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The Gist
Not Even Mad: Jonah Goldberg & Zee Cohen-Sanchez
01:06:06
Hamas hostages, Trump and autocracy, and the strangely quiet shutdown — we tackle all three. Why Trump’s blunt style played in the Middle East, whether “competitive authoritarianism” really fits his second-term instincts and enablers, and...
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- [00:00]
Mike Pesca
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- [00:22]
Jonah Goldberg
Morning Zoe.
- [00:23]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
Got donuts. Jeff Bridges why are you still living above our garage? Well, I dig the mattress and I.
- [00:29]
Mike Pesca
Want to be in a T Mobile.
- [00:31]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
Commercial like you teach me. So Dana oh no, I'm not really prepared. I couldn't possibly at T Mobile get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them. It's designed to be the most powerful iPhone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system.
- [00:45]
Mike Pesca
Wow, impressive.
- [00:46]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
Let me try. T Mobile is the best place to get iPhone 17 Pro because they've got the best network. Nice. Jeffrey, you heard them.
- [00:54]
Jonah Goldberg
T Mobile is the best place to.
- [00:56]
Mike Pesca
Get the new iPhone 17 Pro on us with eligible trade in in any condition.
- [01:01]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
So what are we having for launch?
- [01:03]
Jonah Goldberg
Dud.
- [01:04]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
My work here is done.
- [01:05]
Jonah Goldberg
24 monthly bill credit is on experience beyond for well qualified customers plus tax.
- [01:08]
Mike Pesca
And $35 device connection charge credits ended balance due if you pay off earlier. Cancel Finance agreement. IPhone 17 Pro 256 gigs $1099.99 and new line minimum $100 plus a month plan with auto pay plus taxes and fees required. Best mobile network in the US based on analysis by Oaklove Speed Test Intelligence data 182025 Visit T mobile.com It's Thursday, October 16, 2025 from Peach Fish Productions. It's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca and it's a not even mad day. We have Jonah Goldberg, we have Z Cohen and they will discuss the three topics I'm going to explain to you. My choice of topics was a little bit hard this week. The number one topic I think on most people's minds is the the Hamas hostage release. But it's very hard to get the questions you want answered answered. And the questions are, well, what happens now? And since the future is unknowable and Hamas is inscrutable, maybe they're not. They like to kill enemies who they define as everyone but Hamas. Anyway, you're not going to get an answer about the future. And the other big questions I have is why exactly did they sign the deal. But the people who know that are probably holding guns to their enemies heads in town squares in Gaza as we speak. All right, we still will discuss analysis. Here are the other two big topics. One is the Trump autocracy. And maybe in the show it will help if I do a little more laying of the predicate. I was reading a blog by Ben Raeders Dorf, what's the end game? And it starts, most political scientists agree that Trump is attempting to build a competitive authoritarian dictatorship, like Bukele in El Salvador, Orban in Hungary, or Erdogan in Turkey. I don't know if most political scientists agree with that, but the idea is you actually get elected to power as opposed to a coup. And there are some other opposition parties, but they're never really given a chance to win. And then he goes on to complicate this by saying it's really weird. And in that Trump is much less popular than these other guys are. Usually you get really popular and then you consolidate power. And also he's jumping straight to overt attempts at repression before he's consolidated power. Why? What's going on? So Jonah and Z and I will discuss that. But now you know exactly where my thinking came from about the autocracy. And the last topic is the shutdown. And I didn't want to talk about the shutdown, but you kind of got to talk about the shutdown. And then when I was thinking about it, I said, well, well, kind of gotta talk about something that should be as important as a shutdown. Maybe that alone is interesting. Shouldn't a shutdown have a lot more impact? But also because it's maybe not having that much of an impact, flight delays notwithstanding, maybe that plays into how the shutdown will shut down or start up again. Jonah has theories. Z has theories. Mike clarifies some of Jonah and Z's theories. So enjoy Z and Jonah and a little bit of Mike, as we're all not even mad. And now a little bit about one of my favorite products, True Work. Fall weather changes fast. It's hot, it's cold, it's wet, it's windy. Sometimes all in one shift, sometimes within 12 minutes. True work is there for you. Performance workwear built like it matters because you know what they know and you know that it does matter. Founded by a true trade professional who was tired and wet and having all that heavy gear weigh him down. So TrueWerk set out to make workwear that keeps pros comfortable, capable and ready for whatever the day throws at them. Every piece is tested on job sites with trade pros, so when conditions change, you're still ready. I enjoy and wear, maybe wear a little too often to things that aren't job sites but casual events and get compliments on it. My True Work pants. A lot of pockets, a lot of resiliency. I also have several True Work T shirts and a True Work hoodie goes right over the hood. It fits my face and it's a lovely green flavor that looks a little like maybe something Kermit the Frog might wear if he was backing off his True frog like nature but at the same time being repellent terrain. That's what my assumption of fries is. I wear True Work and I'm calling upon you to get to know True Work to upgrade your day with work Wear built like it matters. Get 15% off your first order@True Work.com with code the Gist. Spelling's important here.
- [05:42]
Jonah Goldberg
Follow along.
- [05:43]
Mike Pesca
T R U E W E R K. Use the code the gist. You know, Utah, Florida, they recently banned fluoride in the drinking water. We did a segment with Sadie Dingfelder on it. It's. It's a live issue. Let's just say it's unsettled science right now. I wouldn't bring you a product that I thought was in any way safe or going to get in the way of health of you and your family. Cove Pure gives you the freedom to choose Pure water, a countertop water purifier certified to remove up to 99% of impurities. I will tell you this about COVID Pure. If it's on the counter, you think about all these things. Maybe you worry, maybe you don't. Maybe what you like is good tasting water. And Cove Pure delivers this water that's supposed to taste like what you've always imagined water tasted like. Pure, clean, no aftertaste. So don't wait for the government to sort out pure water. Do it yourself. Head to covpure.com the gist and for a limited time, you'll get 200% off your first purchase. That's C-O-V-E-P-U-R-E.com thegist to get $200 off covepure.com the gist hello and welcome back to the political talk show that vows to bomb a Venezuelan fishing vessel every day until we win a peace prize. Today we speak of the Hamas hostage deal, Donald Trump as a weird kind of autocrat, and the government shutdown. Is it as crazy and as impactful as you thought it would be? When we do so, we promise to uphold our reputation for refutation because we are not even mad. So when I say this is what we do, the question is, who are we? And the answer is one of us is Z Cohen. Sanchez, founder and executive director of Soul Strategies and also the founder of the Unfuck America tour. How is it going, Z? Is America indeed in a state of unfuckery right now?
- [08:06]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
No, it's not, but it's. It's going well.
- [08:10]
Mike Pesca
Jonah Goldberg is the editor in chief and co founder of the Dispatch. Same question with you and the Dispatch and Unfuckery, Jonah.
- [08:18]
Jonah Goldberg
Are we unfucked? Is that the question I'm being asked? Well, you know, one doesn't want to retreat too much into terminological definitions and whatnot, but no, we are in a constant state of fuckery.
- [08:33]
Mike Pesca
So another example of the fuckery, or what should be the fuckery, if we just listen to the language, is we are now in a state of a government shutdown. And if I weren't living in a government shutdown and someone told me there's going to be a government shutdown, the genre of movie I would think of is more zombie apocalypse than I don't even know. Downton Abbey plus rom. Com. There seems to be not much going on with the government shutdown, except a few key people in the government are very upset with each other. Now, I live in New York. I guess this city has a lot of services that doesn't rely on the federal government. Jonah, you're there in Washington, D.C. is this shutdown presenting itself to you in a more pronounced way than I'm seeing up here?
- [09:21]
Jonah Goldberg
You know, not really. I mean, the. The traffic is slightly better, but not as good as I would have hoped. Like. Like during COVID it was awesome. You could do like, figure eights and stuff. And there are still traffic jams in D.C. you know, more people for whom it personally affects. I have a friend who's NIH person, and they're literally barred by law from opening their laptop. You know, it's that kind of thing that's interesting, but. No, it's. And for people in my line of work, the sort of inside the beltway pundit types, it's just frigging exhausting to have to care too much about it. I mean, look, I think it's bad. I think it's a sign of dysfunction and all of that kind of stuff. And I am sure there are things going on like these Rifs are a bad idea in lots of places. The sort of undoing of our federal healthcare system sounds like a bad idea to me. But they don't save money because people get repaid. It's a lot more legal battles and everybody's a hypocrite, right? Because Everyone is the great mystery. So the big debate for a lot of people was whether or not the big blame game are Republicans going to get blamed or Democrats going to get blamed. On the technical merits, I think it's clear that Schumer is to blame because he's the guy. But for Schumer is maneuvering in the Senate, there wouldn't be a government shutdown.
- [10:51]
Mike Pesca
There is a lever. It says shutdown. He's the one who pulled the swipe.
- [10:54]
Jonah Goldberg
Right. But the polls aren't showing that Republicans get slightly more blame. And the sort of angels on the head of a pin argument was or is. There were some people say, well, look, the party that forces the government shutdown will get blamed. And the other argument is, no, Republicans always get blamed. And it was sort of unsolvable because with a few very small exceptions, Republicans were always the ones who caused the government shutdown. So this is the test case. And it turns out, I think that Republicans are getting more of the blame, in part because the Republicans have terrible messaging on this. And the body language from Trump is that he's enjoying the shutdown, which is not great for him to lay all the blame on Democrats.
- [11:42]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
And.
- [11:43]
Jonah Goldberg
And you can't go nine months into this presidency with a president who relishes being a bull in the China shop, pissing off everybody up, doing the Doge thing, all that kind of stuff. And then you tell people, and I think a lot of people are tuned out of politics these days. You can't then tell them, oh, government's in disarray, and Trump had nothing to do with it because it is sort of the baseline assumption now that chaos is what Trump does. And so the Democrats are benefiting from that a little bit.
- [12:12]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. So, Z, tell us about what life is like out there in Nevada with a shutdown. I know your Democratic Senator Masto was one of two Democrats who voted to keep the government open. And also, I just want to acknowledge, I didn't really put it all together, what a terrible experiment it is in terms of independent variables to say, well, the Republicans will always get blame. And, well, maybe that's not right. The party that shuts the government down will get blamed. So it's a bad experiment since it's always been the Republic Republicans. But is there a blame game going on to any degree in Nevada?
- [12:48]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
You know, I think that, like, our state has been hit so hard just by Trump in general that I don't know if we can, like, separate what is a problem because of the government shutdown versus what was already an issue, if that makes sense. So like.
- [13:04]
Jonah Goldberg
Yeah.
- [13:04]
Mike Pesca
Oh, I don't even know that much about it. Tell us how I know. I, this isn't a state where the National Guard's been deployed. So how's it been hit? Hard.
- [13:12]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
Yeah. So in terms of like our, so I live in a rural community, so it's definitely different from Vegas, although Vegas is suffering from their own problems. Same thing with Reno. Right. So for those of people that don't really understand the state. So we have two major cities, right. In Nevada. Most of the state is completely empty. It's, there's hardly any population. It's something like 90% of our population are in those two cities, which is pretty rare. And so that is the Reno area, Lake Tahoe ski town, where people go up there. And then we have obviously Las Vegas. The, the travel that has been coming into those, you know, into those two cities has been super low. All of the hotels are suffering. All of the recreational, you know, stuff is, is, you know, suffering and on the verge of even shutting down. A lot of our restaurants are really struggling right now. And then you have these like smaller rural communities that are, you know, losing Medicaid, losing all of these benefits. Our hospital is on the brink of shutting down out here. It's not doing very well. And so like those. And then already obviously we're like what, 49 out of 50 for education and teachers. We're not able to get teachers out here. And with all of the Trump benefit cuts that's also affecting, because one of the reasons why people become teachers obviously is because yes, the wages are low, but there are benefits. Right now there's a question of are they even going to have benefits.
- [14:45]
Mike Pesca
So yeah, yeah, Andre Agassi has one nice school and that's about it.
- [14:49]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
Yeah, exactly. So that, that's, that's why it's hard to sort of determine what was already happening versus what's happening now with the shot.
- [14:58]
Jonah Goldberg
Although I'm pretty sure Nevada is up there. It's not as bad as Alaska, where my wife is from, but I think the federal government owns like 80% of the total area of Nevada. Right. So like, yeah, there are a lot of air bases, a lot of federal installations. At some point you stop paying their salaries. That might have knock on effects, I would assume.
- [15:20]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
Oh, they're definitely, they're definitely going to be for sure. I mean, and that's also like a question too of like our federal lands and is Trump going to sell that off and what is that going to look like? I mean, yeah, There's a, this state is not going to be benefited. And then obviously we have a massive Hispanic population. Right. That are coming over from California. So we have a lot of people that are scared to leave their houses, which ironically also voted for Trump, a lot of them. So it is, yeah, it is not the best situation out here to begin with.
- [15:50]
Mike Pesca
So I do, I agree that people are checking out a government and they don't ask about the salience of an issue or I haven't seen any polls where they have the add on question after who do you blame, how much do you blame and how upset are you? And I think, I do take it that people are much more upset about it, about many other things from just the state of the economy which they might connect to all these trade wars or potential trade wars and definitely ICE raids. That's upsetting people. Yeah. So it's an odd thing. We or the political class has to tell you who's winning or losing, but the politicians themselves, they comport themselves based on am I gaining an advantage from this action or am I not? And the polls might say something. I guess that's how you have to do it. But my gut is that no one is really getting blamed that much. No one is getting credit that much. So then what's the mechanism or what's the urgency to ever get out of this? Won't it have to be something like, well, do we actually want to go into the midterms not having a government? Who does that look worse for? I, I do think that this could play out for many, many weeks without it having a real effect on a vote to be cast in 2020. Do you think so?
- [17:09]
Jonah Goldberg
I generally think that's true. I think there are caveats though. Like at some point, which has happened in the past, air traffic controllers are just like, screw this, I'm not going to work anymore. And we've already seen some flight delays that pisses people off a lot. One plane, if one plane falls out of the sky, heaven forbid, changes the zeitgeist pretty dramatically. Not paying soldiers and military people, that has massive, you know, knock on effects. And like you can, a lot of people can miss one paycheck. A lot of banks and stuff help you out. To me, maybe miss two paychecks, you start missing three, four paychecks and it doesn't matter how much that you're going to be compensated down the road you're, you know, you're not going to be making mortgage payments and that kind of thing. So I think there are places where and also, you know, this, this fight about Obamacare premiums, when they actually do go up, and 10 million, I don't know, 20 million people have their healthcare premiums go up. I think I have already predicted. I think the Republicans end up caving on that after they end the shutdown. But before that, you could see things can get testy, right? I mean, at some point it actually breaks through where it'll break through. There are a lot of school programs that do free meals and they get compensated by the state. And then the state gets reimbursed by the Feds. If the feds stop compensating, eventually you run out of that money. And I could see that changing people's attitudes, who they blame and what it actually forces, I don't know. But people are gonna start paying attention when the consequences of this unfold over time. I think.
- [18:52]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, that's plausible. And I mentioned the couple of senators, Democratic senators, who didn't wanna shut the government down. What could be going is that the Democrats are on the right side of the issue, that Republic, even Republicans, won't want to cast the vote that denies many of their own people subsidies for Obamacare coverage. But that vote could have happened and would have happened without a shutdown. So you might get this weird thing where there was a shutdown. There is a lot of pain. The left part of the Democratic Party feels that it's stood up and did something, and then they even get the policy plank that they want, but they didn't need the shutdown to do it. But if they get what they want and they look like they stood up to, I don't know, Republicans or Trump, maybe it winds up being a smart play after all.
- [19:44]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
Z, listen, I think that we need to fight with everything that we've got right now. So I do think that this was the right move from the Democrats to do this. But at the same time, every day that goes on is another day that is going to piss people off. Right. Like, regardless of what side of the aisle you're on, if you're working for the government, you're, as you were saying, like, you're going to eventually need a paycheck. I think what will be really interesting is to see one, how long this goes for and to, like, the effect on the midterms. Right. Like, we're seeing, obviously, that the polls are looking like most people think that this is a Republican problem, which is obviously good for us long term. But again, that could shift very quickly if we get out of this. And then Trump somehow makes this about him and his, his accomplishments or he does something good directly after this. Right. So it's. Yeah, I think, I think it's a, It's a high risk. It's a very, very high risk.
- [20:46]
Mike Pesca
Let me ask you, other than having the shutdown or saying yes to it, do you think Democrats, Chuck Schumer, anyone else you could point to, has played their hand particularly well or has exhibited an understanding of leverage, but this. And then if you want, you could say no. But the Republicans haven't either?
- [21:06]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
Yeah, I think no, but. But at the same time, you know, I think, like, the only person that I really see that's like, fighting hard for us right now on the Democratic side is Gavin Newsom. Right. Like, I see that with his redistricting, with the way that he's, like, handling Trump in general, I think is like, that's the model we need to go for. But again, like, shutting down the government, to me is a, again, very, very high risk. So it's, I'm not saying that there couldn't be high reward from that high risk, but right now I'm just not sure what that looks like, because I don't see the Republicans backing out. Even if we have, like, some catastrophic plane accident or something. I don't know if that's enough to do it. I don't know.
- [21:58]
Jonah Goldberg
Yeah. So one theory you hear from Democrats is, in D.C. is you go back to 2013, which is the most analogous of the recent shutdowns, where you had mostly in the form of Ted Cruz and some of his allies, them forcing the shutdown to over health care, over Obamacare, to have a fight. Cruz got a lot of blame for that, but no one remembered the shutdown come 2014. What they did remember was that Republicans branded themselves as against Obamacare, which had the added problem of like, two months after the shutdown, you had the just calamitous fuckup, ery of the Obamacare website, which was just a huge problem for Democrats. I mean, the decision to employ the finest computer programmers or the Amish community could provide was a mistake. And so.
- [22:54]
Mike Pesca
But when dial up meets Butter churn.
- [22:56]
Jonah Goldberg
It'S healthcare.gov but the Republicans, their theory of the Democrats theory of the case is okay. What people remembered was that Republicans were against Obamacare and they forgot about the shutdown. What I think a lot of Democrats are betting on is people will forget the shutdown eventually. But remember that Democrats fought to keep Obamacare premiums low. The problem with that, which I think is emblematic of a larger problem that Democrats have is that Democrats really want to be fighting a president who's more like a Mitt Romney, right, A Paul Ryan, someone who wants to curb entitlements, wants to trim government, cut spending, lower taxes, all that kind of stuff, the traditional sort of Reaganite thing. And that's not Trump. Trump is a big government right winger. He is not a particularly conservative dude on trade. You know, Biden kept Trump's tariffs in place and Trump has kept Biden's tariffs in place and then added even 10 times more and all that kind of stuff. So it's kind of like who's really for free trade anymore? And the Josh Hawley, Marjorie Taylor Greene crowd gotta remember, like a lot of the new coalition on the Republican side are lower income, non college educated people who rely on things like Obamacare and Medicaid and all that kind of thing.
- [24:22]
Mike Pesca
Josh Hawley did go to Yale, but Marjorie Taylor.
- [24:24]
Jonah Goldberg
I know, but my point is that the coalitions that make up the two parties have kind of changed and neither party has really caught up yet. And so that's why I think Republicans will force Democrats to go along with ending the shutdown, declare victory preen on Fox News, and then try to take all the credit for doing something about the Obamacare premiums, completely fudging the strategy that Democrats the rationalization for doing this in the first place. Because time and time again, Trump will not, he will not behave like the kind of right wing president I want him to behave like as being a small government guy. I think it's kind of first of all outrageous that we're talking about subsidies for something called affordable healthcare, right? If it's affordable, why do you need the subsidies? These were supposed to be temporary in the first place during COVID but there's this ratchet effect that every time you give a handout, it sticks around. So I'm kind of on, I'm on the heartless side of a lot of this stuff. But at the same time, that's not Donald Trump on this. If he could give checks to everybody for $2,000, he would give checks for $2,000 to everybody just as long as he gets to sign the check. And I just don't think Democrats have figured out a way to combat that. They have the same problem that my kind of traditional conservative had over the last decade of my crowd's like, oh, he's not a real conservative. And Trump's like, yeah, I'm not a real conservative. He's much more of a squishy moderate on a lot of these kinds of issues. He just talks like a psychopath.
- [25:55]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, well, I would say that's a.
- [25:57]
Jonah Goldberg
Problem for how you deal with that.
- [25:59]
Mike Pesca
This is interesting. Z, I'll get to you in a second. I would say he's not a moderate. I would say he's a chauvinistic populist. Right. He wants to.
- [26:05]
Jonah Goldberg
Yeah, yeah, sure. I'm not trying to defend him or anything like that. I'm just saying that, like he's closer to the center on a whole bunch of actual public policy issues. He just doesn't frame it that way. He doesn't talk about it that way.
- [26:16]
Mike Pesca
Right.
- [26:17]
Jonah Goldberg
He's a big government guy.
- [26:19]
Mike Pesca
But why is this a problem? And then Z, you could pick this up. Why is the way you frame it is, oh, this is a problem for Democrats because it's hard to pin the tail on that donkey when the donkey's made of Jell O. And he doesn't really believe in cutting the subsidies. The way I look at it is this is maybe just a whole big weeks long, painful exercise in reminding the American people that the Democrat or that the Republicans have a policy they don't like. Maybe not Donald Trump, maybe not Marjorie Taylor Greene, but in general, the Republicans are the people who don't want to give you the subsidies and the Democrats are the people who do. There are some Republicans who will go along with the Democrats, but that just shows that 100% of the Democrats are right and we got, you know, 15% of the Republicans with us.
- [27:08]
Jonah Goldberg
And you might be right. That was my point, is that I think that's the strategy a lot of Democrats are gambling on. I just think Trump's ability to monkey wrench that is bigger than their calculation.
- [27:15]
Mike Pesca
Gotcha, gotcha. I mean, you're a Democrat. Is that a good gamble?
- [27:19]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
Z. You know what? I would like to, because I haven't seen any attempt on the Democratic side to go with Marjorie Taylor Greene and like Josh Howley and some of these folks to try to push the messaging in our favor. Right. I think that they think that that's risky. That's my guess. And it probably is. But at the same time, Marjorie Taylor Greene was like the biggest. I mean, Josh Halley has been a little bit, you know, shaky on some of the stuff. Right. Like he was like huge on January6. We remember the whole fist and everything. But he's also split with Trump on some of the issues. But Marjorie has been for the most part like one of, if not the most hardcore Trumper. Right. That we've seen. So if we can Find a way to work with her on this issue and some of the other issues. I think that that's a good thing. Like, I think that that really, like, shows our stre and it shows that Trump doesn't have the ultimate power that he thinks that he has. But I haven't seen a real attempt on our side to do that.
- [28:23]
Mike Pesca
But do you really think, I mean, you know your party, but you also know the brickbats you took by doing a toe touch of that with Charlie Kirk or just what he represented, which was smart politics. I mean, what Democrat, maybe it's Gavin Newsom, right? He had Charlie Kirk on his first show. But what Democrat says, I want to work with Marjorie Taylor Greene on this and doesn't get philosophy delayed by the bulk of the party?
- [28:49]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
I don't think it matters. Right. I think that we need to put that stuff aside to take that risk. Because right now, if we just keep everything the way that it is, I don't see us winning this battle. So I think that sometimes if we're going to go into risky situations like this, then we also have to consider that in that risky situation, we might also have to take risky situations. Right. And I think that that's a good one to take. I think that I don't see. I mean, listen, she could flip on a dime, right? Like, that's always a possibility. But I think that what she's trying to do as well is that I think that she sees that the path forward for her to stay in her seat is not going to work if she continue because she's from a working class district. I mean, that is, that's the reality of the situation. So I think that if she is with Trump 100% of the time on everything, I don't think her district is going to like that. And I think that she sees that and so she's in it to protect herself. Right. So I think that we should be taking advantage of that situation. If anything, somebody like Bernie Sanders would be great to form that coalition, Right? He's the amendment king. He crosses the aisle for everything. He's an independent. But I think that we could have other people try to take that risk, too. I mean, some of these, like more moderate Democrats that don't look like they're doing very well, I don't think it would hurt them to take that risk.
- [30:15]
Mike Pesca
All right, back in a minute to talk more about our autocratic wannabe president who is not playing by the autocratic playbook, which I just found out about. Back in a minute with More of not even mad.
- [30:36]
Jonah Goldberg
Morning, Zoe.
- [30:37]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
Got donuts. Jeff Bridges, why are you still living above our garage? Well, I dig the mattress and I want to be in a T Mobile commercial like you teach me. So Dana. Oh no, I'm not really prepared. I couldn't possibly at T Mobile get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them. It's designed to be the most powerful iPhone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system.
- [30:59]
Mike Pesca
Wow, impressive.
- [31:00]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
Let me try. T Mobile is the best place to get iPhone 17 Pro because they've got.
- [31:05]
Jonah Goldberg
The best network work.
- [31:07]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
Nice. Jeffrey, you heard them.
- [31:08]
Jonah Goldberg
T Mobile is the best place to.
- [31:10]
Mike Pesca
Get the new iPhone 17 Pro on us with eligible traded in any condition.
- [31:15]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
So what are we having for lunch? Dude, my work here is done.
- [31:19]
Jonah Goldberg
The 24 month bill credit is on experience beyond for well qualified customers plus.
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Mike Pesca
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- [31:38]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
We'Re.
- [31:38]
Mike Pesca
Back with Not Even Mad. We have Z, Cohen, Sanchez and Jonah Goldberg. And before we left, I did tease Trump and Autocracy. But first, let's get there through the prism of a big success internationally that I and many people didn't think would happen. Hamas has released all 20 living hostages. I don't like saying living hostages. Hostages. They've released all 20 hostages. They aren't as compliant on returning the bodies. I have a theory on that. They don't always know where the bodies were. But you must give Trump credit for this and you must at least have a little bit of hope that this horrible humanitarian crisis might change a little bit. Then as I say this, there is the specter of Hamas getting some people who they say collaborated with Israel down on their knees in town squares and executing them with bullets to the back of the head. Because Hamas is going to Hamas. We could take this in terms of the domestic politics if you want. Jonah, you could talk a little bit about the prospect for peace or Israeli politics, but I'm sure you were heartened by this. I've been reading your tweets and I know that you certainly were. How hopeful are you beyond just what we've seen in the last couple of days?
- [32:50]
Jonah Goldberg
Well, I tried to actually figure out the math on how many years cumulatively ofpeace quote unquote peace there were in the Middle east since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. I couldn't quite figure it out.
- [33:06]
Mike Pesca
So what would count as no war.
- [33:07]
Jonah Goldberg
Anywhere that would count deaths fewer than like a thousand kind of thing. From combat kind of thing. There's like one stretch of like 6, 7 years, like from 56 to 63. It's not great, right? And we forget that. I mean, one of my big peeves about people talking about peace in the Middle east or the Middle Eastern conflict, it's always about Israel. It's never about all the other horrible things that are going on in the Middle east where when Arabs kill Arabs, it just doesn't make news. There's just something about Israel that bothers a lot of people. So look, I think you're absolutely right and I've said so a bunch of different ways and a bunch of different times. Trump deserves a lot of credit for this. Foreign policy successes on a president's watch in general are credited to a president when they deserve credit or not. And in this case, I think he does deserve a lot of the credit. I think part of it, and I don't think everlasting peace is on hand. That was my point about it'd be foolish to think that. But just merely getting the remaining hostages out is good news. Ending the war for the time being is good news. Getting buy in from a whole bunch of countries around the region is good news. And I think that one way to think about it is I do not like the way that Donald Trump conducts foreign policy generally. I don't like the way he conducts domestic policy generally. But there's something about the Middle east where it works in both his first term and his second term, it turns out that given a whole bunch of like sweet gold presents to potentates and dictators and receiving them and doing business deals and using a huge show of force to mean you're serious and forcing Bibi Nina to apologize to Guitar. I mean, there are a whole bunch of things that his style is sort of bowl in a China shop style. His transactionalism lends itself. It's a language that they understand better in the Middle east than a lot of other regions. It has not worked great for him in NATO in other places. I think what he's doing in South America is probably impeachable. But you take the wins where you can and so we'll see. I don't like the idea that we gave permission to Hamas to go around executing people, which is apparently what Trump did did and said as much. And I think that there is, we don't have to get deep in the weeds on this, but there's room for a lot of retrospection from Western media and Western institutions about how they covered and talked about the conflict, about how much credulity they had for claims against Israel. And I think it's really, really, really telling that Trump is wildly popular in Israel and Bibi Netanyahu isn't. And so the unfolding of the politics there are going to be really interesting.
- [36:10]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, I would say the aspect of Trump's personality that came to bear is specifically about Hamas, in that Hamas is, I'm not going to insult them as stupid. They're certainly convicted, they're shrewd, but they don't have an exactly subtle view of the world. And I think Trump's lack of subtlety perfectly matched Hamas's view of the world, such that they didn't read any signals that I think could plausibly have been read by much of what the Biden administration was saying when they would tell Israel not to use certain weapons and when they would express their condemnation of Israel. Certainly what the international community was saying when they seemed to reward Hamas with the promise of Palestinian statehood, even though that's not in the Hamas charter. So once there is any ambiguity or subtly subtlety, I don't think a group like Hamas is going to respond. And then comes Donald Trump, and it's not just, it's not just strong versus weak, it's that he's clearly read. He might contradict himself, but I don't think Hamas was getting the impression, oh, if we keep doing what we're doing, things are going to work out for us. Well, with this as our interlocutor, what I want to do now is to ask you, however, Z, you could talk about the international community and if you think Israel has a lot of work to do to get back into something, not even the good graces, but the all but expelled from the UN Graces of the international community, or is that back burnered now that there is peace? But the same question with domestic policy politics. How important, how incendiary do you think an issue Israel is Zionism among Democrats now that. And if there is more of a lasting peace with the Gaza conflict.
- [38:04]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
So, yeah, I don't, I don't think that this is going to go to lasting peace. In fact, I don't even think that we're going to get to stage two of this deal if I'm being 100% honest. I think like what I obviously am so glad that the hostages are home. But I also worry about. But if once we don't get to stage two, like, what is going to be the consequence of that? Right? Like, could it be even worse in, in terms of what happens next? Like, I don't know. I also think that it's hard to say, like, it's hard to say how the Democrats are going because at first the narrative was, oh, well, Trump released these hostages, we're losing the midterms, right? Like a hundred percent. I mean, it's over for us. I don't think that that's the case. If we look at the split right now and the Republican Party on this issue, when we started Trump's term, or even, I mean, even more recently than that, there was a very hard split in the Republican. I mean, sorry, amongst Democrats and Republicans on this issue, right. The far left of the Democratic side does not want us to have any, like, relation with Israel, doesn't like aipac, all of those things. But the Republicans, for the most part were pretty col. Coalesced on this issue, right? Like, they were okay with aipac, they were okay with Israel, all of those things. That has changed dramatically, right? And I would say that a big reason why it's changed dramatically is because of the Charlie Kirk assassination. We've seen that, you know, Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes, and not just the far right of the party, but also like, just, you know, like regular, everyday Republicans are not okay with the fact that Israel has so much influence over our elections. And so I wonder how Trump is going to deal with that, because clearly they've made some sort of deal, right? Like, and now he's not going to be able to get out of that. But if your party's no longer supporting that, how is that going to play out in the midterms? That's really where I think things are going to get interesting.
- [40:06]
Mike Pesca
Well, he hasn't. If you look at the polls, they haven't lost party support. They've definitely lost podcaster support, especially the more anti Semitic you are. And I'll put Candace Owens in that category. Tucker maybe just does a toe touch or a hummus dip of antisemitism. So that's just one analysis of where the Republicans are. But do you think I see this going a couple different ways? One, the Pandora's box has been open. Domestic politics will never be the same when it comes to Israel. It will just be going forward among Democrats that Zionism will be a dirty word. And among an appreciable number of Republicans, they don't like our entanglements with Israel, whether because of real politic or antisemitism. On the other hand, someone made this point to me. If during the summer of 2020, when the absolute most important issue to so many, let's just take Democrats, was the killing of unarmed black men by police, and that issue dominated the consciousness. If I told you, let us fast forward 5 years and more people were killed by the police than they were in the summer of 2020 or 2021, and guess what? It wouldn't be covered and no one would care. I think those protesters back then will be shocked. But something like that could go on. The passions of the moment could be subsumed by other interests and the. Whatever, whatever social joy one gets from going out to a demonstration, maybe a different cause will become the center of that demonstration. I could see it going that way, too. Can you, Jonah?
- [41:38]
Jonah Goldberg
Yeah. I mean, look, so I think first, just one quick point that I didn't make before. I think a lot of people are discounting the fact that by Israel having military victories, including basically taking Hezbollah and Hamas more or less off the table and really screwing with Iran, it created opportunities for Trump to take advantage of. This would not have been possible but for that. And it's worth just keeping in mind that military success yields diplomatic opportunities. Similarly, peace or the cessation of hostilities changes things. One of the things that a lot of people, not the hardcore anti Semites of the right or left, but like a lot of normie people who have mixed feelings about Israel, one of the things they just simply resent is having to talk about it all the time. And one of the reasons why we talk about it all the time is because it's constantly being attacked or defending itself against threats. Right? I mean, I'm not trying to. I'm very pro Israel. But there are other points of view on it. My simple point is like, if no one's attacking it and it's not attacking anybody, there aren't gonna be a lot of headlines about Israel. There's not gonna be a lot of floor speeches about Israel. One of the things, if you talk to Israelis, the vast majority of them really want to be a Middle Eastern Denmark, an interesting, prosperous country that stays out of the news and is kind of normal. And so in a weird way, the horseshoe theory of anti Semitism, which Babel, whatever that guy's name said was the socialism of fools, applies here. The people who are most upset are the people who've been screaming ceasefire and genocide for the last two years on the left who now don't have an opportunity to yell that. And they're kind of pissed off that the resistance is giving up the resistance, at least for a little while. And the people on the right, like Candace Owens, who wanted to bitch and moan about how the Jews are running everything and that they're the. They're the dog and America is the tail if Israel's just not in the news, like, they're going to have to find new content and move on to jfk, assassination theories or whatever. And so I think there is the potential simply for a reset when things calm down. That would be to the benefit of Israel and to the benefit, I would argue, of Palestinians, particularly if Hamas is disarmed. That just takes Israel out. And also remember, Americans do not, as a rule, vote on foreign policy stuff. So there's a very hardcore bunch of people on the left and a very hardcore bunch of people on the right who want Israel to be the central issue of our politics. And it's weird that they're the ones who most loudly claim that it is the central issue of our politics. But most people in the middle, just to the extent they're not pro Israel, they just don't want to talk about it. They don't want to hear about it. And peace or cessation of hostilities helps with that.
- [44:42]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, there's some historical antecedents that I would say. Yeah, that proves your point. Or it could go like that. Like, we were quite upset 10 years ago about Darfur and the Janjaweed militia. Well, guess what? The Janjaweeds have been rebranded essentially as the Rapid Defense Forces, and no one gives a damn.
- [45:02]
Jonah Goldberg
When was the last time we talked about Ireland? Right? I mean, like, takes it out of the headlines, you know.
- [45:07]
Mike Pesca
Well, I would say that Ireland, there had. There was the Good Friday Accords. But my point is Sudan is just as calamitous and just as bloody as it was when we talked about it back when. This isn't Sudan. I know, but Kony 2012 was something that dominated headlines. So there is the phenomenon of we move on. But I also think that Israel, it is something special. It's right in the middle of things that what we could call the poly crisis or the omnicure. And the left, Left will never let Israel go. The evilness of Israel certainly will not let it go when Netanyahu is there. And I think it's possible that, look, there are two models of this. One is Israel right now lobs, volleys and takes shots at what they regard as Hezbollah aggression. In southern Lebanon all the time. So they're always shooting across, people are getting killed and it's not covered. On the other hand, if it's a Gazan, if it's someone in the west bank, if there's that mode of oppression where 10, 12 people, rock throwers are greeted by Israeli bullets, I don't see how that doesn't become news. On the fourth hand, wouldn't I have said that about black people killed in the United States in bad shootings? And that seems not to have become news because smart it run our, it ran our course and all. But the activists are not no longer interested in it. I don't know which way it will go. But what I do want to ask about is this is a Trump success. If you look all throughout, especially domestic policy, he's had failure after failure as judged by, well, what I consider good policy, what I consider effective outcomes, but also what the public thinks. They don't like what's going on in general. They don't like his tactics with deportation. They definitely don't like his on again, off again trade policy that causes tumult in the stock market and doesn't lower prices. So I've been reading some analysis of what's going on with his theory of autocracy. A big headline. And Paul Krugman wrote this was Canada despised autocrat consolidate power. Here's the more complex version of that. It was put forward by Ben Raeders Dorf in the if you can keep it Substack said there are three theories of Trump the autocrat becoming a or America becoming a competitive authoritarian dictatorship. One is he's deviating from the script in important ways. People think that Trump is trying to become this competitive authoritarian, but he's jumping straight to overt attempts at repression before he's consolidated power. That's interesting. Will that work? And another one is there is no strategy. He's just 80. He never had a viable plan to consolidate power. Do you think, I mean, I know Z, you're worried about the autocracy, Specter, but do you think that, do you worry or do have wonderings about his exact playbook and the way to get there?
- [48:15]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, I think that, I mean, he's going to do everything. He's gonna, it's gonna get much, much worse. I, I know that for a fact. How he gets there is the mystery yet to be solved. Right. I think that the infiltration of the military is gonna be an attempt there. I just, I don't know if he's gonna be able to do that because of the courts getting in his way. But I do think that there may be a path around that, and he's got plenty of time to do that. So. Yeah, I mean, I, I do think that he's going to, he's going to use these likes, these victories, the Israel victory, these things to justify, Justify his next moves.
- [49:03]
Mike Pesca
But do you think that his unpopularity gets in the way of his goal of authoritarianism?
- [49:11]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
Not really, because, I mean, this is his final term. Right. Although, I mean, I do think that he will try to run again if he's alive to do so. I, you know, I mean, his health is not looking good. I, I don't know if it'll be possible for him to run again. But if he is alive and well, I think he will absolutely try. But I also think that he knows that his mortality is an issue. Right? I mean, he's made, like, multiple comments about this, about getting into heaven and all of these things. So I think that he knows that. I mean, he's, you know, on his way out, and I think that he's just gonna do anything that he can on his. I don't think that the popularity factor is really gonna matter to him so much as long as he's not, you know, as long as it's not gonna affect the next MAGA person. But again, I don't really think that he has a predecessor lined up. I know that Everybody says it's J.D. vance. I don't think it is. I think that, I mean, I think he's saying that because I think it makes sense. Right. But I think that what is more likely is that he'd put somebody in, like Ivanka or a family member, and keep it in the Trump name.
- [50:21]
Mike Pesca
So do you, do you, Jonah, say, well, he's unpopular, that argues against him being successful as an autocratic. Or do you think as Stephen Miller does, the more unpopular he is, it really is the more polarizing he is, and this will force a choice which he's positioned himself to win.
- [50:40]
Jonah Goldberg
I think it's closer to the second insofar as one of the things that is to Trump's advantage is that the Democratic Party is more unpopular today than it has been in 30 years. And you can't get there with just Republicans and independents. Part of it is that a bunch of Democrats are mad at the Democratic Party. But I have a sort of different take on that. I've been saying for 10 years now, Donald Trump is not Hitler. Hitler could have repealed Obamacare. But I think that he likes being talked about as a strongman. He likes the headlines. He thinks. And there's a history of this going back to his Playboy interview in, like, 1990, extolling the. The butchers of Beijing and the Tiananmen Square. He thinks that displays of strength are admirable and glorifying. And he thinks in those terms. Right. He does not think in any traditional small R Republican or small D Democrat constitutional framings. I think that he is. If you want to find a historical analog to him, it's Juan Peron. The problem with Juan Peron was that he really liked the aesthetics of fascism and all that kind of stuff. He just didn't want to kill that many people. Right. He just wanted all of the.
- [52:06]
Mike Pesca
Some would argue, not a problem.
- [52:08]
Jonah Goldberg
Well, yeah, but like, he was still an authoritarian. He's still. But he. And that's part of the problem with Trump, is like, the best thing we have going for is even more important than his unpopularity, which I do think constrains him. Look, I mean, if you're wildly popular, there are a lot of authoritarians who got away with a lot of stuff because they were wildly popular. Our advantage with Trump is he's lazy. And he wants the headline, he wants the press release, he wants the shadow on the wall of Plato's cave more than he wants the reality. So when he says to Bill Barr, just say you're investigating irregularities in the election. I'll do the rest. When he says to Zelensky, just say you're investigating corruption of Biden, I'll do the rest. He now says he's ended seven wars or eight wars or whatever, and you actually look at the claims. Six and a half of them. Six of them or five and a half. I mean, we can argue about them, but he didn't end the war in India and all that kind of stuff. He wants the line in his bio more than he wants the actual underlying reality. And one of the things that I think is a good thing, I mean, I think it's all gross and icky and it's why I spent so much time cutting myself. But, like, everybody's figured out how to work the guy, right? So all the NATO guys talk about how they love his musk and no one's ever been stronger and he's our daddy. Like, Zelenskyy has figured out how to talk to him about being a man of strength. Everyone's got his number because he's so easily manipulated. So long as you say the words, as long as you flatter him. He moves on. Right. As long as you pay tribute and bend the knee, if you're at Harvard University or whatever, he loses attention and he goes on to the next thing. And I think that that's, that's not something that actual authority, actual effective authoritarians do. They actually have follow through. And Steve Miller, who I'm convinced spends daylight hours hanging upside down from a rafter from his talents, he has a theory that is polarize the Democrats and force people to choose between two bad options. And just as long as the Republicans seem like the less bad option, they win.
- [54:34]
Mike Pesca
Fight to strength, Perceive strength.
- [54:36]
Jonah Goldberg
Yeah, you know, strong horse stuff. But also he has a theory that this party's going to end soon, so let's do as much mass deportation as possible. And if in the process we force Democrats or antifa or protesters or whatever to overplay their hand, that we can then exploit in another way, great. A lot of it is a boiling frog strategy. The things the Trump people say in court are very different than the things that, going back to the, you know, the stolen election stuff. Trump talks about insurrection all the time. And I want to be very clear, it's bullshit and it's dangerous, irresponsible bullshit. But his lawyers don't say insurrection in court very much. And I think part of the strategy from Stephen Miller and from Trump, whatever, is also just to normalize this stuff so that when he eventually does, that's why he sent troops into D.C. i live in D.C. it is not some crime free nirvana now, but it's these little incremental boil of frog kind of things that by the time he does send troops into Portland or he does send troops into Chicago, a lot of normal people who are tuning out politics are going to be like, wait, didn't.
- [55:47]
Mike Pesca
He do that already?
- [55:49]
Jonah Goldberg
And then if someone takes and people are committing violence. Right. I mean, I think the provocation strategy is real and the violence is terrible, but so is the stuff that's provoking the violence. And I think they're gambling that they benefit from Helter Skelter and chaos more than they're hurt by it. It's deeply cynical, but to me it doesn't matter if we get a full blown authoritarian or not. Playing authoritarian is bad. Having friggin Pete Hegseth talk about getting all the generals together and talking about how lethality is going to be our calling card and then having the commander in chief follow up and say, oh, by the way, this newly lethal warrior military, we're gonna train them in American cities. It doesn't, it shouldn't matter that it's bullshit. It should still be something that pisses people off. And that's where we are. That's why we're not unfucked.
- [56:46]
Mike Pesca
I always thought he was the Berlusconi would be the best analog. I like Perrone. I don't know if Melania is. Is Eva Perrone. I could see A young Patti LuPone playing Melania in some. In some production. But my question is. Yeah. And I don't know if Trump has a short list or a medium list of political opponents he wants to weaponize the Department of Justice against. But even if Trump's in it for the headlines and wants the ego stroking and doesn't have the deep yearning to crush his enemies beneath his boot heel, Russell Vote does. Stephen Miller does. He's manipulable. He likes the money and the kleptocracy. Isn't that not just the appearance or playing autocrat? Doesn't he become an autocrat if the manipulators are skillful enough to turn him in that direction?
- [57:32]
Jonah Goldberg
I mean, I think government policy can become autocratic and like, getting too caught up in like, aha, he's past the threshold and now he's Il Duce kind of misses the point. Like, I have nothing but contempt. I spent, you know, 10 years ago, there were scads of my fellow conservatives who were calling themselves tenthers and 10th Amendment people and, you know, talking about states rights and sovereignty and all that kind of stuff. I'm a big supporter of federalism. And now these same people are like, cheering the idea of Texas sending National Guardsmen to Oregon or, or Illinois against the wishes of a governor. You gotta blame people beyond the enablers deserve a lot of blame too. Right? And like, getting so caught up on whether or not this guy is the source of all the problems misses the fact that there's a whole bunch of moral and intellectual corruption going along on the right right now. I mean, like, just in the last couple days, there's been this huge fight on social media about how it's unmasculine or whatever to condemn anti Semites. On the right, conservatives should just have a big Ten philosophy about the people who tell me the world would be better off if my whole family were in a Volkswagen ashtray. Trump doesn't endorse it. Trump is arguably the most pro Israel president we've had in our lifetimes. It's that the Bulna China shop stuff has created a permission structure where everything goes and anything that gets engagement and anything that seems like you're sticking it to the libs is legit. And that's a problem that's larger than Trump. Trump may have been the match that started the fire, but the fire is the real problem.
- [59:18]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. So Z, square this for me, and I know you have a good answer for it, but maybe people are asking themselves, look, here's Z. She definitely sees this as unbelievably important, except existential, if you will. And yet much of her political project is engaging with the very authors of some of this authoritarianism. I know it's to the extent that you can make good politics out of those strange bedfellows, but what's the answer about this? That this is what we're talking about here with the authoritarianism is so serious that lines have to be drawn and those lines have to exclude Marjorie Taylor Greene, Josh Hawley, Charlie Kirk.
- [59:58]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
Yeah, so, I mean, I, I'm sort of in the agreement that I, I, I too, don't think that Trump is, I think he's just trying to sort of define his legacy. Right. I do also think that a part of him is very lazy, but I'm more so worried about the young guns around him. I'm worried about the Stephen Millers and people like that who I think are just starting their journey. Right. Like, this is like a great in for them. And I think that they have of really horrifying intentions, and I think that they are going to do anything that they can and that to, to which their power can hold to be able to, to get us to authoritarianism. Right. I also, at the same time think that I, and maybe I just have to, like, think this way because if I don't, I'll just, like, lose my. Right. But, like, I, I do believe that the majority of Republicans, Right, even MAGA Republicans, I don't think are in firm agreement with Stephen Miller and where he wants to go. And the reason why I think that is because when we go to Turning Point USA events and we talk to these kids, a lot of them honestly don't even really agree with Trump for the most part. A lot of them are just there because they're like, well, my parents are Republicans and I'm a Republican, so, you know, and I have this free trip out to Student Action Summit. So I'm here, right? It's, I, but to be fair, a.
- [61:23]
Mike Pesca
Lot of those events take place during the daytime, so that alone would.
- [61:26]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
Yeah, you're right. But I will say, like, very rarely, and there are some. Right. Like, there are some that are really sort of firm on Trump and on maga, but for the most part it's very like mediocre. Right. Like if there was a Democrat that came around that they felt passionate about, I don't think changing their mind would be as difficult as, as people think that it is. I think that the real issue that we've had as the party and the reason why we're in this situation to begin with is because they've put the footwork in and we just haven't done that. I mean that, that's really the, the, you know, that that's the short version of the story. If you see the New York Times article that just, just dropped a couple weeks ago, we are down in voter registration in every single state, even in blue states that can measure it. Out of 30 states, we are down significantly. Over 4.5 million voters were registered. And a big part of that was because of Charlie Kirk and Scott Pressler and a lot of these people that we just don't have on the Democratic side. Right. So I think that that's where we've got to go next is that the question becomes, are we going to have free and fair elections? I don't know the answer to that. That with the Dominion voting. So I, I have to believe that we will because as an operative, if I don't, I'll also lose my mind. Right. But right now I'm not convinced that we can even win a free and fair election. So that, that's where we got to focus our efforts right now is. Is the midterms in 26.
- [62:58]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. Well, there is one great hope, of course, for all Democrat kind, but we got them here in New York and his name is Mamdani.
- [63:04]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
Yeah, I love Mamdani.
- [63:05]
Mike Pesca
Now we turn to the point in the show where we talk about those little things that annoy us. Not that what we've been talking about has filled us with joie de vivre, but these annoyances I've branded the goat grinders in that they both grind our gears and get our goats. I can yield the floor to either of you my friends. Or I could start. Do you have one ready to go there, Jonah?
- [63:27]
Jonah Goldberg
Sure. I think the last time I did this, I did it about bike lanes in D.C. so I can't do that again. But I'm still full of rage about it.
- [63:35]
Mike Pesca
They haven't stopped annoying you?
- [63:36]
Jonah Goldberg
No. So I hate meetings, I hate strategy sessions, I hate all of the bureaucracy that as a co founder of a startup I still can't escape. But what I really hate are minor Changes that people try to tell me are grandiose. To stay with the profanity, the fuck uppery of the hbo. To hbo. Max. To hbo Max plus to Max. Right. Was just so embarrassing. And I imagine the number of meetings that were involved, I imagine the number of people, the number of consultants who came in and made millions or hundreds of thousands of dollars for these tiny little tweaks. And then just the other day, Apple announced a bold and exciting. Vivacious, Vibrant was their word redesign of their logo. And it's the Apple TV logo without the plus. That's it. And I have to assume that we could have fed starving children in Africa, like, thousands of them, for the amount of money that Apple spent where, like, they had people stayed up night drinking black coffee with bo. What if we make the. Keep the plus. No, get rid of the plus and just. Just get rid of it. Who gives a rat's ass? But the coverage was amazing. And the way the press falls for it just drives me crazy.
- [65:07]
Mike Pesca
But what if the starving children branded. You know, we branded it Diphtheria plus or mosquito nets. Max. That could be the game changer.
- [65:15]
Jonah Goldberg
You know, a huge way to lose weight. Anyway, there you go. Yeah.
- [65:21]
Mike Pesca
Now that the Discovery Channel has taken over unicef. Z, do you have a goat grinder?
- [65:28]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
I have many, but the one I'm thinking about this week is Steven Crowder when he went to that college right after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, but had a bulletproof vest and bulletproof glass.
- [65:41]
Jonah Goldberg
That's why I'm sitting down doing this and to let people know that we're.
- [65:44]
Mike Pesca
Not afraid to have these conversations. Now, of course, you know, we have bulletproof glass and a flak jacket and.
- [65:49]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
Right.
- [65:49]
Mike Pesca
It's sad that it's here.
- [65:50]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
Right. Right.
- [65:51]
Mike Pesca
But it's necessary. That's what I think.
- [65:53]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
As if anybody even knows who he is. That was really. That was something else.
- [65:58]
Mike Pesca
Thank you, Christina, for sitting down, Steven. Okay, so I'll take that.
- [66:03]
Jonah Goldberg
I mean, you're not maybe super familiar with what we do with these. This series.
- [66:07]
Mike Pesca
Steven Crowder, self protection grinds your goat. Here's mine. As a man of the age that I am, which I will. I will divulge in just a moment. There is all these cultural ephemera that flits past my consciousness where I'm asked to consider the age of someone now, the age of someone that they were then. Almost all the new hires of NFL coaches are not just younger than me, but I just decade younger than me. And I've been watching a lot of NCAA basketball and all the Players parents are younger than me, even though my oldest just started as a freshman and is not an NCAA basketball player. But here was the one that really upset me and blew me away. I recently saw that when the Traveling Wilbur is. Yes, I'm going Wilbur is on you. When the super group the Traveling Wilbur is were formed, they gave the name, they gave the age of all the members. You're Jeff Slynn, your Tom's Petty. And then they divulge that the oldest of the Wilbury's and this was not an asterisk. The point was that Roy Orbison was the senior Wilbury. He was. He was the most aged, the most ripe among the Wilbur's. And I found out that he was one year younger than I am now. He was 52. How could Roy Orbison not Pretty Woman Roy Orbison. How could can Wilbury Roy Orbison be younger than me? So it more than grinded my gears. It pressed my Wilberrys.
- [67:39]
Jonah Goldberg
So can I read you something? Can I tell you something depressing? You can cut it out if you want. So I have a similar peeve. I wrote about this while ago. I went and looked up the numbers at the beginning of these television shows. These are the ages of the various actors. Red Fox in Sanford and son was 49. I'm coming. Elizabeth Conrad Bain in Different Strokes. 51. Mrs. Garrett in Facts of Life. 52.
- [68:09]
Mike Pesca
Boss Hog in Facts of Life.
- [68:11]
Jonah Goldberg
Yeah, or in.
- [68:11]
Mike Pesca
Or. Oh, she was even younger when she was the main.
- [68:14]
Jonah Goldberg
Exactly. Boss Hogg was 49. Archie Bunker when he debuted was 47. And Gene Stapleton was 48. Jim Bacchus on, on Gilligan's island was 51. Marlon Brando in the Godfather, admittedly, at least he had makeup, was 47. And this is the one that killed me because I thought he was a wise old man. Alan Hale, the Skipper from Gilligan's island, when that debuted, was 43 years old. Jonas Grumby Z is young. But like for us Gen Xers, this is brutal because these were all old people to me.
- [68:55]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
They're old people to me too. I'm not that young. Like I'm going to be 35. That scares me. I'm already like old enough to be a grandparent, apparently. Like, I mean, have you ever.
- [69:05]
Mike Pesca
Not the actual ages of the Golden Girls, but did you have you ever gone into how the, how old the characters were supposed to be? I know they're like late 50s. Are you kidding me?
- [69:17]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
Yeah, yeah. They're not meant to be 95.
- [69:20]
Jonah Goldberg
Max von Sydow. Right? He was Father Merrin in the original Exorcist and he was also the Three Eyed Raven in Game of Thrones. He played a 70 plus year old his entire career because in the Exorcist he was 44 years old and it just freaked me out. Anyway, sorry.
- [69:42]
Mike Pesca
There is one exception to this. A guy who plays 30, but he was 56, Viggo Mortensen. Much older than you've ever thought he would be.
- [69:51]
Jonah Goldberg
Yeah, yeah, fair.
- [69:52]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, well, he's an elf too. And they don't age. All right, well, I'd like to thank my guests. They were wonderful and they came. I mean, they had at their fingertips just a wealth of knowledge, including, including the age of Lovey, Howell, Zico and Sanchez, founder and executive director of Soul Strategies. She is also the founder founded so Many Things, including the UN Fuck America tour. Thank you, Z.
- [70:18]
Z. Cohen Sanchez
Thanks for having me.
- [70:19]
Mike Pesca
And Jonah Goldberg is editor in chief and co founder of the Dispatch. And I didn't on the way in plug the Remnant, his excellent podcast. You should listen to it. A great conversation every week. Thank you, Jonah.
- [70:30]
Jonah Goldberg
Thank you, sir.
- [70:31]
Mike Pesca
And until next time, we're not saying we're right. We're not acknowledging that you're right. Oh no. But we are saying we're not even mad. And that's it for today's show. Cory War is the producer of the gist. Ashley Khan does our coordination of production, which is one way to say it. Jeff Craig runs our socials. Kathleen Sykes helps me with the Gist list. Michelle Pesca helps more than helps, really. Orchestrates it all from above. Pulling the strings. Sort of a Svengalian robes. When she wears a robe, a bathrobe, sometimes it's white, it's not black. And thanks for listening. Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host, you seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn ads, go to Libsynads.com that's L, I B S Y N ads.com today.