434 episodes
The Fifth Column Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welch
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4.6 • 2.6K Ratings
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Your weekly rhetorical assault on the on the news cycle, the people who make it, and occasionally ourselves. Kmele Foster (Freethink), Michael Moynihan (Vice), and Matt Welch (Reason) talk and laugh and drink their way to at least quasi-sanity in a world gone mad, often with the aid of clean and articulate guests. Weekly Members Only subscription edition often comes with listener mail and professional-quality (if inappropriate) singing. Analysis. Commentary. Sedition.
wethefifth.substack.com
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#451 - The Battle of Batya (w/ Batya Ungar-Sargon)
You asked, we delivered. Our pal Batya Ungar-Sargon enters the octagon to (politely!) fight the Globalist Fifth on trade, Trump, robots, unions, automation, and a bunch of other stuff. But we also agree on lots of other things! Hear Batya talk about her wild Israel debate on Zerohedge, how her last book foresaw the NPR madness, and why perverse incentives have created a boring media echo chamber.
Thanks for listening! Love, Oskar and Raoul
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribe -
#450 - Republican Wine Moms and a Dead Double Murderer
* Ozempic Joe
* The Juice has expired
* Revisiting the “Trial of the Century”
* The double murderer who “abandoned his race”
* In defense of Marcia Clark
* Dementia dads
* Matt Lauer emerges
* Nutty MTG, drunky Boebert
* Arizona abortions
* Operation Bubble Wrap
* Poor guy in a ski mask shoots at cops
* Group condemnations and the “IDW”
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribe -
Members Only #206 - Hitting From the Ladies' Tee
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wethefifth.substack.com
* Kid rapping
* Saturday Night Fever is dark, dark movie
* Girl dadding
* Anti-communist manifestos
* On Andrew and Israel
* Big bombs in Iraq: not so fast, Andrew!
* The normalization of extremism
* Don’t be Paul Robeson
* What it means to be “anti-war’
* Dehamasification
* A bachelor party in NY
* And much more! -
#449 - The Prince of Tide Pools (w/ Andrew Sullivan)
Third time’s even more charming! Andrew “Cheech” Sullivan is back, puffing away and ruminating on Israel, Iraq, conservatives, the trans movement, loud music from bluetooth speakers, the awfulness of Trump (who won’t be a dictator, btw), the resilience of American democracy, the resounding victories of the gay rights movement, and the general boringness of identity.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribe -
Members Only #205 - Almost Lost, Unfortunately Found
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wethefifth.substack.com
Last month’s “Second Sunday” broadcast was fun, boozy, and…almost lost. We won’t point any fingers—though they might be jabbed in the direction of a certain someone during the recording—but through a Peter Jackson-like audio excavation, it was saved. Was that a good thing? Errr…who knows. And so, with a few nips and tucks, here she is! And we’ll be back… -
#448 - A Hot Mess (w/ Kat Rosenfield)
The title says it all. The three lads were together, in the same studio, for the second time in as many months. And it’s possible that the start of this particular episode was, for whatever reason, a bit chaotic. But as we settle in with our friend novelist and journalist Kat Rosenfield, we ultimately managed to discuss a few things like…
* Kat’s cancellation story
* Her great New York mag piece from 2017
* Wait, what is sex trafficking?
* Did Kat steal a sled from a kid? Or is that kid a filthy liar?
* Revisiting Christine Blasey Ford
* Firing or cancelling?
* The sacking of Rona Romney McDaniel…Romney
* The Trump bible
* Kat is meh on Cormac McCarthy
* And much, much more
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribe
Customer Reviews
Hilarious
First discovered these guys on YouTube Megyn Kelly Show. Always entertaining!
Gone way down hill (used to be five stars)
I've been a Never Fly Coach subscriber since they started their Substack (and for a bit before that on Patreon), but I won't be renewing my subscription this May unless they drastically improve. I don't necessarily need them to change their positions, I just want them to stop mischaracterizing the positions of those they disagree with and actually engage with them instead.
It started with the Russia/Ukraine war, where they mischaracterized anti-war people as being pro-Russian. Then with the Israel/Palestine conflict, where they mischaracterized people being critical of the actions of Israel's government as being antisemitic and/or pro-Hamas (yes, there are idiots on the left who are pro-Hamas, but there are also plenty of people who condemn Hamas while also being critical of Israel).
Despite being a mostly libertarian podcast, they seem more willing to speak with liberals and conservatives than with libertarians who are more radical than them. The fact that they're more interested in talking with Ben Shapiro (who they've said they'd like to have on the podcast) than with someone like Scott Horton says a lot.
On cultural issues and criticizing the media, they're great. On foreign policy, they've become awful, and foreign policy is too important for me to overlook what they've been saying on the topic. Again, I don't need them to change their positions, I just want them to actually engage with people they disagree with. They do that on other topics, so they should do it for foreign policy as well.
Moynihan
If you don’t like Moynihan, you have my sympathy for your intellectual impairment.
In all honesty, you can’t get a better mix of current events, informed takes, humor, and historical awareness, in a very digestible form.