This Week’s Show

Contents

02m01s Musk, Friedman, and Milei
06m44s The Uniparty strikes back
13m56s Masculinity past, present, east, and west
20m24s Report from Jim Snow America
24m03s The Penny Trial
27m29s Jussie off the hook?
29m13s Nations of the mind
31m47s Advice from the Duke
34m45s Signoff with the King

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Transcript

01 — Intro. And Radio Derb is on the air! Welcome, listeners; this is your suavely genial host John Derbyshire with edition number 972 of America’s longest-running National Conservative podcast.

I should of course commence by wishing Happy Birthday! to our President Joe Biden, who turned 82 on Wednesday.

No, I didn’t vote for him. I think his Presidency has been a disaster and I think the leading elements of the Ruling-Class faction who made it happen should all be incarcerated and put to hard labor.

Joe Biden’s the President, though; we only get to have one at a time; umpteen millions of my fellow citizens voted for him; so he’s entitled to some respect. Happy Birthday, Sir!

President-Elect Trump’s nominations to cabinet and other senior posts in the coming administration proceed apace. Of the 27 that need Senate confirmation, 17 have already been named, although of course none yet confirmed.

I’ll take a look at one recent development. First, though, some general observations on our federal government

02 — Musk, Friedman, and Milei. Elon Musk, preparing to take up his post in the Department of Government Efficiency, has posted to X an interview given 25 years ago to Peter Robinson by star 20th-century economist the late Milton Friedman, who was already 87 years old at the time of the intervew.

In the matter of federal government departments, Friedman was a minimalist. Robinson went through the federal departments one by one, inviting Friedman to say whether the department should be kept or abolished. Department of Agriculture? “Abolish!” Department of Commerce? “Abolish!” Department of Defense? “Keep it.” Department of Education? “Abolish!” …

We ended up at last with just departments of Defense, Justice, State, and Treasury, with grudging acknowledgement that the Feds might need some small involvement in Healthcare.

That would be a huge reduction in the power of the federal government, even more so now than it would have been 25 years ago. We have more federal government now than we had then. We have, for example, the Department of Homeland Security, which, under Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, is doing so much to keep our homeland secure.

I totally approve of Milton Friedman’s attitude, of course. It’s encouraging to know that Musk, who obviously also approves, has the ear of our President-Elect.

Some commentators have expressed doubts that the Musk-Trump bromance can endure for four years. I share those doubts. History doesn’t offer many examples of two strong-willed, energetic men sharing power amicably at a high level. “There can only be one Sun in the sky …” But we shall see.

In the meantime it’s heartening that these minimalist ideas are taken seriously by the coming administration. One influence has been Javier Milei, who will shortly begin his second year as President of Argentina.

One of Milei’s first acts was to halve the number of government departments from 18 to 9, adding only a Ministry of Deregulation. He’s cut government spending by one-third and laid off tens of thousands of public employees.

Milei’s efforts are an inspiration, but also a warning. You can’t break that many “iron rice bowls” without making a lot of people angry. Argentina’s going through a recession; there have been strikes and demonstrations.

I doubt the Trump-Musk reforms will bring disorder on that scale: pre-Milei Argentina was in far worse shape than Biden’s U.S.A. These things need to be done with skill and tact.

They can be done, though; and there was no way they were going to be done by Biden and his people — or the Obamas and their people, which seems to be closer to the truth of what we’ve been living through.

So go to it, Mr Trump and Mr Musk! If we do this right, four years from now we shall be living in a freer, safer, more prosperous country.

03 — The Uniparty strikes back. On the Trump nominations, this week’s big news was Matt Gaetz stepping down as Attorney General-designate.

The stepping-down was done with dignity and class. Quote from him, posted on X, quote:

There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General. Trump’s DOJ must be in place and ready on Day 1.

I remain fully committed to see that Donald J. Trump is the most successful President in history. I will forever be honored that President Trump nominated me to lead the Department of Justice and I’m certain he will Save America.

End quote.

That’s straightforward and gentlemanly. I’m liking Matt Gaetz more and more.

What’s he going to do now? He was a Congressman, but resigned his seat when he got tapped for the A-G position nine days ago. The week before that, however, he’d been re-elected to the seat; and under the rules, he can rejoin the House when Congress convenes on January 3rd. He told the House Speaker he wouldn’t, but he might change his mind.

Or assuming Marco Rubio is confirmed as Secretary of State, Rubio will resign his seat in the Senate. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis might then tap Gaetz to fill the seat temporarily pending a special election for new Senator in 2026 to complete Rubio’s term, which ends in 2028.

Matt Gaetz might also be appointed to some position that doesn’t require Senate confirmation. There are plenty of those. Trump has already named a Chief of Staff and four — count ’em, four — Deputy Chiefs of Staff. Why not five? Yeah, yeah, it goes against the Musk-Friedman spirit of my previous segment, but for Matt’s sake I wouldn’t mind too much.

The reason for Matt Gaetz stepping down was, he told associates (according to the New York Times), that four Senators would vote against his appointment. The four would be: Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of ...