The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg

Tim Carney joins The Remnant, where he talks about some of the great shoe-leather reporting he’s been doing on the protests in the D.C. area. How many of the protesters are seriously out to cause trouble, and how many are there for good reasons? Also, what can be made of the “defund the police” movement, and where have our “little platoons” gone during the pandemic? Show Notes: -Tim’s work at the...

Jonah returns for the weekend Ruminant to address the growing unease he gets from the national protest movements. What’s going to be more damaging: the protests, or the massive overcorrection from the critics of the protests? With a little bit of perspective, it should be easy to see that everyone is manipulating data for their own ends - the epidemiologists, the protesters, and, of course, the Ex...

In this crazy time we’re living in, what’s the most accurate historical parallel? 1968? The 1420s? UMass Boston historian and all-around smart dude Vincent Cannato returns to the show for the second time to remind us of the scary-but-true reality: we are actually living in an unprecedented era. As the ancient faux-Chinese curse says, “May you live in interesting times.” Show Notes: -Vin’s books -J...

How does liberty die? According to Padmé, with thunderous applause. According to The New York Times, with an ill-timed op-ed ghostwritten by Putin. And according to John Pitney, professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna, maybe with Trump? John joins the show to play Remnant bingo, but also to make the case that Trump’s oft-praised abrasiveness isn’t actually very American — and that his...

Jonah ruminates on why we can't have nice things, darling. A journey that takes us from Julien Benda’s Treason of the Intellectuals to John Courtney Murray's The Return to Tribalism. From the cigar shop to the primitive Greek usage of the word "idiot." Show Notes: -Jonah's piece Cigars: A Love Story or Two -Jonah's piece Democracy in the Tobacconist’s -Sen. Ben Sasse's civics lesson -This week's G...

Has the 1 percent really rigged the economy? Why do Argentinians believe the Vatican is hiding aliens? And finally, what’s the deal with Bigfoot (and the associated erotica therein)? University of Miami political scientist and conspiracy theory expert Joseph Uscinski joins Jonah to answer these questions, explain who believes such things, and why. We suggest you listen to this truly bizarre episod...

Last time Matt Ridley was on, Jonah was left with so many questions that he knew he had to get him on again in short order. So he’s here again to answer more questions on the themes of his new book, How Innovation Works. Matt talks about how bureaucracy gets in the way of innovation, not by saying no to innovators, but “by saying yes too slowly,” and presents the one bit of scientific wisdom he wo...

Everything has a price - except The Remnant, of course. That’s free. But regardless, Jonah flies solo once more and shares some advice he learned from his father about how to appraise the worth of any activity in life. On that theme, it turns out that he puts little worth in political eschatology, partisan psychological research, and the dichotomy implied by the terms ‘left-” and “right-wing.” Sho...

David French joins the Five-Timer’s Club on this edition of The Remnant. The conversation has just about the widest scope possible, including everything from end times prophecy, to Protestantism versus Restorationism, to methods for surviving the zombie apocalypse, to the blessed Snyder cut. Show Notes: -David’s newsletter, The French Press -David's podcast with Sarah Isgur -David, supposedly “bre...

Amy Walter, national editor of The Cook Political Report, joins the show to talk about which polling numbers actually convey useful information during an election season. How can Trump’s job approval ratings remain relatively high, while lots of people still say they won’t vote for him? What do the parties actually need to do to keep their coalitions intact? And how strongly does Jonah feel about...

Jonah’s back for another roundup of the week, where he takes on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, R. R. Reno, Napoleon - that’s right, Napoleon - and many more. In addition to addressing current events, he also discusses the necessity of the right to police its own side, and how old-school leftists ruined the word “ideology” for the rest of us. Show Notes: -Jonah’s spat with AOC -Suicide of the West (now...

Paul Matzko - a historian who has charted the legacy of talk radio and the conservative movement - joins The Remnant pantheon. While conservatives may be familiar with the lasting legacy of figures like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Medved, Paul shows that they follow a path established by religious conservatives stretching back to the 60s. Learn about the Kennedy administration’s checkered history wi...

Why do international institutions have scary-sounding names? Why do we fall for dolphin propaganda, every time? What form does the true Platonic Nacho take? Return guest Scott Lincicome joins The Remnant to answer these pressing questions. This episode explains more of this international man of mystery’s backstory, revealing not only what irks him about modern China-hawkishness, but also the cheri...

It’s that time again: on this weekend Ruminant, Jonah finds himself dealing with more 2016 déjà vu, as once again the public conversation turns towards the “binary choice” between two men who have been accused of sexual assault. How did we get to a point where our standards stooped so low? Jonah has a few ideas about that, and they have to do with the cop-outs of the intellectual class and the ero...

Libertarian guru, wisdom-dispenser, and Jonah’s good friend Ron Bailey, science correspondent for Reason magazine, joins us on The Remnant. Ron guides us through the myriad reasons that the coronavirus pandemic doesn’t justify expanding the government and federal bureaucracies to unprecedented levels, before spending the second half of the podcast enticing Jonah to join him in the strange exotic l...

Steve Kornacki, national political correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC, joins Jonah to breakdown the state of the 2020 election, and take a trip through the history of political tribalism. It helps that Steve wrote a whole book, The Red and the Blue, on the subject. Come for Steve's keen knowledge of all things politics, stay for the discussion on weak parties. Show Notes: -Steve’s book, The Red...

On this Ruminant, Jonah finds himself hearing the “binary choice” argument all over again, but this time about Trump vs. Biden. In his response, he also deals with the ways in which people are failing to take the Reade allegation seriously, how we have a political class of perpetual underdogs, and how dishonest arguments have snuck into our partisan debates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

Jonah and National Review’s Charles Cooke podcast with one another from the sunny paradise of Florida on this episode of The Remnant. Why is Florida so weird, really? What is to be made of GOP governors riding the Trump Train before promptly hopping back off? And what are people actually angry about regarding the Reade/Biden allegation? Tune in to witness a disagreement that sheds more light than...

Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin makes a return appearance on this, the 200th episode of The Remnant. To celebrate, Jonah and Mike bring back the ever-popular theme of half-baked ideas, mixing many of their own ideas (that still need a bit more time in the oven) with some of our very own listener-submitted thoughts. They revisit their plan to (peacefully!) annex Greenland, Mike prolongs...

Jonah returns to ruminate on a smorgasbord of things this week: injecting bleach to cure COVID-19 (big if true!), an extended meditation on John Rawls’ "veil of ignorance," how the veil is nonsensical from the pro-life position, and the difference between “social justice” and a “just society.” Show Notes: -Ross’ book on social decadence -Suicide of the West (now out in paperback!) -The veil of ign...

How does technological innovation actually happen? We were able to speak to Matt Ridley, who has literally written the (upcoming) book on this subject, How Innovation Works. Matt brings up fascinating points, such as whether or not innovation really relies on “great men” miraculously coming up with brilliant ideas, why we are often resistant to new technology, and how we can get out of our current...

This episode goes in The Remnant Hall of Fame for a few reasons: it’s both one of the longest episodes we’ve ever done, with one of the New Yorkiest guests we’ve ever had. Vincent Cannato, professor of history at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, proves his New York credentials not just with stories of mayors from years past, but with the most authentic pronunciation of “Giuliani” you’ll...

Another weekend, another Ruminant - this time with Jonah talking about the intellectual backdrop of conservatism, and what early conservative (and progressive) ideologies might have to say about today’s coronavirus response. Join Jonah in a cloud of cigar smoke inside his own car to talk about the New Deal, Trump’s call to LIBERATE [INSERT STATE HERE], and more. Learn more about your ad choices. V...

The vox populi has been heard, so we went with a listener-suggested guest on this episode of The Remnant. Kyle Harper is an incredibly knowledgeable historian of the Roman Empire who specializes in the origins of Christianity, but that doesn’t quite do him justice. As Jonah (or, Jonas Magnus) discovers, he’s effectively a polymath who knows about everything from the gnostics to the history of infe...

On the new Remnant, Jonah talks with James Pethokoukis, a fellow at AEI, about how markets are reacting to coronavirus and what the recovery might look like. (V-shaped? U-shaped? Nike swoosh-shaped?) As a result of their isolation-based hallucinations, they also get particularly animated in the rank punditry and pop culture portions - so don’t miss out on their hottest Star Trek takes, or Jim’s sh...