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A
And we're live from the living room as Doug eyes up the match. Say spread. He's reaching for the buffalo wing.
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B
Perfect. Hang on.
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A
What's this?
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C
Oh, he's gone for a can of Pepsi too.
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D
Incredible.
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C
What a finish. Sensational combination.
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Look at the delight on his face. There's no doubt about it. It just tastes better. Match days deserve Pepsi. Food deserves Pepsi. Grab a pack of Pepsi. Zero sugar for today's match.
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D
It's poetry in motion.
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C
This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new.
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It can help you with practically anything
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on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block. Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it, ready to make anything online make sense. There's no place like Chrome. Check responses, setup required.
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Compatibility and availability various 18.
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Welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. I'm Steve Hayes. On today's roundtable, we're joined by Rachel Hoff, policy director at the Ronald Reagan Institute, to take a look at the Reagan Institute's 2026 survey report. Ahead of the US 250th anniversary, the survey takes a wide look at how Americans feel about America's role in the world and specifically support for Donald Trump's war in Iran. We'll also turn to Democrats and their growing struggle to manage the rise of democratic socialism in their ranks and what it means for the Democratic Party's future, the Republicans and the country's. Joining Rachel and me today are Dispatch Senior politics editor Mike Warren and my Dispatch co founder, Jonah Goldberg. Let's dive in. Welcome, Rachel. We're happy to have you class up the panel here. I wanted to start by talking about the poll that you all have put out. Very interesting poll. Several interesting findings, including a couple that are sort of counterintuitive. Maybe we could start by asking you to describe sort of what you went into the field trying to learn and what stood out for you.
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B
Well, Steve, your point there about some of the counterintuitive findings is actually exactly why we do the poll. Because there's so much conventional wisdom in this town and around the country that we thought it would be useful, particularly on the foreign policy and national security issues that we're focused on at the Reagan Institute to determine to discern what the American people broadly believe. And so we have two annual public opinion polls every year now on this issue set where we go out and commission a bipartisan pair of polling firms to tell us what the American people believe with some granularity and nuance beyond sort of the top lines of more political polls that might say, you know, approve, disapprove of war in Iran, or how important is national security to you compared to other issues, to actually go in depth and to tell us with great depth what the American people broadly believe about these issues. And that is one thing that really distinguishes our polls from some other polls is that whereas we're not a political poll that's testing likely voters or registered voters, we're actually going to American adults broadly. And so we're able to say with confidence what the American people believe, what people who lean Republican or Democratic believe, and on from there.
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C
Well, let's jump into one of those findings that I found most interesting. I think it's useful, actually, that you ask some very broad, sweeping questions and some rather narrow and detailed questions. One of the first ones that jumped out to me was on this question of whether Republicans specifically on whether the US should be more engaged and take the lead versus less engaged in international affairs and national security issues. And the thing that jumped out to me were the findings sort of every couple years. In 2019, that finding was 48% of Republicans thought the U.S. should be more engaged and take the lead. In 2021, it was 46%. Then in June of 2025, it was 69%. And in this poll it was 71%. And what stood out to me is that only one of those happened during a Biden presidency. That's the 2021 finding of 46%. How do the jump in the number of Republicans who think the US should be more engaged and should take leadership role in the world, from 48% in 2019 to the numbers that we're seeing now, 69 and 71%.
- [04:40]
B
So I think it shows us that remarkably, not everything is determined by politics and necessarily who's in the White House, but that Republicans and Americans overall are paying attention to what is happening around the world, to national security threats to global events, the way that they impact our national security. We have other questions in the survey that say, you know, whether it's Iran or Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, how much do any of these things matter to the security and prosperity of the US Here at home? And we really find that across the board, a majority of Americans believe that those things matter to us here at home. And your point on Republicans in particular, Steve, I think is really comes through in this year's findings nationally. The sort of average of the American people overall is now 61% of Americans want the US to be more engaged to take that leadership role in international events. But as you said, that number for Republicans is now over 70%. And I think the other thing that I'd add on this is the character of American leadership. What they want us to do on the international stage really matters. It's not just sort of, you know, be the biggest player on the international stage in an absence or in a vacuum of the character of that leadership. And when we ask about the importance of American military strength, kind of leaning into our own understanding of President Reagan's peace through strength legacy, or when we ask even about standing up for freedom and democracy around the world, over 80% of Republicans want us to stand up for democracy and human rights around the world. And that's something that may be a counterintuitive finding for some, but is something that we've been tracking in our polling for quite some time.
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C
Yeah, I mean, the human rights and democracy finding stood out to me as well in a sort of MAGA Republican Party. And given the way that Donald Trump has conducted foreign policy, that's obviously not been a priority of his, and it remains a priority, it seems, with the vast majority of Republican voters. Jonah, let me ask you about that first finding that I mentioned. 48% of Republicans said the U.S. should be more engaged and take the lead in 2019. We're at 71% now. I take Rachel's point that some of this may just be determined by what's going on in the world. This is a pretty active time in global affairs. National security threats are on the front page more often than they perhaps were in 2019. But one could also argue that there's a difference in emphasis from Donald Trump in 2019. He was complaining about Ukraine, you know, going after Zelensky and articulating what I think many people thought of as a neo isolationist foreign policy view. And now you've got sort of Donald Trump imperialist. Is this partially explained by the fact that Trump himself is just becoming more engaged on the international stage?
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D
Yes.
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C
Okay, great, Mike.
- [07:31]
D
Yeah. I mean, look, I think these kinds of polls are valuable. They're worthwhile, they're interesting. They're also snapshots. Right. And so I think it is almost impossible to take the political context, particularly these days, where there are a lot of people who are responding to polls and pollsters with their own preconceptions about what the agenda of the pollster or what the subtext of the question is. And I think it probably gets even more complicated to figure out what's going on when, as this poll does, it polls all Americans rather than just registered voters. So, like, some people aren't going to be cued to what's going on in the news and are gonna be more sort of generic expressions of their own personal philosophy or their attitudes. And then the hyper partisans are gonna be, well, oh, so Trump just did this thing, and you're asking me whether we should be more engaged in the world? Well, Trump's engaged in the world, so I'm gonna say yes, whereas when Biden was engaged in the world, I was gonna say no. So I think you can drive yourself crazy. Sort of the iocaine powder scene in Princess Bride of trying to outthink the respondents about what their real motivations were when answering these things. And you got to sort of just stand back and look at it in sort of broad trends and that kind of thing. And it turns out that this country was never an isolationist country. Even when it was an isolationist country. It always had exceptions to its isolationism that they didn't think counted as isolationist. And this is a very moralistic country. This is a very idealistic country, and those things can get triggered and skewed based upon the partisan valences of the time. The question I've got about it is, for those of us who find some of these responses reassuring, the question is, do they matter? Right. Because the part of the problem is the incentive structure of people in primaries, the incentive structure of influencers, to be generous, in my terminology. They're only tangentially related to public opinion, particularly public opinion of all Americans. And they're more coded towards niche audiences that they can either monetize or translate into votes. I mean, we're going to get to the politics stuff later, but you just had an enormous number of really seismic elections in these primaries in some places based upon a tiny fraction of the electorate. I would much rather this is one of these things. I think it would be unconstitutional. But if you had mandatory voting, where all of these people that Rachel surveyed, you know, got to vote their preferences, I think we'd be in a much better place. But that's not the political system that we've got right now. And so it's hard for me to figure out how to actually gauge the significance of this stuff, except to say that it probably suggests there are some major firewalls against extremists on either side of these kinds of questions, because it shows you at some point you're going to run into the thick center of American opinion on things and that shortens the amount of leash you have to go crazy on anything.
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C
Yeah, I mean, Mike, one of the findings, Rachel made reference to it earlier. Strong bipartisan support for a broad statement, in my view, that, quote, a strong US Military is necessary for peace and prosperity, end quote. On the one hand, it's pretty broad terminology. On the other hand, there's been very few things that have become conventional wisdom more quickly over the past, I'd say, decade than Americans are tired of foreign wars. You know, people have sort of turned away from questions of war and peace. You know, Americans want to withdraw or retreat and focus on problems at home. I mean, this has been a big part of our discourse for a decade. And yet when you look at the numbers associated with that question, 90% of Republicans believe that a strong U.S. military is necessary for peace and prosperity. 76% of Democrats agree with that statement. Has a conventional wisdom such as gotten it wrong over the past decade?
- [11:41]
A
I'm having somewhat of the same issue that Jonah is with trying to discern maybe what respondents think they're saying or what they are agreeing to when they respond to polls like this. And on this particular question, it does make me wonder, I mean, what does a strong US Military mean to someone saying that they support it? You know, does it mean more munitions and chips for that military? Does it mean better healthcare options and VA benefits? I mean, I could see as many voters or as many adults as there are in America sort of interpreting that statement in as many ways. And so I think that maybe there's ultimately sort of a problem here in trying to discern too much of what that means, because you could be an American who believes in both a strong military and no intervention or less intervention, radically less intervention in the world by that military, by that same strong military. So I do think it's hard to know exactly that question. Maybe, Rachel, you can explain a little more of how you interpret how people are answering that question, because it is striking, Steve, as you know, 90% of Republicans, not just 90% of Republicans, 92% of MAGA Republicans, the subset of Republicans that have been deemed MAGA, believe that peace through strength, you know, should be the approach for the United states. And that 82%, I don't know how that breaks down by party, but 82% agree a strong US military is essential to peace and prosperity. How should we, Rachel, maybe you can answer this. How should we interpret what that looks like, what that means? And what should policymakers or politicians take away from this? Because my, in my experience, politicians will take away from any poll result, the result that they would like to see. And I do think that's a problem. So maybe a little more explication on what this means could be useful for any politician who's listening to this and going, how am I going to craft my message? How am I going to craft my policy from these findings?
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B
Sure. And it's one of the reasons, you know, we love this conversation, and it's one of the reasons why we ask so many questions from those broad sort of worldview questions. And, you know, peace through strength, broadly defined, a strong American military is important to our peace and prosperity on down to the more granular, the more tactical. And what we find is that there's pretty strong bipartisan support across the board. So on something like, should we have a strong military? You see numbers in the 80s into the 90s for Republicans and MAGA Republicans. But we have a new question that I really like that I think gets to some of your points, Mike. So first of all, we don't use words like intervention and isolationism because. Because that's just not useful to, you know, rely on those. But actually explain, for example, the question Steve was talking about earlier. Should America take the lead in international events and be more engaged globally, or should it be less engaged and react to global events? So that's sort of our broad kind of, if you were to bucket it into isolationism and internationalism. But here's another new question that we had this year that sort of speaks to some of the more deeper strategic posture. How should we use this military strength? How should we understand America's leadership role on the international stage? We asked, we gave people two options. Is it better off that the United States act decisively with strength before threats grow larger, or should America instead show restraint because decisive action can create bigger problems down the road? The partisan split on that is very interesting. So 2/3 of Democrats lean toward the restraint option in 2026, 2/3 of Republicans lean toward the decisive action. And that number For MAGA Republicans, 72% of MAGA Republicans say the US is better off if it acts decisively with strength before threats grow larger. So I think, you know, as we kind of dig into the details, you can see some of that nuance coming through. And even there, you see kind of, again, what we might characterize as counterintuitive findings based on this conventional wisdom that Steve points to around, oh, you know, it's kind of the isolationism on the right or the, you know, opposition to kind of forever war sentiment. I mean, that's Another thing we don't test in our poll, are you for or against forever wars? Right. Like, these are questions that don't actually tell us anything. But when we ask with nuance how American power and strength should be understood and used on the global stage, we hear pretty resounding, I think, support for what we think of as is, frankly, in many ways, a traditional Republican approach to these issues. Yeah.
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C
I want to jump into a couple of specific questions in a couple of specific areas, one of them being Iran. If you look at the results from your poll on Iran, there's a higher level of approval of US Military action than we've seen in, I would say, in most other polling, whether we're talking about Gallup, Ipsos, and others, with 54% approving of recent US military action, there's a pronounced partisan gap, 81% of Republicans, 31% of Democrats. But I think the reason that the 54% overall is higher is that 31% of Democrats is actually much higher than you're seeing in some of these other polls. I've seen polls, I think it was Gallup that had Democratic approval for what the US is currently doing with in Iran at something like 6%. Do you have explanations as to why that would be? Is this, again, a reflection of the fact that you've chosen to poll adults rather than registered voters and likely voters?
- [17:27]
B
That may be part of it. And another supposition that I might bring is that we actually don't use the word Trump or Trump administration in that question. Right. So a lot of other polls, I can't speak to the one that you were referencing in particular, but a lot of other polls ask, do you support or oppose President Trump's decision, too, or the Trump administration's action in the Middle east or in Iran? And what we ask is, overall, do you approve or disapprove of US Military action taken in Iran in recent months? So that's sort of a. Again, we're trying to get at the real nuance of a deeper belief there rather than kind of play into the political winds of it all.
- [18:07]
D
Yeah. Can I ask you a question about that, though? I mean, like, again, I think this is the kind of thing where there's no perfect way to do anything because you have to pick a methodology. Right. And then stick with it. And I think the way you did it is perfectly defensible, because I agree, if you had said Trump, it would distort everything. Right. Then it becomes basically a poll about Trump. Ron Desantis discovered this when they were doing Focus groups back in 2023, 4, 2024, where they would ask focus groups, you know, things like they would say, do you agree that the government shutdowns during COVID were unreasonable and extreme? Or something like that. And 70% of Republicans would say yes. And then they would ask a focus group, do you think the Trump shutdowns during COVID were. And it would flip to 30% would say yes. Right. So on the one hand, I totally buy why you should have this methodology. On the other hand, how much does it tell us about people's actual commitments to these views if all you have to do is say the abracadabra word Trump and it causes them to change their support and their views politically?
- [19:15]
B
One thing that we found in our polling over the years is that public opinion on foreign policy is a little bit more malleable, I think, than some domestic policy issues. Foreign policy is by nature foreign. Right. It happens over there if we're lucky.
- [19:29]
D
People don't care whether you're Republican or Democrat if they say, I don't want to lose my Social Security benefits. Right. Like you're gonna say that whoever, whatever party you're in and whoever is president, if you're one of those people.
- [19:40]
B
Right. So Social Security, healthcare, education, we have kind of direct personal connections and contact with that issue set. It's a little bit different on foreign policy. So I think what we're trying to get at, Jonah, is to understand where deep convictions lie and where maybe there's a little bit more of call it like a follow the leader effect. I like my guy in the White House, he says we should be doing this or I don't like the other guy in the White House and he's doing this. So I'm for the other. So what we're trying to do is really, and I think the length, you know, we've been doing this polling since 2018 and the length of trends that we have now shows what numbers are not moving and what numbers are more, more malleable, more variable. And there's some things like NATO favorability has been pretty rock solid at 60% for eight years. Something like global US military based presence. Again, 2/3 of Republicans, 2/3 of Americans overall have been supportive of that over the eight years that we've been doing this polling. Whereas some other kind of those, that broader sort of should we be more engaged or lead on the international stage has a little bit more ups and downs, maybe depending on what's happening in the world, depending on who's in the White House. Let me just say one other thing because we've talked so much about methodology, it's really speaking to the inner political nerd in me. I do just want to clarify. This isn't the Reagan Institute calling people and saying, hey, it's the Reagan Institute. Was Ronald Reagan a great president or was he the greatest president ever?
- [21:02]
D
Right.
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B
This is a bipartisan pair.
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A
You do ask that question, though, right?
- [21:06]
C
I would support such a poll.
- [21:07]
D
Could Ronald Reagan create a boulder so heavy even he couldn't lift it?
- [21:13]
B
But it's actually a bipartisan pair of professional polling firms. We largely, on things like how we work the questions, ask them to guide us there, and we just tell them what we're interested in learning. And frankly, one thing that they help us to do is maybe shape things in a way that we're not just repeating what other polls are asking, but being additive to the conversation by bringing some different nuance or wording to questions.
- [21:37]
C
Yes. Speaking of nuance, Mike, I want to ask you about the findings that we have seen from this poll on Israel. The headline finding is broad support narrowing along party lines. And you see as you look at the individual responses or the individual takeaways that Democrats are increasingly skeptical of Israel, whether we're talking about Israeli security mattering to the U.S. whether we're talking about arming Israel. But here's a finding that probably to me, was the most surprising of this entire survey. Younger Americans buck the trend. This is a quote from the survey itself. From the overview. Support for arming Israel is rising for those under 45, falling for those over 45. Since you are closest to the age cohort here with the younger.
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A
Because I am in that age cohort. Come on.
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C
Yeah. Jonah and I are most definitely not. Rachel, I think probably is, too. But can you help us understand that? Because everything I've read is that it's young people, both sort of MAGA Republicans and pro Gaza, pro Palestinian Democrats who are driving this growing skepticism of Israel. And this poll seems to be showing the opposite.
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A
It's an interesting finding. I don't know how exactly to interpret it, except to say that the latter part of your statement, right, that it's the young people in the sort of the maga right, and on the sort of anti Israel, pro Gaza left who are driving these things within their party. I think that is true. They just aren't necessarily representative of their entire cohort, of their entire age cohort, their entire cohort within their party. I was also very intrigued. Again, we're also talking about, as Rachel has noted, we're talking about adults being polled here, not those who are involved in politics. And I do wonder if that polarization on the issue of Israel, on both the far left and the far right, although it gets complicated even describing them as far right, I do think that reflects a subset of particularly engaged Americans who are souring on Israel. And I think that's for many reasons. You know, you've got and we'll talk about, I think, later on in the show about what happened in New York with these dsa, these Democratic Socialists of America candidates winning in Democratic primaries in New York. The results show that college educated young people sort of clustered in these urban areas, are going in one direction. And what this polling suggests is that they are not representative of young people in general on this question of Israel and perhaps on other issues, foreign and domestic. I think that should be a lesson as well, not just for the parties, but also for how we interpret a lot of these results. At the same time, you know, elections and politics are determined by the people who show up. And the fact of the matter is that the people who are showing up in the Democratic Party in important places, not everywhere, but in important places, and I am increasingly concerned about those who are showing up in the Republican Party, those who are engaged with the Republican Party are bucking this trend of trend, bucking on, on the question of Israel. So once again, the question is where are the limits to that sort of departure from, you know, where people under 45 are sort of moving toward support for Israel? And the other question I have is what are all these old people doing on the question of Israel? Why are they moving away from that? What's what what is going on? What is underlying there as well? I just think it raises a lot of interesting questions and maybe helps us rethink what's been going on within the two parties.
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C
Yeah. Rachel, can you help us understand this, I wonder? The analogy is imprecise and probably bad, but it's the one I have. I remember during 2001, which later became known as the Summer of the Shark, there was tons of coverage of shark attacks across the country. And every day you woke up with additional news stories about, and sometimes video about these shark attacks. And if you crunch the numbers and you look back, there weren't as many shark attacks as there had been the previous summer. And this was more a matter of what the media were emphasizing than something else. Could that be part of the explanation here? Is the media just paying more attention to the anti Israel protests left over from the campus protests that we've seen from the anti Israel, pro Gaza politicians who are running and seeing some success. Or is this more just a matter of what Mike says that those are the activists, those are the people who show up.
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B
Yeah, I think it's both. Right. So those are the people that show up and then those are the people that the media focuses on. And I think what's clear from our data is that there's, there's more to the story about young Americans than just what we're seeing with kind of radical campus left anti Israel culture. One point of clarification, it is still true that older Americans are more pro Israel than younger Americans. It's just that the arrows are moving in a counterintuitive directions where older Americans support for Israel is falling slightly and among younger Americans it's rising. So that that I think is worth talking about. But did just want to sort of clarify that.
- [27:17]
A
Sorry to interrupt, Rachel. That might suggest then that the levels are so low on the under 45 and high on the upper 45 that maybe there was no other direction for them to go to increase and decrease respectively. Is that kind of how we should maybe interpret that?
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B
Well, numbers can always get lower until they get to zero, I've learned.
- [27:34]
A
Okay, fair enough.
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B
But I think, I guess what I would emphasize is across the board, whether it's looking at younger Americans overall, where it's looking at younger MAGA Republicans, which we have, we did an over sample of MAGA Republicans under the age of 30. I like it when we define young as under the age of 45, don't you, Mike?
- [27:53]
A
Absolutely, 100%.
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B
But we did look at the 18 to 29 demographic in particular among Republicans, 18 to 29 in particular among MAGA Republicans. And among that group, for example, 60% support sending U.S. weapons to Israel. So not sort of just vaguely pro Israel in construct, but in a very concrete way of should we send U.S. weapons to Israel? Support ranks at 60%. So I think there's a piece there and I do just want to jump in kind of on we've been talking a lot about sort of the value of polling Americans overall versus likely voters or registered voters. And I think we've largely been talking about it in terms of the salience with which people are paying attention to foreign policy issues saying, you know, we could assume that if you're not registered to vote or you're not likely to vote, then maybe you're not following the news as much. But there's a story here, I think for politicians, for political leaders, for influencers, if you will as well, which is if you're an American adult who's not a registered voter or likely voter, that makes you a potential voter. Right. And there's sort of an element here of if the American people overall are with us, whatever that means on X, Y or Z issue. But maybe those engaged in primaries or those engaged in general elections are the opposite. Maybe we should try be trying to get more of those people out to vote because the Ameri and that's something that I think one reason we do this poll is that President Reagan in his legacy teaches us so plainly that talking directly to the American people matters. And maybe that's a lesson that we can take from the polling to our political leaders as well.
- [29:28]
C
Well, and it's one thing that Donald Trump has done particularly well, right? I mean, he's gotten heretofore unmotivated voters or potential voters and made them voters in many respects. And you can attribute his victories in some part to that. I want to end on this topic, Rachel, with one last question to you about that subset of young MAGA voters that you surveyed. Can you just give us a general sense of what the takeaways were with that group? How do they fit in sort of the overall broader MAGA picture on policy issues and how should we understand their priorities given where we are today in June of 2026?
- [30:06]
B
Yeah, thanks, Steve. So we did. I mentioned this young Maga oversample under 30 years old, self identified MAGA Republicans to really understand what that demographic thought because again, there's so much narrative, there's so much conventional wisdom maybe around younger MAGA Republicans breaking from Republican tradition on foreign policy issues. And frankly, the results from our poll show that there's really no evidence for that. That question of should we be more engaged in the world, should the US be taking a leadership role? 72% of MAGA Republicans under the age of 30 say yes, a strong military is essential to peace and prosperity. 85% of young Maga Republicans say yes. And then on everything from Iran to Israel to Ukraine, NATO, Taiwan, majority of young MAGA Republicans support kind of a traditional American leadership, peace through strength approach. And one interesting takeaway on NATO in particular, Steve, to your point about how young MAGA Republicans fit into the overall MAGA landscape, MAGA Republicans on NATO have definitely soured. And I think the President's rhetoric is either reflective of that or a part of the reason for that. So NATO favorability among Republicans, MAGA Republicans overall is pretty evenly split, favorable, unfavorable. But among MAGA Republicans under the age of 30, it stands at over 60%. And so younger MAGA voters or younger MAGA Republicans, I should say, are an outlier in that way with amongst more positive view of NATO than their older MAGA counterparts.
- [31:40]
C
Who would have guessed? Well, it's fascinating to me that the picture that you paint and that the survey suggests is much more a Republican Party that believes the things that say a Marco Rubio or a Tom Cotton believes than a Rand Paul or J.D. vance believes. Is that fair?
- [31:56]
B
You might describe it as a Republican Party that Tucker Carlson might leave.
- [32:02]
C
Fair enough.
- [32:03]
D
Steve's question presupposes that Vance believes things, which is debatable.
- [32:07]
A
But yeah, that's true.
- [32:10]
C
All right, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be back soon with more from the Dispatch Podcast.
- [32:16]
A
Choice hotels get you more of what you value. Here's a little tune to help you remember. Same drive, different day don't you wish
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C
you were getting away?
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D
Pack your bags and come on through
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A
Texas, Ohio, Alaska we're in up there too Comfort Inn, it's calling your name
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D
Save on the stay oh, and free
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A
waffles are yours to claim well, I hope you like my little song book
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D
direct@sourcehotels.com this episode is brought to you by Fox One. Watch all 104 matches of the FIFA World cup live in 4K for just $1919.99 a month with three days free. Build your own multi view, choose up to three streams and follow players spotlights. Stay on top of every moment with live stats, highlights and instant replays. The FIFA World cup, streaming live on Fox One, offers a subject to change. See fox.com for complete terms and conditions.
- [33:18]
C
And we're back. You're listening to the Dispatch podcast. Let's jump in. Jonah, I want to jump to you to start off our conversation about the Democrats. You had a really incisive G file on Wednesday, and I don't say that very often. I don't like to praise you publicly. I don't like to praise you privately. It was really painful for me to do. But I even sent you a separate note, just me to you.
- [33:42]
D
And I responded, who is this
- [33:46]
C
new phone? I sent Jonah a nice email saying, man, that was a really terrific piece. You took a look at what had happened in New York City. We were recording our live podcast in New York City. Didn't have time to reflect on the results of sort of Mayor Mamdani's triumph and the momentum or the surge in Democratic socialists as part of the Democratic Party. What's your Sort of broad takeaway from what we saw in New York City and how representative of that is where Democrats are going overall.
- [34:24]
D
Well, we'll know in the next two weeks how much traction this has out of some east coast blue cities, super blue cities. But I think it's fair to say, even though the results for the DSA candidates sort of split 50, 50 wins, losses, it shows you that there's a certain amount of undeniable passion and energy in that segment of the Democratic Party. And for the listeners who don't understand, the Democratic Socialist of America is not a party. It is an organization that by its own admission, is essentially trying to do a hostile takeover of the Democratic Party, that it uses the Democratic Party for ballot access purposes so that it can compete in Democratic primaries. But this is a tradition that goes back a very, very, very long time of the radical left. And last 10 years, I've tried really, really hard to temper my rhetoric and my labeling of groups and people. Given the craziness of the times, I just don't think there's any problem with being unapologetic and saying these people are a radical left contingent that they are. And I don't think there's any. I have no problem calling many of them anti American because they literally say things that are anti American, not in some poetic sense, but like the Chevalier woman in New York who just won. You know, she says this country is a disgrace. She wants to dismantle Western civilization. You know, I'm not a huge Maya Angelou guy, but when people tell you who they are, believe them. And so regardless, they're a radical left organization. And this tradition of the radical left hating liberals, right, sort of centrist, center left liberals, goes back decades and decades and decades. In the 1960s, the New Left hated the sort of mainstream liberals, either in the faculty departments or in the Democratic Party. They disliked Nixon, they hated lbj. And that is the tradition we have here where these people openly say they are running to overturn the Democratic Party, its commitments, its establishment, and all of that. And the Democratic Party has no idea how to deal with it. And we saw that on display. And so I wrote that. I've said this a million times. I'll make a new point. And this is a point my friend John Podorts was making the other day as well on another podcast, Zoram Hamdami. His job, I think everyone kind of agrees, is to be mayor of New York, to deal with affordability and the things that he campaigned on. And one of the things mayors of New York want is more help from Washington. Why would a mayor of New York endorse challengers to incumbent Democrats who would have seniority in the next Congress? If Democrats take Congress, right, particularly the head of the Hispanic Caucus, they knocked that guy out in favor of someone who's gonna be a backbencher who a lot of established Democrats are going to resent and not want to help. He is not putting New York first when he's doing this and he's not putting the Democratic Party first. Cuz these people are all going to be radioactive lightning rods. It's gonna be Squad 2.0, right? You know how many Oklahoma Republicans ran against the squad in previous elections? How many of them love to sort of say they're running against the party of Ilhan Omar? Well, the party of Elon Omer just got, grew bigger and has reinforcements. And they're gonna be a whole bunch of New Medusa's heads that Republicans are gonna get to hold up to petrify their opponents and say if you vote for them, these are the people you're gonna get. So it's not good for the Democratic Party, it's not good for New York City, I would argue it's not good for the country, but it is good for the Democratic socialists of America. And it is a perfect example of this thing I've been banging my spoon on my high chair about for decades now, which is that the parties are too weak. A serious Democratic Party would in no way, shape or form allow this kind of internal insurgency to warp and defy the Democratic agenda, to brand the Democratic Party as more radical than it really is. And if you actually believe things like this is a capitalist country, you know, you can have generous welfare state and all those kinds of arguments, right? Sweden and Denmark and Norway are capitalist countries, but you can debate how big a welfare state you're going to have. But if you're going to say you're a capitalist country, if you're going to say you're pro democracy, if you're going to say you're pro Israel, if you want, if you're saying you're against terrorism, allowing people who are on the other side of those specific issues to define your party is not in the interest of your party. And historically there's no way any of these people would be allowed access on a ballot.
- [39:11]
C
How would they be stopped? How would they be stopped? What specifically?
- [39:15]
D
Well, first of all, part of this is a function of the rules of the primaries, right? So I was about to say the two main undoings of political Parties in this country are, one, campaign finance rules, and two, that take away the power of the purse for parties to be able to sort of control who, what candidates are supported and how to spend, you know, ad dollars and all the rest. And two, our primaries. We are the only advanced industrialized democracy in the world to so completely have our parties abandon and abdicate their ability to select their own candidates. So, like, remember Jorge Santos when he, the guy who, you know, is just like basically the John Lovitz liar character from Saturday Night Live.
- [39:53]
A
Mug and Fairchild. Yeah.
- [39:55]
D
Got caught up in all of this. Like, he was a grifter and a con man. Of course Trump pardoned him, but he was convicted of fraud. And at the time when all this stuff started coming out, people were like, how in the world did Republican Party even let this guy run? And the answer was he filled out a form and paid like a $35 fee or whatever it was and got to show up at a debate. Like, that's it. There's no gatekeeping function for either party. Now you say you're a Democrat, you get to run as a Democrat in a primary and once in a. This is part of the DSA strategy is they are really good at mobilizing and organizing for low turnout elections. The median voter, whose views are reflected in Rachel's survey, do not vote in New York City primaries in large numbers, even though they reflect the majority of American people. Teachers unions, other public sector unions, activist groups, you know, in some cities, you know, there's all sorts of ballot harvesting. DSA is really, really, really good at that kind of thing. They win the primaries and then say, what you're against democracy. And this is the. And like the Republican Party has a very similar problem. And so this is where you, you end up when a party is no longer able to police what it stands for and who can be a member of it. When the Labour Party in the UK thought it needed to be more American, like it said, you know what we're gonna do at the nominating convention or the party conference, we are gonna say, anybody who pays a $1 or $1 fee or something like that can vote on the next leader of the party. And all the hives of left wing scum and villainy emptied out. And Jeremy Corbyn became a leader of the Labor Party. That's what happens when you don't have a gatekeeping function. And the whole point of parties is to have gatekeeping functions. And so here we are. I think it's significant. I think it's not in the interest of the country or the Democratic Party. And the thing that bums me out the most about it, other than the damage that these people could be doing to the country, is that, as I concluded in the G file, I long ago came to the conclusion, you can't have one sane party. You have to have two sane parties. Because the more insane one party gets, the more permission it gives the other party to be just a bit more insane as well and say, look, you got no choice. You want to vote for them. And so I would rather there be a healthy competition about who could get the median voter in the center, the one reflected, you know, the median voter, and the responses in Rachel's survey. But those are not the people who show up. Those are not the people who control the primary process. Those are not the people who control ideological media, whether it's fox news or ms.now or social media or, you know, podcast pros and the like. And so we are having our politics hijacked by radicals of the left and the right who are distorting what normal Americans actually believe and want from their government.
- [42:49]
C
Mike, speaking of radicals of the left, I have a clip here from Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, who is the sort of de facto leader of the squad that Jonah mentioned earlier. And I'd like to play that clip about her response to this, her analysis of what's going on, and then get your thoughts on the other side.
- [43:09]
B
They said we're going to sign a pledge against socialism, and we say, okay. But then when you pull up this website, they can't answer the same question that you just asked me. Santita, they. There's no, okay, fine, if you're against them, that's okay. But what do you believe? And that, I think, is the core of the weaknesses from that wing in this moment. There's no affirmative vision really, coming from most places in the Democratic Party, with the exception of Democratic socialism.
- [43:49]
C
Mike, she's talking there about these centrist democrats, 13 of whom signed this pledge, a promise to America, sort of spelling out broad views, embrace of capitalism, belief in democracy, other sort of, I would say, largely unobjectionable, unless you're a DSA member, views held by majorities of Americans. But I have to say, I don't find myself agreeing with Alexandria Ocasio Cortez very often, but I kind of agree with her there. I mean, if you're talking about who has an agenda, a policy agenda, it's the Democratic Socialists. They run on these things. They're huge ideas. They want to be revolutionaries they're happy. I mean, to Jonah's early point, Zora Mamdani is happy to give up whatever sway he might have with pliant or receptive Democrats in Washington who are going to be sort of establishment. He's happy to give those up for backbench revolutionaries because they're going to be making the bigger arguments on these left wing issues. Does she have a point?
- [44:52]
A
Yeah, I think she does have a point. I think she is correct that if you look at the entire spectrum of the Democratic Party universe, which does include dsa, whether or not the centrist Democrats want that to be the case, it's just true. That's where the ideas are coming from. Everything, you know, the universal child care, obviously, any kind of the number of ideas that Mamdani is wanting to implement, the state run grocery stores or whatever the ideas are, they're the ones proposing them. And that argument that aoc, you know, said sort of going back to the centrists in this party and saying, well, what do you stand for? I think is a, it's a pretty good one because you don't actually hear much from centrist Democrats about what they believe. And to the extent that you do, it does come across as what the DSA believes, but less than or a lighter version of, a diluted version of that. Now, in terms of national politics, in terms of the ability to get something done, if you have a general left of center viewpoint, then the watered down version, the lighter version, the Diet version of what DSA is trying to get through is going to be the most politically viable. But we're in a situation where I think that hostile takeover by DSA of the Democratic Party has been successful because the leaders of the Democratic Party, you could say this, by the way, pre Trump or sort of in the early Trump takeover, you could say this about the leadership of the Republican Party as well, sort of lacked the courage of their convictions or lacked the sort of ability to stand up and say, this is what we believe in, this is why we believe in it. This is why this is the policy platform for Americans that will help Americans achieve these things and sort of stand up for their positions. Instead, I think that what the DSA crowd is rightly sort of tapping into is that they don't think their leadership really believes what they say they believe in. They don't really have anything new to say. And so in that vacuum, DSA comes in and says, here's our policy proposals. We're not gonna water them down. We're not gonna be bought by special interests or Israel or these other things that they throw out there. The reason why the Democratic Party's not been able to deliver is because of those corrupting influences. Now, that's not actually true. There's this thing called politics. There's this thing called I saw Josh gottheimer, who's one of these more moderate Democrats saying on cnn, the president is Donald Trump. We can't get through these things right now because the President is Donald Trump. That is true. The Congress has been closely divided now for a decade and a half. Basically, the entire time that I've been covering national politics, it's just been as sort of a war of attrition or sort of a back and forth trench warfare when it comes to what's happening in Washington. And that's just reality that's, I think, reflective of, of the people sort of not knowing what they really want. And but the effect has been, I think, in both parties that, that people can sort of demagogue that and say no. The real problem, the real issue here is that those leaders haven't been doing enough. And I don't think those leaders have been good at articulating the reality and frankly speaking a little truth to people about the political realities and what the trade offs are. And so in that vacuum, you have DSA coming in with all of these ideas I think are outlandish, that I think are impractical, but their ideas, and that's what a lot of these voters were motivated, these activists are sort of animated by.
- [48:47]
C
Rachel, one argument could be that what the Democratic Party lacks today are the old Reagan Democrats. Where have they gone?
- [48:56]
B
Well, Reagan made them Republicans, right? That was the transition of the 1980s. And I think your point though, is well taken, Steve. These DSA candidates that are winning, I think, and the Democratic establishment that's figuring out what to do about this movement within the party and its success would be. Well, I think for to take a couple of pieces of advice from the Republican Party, one is to have, if I may, and I'm sure my friends on the left will love this, a real Pat Buchanan, Bob Dole moment, Right? So whatever happens in the midterms here in 2026, as we go into 2028, what will the Democratic nominee for president stand up and say? When Bob Dole was facing a nativist insurgency in his Republican Party, from Pat Buchanan on the right, he stood up at that convention and said, for those of you who might believe that our party's not open to people of any race, creed or religion, there are the Exits, Right. They're clearly marked for you to walk out. I'm standing here on principle, uncompromising. This is the party of Abraham Lincoln. And I think how the Democratic nominee defines the party in 2028 based on what happens in 2026 will be really instructive to what goes on. And that's the moment that I would commend the party look at to maybe learn some of those positive lessons that Mike was talking about from the energy and the passion that Jonah was talking about too, that's coming from the dsa, the ideas, the policy prescriptions. But be sure to root out the ills of antisemitism, the ills of the DSA that's coming forward in some of these candidates at least.
- [50:37]
D
Also, can I just. One thing that drives me crazy about all of this is the pretense. I agree with you, Steve. AOC makes a good point. DSA people have an agenda. Great. They don't have new ideas. The idea that this stuff is a new, like rent control is a new idea. I think, you know, like there have been attempts at rent control since the ancient Rome. Like, it is not a new idea. You know, like, you'll hear people. I remember years ago, Nancy Pelosi was asked, you know, is it true that the Democratic Party has no new ideas? And she says, I can give you, you know, our new. I'm paraphrasing, but our new. I can give it to you. And our new ideas in three words, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Right. The idea that a new New Deal is a new idea is inherently preposterous. Right. And this is sort of the problem with the way the mainstream Democrats do this stuff is because they have historically been a coalitional party based on sort of interest group politics. They are inherently opposed to new ideas that run against the grain of their interests. And most innovations in policy and economics are going to of necessity do that. And so they don't know how to argue against, double down, triple down on the old ways arguments. And the DSA people relying on recency, bias and frankly, just pure ignorance among big chunks of their voter base can say, oh, we have new ideas. You know, we're going to. We're gonna have a government owned grocery store. No one's thought of that before. Right. I mean, that is the kind of thing that drives me absolutely batty. And the way a lot of people in the press treat this stuff as if these are new ideas is they're telling on themselves about how little history they know about sort of basic economics and public policy.
- [52:44]
A
But this is what's missing in the Democratic Party, just to button that up, is that there is no leader within the party. I mean, and Rachel mentioned Bob Dole. I'm thinking of Bill Clinton, right, Of Bill Clinton coming from sort of a rural American state that we now consider a red state, but sort of saying, you know, we're going to be new Democrats here. We're like, there is a sort of telling the your own party, you know, that there are no new ideas on this. Or what you're describing, you know, is sort of wallowing that off. That's gotta come from inside. And there are no strong people within the center left of the Democratic Party right now. Maybe Rahm Emanuel is that person. But of course, he's a. He's an object of hate for the left as much as anybody. But you just don't hear. You don't have those kind of leaders who are saying, jonah, what you just said, this is not new. It doesn't work. We tried it before, or it's been tried before. And that's, I think, ultimately a function of the weakness of the parties that. Jonah, you love to talk about.
- [53:42]
D
I also want to congratulate Rachel. We were long, long overdue for a Bob Dole profile. Encourage shout out on this podcast because you don't hear that often enough.
- [53:52]
B
So there, that's what I'm here for.
- [53:54]
C
Couldn't they, Rachel, however, take the advice that you've given them and read it in precisely the opposite way, which is to say you're pointing to Bob Dole as the avatar of goodness and hope that they take a lesson for that and they'll say, Bob Dole lost loser. Yeah, he won the primary, but he lost. So there's no, that's not a path for us. And then you look at Donald Trump and all of the things that you suggested Democrats might do to be successful, or at least to be principled and potentially successful? I would say Donald Trump has done the opposite. Right? I mean, he played into, remember when he announced the Muslim ban, that was just, I think, rank and file Republicans and conservatives were sort of horrified. Like, wait, what? You're going to ban an entire group based on their religion? That's crazy and un American. And he said, well, too bad. I think it's what we should do. And then he pushed it and campaigned on it. Isn't part of the lesson of the last decade when the left looks at the right to say, like, be brash, be bold, be controversial. Say the stuff you think and let the chips fall?
- [54:53]
B
Yeah. Maybe you hit the nail on the head when you said, you know, the difference between being principled and successful. Right. Are there. Where are the lines going to be for the left to move toward electoral success without compromising whatever their uncompromising principles will be and what will be the ramifications of that?
- [55:13]
C
Yeah, it's a tough question. Okay, one more question on this, Jonah, end it with you. It's been interesting to watch as the Democratic Party at large struggles with where to go on this. It's been very interesting to watch Gavin Newsom, who is one of the frontrunners for the 2028 nominations, made very little secret. He's one of these politicians who sort of pretends that he doesn't want to run. Everybody knows that he's running. And you know, six, eight, ten months ago, I think it was maybe a year that the Abundance book came out from Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein, caused a lot of chin stroking, a lot of rethinking of things, but it's basically a supply side case for Democrats. And in a subsequent television appearance on Jimmy Kimmel, Gavin Newsom said, I'm an Abundance Democrat. That's who I am. This is what I believe. This is where the Democrats are going and we've got to get, we've got to develop smart policy proposals to reflect that. In the aftermath of these elections in New York City last week, Gavin Newsom put out a two minute video on social media embracing a national billionaires tax, called for a reset on the US Economy and was sounding a lot of the same themes, particularly in economic terms, as the Democratic socialists who had just won in that election. Is Gavin Newsom representative of sort of where the Democrats are going right now? And do you expect that he's going to be a contender? Are we going to see things like a billionaires tax being at the heart of the Democratic agenda?
- [56:45]
D
Yes, and a couple things. First of all, we all have to acknowledge that Gavin Newsom has very important hair. But beyond that, look, I mean, part of the reason he's for the billionaires tax, the national billionaires tax, is because he opposed the statewide billionaires tax. And this gets him on the right side atmospherically of that issue, while at the same time, I mean, I don't think he has any expectation it will ever pass. But we should just note that like that's the only way to save California is to say that there's no reason to flee California to avoid the billionaires tax because now it's a nationwide tax, it's everywhere. But beyond that, look, Gavin Newsom is, I think he's a good politician, but he also just simply chases. He's a firehouse dog. And when it comes to politics, wherever there's heat and wherever all the attention is going, that's what he runs after. And sometimes he's good enough to get a little ahead of it, but he's always having his position determined by what sort of either conventional wisdom or conventional wisdom plus says. Right? So like when he started his podcast, everyone was like, you gotta have a podcast now. This is the era of the podcast, bro. And so he had a podcast and he said, oh, and you have to reach out to sort of, you know, this horseshoe theory thing is real. So I'm going to have, you know, Steve Bannon on and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And anyway, I had Charlie Kirk going and that's sort of, I don't, I don't know when the last time he had a right winger on his podcast because no one thinks that's the edgy thing to do anymore. I will say just a slight correction on the way you describe the abundance Democrat thing or abundance thing. They describe themselves as supply side progressivism, which is different than sort of supply side in the sense that Reagan meant and.
- [58:29]
C
But similar overlapping. No, I mean, yeah, the solutions for housing and things like that are in abundance and are in supply, right.
- [58:37]
D
And so like the problem I have is the abundance Dem crowd want to get red tape out of the way for government, right? Not the private sector, but for government. This is one of the reasons why it's politically not a great idea, even though policy wise it is a good idea for the most part. They want to get, you know, like the signature case is high speed rail in California, which, you know, you could take all the aid to Israel and it would buy you, I don't know, like three yards of high speed rail in California. But there's no Republican who got in the way of high speed rail in California. It was NIMBY groups, nimby, local voters, labor unions, environmental groups, all those kinds of people. And they're all part of the Democratic coalition. And that's what frustrates the abundance guys is they want to get those guys out of the way to let economic planners have free run to do great stuff. And there's a lot of low hanging fruit that that would solve. But that's not the Reaganite case for supply side. Right. The Reaganite case is to get red tape out of the way for the private sector to let innovation and entrepreneurialism solve a lot of problems in all sorts of ways. And yeah, he was against red tape for government, but like, that wasn't the focus of it. And the reason why I don't think it's gone anywhere or hasn't gone very far except in sort of in egghead circles is precisely because going into primary season saying you're at war with the Sierra Club and the AFL CIO and ask me who are like the impediments to this stuff is not great politics. So I think he wanted to check the box to say that kind of thing, but it was not going to take long for him to sway a different direction.
- [60:23]
A
Yeah.
- [60:24]
C
Before we take an ad break, please consider becoming a member of the Dispatch. You'll unlock access to bonus podcast episodes in 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. 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 gift memberships to give away, exclusive town halls with the founders, and much, much more. All right, we'll be right back. Welcome back. Let's return to our discussion. Yeah, let me just make one point in closing. This is the trend that the momentum that democratic socialists have is obvious. That's why we've been discussing. But it's not everywhere. There is a counter trend in San Francisco, of all places, that had long been thought of as sort of shorthand for this kind of lefty, progressive socialist style. Politics in America has seen a counter trend, has seen more moderates prevail, more moderate sort of ballot initiatives doing well. And we didn't have time to really get into why the differences. But I just wanted to note that.
- [61:37]
D
Well, on that point, just very quick, Richie Torres, a pro Israel gay minority guy from the actual poor district in the Bronx, destroyed his opposition from the dsa.
- [61:49]
C
Right.
- [61:49]
D
Meanwhile, the sort of barista socialist, sort of affluent and highly educated, mostly disproportionately white people, they're the ones voting for dsa. And that's one of the problems in the coverage of this ta. Nehisi Coates just did this the other day. The way they portray DSA candidates is if they're the authentic voice of minorities, when in fact the DSA candidates underperform with minorities and poor people and overperform with affluent, but status, class, anxiety ridden, overeducated whites.
- [62:19]
C
Yes.
- [62:19]
A
And speaking of California, if you talk to anybody who knows and understands California politics, you know that the groups that you were mentioning earlier, you know, the Sierra Club and the labor unions and those sort of things, the sort of the vanguard of the left side of the Democratic Party, you know, who is the center of the Democratic Party certainly in Sacramento in the legislature are blacks and Latinos, you know, lawmakers within the party who represent those kinds of districts. They are often the moderating force on the Democratic Party in California. That's, I think, an underappreciated part of the story, even though we saw the effect of that in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary where Joe Biden emerged as the antidote to the sort of pre dsa, pre squad part of the Democratic Party in large part because black voters supported Biden in South Carolina and revived his campaign.
- [63:10]
C
Rachel, you see how this goes. I call an end to the discussion and then I'm just trampled over. And we go on for several minutes while they just continue to make their points.
- [63:19]
B
I had one more point on Bob Dole. I was
- [63:24]
C
very good. Very good. We need to move on to our not worth your time segment today because it is very much worth our time and touches on an issue of both national and, I think, international importance, and that is ranch dressing. I'm going to read to you from an article that was posted on ESPN just a couple days ago. This follows a tweet, I think it was a social media post from TSA about the challenges that TSA has seen because so many foreigners who have come to the United States to take part in the World cup to watch their teams are leaving with vast quantities of ranch dressing. And here is the ESPN story. Yes, ESPN story on ranch dressing. Ranch dressing is everywhere, in myriad memes, in reels, in fans carry on suitcases, and apparently in the mouths of countless international visitors to the United States who seem to be discovering its incredible finishing ability for the first time. Suddenly, ranch dressing, also known as American sauce in some corners, is a global sensation. I'll start with you, Mike. Should we embrace ranch dressing as quintessentially American? And have you ever heard anybody refer to it as American sauce?
- [64:50]
A
No, but I can believe that somebody would call it that. It's people are a little odd about sauces elsewhere in the world. You know, like, for instance, in Brazil, they put mayonnaise on hot dogs. It's just, it's a bizarre thing. But I don't like ranch dressing. I think, you know, I haven't liked ranch dressing since I was five years old. You know, to me, it's like a little kid sauce. It's a little kid condiment and was there a moment?
- [65:15]
C
Did you have, like, a breakup moment with ranch or just.
- [65:18]
A
No, I just, you know, I grew up palate. I grew up. My palate matured. I mean, you know, I moved on from there. I find this ranch dressing love. I don't know, like, it's, like, who? I know people in America love ranch dressing, but I find it to be so basic and boring and not good. Like, there's a plethora of sauces we hear so much about. Like, foreigners come to the United States and they're amazed at all of the variety and the options of things. You know, there's that famous. That famous photo of. Who was it Yeltsin? Was it Yeltsin? I was gonna say I thought it was Yeltsin who came and was, like, looking at an American supermarket and was just in awe of just the different varieties of things and like it. So it breaks my heart a little bit that all of these foreigners are coming to the United States and. And they're with all these options, their takeaways. Ranch dressing, really? Like, just grab a bottle of Chick Fil A sauce or something. Come on.
- [66:14]
C
I mean, speaking of kids sauce, Mike, I mean, Chick Fil A, I love Chick Fil A sauce, but.
- [66:19]
A
Oh, it's for kids. Yeah.
- [66:20]
C
Rachel, are you pro ranch?
- [66:22]
B
I'm pro ranch. I think it's core to the concept of American exceptionalism. And I'm glad that Europeans and other citizens of the world are experiencing American greatness through the wondrous sauce of ranch dressing. And by the way, important to note and probably one of the reasons they're taking it home. Not just for salads anymore, of course. It can take any salad into a delight, but it's also great for dipping your freedom fries.
- [66:47]
C
I'm glad you didn't allow yourself to be intimidated by Mike's outburst on ranch dressing. Jonah, where do you fall on the ranch dressing as a quintessentially American condiment?
- [66:58]
D
I fall somewhere between Rachel and Mike. I have no problem describing it as sort of a. As a kid's salad dressing. But just for the record, most of the stuff kids like to eat is awesome.
- [67:11]
C
You know, like, Jonah, pro Dino Mac and cheese.
- [67:17]
D
Kids. That's pretty kids stuff. Awesome, right? Hamburgers, awesome. Ice cream sandwich is awesome. I mean, I can go on all day like. Like, that's not the indictment that you're making it out to be. And as Steve knows, I don't like blue cheese and all that kind of stuff, so I will often get ranch when I'm having Wings. Although I actually prefer just straight unadorned sour cream.
- [67:38]
C
For wings or generally.
- [67:40]
D
For wings. For wings. For really hot wings. I like the contrast. And so I think it's. I actually looked it up. Like, you can in a lot of European countries get ranch dressing. It's just hard to find. In some places, it is not a staple. Most salads are kind of vinaigrettes. That's sort of the tradition there. And then you come to America, and apparently a lot of Europeans are blown away that there's this sauce you can dip pizza crusts in and that kind of stuff. And I think that's. It's not my thing, but I get it. And I kind of like calling it America sauce. I think it would be really smart for some company to come out with a version of it called America sauce and get it in European stores really quickly because it can't be hard to make, as Steve knows. Like, they're very popular in Spain. I can't remember what they're called, but they're these store like America Store, whatever. And it just has stuff that you miss from America. You know, Oreo cookies to, like, you know, American potato chips and that kind of stuff. They should flood them with ranch dressing. And so, you know, I think it's. I think it's fun. I think it's probably more of an indication that these Europeans love the food they ate that came with ranch than they actually love ranch. Right. I mean, like, if you. All of a sudden you've been going to Buffalo Wild Wings and all these pizza places and all these barbecue places and you had ranch dressing, it's the barbecue and the pizza and the wings that you really liked. But you think the ranch is the. The ranch is the thing you can bring back.
- [69:12]
C
Yeah, I'm. I'm torn on this a little bit. I like ranch. It's fine. Occasionally order it on a salad, especially if it's a sort of a combo variety like a jalapeno ranch or a chipotle ranch. I think those are better than sort of the pure, straight up. Agree with that, ranches. But on. On wings, it has to be blue cheese. I just don't this. To me, there's really not much of a debate about it. My kids are, to Mike's point, very into ranch. Like, they will have discussions, long debates among themselves about where the best ranch dressing is. You know, where we can go and get it for takeout. There is a restaurant, it's a chain called Ted's Montana Grill that is. Was founded by Ted Turner the late Ted Turner RIP that has, I will say, probably the best ranch dressing I've had. And when we are anywhere near a Ted's Montana grill, my kids push me to go and get takeout. Like bowls of like a. And when you call and you ask the people at Ted's, they don't have any idea what you mean. Like, no, I don't just want one of those small little ranch cups. I want like a full container. Like if you have it in a quart size, I'll take the quart size because my kids so love ranch.
- [70:29]
A
The European mind could not comprehend. That's right, a bowl of ranch dressing.
- [70:35]
C
Yes.
- [70:35]
D
I mean, do you guys disagree? Rachel, I don't know if you have kids, but how many times was I envious of my daughter's dinner when she was a toddler where we were having something fancy and then I'm looking over there and she's just got a little Mac and cheese and some cut up fried chicken or chicken bites or whatever. Kid food is awesome. I mean, it's one of the only things I'm looking forward to being spending my last years in some old age home is that you start to get
- [71:05]
C
kid food again, Jonah's gonna have pureed nuggets.
- [71:09]
A
Jonah, nothing's stopping you from going right now. You are a grown adult. You know, with a credit card you can go buy as much kid food as you want.
- [71:17]
D
True.
- [71:18]
C
I'm gonna. Every time I eat with Jonah now, I'm gonna ask for a kid's menu, get him some friends.
- [71:23]
D
I'm often envious of the kids menu. Like, his menu looks awesome, by the way.
- [71:27]
A
Steve, I don't know if you remember this. It was about 10 years ago, we went out to lunch or something, something somewhere. It was like a place near Dupont Circle with a couple of other colleagues, Royal Palace. And I ordered the, I ordered the. This is like a bar tavern style menu. I ordered the hot dog off the menu and you gave me so much crap for that order. Like what, what do you want a bib with that? You know, do you want your glass of that? A hot dog with, you know, the hot dog is a more universal food to me than ranch dressing. So.
- [71:56]
C
All right. That will in fact be the final word. Thank you so much, Rachel, for joining us, for putting up with us, sharing your poll with us today. Very helpful, very interesting findings. We will post a link to the poll in our show notes as well as to Jonah's terrific G file from last Wednesday and various other items of interest. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time. Before we end today's show, I wanted to let our listeners know about an upcoming live SCOTUS Blog event. On Wednesday, July 8 at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg center in Washington, D.C. the SCOTUS Blog crew and a cast of brilliant legal minds will come together to explore this blockbuster Supreme Court term. If you'd like to register your interest, you can find the link on the SCOTUS Blog homepage or in the Advisory Opinions newsletter. Finally, if you like what we're doing, you can rate, review and subscribe to the show on your podcast player of choice to help new listeners find us. As always, if you've got questions, comments, concerns or corrections, you can email us@roundtableispatch.com we read everything, even the ones from people who still eat dino nuggets. That's going to do it for today's show. Thanks so much for tuning in. And thank you to the folks behind the scenes who made this episode possible. Noah Hickey and Peter Bonaventure, thanks again for listening. Please join us next time
- [73:18]
A
sa.