Clouds and missiles or whatever. And the point was like, we here in astronomy should not be looking at the stars. Well, you know what, like literally what are you supposed to do? We should not be learning what we're supposed to be learning. All this stuff is really kind of like, you know, a way to, you know, turn civilization back on itself. It's weird. And it's also just very damaging to the brains of people who go through.
- [42:18]
A
We've all had the experience trying to check out online. It demands your password, it demands your login. You had one, you lost it, you don't remember it, they made you change it. But then you see that little purple button and you know that means that it's got your information stored. You click on it, you don't need to take out your wallet, you don't need to log in. It knows who you are. It makes the transaction complete. That button is Shopify. And the simplicity of Shopify is one of the many reasons that Commentary magazine, along with 10% of all E commerce in the US uses Shopify. So if you are looking for a service that will help you set up your E commerce and run it beautifully, Shopify is your place. It can help you get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready to use templates. Shopify will help you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style. And you can get the word out like you have a marketing team behind you, easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling. And best yet, Shopify is your commerce expert with world class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. See less carts go abandoned and more sales go ka ching with Shopify and their shop pay button. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com commentary go to shopify.com commentary that's shopify.com commentary.
- [43:59]
C
This so a couple thoughts reading this. The first was that we've just been through two years or so of raucous, insane, at times illegal campus protests. And while they were happening, I thought to myself, you know, these aren't really rebellious protests. These are children on these campuses doing what they've been taught by their professors in the academy. And this piece crystallizes, I think what many of us know in our gut and what many of us experienced in school. You know, I now graduated 20 years ago. But if you are an 18 year old kid who knows nothing but has an interest in American history and you go seek out a course in it and this is what you Find it's not crazy that you wind up a radical protesting against your country and, you know, for Palestine and Hamas on your campus if you are looking for a sense of purpose. And I think this piece goes a long way of explaining the state of our college campuses. Second, I also think it explains why most of the most popular best selling works of American history are not written by members of the academy. And I'm thinking of works by people like David McCullough and Doris Kearns Goodwin.
- [45:33]
A
Ron Chernow.
- [45:34]
C
Ron Chernow, who Goodwin did teach a long time ago, but hasn't in many, many years. And that is because the country does not share the view of the American studies professors who these authors write about in the Wall Street Journal. And in fact, most people do have a positive view of America. And those people are eager to learn about the accurate view of history put forward and complex view of history put forward by the Goodwins and the McCulloughs and the Chernows and why a musical like Hamilton became a bestseller. And this goes a long way to explain the gulf between the academy and the rest of the country.
- [46:20]
D
You know, the. I've been doing this Sunday TV show for almost two years coming up on two years. And we have, we have had success and growth in part because Eliana and Seth have both been on the show, though John has never made the trip down from New York. And that's fine.
- [46:36]
C
That's the reason for the growth. Chris.
- [46:38]
D
It's fine, it's fine.
- [46:39]
A
I'm just saying. Yeah, you don't need me. Yeah. I'm box office poison.
- [46:44]
D
No, it will happen. It will happen. And I think it's also because I am the only male Sunday show anchor in America and was standing up for dei.
- [46:55]
C
You gotta hold down the white man flag.
- [46:58]
D
Exactly. Middle aged white guys.
- [47:00]
C
Justice. Yes.
- [47:01]
D
We had justice for middle aged white dudes.
- [47:03]
C
Yes.
- [47:04]
D
So one of the reasons that it is unlikely that I will be able to continue to do this show for a long period of time are things like the fact that this week I am most excited that about the guest Gordon Wood we have had on the show, Alan Gelzo. We are making a big whoop dee doo about the 250th anniversary of the founding.
- [47:26]
B
The.
- [47:27]
D
If you read.
- [47:28]
A
And the.
- [47:29]
D
I. If you read Gordon Wood.
- [47:32]
A
Right.
- [47:33]
D
If you read the radicalism.
- [47:34]
A
Gordon Wood is a historian of the American Revolution. Alan Guelzo is the probably the greatest contemporary writer on Lincoln.
- [47:42]
D
Right.
- [47:43]
A
To give you an example of who.
- [47:45]
D
So if you read Gordon woods, the radicalism of the American Revolution or You read Gordon Wood's Empire of Liberty or you read Gallzo on Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address and the implications thereof. I, who have written one history book and one book that has lot of history in it, what would I say if you said to me, write, Chris, I want you to write about the founding. What would I, a popcorn history person, possibly do that would exceed the work or even be allowed to be in the same room? What the academy has done to American history is, yes, there's the bias of who goes into it and then it's self reinforcing who's kept out of it. Right, it's selection bias working in two directions, just like many newsrooms. But it's also this. The academy rewards novelness. And what will I say? What would anybody say that would surpass what's been said, I think often about Calvin Coolidge's address in Philadelphia at the 150th anniversary where he said to everybody, hey, guess what? This is it. Hey, everybody, everything else has been tried. So everything else that you might try again would only be a step back from the mountaintop that we have achieved with Madisonian liberal democracy. That's it, folks. So suck it.
- [49:09]
A
And, and we've had a hundred years.
- [49:11]
D
Since and we've had a hundred years.
- [49:12]
A
To see how right he was.
- [49:14]
D
To see how right he was. And the, the, the problem of studying history, the problem of the academy is you want to get published, you want professional rewards. It's all the biased stuff about ideology and the identities of the people who are involved. But it's also this. If I'm the treatment of history, particularly the history of Western civilization, particularly of America as something like a hard science in which you have to say, well, I actually found a new way that a neutrino bounces off of a. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I did this. What will you say? What would you do? And what you can do and what's available is to say actually, comma, the United States, the 1619 Project as sort of the fullest flowering of the idea, the Howard Zinification of this discussion actually, comma, what they told you is actually a huge lie. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Here's the problem now. The apparatus that is formed around this idea assumed that there was patriotic indoctrination happening. But the patriotic indoctrination doesn't happen now.
- [50:25]
A
So it's not a corrective. There's nothing correct.
- [50:27]
D
It is corrective. It is it.
- [50:30]
A
We're the corrective. In other words, the old view, Coolidge is the corrective.
- [50:34]
D
Right, right, exactly. And what Eliana points out is it's complicated. And what we are now being offered are two different views. One is a blameless America, flawless America, a perfect America, or an America bathed in its sins. And the idea of the question that I'm going to put to Gordon Wood is a question for Everybody in the 50th year. Was it worth it? Was it worth it for all the strife and struggle and oppression and slavery and the Trail of Tears and all of this stuff? The question about America at 250 is supposed to be was it worth it? And the answer is yes. The freedom of the world, the empowerment of people, the torch of liberty, Columbia's torch carried forward around the world, says emphatically yes. But that, starting with that presupposition, will not get you.
- [51:27]
A
You know, Galileo was of course, as we know, excommunicated by the Church for saying that the earth revolved around the sun, Right? And when they said say otherwise, he said persimmove or however it is. And, you know, but it moves. And it now feels like we're all Galileo because they're describing this America that we're living in that does not exist and that we are then taught, we are put in the position by journalism every day and portraits of America every week and the liberal consensus every month to say, this is a terrible country and we're living in the middle of it, and we know perfectly well it's not. No one's shooting at us like in Iran, where apparently 20,000 or more people have literally been shot by the regime in the streets.
- [52:18]
D
Streets.
- [52:19]
A
Granted, that is an extreme version, but we're not Britain where people are getting arrested, pulled off the street and thrown in jail for a tweet. Britain is the country that is our fundament. Right? We know it's not true. We're standing here. The Free Beacon was created in part to say, or whatever that phrase is to say to stand up and say, no, no, no, this is all lies. You're telling lies. You are brainwashing people into believing lies, as Seth would say. Right? And final point here as we, as we end the week, struck by the fact that Eliana, when you brought up the fact that popular histories of America, that really have a real effect on the way people think of things. You know, the great surprise pop culture moment in America this year was the Netflix's airing of, of this four hour miniseries called Death by Lightning about the assassination of Garfield in 1881. This springs from a book by a freelance journalist named Candace Millard called Destiny of the Republic, which she published in 2012 or 2013. Someone who worked in New York but now lives in Kansas City and has been writing these popular histories, like Eric Larson writes popular histories and David McCullough writes popular histories and all this. And she basically. This book that has no academic credentialing whatsoever is going to change the American understanding of who James Garfield, a president who served for six months, 79 days of which were him, you know, in basically in torments of agony because he had been shot and his medical care was incompetent. But that nonetheless, there's a real reason that he got to be president and that his presidency was incredibly consequential because it changed the way American politics worked henceforth, because it killed off the political spoil system that was a relic of a different age and a different era, though it survived in many ways at the local level, but not at the federal level anyway.
- [54:37]
B
But that. And that's. And that's the. I was thinking of death by lightning to this whole conversation because it's a story about how America does have problems, corruption embedded in the civil service and all this other stuff and. And has. And produces people of character who fight it all the way until they overcome the system and, you know, set things right. He was all. There was also a lot about race in the. In the show, you know, and his. The experiences of the Civil War. There were a lot of stuff. There's a lot of stuff in the show about America overcoming these challenges and finding ways, you know, to fix things. That's a message you would think any historian would want to find when they, you know, when they do their research.
- [55:21]
A
Right, exactly. So Chris has had to. Had to leave early to prepare for his interview with Gordon Wood. He will great to have him. And we'll be back on Monday because, you know, we can do this show if there's 25 inches of snow, because that's one of the things you don't need a studio anymore. You just. As long as there's electricity, we can do the show. So we'll be back to do the show buried in the snow if necessary. So for Seth and Eliana, John, keep the camel, Sam.