General Jonah Goldberg can’t get war off his mind, so instead of losing another round of Battleship, he invites Hal Brands, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and hallmate, to discuss the ongoing war in Iran and whether or not we have an exit strategy, a possibility of a world war, and our commitment to allies.

Show Notes:

–Hal Brands’s upcoming book: The Landscape of Power: Geography and the Rise and Fall of Nations

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. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You thought it was over. After the Napoleon III Remnant ran nearly two hours, observers and pundits the world over said this had to be the end. How could anyone, even Jonah Goldberg, have an appetite for more? But wait—who’s that dark figure lurking in the wings? Oh no. It’s … Kevin D. Williamson. 

Apparently Jonah’s chemical addiction to 19th-century French politics stirred something in Kevin’s mind, so much so that the man began writing a book about “the sacrosanct presidency.” And they say deeply fruitful intellectual friendships are dead. But don’t worry, gentle listener—if you’re sick of Napoleon III, there’s plenty more to feast upon at this Remnant smorgasbord, including democracy, Henry VIII, anarchism, individualism, competing rights claims, Woke 1, civil rights, and the American ethos. 

Show Notes:

—Napoleon III Remnant

—New Yorker article on data centers

—Kevin’s book: The Smallest Minority: Independent Thinking in the Age of Mob Politics

—Jonah’s book: Suicide of the West

—Willmoore Kendall: “The Two Majorities”

—Aaron MacLean 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.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After spending four days deep in the Adirondacks, Jonah has emerged like Rousseau’s noble savage: reflective, in touch with nature, and ready to talk for two hours as a disembodied podcast voice. If that seems incongruous to you, don’t worry—you’re not alone. Listen in as disembodied Jonah pontificates on disowning the establishment, J.D. Vance’s prospects for president, the iron law of oligarchy, elites, Locke vs. Rousseau, the general will, Tucker Carlson, the DSA, the Michigan Senate race, the meaning of progressive, etymological conundrums, Wisconsin politics, Iran, the meaning of The Remnant, the superfluous men, and Albert Jay Nock.

Show Notes:

—New from The Dispatch: The Next Right

—Burrito G-File

—Friday’s DisPod

—Daron Acemoglu Remnant

—Acemoglu: Why Nations Fail

—Jonah’s book: Suicide of the West

—Jonah’s book: Liberal Fascism 

—Russell Moore Remnant

—Rosenblatt: The Lost History of Liberalism 

—Jerusalem Demsas Remnant

—Open Primaries newsletter

—Wednesday G-File

—Nock: Memoirs of a Superfluous Man

—Jonah’s NR piece on Albert Nock

—Nock’s essay: Isaiah’s “Job”

—Nash: The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945

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.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s time to be honest: Jonah Goldberg can’t remember if he’s ever had a Nobel Prize-winning guest on The Remnant. If that shocks you, calm down. It’s called getting old. After today, however, Jonah can say with certainty that he has, as he is joined by Nobel laureate in economics Daron Acemoglu. Listen in as Jonah and Daron light up the Remnant bingo card like a Hanukkah bush, covering liberal democracy, community, subsidiarity, the welfare state, status, prosperity gaps, AI, automation, China, abundance, the working class, Zohran Mamdani, and the Democratic Party.

Show Notes:

—Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

—What Happened to Liberal Democracy?: Remaking a Politics of Shared Prosperity

—Daron Acemoglu in Financial Times: “Liberalism can win back the working class. Here’s how”

—Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History

—Jonah’s book Suicide of the West

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. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonah Goldberg scratches an intellectual itch in this 90-minute interview with British historian Edward Shawcross to discuss the rise and fall of Napoleon III. Is this the start of modern politics? Can we compare Trump to this unlikely political victor? Are elites and foreign powers the favorite boogeymen of populists everywhere? Stay tuned for a brief history lesson and indulgent wonkery. 

Show Notes:

—Edward Shawcross’s book: The People’s Emperor: The Unlikely Rise and Spectacular Fall of Napoleon III

—‘A dwarf atop a great wave’

—The Lost History of Liberalism

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonah Goldberg records this week’s Ruminant days before his excursion to the woods (Bigfoot sighting anyone?), to discuss international law, hubris, whatever the mess is with the Iran war, and “common good” conservatism. And he answers questions from listeners. 

Show Notes:

—How Trump Took the U.S. to War With Iran

—Aaron MacLean Remnant 

—Aaron MacLean and Mark Montgomery on School of War

—The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Western Thought

—Yuval Levin Remnant

—The Neutrality Myth: Liberty, Order, and the Common Good

—Jonah’s X thread on the DSA

Send your questions to [email protected].

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.  

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bleary-eyed, scrambled, and in need of a second overpriced venti black coffee, Jonah Goldberg speaks with Brendan Simms, a Cambridge Don-guy who wears fancy belts, about his new book, Return of the Great Powers, which discusses how the Russia-Ukraine war sparked how the Russia-Ukraine War prompted the West to act, China’s potential defeat if Russia loses, Trump as a mob boss, and technology as a driver of cultural change. 

Show Notes:

—Brendan Simms: Return of the Great Powers

—Brendan Simms: Donald Trump: The Making of a Worldview

—Francis Fukuyama: The End of History and the Last Man

—Simms’ About Page

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. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Detractors frequently accuse Jonah Goldberg of being an irrelevant dinosaur. We at The Remnant are proud to say that only one of those accusations is correct. We are also proud to say that Jonah’s dinosaurness does not prevent him from conversing with young, hip, and cool members of today’s media landscape. “Prove it,” you say? Well, today we bring you a podcast with none other than Jerusalem Demsas, founder of The Argument and one of the coolest center-left pundits. Join Jonah and Jerusalem as they dive into positive and negative freedoms, the college landscape, the Democratic Socialists of America, Zohran Mamdani’s policies, the Democratic Party, housing, playing the long game, the battle of ideas, our broken epistemic environment, weak political parties, oligarchy, money in politics, groupthink, and technology.

Show Notes:

—The Argument 

—“‘Feel’ as a Determinant of College Choice: Evidence from Campus Tour Weather”

—Demsas: “Does the oligarchy exist?”

—The Argument Podcast: What AOC and Bernie Sanders get wrong about the oligarchy

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. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As DSA and postliberal pirates storm the decks of the HMS Remnant, Captain Jonah Goldberg would seem to be in dire straits. Nonetheless, Captain Jonah—with an eerie air of calm—draws his cutlass, sets down his cigar, and smiles. Prepare, gentle listener, for a bloodbath. Today Jonah deftly handles every controversy on the docket, including Hasan Piker, Ukraine as Israel, the Michigan Senate race, Anthony Fauci, Covid in retrospective, rap music, Napoleon III, J.D. Vance, the common good, subsidiarity, the Constitution, and Hamas. 

Show Notes:

—Hasan Piker collar video

—Last week’s Ruminant 

—Friday’s DisPod

—Rebecca Heinrichs Remnant 

—Aaron MacLean Remnant 

—Grayson Logue in The Dispatch - “Why We Can’t Move On From the Pandemic”

—Matt Ridley Remnant

—Matt Ridley’s book Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19

—John Barry - The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History

—Jonah’s book Liberal Fascism

—The Argument 

—NYT Heritage Foundation piece

—JD Vance’s book

—Justice Scalia’s Congressional testimony 

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. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every once in a while, The Remnant staff need to remind Jonah Goldberg that we’re running a business here, and that he can’t just putz around with Pod, Chris, or Sarah on every episode. Sometimes, you need someone respectable; sometimes, you need an expert. Today’s guest—the expert to rule them all—is Ken Pollack, here to tell us all about the war in Iran. Join Jonah and Ken as they discuss pain thresholds, public opinion inside Iran, the fallout of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death, the ideology of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Persian nationalism, the original sins of the war, the politics behind the scenes, civil-war spillover, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, oil, exit strategies, and end games. 

Show Notes:

—Pollack’s forthcoming book: The Iraq Wars

—Last Ken Pollack Remnant 

—Aaron MacLean Remnant

—NYT: “Inside Israel’s Secret Operation to Cultivate Ahmadinejad”

—Pollack’s webinar: “US Policy After Iraq: Getting Lebanon’s Disarmament 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. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here at The Remnant, our hate list is rather long: Woodrow Wilson, electoral primaries, German romanticism … the list goes on and on. But if there’s one we hate that doesn’t get enough air time, it’s Chinese communism. We hate Chinese communism. That’s why we’ve recruited from the ranks of America’s foremost anti-CCP institution—that’s the American Enterprise Institute, for those of you who live under rocks—to bring you the latest on Chinese grand strategy. AEI’s Audrye Wong joins Jonah Goldberg to discuss Beijing’s international investment, Chinese diaspora, influence operations, Taiwan, bribery, Chinese culture, American investment in Asia, Orbán’s Hungary, Russia-China relations, democracy, Han supremacy, and how Americans should think about countering the threat across the Pacific. 

Show Notes:

—Subversion and Seduction: China's Economic Statecraft

—Zach Cooper in Foreign Affairs: “Asia After America”

—Jonah’s last book

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. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices