The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg The Dispatch

On this episode, Jonah ruminates from his igloo (we hope - wouldn’t that be cool?) on some Alaska stories, the American founding, relativism in language, and why good manners are more important (and more complicated) than you might think.

Show Notes:
-Alaskans plug in their cars
-The mighty Gavora Mall
-The members-only Wednesday “news”letter
-Remnant with John McWhorter
-Tony Montana … asserts his dominance? … by eating the lemon in the washing bowl
-Orwell’s Orphans 
-Jonah’s dueling essay with Patrick Deneen 

Andy Smarick, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, joins a sleep-deprived Jonah in a discussion of schools in the time of COVID — all 14,000 districts’ worth. After nerding out over Supreme Court cases, civics, and badly misremembering an episode of M*A*S*H, Andy ends on a note of optimism while Jonah (hopefully) goes to get some sleep somewhere in Alaska.

Show Notes:
-Adrian Vermeule’s common-good constitutionalism 
-Sohrab Ahmari vs. David French debates, because why not 
-What is Conservatism? With a foreword by Jonah
-Bostock v. Clayton County, court opinion delivered by Gorsuch 
-AEI survey about parents’ feelings with the approaching school year
-Smarick’s piece on how pundits ought to have governing experience 
-Lyman Stone on The Remnant
-Thomas Sowell’s recent book on charter schools
-Andy: What the Espinoza Decision Means for Other Aspects of Religious Freedom
-Blaine Amendment
-Pierce v. Society of Sisters 
-Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer 
-CarShield.com, promo code “dingo” to save 10% 

Jonah has long awaited the chance to have Columbia University linguist John McWhorter on the show, and now he’s finally here. In a particularly un-rank episode of The Remnant, Jonah asks John about the shifting nature of language, and if it’s really a good thing that usage shifts so rapidly (e.g. “literally”). Also, what grammar police campaigns have been successful in preserving grammatical order, and where have they failed?

Show Notes:
-John’s many, many books 
-John’s podcast, Lexicon Valley 
-Jonah’s piece on Biden’s use of “literally” 
-Once more, Paul Bloom’s Just Babies 
-DrinkHydrant.com, use promo code “dingo” for 25% off your first order 

Jonah gratefully drags a harried Niall Ferguson onto the show, which begins with Angela Merkel and ends with “copious quantities of claret.” Listen to Jonah and Niall — mostly Niall, of the Mellifluous Voice — speak in tongues, lament the destruction of critical thinking in universities, and sneak in a jab at Woodrow Wilson [dun dun dun].

Show Notes:
-Angela Merkel on “the toughest situation” in Europe’s history 
-Communities of fate, coined by our grave German friends
-The New Republic’s contest for the most boring headline 
-Rescuing the nation-state, commentary by Alan S. Milward 
-Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire by Niall Ferguson 
-That whom Niall is not
-The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations, by Paul Kennedy 
-Cornell, guns-on-campus 
-Too many educated men, by Boyle 
-NBER paper on how more people actually stayed home during the protests 
-Schumpeter’s Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy 
-Civilization: The West and the Rest, by Niall Ferguson 
-Piece by Niall and Eyck Freymann 
-Faces At The Bottom Of The Well: The Permanence Of Racism, by Derrick Bell 
-For fun, the Yale Course Catalog, which Jonah perused a few years ago 
-ExpressVPN.com/Remnant for 3 months free off a year-long plan 

On his second Remnant appearance, National Review’s Kevin Williamson travels down a series of tangent-friendly avenues with Jonah. What are statue-defacers actually accomplishing? Why are Americans “a bunch of maniacs” compared to our continental comrades? And what is Kevin’s obsession with Switzerland all about, anyway?

Show Notes:
-Kevin’s upcoming book, Big White Ghetto
-Kevin’s smash-hit, The Smallest Minority 
-Kevin’s aptly-titled Tuesday newsletter, “The Tuesday” 
-Houston Rockets manager tweets in support of Hong Kong protests 
-China is now sterilizing Uyghurs 
-U. Topia 
-The genuine wackiness of Richard Delgado
-The Helvetica Type
-Stein’s Law 
-DrinkHydrant.com/dingo for 25% off your first order 

It’s the weekend, therefore it’s time for another Ruminant. This time, it’s a monologue in which Jonah truly realizes how Remnant-y he’s really become. In his own words, “the point of conservatism is not to get the Republican Party elected.” In short, this is a “down with majoritarianism, up with principles” kind of episode.

Show Notes:
-This week's G-File
-Wednesday's "news"letter 
-Suicide of the West (now out in paperback!)
-The non-scandal of Tina Fey and Jimmy Kimmel 
-Steve Teles (Robert Saldin): Never Trump: The Revolt of the Conservative Elites 
-Patrick Deneen’s piece for American Compass
-Hofstadter’s book on social Darwinism
-Herbert Spencer and his infamous phrase
-“The Fourteenth Amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer’s Social Statics.” 
-Leonard’s “Origins of the myths of social Darwinism” 
-The Pilgrim’s Progress