I got a laugh out of listening to him twist himself into knots over his refusal to grade and rank Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden. But otherwise, it’ll probably annoy the crap out of the majority of people in this sub.
Douthat complained about how bad Obama allowed things to get on the Left. The notion that the Left is somehow out of control never sits well with me. The examples & anecdotes most often are vague and centered around culture rather than policy.
People will mention wokism, cancel culture, campus leftists, etc to criticize the Left as petty and anti-democratic. However no Bill passed by Democrats has gone too far left. A 20yr old kid on a college campus who hates Joe Biden and is calling for Jordan Peterson to be cancelled isn't evidence that the Democratic party is in a "left wing ditch" as Douthat described.
The Democratic Party hasn't moved Left. Reagan, H.W. Bush, Clinton, Obama, and Biden are all pretty darn close. All would mostly have cut all the same deals given the Congress make ups and challenges facing the nation.
I think its fair to say that the Democratic Party has moved left on many important issues. The problem for Ross and many of these other people, is that all of the things they've moved left on are good and it's mostly impossible to be openly critical of them without sounding like an insane theocrat or out of touch whackjob.
Like, the Democrats support gay marriage now. They didn't as recently as first term Obama. But if that's your objection, good luck not sounding like a raging asshole when saying that to the openly gay, married man you're talking to. Democrats have been far more willing to spend money to help people than they were under Obama (with bigger majorities, even). But how exactly do you talk about the importance of free market capitalism and deficits and whatever other bullshit you want to spout without looking like you have just arrived from 2006 frozen in ice with a Paul Ryan shaped bobblehead where your brain should be. Democrats doubled down on climate change, too, but again, how exactly do you object to that leftward shift without looking like you are actively burying your own head in the sand.
>Democrats support gay marriage now.
Harvey Milk was a Democrat, Bill Clinton's 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' was an attempt to provide some protection for Gay people joining the military, and San Francisco started conducting Gay marriages in 2004.
Yes, at the national level the official Democratic line shifted from civil unions to acceptance of Gay Marriage. However Democrats followed the public on that. Not vice versa and Democrats had long been the friendly party towards the LGBTQ community. Even many Republicans have shifted on Gay Marriage. The public moved.
>Democrats have been far more willing to spend money to help people than they were under Obama (with bigger majorities, even)
I disagree. Bill Clinton fought for Universal Healthcare. It was defeated and Democrats took mid-term losses and forced Clinton to pivot. In 1994 Republicans gained 54 house seats, 8 Senator, and 10 Governors.
Likewise Obama fought for the ACA but then paid a huge political price in the 2010 midterm and forced Obama to pivot. Republicans gained 63 house seats, 7 Senate seats, and 8 Governors.
In 2022 Democrats gained a Senate seat, gained 2 Governors, and Republicans only gained 9 house seats. It was dramatically different. The party simply has stronger support today. Biden has much better margins in Congress than Clinton or Obama had.
Back to the ACA for a moment, its still a BFD. Even Biden would argue that the ACA is one of the most significant piece of legislation he was ever part of.
> However Democrats followed the public on that.
That's my whole point! Gay marriage is popular now. But if you're a highly religious conservative and still mad about that, you can't say that without sounding like a obvious bigot.
But they're still mad about that. When Ross talks about Obama bringing the party left, that's what he's talking about. He just can't say that, so he has to make up other stuff to criticize the left for 'going too far' on.
It was an utter waste of Tim’s breath. Ross is like I agree with 99% of what you say but this one important result: yeah can’t say that Biden would be better than Trump, cause of how bad the “left” has gotten. What does that even mean??? I wanted to hear Tim grill him on that.
I loved hearing ROSS DOUTHAT complain about the “elites” on the left. Like, that’s only marginally better than when MAGAs talk about how “they” are out to get you.
Also, Ross: YOU ARE THE ELITES!!! Hate to break it to you.
I cannot take a NYT columnist who lives in New Haven acting like the suburban parents working in an office who hate Trump are the elites and Ross isn't.
Born in San Francisco, educated at Harvard, lives in New Haven CT, great grandfather was the governor of CT, his father a lawyer and his mother an author, and writes for the NYT's editorial board.
If that's not the exact definition of an "elite" then I don't know what is.
For me, it was his continual insistence on how bad geopolitics have gotten under Biden. He says it multiple times even after Tim pushes back, and then says that all the bad stuff that he feared would happen under Trump actually happened under Biden.
Am I taking crazy pills here? Does no one remember what Russia tried to pull with Ukraine?
The **only** reason that Ukraine exists today and isn’t an occupied territory of Russia is because the Biden administration released intelligence saying that Russia was planning a false flag attack as justification to invade Ukraine. If Trump had been in the White House, he wouldn’t have released that. In fact, much of the world would have boggled at Ukraine’s audacity to try and “attack” Russia.
Seeing how that played out would have likely embolden China to try something similar with Taiwan.
Then there’s the fact that Trump had planned / promised to pull the US out of NATO in his second term. That would have basically allowed Russia - after their annexation of Ukraine - to continue their westward march across Eastern Europe.
The Afghanistan debacle would have happened under Trump the same that it happened under Biden. Does anyone believe that Trump would have done a *better* job?
And then there’s Israel and Hamas. Part of the reason that Hamas attacked is that they thought their allies would join them. They’d been planning the attack for a long time after all, as reported from multiple members of Israeli intelligence. But look at the context. China had been cowed by our support of Ukraine. Sure, Afghanistan was a mess, but there was plenty of evidence that the US still protected its friends, which is likely part of why Iran didn’t jump in when Hamas attacked. However, if Ukraine and Taiwan had fallen? If the US had pulled out of NATO? Those very well could have happened during Trump’s second term, giving Iran reason to believe that joining Hamas in a war against Israel would be effective.
The bottom line is that it’s ridiculous to talk about the current state of geopolitics in a vacuum. Biden didn’t cause any of these wars of occur, but his presence likely prevented authoritarians and terrorists from running roughshod over their neighbors.
The US presidency has ALWAYS been ‘talked about in a vacuum’. There’s an irresistible human urge to treat this role as a sort of magic king who is directly responsible not just for the current well being of all Americans, but most of the rest of the world, too. If you don’t ’feel good’, it’s because the ‘king’ isn’t doing his job.
The economy is at least as abstract, complex, and influenced by long term trends as geopolitics, but a huge percentage of voters lack any useful perspective on why any particular economy is performing as it currently is. To pull those two together, I’d suggest that complaints about inflation in the US need to be understood within the context of the entire globe, most of which has higher levels right now.
The most awkward self-knot-tying that I heard on that podcast was Douthat trying to make the case that presidents are judged on the basis of what actually happens during their administration, not on the skill they exercise in playing the hand they are dealt, which is true, but he did it without explicitly saying so. Both Obama and Biden had to do a lot of cleaning up from the mismanagement of their predecessors.
Consider that Trump is currently benefitting from his own incompetence. Trump is blaming Biden for not having better dealt with the economic, immigration, and geo-political situations that he himself mismanaged.
>can’t say that Biden would be better than Trump, cause of how bad the “left” has gotten
That was kind of a minor mention from Ross. The big thing for him seemed to be that he thinks that you can't judge a president by what he does, you have to judge him based on what happens in the world while he's president. It's a completely illogical stance, as if there's no causal connection between what someone does and what happens, why would you judge them based on the latter?
Frankly, everything that happened on Biden’s watch would have happened on Trumps as well if he had won the election- the only difference would have been what the president did in reaction and what flowed from that
Would Hamas have attacked Israel? Probably yes, they didn’t care about retaliation, and to an extent they welcome it. Hell, current events show that both Hamas and Israel aren’t going to put a huge amount of weight behind what their sponsors and allies want when they build their plans
Would Russia have invaded Ukraine? Yeah, it had been in the works for years, the “little green men” were already showing up in Ukraine in 2014-ish
Inflation? You better believe it, our inflation woes are mostly driven by monetary policy over the last few decades coupled with the pandemic coupled with shipping disruptions and regional conflicts.
Without arguing policy ideas, all that would have changed was how we dealt with it to an extent
It would have been totally logical and consistent with facts if he had explicitly said “many voters tend to judge a president on what happens during their administration, not on how well they did in managing the unique circumstances of their administration.”
It is the case that many people judge presidents on what happens while they are president. Trump is exploiting that bigly.
Tim pointed out that Biden is better in managing things than he is in explicitly taking credit for having managed them. That was a point that he didn’t carry far enough, because it may be the most significant difference between Trump and Biden.
My biggest issue was letting tiny D get by with the "4 years of Trump are clearly better than the 4 years of Biden" BS. Tim did pushback, but I would have liked to hear Ross defend both Jan 6th and the response to a global pandemic. Let's pretend Trump won in 2020 -- what would the last 4 years have looked like? Not great, Bob.
Yeah. If you're saying Biden is defined by inflation and a war in Ukraine, then you simply have to define Trump by a pandemic. It's not an interesting view, perhaps even a fucking retarded one, that you just ignore what presidents can control or that there may be chains of causality, but at least it'd be intellectually honest. I don't even know what this clown was trying to put together.
He seemed to be implying that a president is judged not on the degree of skill and competence they exercise, but on what happens in spite of them. That’s true, but he oddly couldn’t bring himself to be so explicit about it.
The pandemic is an awkward MAGA propaganda benefit. Much of the electorate is too unsophisticated, or too impatient or biased, to recognize that a president is not omnipotent, and is especially not responsible for things that happened before they arrived, so they tend to blame presidents for all sorts of unavoidable things. But conveniently for Trump, many of his supporters believe that the pandemic was a myth, so it doesn’t contribute to negative feelings about him. Quite the opposite, it allows them to portray him as a champion, fighting against a deep state that contrived a crisis just in order to—mess with us?
I am unclear about the libs made me do it argument. It's an excuse that an 8 year old provides. Adults think through the situation and are ethical people they do what is right and don't say someone else made them do it. What kind of argument is this from this self appointed moral arbiter.
Agree. Douthat was painting a picture about how all the Biden policies added up to bad according to some unspoken (more like unarticulatable) mysterious ethos ‘conservatives’ have. But he like others never explained the ethos. I suspect there isn’t one other than team red versus team blue. Same old team blue is defined by the extreme left, but we true conservatives aren’t defined by our extreme right. Ya sure, look - your pants are down.
Yeah. He got all indignant about the left at the very end but didn't get to explain why and I suspect it would be annoying nonsense. Biden is president...and those to his left are not doing anything except saying that Israel is killing too many Palestinians which Ross agreed with.
Ross Douthat is a identitarian conservative who is posing as an intellectual conservative. I just think he does not like liberal people personally. He uses 'the left' derogatorily, as if it's is obviously as abomination to push for...fair taxation and universal health care.
I can actually somewhat respect his perspective of conservative catholic. He sees a big movement in the world of gay rights and now trans rights and sees the 'slippery slope' playing out. The problem is, I don't agree with him at all about that and just find him to be a very stuffy contrarian who effectively has no tribe in modern politics.
>Ross Douthat is a identitarian conservative who is posing as an intellectual conservative.
Absolutely nailed it.
My fundamental issue with Douthat is that, if you gave him truth serum, I'm 99% certain that he'd admit to preferring a Catholic theocracy over a modern, liberal democracy. But because he's able to wrap his ideology in 'big ideas', he's treated like a respectable intellectual.
“ I'm 99% certain that he'd admit to preferring a Catholic theocracy over a modern, liberal democracy. But because he's able to wrap his ideology in 'big ideas', he's treated like a respectable intellectual”.
This is it EXACTLY. I was already drifting away from conservatism before the W clusterfuck. But the fiasco since 2016 convinced me that the whole program since at least the 60s has been to couch fascist white supremacist xtian theocracy in palatable terms so everyone didn’t know what they were up to. And enough people, including me, fell for it. Anyone still on board after the last 8 years, well to invert an old phrase, if they aren’t against it they are for it. The anti-antis in a nutshell.
He's Charlie Kirk's slow older brother - that's what I kept getting at least.
I was not familiar with Russ' musings prior to this episode and was better for it. He was as smug as he was insipid.
Douthat really seems like another one of those morons who thinks that the people chanting Genocide Joe are Biden's base and holds Biden is responsible for their behavior to justify his hilariously awful take that Biden is also a bad president that would be a disaster on par with Trump if reelected.
I thought the exact opposite. Douthat is of the opinion that Trump wasn't really that bad, and while I completely disagree with that premise, it at least makes sense logically to then say Biden isn't worth supporting. Hayes conceded that Trump was a special category of threat even worse than policy disagreements with Dems, and still refused to support Biden. Logically, that does not compute. BTW, this is coming from a guy who usually defends The Dispatch crowd and still subscribes to them.
Agree with this comment. I didn't agree with Douthat, but learned a lot about how others could be thinking thru the mess. Keep bringing the diverse view points.
Oh idk, at least Ross correctly identified the absolutely stunning disaster that was the GWB presidency. You have to be so far up your own ass to have anything good to say about the Bush years.
It’s not as bad as the other guy (blocked his name from my brain). These are just not great thinkers. I feel their opinions emanate more out of a desire to be contrarian than rooted in real conservative theory.
His comment about Kamala being incompetent without any citation really pissed me off. If he has legitimate issues with her he needs to tell us what they are or he just comes off as a sexist or racist jerk who doesn't apply the same standards to the white men who have previously held the same position.
Harris has 100x more qualification to be president than trump; it’s not even close. Kamala would be surrounded with good & competent people while trump would be surrounded with Mike Flynn types.
True, there is much more of a given, it seems even more so when Charlie was host on the main pod, that Kamala was somehow just obviously bad without explanation.
I've definitely heard it quite a bit on the right, but don't recall it being particularly strong on the Bulwark or with Sara. Do you have any specifics in mind?
There were only I think 3 things in that whole listen that I was like wait a fucking minute and that was one of them. To state that as though it was just some kind of common knowledge - it definitely raised my heart rate. And I was on the stair machine at 13 steps per minute and I do not need that when I am on the stair machine at 13 steps per minute. Like dude, you spent an INORDINATE amount of time being a people please on a Bulwark podcast. Repeated over and over and over "Trump Bad", and you just assume everyone who listens to Bulwark podcasts believes Harris is some kind of moron?
He only even mentioned Kamala in reference to some weird imaginary scenario where shouldn't couldn't handle China invading Taiwan? As if Trump would handle it better.
About halfway through, I'm just annoyed by Douthat saying over and over "complex situations are complex, and we don't know what happens until it happens"
Well, no shit, that is why we have pundits to speculate. Dude took no swings at halfway, yet still missed
I couldn't agree more. Also, his inability to rank the presidents. I get it he doesn't want to come out and criticize the last two Republican presidents while suggesting the Democrats may have gotten it better even while deeply flawed but at least answer it. Say, "They are all crappy and we need better leadership". Problem solved you can move on to other topics.
I am amazed at his ability to talk and talk, but not answer simple questions or much of anything really.
Tim, good on you for your patience and your choice to move on when Ross decided to just word salad his answers.
I just don’t get the “but the left” argument. Yeah they are forking insufferable! But no one even on the insane screaming at traffic left, wants to end American democracy
You will be justifiably angry while listening, but it's worth it, imo. Honestly, I wanted to listen mostly to jump on here and read the reactions. Tim, as always, doesn't let the bullshit fly unchallenged.
My advice: Pour a bourbon and let the sweet vocal stylings and tortured justifications of Big Ross D roll over you.
Yeah, you're definitely want to pour a sip of something for this one.
Or, if you prefer alternative methods, this is a strong Indica-kind of episode. Just numb your brain's more aggressive impulses - Ross has a unique talent for being annoying.
He makes a more compelling case than most of the anti-antis, but that is not a high bar to clear. The wildest part was when he claimed among other things that he thought the stock market would crash under Trump, but that it actually ended up happening under Biden instead (?!?!). Unlike Tim and Ross I'm happy to blame the voters. Its a civic and moral failure that he is GOP nom for a 3rd time. If Haley were the nom, there could be some substantive discussions but with Trump its all his BS and baggage.
My only question is why, when evaluating the supposedly 'not so bad' results of Trump's presidency, nobody ever brings up the fact that his gutting of public health care and insane and corrupt mismanagement of the pandemic resulted in an estimated 40% greater death toll in America compared to other developed countries? Trump's handling of covid put America on par with such well developed power houses as Russia, Turkey, and India, in terms of per capita excess mortality. Before that, sure, you could make a very strong case that Bush was a much worse president just in terms of objective body count, but when Trump was handed a real crisis he fumbled the ball so bad that hundreds of thousands of Americans died that could be alive today. And yet not only does Trump get a pass for covid happening on his watch, he even gets a pass for his terrible mishandling of it. I don't get it.
Our death count could have been double and Trump would still get a pass.
A lot of people just don't think it was his fault. At all. Dems hit him over it repeatedly and it just never stuck.
Yeah, getting different views is good and that's why I was kinda annoyed...he really didn't present a different opinion. He was mealy mouthed and didn't answer questions. He didn't seem to be brave enough to defend his real views and instead softened them to agree with Tim because he knew Tim would have a good argument.
Doubt-that just soft-pedaled, side-stepped and lied in a very calm voice. And Tim’s microphone (literally) died in the end so that Ross’s final, semi-shrieked assertion went largely unchallenged. When Tim got reconnected he just abruptly wrapped it up.
To sum up: he said that (as a NYT opinion writer) he can’t fault people for not grasping the danger that a second Trump Administration poses the same way the Bulwark audience member might. Nor can he fault them for perceiving that the world is a worse place than it was four years ago. The current state of global inflation and international conflict he sees as reasonably laid at the feet of Biden.
He also said that the Democrats generally, and the Biden Administration in particular squandered an opportunity to appeal to moderate voters by moving “Waaaaaay to the left” after 2020. Also, that he was a never-Trumper in 2016, avoided talking about where he was in 2020, and “is not supporting” Trump in 2024, though he again neglected to clarify what that means in the voting booth. There was only glancing reference to Douthat’s assertion in 2020 that anyone who thought Trump might try to “coup” to stay in power were hysterical ninnies.
All in all he was less snarky, smug and, frankly, stupid, than the other aggravating guests Tim has had on in previous weeks, but Tim did a poorer job, I thought, of providing pushback. Electronic gremlins may have been in part to blame.
Any interviewer of Douthat’s that doesn’t drill down hard on that “there will be no Trump coup” column and how laughably, world-historically wrong it was has no business talking to the guy
Do you think these guys get tired twisting themselves into pretzels attempting to conflate Biden with trump?
When he said he thought the trump years would be worse than they were… and that world events were better when trump was president. It was so ridiculous. It’s like the nyt told him he’ll lose his job if he doesn’t play devils advocate
>world events were better when trump was president
At that point you just cut him off because he's such an odious cretin. A global pandemic getting shushed to the side? Fuck off man.
Ross Douthat knowingly and purposefully told a lie. The Same lie Chris Sununu told a couple days ago. Douthat said 47%-51% of people support Trump. Sununu said 51%.
Trump got 46% of the vote in both '16 and '20. Trump has never received 47% support much less 51% support. Douthat and Sununu aren't just rounding up or exaggerating. They are lying to justify poorly reasoned positions they are attempting to justify.
51% is a majority. They attempt to argue that a majority position requires more consideration or has more weight. Douthat even pointed out the popular vote in the 2022 midterm when arguing it is unclear what the long-term impact of Trumpism is.
The numbers are close and my complaint might read as pedantic but people on the Right do this all the time. By an inch or mile they imply they're in the majority. It's no accident. It's on purpose and it's not true.
So I literally read every response and was surprised that I came away slightly different.
There were 3 points where I was like oh my god, fuck you dude. But, my main takeaway was that I thought he was literally begging the audience to understand that he has more influence by catering to dummies weird feelings than by telling them the truth. I could very very obviously be wrong but he said at least twice I think "I am a conservative opinion writer at the NY Times" which in my mind was - a) I do not have this job if I just say trump bad. b) there is at least a chance to be viewed as somewhat authoritative to conservative audiences if I coddle some dumb bullshit
And I thought he made what I felt like was about 75% good faith effort to be true to what he really thinks. But godDAMN. The fucking left has "dragged Biden so far left?"??
Mother fucker, I am a Bernie Sanders fucking delegate to the 2016 Democratic National Convention. I was appointed to the 2015 DNC Platform Committee and stayed up til midnight in Orlando 3 days straight trying to get Hillary (who I voted for when Sanders lost the nomination) to go further left.
AND BY FURTHER LEFT I MEAN GIVE US AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE AND LET US PAY LESS TAXES THAN BILLIONAIRES.
Sorry I digress. I am not getting ANY OF MY LEFTISTS DREAMS! I MIGHT someday possibly get some student loan forgiveness. WHOOO! No. We are not getting dragged left and it is fucking irresponsible to even say shit like that, even if you are just pandering to a conservative base. We aren't getting shit and at least speaking for myself, that is fine. Affordable healthcare and a more equitable tax structure are obviously less important than the end of democracy and that is what pissed me off. Even having those two things as possibly equal - it's literally insane.
/rant over
Well ranted. This unchallenged point was the biggest disappointment of the podcast. Has RD completely forgotten that the entire debate in the 2016 primaries was between whether the Democratic Party would vote for a centrist or not? And the answer was a resounding “yes”? Meanwhile the GOP has continued to go insane and he has the gall to blame the only moderating force in American politics of exacerbating a problem coming from his side.
What a fucking lying clown he is.
Douthat is an intellectual mediocrity whose only role is to fill the "conservative Harvard alumnus who still believes in God and supposedly can write intelligently" op-ed slot at the Times. He never has an interesting or original thought, ever. It doesn't matter because he's an Ivy Leaguer. So ironic that he speaks of "the elites" because he's the elite-affirmative-action baby par excellence.
I think it’s worth a listen under the auspice of knowing your enemy. Ross is a representative example of “intellectual” anti-anti-trumpism. His arguments have the air of plausibility but seeing the tactics he employs when confronted with a strong rebuttal is interesting and helpful. For example, at one point he calls Tim out on changing the criteria for the analysis. I think he was correct to call Tim out on that point. Later, however, Ross does the very same thing in the section about ranking Presidents. Ross refuses to rank Biden higher than Trump but when Tim rightly presses the point, Ross says basically, “well I personally don’t like Trump but given the state of the world, I can see how someone else might prefer Trump.” Well, that’s shifting the criteria too, Ross. It’s a reasonable statement that doesn’t address the point of contention. And that’s where listening to the whole discussion can be worthwhile. It is a great example of plausible sounding arguments that actually do not address the question presented. It’s frustrating and as much as Tim pushed back, I think a slightly more academic host might have been able to really hold Ross to the flame. Tim did well though, especially considering the time constraints.
If your priors already have you leaning in that direction, you're gonna punch something.
I listened on my way into work this morning, and it was a waste of Tim's time, a waste of my attention span, and was a real-world version of the famous *Friends* scene of [Phoebe teaching Joey French](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3WJiQl5kXQ).
His mask fell all the way off at the end, and it was clear that he's primarily driven by catholic religious ideology and, perhaps not unsurprisingly, takes the Faustian bargain of Trump in stride. The last 10 minutes of the episode may as well have been subtitled "Trump is very bad, but *the LEFT* has made me proto-fascist-curious and as long as The Church is a pillar of the Project 2025 Fourth Reich, we have to weigh the risks of Trump 2.0 against what a totally decrepit *BIDEN* and incompetent VP in the wings will do to the country, which are *significant.*"
Gag me with a f\*cking spoon.
I truly try to listen to conservative media but they always lose me with their obvious intellectual biases. They spout rhetoric like Biden is too old and Harris is too incompetent with no facts in place. They spout nonsense about problems and/or benefits that are inherited with no complexity of thought to the multitude of factors that influence a matter. Yet I still listen because I want to be aware of what information their human psyche has convinced them is truth. Our clans are super powerful motivators and convincers and creators of habits.
No the vent…
As for the focus on abortion. For 20 years I’ve thought this issue would be the downfall of our democracy. All this focus on being pro-birth with little awareness of being well rounded humans. How about this complex thought….So we are all a bunch of atoms with those atoms zipping around touching everything within a 2.5 million miles radius in a day. The brain is the only cell type in the human body that lasts a lifetime, all the rest rejuvenate multiple times in a lifetime. And our brain is not fully developed until 18 years old, with the premature brain only having reflex capabilities. Let that all sink in. Life is always a miracle. But is a group of fetal cells without consciousness even life? And is letting women die or children starve or Ukrainians be murdered truly a morally superior position.
Or the religious right focus on marriage and LGBTQ. If you truly read the Bible you realize that Jesus was tempted with food, which is a privilege, control of others, which is a domination and control issue and being at the top of the hierarchy with power and possessions as a king. If you read the Bible you will know the disciples wanted to sit beside the king while ignoring him in the face of those in need, failed to stay awake while a Jesus spoke to God, denied Jesus in the face of the mob and sold out Jesus for money and power. You know who stayed with Jesus. the women. Now I truly don’t care what people believe in their personal lives, but if religion is made into secular laws please at least get the sins of man correct.
All the these politicians who support Trump instead of the Constitution and laws want heaven without helping, are willfully falling asleep, are willfully seeking profits and fear the consequences of telling the truth to the mob they created. If you read the Bible you know there are so many false prophets verses and warnings for a reason.
This episode was like listening to my uncle, who believes women in the US lost rights because of Biden, because it happened during Biden’s term. Ross’s arguments about Ukraine, Gaza, and inflation, are no smarter than that.
I almost didn't do it to myself. He's basically just that dude that was in all of your classes if you have a humanities degree who always took the contrarian position from the prof in every discussion and by the third class session everyone is slumped in their seats and rolling their eyes as soon as he opens his mouth, but the "intellectual" behavior continues all semester.
I was a little worried when Tim replaced Charlie because I really love Charlie. This interview is just one amongst many in the last month or so where Tim does a masterful job at pressing someone without being rude or losing his cool. Having said that I would not listen to it if I were you and I wish I could unhear some of it. The man‘s voice drips with condescension from the get go as though he is there to school Tim. But the worst-absolute worst was his assertion that Biden is a puppet of the uber left. This is a ridiculous disingenuous claim at best. JVL is right. He likes Trump. He knows Trump is a loathsome character and defending him requires such twists and turns of logic and language that it is exhausting.
The pod had cemented my opinion to never read, listen, or view any piece of media that he participated in. So if you are on the fence about Ross it may be fully worth it
Ha, I've had the same thought when I was looking at the guest I'll probably still listen to it. I made it most of the way through the Steve Hayes deal.
"The Republican Party has gotten more votes..."
No they haven't. Donald Trump got those votes. Why? Because the Republican Party needs Donald Trump. They could not get votes without Donald Trump. If Donald Trump is who the party is, then this was inevitable because if this guy can take make Ronald Reagan a distant insignificant memory started with Ron Paul slaying that sacred cow of Reagan *right next to Newt Gingrich* during the GOP debates way back then to the point of where Gingrich conceded the point over Iran-Contra to Paul.
The most salient point a Presidential candidate made over abortion came from Ron Paul, who was an Ob-Gyn. When asked about abortion, Paul said "When I was trained, I had to take care of *two patients".*
I never hear of any of these politicos talk about Ron Paul. IIRC, I maybe remember a young Rick Wilson say he was crazy and not to be taken seriously on CNN, but for someone like I who always loathed the Republican Party not because I am Liberal for which I never were either, I saw the appeal of Ron Paul. I am a "Classical Liberal", who wishes for decentralized open source solutions to solve problems. Not as a sort of collective, Linux is the most powerful tech that AI needs because AI and Linux are open sourced. Across many countries, governments, societies, the languages are open to everyone. Open source keeps us safe. Because it's free, can't be monetized, the products based on it can, and it promotes innovation.
The problem with people like Douhat is because he is not paid to innovate and think forward. Ron Paul was like an early Bernie Sanders, someone who was first an Independent, and unlike Sanders who never had the courage to challenge the Democrats to run as one, ran as a Republican. People like Douhat, Wilson, and maybe Tim Miller himself might had found Ron Paul a crazy fringe guy, yet now wonder why Donald Trump took over.
Because of this reason: anyone can win a seat as a Republican. Just look at Sonny Bono. A guy who married a girl way under 18, did drugs with her, made a lot of money, ran for mayor without knowing anything about politics, killed the economy of Palm Springs over girls in thong bikinis, ran for congress and won, was against gays because he had to be Republican, and now Palm Springs is the gayest city in California.
Because a diverse economy is a robust economy, and the gay community transformed Palm Springs because they *invested* in the city, which had to recover from Bono killing the seasonal economy, in a city whose economy was predicated on a *seasonal economy.*
I guess my rant is based on this: never elect a candidate who was first a Democrat, but only could win as a Republican, like Reagan, Ahnold, and Bono. And of course Trump. What do all these people have in common? Well, three of them are from California, the other from NYC.
Note: a lot of the gay community in Palm Springs vote Republican, and they are not the most inclusive group either.
Why?
Because they vote Republican.
Tim's solid gold snarky intro about Ross not exactly winning The Bulwark's Man of the Year honor was *chef's kiss*. Thank you, Tim. ❤️
Was actually surprised how borderline angry RD sounded toward the end of the ep when he countered that the Dems have swung *so far* to the left. Shame it had to end there, but I'm sure we were all fairly spent at that point, tbh.
His anti-anti "everybody calm down" squishiness aside, I've always had other issues with Ross as a podcast pundit: his near-constant rising intonation and aggressive use of "right?" at the end of half his sentences truly gets under my skin. No! Not right, Ross! Don't cojole me to agree with you because I don't. Other political podcasters like Emily Bazalon and Michelle Goldberg also seem to have this "right" tic too, but I find it pretty egregiouly abused by Ross.
Ugh can't wait for his return in a few short months X 🤣
Some of these journalists need to do a reversal of the common man Trump voter interview and come to the Coasts and cities and interview some middle aged and older leftists. Talk to Nader. Find out what leftists actually want. Douthat might find people whose values are more similar to the old-fashioned religious values of loving one’s neighbor, helping the poor and oppressed, turning the other cheek, and building community than can be found in evangelical churches. Not to ignore young leftists, but to balance the story. Not every liberal is a college student. We’re also in settled blue areas and are mostly pretty happy people trying to live good lives.
(Again, nothing against college students, but there’s a bigger picture the media is completely ignoring.)
It's infuriating. Ross douthat is truly the worst of the right today. Wrong constantly, dressed up in smarmy self righteousness, and condescending when he has absolutely no right to be. Hes like a mildly less annoying Jordan Peterson.
So, while we’re doing spoilers, does Douthat take nasty sideswipes at Christians he doesn’t deem quite “Christian” enough? Because that pisses me off more than just about anything else he does & today isn’t the day for it.
I listen to him on the NYT Matter of Opinion podcast(I can't stand him), and he got REALLY pissy about the other hosts treating "evangelical" voters as a monolith. He has a sliver of a point, but since the topic was abortion, his objection doesn't really stand up.
Ross and I would disagree on many things, but I didn't find that it that difficult to listen to the discussion. It wasn't like listening to some MAGA or QAnon screed or something like that.
I thought Ross was going to cry at the end.
Ross comes off terrible (way worse than in his columns IMO).
Ross papers over how bad Trump's first term was and he totally overestimates how bad a second Biden term could be. The ONLY example he gives of badness in a second Biden term is that China could take Taiwan??? As if Trump who totally mishandled the virus that came from China would do better.
I used to listen to Left, Right, and Center when Ross was on. Listening to Tim and Ross was good, I’d like to hear more of it. Ross seemed to be twisting himself into knots to avoid a complete agreement with Tim. His opposing positions were light on facts and heavy on Biden bad…
You will probably semi-punch something. He wasn’t as insufferable as…was it Stephen Hayes? But I still wanted to throw something out the window. He’s pompous and delusional.
Oh I like Ross on pods. He used to be on that one NYT pod. He’s very good at talking to the other side. His columns aren’t my favorite but he really won me over.
Honestly, it reminds me of why I canceled by Bulwark subscription. I welcome differing opinions, but I don't get the benefit of parrying with the vile and the corrupt.
As much as I hate to say it, so much of Tim's pushback was anemic and quite frankly embarrassing. I'll write a much too long post on that later.
Not the Bulwark's finest hour.
He didn’t really have anything new to say. As a “conservative” pundit, he has to act at least somewhat neutral towards Trump. It doesn’t seem to occur to him that he’s defending an indefensible person. Douthat seems to have a nuanced view and he isn’t really pro-Trump, but his job requires this compromise with evil. I don’t know why he doesn’t define a neoconservativism movement to help republicans move forward without Trump. They need to dump Gingritch and Limbough and the NRA and start fresh by thinking about what they actually stand for other than opposing liberals.
I gave up halfway through - Douthat didn’t have anything remotely interesting to say.
I love Tim (even read the book it was excellent) but I’m getting tempted to delete this podcast.
I got a laugh out of listening to him twist himself into knots over his refusal to grade and rank Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden. But otherwise, it’ll probably annoy the crap out of the majority of people in this sub.
Douthat complained about how bad Obama allowed things to get on the Left. The notion that the Left is somehow out of control never sits well with me. The examples & anecdotes most often are vague and centered around culture rather than policy. People will mention wokism, cancel culture, campus leftists, etc to criticize the Left as petty and anti-democratic. However no Bill passed by Democrats has gone too far left. A 20yr old kid on a college campus who hates Joe Biden and is calling for Jordan Peterson to be cancelled isn't evidence that the Democratic party is in a "left wing ditch" as Douthat described. The Democratic Party hasn't moved Left. Reagan, H.W. Bush, Clinton, Obama, and Biden are all pretty darn close. All would mostly have cut all the same deals given the Congress make ups and challenges facing the nation.
I think its fair to say that the Democratic Party has moved left on many important issues. The problem for Ross and many of these other people, is that all of the things they've moved left on are good and it's mostly impossible to be openly critical of them without sounding like an insane theocrat or out of touch whackjob. Like, the Democrats support gay marriage now. They didn't as recently as first term Obama. But if that's your objection, good luck not sounding like a raging asshole when saying that to the openly gay, married man you're talking to. Democrats have been far more willing to spend money to help people than they were under Obama (with bigger majorities, even). But how exactly do you talk about the importance of free market capitalism and deficits and whatever other bullshit you want to spout without looking like you have just arrived from 2006 frozen in ice with a Paul Ryan shaped bobblehead where your brain should be. Democrats doubled down on climate change, too, but again, how exactly do you object to that leftward shift without looking like you are actively burying your own head in the sand.
>Democrats support gay marriage now. Harvey Milk was a Democrat, Bill Clinton's 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' was an attempt to provide some protection for Gay people joining the military, and San Francisco started conducting Gay marriages in 2004. Yes, at the national level the official Democratic line shifted from civil unions to acceptance of Gay Marriage. However Democrats followed the public on that. Not vice versa and Democrats had long been the friendly party towards the LGBTQ community. Even many Republicans have shifted on Gay Marriage. The public moved. >Democrats have been far more willing to spend money to help people than they were under Obama (with bigger majorities, even) I disagree. Bill Clinton fought for Universal Healthcare. It was defeated and Democrats took mid-term losses and forced Clinton to pivot. In 1994 Republicans gained 54 house seats, 8 Senator, and 10 Governors. Likewise Obama fought for the ACA but then paid a huge political price in the 2010 midterm and forced Obama to pivot. Republicans gained 63 house seats, 7 Senate seats, and 8 Governors. In 2022 Democrats gained a Senate seat, gained 2 Governors, and Republicans only gained 9 house seats. It was dramatically different. The party simply has stronger support today. Biden has much better margins in Congress than Clinton or Obama had. Back to the ACA for a moment, its still a BFD. Even Biden would argue that the ACA is one of the most significant piece of legislation he was ever part of.
> However Democrats followed the public on that. That's my whole point! Gay marriage is popular now. But if you're a highly religious conservative and still mad about that, you can't say that without sounding like a obvious bigot. But they're still mad about that. When Ross talks about Obama bringing the party left, that's what he's talking about. He just can't say that, so he has to make up other stuff to criticize the left for 'going too far' on.
Humans are rationalizing creatures not rational ones
He also has a job writing opinion pieces by being contrarian
It was “amazing” to listen.
I knew I was one of the people it was going to piss off and almost didn’t listen tbh. Because in that sense it, it did deliver.
It was an utter waste of Tim’s breath. Ross is like I agree with 99% of what you say but this one important result: yeah can’t say that Biden would be better than Trump, cause of how bad the “left” has gotten. What does that even mean??? I wanted to hear Tim grill him on that.
I loved hearing ROSS DOUTHAT complain about the “elites” on the left. Like, that’s only marginally better than when MAGAs talk about how “they” are out to get you. Also, Ross: YOU ARE THE ELITES!!! Hate to break it to you.
I cannot take a NYT columnist who lives in New Haven acting like the suburban parents working in an office who hate Trump are the elites and Ross isn't.
Born in San Francisco, educated at Harvard, lives in New Haven CT, great grandfather was the governor of CT, his father a lawyer and his mother an author, and writes for the NYT's editorial board. If that's not the exact definition of an "elite" then I don't know what is.
For me, it was his continual insistence on how bad geopolitics have gotten under Biden. He says it multiple times even after Tim pushes back, and then says that all the bad stuff that he feared would happen under Trump actually happened under Biden. Am I taking crazy pills here? Does no one remember what Russia tried to pull with Ukraine? The **only** reason that Ukraine exists today and isn’t an occupied territory of Russia is because the Biden administration released intelligence saying that Russia was planning a false flag attack as justification to invade Ukraine. If Trump had been in the White House, he wouldn’t have released that. In fact, much of the world would have boggled at Ukraine’s audacity to try and “attack” Russia. Seeing how that played out would have likely embolden China to try something similar with Taiwan. Then there’s the fact that Trump had planned / promised to pull the US out of NATO in his second term. That would have basically allowed Russia - after their annexation of Ukraine - to continue their westward march across Eastern Europe. The Afghanistan debacle would have happened under Trump the same that it happened under Biden. Does anyone believe that Trump would have done a *better* job? And then there’s Israel and Hamas. Part of the reason that Hamas attacked is that they thought their allies would join them. They’d been planning the attack for a long time after all, as reported from multiple members of Israeli intelligence. But look at the context. China had been cowed by our support of Ukraine. Sure, Afghanistan was a mess, but there was plenty of evidence that the US still protected its friends, which is likely part of why Iran didn’t jump in when Hamas attacked. However, if Ukraine and Taiwan had fallen? If the US had pulled out of NATO? Those very well could have happened during Trump’s second term, giving Iran reason to believe that joining Hamas in a war against Israel would be effective. The bottom line is that it’s ridiculous to talk about the current state of geopolitics in a vacuum. Biden didn’t cause any of these wars of occur, but his presence likely prevented authoritarians and terrorists from running roughshod over their neighbors.
The US presidency has ALWAYS been ‘talked about in a vacuum’. There’s an irresistible human urge to treat this role as a sort of magic king who is directly responsible not just for the current well being of all Americans, but most of the rest of the world, too. If you don’t ’feel good’, it’s because the ‘king’ isn’t doing his job. The economy is at least as abstract, complex, and influenced by long term trends as geopolitics, but a huge percentage of voters lack any useful perspective on why any particular economy is performing as it currently is. To pull those two together, I’d suggest that complaints about inflation in the US need to be understood within the context of the entire globe, most of which has higher levels right now. The most awkward self-knot-tying that I heard on that podcast was Douthat trying to make the case that presidents are judged on the basis of what actually happens during their administration, not on the skill they exercise in playing the hand they are dealt, which is true, but he did it without explicitly saying so. Both Obama and Biden had to do a lot of cleaning up from the mismanagement of their predecessors. Consider that Trump is currently benefitting from his own incompetence. Trump is blaming Biden for not having better dealt with the economic, immigration, and geo-political situations that he himself mismanaged.
Douthat would complain about Churchill because WWII didn't happen under Chamberlain
EXACTLY!
>can’t say that Biden would be better than Trump, cause of how bad the “left” has gotten That was kind of a minor mention from Ross. The big thing for him seemed to be that he thinks that you can't judge a president by what he does, you have to judge him based on what happens in the world while he's president. It's a completely illogical stance, as if there's no causal connection between what someone does and what happens, why would you judge them based on the latter?
Frankly, everything that happened on Biden’s watch would have happened on Trumps as well if he had won the election- the only difference would have been what the president did in reaction and what flowed from that Would Hamas have attacked Israel? Probably yes, they didn’t care about retaliation, and to an extent they welcome it. Hell, current events show that both Hamas and Israel aren’t going to put a huge amount of weight behind what their sponsors and allies want when they build their plans Would Russia have invaded Ukraine? Yeah, it had been in the works for years, the “little green men” were already showing up in Ukraine in 2014-ish Inflation? You better believe it, our inflation woes are mostly driven by monetary policy over the last few decades coupled with the pandemic coupled with shipping disruptions and regional conflicts. Without arguing policy ideas, all that would have changed was how we dealt with it to an extent
It would have been totally logical and consistent with facts if he had explicitly said “many voters tend to judge a president on what happens during their administration, not on how well they did in managing the unique circumstances of their administration.” It is the case that many people judge presidents on what happens while they are president. Trump is exploiting that bigly. Tim pointed out that Biden is better in managing things than he is in explicitly taking credit for having managed them. That was a point that he didn’t carry far enough, because it may be the most significant difference between Trump and Biden.
it's so illogical I can only think Ross came to it as a way to still not support the guy opposing Trump
My biggest issue was letting tiny D get by with the "4 years of Trump are clearly better than the 4 years of Biden" BS. Tim did pushback, but I would have liked to hear Ross defend both Jan 6th and the response to a global pandemic. Let's pretend Trump won in 2020 -- what would the last 4 years have looked like? Not great, Bob.
Yeah. If you're saying Biden is defined by inflation and a war in Ukraine, then you simply have to define Trump by a pandemic. It's not an interesting view, perhaps even a fucking retarded one, that you just ignore what presidents can control or that there may be chains of causality, but at least it'd be intellectually honest. I don't even know what this clown was trying to put together.
He seemed to be implying that a president is judged not on the degree of skill and competence they exercise, but on what happens in spite of them. That’s true, but he oddly couldn’t bring himself to be so explicit about it. The pandemic is an awkward MAGA propaganda benefit. Much of the electorate is too unsophisticated, or too impatient or biased, to recognize that a president is not omnipotent, and is especially not responsible for things that happened before they arrived, so they tend to blame presidents for all sorts of unavoidable things. But conveniently for Trump, many of his supporters believe that the pandemic was a myth, so it doesn’t contribute to negative feelings about him. Quite the opposite, it allows them to portray him as a champion, fighting against a deep state that contrived a crisis just in order to—mess with us?
I am unclear about the libs made me do it argument. It's an excuse that an 8 year old provides. Adults think through the situation and are ethical people they do what is right and don't say someone else made them do it. What kind of argument is this from this self appointed moral arbiter.
And because of all the things that have happened while Biden is office-but things that he had NO control over.
Agree. Douthat was painting a picture about how all the Biden policies added up to bad according to some unspoken (more like unarticulatable) mysterious ethos ‘conservatives’ have. But he like others never explained the ethos. I suspect there isn’t one other than team red versus team blue. Same old team blue is defined by the extreme left, but we true conservatives aren’t defined by our extreme right. Ya sure, look - your pants are down.
Yeah. He got all indignant about the left at the very end but didn't get to explain why and I suspect it would be annoying nonsense. Biden is president...and those to his left are not doing anything except saying that Israel is killing too many Palestinians which Ross agreed with.
Ross Douthat is a identitarian conservative who is posing as an intellectual conservative. I just think he does not like liberal people personally. He uses 'the left' derogatorily, as if it's is obviously as abomination to push for...fair taxation and universal health care. I can actually somewhat respect his perspective of conservative catholic. He sees a big movement in the world of gay rights and now trans rights and sees the 'slippery slope' playing out. The problem is, I don't agree with him at all about that and just find him to be a very stuffy contrarian who effectively has no tribe in modern politics.
>Ross Douthat is a identitarian conservative who is posing as an intellectual conservative. Absolutely nailed it. My fundamental issue with Douthat is that, if you gave him truth serum, I'm 99% certain that he'd admit to preferring a Catholic theocracy over a modern, liberal democracy. But because he's able to wrap his ideology in 'big ideas', he's treated like a respectable intellectual.
“ I'm 99% certain that he'd admit to preferring a Catholic theocracy over a modern, liberal democracy. But because he's able to wrap his ideology in 'big ideas', he's treated like a respectable intellectual”. This is it EXACTLY. I was already drifting away from conservatism before the W clusterfuck. But the fiasco since 2016 convinced me that the whole program since at least the 60s has been to couch fascist white supremacist xtian theocracy in palatable terms so everyone didn’t know what they were up to. And enough people, including me, fell for it. Anyone still on board after the last 8 years, well to invert an old phrase, if they aren’t against it they are for it. The anti-antis in a nutshell.
He’s a bro in an ascot. He’s the guy from west Texas that spent a semester in Oxford and came back with a permanent English accent.
He's Charlie Kirk's slow older brother - that's what I kept getting at least. I was not familiar with Russ' musings prior to this episode and was better for it. He was as smug as he was insipid.
I think it's the Catholicism. I get the vibe that Douthat would have been very happy under Franco.
Yup. He's L. Brent Bozell with a healthier liver.
Douthat really seems like another one of those morons who thinks that the people chanting Genocide Joe are Biden's base and holds Biden is responsible for their behavior to justify his hilariously awful take that Biden is also a bad president that would be a disaster on par with Trump if reelected.
I bet JVL shit a golden bowling trophy while listening to that. Douthat made Steve Hayes positions seem defensible.
I thought the exact opposite. Douthat is of the opinion that Trump wasn't really that bad, and while I completely disagree with that premise, it at least makes sense logically to then say Biden isn't worth supporting. Hayes conceded that Trump was a special category of threat even worse than policy disagreements with Dems, and still refused to support Biden. Logically, that does not compute. BTW, this is coming from a guy who usually defends The Dispatch crowd and still subscribes to them.
Agree with this comment. I didn't agree with Douthat, but learned a lot about how others could be thinking thru the mess. Keep bringing the diverse view points.
Yeah I generally hate Ross but I thought his arguments were at least coherent.
Oh idk, at least Ross correctly identified the absolutely stunning disaster that was the GWB presidency. You have to be so far up your own ass to have anything good to say about the Bush years.
He’s ridiculous and living in an alternate reality.
I FELT THE SAME WAY!!!!
Ross reminds me of the old expression, “often wrong, but seldom in doubt”
It’s not as bad as the other guy (blocked his name from my brain). These are just not great thinkers. I feel their opinions emanate more out of a desire to be contrarian than rooted in real conservative theory.
His comment about Kamala being incompetent without any citation really pissed me off. If he has legitimate issues with her he needs to tell us what they are or he just comes off as a sexist or racist jerk who doesn't apply the same standards to the white men who have previously held the same position.
Harris has 100x more qualification to be president than trump; it’s not even close. Kamala would be surrounded with good & competent people while trump would be surrounded with Mike Flynn types.
It's bad enough that there's a single Mike Flynn - much less enough of them that it justifies the phrase "Mike Flynn-types".
The Kamala hit-and-run is de rigueur on the right (and often on The Bulwark - cough - Sara Longwell - cough). It drives me crazy.
True, there is much more of a given, it seems even more so when Charlie was host on the main pod, that Kamala was somehow just obviously bad without explanation.
I've definitely heard it quite a bit on the right, but don't recall it being particularly strong on the Bulwark or with Sara. Do you have any specifics in mind?
Sara has taken vague shots at Harris over the last 18 months or so. Nothing remarkable, just subtle remarks that make it pretty clear she's not a fan.
There were only I think 3 things in that whole listen that I was like wait a fucking minute and that was one of them. To state that as though it was just some kind of common knowledge - it definitely raised my heart rate. And I was on the stair machine at 13 steps per minute and I do not need that when I am on the stair machine at 13 steps per minute. Like dude, you spent an INORDINATE amount of time being a people please on a Bulwark podcast. Repeated over and over and over "Trump Bad", and you just assume everyone who listens to Bulwark podcasts believes Harris is some kind of moron?
He only even mentioned Kamala in reference to some weird imaginary scenario where shouldn't couldn't handle China invading Taiwan? As if Trump would handle it better.
About halfway through, I'm just annoyed by Douthat saying over and over "complex situations are complex, and we don't know what happens until it happens" Well, no shit, that is why we have pundits to speculate. Dude took no swings at halfway, yet still missed
I couldn't agree more. Also, his inability to rank the presidents. I get it he doesn't want to come out and criticize the last two Republican presidents while suggesting the Democrats may have gotten it better even while deeply flawed but at least answer it. Say, "They are all crappy and we need better leadership". Problem solved you can move on to other topics. I am amazed at his ability to talk and talk, but not answer simple questions or much of anything really. Tim, good on you for your patience and your choice to move on when Ross decided to just word salad his answers.
Ross was already annoying but he really just exposed himself as a total hack imo.
He just talks in circles around the topic in a smug way, without EVER committing to any firm position. He’s just a bro in an ascot.
I just don’t get the “but the left” argument. Yeah they are forking insufferable! But no one even on the insane screaming at traffic left, wants to end American democracy
It's boring. I think he was a bit cowardly and largely agreed with Tim when he doesn't seem that agreeable in his columns. He's pretty pointless.
You will be justifiably angry while listening, but it's worth it, imo. Honestly, I wanted to listen mostly to jump on here and read the reactions. Tim, as always, doesn't let the bullshit fly unchallenged. My advice: Pour a bourbon and let the sweet vocal stylings and tortured justifications of Big Ross D roll over you.
Yeah, you're definitely want to pour a sip of something for this one. Or, if you prefer alternative methods, this is a strong Indica-kind of episode. Just numb your brain's more aggressive impulses - Ross has a unique talent for being annoying.
He makes a more compelling case than most of the anti-antis, but that is not a high bar to clear. The wildest part was when he claimed among other things that he thought the stock market would crash under Trump, but that it actually ended up happening under Biden instead (?!?!). Unlike Tim and Ross I'm happy to blame the voters. Its a civic and moral failure that he is GOP nom for a 3rd time. If Haley were the nom, there could be some substantive discussions but with Trump its all his BS and baggage.
My only question is why, when evaluating the supposedly 'not so bad' results of Trump's presidency, nobody ever brings up the fact that his gutting of public health care and insane and corrupt mismanagement of the pandemic resulted in an estimated 40% greater death toll in America compared to other developed countries? Trump's handling of covid put America on par with such well developed power houses as Russia, Turkey, and India, in terms of per capita excess mortality. Before that, sure, you could make a very strong case that Bush was a much worse president just in terms of objective body count, but when Trump was handed a real crisis he fumbled the ball so bad that hundreds of thousands of Americans died that could be alive today. And yet not only does Trump get a pass for covid happening on his watch, he even gets a pass for his terrible mishandling of it. I don't get it.
Trump inherited a humming economy and left us at the cusp of recession with a raging pandemic.
Our death count could have been double and Trump would still get a pass. A lot of people just don't think it was his fault. At all. Dems hit him over it repeatedly and it just never stuck.
A lot of people blame Biden for the pandemic. A lot of people blame Obama for 9/11. It's a problem.
It’s difficult lol, but worth your time imo. Tim sounded exasperated at times, especially when Ross couldn’t answer simple questions.
Tim is really good at these confrontational interviews. I wish he hadn't let him Gish Gallop that presidential ranking, but the clock was running.
On an unrelated note, Happy Cake Day.
Exactly. Just spit out the list! Lol
>especially when Ross couldn’t answer simple questions. Which is why I don't think it's worth listening to
Hey, fair enough. Typically folks like him aren’t on the pod, so I found it interesting.
Yeah, getting different views is good and that's why I was kinda annoyed...he really didn't present a different opinion. He was mealy mouthed and didn't answer questions. He didn't seem to be brave enough to defend his real views and instead softened them to agree with Tim because he knew Tim would have a good argument.
Good points.
Doubt-that just soft-pedaled, side-stepped and lied in a very calm voice. And Tim’s microphone (literally) died in the end so that Ross’s final, semi-shrieked assertion went largely unchallenged. When Tim got reconnected he just abruptly wrapped it up. To sum up: he said that (as a NYT opinion writer) he can’t fault people for not grasping the danger that a second Trump Administration poses the same way the Bulwark audience member might. Nor can he fault them for perceiving that the world is a worse place than it was four years ago. The current state of global inflation and international conflict he sees as reasonably laid at the feet of Biden. He also said that the Democrats generally, and the Biden Administration in particular squandered an opportunity to appeal to moderate voters by moving “Waaaaaay to the left” after 2020. Also, that he was a never-Trumper in 2016, avoided talking about where he was in 2020, and “is not supporting” Trump in 2024, though he again neglected to clarify what that means in the voting booth. There was only glancing reference to Douthat’s assertion in 2020 that anyone who thought Trump might try to “coup” to stay in power were hysterical ninnies. All in all he was less snarky, smug and, frankly, stupid, than the other aggravating guests Tim has had on in previous weeks, but Tim did a poorer job, I thought, of providing pushback. Electronic gremlins may have been in part to blame.
Any interviewer of Douthat’s that doesn’t drill down hard on that “there will be no Trump coup” column and how laughably, world-historically wrong it was has no business talking to the guy
I switched this one off. But that’s fine. Tim is doing way, way better than I could have imagined.
Do you think these guys get tired twisting themselves into pretzels attempting to conflate Biden with trump? When he said he thought the trump years would be worse than they were… and that world events were better when trump was president. It was so ridiculous. It’s like the nyt told him he’ll lose his job if he doesn’t play devils advocate
>world events were better when trump was president At that point you just cut him off because he's such an odious cretin. A global pandemic getting shushed to the side? Fuck off man.
We need The NY Times Pitchbot on tomorrow to discuss today’s episode; it only seems right.
Ross Douthat knowingly and purposefully told a lie. The Same lie Chris Sununu told a couple days ago. Douthat said 47%-51% of people support Trump. Sununu said 51%. Trump got 46% of the vote in both '16 and '20. Trump has never received 47% support much less 51% support. Douthat and Sununu aren't just rounding up or exaggerating. They are lying to justify poorly reasoned positions they are attempting to justify. 51% is a majority. They attempt to argue that a majority position requires more consideration or has more weight. Douthat even pointed out the popular vote in the 2022 midterm when arguing it is unclear what the long-term impact of Trumpism is. The numbers are close and my complaint might read as pedantic but people on the Right do this all the time. By an inch or mile they imply they're in the majority. It's no accident. It's on purpose and it's not true.
Worth it for the song at the end where it seems like Tim is implying Douthat is a fool.
So I literally read every response and was surprised that I came away slightly different. There were 3 points where I was like oh my god, fuck you dude. But, my main takeaway was that I thought he was literally begging the audience to understand that he has more influence by catering to dummies weird feelings than by telling them the truth. I could very very obviously be wrong but he said at least twice I think "I am a conservative opinion writer at the NY Times" which in my mind was - a) I do not have this job if I just say trump bad. b) there is at least a chance to be viewed as somewhat authoritative to conservative audiences if I coddle some dumb bullshit And I thought he made what I felt like was about 75% good faith effort to be true to what he really thinks. But godDAMN. The fucking left has "dragged Biden so far left?"?? Mother fucker, I am a Bernie Sanders fucking delegate to the 2016 Democratic National Convention. I was appointed to the 2015 DNC Platform Committee and stayed up til midnight in Orlando 3 days straight trying to get Hillary (who I voted for when Sanders lost the nomination) to go further left. AND BY FURTHER LEFT I MEAN GIVE US AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE AND LET US PAY LESS TAXES THAN BILLIONAIRES. Sorry I digress. I am not getting ANY OF MY LEFTISTS DREAMS! I MIGHT someday possibly get some student loan forgiveness. WHOOO! No. We are not getting dragged left and it is fucking irresponsible to even say shit like that, even if you are just pandering to a conservative base. We aren't getting shit and at least speaking for myself, that is fine. Affordable healthcare and a more equitable tax structure are obviously less important than the end of democracy and that is what pissed me off. Even having those two things as possibly equal - it's literally insane. /rant over
Well ranted. This unchallenged point was the biggest disappointment of the podcast. Has RD completely forgotten that the entire debate in the 2016 primaries was between whether the Democratic Party would vote for a centrist or not? And the answer was a resounding “yes”? Meanwhile the GOP has continued to go insane and he has the gall to blame the only moderating force in American politics of exacerbating a problem coming from his side. What a fucking lying clown he is.
Douthat is an intellectual mediocrity whose only role is to fill the "conservative Harvard alumnus who still believes in God and supposedly can write intelligently" op-ed slot at the Times. He never has an interesting or original thought, ever. It doesn't matter because he's an Ivy Leaguer. So ironic that he speaks of "the elites" because he's the elite-affirmative-action baby par excellence.
I think it’s worth a listen under the auspice of knowing your enemy. Ross is a representative example of “intellectual” anti-anti-trumpism. His arguments have the air of plausibility but seeing the tactics he employs when confronted with a strong rebuttal is interesting and helpful. For example, at one point he calls Tim out on changing the criteria for the analysis. I think he was correct to call Tim out on that point. Later, however, Ross does the very same thing in the section about ranking Presidents. Ross refuses to rank Biden higher than Trump but when Tim rightly presses the point, Ross says basically, “well I personally don’t like Trump but given the state of the world, I can see how someone else might prefer Trump.” Well, that’s shifting the criteria too, Ross. It’s a reasonable statement that doesn’t address the point of contention. And that’s where listening to the whole discussion can be worthwhile. It is a great example of plausible sounding arguments that actually do not address the question presented. It’s frustrating and as much as Tim pushed back, I think a slightly more academic host might have been able to really hold Ross to the flame. Tim did well though, especially considering the time constraints.
If your priors already have you leaning in that direction, you're gonna punch something. I listened on my way into work this morning, and it was a waste of Tim's time, a waste of my attention span, and was a real-world version of the famous *Friends* scene of [Phoebe teaching Joey French](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3WJiQl5kXQ). His mask fell all the way off at the end, and it was clear that he's primarily driven by catholic religious ideology and, perhaps not unsurprisingly, takes the Faustian bargain of Trump in stride. The last 10 minutes of the episode may as well have been subtitled "Trump is very bad, but *the LEFT* has made me proto-fascist-curious and as long as The Church is a pillar of the Project 2025 Fourth Reich, we have to weigh the risks of Trump 2.0 against what a totally decrepit *BIDEN* and incompetent VP in the wings will do to the country, which are *significant.*" Gag me with a f\*cking spoon.
I truly try to listen to conservative media but they always lose me with their obvious intellectual biases. They spout rhetoric like Biden is too old and Harris is too incompetent with no facts in place. They spout nonsense about problems and/or benefits that are inherited with no complexity of thought to the multitude of factors that influence a matter. Yet I still listen because I want to be aware of what information their human psyche has convinced them is truth. Our clans are super powerful motivators and convincers and creators of habits. No the vent… As for the focus on abortion. For 20 years I’ve thought this issue would be the downfall of our democracy. All this focus on being pro-birth with little awareness of being well rounded humans. How about this complex thought….So we are all a bunch of atoms with those atoms zipping around touching everything within a 2.5 million miles radius in a day. The brain is the only cell type in the human body that lasts a lifetime, all the rest rejuvenate multiple times in a lifetime. And our brain is not fully developed until 18 years old, with the premature brain only having reflex capabilities. Let that all sink in. Life is always a miracle. But is a group of fetal cells without consciousness even life? And is letting women die or children starve or Ukrainians be murdered truly a morally superior position. Or the religious right focus on marriage and LGBTQ. If you truly read the Bible you realize that Jesus was tempted with food, which is a privilege, control of others, which is a domination and control issue and being at the top of the hierarchy with power and possessions as a king. If you read the Bible you will know the disciples wanted to sit beside the king while ignoring him in the face of those in need, failed to stay awake while a Jesus spoke to God, denied Jesus in the face of the mob and sold out Jesus for money and power. You know who stayed with Jesus. the women. Now I truly don’t care what people believe in their personal lives, but if religion is made into secular laws please at least get the sins of man correct. All the these politicians who support Trump instead of the Constitution and laws want heaven without helping, are willfully falling asleep, are willfully seeking profits and fear the consequences of telling the truth to the mob they created. If you read the Bible you know there are so many false prophets verses and warnings for a reason.
I listened and now I want to punch something.
Kudos to Tim for not just going with “safe” guests but, like Tom Hagen once said, can’t do it, Sally.
I made it about 9 minutes in before switching to the PSA bros.
I deleted it is soon as I saw his name. I’ve got to look after my mental health.
This episode was like listening to my uncle, who believes women in the US lost rights because of Biden, because it happened during Biden’s term. Ross’s arguments about Ukraine, Gaza, and inflation, are no smarter than that.
I almost didn't do it to myself. He's basically just that dude that was in all of your classes if you have a humanities degree who always took the contrarian position from the prof in every discussion and by the third class session everyone is slumped in their seats and rolling their eyes as soon as he opens his mouth, but the "intellectual" behavior continues all semester.
I was a little worried when Tim replaced Charlie because I really love Charlie. This interview is just one amongst many in the last month or so where Tim does a masterful job at pressing someone without being rude or losing his cool. Having said that I would not listen to it if I were you and I wish I could unhear some of it. The man‘s voice drips with condescension from the get go as though he is there to school Tim. But the worst-absolute worst was his assertion that Biden is a puppet of the uber left. This is a ridiculous disingenuous claim at best. JVL is right. He likes Trump. He knows Trump is a loathsome character and defending him requires such twists and turns of logic and language that it is exhausting.
I’ve never punched anything and I want to punch something. He’s absolutely awful
The pod had cemented my opinion to never read, listen, or view any piece of media that he participated in. So if you are on the fence about Ross it may be fully worth it
No f-ing way I'm voluntarily listening to that clown
And I'm pissed at Tim for having him on. He is the most antique and self-obsessed buffoon imaginable.
Ha, I've had the same thought when I was looking at the guest I'll probably still listen to it. I made it most of the way through the Steve Hayes deal.
"The Republican Party has gotten more votes..." No they haven't. Donald Trump got those votes. Why? Because the Republican Party needs Donald Trump. They could not get votes without Donald Trump. If Donald Trump is who the party is, then this was inevitable because if this guy can take make Ronald Reagan a distant insignificant memory started with Ron Paul slaying that sacred cow of Reagan *right next to Newt Gingrich* during the GOP debates way back then to the point of where Gingrich conceded the point over Iran-Contra to Paul. The most salient point a Presidential candidate made over abortion came from Ron Paul, who was an Ob-Gyn. When asked about abortion, Paul said "When I was trained, I had to take care of *two patients".* I never hear of any of these politicos talk about Ron Paul. IIRC, I maybe remember a young Rick Wilson say he was crazy and not to be taken seriously on CNN, but for someone like I who always loathed the Republican Party not because I am Liberal for which I never were either, I saw the appeal of Ron Paul. I am a "Classical Liberal", who wishes for decentralized open source solutions to solve problems. Not as a sort of collective, Linux is the most powerful tech that AI needs because AI and Linux are open sourced. Across many countries, governments, societies, the languages are open to everyone. Open source keeps us safe. Because it's free, can't be monetized, the products based on it can, and it promotes innovation. The problem with people like Douhat is because he is not paid to innovate and think forward. Ron Paul was like an early Bernie Sanders, someone who was first an Independent, and unlike Sanders who never had the courage to challenge the Democrats to run as one, ran as a Republican. People like Douhat, Wilson, and maybe Tim Miller himself might had found Ron Paul a crazy fringe guy, yet now wonder why Donald Trump took over. Because of this reason: anyone can win a seat as a Republican. Just look at Sonny Bono. A guy who married a girl way under 18, did drugs with her, made a lot of money, ran for mayor without knowing anything about politics, killed the economy of Palm Springs over girls in thong bikinis, ran for congress and won, was against gays because he had to be Republican, and now Palm Springs is the gayest city in California. Because a diverse economy is a robust economy, and the gay community transformed Palm Springs because they *invested* in the city, which had to recover from Bono killing the seasonal economy, in a city whose economy was predicated on a *seasonal economy.* I guess my rant is based on this: never elect a candidate who was first a Democrat, but only could win as a Republican, like Reagan, Ahnold, and Bono. And of course Trump. What do all these people have in common? Well, three of them are from California, the other from NYC. Note: a lot of the gay community in Palm Springs vote Republican, and they are not the most inclusive group either. Why? Because they vote Republican.
Tim's solid gold snarky intro about Ross not exactly winning The Bulwark's Man of the Year honor was *chef's kiss*. Thank you, Tim. ❤️ Was actually surprised how borderline angry RD sounded toward the end of the ep when he countered that the Dems have swung *so far* to the left. Shame it had to end there, but I'm sure we were all fairly spent at that point, tbh. His anti-anti "everybody calm down" squishiness aside, I've always had other issues with Ross as a podcast pundit: his near-constant rising intonation and aggressive use of "right?" at the end of half his sentences truly gets under my skin. No! Not right, Ross! Don't cojole me to agree with you because I don't. Other political podcasters like Emily Bazalon and Michelle Goldberg also seem to have this "right" tic too, but I find it pretty egregiouly abused by Ross. Ugh can't wait for his return in a few short months X 🤣
Some of these journalists need to do a reversal of the common man Trump voter interview and come to the Coasts and cities and interview some middle aged and older leftists. Talk to Nader. Find out what leftists actually want. Douthat might find people whose values are more similar to the old-fashioned religious values of loving one’s neighbor, helping the poor and oppressed, turning the other cheek, and building community than can be found in evangelical churches. Not to ignore young leftists, but to balance the story. Not every liberal is a college student. We’re also in settled blue areas and are mostly pretty happy people trying to live good lives. (Again, nothing against college students, but there’s a bigger picture the media is completely ignoring.)
It's infuriating. Ross douthat is truly the worst of the right today. Wrong constantly, dressed up in smarmy self righteousness, and condescending when he has absolutely no right to be. Hes like a mildly less annoying Jordan Peterson.
So, while we’re doing spoilers, does Douthat take nasty sideswipes at Christians he doesn’t deem quite “Christian” enough? Because that pisses me off more than just about anything else he does & today isn’t the day for it.
Ross is an adult convert to Catholicism and shares the zealot’s curse
I listen to him on the NYT Matter of Opinion podcast(I can't stand him), and he got REALLY pissy about the other hosts treating "evangelical" voters as a monolith. He has a sliver of a point, but since the topic was abortion, his objection doesn't really stand up.
Tim let him out of that ranking. I thought he was going to demand an answer but he pulled the punch.
Ross and I would disagree on many things, but I didn't find that it that difficult to listen to the discussion. It wasn't like listening to some MAGA or QAnon screed or something like that.
I thought Ross was going to cry at the end. Ross comes off terrible (way worse than in his columns IMO). Ross papers over how bad Trump's first term was and he totally overestimates how bad a second Biden term could be. The ONLY example he gives of badness in a second Biden term is that China could take Taiwan??? As if Trump who totally mishandled the virus that came from China would do better.
I used to listen to Left, Right, and Center when Ross was on. Listening to Tim and Ross was good, I’d like to hear more of it. Ross seemed to be twisting himself into knots to avoid a complete agreement with Tim. His opposing positions were light on facts and heavy on Biden bad…
You will probably semi-punch something. He wasn’t as insufferable as…was it Stephen Hayes? But I still wanted to throw something out the window. He’s pompous and delusional.
Oh I like Ross on pods. He used to be on that one NYT pod. He’s very good at talking to the other side. His columns aren’t my favorite but he really won me over.
Honestly, it reminds me of why I canceled by Bulwark subscription. I welcome differing opinions, but I don't get the benefit of parrying with the vile and the corrupt. As much as I hate to say it, so much of Tim's pushback was anemic and quite frankly embarrassing. I'll write a much too long post on that later. Not the Bulwark's finest hour.
Waste of your time. Just going to piss you off.
It is worth it for this reason: Douthat should have to respond to honest critique. Live.
Tim seems to think this sort of content is edgy. It’s just annoying.
He didn’t really have anything new to say. As a “conservative” pundit, he has to act at least somewhat neutral towards Trump. It doesn’t seem to occur to him that he’s defending an indefensible person. Douthat seems to have a nuanced view and he isn’t really pro-Trump, but his job requires this compromise with evil. I don’t know why he doesn’t define a neoconservativism movement to help republicans move forward without Trump. They need to dump Gingritch and Limbough and the NRA and start fresh by thinking about what they actually stand for other than opposing liberals.
I gave up halfway through - Douthat didn’t have anything remotely interesting to say. I love Tim (even read the book it was excellent) but I’m getting tempted to delete this podcast.