The Hanania Show

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comI discuss the Republican primary in New Hampshire last night, widely considered to have been for most practical purposes the end of the campaign. Last week, I talked about Bullying Grandma Syndrome, which explains why Trump has and continues to dominate the Republican Party. Haley’s relatively strong performance with Democrats and Independents last night brings to mind another dynamic, which is how the current Republican Party relates to the wider electorate. Many people aren’t content to get bullied by senile grandmas forever. They end up leaving the party, and this is why we’re seeing an exodus of more educated voters from the GOP. In politics, there’s something called the “median voter theorem.” I think that while there is something to this idea, the best explanation for why moderate candidates tend to win is that they have personalities that are more appealing to wide swaths of the public. Watching Trump and Haley supporters, it seems to me that Republicans really don’t understand the most important contrast between them, which is that one group is composed of people who might be your neighbors or family friends while the other is a collection of the elderly relatives who you have to put up with during holidays but otherwise do everything to avoid. I also discuss why I’m less bullish on Trump’s chances of winning the general election than a few weeks ago, his diminishing mental capacity, and why the combination of the abortion issue and Republicans generally being seen as the party of weirdos means we may be entering an era of Democratic dominance.LinksNBC exit poll on NHTracingWoodgrains on the Republican Party being doomedInterviews with Haley votersTrump being senile, confusing Nikki Haley for Nancy PelosiTrump supporter with bad hip fantasizing about civil war

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comIn this podcast, I review Ridley Scott’s Napoleon (2023). The producer made the movie center around the relationship with Josephine. I thought that there was a missed opportunity to show her time in prison, which would have added depth to the character. This is from Andrew Roberts’ biography. From April 22, 1794 until shortly after her husband’s execution on July 22 that year, Josephine was herself imprisoned as a suspected royalist in the crypt underneath the church of Saint-Joseph-des-Carmes in the rue de Vaugirard. One of her cellmates, an Englishwoman named Grace Elliott, recalled how ‘the walls and even the wooden chairs were still stained with the blood and the brainsof the priests’. Josephine had to endure truly inhumane conditions: air came only from three deep holes to the underground cells and there were no lavatories; she and her cellmates lived in daily fear of the guillotine; they had one bottle of water a day each, for all uses; and since pregnant women weren’t guillotined until after giving birth, the sound of sexual couplings with the warders could be heard in the hallways at night. It is cold down in the Saint-Joseph crypt even in midsummer, and inmates’ health broke down fast, indeed it is possible that Josephine survived only because she was too ill to be guillotined. Her husband was executed just four days before Robespierre’s fall, and had Robespierre survived any longer Josephine would probably have followed him. There was a paradoxical symmetry in the way that the Thermidor coup released Josephine from one prison and simultaneously put Napoleon into another. The stench, darkness, cold, degradation and daily fear of violent death for weeks on end makes the Terror well named, and it is likely that for months, possibly even years, afterwards Josephine suffered from a form of what would now be called post-traumatic stress disorder. If she was later sexually self-indulgent, became involved in sleazy business deals and loved luxury — her dress bills became higher than Marie Antoinette’s — and married for stability and financial security rather than for love, it is hard to hold this against her after what she had been through.Here’s the X review, for paid subscribers only. The transcript of the podcast review is below, not checked for accuracy, but hopefully more readable than last time because I took some speaking advice.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comThis week I’m doing something new. Rather than having a guest every time, I’m going to begin sometimes doing an audio monologue about issues of the day. You can give me feedback on whether you like the new format.Last night saw Trump’s expected blowout victory in the Iowa caucuses. Since the polls were almost exactly on point, we don’t have to really update anything in our model of the world. Rather, I’m going to take this opportunity to share some thoughts on the Trump movement, namely the relationship between the really crazy people, who I’ve come to think are truly in control, and more educated and normal Republicans going along for the ride. People talk about the Trump cult as the core of the party, and the rest as either anti-Trump or Trump-friendly and persuadable. That division is mostly correct, but one thing that is overlooked is how and why the Trump-friendly middle group always ends up supporting him in the end, and never decisively breaks against him.In this podcast, I explore what I call Bullying Grandma Syndrome, which refers to the ways in which the QAnon supporters and Trump NFT-buyers are setting the tone of the Republican Party. This is a moral and aesthetic nightmare, and has the potential to be an electoral one too, though I’m not too sure about that part. Bullying Grandma Syndrome explains why Trump is almost certainly going to be the 2024 nominee, and the theory implies that, if the former president loses the general this time, he’ll still be the favorite to be the GOP candidate in 2028 and maybe even beyond that. I’ve had a long record of predicting Trump’s continuing hold on the party. In spring of 2021, I said he was going to be the nominee in the aftermath of January 6 when people were counting him out. I’d actually been arguing Trump would be the 2024 nominee before he even lost in 2020, but I don’t have a public record of that. For a few weeks after the 2022 midterms I thought that DeSantis had a shot, but saw how he was afraid to criticize Trump, realized that his grip on the base was solid, and quickly went back to arguing that the Florida governor didn’t have what it takes. In June of last year, I said the DeSantis campaign was close to over and he needed to throw a Hail Mary by challenging Trump to a physical fight. He didn’t, and instead continued to feed the narrative that American politics was a Manichaean struggle between Trump and the forces of darkness.I’m not sure that there’s anything anti-Trump Republicans can actually do. The Bullying Grandma wishes we could go back to the 1950s, wants Trump to execute imaginary pedophiles, and takes her hero both literally and seriously. The modern right-wing intellectual’s understanding of her is worse than that of any liberal, but without realizing it he has surrendered his agency to her whims. He doesn’t believe Dominion voting machines were hacked, but social media censorship basically means the election was stolen, right? And maybe it’s hard to believe all the stuff under #DiedSuddenly, but they’ve lied to us so much, who’s to say what is true and what isn’t? The Bullying Grandma is driving the car and normal Republicans are only coming along for the ride. Hopefully, Trump can at least cut taxes, bust some unions, and defend Israel along the way. Relevant linksMe versus Rob Henderson and Zach Goldberg on blacks and white liberalsConservatism as an Oppositional CultureWashington Post exit pollThe Economist on Trumpism as a religionThere are two AI-generated transcripts of the monologue, and readers can pick which one they prefer. The first you can get by scrolling below, where I added headings, and the other is a tab built into the Substack platform, which tracks the audio. Neither has been checked for accuracy.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comNathan Cofnas is the Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He joins the podcast to talk about his latest essay, “Why We Need to Discuss the Right’s Stupidity Problem”, which is framed as a response to Chris Rufo’s America’s Cultural Revolution and my The Origins of Woke. The topic of how honest society should be about group differences is something I’ve been thinking a lot about, and my views have developed even since my conversation with Amy Wax last month. The more I debate this with people and ask them how exactly individuals will behave and talk in a society more honest about race, the harder it is for me to see how it can work, at least without deeper changes in our culture. That said, it’s fair to point out that I don’t necessarily have a great alternative, even though I can point to the French example to argue that different laws can at least make things somewhat better. People who want us to “talk about HBD” often imply you could do that and not change everything else about our society. I get Cofnas to acknowledge that it would require something of a cultural revolution for such ideas to be accepted. Maybe it’s worth it, but like all cultural revolutions this one is bound to have unforeseen consequences. I want a society that puts more value on truth, but would hesitate before demanding unfiltered truth in this one area of life without thinking more carefully about what we’re doing. Part of me feels that going straight to the science puts the cart in front of the horse. People are attracted to certain values, which lead them to accept particular social science theories, not the other way around. We also touch on Cofnas’ experience on college campuses, attempts to cancel him, and the differences between American and British academia. I express surprise that someone with a history of writing about biorealism could receive a prestigious fellowship, which I take as confirming what I’ve heard about there being more right-wing representation at elite British universities, particularly in areas like philosophy and classics. Subscribe to Nathan’s Substack or follow him on X. You can find his academic writing on his website.The video and transcript of our conversation are below. Note that the transcript is AI-generated and has not been checked for accuracy.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comThis week, I’m joined by Anatoly Karlin. He recently wrote a series of essays on how his political thinking has shifted over the last few years on issues like AI timelines, Russian nationalism, the problem with what he calls the “rightoid international,” and more. See his preface to the series, along with the three articles: “The Soypill Manifesto,” “The Z of History”, and “Why Jail is Programmed for All Rightoids.”Anatoly and I have undergone somewhat parallel journeys. We started out as more conventional right-wingers, before becoming disillusioned with our former political allies for many of the same reasons, namely anti-vaxx sentiment, opposition to biotechnology, the embrace of conspiracy theories, and the overall stupidity that leads to such positions. We get into our mutual “reverse red pilling,” both of us having come to realize that the Western establishment is right about things like the value of open institutions and the superiority of democracy. The conversation keeps returning to many of the arguments made in my article on the year of Fukuyama. We speculate on what motivates Putin and his media consumption diet. I bring up the point that Anatoly’s views on Russia and its leaders seem to have converged with those of writers like Masha Gessen and Julia Ioffe. Given his embrace of Russian nationalism as recently as early 2022, this is quite the shift in Anatoly’s worldview, but I think it reflects well on his honesty and character. We also cover the rise of China, and our perspectives on its development and potential to challenge the West. Anatoly tells me about his decision to identify as an it/it and his calls for Russia to embrace LGBT as a way to align with the West and signal its new path forward. I ask how much he is trolling here, and the answer appears to be not all that much.We also get into some of our disagreements. I’m not as sure of the AI singularity as Anatoly is, as I can’t get over the nagging feeling that this is all nonsense. Moreover, I think that covid reflected extremely poorly on the mainstream left, and that there are many redeeming features of American conservatism, probably due to the founding of the country being based on Enlightenment values. That being said, I’m getting there on public acceptance of homosexuality being a net positive, given how anti-LGBT sentiment is associated with so much of what I find detestable.I recommend that everyone subscribe to Anatoly’s Substack and follow him on X. I’ve for years found him one of the most provocative and interesting bloggers out there, and would like to see his work get as much reach as possible. The video and a transcript are below. Note that the transcript is AI-generated, and has not been checked for accuracy.

This conversation is too good to paywall, so I’m sharing it with the world. My last discussion with Amy Wax, which focused mostly on immigration, went viral (see podcast and video and transcript), and since she recently reviewed my book for The American Conservative we decided it was the perfect time to talk again.We of course begin by discussing the review, which focuses on the question of how honest we should be about the sources of racial differences in achievement. At the beginning it looks like we disagree, but I came to realize that we both in practice advocate what Amy calls “soft realism,” that is, the idea that we should denounce the theory that racism is the source of group disparities while stressing that government cannot change them.This leads to a discussion of birthrates more generally, and the problem of fewer people having babies, particularly the most accomplished among us. I bring up the issue of biotech, and it turns out that we think about these things in different ways. I don’t get the sense that Amy actually disagrees with me all that much on issues like surrogacy, but it seems that she’s much more forgiving of delusional egalitarian impulses coming from her own side, and finds reasons to give social conservatives the benefit of the doubt on assumptions that I’m pretty much willing to dismiss completely. I ask her about the possibility of getting around uncomfortable questions about group differences by putting our faith in things like genetic engineering and embryo selection, which would require supporting the left. We also discuss how the influence of Christianity on the right reinforces the left’s faith in blank slatism... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.richardhanania.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comThis week, I talk to Alec Mouhibian, also known as “The Filthy Armenian” (follow on X), a writer, podcaster, and film maker.We originally met when he interviewed me for his own podcast a few months ago. At the time, I enjoyed talking to Alec, as it was a different kind of interview from what I was used to, focusing more on my personal background than most shows I have done. In this conversation, he starts out by talking about how he grew up and his initial dream of becoming a political writer. This gets us to the history of how people have been able to make a living in that industry, and what it means to be a writer today compared to previous decades. We then shift to his current job as a film producer, and I ask some basic questions regarding how he learned to make movies. We discuss the concept of “Hananiacs”, which apparently refers to homosexuals who are the only ones with sophisticated enough tastes to appreciate my complete body of work. About a half hour in, we get to his 2021 documentary “I Am Not Alone,” about the 2018 political turbulence in Armenia.We touch on topics having to do with Armenian culture, the general trajectory of that nation, the recent war with Azerbaijan, and how the 1915-1923 genocide affects its collective memory. I ask whether it plays a constructive role in how Armenians see themselves, and whether it might not be better to simply forget and move on. We discuss how civilized the events of 2018 were relative to other political conflicts one might compare them to, which Alec attributes to Armenians having a strong sense of national identity.Alec will be hosting a party on January 6 in the Los Angeles area, which I plan to attend. Instructions for getting tickets are at the link. Look forward to seeing anyone who can make it. In addition to the audio of the podcast, you can watch the video below, if you’re reading on Substack, or by clicking through to the webpage if you’re reading this on your podcast app.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comInez joins me to talk about my recent article on surrogacy. She acts as sort of my explainer of social conservatives, whose beliefs I often find odd. Inez gives me a secular defense of the idea that we should be skeptical of reproductive technology. We go back and forth, and it ends up sounding to me that we at heart have differences that are more empirical in nature than reflective of differing values. For those interested in the basics of behavioral genetics, I highly recommend The Nurture Assumption by Judith Rich Harris. I ask Inez the question of whether she would rather be born with a 125 IQ and a broken family, or an 85 IQ and both parents, and I’m shocked by her answer. We then get into the future of humanity, how much we should fiddle with nature, and the extent to which biotechnology does so. I don’t disagree that two biological parents are probably ideal, I just think genes matter a lot more, and that there’s a lot of evidence to back up this idea. Inez says we shouldn’t necessarily trust biased researchers, but I note that one interesting thing about the behavioral genetics literature is that its results were the last thing that academia wanted to find. But the truth has kept revealing itself. We end with some discussion about what Republicans will do on the abortion issue. I’m of the opinion that there’s a good chance that Trump just goes completely pro-choice by the general election, which will be a hilariously ironic outcome to the last several years of our politics. Of course, he’ll probably appoint the same judges as any other Republican would, so the actual results with regards to abortion rights will be the same. That being said, if any single individual can shift Republican opinion on this issue, it is certainly Trump. For those who asked, we’re back to recording video this week. Part of my problem with doing it before was you had to create a new post, and I didn’t want to clutter the website. But now that Substack allows everything in the same post, that’s one less reason not to do it. I can’t promise video every week, but I’ll try to release it whenever I can going forward.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comLast night was the fourth Republican debate, and only the second I’ve watched in full. I’m glad I did, as it was pretty fun. The process has winnowed out the other candidates who weren’t going anywhere, and we’ve ended up with the alternative to Trump (DeSantis), the crazy outsider (Vivek), the establishment politician (Haley), and the establishment politician who hates Trump (Christie). Inez thinks that DeSantis won the debate. In my view he sort of blended into the background, but a post-debate poll shows that many Republican viewers agree with her.We talk about the “paranoid style” in conservative politics, and the pluses and minuses of personalizing what you are fighting against. Inez and I both agree that it becomes an issue when politicians begin to believe that individual actors in the system are the main problem. This leads to a discussion of how Trump is one of those politicians, and Inez puts forth some speculation regarding whether his thirst for personal vengeance might or might not facilitate achieving conservative political goals in a second administration. In the last ten minutes, we go into the recent testimony of elite college presidents in front of Congress. As I’ve pointed out, I have a deep aversion to this language of safety, bullying, harassment, etc. But Inez reminds me that it was the Critical Race Theory issue that led to the expansion of school choice programs across the country, and maybe we’ll see something similar with the universities. It would require a Republican president being able to wield power effectively though, and at best we’re going to get Trump next time, so I doubt this goes anywhere anytime soon. In the long run, however, the universities can’t survive as they are with one major political party considering them the enemy, and the influence of right-wing hatred of colleges, which Gallup shows has increased only very recently, should make itself felt on the scale of decades.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comAfter a two week break of talking about other things, we’re back to Israel-Palestine. I’ve been wondering why I, like so many others, care so much about this issue, given that there are fewer people in Israel and the Palestinian Territories than there are in Florida, and the conflict is not going to lead to nuclear war like say the dispute over Taiwan might. Clearly, the war symbolizes something very important. For many Americans, there is the religious significance of the region, while for more secular Westerners it reflects their own grievances at home: barbarism versus civilization on the right, and oppressor versus oppressed on the left. My view is that there’s no way that this conflict will ever not be significant to Americans, and given that it’s going to always be intertwined with our domestic politics we are going to need to talk about it.Philippe has a new piece out on the Zionist dilemma, which can be read as in part a response to my own article on how Israel should crush Palestinian hopes. He argues that Zionism came too late, and that Israel cannot solve the conflict by force alone, which Inez and I disagree with. My view is that the status of the Palestinians is an extremely unnatural situation, rooted in unique pathologies of Arab culture combined with a misplaced sense of charity on the part of the international community. We also talk about broader questions of morals and practicality. One of my critiques of Philippe’s piece is that its main argument is to a large extent circular: Israel can’t do with it takes to defeat the Palestinians, and it can’t because it and the rest of the world feel like it shouldn’t. We go into different kinds of scenarios and what are actually plausible ways to solve the conflict, debating whose plan is more unlikely. I like that Philippe is honest and admits that what he wants Israel to do may not work. There are also deeper moral assumptions here, which we don’t get into, but have always been lurking in the background of these conversations when not at the forefront. See the previous discussions between me, Philippe, and Inez here and here.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comDue to Thanksgiving, Inez is taking the week off. Instead of our normal programming, I decided to do something different, and interview one of the most interesting and provocative voices I know from X. I am usually not a big fan of anonymous accounts. Friends often recommend them to me, and I find that what impresses them is people who think exactly like they do but feel free to express themselves in cruder forms. RFH, a self-described “radical feminist” (don’t ask what the H stands for!), is something completely different, and because of that I invited her on to have a conversation. As right-wingers with a deep revulsion towards online “trads,” we bonded over our dislike of the same people, and discuss the ways in which they are similar to the woke left. We also talk about her background, which includes growing up with a hot mom, starting out as a libertarian, supporting Trump in 2016, and having a child.RFH tells me about her fear of male sexuality growing up, and how that drove her to first become a trad, and later to her current idiosyncratic politics. We discuss whether men or women have more power in modern society, and whether that is even the right way to frame the issue. I think that any reasonable understanding of the state of the relations between the sexes has to acknowledge the male fear of rejection alongside the female fear of being raped, assaulted, or manipulated into sex and then cast aside. These two are not equivalent though; female problems are much more serious and outside of an individual’s control. By acknowledging this, I am also a radical feminist in my own way. RFH says men should maybe take some shrooms to see the perspective of women, while I argue that the reasonable things feminists talk about are discredited by blank slatism, socialism, and things like the trans issue. The answer to modern feminism isn’t some kind of “men’s rights” movement that switches the identities of the oppressors and oppressed, but a real understanding and appreciation for sex differences and how in many ways women do actually have it harder. I ask RFH what books I should read to continue my journey of becoming an understander of women, and she recommends works by bell hooks and Andrea Dworkin. RFH’s enthusiastic endorsement of the latter’s Right-Wing Women, which apparently captured her own experiences, made me want to check it out. Perhaps at some point I’ll have her back on to discuss. LinksRFH on Xbell hooks, The Will to ChangeAndrea Dworkin, Right-Wing WomenMe, Why Women Rebel against Pro-LifeLouis CK on dating as a woman

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comWe’ve done shows on Gaza in each of the last several weeks, so despite recent developments in that conflict we’ve decided to give everyone a break today and focus on domestic topics. Also, I’ve heard your complaints, so I tried a new microphone this week. People can let me know how it sounds. We start by talking about Republicans having another bad election night last week. Inez and I discuss how much it’s about abortion and how much it is Republican voters at this point just being the kinds of people who don’t show up for midterm and off-year elections. We then go into recent developments in the presidential campaign, particularly the rise of Nikki Haley, who is now in a comfortable third place and right behind DeSantis. I love her pro-Israel views, but the way that she seems to prioritize the issue of anti-Semitism above all else makes even me uncomfortable. Inez sort of feels the same way. I predict she’ll continue to rise or at least maintain her place in the race because she’s a good politician. Inez thinks that this is unlikely because her positions are not what Republican voters are looking for. That of course assumes that they care about the positions of candidates in the first place, so we’ll see who is right!We close by reflecting on how San Francisco was able to clean up its streets in order to welcome Xi Jinping. While we were talking, I looked up this article on how they did it from the San Francisco Standard. This leads to some Gavin Newsom talk, and we both agree that he’s a quite remarkable and talented politician. As a heterosexual man with big greasy hair who likes women, there’s a kind of nostalgic appeal that he brings to the table. Definitely someone to watch in future election cycles.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comMy friend Jeremy Carl (follow on X, see here for articles) of the Claremont Institute joins me to discuss the book Romney: A Reckoning, which I recently reviewed. He is also a former Trump official, which means he has experience in the practice of governing. Jeremy takes a view of Romney that is more representative than mine of where the conservative mo…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comInez and Philippe are back to talk about the conflict in Gaza (see also last week). This time, rather than focus on the practicalities of what Israel is trying to accomplish, we dig into the morality of the war.Topics include international law, the principle of proportionality, what stake the rest of humanity does or doesn’t have in this conflict, and t…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comFor the first time, we had a guest on this week. Inez and I pretty much agree on the Gaza conflict, so we brought on Philippe Lemoine to talk about his own position, which he has written about at his Substack. He believes in a more restrained Israeli approach, hopefully at some point leading to a two-state solution.I think we all agree that there are only a series of bad options going forward. Philippe’s moral commitments and estimation of the likelihood of success of various paths make him want Israel to try the dovish approach. We discuss questions like whether the current status quo is manageable, whether Hamas poses an “existential” threat to Israel, and whether it can moderate over time. The conversation also focuses on how much the history of the conflict matters. Philippe and Inez go back and forth on what previous events and rounds of negotiations can tell us about the prospects for peace today. At some point I ask Philippe whether the US would be in some way morally obligated to give land back to the Native Americans if their culture had not been destroyed and they still lived in the country in more substantial numbers, and he surprised me by saying yes! He’s quite the decolonizer. This shows that there are deep moral disagreements here that we only began to scratch the surface of, but maybe we’ll get to another time. As we realize at the end, it’s very easy to find reasons to be pessimistic with regards to any proposal going forward, and that includes Philippe’s. As we focused on his suggestions today, we’ll probably take the opportunity next week for me and Inez to discuss our own preferred approaches. If you haven’t read my two pieces on the conflict yet, they explain how I’m thinking about the issues involved.As soon as this conversation was over, I was struck by something odd. We sit there and say Israel should do X or do Y, like we’re their football coach or something, while we never say what the Palestinians should do, but rather discuss what we hope they might be incentivized to do. It would make sense if as Americans (or Frenchmen) we talked only about how we could influence our own governments. But we generally act as if Israel might potentially listen to people like us, or at least listen to the people who might listen to people like us, while the Palestinians are treated as an alien species that we can only understand at a distance rather than hope to influence by convincing them through logical arguments. I had already been thinking along these lines after reading Yglesias’ piece today on what it actually means to even have a “position” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I think the problem with thinking like this is that while Israel is culturally closer to us than the Palestinians are, it’s still quite distant, and we act as if that is not actually the case. So if Americans were talking about a conflict that the UK was involved in with an Arab state, it would make sense to assume that we have influence primarily over the British position, as us Anglos are all part of the same culture. But when you think about the religious and nationalist concerns that motivate different factions in Israel, it makes me suspect we’re making a mistake by assuming that people like me, Philippe, and Inez have much influence at all. In other words, maybe instead of writing about what Israel should do, I should write about what the Biden administration should do? Or better yet, maybe about what the Republican position should be, since that’s where I, and Inez of course, could potentially exert the most influence? It’s useful to once in a while take a step back and think about what we’re actually doing here.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comI’m taking a bit of a break off Twitter. A “break” for me means still tweeting maybe 10x a day, but also not scrolling during work hours, being only briefly on the site at night, and never checking the replies or mentions. This has reduced my time on the website by at least 90%, which has made me more productive. Inez and I talk again about our respective relationships with the site. Hers seems much more normal. Maybe Inez just does everything more normal than I do. Israel-Gaza is still in the news. We discuss Nikki Haley’s plan to clamp down on universities that “deny Israel’s right to exist.” I find odd the way that her branch of the Republican Party prioritizes the interests of a foreign country above all else, but nonetheless think it has some upsides. Haley has recently surpassed Vivek to be in third place, and we discuss the reasons why, including his recent contentious interview with Hannity. A good part of the second half of our discussion is on the new emerging conservative foreign policy consensus, based on what appears to be growing nostalgia for Trump. I argue that we’re seeing a kind of Trump-Bush synthesis (Tushism? Brumpsim?) regarding US foreign policy. There’s still a division between the civilized and noncivilized worlds, but unlike what the neocons advocated for, there is no desire to use force or longterm occupation to bring the noncivilized world along. Hence, we get policies like killing Soleimani, but not the occupation of Iraq. I think this is a defensible foreign policy on substantive grounds and close to what we’re likely to see the next time a Republican is in office. Inez, who was never a noninterventionist, agrees with this take. I had been something of a complete restrainer on foreign policy a few years ago, but this changed as I saw how irrationally much of the rest of the world behaves. There’s a parallel here to economics, where you would think third world countries would have figured out by now that neoliberalism is the path to growth, but they are too dysfunctional to remove subsidies and free their labor markets, whether due to stupidity, corruption, or responding to public opinion. Likewise, war is really dumb, but it’s become much more difficult to believe that we can simply count on it to go away on its own. Hence the need for a continuing US role in the world.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comInez and I start off by discussing the latest in the Israel conflict, covering topics from my two recent essays on the war, a Washington Post article showing the damage that the bombing campaign has inflicted so far, and Edward Luttwak’s recent piece on what a ground invasion would look like. We then go on to talk about the domestic political impact of what is happening in the Middle East. We have a debate on whether wokeness will eventually make the Democratic Party left wing on foreign policy. Inez takes the affirmative on this, while I argue the opposite position. See my recent thoughts touching on how the Democrats have been able to silo foreign policy and avoid it being swallowed by the Great Awokening. The campuses have always been anti-interventionist, while we’ve had half a century now of the liberal establishment keeping such views at a distance and not allowing people who hold them to obtain too much power. We also talk about the unrequited love that Evangelical Christians have for American Jews. Inez says that Jews have been bad friends and argues that they are irrationally transferring historical trauma from Europe to the American context. We close with some swing state polls showing that Trump has a very good chance of being president again, and the possible logistics of him being sentenced and then working in the White House. As a general matter, foreign policy chaos tends to help Republicans, and this will especially be true when the public will have reasons to contrast the relative peace of the Trump presidency with what is now happening in the world. Finally, good news on the transcripts. It now has the option of allowing us to label the speakers, so starting this week they’re a lot more useful. It unfortunately still gets our voices confused in at least one case I saw, but I trust the Substack team is going to continue improving this product.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comOne day later than usual, Inez joins me to talk about the war in Israel and its political fallout so far. We are mostly in agreement on Israel being in the right in how it is defending itself, as it looks like they are undertaking a plan of action consistent with what I recommended the other day. Closer to home, it appears that cancel culture is coming for the left, as individuals lose their jobs for being too pro-Hamas or anti-Israel. Inez stresses that she doesn’t oppose there being consequences for speech, and I basically agree, reiterating some points I made a few years ago while writing about the attempted cancellation of Steven Pinker. Those leftists who said “freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences” were right after all!The problem with the left isn’t mainly that they cancel people; it’s that they want negative consequences for speech that is true and important for the world to hear. Cancelling people for being “anti-colonial” or pro-BLM is fine, as this is all part of freedom of association. The line of course should be government policy, where we should aim for neutrality to the greatest extent possible. To be fair, the pro-Israel stance on the right can be very over the top, but I can live with it as something deeply embedded in our civil culture. We also discuss my trolling of white nationalists, and recent anger among some conservatives that it took an attack on a foreign country to get our establishment to take a stand against the kind of pernicious nonsense that is being preached on university campuses. This leads to a debate on the extent to which Western society benefits from people who dissent from our dominant narratives. There’s so much more than could be said about these topics. It truly feels like we’re going back to the mid-2000s, when conservatives leveraged their rhetorical advantage on foreign policy to push back against leftists on a wide variety of fronts. Having its roots in the alt right, MAGA at one point seemed like it might challenge the militant pro-Israel posture dominant among conservatives, but it’s only managed to reinforce it. The causes behind our current moment are the same as those of the previous one. Many elites are anti-white, and it’s easier to criticize them for being anti-Semitic. At the same time, conservatives now don’t shy away from calling out anti-white hatred, so maybe the pushback will be more explicit and useful this time. Note: Some of you have previously asked for me to use the option to create an automated transcript. The main problem seems to be that it doesn’t differentiate the speakers, so you don’t know who is saying what. At the same time, if you’re confused you can just click on the part of the discussion you’re interested in and hear the recording. I hope they fix this.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comWe begin by talking about the removal of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. Inez says she doesn’t think it matters and explains why. We get into the question of what Republican priorities should be, and what’s realistic to accomplish with a slim majority in one house of Congress.Also this week, not one, but two left-wing activists were murdered in major American cities. Ryan Carson was stabbed in NYC by a psycho with a knife, in what is a sad and all too typical occurrence. Josh Kruger was shot seven times in his Philadelphia home, so there’s a chance that this one was a personal dispute. Regardless, all of this has set off a large debate on Twitter, with conservatives going “ha ha, you’re dead now” and liberals going “you ghouls, how dare you.”I don’t think the gloating is helpful, but I tried to explain the online conservative position on X, and here’s Inez’s response. One of my reply guys asked if I felt the same way about conservatives who take positions that get people killed and end up dying in ironic ways, and I said that there’s something different about the ACAB crowd. People can have mistaken policy beliefs, but it’s another issue when they appear to be rooting for the criminals. Moreover, norms require a degree of reciprocity. In the case of Carson, his friends themselves are trying to politicize his death, which makes it hard for them to ask others not to. Moreover, the entire theory behind antifa is that violence is justified against people you disagree with, which means they can’t claim the high ground here. In the end, though, we are both anti-gloating but in favor of learning lessons from events when we can. Finally, Inez and I circle back to what is happening in Congress, and talk about why the right has a particular loathing for Ukraine, given what a small part of the budget support for that country is. Inez argues that the divide between the parties on this comes down to trust in institutions, and I bring up the “own the libs” factor, which is always the most likely explanation when conservatives are acting weird.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comThings start out peaceful enough, as I tell Inez about my appearance the other day on the Dennis Prager Show (go to September 27, 1 hour and 10 minutes in here to watch). We got along very well. I reflect on some amazing clips I just saw of Prager, a few hours after we spoke, explaining to young people at ASU that masturbation is not evil, which of all the weird religious views out there is one of those I find most puzzling. I particularly love when he told them that if you believe masturbation is evil, you alienate people from God, and you have a different God than he does. I originally saw that clip on Twitter, but the account that posted it got suspended. I then found it on YouTube, starting at 1 hour and 20 minutes here. See here and here for shortened clips from Twitter, but the entire 12 minutes or so in the original video are glorious, and I love that it’s been driving some of the biggest trad weirdos crazy. We then consider my idea of the pagan nature of Christian support for Trump. But the main event of this conversation is our chance to finally discuss the famous 2021 Time article, which is a starting point for getting to the heart of what we really disagree about, which is Trump’s actions between the 2020 election and January 6, and how bad they were. Previously, I had a well-known conservative friend bring the Time article to my attention. Then Inez talked about it. And just recently, I was reading a random profile of JD Vance, and it just appears in the context of a discussion about election fraud. So conservatives apparently think about this piece a lot. From my perspective, Inez acknowledges a lot of facts about what happened but has to engage in some serious mental gymnastics to deny that Trump tried to change the results of the election and this is really a big deal, and liberals are completely correct in freaking out about it. She wants to create an equivalency between that and how Hillary Clinton behaved in 2016, Russiagate, and other things, and I think this is conflating topics that have nothing to do with one another. Her view is that this gets down to “trust in institutions,” while I think that’s way too broad of a perspective to say much of anything when you’re jumping around from what Mark Zuckerberg is doing, to the Democratic Party, to the FBI, to the media, and whoever else. All this strikes me as a kind of moral “get out of jail free” card, the kind played by race hustler types when trying to argue for systemic racism. I have to reference once again my piece on conservatism as an oppositional culture. This probably got more heated than any other podcast, which is good, as you want to get to the root of serious differences. Many of you will agree with Inez, and she is a good debater, so let us know what you think.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comI begin this week by bellyaching to Inez about all the other shows I’ve been doing. It’s a good problem to have, as it means there’s interest in my book. That being said, I’ve done 8 in the last 5 days on the same topic, in addition to others last week, and more to come next week. I hope to do many more! But for now I’m glad to be able to talk about something else, and therefore was really looking forward to this conversation. We talk about Ibram Kendi’s anti-racism grift blowing up, and how funny that is. This involves an important debate on Kendi’s IQ, and whether liberal white women are attracted to him (my theory) or feel sorry for him (Inez’s). We close on the rape and sexual assault allegations against Russell Brand. Can we separate the different parts of the story from one another? How about the motivations behind the allegations and their substance? I think there are very important philosophical differences between us on questions like this, and we hope to get to them over the next few weeks. On a different note, starting tomorrow I’ll be at the Manifest 2023 conference in Berkeley as a guest of honor. A lot of interesting people are also attending, including Nate Silver, Scott Alexander, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Aella, Robin Hanson, and former CSPI podcast guest Jonathan Anomaly. Now that’s a party! So make sure to come say hello if you’re also there.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comThis week, Inez and I talk about my impression of the FIRE/Free Press debate I attended last night on whether the sexual revolution has failed. I don’t know how much we disagree. We both believe that telling women to live like they’re characters in Sex and the City has been a mistake. I’m just an extreme skeptic with regards to questioning people’s choices, at least in their personal lives. Inez asks whether there’s a contradiction here between trusting the masses to make personal decisions and distrusting them on politics, and I refer to my recent piece on this. I was recognized by many people at the debate, and this stirred a discussion on how we each feel about being public figures. Inez hates fame, while I enjoy it, and she prefers influence. I think it certainly sounds better to want to change the world, but I can’t help it. I just love attention, and will indulge in it as long as I can get it on my own terms. This made me think about how many writers and public intellectuals clearly want fame based on how they behave, but you rarely hear any of them admitting it. It seems to be a kind of taboo. This is certainly a bad trait if it comes at the expense of telling the truth. Still, I feel like fame is so clearly a motivator in the world of ideas that it’s probably not good to leave the impulse unexamined.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comInez and I begin with the question that is on everyone’s mind this week: Is Obama gay? When he said that he made love with men in his mind, was he speaking metaphorically or literally, or at least “literally” in the sense that gay things were literally happening in his imagination, if not real life? This topic is in the news because of Tucker’s interview

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comInez joins me this week to talk about Mitch McConnell freezing up again, and what it says about old people dominating society more generally. This leads to a discussion on whether we rely too much on medical technology and the extent to which we should accept limits on human nature. We both agree gerontocracy is a problem, but while Inez thinks that the…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.comInez and I talk about the debate last night. I present my theory of what DeSantis is doing, and why I think he’s just trying to be the guy standing there at the end, hoping that Trump collapses. Which is unlikely, but what else is he going to do? We talk about the idea that Vivek is too polished, Inez’s hatred of Nikki Haley and why she bothers me less,…

This week, Inez and I talk about the song taking the world by storm, Rich Men North of Richmond. This sparks a discussion about how much we should be listening to the cries of the masses and seeing them as reflecting upon the elites. Inez wrote a piece on the California Republican Party and how they’ve been “cucking,” as the kids say, and I wonder whether it makes sense for them to do so. We close by debating the value of moving to the center more generally, and in particular the political impacts of abortion. Forewarning: we’ll be paywalling these conversations starting next week, so please consider becoming a paid subscriber in order to keep getting them.Listen here or watch on YouTube.Links* Rich Men North of Richmond* Inez on the California Republican Party* Me on abortion as a political issue, here and here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.richardhanania.com/subscribe

After a two-week hiatus, Inez and I are back to discuss recent events. My critique of my old views and internet persona have led some to ask about my old research on why public figures shouldn’t apologize. Of course, my view is that if you did something wrong, you should admit it. Even if it was the case that it would have been better for me to reply with defiance, and it most certainly wasn’t, I don’t think I could’ve done so and remained honest with my audience.I talk about the strangeness of Matt Yglesias getting denounced by his followers for having interacted with me on Twitter. The discourse is in a sad state when we can’t have any kind of contact with people we disagree with. I tell Inez that I think that part of the issue is liberals having long existed in a bubble of privilege, where they don’t have to engage with any ideas, or even people, that make them uncomfortable. With Twitter and Substack now supporting free speech, and the declining power of cancellation journalism, power appears to be shifting and the left may find itself forced to become more tolerant by necessity.In this context, we discuss whether we are actually over the worst of cancel culture. I think that we are. Particularly when it comes to influencing the right, left-wing unpersoning campaigns are becoming less effective.At about the 45 minute mark we talk about a recent Tablet piece on Obama. I only read the part about him fantasizing about gay sex, whatever that says about my mental state. But Inez says there’s more in there suggesting that perhaps the former president is having an outsized and inappropriate role in running the country today, which I’m quite skeptical of. But again, she read the piece and I didn’t, so decide for yourself. Finally, we close by talking about the supposedly new track that DeSantis has taken on the question of whether Trump won the 2020 election.Listen here or watch on YouTube: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.richardhanania.com/subscribe

Inez begins by telling me about her recent move within NYC. This leads to a discussion about housing prices and the American dream, which finally transitions to a debate over immigration, nationalism, and social cohesion. We had planned on discussing Trump’s coming indictment for his activities surrounding the 2020 election, but didn’t have time for it. We’ll get to it next week, by which time the indictment is almost sure to have been handed down.The conversation closes with a discussion about Taylor Lorenz, and whether I was correct to praise her bravery on Twitter.Listen here or watch on YouTube.Links:* Me on Substack Reads, Taylor Lorenz a few weeks later* Me praising Taylor Lorenz* Amy Wax and Jason Richwine arguing for immigration restriction This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.richardhanania.com/subscribe

This week, we begin by talking about Twitter having just given me $1,700 for being such a successful influencer. Getting free money from a corporation isn’t something that happens every day, so it was a very pleasant surprise. This leads to a discussion about how each of us uses the platform and what the incentives of this profit-sharing model will mean for how Twitter functions in the future.From there, we talk about Inez’s forthcoming report on what she thinks should be done about student loans. The approach preferred by the left has the problem of letting universities off the hook. Inez thinks it would be good policy and good politics for the right to tie forgiveness to the taxation of university endowments. This strikes me as being at the very least superior to what the Biden administration has been trying to do, and I could find myself supporting it based on the details.Throughout the process, we talk about just how horrible the expansion of higher education has been for society, whether one is thinking about the economy, the labor market, family formation, or the culture more generally. The idea that college is simply bad has become a pretty standard belief among conservatives, and that’s something I’m glad to see. We’ll find if Inez’s proposal goes anywhere and potentially helps us do something about it.Listen here or watch on YouTube:Links* The message you get when Twitter decides to share ad revenue * My Tweet on NYT on student debt* Reuters on Biden’s new plan for student loan forgiveness This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.richardhanania.com/subscribe

Inez and I begin by discussing two major Supreme Court cases from last week, SFFA v. Harvard, on affirmative action, and 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, on whether a private business can be forced to create a website for a gay wedding. We talk about how the affirmative action decision impacts the incentives of universities, and how its holdings might find their way into other areas of law.This leads to a broader discussion about free speech and when it’s justified for government to tell social media companies they can’t censor users. I take the problem of false information and bad actors much more seriously than Inez does, although I definitely understand her point and feel conflicted on this issue. I just really hate government interference in the market! By all means, crush CRT, LGBT, and everything else in public schools and cut off their funding, but I find it very hard to get myself to support the state telling private actors what to do under almost any circumstances. I just love liberty and freedom too much. As we find out, I’m much more inclined than Inez is to agree with the Goldwater position on the Civil Rights Act. It seems to me that her worry about modern discrimination against conservatives has led her to take a more left wing position on whether the federal government should have told private actors in the South who they could associate with in the 1960s. This just confirms my fear that as soon as you start to accept any arguments for government intervention, it’s the first step towards communism/civil rights, or god forbid, industrial policy. If we could silo the censorship issue and simply work on that I would be reassured, but I worry about general anti-market trends on the right.We close by talking a bit about Vivekmania, which is taking the Republican primary by storm. This conversation touches a bit on generational differences and aesthetics, and his strengths and weaknesses as a candidate. Listen here or watch us on YouTube.Links:* My immediate reaction to SFFA v Harvard* My thread on how markets are the cure to discrimination* Goldwater speech on the Civil Rights Act* My appearance on Vivek’s podcast* My take on Vivek right before he jumped in the race* Vox on Vivek (and me)* Vivek video at Moms for Liberty This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.richardhanania.com/subscribe

Inez joins me one day early this week, as she’s traveling on Thursday.We talk about the coming decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, wondering what the more moderate decisions of the Court over this term imply for what it will do about affirmative action. The way I see it, the previous cases indicate that either the justices have been chastened by Dobbs or that they’re building good will to finally strike down affirmative action. The second half of the podcast revolves around unlovable men, and how hard life is for them. Inez and I seem to agree a good bit on sex roles, male/female differences, and where society has gone wrong. I talk about the shift from PUA to incels in our culture, and how that reflects a more general increase in mental illness over the last decade and a half. I also express my discomfort with the idea of turning low status men into a new identity group that we need to have compassion towards. Conservatives usually understand how self-defeating and limiting such an approach can be in other contexts. We get into the pluses and minuses of putting the focus on individuals changing their behavior versus more systematic efforts. I recommend people here read my article How I Overcame Anxiety if you haven’t already.Listen here or watch on YouTube.Links:* Me, “SCOTUS Must Go for the Heart of the Race State”* Me, thread on the impacts of getting rid of affirmative action in California and Michigan* SCOTUS getting its liberal rulings out of the way?* William Deresiewicz, “Unfuckable Hate Nerds” (Tablet)* Inez, “Gender Crisis is Really a Marriage Crisis” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.richardhanania.com/subscribe

This week, Inez and I begin on the OceanGate tragedy, and the reaction to it. We have similar intuitions about the story, which is that society progresses through risk taking and pushing the frontiers of science and technology, and that often involves doing things that are risky and dangerous. One can’t both want a more dynamic civilization and then demand government regulation every time something goes wrong. Ezra Klein wrote a recent op-ed on DeSantis’ latest book, and also had a podcast discussion about it with Carlos Lozada. Inez talks about her experience with the Tea Party, and I present my own, more jaundiced perspective of the movement and its motivations. We discuss the implications and meanings of Birtherism with the advantage of a decade of hindsight.I ask whether Klein has a point about the lack of positive vision in the DeSantis campaign. Inez questions whether this is something you need to win, and I think the idea that you do has deep roots in American history. I argue that she may be more negative about American society than most other people are, but we come to an agreement that if DeSantis did actually come to power, there would be costs to trying to undertake radical change.Listen here or watch on YouTube.Links:* CBS report making the trip to the Titanic six months ago* Me on the relationship between commercial travel and scientific progress* Klein op-ed on reading DeSantis’ book, podcast on the topic* HW Brands, Heirs to the Founders This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.richardhanania.com/subscribe

This was a great conversation with Inez, as it got into some deep differences regarding how we see politics. We start by discussing the Trump indictment, and how bad the charges against him are. From Inez’s perspective, this is just the latest part of the story of a permanent bureaucracy going after its political opponents. My argument is that, while sometimes conservatives can make a reasonable case that they’re being treated unfairly, this is not the best way to understand the Trump indictment. She thinks that the DOJ has violated a norm of not indicting a former president, while I believe that it would be strange to let conduct this flagrant go unpunished. I think Inez better represents where conservatives are than I do. There’s sort of two axes, one on policy, where you can be right or left, and another where one can be temperamentally extreme or moderate. I think we’re mostly aligned on policy, and I may be more right wing than she is on a lot of things. But I’m much more resistant to talking about a deep state or a government bureaucracy that is out there oppressing anyone who is right wing or disagrees with them politically. I think conservatives can win, that they do so all the time, in fact, and their main problems are rooted in their own incompetence and stupidity. But Inez gives another perspective, so listen to understand where we differ on these things. I cite a recent Yglesias piece on Trump, which I think hits the nail on the head.His con is not that he’s convinced conservatives that he’s honest. It’s that he’s convinced conservatives that his lying and shamelessness is a superpower that he deploys on behalf of their issues and causes. And it is true that he has at times deployed dishonesty and shamelessness to advance conservative causes. But much more frequently, he deploys dishonesty and shamelessness to advance himself, often at the expense of conservative causes.Interestingly, Inez doesn’t disagree, but still ends up coming to a different place on the Trump indictment and whether he’s worth defending.As part of the discussion, we debate whether the federal government does actually target conservatives. I say it doesn’t, or the degree to which it does is so negligible it’s not worth worrying about. Trump, I think, has done an excellent job of convincing conservatives otherwise. We close with some discussion of Chris Christie (clearly one of my favorite topics), and whether we’re moving towards an emerging consensus that says candidates are going to have to more directly go after Trump.Listen here or watch on YouTube.LinksMatt Yglesias, The Orange Man is BadJosh Barro, It’s Time for GOP Candidates to Pile on TrumpChuck Grassley accusations against BidenVideo of Chris Christie challenging Republicans to go after Trump. Also, his answer on abortion Poll showing Christie only 5 points behind DeSantis in New HampshireHanania, The Biomechanics of TrumpismHanania, DeSantis Should Challenge Trump to a Fight This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.richardhanania.com/subscribe

This week, Inez and I start by talking about Chris Christie and Mike Pence entering the 2024 race. We talked about the potential impact of a Trump federal indictment, which we found out was happening less than two hours after our recording. That led to a discussion of the slippery concept of norms, why they’re necessary, and how they’re broken. I bring up my theory that Bob Dole hawking Viagra breached some kind of threshold and changed our politics. We also talk about the role of the Clinton impeachment. We close by talking about Pride Month, and the backlash to it. People appear to have had enough, with recent successful boycotts against Target and Bud Light, and the resistance to what is happening in schools. Inez has some opinions on where LGBT craziness came from. She thinks it has something to do with a misplaced maternal instinct. I think that’s part of it, but am still not completely sure why trans in particular has become such an important issue to educated white women. I have my own theories, which I don’t get to here. I enjoyed Inez’s critique of TERFs from the right.I realized during this conversation that we’ve probably been limiting ourselves by talking too much about the horserace, and we have many more interesting things we could be discussing. So while we’re still going to focus on 2024, expect broader conversations like this one in the future. Listen here or watch on YouTube.Links: * Bob Dole 1998 Viagra commercial* On George W. Bush speaking at a marketing company* Members of Congress beating the stock market* Mike Pence on a potential Trump indictment* California office of the governor bullying localities and Armenians* Machaela Cavanaugh screaming about trans kids in the Nebraska legislature. Her profile in New York (Apple News link).* Backlashes to Pride month: Muslims in Montgomery County, MD, and Armenians in Glendale, CA* Me on the LGBT dialectic * Semafor on the backlash to Pride Month This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.richardhanania.com/subscribe

This week, Inez and I start by talking about a recent article arguing that the definition of “conservatism” has come to mean loyalty to Trump. We then go on to discuss the entrances of Mike Pence and Chris Christie into the race, and what their roles in the primary might be.Inez hopes that Trump participates in the debates and thinks that him doing so would be good for democracy. This leads me to ask her what she thinks about the DeSantis strategy of freezing out the press.Josh Hawley recently wrote a book on masculinity. His effort was critiqued by David French, and this triggered Inez, so we talk about it. I think she has French Derangement Syndrome, and one can have a more sympathetic reading of the sentence that bothers her so much. During the conversation, I mentioned that there was an Elon Musk tweet where he wrote “Being fixed,” presumably in response to complaints that Twitter was suppressing Matt Walsh’s trans skeptical movie. As it turns out, he was responding to Inez herself. The woman gets results.Listen in podcast form or watch on YouTube.Links:* My tweet on the FiveThirtyEight article on conservatives and Trump* The DeSantis name controversy, Trump’s response* Me on the first post-DeSantis announcement poll* Steve Kornacki on Christie’s entrance into the race* David French on Josh Hawley’s masculinity, Inez’s response This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.richardhanania.com/subscribe

Hi everyone, with Ron DeSantis’ announcement yesterday, it feels like the 2024 election is officially underway. A lot of smart people I talk to hate the superficial aspects of politics, as I learned when interviewing Bryan Caplan recently, but I can’t help myself. To me, it’s the best show on earth. I like to think my social and political views are sophisticated and nuanced, but I find the sillier aspects of our democracy as enjoyable as boomers who spend their evenings glued to cable news. Yes, I want reasonable legislative and regulatory changes that improve the world, but I also want to be entertained, and there’s nothing like the arena where policy and showmanship interact, especially during election season. I’m going to be having a lot of thoughts on the 2024 cycle, so I decided to start a podcast to get it all out of my system. It’s called Clown Car, and it’s going to focus on the election, along with other topics in American politics. My co-host is Inez Stepman, who is a policy analyst for the Independent Women’s Voice and whose work appears across a wide swath of conservative media. We’re aiming to release a new episode every Thursday evening, after being recorded on the same day. She’s right-wing and smart, so I enjoy talking to her, and I look forward to many more conversations. This week, the topics covered are:* The glitchy DeSantis rollout* The state of the 2024 race* What DeSantis’ strategy should be* Whether focusing too much on wokeness issues is a mistake* If optimism or pessimism sells in politics* Tim Scott’s campaign announcement as a kind of throwbackIf you are getting this, it’s because you’re subscribed to the Richard Hanania newsletter. If you just want the articles but don’t want the podcast, you can go to your settings, find this newsletter, and uncheck the box for Clown Car.Listen to the show here, or watch on YouTube, where you can also sign up to get all future episodes. Links:Kornacki on the Obama/Hillary raceTrump’s hilarious response to the DeSantis launch Trump talking about his “button”, and Kim Jung Un being able to compare it with that of DeSantis Blacks for Trump DeSantis answer on the Ukraine WarHow Trump once handled his own glitchPoll showing Americans believe the country is on the wrong trackMost and least popular public figuresRankings of governors, senators This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.richardhanania.com/subscribe