The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg

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

Show Notes:

—The Argument

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

—Demsas: “Does the oligarchy exist?”

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

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

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

Show Notes:

—Hasan Piker collar video

—Last week’s Ruminant

—Friday’s DisPod

—Rebecca Heinrichs Remnant

—Aaron MacLean Remnant

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

—Matt Ridley Remnant

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

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

—Jonah’s book Liberal Fascism

—The Argument

—NYT Heritage Foundation piece

—JD Vance’s book

—Justice Scalia’s Congressional testimony

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

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

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

Show Notes:

—Pollack’s forthcoming book: The Iraq Wars

—Last Ken Pollack Remnant

—Aaron MacLean Remnant

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

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

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



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

Show Notes:

—Subversion and Seduction: China's Economic Statecraft

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

—Jonah’s last book

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

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

First mate Steve Hayes strides across the deck, grinning maniacally at the cowering crew. “Mine” he crows to himself. “Mine! The HMS Remnant is finally mine! Muahahaha!” The crew, downcast, is near despair. Then suddenly, all eyes turn to the gangplank. Haggard, sunburned, stricken, and emaciated, Jonah Goldberg stumbles onto the deck, takes Hayes by the collar, and gasps, “Sand. Nothing but sand.”

After recovering down below, Captain Goldberg is back at the helm and ready to dive into the Grand Canyon, advertising, Vegas, Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey, the Christianization thesis, black Helen, DSA, voter turnout, the stupidity of abolishing the Senate, “unfettered capitalism,” Hayek v. Friedman, conservative liberal or liberal conservative, Teddy Roosevelt, and postliberal collapse.

Show Notes:

—John Podhoretz on The Odessey

—Tom Holland on The Odyssey

—Matt Walsh tweet about The Odessey

—Charlie Cooke on abolishing the Senate

—Jonah in Commentary: “Socialism is so Hot Right Now”

—Newsweek: “We Are All Socialist Now”

—Escalon Insights poll on medicare for all

—Live Sarah Isgur Remnant

—Ron Bailey Remnant

—Ask Me Anything Remnant

—Jonah’s book Liberal Fascism

—Live Yuval Levin Remnant

—Irving Kristol: “The American Revolution as a Successful Revolution”

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

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