Latest / Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger / Political Worlds, Old and New

Transcript

Political Worlds, Old and New · Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Q&A.
0:03
I'm Jay Nordlinger,
0:04
and our guest today is Charlie Sykes,
0:07
the writer and broadcaster.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: Find him on Substack at To the Contrary.
0:13
He's been a presence in our lives,
0:15
particularly on the conservative side,
0:17
for many years.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: I tune into him, so to speak, every day, pretty much.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: He is a good habit.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: You are a good habit, Charlie Sykes.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: Nice to see you.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: A good to be with you.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: It's long overdue.
0:31
SPEAKER_01: We've had this chat.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: I think so, too.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: Are you in Wisconsin today?
0:36
SPEAKER_01: I am.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: I am in Mequon, Wisconsin.
0:39
And I know you've lived in various places,
0:41
but Wisconsin is your home state.
0:45
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: I've been here since 1963.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: I was born in Seattle, Washington.
0:50
We lived in New York for a while and moved here when I was in
0:54
third grade.
0:55
So there are people in Wisconsin who still think I'm a
0:57
newcomer,
0:58
but I've been here a long time.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: You know,
1:00
SPEAKER_00: Charlie,
1:00
SPEAKER_00: I was thinking this morning,
1:02
SPEAKER_00: a funny question for you,
1:03
SPEAKER_00: it may strike you as funny.
1:05
Is Wisconsin still a dairy state,
1:08
an agricultural state,
1:09
or has it moved on from that?
1:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean, is it...
1:13
SPEAKER_00: the end of high tech and all this stuff.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure they are.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: But is it still properly a dairy state as it was when we were growing up?
1:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think so.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: And I think they're still very, very proud of it.
1:24
SPEAKER_01: You know, Wisconsin cheeses continue to win international competition.
1:28
SPEAKER_01: You know,
1:29
SPEAKER_01: I often think that you think about how the culture of Italy might be,
1:34
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:34
SPEAKER_01: Italy and France might be,
1:36
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:36
SPEAKER_01: shaped around wine and cheese.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: And yet we have some of the greatest cheese in the world.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: And there are those of us to the south in Illinois who...
1:45
SPEAKER_01: You know, wanted to deride us and call us cheeseheads.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: We think of that as a as a point of honor.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: Were you from an early age?
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Were you interested in politics, public affairs, the media?
2:00
SPEAKER_00: Were you simply inclined that way?
2:03
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I was.
2:05
SPEAKER_01: In fact,
2:05
I was thinking about that this morning that I suppose you could
2:08
almost say that I
2:09
had an unhealthy obsession with politics or interest in
2:13
politics from a very,
2:14
SPEAKER_01: very young age.
2:15
SPEAKER_01: My father was very, very involved.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: He was a newspaper man.
2:18
SPEAKER_01: When I was a kid, he would bring me along to the newspaper offices.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: I always thought of the daily newspaper as a daily miracle.
2:26
SPEAKER_01: When I was in eighth grade,
2:28
I traveled around the state during the Eugene McCarthy for
2:33
president campaign.
2:35
So I was actually very active in politics and fascinated with
2:39
politics even before
2:41
SPEAKER_01: I got out of middle school.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know what you mean.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: I loved politics, Charlie, and note that tense.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: And it's been a little bit different the last many years.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: Do you still...
2:56
SPEAKER_00: I know that political journalism is your job, your strength.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: It's what you do.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: Do you still get any pleasure from it?
3:08
SPEAKER_00: Or is it more like a duty?
3:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Hubert Humphrey, you stopped at the politics of joy and all that.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: And I must say, I got a kick out of politics.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: The whole game, the arguments and so on.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: It's been a while.
3:22
SPEAKER_01: It has been a while.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: I know exactly what you mean.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: I think I did think of it as a game for a while.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: And now I think of it as a very, very, very much a rough slog.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: And the last few years have been soul crushing.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: You know, there are times when you want to back away.
3:35
SPEAKER_01: You know,
3:35
SPEAKER_01: I keep thinking about,
3:37
SPEAKER_01: you know,
3:38
SPEAKER_01: what Charles Krauthammer wrote,
3:39
SPEAKER_01: you know,
3:40
that we would love to be able to spend our time thinking about
3:43
other things and
3:44
SPEAKER_01: write poetry,
3:45
SPEAKER_01: spend more time with our dogs.
3:47
SPEAKER_01: But in every society,
3:48
SPEAKER_01: every civilization,
3:49
SPEAKER_01: if you don't get the politics wrong,
3:50
SPEAKER_01: everything else goes badly.
3:52
SPEAKER_01: And we've seen that.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: And so I actually do find it.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: And I've described,
3:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
3:57
how heartbreaking and soul crushing it has been to see what's
4:00
happened to the
4:01
SPEAKER_01: Republican Party,
4:02
SPEAKER_01: to the conservative movement,
4:04
SPEAKER_01: and now,
4:04
SPEAKER_01: frankly,
4:04
SPEAKER_01: to the body politic at large.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: So I may have seen it as a kind of game in theater at one point.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: Now, I think it's this it's more
4:14
SPEAKER_01: kind of a horrid,
4:15
SPEAKER_01: horrid fascination,
4:17
SPEAKER_01: like watching a train wreck or something,
4:18
SPEAKER_01: but also a sense of duty that,
4:21
SPEAKER_01: look,
4:21
SPEAKER_01: this is what we do.
4:22
SPEAKER_01: This is the challenge of our times.
4:24
SPEAKER_01: We didn't choose this,
4:26
but there are certain moments in history where you realize that
4:30
this is what your
4:30
SPEAKER_01: generation's been handed.
4:32
And unfortunately,
4:33
you know,
4:34
this is,
4:35
this is what,
4:36
this is what's been handed to us.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: So, so we, we have to, we have to do something.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: Um,
4:42
SPEAKER_00: Charlie, let's talk for a moment about the Iran War.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what tense to use.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: I've been saying or thinking was today.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: And my question is for myself and you and others is, was it worth it?
4:58
SPEAKER_00: Was it worth it?
4:59
SPEAKER_00: A couple of days into the war, I thought,
5:02
SPEAKER_00: How will it be worth it?
5:04
SPEAKER_00: Will the regime be standing still?
5:06
SPEAKER_00: If it is standing, what about its capacity to inflict damage?
5:11
Will the Iranian government still be a danger to the world and
5:14
even greater danger
5:15
SPEAKER_00: to the Iranian people than before?
5:18
SPEAKER_00: So I just and we've killed a lot of people.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not naive.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: I know that happens in war.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: I tell people, you don't have to lecture me about Dresden.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to lecture me about the firebombing of Tokyo,
5:29
SPEAKER_00: to say nothing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: I don't need a lecture.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: But we've killed a lot of people.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: And I wonder... For what?
5:39
SPEAKER_00: I do.
5:40
SPEAKER_01: Well,
5:40
let me just start off by saying that the world would be a
5:44
better place if the
5:45
SPEAKER_01: Iranian regime was gone,
5:48
SPEAKER_01: if in fact the Iranian people were free to pursue their own destinies.
5:56
SPEAKER_01: The world would be a better place if Iran did not have a nuclear weapon,
5:59
SPEAKER_01: that it was not a chief sponsor of terror.
6:02
So I start from that,
6:04
but then you look at this particular war and you go,
6:07
SPEAKER_01: OK, what what were the objectives?
6:09
SPEAKER_01: What was the point, especially now?
6:11
SPEAKER_01: And again,
6:12
we're in this sort of transitional period where it's peace in
6:15
our time for now,
6:17
SPEAKER_01: maybe just for today.
6:19
SPEAKER_01: Right.
6:20
Trump accepting this this 10 point Iranian deal as the basis of
6:26
negotiations,
6:27
SPEAKER_01: which seems like a complete strategic defeat.
6:31
SPEAKER_01: And so to your question, was it worth it?
6:34
SPEAKER_01: There is no regime change.
6:37
SPEAKER_01: The regime is in power and maybe more extreme.
6:40
SPEAKER_01: They you know, there's no change in their nuclear status from before.
6:46
Trump had told us they were obliterated,
6:48
but they still have enriched uranium.
6:50
SPEAKER_01: The deal basically.
6:52
requires the United States to acknowledge their right to have
6:55
enriched uranium,
6:58
SPEAKER_01: that they will be able to reconstitute their missiles.
7:01
SPEAKER_01: They have control over the Strait of Hormuz and can now charge tolls.
7:09
SPEAKER_01: So in many ways,
7:10
I was just reading an analyst a few minutes ago who was saying
7:13
they're in a
7:14
SPEAKER_01: stronger strategic position than they were on February 26th,
7:18
SPEAKER_01: the day before the war began or February 27th.
7:21
SPEAKER_01: So to your question,
7:22
SPEAKER_01: You know, what was it worth it?
7:25
SPEAKER_01: What was the point of this war?
7:27
SPEAKER_01: And the fact that Donald Trump never really had clear objectives,
7:31
SPEAKER_01: never had a clear understanding of what the risks were,
7:34
SPEAKER_01: never had an end game for and then what happens?
7:37
SPEAKER_01: What is your plan B?
7:39
No,
7:40
at this point,
7:42
it just seems like just a vast and tragic waste of of lives and
7:47
treasure.
7:48
Yeah,
7:49
I think of that ancient expression,
7:51
if you aim at a king,
7:52
kill him.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: And I thought early on,
7:54
SPEAKER_00: well,
7:55
SPEAKER_00: if you're going into something like all-out war,
7:59
SPEAKER_00: then for heaven's sakes,
8:00
SPEAKER_00: get rid of this regime that's been there since 1979.
8:03
But to leave that regime standing,
8:06
we'll know more in coming days,
8:07
I'm sure.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: Charlie,
8:11
SPEAKER_00: on our world or former world or whatever it was,
8:15
SPEAKER_00: is of conservatism,
8:16
SPEAKER_00: the American right...
8:18
SPEAKER_00: I've got a long time for the shock to wear off, about 10 years.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: That's a long time.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: But I must say, it hasn't completely worn off.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: I was going to say that.
8:31
SPEAKER_01: I read your stuff every day.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: This dramatic transformation of the right.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: I don't have a right to continue to be, but I am.
8:41
SPEAKER_01: No, I know exactly what you mean.
8:43
SPEAKER_01: And I have a little bit of frustration with the people who say,
8:45
SPEAKER_01: well,
8:46
SPEAKER_01: no,
8:46
this is just a straight line continuation of what you guys were
8:50
all talking about
8:50
SPEAKER_01: 20 or 30 years ago.
8:52
SPEAKER_01: Defamation.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is no.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: Slander.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: It is just not true.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: You know,
8:58
SPEAKER_01: on one issue,
8:59
SPEAKER_01: and we could go into the specifics,
9:00
SPEAKER_01: but let's just take this,
9:02
SPEAKER_01: the moment we're in right now,
9:04
SPEAKER_01: because we memory whole stuff so quickly.
9:07
SPEAKER_01: You know,
9:08
SPEAKER_01: when Donald Trump,
9:08
SPEAKER_01: the President of the United States,
9:10
SPEAKER_01: you know,
9:10
SPEAKER_01: bleats out that we are going to see the death of a great civilization,
9:15
SPEAKER_01: it will never come back.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: You know, this is the way that the monsters of history talk.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: And now some of our viewers may think of us naive,
9:25
SPEAKER_01: but there was a time when,
9:27
SPEAKER_01: you know,
9:27
SPEAKER_01: the world looked at America,
9:29
SPEAKER_01: maybe not perfectly,
9:30
SPEAKER_01: but,
9:30
SPEAKER_01: you know,
9:31
SPEAKER_01: as a shining city on a hill.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't that long ago.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: In historical terms, the blink of an eye.
9:38
SPEAKER_01: Well,
9:38
SPEAKER_01: and,
9:38
SPEAKER_01: you know,
9:39
SPEAKER_01: even a couple of months ago,
9:39
SPEAKER_01: the Iranian people were looking at us like we could be friends.
9:43
SPEAKER_01: You know, Americans have values and they may come to our defense.
9:47
SPEAKER_01: And they spent the entire day.
9:49
SPEAKER_01: Wondering what happened to those American values?
9:51
SPEAKER_01: Are they going to wipe out a civilization?
9:53
SPEAKER_01: And if Vladimir Putin had said those things,
9:55
SPEAKER_01: something that morally repugnant,
9:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
9:57
SPEAKER_01: we would have recoiled with horror.
10:01
SPEAKER_01: And yet this is the way America is talking now.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: And so I think as someone who's grown up,
10:07
SPEAKER_01: you know,
10:07
SPEAKER_01: with unabashed patriotism and a belief in American exceptionalism,
10:13
SPEAKER_01: Thinking,
10:13
SPEAKER_01: you know,
10:14
we were exceptional not because we had the biggest biceps or
10:16
because we had the
10:17
SPEAKER_01: biggest missiles,
10:18
SPEAKER_01: but because we represented something.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: And we believed in that.
10:22
SPEAKER_01: We believed in an American idea.
10:24
SPEAKER_01: And to watch that be carved off one after another, to watch J.D.
10:29
Vance align himself with Vladimir Putin campaigning for Viktor
10:33
Orban in Hungary.
10:35
SPEAKER_01: You know, this is, and I know you just feel the same way.
10:37
SPEAKER_01: It's like, this is not.
10:39
SPEAKER_01: The conservative movement we signed up for,
10:42
SPEAKER_01: this state control of the economy,
10:44
SPEAKER_01: this is not what conservatives were for.
10:48
Ronald Reagan would be rolling over in his grave if he could
10:51
watch Donald Trump
10:53
SPEAKER_01: actually switch sides in the Cold War.
10:56
Remember the cliche from the 1990s that every conservative
10:59
would say things like,
11:00
SPEAKER_01: ideas have consequences,
11:02
SPEAKER_01: words matter,
11:03
SPEAKER_01: and character is destiny.
11:06
SPEAKER_01: And yet, right now-
11:09
You said that from,
11:10
you know,
11:10
the stage from CPAC,
11:12
you might get blown off.
11:13
SPEAKER_01: You might get booed off the stage.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, my line is conservatives were right the first time.
11:18
And I think of simple things are relatively simple things in
11:21
this area of character
11:24
SPEAKER_00: and fitness for office.
11:26
So Donald Trump,
11:26
the U.S.
11:27
president,
11:27
is at the annual White House Easter egg roll.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: And he's talking to parents and their children.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: Some of those children are in arms.
11:35
And he refers to Kamala Harris,
11:37
the former vice president,
11:38
as a low IQ person.
11:41
Then he says to this group of parents and their children,
11:44
who has the lower IQ,
11:46
Kamala or Biden?
11:48
SPEAKER_00: And it's yuck, yuck, yuck.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: And first of all, I think it's gross to talk about IQ, really gross.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: But I just wonder if people in general are numb to this.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: Even I am partially numb to it.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Trump's like the weather.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: It just happens.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: But I think this numbness itself is an enemy.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: One can lose sight of the fact that this is wrong.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: A president shouldn't talk this way.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: A man shouldn't talk this way.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: No one should.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: But you sound like Cotton Mather or something if you say it.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: You sound like, you know.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: No.
12:23
SPEAKER_01: No, yes.
12:24
SPEAKER_01: But...
12:25
SPEAKER_01: Have we become numb yet?
12:26
SPEAKER_01: There's no question we've become numbed about it.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: And the fact is there was so much going on on Easter Sunday.
12:31
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
12:31
SPEAKER_01: the fact he was dropping F-bombs,
12:33
SPEAKER_01: you know,
12:33
SPEAKER_01: talking about the crazy bastards of Iran on Easter Sunday morning.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like, which outrage can you focus on?
12:39
I mean,
12:40
it's,
12:40
you know,
12:41
we're sometimes you just think,
12:42
you know,
12:43
orange man bad.
12:44
SPEAKER_01: Well, the orange man is bad.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: He's very, very bad.
12:48
He behaves in a way that would not be acceptable in any other
12:50
area of society.
12:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is an important point.
12:53
SPEAKER_01: You know,
12:53
SPEAKER_01: if you stood up at church and you talk like that,
12:55
SPEAKER_01: if you stood up at a business meeting,
12:56
SPEAKER_01: if you stood up at a,
12:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
12:58
SPEAKER_01: at a just and just try to imagine any other institution,
13:01
SPEAKER_01: civil society outside of MAGA where you would.
13:05
Traffic in that kind of crudity and let's be honest about it
13:08
You know that crude
13:08
SPEAKER_01: racism and you know,
13:10
you would be you you'd be called out for it You would be you
13:14
know told that you're
13:15
no longer welcome And yet there he is the president of the
13:18
United States and the
13:19
rest of the world is looking at us And this is the problem and
13:22
this is what I wrote
13:23
in my newsletter before I which I press send like five minutes
13:26
before I joined you
13:28
SPEAKER_01: and Kind of one of the points I wanted to make was in my inbox.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: Yes
13:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I hope so.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: That sometimes when you say something, it cannot be unsaid.
13:36
SPEAKER_01: You cannot unring a bell.
13:39
And when Donald Trump says some of the things that he says
13:42
about invading Greenland
13:44
SPEAKER_01: or about erasing civilizations,
13:45
SPEAKER_01: you know what?
13:47
SPEAKER_01: You know, that's just not going to be a memory hold.
13:49
SPEAKER_01: It changes people's views of the United States of America.
13:53
SPEAKER_01: It changes people's views of who we are, what we represent.
13:57
SPEAKER_01: You know, you know, we were talking in our
14:00
in our you know patriotic little burst there about america
14:02
being the city you know
14:03
shining a city on the hill people did look at america as being
14:06
this bastion of
14:06
freedom and decency what do we symbolize right now what does
14:10
the rest of the world
14:10
think whatever happens with this iran deal you know once you
14:14
say things like i am
14:16
so powerful yeah once you say things like i can erase an entire
14:21
civilization
14:21
SPEAKER_01: somebody breaks in your house beats up your wife
14:25
and says,
14:26
I'm going to kill everybody in this house if you don't do
14:30
something that I want.
14:32
SPEAKER_01: Do you think like the next day you're going to come back and say,
14:35
SPEAKER_01: hey,
14:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
14:36
SPEAKER_01: would you would you like to come over to my house for a garden party?
14:39
SPEAKER_01: No,
14:39
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
14:40
there are moments at which you have declared yourself in such a
14:45
way that you cannot
14:46
SPEAKER_01: walk it back.
14:47
SPEAKER_01: And that's that's the you talked about still being shocked.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: You know,
14:51
SPEAKER_01: as someone that loves America,
14:53
to see this happening to this country and people that we know
14:59
could have stopped it
15:01
SPEAKER_01: or stood up against it or spoken out against it,
15:03
SPEAKER_01: to watch them go along with this has been,
15:07
SPEAKER_01: on an ongoing basis,
15:09
SPEAKER_01: continues to shock.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: Charlie, I'd like to bring up something touchy.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: All of these issues are touchy, but you mentioned racism.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking about something the last couple of days.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: You know,
15:22
I have always been called a racist and a fascist just for
15:25
holding Reaganite views,
15:27
SPEAKER_00: classical liberal views.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about Obamacare, that whole health care debate.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of Democrats had people on the left.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: You people oppose that because the president is black.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: And I said, oh, come on.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: We opposed Hillary Care also.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: Clinton Care was called or Hillary Care.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: We opposed that.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: It has nothing to do with race.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: It has to do with our view of government and our view of public policy.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: And I just thought that was so stupid.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't even offensive.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: It was just ridiculous.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: I wonder now.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: I wonder.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: What if MAGA proposed that sort of thing?
16:12
SPEAKER_00: Would people fall in line?
16:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm unsure today whether race played a role in that or things like it.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: Before I was sure that the answer was, of course not.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: Today I am less sure.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: There's two separate questions there,
16:30
SPEAKER_01: though,
16:31
which is that what we've seen is that MAGA will accept any
16:35
socialist plan if it
16:36
SPEAKER_01: comes from Donald Trump.
16:38
I mean,
16:39
to your answer,
16:39
if Donald Trump proposed,
16:41
in fact,
16:41
he's proposed a couple of things.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking of Barack Obama.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: would have proposed those savings accounts,
16:46
SPEAKER_01: the Trump accounts,
16:47
SPEAKER_01: you know,
16:47
SPEAKER_01: what conservatives would have said back then.
16:50
If Barack Obama had done the various things imposing the
16:53
tariffs or bullied
16:56
SPEAKER_01: companies to do something,
16:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
16:57
SPEAKER_01: politically advantageous,
16:59
SPEAKER_01: what they would have said.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: So there's been an inversion.
17:01
where Donald Trump can do almost anything and then redefine it
17:05
as acceptable.
17:06
SPEAKER_01: So that's,
17:07
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:08
SPEAKER_01: and so to your point,
17:09
SPEAKER_01: if he proposed something like Obamacare,
17:12
SPEAKER_01: I think they would accept it probably.
17:14
SPEAKER_01: But I'm still skeptical about that now.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: about whether or not race had anything to do with Obamacare.
17:20
But I think there were substantive arguments and there were
17:23
good faith arguments.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: I choose that as an example of for many things.
17:28
SPEAKER_01: Well,
17:28
SPEAKER_01: let's go over to the many things,
17:29
SPEAKER_01: because I think the many things are you look back on what the answer is.
17:33
SPEAKER_01: against Barack Obama was.
17:34
And it is increasingly difficult now to not see that as
17:39
partially racially based,
17:41
SPEAKER_01: especially when you look at where did Donald Trump come from?
17:44
Donald Trump essentially launched his presidential campaign by
17:47
spreading the
17:48
SPEAKER_01: birther conspiracy theory.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's kind of the was one of the big things that launched him.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: I half believed it, to be honest.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: Did you?
17:57
SPEAKER_00: I half believed it, that there was some sort of cover up.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: And I
18:01
SPEAKER_00: I personally don't care where you're born.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: There is a constitutional issue.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: But I just thought,
18:04
SPEAKER_00: you know,
18:05
SPEAKER_00: I was I was so Republican,
18:07
SPEAKER_00: Charlie,
18:08
SPEAKER_00: and so anti Obama,
18:09
SPEAKER_00: I think with good reasons.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: Well,
18:14
so this is the thing is when you become and this is maybe where
18:19
we have changed
18:19
SPEAKER_01: since then.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: And what I recognize is that when you become so partisan,
18:25
SPEAKER_01: you become so tribal,
18:27
SPEAKER_01: you put yourself into this world of
18:29
SPEAKER_01: That is a distorted lens.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: You see things and you and look,
18:33
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:33
we talk about people who are in a bubble right now and I can at
18:37
least understand it
18:38
SPEAKER_01: where,
18:39
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:39
SPEAKER_01: you look at information for confirmation.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: You look at information as ammunition.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: You dismiss things that are inconvenient.
18:48
SPEAKER_01: You will dismiss.
18:50
SPEAKER_01: You will cut slack to your friends.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: You will magnify the sins of your opponents.
18:54
I was I was with Reagan all the way through Iran Contra all
18:58
through Bitburg.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: You know, I did love Reagan.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: It's true.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: But even more, I hated his enemies.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: And you can never let the other side win.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: I half believed the Clinton stuff,
19:08
SPEAKER_00: all that stuff,
19:09
the American Spectator about the MENA airport and Webb Hubble
19:12
and Vince Foster.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: And I just couldn't stand that crowd.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:19
SPEAKER_01: Can you give a little footnote there?
19:20
SPEAKER_01: Please.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: A little digression.
19:23
SPEAKER_01: You mentioned Webb Hubble.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: Do you know that Webb Hubble has gone on to write novels?
19:28
SPEAKER_01: No.
19:29
SPEAKER_01: And they're actually really, really good.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: My wife is actually friends with him.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: He's actually very successful.
19:35
But I think this is part of that dynamic and that Trump has
19:38
capitalized on.
19:39
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter who you're for at a certain point.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: At some point, the fight becomes about the fight.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: By which I mean, it's not about the underlying substance.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: It's just about us versus them.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: The other side must lose.
19:54
SPEAKER_01: The other side.
19:55
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
19:57
and so we have so we were part of that we recognize it and then
20:01
to watch that morph
20:03
into something horrifically ugly you know part of it is like oh
20:07
my god you know
20:09
what what did did we help build some of that now you and i have
20:14
consistently for
20:15
the last 10 years stood against it um but since you and i are
20:19
just talking to one
20:20
SPEAKER_01: another here
20:21
SPEAKER_01: You know,
20:21
this is one of the painful things that and also one of the
20:25
questions that I have is
20:26
why were some people willing to say thus far and no farther on
20:31
all of this and
20:32
SPEAKER_01: others just were so much into that stream,
20:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:36
SPEAKER_01: that those rapids that they went from,
20:39
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:40
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:40
SPEAKER_01: the Obama years right into the Trump years with and,
20:44
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:44
SPEAKER_01: we're able to swallow all of that.
20:46
I think of what George Wills said when asked why he had left
20:49
the Republican Party
20:51
SPEAKER_00: in the summer of 2016.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: He said, for the same reason I joined it.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: I'm a conservative.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:59
SPEAKER_01: Well...
21:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, please.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: Well,
21:02
SPEAKER_01: and also,
21:02
I think that this is where and this is what I wanted to talk to
21:05
you about a little
21:06
SPEAKER_01: bit,
21:06
SPEAKER_01: because,
21:07
SPEAKER_01: you know,
21:08
SPEAKER_01: I also think that there is this there is this push to say that,
21:12
SPEAKER_01: OK,
21:12
SPEAKER_01: that if you're going to engage in resistance to Donald Trump,
21:17
SPEAKER_01: you have to acknowledge that all conservatism was corrupt,
21:21
SPEAKER_01: that it was always going to lead to this.
21:23
And there's there's a large group of people who simply speak
21:26
for yourself.
21:28
SPEAKER_01: Well, and they do.
21:29
And I think this is one of the problems that I think the Never
21:34
Trump movement has had.
21:35
SPEAKER_01: It's been very commercially successful, but politically unsuccessful.
21:39
SPEAKER_01: There are a lot of folks that just simply say,
21:41
SPEAKER_01: let's just abandon every one of our principles as well.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: Let's adopt all of their tactics as well.
21:48
SPEAKER_01: And let's just rebrand ourselves as progressives.
21:51
I think the more powerful voice is the voice that says,
21:54
look,
21:54
we were there.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: From the beginning,
21:57
SPEAKER_01: before conservatives lost their mind,
21:59
SPEAKER_01: when conservatives were about classical liberalism,
22:02
SPEAKER_01: when they were about limited government,
22:06
SPEAKER_01: when they were about personal dignity,
22:07
SPEAKER_01: personal freedom,
22:08
SPEAKER_01: when they were about the constitutional separation of powers,
22:13
SPEAKER_00: all of those.
22:14
Free society,
22:15
free enterprise,
22:15
international trade,
22:17
U.S.
22:17
leadership in the world.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:19
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: All of those things.
22:22
So people ask me about conservatism and I'm confused what
22:25
conservatism means right now.
22:28
SPEAKER_01: But I do.
22:29
There's part of me that thinks that this is also a moment where
22:32
maybe there are
22:33
SPEAKER_01: folks that might want to take
22:34
SPEAKER_01: take a different,
22:36
SPEAKER_01: a second look at why,
22:38
SPEAKER_01: you know,
22:39
we had argued against excessive concentration of power in the
22:42
federal government,
22:43
SPEAKER_01: why we in fact had more confidence in markets than in central planners,
22:49
SPEAKER_01: why
22:49
it was important uh to you know protect those constitutional
22:53
systems you know um it
22:56
is interesting i think there's a whole generation that's
22:57
growing up going you know
22:58
that that whole due process thing now i get that or you know
23:02
states rights maybe
23:03
it's not the worst thing in the world maybe there's something
23:06
to this federal
23:07
system and everything old is new again i'm for a revival
23:11
revival of american
23:13
SPEAKER_00: conservatism i i'm a little skeptical though because it seems to me that
23:17
SPEAKER_00: People like big government.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: They like big, powerful, paternalistic central government.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: They want their enemies hurt.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: On my worst days, I think that people are sort of authoritarian at heart.
23:31
And I just wonder whether there are many buyers for what the
23:34
likes of you and me are selling.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: You know, limited government.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: I worry about that.
23:40
SPEAKER_01: Well, I do worry about that.
23:42
I worry about things that we took for granted,
23:45
like everybody's in favor of free speech,
23:47
right?
23:47
SPEAKER_01: Well, not necessarily.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: Free speech for themselves, for sure.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: Well,
23:52
and there was a big fight on the left about whether or not
23:56
liberals were still in
23:57
SPEAKER_01: favor of free speech during the interregnum.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: And now we're seeing the attacks.
24:03
SPEAKER_01: The only thing,
24:03
SPEAKER_01: and I agree with you,
24:05
I do think that people just want what they want and they want
24:08
their side to win and
24:09
SPEAKER_01: they want the other side to be punished.
24:11
SPEAKER_01: But we also suffer from the failure of imagination.
24:14
SPEAKER_01: One of the reasons why in a liberal democracy you have restraint is
24:18
SPEAKER_01: is because it's built into the system.
24:21
SPEAKER_01: You don't want to,
24:22
SPEAKER_01: you know,
24:22
irrigate powers to yourself that might be used against you when
24:25
the other guy is in
24:27
SPEAKER_01: power.
24:27
SPEAKER_01: And I think people used to understand that.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: Do you really want the president to have this power?
24:31
SPEAKER_01: But that began eroding and eroding and eroding.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: But Donald Trump has made it very real.
24:36
So whatever power that you want to give to the president,
24:40
you go,
24:40
all right,
24:42
SPEAKER_01: How would you feel if Donald Trump wielded that?
24:44
SPEAKER_01: Or the counterpoint for people who are conservative or MAGA,
24:49
how would you feel if an AOC was exercising the kinds of power
24:54
that you're willing
24:54
SPEAKER_01: to cede to Donald Trump?
24:56
What do you think America would look like if the left did
24:59
exactly what you are doing right now?
25:01
SPEAKER_01: Or is it not about process at all?
25:03
SPEAKER_01: Is it just about my team versus your team?
25:05
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: I don't think people are moved by that.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: What if it were AOC?
25:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure that makes a dent.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: One of the things we always said and still say is process is important.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: The system is important more than the outcome, more than the result.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: I imagine most people are they want what they want as you.
25:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:27
SPEAKER_01: And in a democracy, you have to be willing to lose.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: You have to be willing.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: Okay, we've made our best case.
25:33
And,
25:34
you know,
25:35
post January 6th,
25:36
I'm just not sure that's part of the political system.
25:39
SPEAKER_01: And I have to tell you, I worry about...
25:42
know all the pressures on the left now to do exactly what maga
25:47
is doing and um what
25:50
they would be willing to do to hold on to power as well now i
25:53
understand you know
25:55
there's this huge pushback against both sides ism and which i
25:58
understand because i
25:59
you've you've heard the analogy about illiberalism i i think
26:03
it's peter weiner and
26:05
SPEAKER_01: and jonathan roush who who say the the illiberalism
26:09
SPEAKER_01: On the left is a real problem,
26:11
SPEAKER_01: but it's like slow-growing cancer,
26:13
SPEAKER_01: whereas the illiberalism of MAGA is like a heart attack right now.
26:17
SPEAKER_01: We need to focus on the heart attack right now,
26:19
but don't delude yourself into thinking that there are not
26:23
other dangers too.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: Charlie, let's go back a bit.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: I want to talk a little about broadcasting and the media.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: I loved Rush Limbaugh, loved him personally.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: We had a very nice correspondence and several meals.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: And I also thought it was a great force for good in the world.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Trump and Trumpism come along.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: Seems to me he followed his audience.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: He did.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: Is that your impression as well?
26:57
SPEAKER_01: Well,
26:57
SPEAKER_01: I did not have quite as friendly a relationship with Rush Limbaugh,
27:01
and I guess I would dissent a little bit from him being a force
27:04
for good because I
27:05
SPEAKER_01: was doing the same sort of thing.
27:08
SPEAKER_01: I thought that I admired his ability to entertain, but I think
27:12
SPEAKER_01: that he was deeply cynical in the way that he manipulated facts.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: And he got worse as time went on, I think, as he became more earnest.
27:19
SPEAKER_01: But the turning point,
27:21
and I think this was one of the important turning points in the
27:24
history of modern
27:25
SPEAKER_01: conservatism,
27:26
SPEAKER_01: was when Rush Limbaugh decided that he wasn't a conservative anymore.
27:30
He was willing to abandon his conservative beliefs to go along
27:33
with Donald Trump.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what you think, but I've thought...
27:36
If Rush Limbaugh in the fall or summer of 2015 would have said,
27:42
no,
27:43
folks,
27:43
not this guy.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: That's ridiculous.
27:45
SPEAKER_01: We're conservatives.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: This guy is not a conservative.
27:48
SPEAKER_01: He could have stopped Trump on the launch pad, but he didn't.
27:53
SPEAKER_01: And I think you put your finger exactly why.
27:55
And it's a real problem in the conservative media and actually
27:59
in the media in
27:59
SPEAKER_01: general,
28:00
SPEAKER_01: which is audience capture.
28:01
that there comes a certain point in which you are not leading
28:06
the audience.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: You're afraid not to give the audience exactly what they want.
28:10
SPEAKER_01: The audience wants a safe space.
28:12
SPEAKER_01: They want to be ginned up.
28:13
SPEAKER_01: They come for their...
28:15
Daily dopamine hit and I think Rush Limbaugh was was concerned
28:19
that he would be
28:19
outflanked on the right that there will be younger angrier
28:22
voices out there and
28:24
SPEAKER_01: unless he got into on the into the parade That he would be left behind.
28:28
I think that's exactly what happened And so in many ways we
28:31
live in the world that
28:32
SPEAKER_01: Rush Limbaugh created
28:34
Rush Limbaugh with his sort of special knowledge and his
28:39
willingness to indulge
28:40
SPEAKER_01: sort of cynical political plays.
28:43
SPEAKER_01: One of the key moments, I'm sorry to go on here.
28:45
SPEAKER_01: One of the key moments, I think, I was thinking about it this weekend.
28:49
SPEAKER_01: Remember when Donald Trump was asked about John McCain being a hero?
28:55
SPEAKER_01: 2015 he says, I don't think John McCain's a hero.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: He was a hero because he was captured.
28:59
SPEAKER_01: I like people who weren't captured.
29:02
SPEAKER_01: And there were a lot of us who thought that's the end.
29:04
SPEAKER_01: That's the end of Donald Trump.
29:06
SPEAKER_01: It's so tasteless, it's so stupid.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: Only helped him.
29:09
SPEAKER_01: And yet- Hmm?
29:10
SPEAKER_00: Only helped him.
29:12
SPEAKER_01: Well, it only helped him because Donald Trump came to his defense.
29:15
I'm sorry,
29:17
Rush Limbaugh came to Donald Trump's defense and began
29:20
providing cover.
29:22
SPEAKER_01: And when Trump was caught in one lie after another,
29:27
SPEAKER_01: Rush Limbaugh injected this cynical,
29:30
SPEAKER_01: well,
29:30
let's look at how clever this is type thing that I think rotted
29:36
the conservative
29:37
SPEAKER_01: mind along with Donald Trump.
29:39
SPEAKER_01: So you don't have Donald Trump in many ways without Rush Limbaugh.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's really unfortunate.
29:45
SPEAKER_01: So you look back on his legacy,
29:49
SPEAKER_01: you know,
29:50
SPEAKER_01: what did Rush Limbaugh,
29:51
SPEAKER_01: what is Rush Limbaugh's conservative
29:54
SPEAKER_01: legacy,
29:55
SPEAKER_01: you know,
29:55
especially when he had like the Institute of Conservative
29:58
Studies or something like
29:59
SPEAKER_01: that,
29:59
SPEAKER_01: he called it that.
30:00
SPEAKER_01: He actually announced at one point,
30:01
I'm not calling it that anymore because obviously this election
30:04
is not about
30:04
SPEAKER_01: conservatism anymore.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: I think that was one of the most,
30:08
SPEAKER_01: one of the most cynical things I've heard somebody,
30:12
SPEAKER_01: you know,
30:12
SPEAKER_01: in his position say.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: Like I held him to be, well, first of all, a great entertainer.
30:18
And as a fellow practitioner,
30:20
I imagine you,
30:21
you saw he impressive skills,
30:23
you know,
30:24
SPEAKER_00: And also was a great popularizer.
30:29
If Bill Buckley and George Will are one kind of popularizer of
30:35
ideas of Burke and
30:36
SPEAKER_00: so on and so forth,
30:38
SPEAKER_00: Limbaugh was another.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was greatly beneficial.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: And you walked away from it.
30:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
30:46
SPEAKER_01: See, that's the thing.
30:47
SPEAKER_01: I actually thought about being on the radio in exactly the same way.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: You know, I come from a print background, but I was fascinated by that.
30:56
SPEAKER_01: How do you translate it into talking to regular people?
30:59
I mean,
30:59
I could write in one way,
31:01
but how do I relate this to other people?
31:04
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't think that was dumbing it down.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: So, yes, he was doing that.
31:08
SPEAKER_01: He was an entertainer, but that was in the early years.
31:11
And again,
31:13
like so many of the conservatives that you and I know,
31:16
something happened.
31:17
SPEAKER_01: Something happened along the way.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: Charlie, remember we used to talk about the media every day?
31:23
SPEAKER_00: We kind of knew what we meant.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: Does that phrase have any meaning anymore?
31:30
SPEAKER_00: No.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: I think Fox is the most popular network by far, I think.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: Everyone's in his own silo.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: People talk about the MSM, the mainstream media.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: I think the people who use those words don't consume any of that.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: What do you think about the very notion of the media?
31:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm not even sure what I read anymore.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: I read dribs and drops from social media.
31:53
SPEAKER_01: I do too.
31:54
SPEAKER_01: I think you probably have the same diet that I have.
31:58
SPEAKER_01: No, it's gone.
31:59
SPEAKER_01: It's been completely destroyed.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: And this was fodder for many, many years.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: In fact,
32:04
SPEAKER_01: I would say that to the extent that conservative media flourished,
32:08
SPEAKER_01: it was in counterpoint to the bias of liberal media,
32:13
SPEAKER_01: which was real.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: It was there.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: And in many ways, they left that field open.
32:18
When I started doing conservative talk radio,
32:21
one of the things I noticed was it's like,
32:23
It was like pouring water onto parched ground because the rest
32:26
of the media was not
32:27
SPEAKER_01: paying attention.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: But now there's a thousand voices out there.
32:31
SPEAKER_01: There are so many different forms of media.
32:33
So some of the debates we have are like old guys who still
32:37
think it's 1988 when you
32:39
SPEAKER_01: have the FCC commissioner.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: I know so many people like that.
32:44
SPEAKER_01: We're going to take away their licenses as if what,
32:46
SPEAKER_01: like so right wing ideas are not,
32:48
SPEAKER_01: you know,
32:49
SPEAKER_01: need to be,
32:50
SPEAKER_01: you know,
32:50
SPEAKER_01: on every late night talk show as well.
32:52
SPEAKER_01: Like, guys, the world has been transformed.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: Some people act like people are still sitting down at 630 p.m.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: to watch,
33:00
SPEAKER_00: you know,
33:00
SPEAKER_00: Brinkley or Rather or Cronkite or Mudd or Brokaw and so on and so forth.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: And that's just world's just long gone.
33:08
SPEAKER_01: It's funny you should mention that because I just on my podcast today,
33:12
SPEAKER_01: I talked with Scott McFarlane,
33:14
SPEAKER_01: who just left CBS.
33:15
SPEAKER_01: He was a very prominent correspondent.
33:17
SPEAKER_01: And he's now on Substack doing the kind of thing we're doing.
33:20
SPEAKER_01: And he made the exact same point.
33:21
SPEAKER_01: He said,
33:22
SPEAKER_01: like,
33:22
in what world do people wait around till 630 at night to find
33:25
out what happened
33:26
SPEAKER_01: that day?
33:26
SPEAKER_00: And the last person I knew who did this was Bill Buckley.
33:31
He always watched the CBS News at 6.30 and ritualistically 60
33:36
minutes on Sunday
33:37
SPEAKER_00: evening,
33:38
SPEAKER_00: I think at 7.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was just the habit of a lifetime and he never dropped it.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: I cannot tell you the last time I watched the evening news.
33:47
SPEAKER_01: I literally cannot tell you.
33:49
SPEAKER_01: And it would be measured in decades.
33:51
And the anchorman and some of the correspondents were national
33:53
celebrities.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: There were household names.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: Everyone knew them.
33:58
SPEAKER_01: Go on.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: Charlie, you're a pro.
34:02
You're a professional journalist and a professional broadcaster
34:04
and very good at it.
34:07
Does it bother you that everyone's a broadcaster now,
34:10
that every schmo like me has a podcast?
34:14
SPEAKER_00: You're surrounded by amateurs, but you're a pro.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: Do you think, is it annoying?
34:22
SPEAKER_00: No.
34:23
SPEAKER_01: No, not at all.
34:24
SPEAKER_01: No, I love the fact that there are so many independent voices out there.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: Now,
34:29
SPEAKER_01: there is one thing,
34:30
SPEAKER_01: though,
34:31
SPEAKER_01: that is opposed to being a broadcaster,
34:34
SPEAKER_01: because that that was a second or tertiary role that I had.
34:37
SPEAKER_01: You know, I grew up around journalists, newspaper people.
34:42
SPEAKER_01: I was a I was a newspaper reporter.
34:44
SPEAKER_01: I covered city government.
34:45
SPEAKER_01: I covered investigative work.
34:48
SPEAKER_01: I was a magazine editor and all of that.
34:50
What does bother me are the number of people out there who have
34:53
no background in
34:54
SPEAKER_01: journalism,
34:55
SPEAKER_01: by which I mean the ability to parse through facts,
35:00
SPEAKER_01: to understand,
35:01
SPEAKER_01: to logically organize things.
35:03
We have the hackification of the media where everybody feels
35:07
absolutely entitled to
35:08
SPEAKER_01: have any opinion whatsoever.
35:11
SPEAKER_01: No one presents the other side.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:14
SPEAKER_01: No one presents.
35:15
And you look at a lot of prominent people out there and you
35:18
realize they've never
35:19
SPEAKER_01: written a news story.
35:20
SPEAKER_01: They've never actually had to form that coherent argument.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: They've never been fact-checked.
35:26
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a little bit more toxic.
35:29
SPEAKER_01: And that does bother me.
35:32
SPEAKER_01: Because at one point,
35:33
SPEAKER_01: when you would hear a piece of information,
35:36
SPEAKER_01: you might have some confidence that it had gone through some sort of
35:40
SPEAKER_01: of a professionalized process.
35:42
SPEAKER_01: Is this true?
35:43
SPEAKER_01: Is it right?
35:44
SPEAKER_01: Do I have the facts?
35:45
SPEAKER_01: Are the facts correct?
35:48
SPEAKER_01: You no longer can have any confidence about that.
35:51
I spend a ridiculous amount of time looking at stuff that I'm
35:54
seeing going,
35:55
is this real?
35:56
SPEAKER_01: Is this true?
35:57
SPEAKER_01: How do I figure out it's real?
35:58
SPEAKER_01: And if it's hard for me to do it sometimes,
36:00
SPEAKER_01: I can imagine what it's like for Grandpa Otto,
36:04
SPEAKER_01: who's looking at his Facebook feed.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: And there are lots of Grandpa Ottos in Wisconsin.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: Charlie, for a long time, I wished for the demonopolization of the media.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: I wish for the democratization of the media, the proliferation of media.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: Let a thousand flowers bloom.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: No more gatekeepers.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: And they seem to be mainly center left.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure I'd vote for the old world to come back.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: But I'm not sure the present world is better.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure it's worse.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: It's certainly very different.
36:43
But I think that now I think there was something to that
36:46
40-yard lines business.
36:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, center left, center right.
36:52
SPEAKER_01: No, I know exactly what you mean.
36:54
SPEAKER_01: I felt exactly the same way.
36:56
SPEAKER_01: In fact, if you would have told me that you would have this.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: I thought Peter Jennings was a curse on America.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: I mean, no.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: I disliked him.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: We voted in the same place.
37:06
polling place by the way not very far from here handsome
37:09
canadian one of my books
37:10
wait no no i i i was skeptical until he blurbed one of my books
37:15
so i'm not going to
37:16
beat on no no but but but all that looks different to me now it
37:21
does look very it
37:22
looks so different now and i know exactly what you're talking
37:24
about look when i was
37:25
on conservative talk radio um and i by the way don't ever like
37:29
to complain about
37:30
SPEAKER_01: stuff so this is i'm just trying to make a larger point so i was i was on
37:33
SPEAKER_01: conservative talk radio
37:35
SPEAKER_01: in Wisconsin, working for a company.
37:39
SPEAKER_01: This was the largest radio station in the state,
37:41
SPEAKER_01: working for a company that owned the largest newspaper in the state.
37:44
SPEAKER_01: And for about 20 years,
37:47
I don't think any journalist ever called and had a serious
37:52
conversation with me or
37:53
SPEAKER_01: interview like,
37:54
SPEAKER_01: what do you really think?
37:55
SPEAKER_01: What do you think about what's going on?
37:58
The newspaper would never have run a column by me or allowed me
38:02
to write for them
38:02
in any particular way or treated anything I had to say as
38:06
seriously at all.
38:08
SPEAKER_01: And then one day.
38:10
SPEAKER_01: And now,
38:10
SPEAKER_01: by the way,
38:11
SPEAKER_01: by this point,
38:11
SPEAKER_01: by,
38:12
SPEAKER_01: you know,
38:13
SPEAKER_01: the mid whatever,
38:14
SPEAKER_01: I'd written nine books and everything.
38:17
SPEAKER_01: But I don't know that I'd had a single outside.
38:20
SPEAKER_01: The books were treated fine, were treated fairly.
38:23
SPEAKER_01: But locally by the media, I was this right wing, you know, talker.
38:27
SPEAKER_01: And we do not need to take that seriously.
38:30
SPEAKER_01: Then Donald Trump calls into my show on March 28th, 2016.
38:32
SPEAKER_01: I remember well.
38:34
At 8.30 a.m.,
38:36
I was this right-wing hack who had not been interviewed for 20
38:39
years.
38:40
17 minutes later,
38:41
I was one of the deepest,
38:42
most profound thinkers in American politics.
38:45
SPEAKER_01: Toast to the town.
38:47
SPEAKER_01: And it was like, hey, what what changed?
38:49
SPEAKER_01: I didn't change.
38:50
It was suddenly I'd moved from the you are not,
38:53
you know,
38:53
part of the club to now you are.
38:57
And so in many ways,
38:57
it was very nice,
38:58
but it was also to me a very dramatic illustration of it.
39:03
SPEAKER_01: Now, I didn't complain.
39:04
SPEAKER_01: So for the last 20,
39:06
SPEAKER_01: the last 10 years,
39:07
SPEAKER_01: I've been interviewed hundreds of times,
39:09
SPEAKER_01: never misquoted a single time.
39:12
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, this is nice.
39:14
SPEAKER_01: But why is it happening to me now?
39:16
When I had experienced literally 20 years where if the
39:20
newspaper mentioned me,
39:21
SPEAKER_01: it was going to be some bizarre thing.
39:23
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was so I the bias was real.
39:27
SPEAKER_01: So at a visceral level,
39:29
I understand that there are people on the right who really love
39:32
this new media.
39:34
SPEAKER_01: And so I don't know.
39:38
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, it's about to become even more complicated with AI.
39:43
SPEAKER_01: We could spend hours talking about that.
39:45
SPEAKER_01: I mean, AI is going to be, it'll be like the invention of fire.
39:48
It'll either burn us all down or it's going to be a tool that
39:52
will lead us to new
39:53
SPEAKER_01: heights and no one knows what the answer is.
39:56
SPEAKER_01: And maybe the answer is both of those things.
39:59
SPEAKER_00: Charlie,
40:00
something you said reminded me that several years ago I was
40:02
talking with David
40:03
SPEAKER_00: French,
40:04
SPEAKER_00: my then coworker,
40:06
and we said we felt a little abashed because everyone around us
40:09
was changing.
40:10
SPEAKER_00: Everyone and everything was in flux.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: Everyone was evolving.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: And David said that he had been a Reagan conservative since age 14.
40:20
i've been a reagan conservative since about age 19 we thought
40:24
is there something
40:24
wrong with us you know that you know should we are we
40:27
open-minded enough are we
40:28
looking around enough are we uh re-examining our priors so to
40:32
speak enough and we
40:33
thought no we're we're pretty good but it but it makes you feel
40:36
like such a
40:37
fuddy-duddy you know and i i remember talking uh on this
40:42
program i think with with
40:43
donald kagan shortly before he died what a marvelous man and
40:47
interviewee and and he
40:49
said you know they used to call me a liberal then they call me
40:52
a conservative or a
40:53
right winger and then they're not sure what i am now i haven't
40:56
changed my views at
40:57
all he said and i i must say that i i relate to that now i hope
41:03
i'm not totally
41:03
blinkered i've reconsidered some things re-examined some things
41:07
i you know i don't
41:08
SPEAKER_00: want to just you know but
41:13
I must say that my basic principles,
41:16
values,
41:16
ideals,
41:18
like Popeye,
41:19
I am what I am.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: And I'd be feeling the same is true of you.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: Whether people may like you or dislike you from one week to the next,
41:26
SPEAKER_00: from one year to the next,
41:27
SPEAKER_00: but you're still Charlie Sykes.
41:30
SPEAKER_01: Well,
41:30
SPEAKER_01: but maybe that's the key is that because I'm an only child,
41:32
SPEAKER_01: I don't really care whether people like me or dislike me that much.
41:36
And so like right now I'm sitting here and I'm being,
41:39
I get beat up by the left this week.
41:41
SPEAKER_01: I get beat up by the right and I'm okay with that.
41:44
And I actually kind of like the what I really like now is the
41:48
independence,
41:49
SPEAKER_01: the fact that I don't need to eat from the buffet where,
41:52
SPEAKER_01: you know,
41:52
SPEAKER_01: in order to be conservative,
41:53
SPEAKER_01: you need to believe all these things.
41:55
SPEAKER_01: I am not part of that tribe or that team.
41:58
SPEAKER_01: I love the independence.
41:59
SPEAKER_01: I love the freedom to go.
42:01
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's wrong.
42:02
Now,
42:02
I did make the one big transition where I grew up in a liberal
42:06
democratic family.
42:08
and went to work as a newspaper reporter and began to question
42:11
the things around me.
42:12
And I remember people say,
42:13
well,
42:13
you know,
42:13
you're sounding like a conservative.
42:15
SPEAKER_01: And I remember thinking,
42:16
SPEAKER_01: and this was late 1970s,
42:17
SPEAKER_01: saying,
42:17
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry to use this language,
42:19
SPEAKER_01: but I don't give a shit whether I sound like a conservative.
42:22
SPEAKER_01: If that's what a conservative sounds like, then fine.
42:26
bound by those verities you know those orthodoxies and so i've
42:31
always pushed
42:32
against that so when i call myself a contrarian boy i mean my
42:35
dad was was a super
42:36
contrarian i mean he was you know i grew up in a household we
42:40
would debate things
42:41
and the worst thing we could say about each other you know what
42:44
our our our our dig
42:46
SPEAKER_01: insult was oh that's so predictable oh that's so predictable
42:50
SPEAKER_01: You know,
42:50
SPEAKER_01: and if you are predictable,
42:51
SPEAKER_01: if you if you engage in lazy thinking or if you engage in cliche.
42:55
SPEAKER_01: So I love the the ability to think it through,
42:58
SPEAKER_01: to be independent and say,
42:59
SPEAKER_01: this is what I believe.
43:01
And I don't care what the with the people at the cool kids
43:03
table thinks of it anymore.
43:05
SPEAKER_01: You know, when I was in high school, I worried about that a lot.
43:08
SPEAKER_01: But I'm in an age where I don't worry about that that much.
43:10
SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of our politics are people who are very,
43:13
SPEAKER_01: very anxious to sit at that cool kid table.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: Charlie, was your father a liberal Democrat?
43:20
SPEAKER_01: He was, but he also transitioned.
43:23
SPEAKER_01: I was wondering, did you follow a similar path?
43:25
SPEAKER_01: Well,
43:25
SPEAKER_01: in 68,
43:26
SPEAKER_01: he was Eugene McCarthy's Wisconsin campaign manager,
43:30
SPEAKER_01: the anti-war candidate against Lyndon Johnson.
43:33
SPEAKER_01: He was the president of the Wisconsin Civil Liberties Union.
43:36
SPEAKER_01: By the mid 70s,
43:38
I think he'd gotten very disillusioned with the excesses of the
43:43
of the far left.
43:44
SPEAKER_01: I think the the attack on the college campuses really kind of turned him,
43:48
SPEAKER_01: you know,
43:48
SPEAKER_01: when he when they said,
43:49
SPEAKER_01: you know,
43:50
SPEAKER_01: shut the university down.
43:51
SPEAKER_01: And he said, you know, screw that.
43:53
SPEAKER_01: I fought in World War Two.
43:54
You know,
43:55
I stood up against the brown shirts then I'm not going to cave
43:58
in now.
43:58
SPEAKER_01: So he became he went on that.
44:02
a contrarian shift to the right i think he probably voted for
44:05
ronald reagan in 1980
44:07
i don't know for sure so he made that transition as well but i
44:11
think we did it
44:11
because we were we were contrarians and liberalism in the 70s
44:15
was very sclerotic
44:17
very intolerant very smug kind of had run out of ideas you
44:22
remember in the late
44:22
SPEAKER_01: 1970s it was like
44:24
The most interesting stuff,
44:25
if you wanted the party of ideas,
44:27
it was Bill Buckley.
44:28
SPEAKER_01: It was George Will.
44:29
SPEAKER_01: It was Charles Krauthammer.
44:31
SPEAKER_01: These guys were interesting.
44:32
And you remember Pat Moynihan made that great admission that
44:36
suddenly the right is
44:37
SPEAKER_00: the party of ideas.
44:38
SPEAKER_01: He was right, and I remember that.
44:40
SPEAKER_01: That was actually kind of my, in many ways, the formative years.
44:44
SPEAKER_01: It seems very ironic to think of the party as the party of ideas now.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: It really was.
44:48
SPEAKER_00: It really was.
44:50
I mean,
44:50
every issue of National Review and commentary and the others
44:53
was rich and provocative.
44:58
Here at the end,
44:59
Charlie,
44:59
let me ask you,
45:01
sometimes we talk about refuges from politics.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: And I know that you have a great devotion to and love for your dogs.
45:11
SPEAKER_00: So that's one refuge.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: They don't care about politics much, do they?
45:16
SPEAKER_01: No, they don't.
45:17
SPEAKER_01: No, they don't.
45:18
Although if you can hear,
45:19
I have 140 pound German Shepherd right underneath my desk right
45:23
now.
45:23
SPEAKER_01: He's listening to everything we're saying.
45:25
SPEAKER_00: What's his name?
45:26
SPEAKER_01: This is Eli.
45:27
SPEAKER_01: Augie's upstairs.
45:28
SPEAKER_01: We have two of them.
45:29
SPEAKER_01: And they are refuges for me.
45:31
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I live in the woods.
45:32
SPEAKER_01: And quite frankly,
45:34
SPEAKER_01: when I'm not doing this,
45:35
SPEAKER_01: I am outside,
45:36
SPEAKER_01: you know,
45:37
SPEAKER_01: doing something outside because,
45:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
45:39
SPEAKER_01: you know,
45:40
SPEAKER_01: that cliche now,
45:40
SPEAKER_01: touch grass.
45:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:42
SPEAKER_01: Very, very important.
45:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: You know,
45:45
my equivalent of touching grass is hitting off the mats at
45:49
Manhattan's only golf
45:50
SPEAKER_00: range.
45:51
SPEAKER_00: That's as close as I can.
45:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, there is Central Park not far away, but Charlie, thank you so much.
45:58
SPEAKER_00: And thank you for being Charlie Sykes.
46:01
SPEAKER_00: And I look forward to everything you do.
46:03
SPEAKER_00: And as I said to you before, you make one feel less alone.
46:06
SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
46:08
SPEAKER_01: That's a great.
46:08
SPEAKER_01: This is our mission.
46:10
This is our mission is to make people think that you're not
46:13
alone anymore.
46:14
SPEAKER_01: You're not crazy.
46:16
SPEAKER_01: You know, this is that there are other voices out there.
46:19
SPEAKER_01: And I think that that is absolutely crucial.
46:21
SPEAKER_01: I think of that.
46:22
That's one of the reasons why I get up in the morning and write
46:24
stuff is because I
46:25
know there are people out there who just kind of want to have a
46:28
reality check,
46:29
SPEAKER_01: a sanity check.
46:31
SPEAKER_01: And to hear that, which is why I read your stuff every single day, too.
46:33
SPEAKER_01: So thank you.
46:34
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, man.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: And likewise.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: Well, I am Jay Nordlinger doing Q&A with the one and only Charlie Sykes.
46:40
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, everyone.
46:41
SPEAKER_00: Till next time.