What can and can’t the government do? Can it ban softball on Sundays? Or perhaps prohibit little old ladies from having Bible study at the local library? What about drag queen story hour? Can it—horror of horrors—tell you that you have to mow your lawn? Joining The Remnant to help us sort through these thorny political thickets is Stephanie Slade, author of a popular new book about fusionism. Listen in as Stephanie and Jonah Goldberg cover the dissident right, Frank Myer, Brent Bozell, liberalism, libertarianism, virtue, and everything in between. 

Show Notes:

—Stephanie Slade - Fusionism: Liberty, Virtue, and the Future of the American Right

—Reason magazine

—Dan Flynn’s Frank Myer biography 

—Fusionism excerpt in The Dispatch

—Slade on David Bahnsen’s podcast 

—Jacob Levy - Rationalism, Pluralism, and Freedom

—Helena Rosenblatt - The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century

The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. 

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As faithful Remnant listeners know, we try to avoid having politicians on the show. It just gets kinda awkward when you have to publicly rake them over the coals for eating mac and cheese on camera. But being good Burkeans, we know that all rules have their exceptions. Gov. Spencer Cox is one of those exceptions. He joins Jonah Goldberg on the show to talk about his new book, Off Ramp. Along the way, they cover political division, technology, Mormonism, social media, local politics, the 10th Amendment, executive power, contempt, cancel culture, congressional reform, coalition building, governorships, and the greatness of Utah. 

Show Notes:

—Cox: Off Ramp: How to Be a Peacemaker in an Age of Contempt

—Ben Sasse Remnant

The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. 

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Gentle listeners, we know you’ve had a hard week, and we want to bring you a pick-me-up. Today’s episode has a little something for everyone: a riveting cult story, nudity, sports gambling, racist-bigot bashing, fanatic Texans, AI-pocalypse, an epic history of progressivism, and, most tantalizing of all, a detailed discussion of the myth of left and right. Tune in to hear Jonah Goldberg ruminate about being a grown-up, the long-forgotten BDX Cult, originalism, AI torts and liability, the social question, Bo French, bourgeois morals, Indian Americans, racism, the AP stylebook, and the left-right spectrum. 

Show Notes:

—9/11 G-File

—Jonah’s “Canines of 9/11” piece in National Review

—AO pod wherein David French defends George Bush

—The Sweeney G-File 

—Jonah yapping about AI

—Jonah’s first book, Liberal Fascism

—Tim Carney: The Big Ripoff

—DisPod on AI

—Erick Erickson’s newsletter

—NR editorial on Indian bigotry

—Lewis brothers: The Myth of Left and Right

—Jonah dunks on Macklemore

The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. 

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Despite repeated floggings, First Mate Steve Hayes is once again up to no good. With Capt. Jonah Goldberg having gone ashore to purchase more books about Abraham Lincoln, Hayes has seized the helm of the HMS Remnant and is once again joy-cruising with his friends. And while most of the freeloaders Steve invites aboard are scalawags and ne’er-do-wells, there is one particular exception. 

Jim VandeHei, the co-founder and CEO of Axios, is on deck to talk about how to simplify our lives in an increasingly complicated world. Jim and Steve cover how to confront and eliminate unnecessary tasks, prioritize what matters, and achieve informational simplicity in the age of AI, and discuss what the future of news reporting holds. 

Show Notes:

—Simplify: Do 50 Percent More with 50 Percent Less

—Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More With Less

—The CEOs of C-SPAN, Axios, and The Dispatch on journalism and civil discourse

The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. 

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The Remnant has many dear old friends: Yuval Levin is the best-looking; Chris Stirewalt is the best kisser. But the oldest, going back to Episode 1, is Ben Sasse. Ben joins today’s pod for a conversation that traverses the high and the low, the sacred and the profane, starting with Gilligan’s Island and running through the healthcare system, scientific research, morphine, affluenza, being an adult, the effects of different media on our brains, screens, schools, the need for strong institutions, good and bad parenting, primaries, AI and work, and Senate reform. 

Show Notes:

—Not Dead Yet podcast

—Neil Postman: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

—The Dispatch editors: “The Coming Post-Trump Reality”

—Jonah’s 9/11 G-File

—Napoleon III Remnant

The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.

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Coming off of a discussion about 9/11 on the DisPod, Jonah Goldberg is feeling ruminative and somber. Accordingly, he has decided to address one of the most important foreign policy issues of our century: the cheese-eating surrender monkeys. That’s right. Freedom fries forever, baby. And if that’s not exciting enough, The Dispatch’s legendary Francophobe-in-chief doesn’t stop there, taking up the Texas Trumpapalooza, the Media Research Center, Abdul El-Sayed, pinkwashing, the Muslim-Queer alliance, progressive Jews, Justice Antonin Scalia’s brilliant take on the Constitution, lawless e-bikes, and video podcasting.  

Show Notes:

—DisPod on the 9/11 anniversary

—Chris Stirewalt Remnant

—Jonah’s LA Times column 

—Jonah on NPR

The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.

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Today a *very sober* Jonah Goldberg is joined by the *mostly sober* friend of the pod, pickled alligator aficionado, and notorious West Virginian Chris Stirewalt to talk about the midterms, the Alaska primary, GOP expectations, J.D. Vance’s presidential campaign, right-wing social engineering, the Trump midterm convention, postliberal eggheads, post-Americanism, free money, America’s dirtbag political ethos, and … America the Sandwich. 

Show Notes:

—Jonah on NPR

—Jonah’s Los Angeles Times column

—NYT: “More Americans Are Identifying as Democrats Ahead of Midterms”

—Stirewalt: “Could Vance’s soccer mom bonus nudge married women back to the GOP?”

—The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition 

—Jonah’s book: Suicide of the West

—The Dispatch Editors: “The Coming Post-Trump Reality”

The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. 

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Thought we’d forgotten about Venezuela here on The Remnant? Think again! As prone as Jonah Goldberg is to getting distracted by the finer things of life—Old English dialects, zombie movies, etc.—he’s kept a weather eye fixed southward on our Bolivarian neighbor. Jonah is joined today by James Story, the former ambassador to Venezuela, to take us deep into the recent history of U.S.-Venezuelan relations, Nicolás Maduro, Delcy Rodríguez, a possible democratic transition, the oil deal, the Venezuelan diaspora, Marco Rubio, the boat strikes, the professional foreign service post-DOGE, and Pax Americana.

Show Notes:

—The Dispatch: “The U.S. Boat Strikes, One Year Later”

—MS Now: “The U.S. drone strike in Venezuela marks a dangerous new era”

—Jonah’s LA Times column on the oil deal

—Anthony Scaramucci Remnant

The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.

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Peacefully anchored on the Potomac, the HMS Remnant rocks gently from side to side. Captain Jonah Goldberg, peg leg and all, stands at the prow gazing at the darkening horizon. To the west, the storm clouds of AI apocalypse are gathering. In the east, a midterm squall quickly bears down. In such portentous circumstances, there’s only one thing for a man to do.

Captain Jonah retires to his cabin, lights a cigar, pulls down his dusty copy of Memoirs of a Superfluous Man, and girds himself to talk about Gloria Steinem. Listen in as Jonah ruminates on Bill Buckley’s respectful listening, the freaky Hugging Face incident, Maria Bartiromo, the radicalization of the elderly, Albert Nock’s antisemitism, social Darwinism, Herbert Spencer, blood libel vs. blood guilt, Marcionism, Fox News, J.D. Vance, pretextual moral outrage, and confusing conservatives for Republicans.

Show Notes:

—Kevin Williamson on Gloria Steinem in The Dispatch

—NYT’s The Daily on the Hugging Face hack

—Michael Wreszin: The Superfluous Anarchist: Albert Jay Nock 

—G-File: “The Rocks and the Orgy”

—Jonah’s NR piece on Albert Nock 

—John Carey: The Intellectuals and the Masses

—Thomas C. Leonard: Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era

—Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch: “J.D. and Tucker, Abdul and Hasan”

—Wednesday’s G-File

—Megan McArdle’s book

—Anthony Scaramucci Remnant

The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.

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Who do you call it when American politics has got you scartchin’ your head? That’s right—the Mooch! Anthony Scaramucci joins Jonah Goldberg on today’s Remnant to talk about how the last four presidential administrations brought us to where we are today. Listen in as they dive deep into the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, gerrymandering, Citizens United, China, the George Bush tax cuts, the status of the dollar, immigration capital, tariffs, Donald Trump, and the Marshall Plan.

Show Notes:

—Scaramucci: All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump

—Scott Lincicome: “Testing the ‘China Shock’: Was Normalizing Trade with China a Mistake?”

—Scott Lincicome in The Dispatch: “Getting the ‘China Shock’ Right”

The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠.  

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Jonah Goldberg is not a bigot. Yet, as we all know, there are exceptions to every rule. The French are one of those exceptions. In particular, Jonah sees the cheese-eating surrender monkeys’ refusal to embrace America’s foremost gift to the civilized world—air conditioning—as an offense against all reason and good sense. Nevertheless, being a fair-minded man, Jonah is willing to give the French a hearing. Having no desire to talk to an actual Frenchy, however, he’s turned to the next best thing: an American who lives in France. 

Sweat beading on his forehead, Thomas Chatterton Williams joins The Remnant not only to make apology for his adoptive country’s backward ways, but to dispense his usual authoritative takes on politics and culture, covering race in France, the Rassemblement National, radical Islam, integration, accents, Woke 1, Jason Arday, 80/20 issues, policing speech, The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan, and Jonah’s ideal zombie movie.

Show Notes:

—Francis Dearnley Remnant

—TCW in The Atlantic - “France’s Best Argument Against Racism Isn’t Working”

—Robert Nisbet - The Quest for Community 

—TCW - Self-Portrait in Black and White

—Colin Gorrie Remnant 

—NYT - “A Decorated Historian’s Research Comes Under Fire”

—Jesse Singal in The Dispatch - “The Cascade of Dysfunction That Helped Doom Jason Arday”

—Jonah’s G-File on The Odyssey

—Tom Holland - Dominion

—Colson Whitehead - Zone One

—Max Brooks: World War Z

The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. 

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