The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg

Co-founder of Echelon Insights, Golden Retriever companion, and professional Tea Leaf-Reader Kristen Soltis Anderson breaks a long hiatus from Remnant appearances by returning to the show today. As conventional wisdom on the right settles into the idea that “the polls were wrong in 2016,” Kristen gives us a bit of a reality check on why the conditions in 2020 aren’t that simple. She also talks abo...

This weekend’s Ruminant sees Jonah starting off in some classic Remnant Bingo™, but peppered in with a healthy dose of interesting new information on those topics – in this case, anti-Enlightenment nationalism, and the establishment of fair rules under classically liberal societies. This comes along in addition to a rundown of the ham-fisted efforts by many outlets to pretend that “originalism” is...

Here we are, in the wreckage of another simply wonderful Supreme Court confirmation hearing; who better to discuss the aftermath, next steps, and what these hearings do to the court than Ilya Shapiro? As Jonah says, Ilya is likely “the guest most consistently asked to make a comeback - mostly by the guest himself,” but it’s easy to see why. In addition to giving the 411 on why these hearings have...

Today, we bring you Will Saletan of Slate – after having struggled mightily against the malevolent whims of technology in order to get it ready. Not since Episode 11 has an installment of The Remnant so risked the sanity – nay, the very essence – of all participants involved. Luckily, the conversation more than makes up for these struggles. Jonah asks Will what it’s like to be a genuinely liberal...

TO OUR FAVORITE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD! Not seniors this time around, but Remnant listeners, that is. Jonah returns to ruminate with some fire in his belly this week – on the wasting of energy on Twitter, the bizarre phenomenon of the mainstream-media respectable conservative, court packing, The Worst President in History™, a revisiting of the weed conversation from the last Remnant, and more. Also,...

Remnant first-timer Jonathan Adler joins Jonah today, not to watch Cheech and Chong over a bag of Doritos, but to talk about the politics of marijuana. Earlier in the year (right around the time that the world was ending, actually), Adler edited a volume entitled Marijuana Federalism, which explored the legal contradictions within the laws regarding cannabis in the U.S.; the situation is somewhat...

Since the first six days of October 2020 have felt like 87 years, who’s better to sift through everything that has happened than one of The Dispatch’s own quadrumvirate of podcasters, Steve Hayes? Here to give Jonah the inside scoop on some of the background reporting he’s done for The Morning Dispatch, Steve has some ideas about how Trump’s overly-cinematic return to the White House could’ve been...

This weekend’s Ruminant features Jonah running through a set of possible scenarios that might play out given President Trump’s COVID diagnosis – if we do say so ourselves, it’s a positively David French-like methodology given the approach to David’s new book (Out now!). Will Trump be able to do a Zoom debate? Will Mike Pence have the opportunity to do more than he currently does (which, as of now,...

In true Remnant fashion, Jonah speaks to Seth Masket – a political scientist at the University of Denver – in an attempt to understand why so few people in American life actually get what they want out of their vote. In Seth’s new book, Learning from Loss, he traces the Democratic Party’s inability to come up with a coherent “autopsy” post-2016 as Republicans did post-2012 (which is not to say tha...

Join Jonah on today’s episode of The Remnant with our first-time guest: CBS’s John Dickerson. The subjects included in John’s latest book, The Hardest Job in the World, will allow you to get a fix of incredible nerdiness about presidential history in equal proportion to your daily recommended dosage of rank punditry. Why is it that we’ve made the presidency, in John’s words “essentially an impossi...

Jonah’s longtime friend Tevi Troy makes his second appearance on the program, this time to discuss not only the history of presidential debates, but also to share some info on how the sausage gets made from his time doing debate prep for George W. Bush. Beyond simply recounting some of the best zingers in the history of these debates (“The youth and inexperience of my opponent…” “You’re no Jack Ke...

Fellow Dispatcher David French returns to the program on the publishing date of his new book, Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation. If you’ve looked around at American politics over the last few years, and you’ve started to view the coastal states and the middle of the country as a bickering couple – wondering, “Why don’t they just break up already? – David’s b...

Just as there are different Enlightenments, there are different nationalisms, too. In both cases, it’s important to see what points they all converge on. On this edition of the Ruminant, Jonah walks through the ways in which we’ve seen this all before – even in spite of how strange this moment feels. Confucius says: “Enjoy your weekend!” Show Notes: -The Dispatch30-day free trial at -The latest G-...

“We need to agree that the Senate doesn’t work,” Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse tells Jonah on today’s episode of The Remnant. “The Founders had this great idea that you separate power vertically and horizontally if you believe in universal human dignity, and the Senate is kind of the most unique single institution that the Founders created in the Constitution.” Sasse’s appearance comes on the heels of h...

Let the waves of optimism wash over you as return-guests Ron Bailey (Reason) and Marian Tupy (Cato Institute) join forces as Jonah’s tour guides through the last several centuries of human progress. Listen to the first half to hear why there is actual good news about the human condition – even during a pandemic – and stick around in the second half for a satisfying helping of philosophical egghead...

What happens when you make a pundit talk about Antifa, the Dune trailer, the Republic of Venice, and 60s Iron Man cartoons all in one go? Tune in to the weekend Ruminant to find out! Show Notes: -The DispatchStart a 30-day free trial of -Jonah’s Wednesday G-File, un-paywalled due to popular demand -RemnantThis week’s second , with Andy Ferguson -Basically what Jonah means by “A Shoshana point.” -D...

Andrew Ferguson’s follow-up appearance on The Remnant has been a long time coming, and you can tell; he and Jonah are filled with plenty of wisdom on the state of modern journalism, what the conservative media landscape used to be like, and how to not go completely hollow while keeping up with the news cycle. Show Notes: -30-day free trial of The Dispatch -The AtlanticAndy’s page at -Bob Dole: “I’...

Fresh off the heels of his new manifesto (not of the communist variety, though), Iain Murray, CEI senior fellow, joins Jonah on The Remnant to discuss The Socialist Temptation: what it is, who it hits hardest, why socialism isn’t really even an economic theory, and what to do about it. Show Notes: -The Socialist TemptationIain’s new book, -BBC’s generously donated show sets, to spruce up your Zoom...

Who actually believes the media anymore? Can you really call yourself a liberal if you’re also a socialist? And what dog species does Zoë hate with a burning passion? It’s the weekend, and you know what that means: These questions and many more will be answered on this edition of Jonah’s Ruminant. Show Notes: -“Fiery, but mostly peaceful” -The New Guinea Singing Dog -The Socialist TemptationIain M...

In the words of a famed conservative activist, “When they go low, we go high.” That’s what we’re doing today on The Remnant by getting out of the muck of American domestic politics and having a conversation with veteran guest Kenneth Pollack on the intricacies of the Israel-UAE deal instead. What does this mean for the region, and what are the historical corollaries (Hint: It might be on your Remn...

A solo Jonah returns, surrounded by cold beverages, to finish up his thoughts from last time about the final day of the RNC. He then moves on to the tactics of political grandstanding, the autocephalous (uh, Google it) nature of the activist left, and the importance of identifying the correct microclimate of the Loch Ness Monster. Show Notes: -Yuval’s latest Remnant appearance -Tom Cotton, sending...

While it may be the middle of the week, there’s no law against Jonah recording Ruminant-style (i.e. alone) – at least not yet. He discusses the RNC – and invents the fun tongue-twister, “Ceaușescu-esque,” while doing so – the “Biden is a vessel for radicals” theory, and the economically confused obsession with Jeff Bezos. Show Notes: -Kimberly Guilfoyle’s speech is pretty meme-y -Jonah’s spat with...

Jonah makes a triumphant return to the Remnant on this episode, where he finally has a stable enough connection to record after a saga of perambulations around America’s western half. Jonah and Nick - his fearful amanuensis - discuss Alaska, the awkwardness of America’s largest political party holding a Zoom convention, and the potential for two actual crazy people to become elected officials with...

Remnant Hall-of-Famer Jim Geraghty joins the show with the continually-put-upon David French, who is heroically guest-hosting as Jonah continues to galavant around in the land of [REDACTED]. On COVID, Jim gets to reminisce a little about the early weeks of reporting on the pandemic while also updating us. The guys then move on to the election, the “convention” (if you can call it that), and Best S...

Have no fear, dear listener: while Jonah is still radio silent as he swan-dives in slow-mo off of waterfalls (or something), The Remnant hasn’t forgotten you. David French returns to guest host this episode with return favorite Ramesh Ponnuru from National Review and AEI. There’s the requisite Kamala Harris talk, but also deeper questions about ideology and the “Burn It Down” debates. Show Notes:...