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- [00:00]
A
The Dispatch Podcast is presented by Pacific Legal foundation, suing the government since 1973. Welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. I'm Steve Hayes. On this week's roundtable, we'll discuss Greenland, Donald Trump's coveting of the Nobel Peace Prize and a possible end to NATO. We'll also look at the possible end of the Conservative era. And finally, in not worth your time, we will let go the intra Dispatch wars over not worth your time and instead have a conversation about NFL coaching tenures and why good coaches are being let go. I'm joined today by my Dispatch colleagues Jonah Goldberg, Ike Warren and Declan Garvey. Let's dive right in, Gentlemen. Let's get right to it. This morning we had news, first distributed by Nick Schiffrin of the PBS NewsHour of a letter that Donald Trump had sent to Jonas or Jonas Garrett Storr. I'm sure I'm saying that wrong store a star, a prime minister and leader of the Norwegian Labor Party. The letter at its top said Dear Ambassador, President Trump has asked that the following message shared with Prime Minister Jonas Nas Gar store be forwarded to your name and this is distributing it sort of beyond just the the Prime Minister of Norway. Dear Jonas, Considering your country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped eight wars plus, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China. And why do they have a quote right of ownership anyway? There are no written documents. It's only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, too. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding. And now NATO should do something for the United States. The world is not secure unless we have complete and total control of Greenland. Thank you, President DJ T. This letter has apparently been authenticated. I wavered a bit on whether to use it because it seemed like such an obvious parody of something that leader of the free world would send, but, alas, is true. Jonah, your reaction?
- [02:54]
B
So first of all, I no longer think it's legitimate to say the President United States is the leader of the free world. That is a title that normally the two go together, but he's the single greatest divider of the free world and so just we can put a pin in that. Then. The second thing I would say is I kind of love the letter in at least one regard and I would be very curious to see If MAGA people can spot the problem, he is saying that up until the point he didn't get the Nobel Peace Prize, he wasn't fully putting America first. He was orienting himself towards winning a personal prize and conducting American foreign policy and spending his time doing the things that he claims to have done. He did not put an end to eight wars, but we don't need to relitigate that for his own personal aggrandizement. And now that he didn't get the prize, he is saying he can actually, in his mind, put America first. Now, I just think that's an interesting confession to come from Donald Trump. I think it's all garbage on the merits. It's also just an incredibly weird thing to say. All he cares about. You spend a year saying all he cares about peace. And then to say, oh, by the way, I was only really saying that and doing all that stuff so I could get a cool line item on my resume. And then the third thing I would say is what a small and corrupted soul this guy has that he is willing to dishonorably bully a NATO ally with the threat of force in pursuit of another, you know, cupidol for his mantle on his personal resume, right. He, he has said, look, Greenland, it's psychologically important that we own it. He, when he looks out of. He said years ago, when he looks out of the map, he says, where's the, where's the best available real estate? And that's what drew him to Greenland. And he wants this. It is quite obvious, quite obvious that he wants it purely not for national security. Like, if the administration was serious about this, it would put out some serious policy papers. It would have mentioned this BS in its national security statement. It's another example of this purely pretextual nonsense. And he wants. Someone has told him, I don't know if it's Steve Bannon or Stephen Miller. Basically we should just ban people named Steve from public discourse, I think. But careful. Someone told him that the way you would leave a legacy is by expanding the territorial, the territory of the United States. That makes it through his blood brain barrier really quickly because he's a real estate guy in the first place. And he is bending American foreign policy, risking destroying NATO, destroying America's reputation in the world, behaving dishonorably, threatened to use the US military as an imperial mercenary force for his own ego. And it's not good.
- [06:29]
A
So I usually line up with you on such matters, but I'm surprised at your initial response to this letter. Isn't the correct response, that we have a president of the United States who's absolutely, clearly, demonstrably, and frighteningly insane. I mean, I don't want to overstate it, but it. Did you not say that? Because that's already a given and you've written about it for 10 years? Or, I mean, like, think about what this letter is. He. I didn't get the Nobel priest p Peace Prize, so now I might invade Greenland. Like, it's totally insane that anybody would have such a thought. And it's even more insane that you would commit it to paper. And it's triply insane that you would have such a thought that you would commit it to paper and you would then distribute it to people to read.
- [07:20]
B
Yeah, I mean, I hear what you're saying, and obviously, I've never had a high amount of esteem for Donald Trump's composure and character. I think that's fair to say. I just don't think insane is the right word. I think it's a reasonable objection and point that you're making. But if he had said, I have to have Greenland because vests have no sleeves or we must end NATO because the Martian threat is too great, that would be insanity to me. This is pure solipsistic and remarkably consistent narcissism. And I don't associate insanity with consistency. I. And I think Trump's. The most consistent thing about Donald Trump for his entire time in American politics, if not longer, is that he cannot make a distinction between his personal wants and desires. And what is good. Like, his yardstick for what he wants and will make him look good is the only yardstick he has in international affairs. Everything else is pretextual or pragmatic or cynical or transactional. And so I'm less shocked by this letter because I think it's pretty consistent with his past actions. It's just more cartoonish.
- [08:50]
A
But you could be consistently insane. I mean, I guess that's what. In the absence of the previous 10 years, if this were just, like, the first indication that we'd gotten of this thing, this conversation would be a 25th amendment conversation. Oh, what?
- [09:04]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [09:05]
A
The president. What? That's totally crazy, Mike. When. When you saw. And I want to move beyond the letter, even though I feel like we could arguably spend the hour on the letter. When. When you saw the letter, did you recognize right away that it was real, or did you have a moment, as I did, where you thought it might be a parody? And number one. And number two, should this signal to people who have been inclined to downplay the president's rhetoric on Greenland as sort of fanciful, something he'd maybe get around to if he wanted to. I mean, shouldn't everybody take this seriously now? And isn't it possible, given that we've seen Stephen Miller and Donald Trump and Donald Trump and Donald Trump acknowledge that he's considering military force? Shouldn't we worry about that? I mean, really, we're going to have a conversation about the use of military force to take Greenland.
- [10:03]
C
So I will answer your question, Steve. I do think that what you and Jonah are arguing about is sort of there's a distinction without a difference when it comes to the question of whether he's insane or narcissistic. Doesn't have much of a difference in the question of what does that mean to have a person like that as president. I mean, the effect is essentially the same. Which is, which is to have somebody who is, as people have been saying, people on this, on this podcast have been saying for years, someone who's just unfit for the job. And I think we should just not lose sight of that big picture point, whether he's crazy or whether he's just so consumed by his own ego, he's, he's, this is another example of how he's unfit for the job. I will say, and there are receipts for this because I shared this letter, the reporting of this letter within our internal slack this morning and I should say Monday morning, I, my first reaction was, I can't believe this. This is Mad King type stuff. When I posted it, I read it. I couldn't, I couldn't, you know, wow, this is, this is just another example of this. And then I had the thought, wait a second, maybe I should be skeptical of this. This seems so insane that there's no way it can be real. And then the New York Times confirmed the PBS news reporting on it and, and confir what I've sort of been conditioned for, which is no longer to think there's no way something Donald Trump does or says can be real. It's so outlandish. There's no way it can be real. I've been doing this now for 11 years following Donald Trump in his political career. None of us should be, we should assume now perhaps that if it's crazy, it's probably something that he did or said. So the other thing, your other question about we should take this seriously. Yes. I mean, look, let's go back to the, let's go back to the letter. There are no written documents that Denmark should own Greenland. It's only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there also. I mean, to me, like, that tells you, like he doesn't, he does not think of anything, but sort of right is, might is right. And we're going to take this because we, we were also there. And what right do you have? We're bigger. You can listen to, by the way, what Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary who was on the Sunday show, he said he was on Meet the Press giving a terrible defense of this policy. It was terrible. And like, to be fair to him, there's no good defense of this. But you know, he said, he said essentially when pressed about, about this and whether this was a threat, she was asking is this a threat, a real threat, or is this a negotiating tactic? He basically said, we're the strongest country in the world. We're very hot right now as a, as a defense for taking something that is not ours and that the people both who, who own it, the country that owns it, Denmark, and the people of the country, this country, Greenland, do not want. And I think it is revealing and we should take it seriously because this is how Trump views international politics and sort of international relations. It's might makes right and we can take it. And who said that it's yours anyway? It's finders keepers kind of schoolyard logic. So, yes, we should take it seriously.
- [13:47]
B
Well, but finders keepers applies. They found it first.
- [13:51]
C
Right, I know, yes.
- [13:52]
B
Like there is very little paperwork that says the French own France. Right. Because the Gauls got it, start calling themselves French, you know, whatever, before there was much paperwork to generate. It's an incredibly stupid argument and it's the kind of thing that Stephen Miller, you can hear him saying, it's Miller in that famous now infamous interview on CNN last week or the week before, he says, by what legal authority do they have, Does Denmark have sovereignty over Greenland? You can imagine Miller just hovering around worm tonguing this point, saying they don't have any claim to it that's better than our claim. You know, they're just there, we should just take it. And he's susceptible that because he's an unfit 80 year old narcissist. Anyway, I'm sorry to interrupt, Declan.
- [14:41]
A
No, so I mean, Miller also, it should be noted in that interview with Jake Tapper said that America's a superpower and we're going to begin acting like one, which I think sounded at the time and certainly in retrospect like a threat to do the kinds of things that we're contemplating the administration doing right now. He also appeared on Sean Hannity's show on Friday and said that any country that doesn't have the means militarily, I'm paraphrasing here, to defend itself and keep hold of its territory should expect to lose its territory. So this is not, there's no reading between the lines. This isn't sort of what might they mean. This is we can get it because we want it. And I'm struck by the parallelism between the arguments that we heard from Vladimir Putin with respect to Ukraine and in the years leading up to, well after 2014, but then in particular in the years leading up to the February 22, 2022 invasion, many of these are just being repurposed for the potential US Invasion of Greenland. Declan We've seen this pattern over the past decade from Republican elected officials where, I mean, from the Republican rank and file at large, but Republican elected officials in particular, where the initial reaction is, oh, that's crazy. The second reaction is some version of that's great, he'll never do that. The, the third is he might mean it. The, the fourth step is he might mean it and I'm, I'm not going to oppose it. And the fifth step, I mean, there are probably more steps than the ones I'm coming up with is some version of it's not crazy, he meant it, it's brilliant and I'm for it. Where are we on that sort of scale, that spectrum? Now, we saw Senator Eric Schmidt do a long Twitter thread last week, sort of extolling the virtues of taking Greenland, kind of however we need to do it. Ted Cruz, who had mustered up some courage, maybe we'd call them hints of courage. Challenging the president on some free speech issues is full throated. In defense of territorial expansion, Senator Schmidt said territorial expansion has a long and proud history in the United States and sort of elsewhere. Where are we on that? And do you expect any Republicans other than maybe Tom Tillis to actually oppose the president if he wanted to buy it at a time when we're $38 trillion in debt or if he wanted to seize it?
- [17:28]
D
I think we're seeing a split right now. Obviously, there's divided opinions here. You mentioned Eric Schmidt, you mentioned Ted Cruz and their comments. Tillis did come out over the weekend say that this would be bad for America, bad for our allies, bad for American businesses. Which brings me to, I want to get back to the economic ramifications here at the end of this answer, but you also had Don Bacon Again, somebody who is not an ally of the White House, also retiring and willing to put some rhetorical difference. But he brought up the Vladimir Putin comparisons himself, a sitting Republican member of Congress, saying this is something that Vladimir Putin would do. You had a bipartisan delegation going to Greenland, in theory, to reassure leaders there that these threats aren't serious or we're going to work around this. And you know, they're I'm sure having their arguments and cut out from under them given the Trump's comments over the weekend. But yeah, in terms of the European response here, we got some news on that front this morning that we included in the Morning Dispatch on Monday. France, led by Emmanuel Macron is considering invoking this kind of first of its kind. They call it a anti coercion instrument that was put in place a couple of years ago that is designed basically to prevent external actors from forcing EU to change policy based on economic threats. It's something that they've never done before. Macron is, is starting to build a coalition to call for it and use it against the United States, not against China, not against Russia, use it against, in theory, one of their longest standing and strongest allies. And so that would be additional tariffs, taxes on tech companies, curbs on American investment in the eu. This is all coming from reporting from Bloomberg Monday morning, but expect to hear much more about that today that will have real ramifications. We also saw any sort of tariff threat which we've been focused on this letter, rightly so, but there was a post on Saturday From Trump imposing 10 additional 10% tariffs on European countries, eight European countries, including the U.K. denmark, France, all, all of it, and then an additional 25% if the Greenland issue is not, quote, unquote, resolved by June. And so that basically rips up the trade deal that his economic advisors and trade advisors had been working on for the better part of a year that they came to terms with. And in theory, you know, I think Kevin had a great piece, we did some great reporting in the Morning Dispatch on the flaws in that deal and kind of how it traded short term wins for long term growth. But that was something that the administration was proud of. And it's being torn up for what exactly? It's still, I still have not heard a compelling pitch for what ownership of Greenland would do for the United States. That can't already be done through existing mechanisms of adding additional bases, adding additional military resources. In theory, Denmark is an ally that would work with us on those, those questions. But it seems like the administration does not want to Take yes for an answer there.
- [21:08]
A
Well, and at the beginning of the first term, the president himself, President Trump himself, praised Denmark for being such a loyal and steadfast ally over the two countries histories. I don't think he was probably doing that because he had a deep appreciation for the alliance over the years. Somebody probably gave him some words that he read, but at least at that point, he was reading them. I wanted Jonah push into this question of these tariffs and then take a step beyond the. The president announced these tariffs, as Declan says over the weekend. It takes this discussion of the possibility of the United States moving, taking steps. It takes it from sort of the theoretical and the rhetorical to the real. The President is willing to do some things to cause some pain to further upset our European allies by doing this. Does that. Should we read anything into that beyond that he's serious, or has this process begun?
- [22:15]
B
Well, I think right now, their theory of the case is sort of like the Venezuela one, which was that they were trying to saber rattle, to make, in this case, our long standing and most important allies think we are serious about using force if necessary, which I think you've heard me rant a million times about how frustrated I get when Trump defenders will make the mistake of thinking that an explanation is an excuse. Right. Oh, well, look, he's just doing this for leverage and that's what he's trying to do. Or he thinks he's very hurt that he didn't get the Nobel Peace Prize. They say these things as if you say it reasonably, that that somehow conveys reasonableness about. Always reminds me, I dated this girl when I lived in Prague, and I took her to see Silence of the Lambs, and she had no idea what she was watching, and she was very scared. And she turned to me and said, he eats people. And I said, yes. And she said, he thinks it is.
- [23:30]
C
Good to eat people.
- [23:32]
B
And I said, yes. Like, if you say it like that, you make it sound like eating people is just like, well, that's what he does. That's what Animal Lecter does.
- [23:40]
C
Right.
- [23:42]
B
And it's similar with the way Trump spinners do this. And. And so I don't know that if that in Trump's own mind, he's actually made the call that he's willing to actually use American troops. I don't know if he's figured out whether he can get away with it. But me saying that is not an excuse. Threatening military force against our allies, as I said, like, three weeks ago, is like Don Corleone telling Johnny Fontaine's bandleader. I'm gonna. You have a choice, he can't refuse. Cuz either you sign the thing and get a thousand bucks, or your brains are on the contract that like under the law, under logic, under moral philosophy of every kind, is the use of force. The threat of use of force. If I put a gun to your head and say do X, that may not be violence in the sense that there's bloodshed, but I was gonna say.
- [24:35]
A
You'Re getting pretty close to speech. Is violence arguments here, Jonah.
- [24:38]
B
No, I'm not. Not when you point a gun at somebody. Under the law, the threat of the.
- [24:43]
A
Use of force is the use of force.
- [24:45]
C
Yes.
- [24:45]
B
I mean, that quite literally is a matter of law. If I hold you up with a. At gunpoint, that is the use of force, right? Whether or not I pull the trigger. And you can go to jail for it. Which is one of the reasons why a lot of petty, you know, robberies, they don't put bullets in the gun because they want. If they get caught, they want to be able to say, hey, look, it wasn't even loaded. I was just intimidating. They still go to jail, but just for a lesser charge. Right. And by putting a gun to the heads of the UK and our other allies, the threat of use of force is really dishonorable and appalling. But I don't know that he's actually kicked in this process of using force quite yet because he thinks he might be able to get away with it with pure intimidation. And that's disgusting. It's disgusting. It's. And to do it entirely for his own ego. That's the real problem here. If you told me that, you know, the, you know, the ring of power was buried in the, some believe some mountain in Greenland and whichever country had it would become, would be saved from some alien invader. Like if you could come up with a scenario where we actually friggin needed Greenland, okay, Use whatever means necessary. You have to get Greenland, right? We don't. Like, we can get everything we want through a treaty that exists. We can save the NATO alliance which exists. And to throw all of this stuff, you know, into the wood chipper for his own ego is impeachable to me. I mean, like, I know people. Oh, you have Trump derangements. You know, it is obvious to me that in a country where Congress took itself seriously, they first of all would take these tariff powers all back. They would say, all right, you can't be trusted. You're playing with matches. We're taking them all back. I Mean, like you had Scott Besant on Meet the Press yesterday when asked, okay, what is the emergency? What is the crisis that justifies the use of these tariffs under the law? Because it has to be a crisis.
- [26:53]
A
And.
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B
And Bessant said with a straight face, without fear of a lightning bolt, you know, taking him out, well, the emergency is the crisis is the need to prevent a crisis, which is just the most ludicrous thing ever and makes a complete and total mockery of Congress and the intent of the law. And the only thing that gives me a little hope is that in some weird way, like John Roberts and the guys in the Supreme Court were watching, are watching all of this, and they're like, damn it. And they just start tearing up the decision. They were going to write and say, we cannot let this guy abuse these powers in this way. But I don't know if he's going to use force. It's bad enough what he's doing right now.
- [27:41]
C
Can I say something, Steve? Because I think all of these arguments and discussions of the substance of what Trump is saying or could do or threatening to do are important, and I'm glad we're talking about them. But I do sometimes worry that the familiarity with this kind of behavior is inuring us to how out of control it seems. And when I say out of control, I mean it appears that the President himself, sort of not even in control of his own. I mean, again, maybe this is not a surprise, this is not news, but he's not even in control of sort of these impulses in ways that are not just simply causing him to say awkward, embarrassing things at a podium in front of the media. He's not just sort of doing bizarre dances because he can't control himself. When YMCA comes on the page like there is, I don't know between this and what's happening in Minnesota, and you're seeing sort of those worm tongues like Stephen Miller say what I think are sort of absolutely outrageous statements. This is what Steve Miller said on Sunday night, only federal. This is in response to these claims that in Minnesota, local law enforcement is impeding things, is it is helping out protesters and it is impeding ice. Steven Miller says only federal officers are upholding the law. This is on X. Local and state police have been ordered to stand down and surrender. It just all feels like the chaos of, like, you know, created and stirred up by one person and the two or three people who are sycophantic and take advantage of the kind of addled state of the president to push their own Kind of bizarre ideas about what they can do with the power that they've been given. It all feels like it's spinning out of control. That is such an old thing. People have been saying this since 2015. It's finally spinning out of control. I don't necessarily think that means the end of Donald Trump's presidency, but I just think we should sit with that and acknowledge that and appreciate. I think the Greenland, or, excuse me, the Norway text message letter he sent to this prime minister just kind of put that all in perspective. To me, this is whether he's crazy, this is all nuts, and it feels like it's getting out of control.
- [30:16]
A
I mean, yeah, I take that point. Go ahead, Declan.
- [30:19]
D
Along those lines, I'm going to read a line here from Tim Ross reporting in Politico Europe. But this, this morning, Monday morning, reporting in private, dismayed European officials described Trump's rush to annex the Sovere Danish territory as, quote, crazy and mad, asking if he's caught up in, quote, warrior mode after his Venezuela adventure. I've listened to David French on this podcast make the point that Putin has changed over the course of the last three or four years, that Trump is not negotiating with the same person that he was during his first term because the Ukraine war has changed Putin. It has changed his mindset, his approach to governance. Whether or not we think that is the case, European officials and European leaders are acting as though Trump is kind of in the same mode at this point, which is crazy scary, not ideal, and he's not doing anything to disabuse them of that notion with, with letters like this. I, I do want to. Do we know when the letter was sent? Because Trump now has a Nobel Peace Prize. Right. He got one from Maria Corina Machado late last week. So this could all be moot, but.
- [31:36]
A
The Nobel committee put out a statement basically saying that you can't obtain one from anyone else and in effect, it doesn't count. It was like the asterisk to Trump swanning the Nobel Peace Prize.
- [31:49]
D
If it did count, we should give Machado a second peace prize to. By averting this war, by giving Trump.
- [31:56]
A
Just do this. Yeah, do this.
- [31:58]
D
Yeah.
- [31:59]
C
By the way, by the way, the factual question. The New York Times reported that the Norwegian prime minister received this text message on Sunday.
- [32:08]
A
So, yeah, I do want to spend a moment on the other implications of this. I've been troubled in part by. Not in part, I've been troubled by what I think is a misunderstanding, both on the part of some European allies and the rhetoric that we've been hearing coming out of European capitals, but also some Republicans and people who have sort of raised some. Some warnings about this. One of the warnings that we see, and I think probably some people who are making these observations are just making the observations to make the observations. Some of them mean them, I think, as a warning directed at Donald Trump in the White House is that, you know, would the United States do something like this? It could very well mean the end of NATO. We've heard that again and again and again. Why does anyone think that that's not the objective here? That seems to me much more a feature than a bug, particularly if you look at Donald Trump's history on the question of NATO. For a long time, he's been, at best, I would say, ambivalent about the continued existence of NATO. Let me read a piece from the New York Times that suggests Donald Trump really never that enamored of NATO and maybe wanted to get out of NATO earlier. The lead is there are a few things that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia desires more than the weakening of NATO. The military alliance among the United States, Europe and Canada that has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years. Last year, Donald Trump suggested a move tantamount to destroying NATO, the withdrawal of the United States. Senior administration officials told the New York Times that several times over the course of 2018, Mr. Trump privately said he wanted to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Current and former officials who support the alliance said they feared Mr. Trump could return to his threat as allied military spending continued to lag behind the goals the president had set in the days around a tumultuous NATO summit meeting last summer. They said Mr. Trump told his top national security officials that he did not see the point of the military alliance, which he presented as a drain on the United States. The giveaway there, of course, is the year in that article. This was published in 2019. Donald Trump had, apparently, according to the New York Times, and we've seen this reported and repeated elsewhere, expressed desire several times to end NATO. He thinks we've been subsidizing NATO. He thinks they're freeloaders. We don't get anything from it. Why should we not look at this as, I mean, let's assume he wants to get Greenland for the sake of Greenland, even though, as Jonah pointed out, the word does not appear anywhere in the 33 page National Security Strategy of the United States, which was just issued last year. You would think if this national security of the United States actually depended upon the United States having Greenland they would have mentioned it when they put out their, their strategy. They didn't. Why do we think that this isn't, at least in part, a way to end NATO? And why aren't we having more of a discussion about that? I'm surprised as I look around that that's not part of the conversation, Declan.
- [35:34]
D
I mean, this is for, for I think everybody on this podcast and probably most people listening to this podcast, one of the most frustrating aspects of the, the approach here is there were legitimate criticisms to be had of NATO during first Trump's first term. I mean, no institution is perfect. There's legitimate criticisms now. But with the threats that he carried out in kind of the first term to get other countries to increase their defense spending, accelerated obviously by the Ukraine, Russia war. But a lot of the problems that he outlined in his first term have been solved or are well on their way to being solved. Germany is rebuilding its own national defense. France, uk, they're all investing in defense, in part because of the threats Trump made in his first term, but in part because of now concerns that the US Is not going to have their back. And it's, yeah, it's a, a weird thing that these leaders are talking about this as, as a threat. I think they're obviously very embarrassing quotes. Earlier this year, what was it that, who was it the supreme commander of NATO who called Trump daddy or something in a, in a post over the summer, Daddy's Home or something like. These are all efforts to get him to care. It's a weird way to get somebody to care about a really successful post war alliance is to call him the daddy of it. But if, if it works, great. But yeah, it's, it seems not to be working. This has been a very consistent through line, no matter what these European allies do or say, that Trump does, does not seem to think that this alliance needs to continue.
- [37:24]
B
Yeah, I'm going to disagree, Steve, with slight, just slightly on the way you phrased it at the outset. I don't think the point of this is the destruction of NATO. It's just that Trump doesn't care if that's the byproduct. The way you framed it makes it sound like Trump's a 3D chess player who has this really clever plan for how to destroy NATO.
- [37:48]
A
No, I think that's right.
- [37:49]
B
You know, and which does not necessarily jive with the why aren't, why aren't we just calling him insane thing either. Right. And so to me, it's sort of like, did Kevin Roberts decide to destroy the Heritage Foundation. No. It was a byproduct of ridiculous decisions that he made. Did Trump go into this as his secret plan to destroy NATO? No. When people said this could destroy NATO, his response is, so what are good? They should go anyway. Screw them. Right? But he is. He is not not only saying there are credible arguments about. About, you know, whether NATO has lived past its. I disagree with them, but they're credible. They're serious. People have made arguments for the last 30, 40 years about whether or not, you know, NATO has outlived its utility at the end of the Cold War. And you can have all sorts of arguments about it. I don't mind people who, I mean, I'll just, again, I will sharply disagree with them, but I don't mind people who do their homework and figure out, okay, you know, this really isn't in our interest anymore, and maybe we should figure out a different way of doing things. That's not what Trump does. Trump, like, I have a real problem with people who don't understand what NATO is and how it works and what it's for. And I've never heard Trump actually explain the economic structure of NATO in a way that conveys to me he understands how it works. He talks about it as if it's a country club and all the other NATO countries are in arrears on their dues. And he kept saying they need to pay more into NATO. It's just not how NATO works. Like, the actual budget for, like, NATO as the country club thing is pretty small. It's like it's a couple billion dollars for headquarters and some paperwork and some stationary and whatever the 2% of GDP thing is what you spend on your own military. And he constantly slips back and reveals that he doesn't really understand that point. And if you, it's, you know, there's a moratorium on me saying Chesterton's fence. But if you don't understand what NATO is for, and it makes it a lot easier to contemplate getting rid of it. And I think that's the problem with Trump, is that when people say, you're going to destroy NATO, he's like, I don't care. You know, I don't know what NATO was there for in the first place. And which is, again, why Congress needs to have a backbone. That is, the thing that's just screaming in here is that Congress is violating its constitutional oath. Congress is violating its role in our constitutional order. Congress is aiding and abetting the dishonoring of America and our alliances and the weakening of this country and the violation of its principles for rank, partisan self interest. And it is outrageous. And I know congressmen listen to this and staff listen to this. You should all be ashamed of yourselves if this ends up going forward the way it looks like it's going forward, because you will have given the permission structure for it, or at the very least you will not have stood in the way. And history is going to consider this castrati Congress to be one of the most embarrassing and shameful institutions in American history.
- [41:15]
A
Well, they now are they. You now have people who are actually helping him make his case on this. I think you're right that it's not. This isn't some secret triple bank shot genius strategic move of Trump to primarily to get rid of NATO. I think he just wants Greenland because he wants Greenland. Right. He said he wants it. He likes to expand territory. He thinks it'll leave a national a long lasting imprint if he engages in this territorial expansion. My point was a little different and I may not have made it very well when I laid it out. It's not. I think it's not just sort of coincidental, however, that this would weaken or end NATO. I think it's more than that. I think he wants to end NATO.
- [42:02]
B
No, I think you were clear about that. It was just your initial phrasing when you said, is this the point? And I think. I don't think it's the point.
- [42:07]
A
Point. Yeah, it's not. I don't think it's the point. I don't think the Kevin Roberts thing works because it wouldn't make any sense for Kevin Roberts to set out to want to destroy the Heritage Foundation. But I do think that Trump would like to end US Support of NATO, maybe end the alliance itself.
- [42:24]
B
Yeah, I just meant incompetent and selfish leadership yields all sorts of ancillary knock on effects.
- [42:29]
A
There's a very clear parallel there. Yes, absolutely. Declan and Mike, last word on this to you. You've seen the Trump administration, various spokespeople for it, make the case falsely. We should point out that Greenland is in effect surrounded by Chinese and Russian vessels. I mean, really impaired. Depending on who you're listening to, things are bad. Could take it, take it over at any time and suggest this is sort of a new line of argument. I don't know if they're going to continue it because it's so sort of preposterous on its face and it's being contradicted in real time. But that hasn't kept them from making certain arguments before. Suggesting that really what they're doing is to use this acquisition, prospective acquisition of Greenland as a way to fend off the Russians, that this is not actually something the Russians would do as they're doing in Ukraine or would want by seeing the end of. Of NATO. However, that case is complicated because the Russians themselves are saying the opposite. Vladimir Putin, in a speech on January 10, talked about how he understands, and he, in the speech he gave, justifies Donald Trump's desire to own Greenland. And Kirill Dmitriev, who is by title CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Special Envoy of the President of Russia for Investment and Economic Cooperation, and importantly has been, I think, the main, or one of the main Russian interlocutors with Steve Witkoff, as they've discussed the war in Ukraine and other things related to the United States in Europe. Tweeted out, president Putin understands the U.S. rationale on Greenland and shares key historic facts about U.S. efforts to acquire Greenland since the 1860s. And he tweets out this speech that, that Putin has given. If the Russians themselves are telling us that they're excited about this, he also, he had another tweet, I don't have it in front of me weekend, where he says, you know, the collapse of the transatlantic union. Finally, something worth discussing at Davos. So they're in effect, celebrating the United States appetite for Greenland, potential moves on Greenland. Is this a time where we should take them at their word, or is there something clever that they're doing here with their rhetoric, Mike?
- [45:17]
C
I mean, I don't know how clever it is. It's pretty obvious what they're trying to do. One, there's a benefit to the Americans taking over Greenland by military force, if possible, which is it weakens the Western argument against Russia's war against Ukraine. So it's a useful argument for them, and it's a useful situation for them to be able to say, hey, the Americans took Greenland. It was their right, just as it is our right. They're still making that argument regardless of whether we take Greenland or not, but it certainly boosts them. And the Russians don't like NATO, that transatlantic alliance. They want it destroyed. So, I mean, it more just kind of tells you how the chief Russian kind of propagandists, of which, you know, he is. Am I pronouncing his name right? Kirill. Kirill Dmitriev. Dmitriev. He is. He not only meets with people like Steve Witkoff, he meets with sort of useful idiots in Congress as well, and really kind of uses MAGA arguments to get them on Russia's side. It just seems to me it's a pretty blatant and naked attempt to encourage Trump and his allies to continue supporting and promoting this idea which creates chaos throughout the this very important transatlantic alliance. It's not more clever or sophisticated than that.
- [46:57]
A
Yeah, Declan, quickly, before we move to the next topic, do what do you think as we watch this, these events unfold? We're recording 11am on Monday, January 19th. What's the likelihood that elected members of Congress, you know, who might be more Reaganite in their disposition, speak out against this in a clear and unmistakably forceful way? Or do you expect that this is like so many things we've seen before, a place where they just sort of collapse?
- [47:28]
D
I think it is likely in part because we started to see rumblings of it over the weekend. I think even kind of, you know, senators who aren't knee jerk to criticize the administration. I think I might be taking him a little bit out of context, but John Kennedy called this weapons grade stupid at some point over the weekend in an interview. McConnell, Mitch McConnell is not giving a lot of speeches these days anymore. His health is deteriorating. But he made a point to speak about this late last week. I think that presaged a lot of the additional comments from other Republican members over the weekend. And I do think before we move on from this topic, the administration and Trump himself seems to be doing everything that they can to basically get Denmark and Europe to surrender this unilaterally without having to actually use any American force. But let's think about what that would actually look like in terms the United States invading and occupying an island against the wishes of European allies. Trump, I think, gets misnamed or mislabeled. An isolationist. He's not an isolationist, but he doesn't like sustained military campaigns. He doesn't like troops on the ground. Everything that he's done, the Soleimani strikes, the Operation Midnight Hammer in Iran, Venezuela, these are one off minimal risk, or I mean, high risk, but minimal likelihood of tons of casualties, tons of American body bags. If Europe decides they don't want the United States to invade Greenland, if NATO decides they don't want the United States to invade Greenland. And does that mean that Trump is really ready for a sustained military campaign against, you know, sophisticated armed forces? This would be unlike anything that he's ever done in his presidency. And the fact that, you know, as Jonah said, this is all, all these comments, all these remarks are being made with threat of gun at the end of it. It's just worth thinking about a little bit what that would actually look like.
- [49:45]
A
No, I agree. I mean, I think my own view is that he's likely making a bet that they don't mean it, that they wouldn't actually stand up, that they're sending. You know, I. I forget which country it was over the weekend. Maybe it was Sweden. I could have this wrong. Sent 15 troops. Probably. Probably. I mean, they're doing it as a show of unity, not as a show of force. I think he perceives, rightly, that the Europeans would be unlikely to actually fight. Before we take an ad break, please consider becoming a member of the Dispatch. You'll unlock access to bonus podcast episodes and all of our exclusive newsletters and articles. You can sign up@thedispatch.com join and if you use the promo code roundtable, you'll get one month free. You can also avail yourselves of the new audio stream of all of the Dispatch's textual content. And speaking of ads, if they aren't your thing, you can upgrade to a premium membership. No ads, early access to all episodes, two free annual memberships to give away, exclusive town halls with the founders, and more. Okay, we'll be right back. Without life insurance, managing everyday costs or sudden expenses can quickly become overwhelming. Dealing with the grief of losing someone, along with the real financial challenges that often accompany such a loss, compounds your difficulties. Life insurance isn't about expecting the worst. It's about knowing your family will be taken care of no matter what. And that's why planning ahead matters. Why I've had life insurance for years. Ethos makes that decision a lot simpler. Ethos makes getting life insurance fast and simple. And it's 100% online. You can get same day coverage with some policies starting at $30 a month. There's no medical exam, just a few quick health questions. Business Insider named Ethos the number one no medical exam instant life insurance provider, and they have a 4.8 out of 5 rating on Trustpilot. Protect your family with life insurance through Ethos. Now by going to ethos.com dispatch in as little as 10 minutes, you can get your free quote and up to $3 million in coverage at ethos.com dispatch. That's E T H O S.com dispatch ethos.com dispatch application times and rates may vary.
- [52:16]
D
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- [52:20]
B
That's why TaxAct has live experts to help. TaxAct can even do it for you if you prefer.
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D
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- [52:39]
A
Before tax day, so maybe just stick.
- [52:42]
D
With Taxact Tax Act. Let's get them over with.
- [52:47]
A
Welcome back. Let's return to our discussion. I want to move to our second topic today. And for the second topic, I wanted to combine two, I think very smart pieces pointing in very different directions about the state of the conservative movement as we contemplate it here in January of 2026. The first was Jonah's G file from Wednesday. And loathe as I am to give him praise, particularly after he knifed me in the back late last week, I think it was a good piece and I think it was worth discussing. And Jonah, maybe I could just ask you to kind of lay out the argument that you made in that piece. I'm looking to see what, what title we gave it. Beware the New Americanism. You looked at, sort of. It's actually part of the reason I thought it was brilliant is because these are ideas that I've been having for quite some time and haven't put them down on paper.
- [53:45]
B
Yeah.
- [53:45]
A
So go ahead. You could say what you're going to say. No, I thought you were going to make fun of me. And then the second piece is Ross Douthat's piece published in the New York Times over the weekend on the end of Conservatism, which was, I think, really interesting for a number of different reasons. In particular, I would say it's timing. So, Jonah, why don't you take us through your piece first and then if you have any reaction to Ross's piece, we'd love to get that too.
- [54:12]
C
Yeah.
- [54:12]
B
I mean, just so I'm kind of curious what you think the inherent tension between the two pieces is, but we can get to that. I went down this rabbit hole because the Department of Labor ran this video that kind of went semi viral. I remember, I think I texted it to you when it came out with these, you know, weird slogans of, you know, one heritage, one people, whatever. That sounded a little Nazi, you know, or fascist adjacent. And. And then I was like, what the hell is this? And then you go down the Twitter feed of the social media feed and, you know, this isn't just obsessing about something on Twitter. This is like the PR social media campaign for a major agency which currently right now has a massive 8 story or 5 story banner of Donald Trump's face hanging off of it, which I have to drive past every single week because it's on the way to cnn.
- [55:14]
A
Like a Saddam. Like, can't, you know, poster kind of.
- [55:17]
C
Yeah.
- [55:18]
B
For a while it was just him. And then they added tr, which I think they think immunizes them from criticism. It's very creepy. Anyway, these various social media feeds are very fascistic. If by fascistic you mean sort of creepy. Fomenting the idea that we're at war, that we have an enemy within. One of the most interesting propagandistic tools that it uses is it never says Americans. It speaks to American. Like, be vigilant American. Right. Which is a very subtle thing that gets at, like, regimes that talk about people as, you know. Like, what it was trying to do is commodify vast size of our population into a pure identity thing. And it's a way, you know, like, you know, beware the Hun. Right. It's like any hunter is a villain. Stand tall. American is a way to sort of echo in people's. In young men's heads. It's presenting all of this weird sort of young white men that look like they could be, you know, posters from World War I in America, from Nazi Germany, Eugenics campaigns. From American eugenics campaigns. Anyway, it's super creepy and seems to me that it's part of the larger Heritage American program on aspects of the American right. This is the idea that if you. Which has been embraced to some extent and pushed by J.D. vance and Senator. What's Schmidt's first name? We were talking about him in the first half.
- [56:54]
D
Eric.
- [56:55]
B
Eric, yeah. He gave a big speech at a National Conservative convention where he gets into this stuff. There's a guy on OAN or one of those Jabroni networks, Jack Bosobiak, who's a big MAGA guy pushing this. And this is just basically the idea that the more your ancestors have been here from the beginning, not counting black people, the more real of an American you are. And that, as J.D. vance said, if you have an ancestor who fought in the Civil War, I just think you have more right to say, you have more of a say in what America should be about than someone who just got off the boat. I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it. And the reason why it always sticks in my memory is that he didn't say, fought for the Union. Right. You could have fought for either side of the Civil War in J.D. vance's estimation. And that makes you more of an American than somebody who's Been here, whose family has been here for a generation or a century even. And it's obviously ridiculous. And so it is a very nationalistic, you don't have to call it fascist pose that they've got. And I think the way to think about it, because so much of this stuff is you cannot separate the trolling dynamic. They want people to call them fascists so then they can say, see, if you love America's heritage, they call you fascist. They hate America, they hate white people, they're anti white. All this is, is Norrin Rockwell, best thing about America, yada, yada, yada kind of thing. And sometimes that can be true. But I think the way to think about it is in the same way that we've spent a lot of time talking about people who are not pro Trump, they're just anti anti Trump. The pose for a big segment of the New right with J.D. vance on down, is that they're anti anti Nazi or anti anti fascist. It's not so much that they celebrate Nick Fuentes. They just simply say, we need room for these people who love Nick Fuentes in our movement and the people who have a problem with it. Ben Shapiro, neocons, whatever, they're the ones who need to go. Their code for big tent is fascists, Nazi cosplay grapers, all these kinds of people. They're part of the coalition. It's the fastidious old Reaganite types who have a problem with, with this stuff. They're the ones who need to go. And I don't think it's necessarily going to be politically successful, but it is ruining American conservatism's branding in the American political discourse. It makes it all. It's like this Greenland stuff or the Venezuela stuff. Steve, how many times were we accused of supporting a war for oil? And now, like, I can still say that was a lie back then. How am I supposed to call it a lie right now? Because it's kind of, it's, it's not even kind of true. It's true. Right? And similarly, all of the, you know, for years we've dealt with people on the left who said, oh, all this patriotic talk and small government, limited government, it's all just code for basically sort of racism and fascism and authoritarianism. And conservatives aren't actual classical liberals. They just use that language because it works. I think that was a lie back then. I can't say it's a lie now. It makes defending conservatism so much harder because the people who call themselves conservatives are imbuing it with this ethno nationalistic bs and it's very dismaying.
- [60:40]
A
Well, so you bring me directly to the contrast with Ross Douthat's argument, because I think the through line is you're both talking about in different ways the end of conservatism. You are doing it very plainly, lamenting it and worrying that there is this ethno nationalist potential next step. I mean, they're at least cosplaying this. Some of them are very sincere in, I think, doing what they're doing, mimicking the horrors of the past. And I read your piece as something of a warning without going too far and saying, like, you know, here we are, you know, once again, we're here in the 1930s, but saying, in effect, yeah, this isn't great. And Ross's piece was. Seemed to me in some respects at least, to be welcoming the end of conservatism and the sort of arrival of this kind of new nationalism. He begins the this essay by the device he uses is, I guess it's a mansion, a Victorian mansion of the conservative movement. It's decaying, it's falling down. All these things in the first term. Trump sort of let this all happen happen while letting mold and time do their work on the limited government wing, meaning he didn't actually go and destroy it. And then I'll read the second paragraph. Trump's second term has been a very different story. The smoke of demolition is everywhere, cranes are swinging wildly. And if the shape of the original building is still vaguely visible through the smoke, it's clear that the final renovation is going to be radical. More of the original residents have fled to nearby properties. You could see a bunch of them clustered in the Mica Pence gazebo, while others have barricaded themselves inside the Capital T True conservatism suite, where folks are pouring tea and wearing earplugs. Mike, I wonder what you think about Ross's essay, having had a chance to read it. And the specific question I want to ask you is, are we just now getting to the end of conservatism? This seems like an interesting piece and would have been more persuasive had it been written in the first term rather than the second. Sure, there were some tax cuts in the first. There's some things that we would have thought of as consistent with old school conservatism in the first term, but you're just seeing this now.
- [63:17]
C
I do think Ross's approach to this column and this question is certainly in response to some of the reporting that frankly, we have done at the Dispatch about the institutions of conservatism sort of collapsing. And this is. So there is a timeliness to it that I would sort of defend just from as a matter of editorial judgment from Ross and his editors. And it's interesting, by the way he mentioned the Mike Pence gazebo, a bunch of them clustered. I mean, that's almost quite literally true. The Advancing American Freedom, which is Mike Pence's group, has just added scores of scholars from the Heritage foundation who have escaped that sort of disaster.
- [64:05]
D
I thought, literally true. Are they working in a gazebo?
- [64:10]
C
Well, okay, so maybe not literally a gazebo, but they are clustered in a Mike Pence gazebo. I've been to the offices before. You can see inside, there's some lattice. No, there's no lattice. All right. But the. Okay, I agree with Ross and I agree with you, Steve, that, like, this has been true probably for longer than Ross suggests. But I think it is true that basically the old style of conservatism is dead from an institutional standpoint, Those. Those other smaller and less influential institutions notwithstanding. I also think it doesn't matter as much as maybe we think. I wonder if there's this idea that it was this, as Ross says, this big, beautiful Victorian mansion and it's been allowed to deteriorate. I sort of think these things are, if they're so easily torn down. I'm not saying it's going to be easy to build it back up again, but it's the kind of thing where the political purchase of the nationalism that Jonah describes, it appears to be waning by the day. I mean, I think we can see what's happening in Minneapolis and the reaction to it in the polling to be a great example of this, that actually when people see it, I mean, we're sort of stuck with it because it's what voters voted for in 2024. We're stuck with it for the next three years, or maybe at least the next year until Democrats take control of Congress in the midterms. But it's not getting more popular. And all of this sort of the posting that's going on from the Department of Labor or all these other places, it's not helping, and it's not helping nationalism or MAGA ism gain some big foothold. The problem is in the institutions themselves, which are. It's a smaller. It's a more sort of niche group. But these are the people who will be defining what, say the Republican Party or conservative academia or journalism looks like in the next 10, 15, 2025, 30 years. And I'm a little skeptical that the sort of free market, I don't know, the sort of dispatch view of conservatism is, you know, it's gone and we will never see it again because it's. I mean, these things are cyclical and they depend a lot on what can win and what can, you know, and what loses. And I do think Trumpism is losing and it's losing ground, and a couple of losses will do quite a bit to sort of diminish the appeal of this kind of politics. Maybe it doesn't look like dispatching conservatism, but. But I think these things are a little less defined and the end of such movements are less defined. I mean, we're still talking about communism and sort of socialism growing on the young left. I mean, it's disturbing, but you would have thought 30 years ago that that would be a dead letter. And yet here we are. So maybe that's not a great.
- [67:37]
A
Now we're talking about communism and socialism growing on the bright.
- [67:40]
C
Yeah, true.
- [67:41]
A
On the young right. I mean, that's part of the problem. Also on the trumpy. Right. Declan, it sounds to me like Mike might very well fit the description that Ross gave us of others who have barricaded themselves inside the true conservatism suite, where folks are pouring tea and wearing earplugs. Is that where Mike is hoping for, even if it's not a return to sort of dispatching conservatism, longing for days of the halcyon days of conservatism and principle past?
- [68:16]
D
Well, it looks like he's wearing over ear headphones rather than earplugs, at least on our.
- [68:22]
B
The better to obscure the earplugs.
- [68:25]
C
Yes, Noise canceling, that's what I needed.
- [68:27]
D
And I don't know, I haven't seen tea. But no, I think this is part of the reason the dispatch exists. We've talked about it on this podcast before. The need to, you know, keep. Keep the flame alive of, Of Reaganite conservatism, free markets and classical liberalism more broadly until that time at which the. The world or the United States decides that it needs it again. And, you know, that's. That's what we're doing. That's kind of what we're. Our entire purpose is. That said, I think Ross's piece was more diagnostic necessarily than him advancing a particular argument. Kind of hears the world as he sees it. I like the frameworks that he referenced. Political scientist Stephen Skoronic, the idea of disjunctive presidents and reconstructive presidents. So, yeah, disjunctive being Jimmy Carter, Herbert Hoover, kind of of bridging these changing eras or kind of changing. The tectonic plates are shifting. And his argument was that in the first term, you could argue that Trump was one of those. He wasn't going to be the FDR or the Reagan to usher in a new era, a new worldview, a new kind of ecosystem, but he was revealing the faults with the one that was leaving. And he ends the argument or ends this piece saying he's not an FDR and he's not a Reagan because he's not interested in building foundations and building something new. He's just kind of slapping on the tacky Rose garden stuff and putting his name on everything. He's not all that interested in what comes beyond him. And that Ross's argument is that that's going to be up to 2028, 2030, two new Republican candidates to put their own spin on nationalism. And we're already seeing that fight playing out between J.D. vance and Rubio and Ted Cruz and Hawley and all these different potential contenders for that 2028. And I agree that nobody is going to be perfectly dispatching in 2028 and ride to a historic victory in the Republican presidential primary. There's going to be. You're going to need to cater to this new, what the new base of voters looks like. But there are people who are going to try to steer the movement on the, on the margins toward a. A more constructive, you know, populist conservatism. There's also going to be plenty of people try to make it even more destructive, and we'll hear from them as well. But that's what, that's what's coming. And it's important that conservatives are in the fight.
- [71:35]
B
So I haven't opined on Ross's opinionating, and I'm a little reluctant to do it because it's going to sound harsher than it is. I have a lot of respect for Ross. I've known Ross for a very long time, former intern at National Review. He's a brilliant guy and one of the best writers there is out there. But, you know, a bud is coming. Ross going back to his debut as a public figure has been, I don't want to call it, I don't want to say playing a game, because that's ascribing to him bad faith. And I don't think that's what you can ascribe to him. I think he's sincere, but he has A way he is extremely gifted at writing in this space between saying what he actually thinks and giving suggestive credit to critics and outsiders of traditional conservatism, of sort of running between the raindrops and avoiding getting wet with any ideological stain on himself to come up with a really ridiculous metaphor on the fly. But he has always had, you know, he's a sincere Catholic and traditionalist in that regard. He's always had a much softer spot for populism than a lot of other people. Going back to his Sam's Club Republican stuff that he did with Ryan Salaam, another friend of mine. So it's not shocking to me that he is softer on a coalition full of ultramontane Catholics, post liberal types, populists who are critical of the old Reaganite consensus. Because he didn't like the Reaganite consensus that much. He was at most a two cheers for the Reaganite consensus guy for the last 20 years. He just is very good at being subtle about it. And there's a lot I agree with in his op ed, I think directionally though my problem with it is it doesn't take conservative ideas seriously enough. Like, there are a lot of things that are part of the Reagan consensus that are part of the Reagan consensus. And forgive me for saying this, because they're true, not because they're value judgments, not because they're preferences for flavors of ice cream or something like that. It's that alliances are power amplifiers. And they're good. The Constitution is good, right? It is correct to want to be committed to the Constitution. Not saying that Ross isn't committed to the Constitution, but you can go down a long list of things that free markets in and of themselves are more efficient and better at increasing prosperity than industrial planning. You can just go down a very long list of things that aren't the conservative positions simply because they are, you know, revealed preferences or special pleading is because we actually believe them to be true. And if I believe them to be true, that means I'm gonna be proven right over time. And this idea that he may be right, that the conservative era is over, he may be right that the conservative movement has been dealt a death blow by a lot of this stuff. Time will tell. I think it is just as likely to see people pour out of that gazebo in other places and actually have a pretty impressive fight for restoring conservatism to some extent in the Republican Party because none of these jabronis on the MAGA side who actually run the party and have been installed by Trump know how to argue their case. They know, as Ross indicates, they know how to argue Donald Trump's case because they are organized around a cult of personality that defends his will to power, his self aggrandizement, his narcissism, as if it's an ideology, and it's not. And it will not survive beyond Trump. There will not be temples to Trump. And J.D. vance will not inherit Trump's cult of personality. And he's gonna have to actually argue with conservatives who have been spending their lives making arguments. And so I think this nationalism stuff is ugly and cruel that we saw, you know, coming out of the Department of Labor. I think. I think being anti. Anti Nazi is immoral, but I also think it's just really crappy politics. The idea that playing footsie with neo Nazis and Grupers and these guys wins you more votes than it loses is preposterous. And so in some ways, all of this talk about the new post conservative era is the being greeted as liberators, happy talk of American intellectual life. As of right now, things can change. I think the Democrats are poised to just sweep the House and maybe take the Senate, which will be this massive repudiation of Trump. I don't think they'll take the Senate, but I don't think it's impossible. Trump is unpopular on almost all of his key issues. He is considered in the polls to be a failed president. And the idea that this stuff is the stuff that builds a new right, by and of itself that. Let me put it this way, it's very plausible that it's a winning coalition that holds on to power is very unlikely to me. And I think Ross is just way too gentle about the fact that what this New Right is is a deliberate attempt to be an ideological minority without ideological arguments to make that could win a majority for a very long time. So analytically, I just think there are real problems with it.
- [77:52]
A
Yeah, I'm with you. I mean, I think the gentle is the. You're right. I think that is the nice way to put the way that he treats some of the excesses of this movement that he's analyzing in sort of a detached way. I mean, in some ways, he saves the toughest barbs for the true cons wearing earplugs. And, you know, the excesses of what we're seeing on the. The natcon right get sort of shrugs of. Of shoulders. But it wouldn't be the first time. I have to say that he's underestimated this. Ross wrote a column in October of 2020 assuring us that there would be no Trump coup and that people who were warning about where Trump's musings about remaining in power were overreacting. I think they weren't overreacting then. I don't think they're overreacting now. Okay, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be back soon with more from the Dispatch podcast. We're back. You're listening to the Dispatch podcast. Let's jump in. We have time for a quick not worth your time today. I will say I'm not going to give a direct response at this point to the we just call it disappointing discussion of last week. I have a pretty good idea of what happened, you know, with. With Mike acknowledging in his setup to the discussion that he was being Brutus, stabbing the guy who allowed him to occupy the chair. Jonah as a co founder, trashing me as he's want to do. And Sarah. Well, I'll save my thoughts on Sarah because I think it's probably better to at least make an attempt to engage her in the conversation rather than trash her when she's not here to defend herself. It's more sporting in any case, for this week's not worth your time, Jonah. I don't think you'll probably have a ton to say, but we'd welcome your participation anyway.
- [80:07]
B
Yeah, this is why. This is your vengeance against me.
- [80:10]
A
No, no, my vengeance against you will be much more significant than this, rest assured. But I did think it was something that was interesting, something that's in the news. For those of you who follow professional football, and I hate to bring this up, Declan, today, we're talking again Monday morning. The Chicago Bears lost in overtime last night.
- [80:30]
D
You totally hate to bring this up. You hate.
- [80:32]
A
I do. I do hate to bring it up because undoubtedly because I believe in giving you a chance to respond, unlike some people on this podcast. I know that you can remind me that the Chicago Bears dispatched my Green Bay packers last weekend, but the Bears lost in overtime last night to the Los Angeles Rams. By all accounts, it was a. A good game, a tough game. I did not watch much of it, but it brought to mind a trend that we've seen in the NFL this year that I find curious, and that is the departure, either voluntarily or by firing, of some of the most successful head coaches of the recent two decades in the National Football League. We saw Mike Tomlin, former coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, walk away. We saw John Harbaugh of the Baltimore Ravens be fired. There was talk of Matt Lafleur the coach of the Green Bay packers who has a tremendous record but has not taken the packers to a Super Bowl. There seems to be a new feeling among NFL owners that it's sort of super bowl wins or bust. And if you perform, if you have your team performing at a very high level for a long time, but don't not only make a Super bowl but win a Super bowl, you're out. You haven't succeeded. Is this as new as it strikes me as being? And I've given you three examples. Three makes a trend. Is this in fact a trend? And is this what we should be looking forward to seeing from the NFL and the coaching carousel in years to come?
- [82:15]
D
First, before I just to bring this conversation full circle, I know that Nick Fuentes decided to root for the Bears this weekend. He made a whole big stink about it. I'm going to disavow. We didn't want his support, we didn't need his support and he has no place in in Bears fandom coalition. But the I also don't know why he picked us, but I think the situation with the coaching is a little bit more complicated than the quick summary that you laid out there. Tomlin had been there for almost 20 years in Pittsburgh, never had a losing season. That's incredibly impressive. You know, even the Chiefs this year had had a losing season. It just happens. There are off years, there are injuries, whatever. At the same time, they hadn't advanced beyond the first round of the playoffs in something like 15 years. I could be getting the exact details of that wrong, but I think it was when they played the packers in the in the Super Bowl. And so I think it comes down to the standard that the owners want to hold their organizations to the at some point a message could be getting stale. Tomlin's been there for 20 years. The players are very different than they were 20 years ago. They have different relationship to technology. The way that they come up in coaching is different. The college football ecosystem is different. And so it just could be time for a break. I imagine Mike Tomlin's 53 years old. He will take a year off and learn about and spend some time diving into ways to freshen his message and freshen his approach and be back and have another successful run. But yeah, I will just say for those organizations, the grass is always greener on the other side. I can understand it being frustrating to go 9, 7 and lose in the playoffs every year, but going 4 and 13 and not making the playoffs every year is a whole lot worse. So be Careful what you wish for.
- [84:21]
B
I'm going to add right now because I have to go. I have nothing to add, so.
- [84:25]
A
No, I just was going to ask you, Jonah, before you go, first of all, this, this is what it feels like when we talk about sci Fi stuff. To me, this is you. But I just, I'm going to let you off the hook before I go to Mike with a more substantive question. Jonah, who's your favorite current NFL coach?
- [84:38]
B
I don't have one. There you go.
- [84:42]
A
Can you name a current NFL coach?
- [84:45]
B
It's like picking your favorite kid. I gotta go, guys.
- [84:47]
D
I'll say it. I love all 32 equally.
- [84:55]
A
It's like when Rob Lowe showed up at the football, the NFL game wearing a hat that just said NFL.
- [84:59]
C
NFL, yes.
- [85:00]
A
Like not really in favor of a team. Mike, is. It just. Is this sort of the NFL manifestation of instant gratification culture, like do it, do it now or you're gone.
- [85:11]
C
I don't know. So there's 10 coaches who have been fired this season, some of them mid season. Right. I think the Titans got rid of Brian Callahan pretty early or midway through the season.
- [85:23]
D
But yeah, Giants got rid of Brian Dable after the Bears beat him.
- [85:27]
C
Yeah, that's right. And then, but then you had, you know, I mean, Raheem Morris was fired from the Falcons at the end of a bad season. Kevin Stefanski for Cleveland was fired. The Cardinals coach, can't remember his name at the time, at the moment, was fired for bad seasons. Pete Carroll. Pete Carroll's with the Raiders. It's a lot. But I do wonder, I mean, I don't know enough about this, about whether we've just sort of hit a kind of planets aligning cyclical moment where just a lot of the owners had the same kind of moment with bad coaches, you know, in their contracts, in their sort of long term plans for these franchises where you just had a kind of piling on that didn't really have anything to do with the other coaches, at least at first. Some of the other decisions, right, Like John Harbaugh getting fired by the Ravens or McDermott. Sean McDermott.
- [86:32]
A
Yeah, I didn't mention Sean McDermott.
- [86:34]
C
Just, just fired after this loss this, this past weekend. You know, there is also a thing where like, you know, people, coaches, you get a lot of coaches fired and all of a sudden the market for available coaches and how that fits into your plan expands. And then all of a sudden you start thinking maybe more strategically about where do you want to go and do we want to grab somebody? I Mean, Kevin Stefanski of the Cleveland Browns, now the head coach for the Atlanta Falcons. I'm not saying that they had anything to do with each other, but I just think, you know, this is, this is not a, it's a sort of a dynamic situation. I. So I don't read too much into it. I think there are people who follow the, you know, the sort of front office drama a little more closely who might be able to tell me why I'm wrong about that. I do think the firing of these coaches who get to the playoffs and lose, that's new. I don't know what to make of that. But, but like maybe these owners are just getting more savvy and more unwilling to accept anything. Like you said, Steve. But, but a Super bowl win and when, if that's the trend, if that's the view, well, everybody's going to lose their job. Except, except one coach under that mindset.
- [87:58]
A
No, it's pretty interesting. So we've got a, I've got a friend, Tyler Dunn, who runs a, a substack called Go Long, which covers the NFL in great depth, a lot of great long form reporting and he wrote this about Sean McDermott. McDermott helped end the Bills 17 year playoff drought before enjoying plenty of regular six season success. He went 98 and 50 in the end. His inability to reach a Super bowl with superstar quarterback Josh Allen proved to be his downfall. No coach in QB have won more playoff games without a Super bowl appearance. And then I'll get to the your point, Mike. Only eight head coaches in NFL history who have coached nine plus seasons have a higher winning percentage than McDermott. But only three coaches in the Super bowl era have won their first Super bowl with a team in year nine or beyond. So it is sort of, if you've been there for a while, the likelihood that you're going to win a Super bowl diminishes, at least according to the historical record.
- [89:01]
C
This is, by the way, this puts me in mind of the McConnell rule in politics. You're familiar with that, Steve, Right. This is John McConnell, the former George W. Bush speechwriter, who I believe it was not his name was not known at the time when this rule was established and it's later been established that this was John's rule. But something like seven years or less from your sort of debut on the national political stage to win somebody wins the presidency, that it's very rare that you have somebody like a George H.W. bush to sort of Joe Biden or Joe Biden exactly like they are the exceptions that maybe perhaps prove the rule. This is Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton.
- [89:51]
A
It's Donald Trump.
- [89:54]
C
Sure. Exactly. So maybe there's a corollary or a parallel rule that we can maybe establish for NFL coaches.
- [90:05]
A
Well, that's it for today. This was a longer version of the Dispatch podcast. We will attempt to revisit the not worth your time discussion on Thursday if we can wrangle Sarah but thanks for joining us today. Thanks gentlemen, for a good conversation. If you like what we're doing here, there are a few easy ways to support us. You can rate, review and subscribe to the show on your podcast player of choice to help new listeners find us. And speaking of support, here's a shout out to a few folks who recently joined as premium members. Andrew Favada, Nicole Gray and Michael Latona. We're glad to have you aboard. As always, if you've got questions, comments, concerns or corrections, you can email us@roundtable dispatch.com we read everything, even the ones from people like Jonah Goldberg who don't know anything at all about the NFL. That's going to do it for today's show. Thanks so much for tuning in. And a big thank you to the folks behind the scenes who made this episode possible. Max Miller, Victoria Holmes and Noah Hickey. We couldn't do it without you. Thanks again for listening. Please join us next time.
- [91:15]
D
Sa.