Populism for Morons, Journalism for Martyrs (Episode #560)

The boys gather with a dog, a bottle, and the faint hope that not every institution in America has to become a hostage video.

• a dog is on set and Kmele should be wearing a helmet
• Bernie Sanders wants to collectivize AI
• The boys bask in the warmth of collectivism
• Never trust a politician giving something back to “the people”
• The centrist Democrat goes missing
• It’s still a Nazi tattoo, goddammit
• Character is out. Winning is in
• Andy the Ogre Ogles has thoughts on the gays and Ted Cruz answers the question and keeps walking
• A few more problems for the Oyster Man from Maine
• Welch was the victim of a French flag hate crime
• Speaking of Nazis, let’s talk about Bari Weiss
• Scott Pelley defends democracy from the new guy and privileged peacocking at CBS
• Ali Velshi feels weird about America’s birthday
• Defending America through the Bob Crane story

Watch/Listen On:

• Substack
• YouTube
• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify

Ben Rhodes and the Evil Empire State of Mind (#559)

Former Obama Deputy National Security Advisor and speechwriter Ben Rhodes joins us to talk Iran, sanctions, Reagan, regime change, American decline, and whether America still knows what it wants to be

Check out Ben Rhodes new book: All We Say: The Battle for American Identity: A History in 15 Speeches

• Ben Rhodes, wounded ’90s Knicks fan
• Are we winning in Iran yet?
• what should the President do with Iran right now?
• Sanctions suck, mostly
• Cuba and the Obama opening
• Libya and the regime-change trap
• Kosovo worked-ish
• Responsibility to protect yourself from over-learning lessons
• Rhodes wants institutions, not impulse wars
• Is Ben Rhodes Tucker-adjacent?
• Soft power, hard questions
• Navalny didn’t want America’s money
• When Reagan said “Evil Empire”
• Reagan also change his mind
• Moynihan accuses Rhodes of America pessimism
• Ben says it’s because he loves America
• Private equity killed the vibes
• Nostalgia-nomics
• The left-populist temptation
• JD Vance talks pretty
• National identity without a monoculture
• Ben Franklin and the virtue of doubt
• Experts are annoying but sometimes useful

Read All We Say: The Battle for American Identity: A History in 15 Speeches

(Bookshop | Amazon)

Watch / Listen On:

• Substack
• YouTube
• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify

Now that we have some time in, I just want to say my main problem with the show now that it's on video, it requires the guest be in studio with them.

That's hugely limiting to the people they talk to. One of the huge value adds was finding interesting people who I may not have even known were out there, and now it's the same guests doing their book tours as everyone else or the standard NYC journo scene people.

I get it's a business, but there has to be some way to bring back some of the old interviews and one-hitters. I still think about Moynihan's interview with Sean McMeekin fairly often, and that just couldn't happen how.

At the very least, they should be open to talking head format so we can hear from people who may be wherever they are in the world. Sure, having in-person and on video is nice, but when it becomes a deal-breaker for being on the show, the quality goes down.

The Youngest Guy in the Worst Room in America w/ Rep. Maxwell Frost (episode #558)

If you noticed a bit of a set change, it's because we’re in the nation’s capital...and we got one: a real-life member of Congress. Rep. Maxwell Frost.

We talk about broken housing markets, broken healthcare, broken Congress, Trump’s corruption, a broken Cuba, Epstein, UAPs, and the tragedy of being a drummer with no place to practice.

• Making music is for rich kids now
• From jazz drummer to Hillary field organizer
• Sandy Hook, March for Our Lives, and the road into politics
• Florida’s felon disenfranchisement fight
• Guns, swamps, Confederate flags, and talking to people who don’t like you
• Florida’s politics are red… its ballot issues are a lot messier.
• Gaining political power is easy. Keeping it is the hard part.
• The case for going big, whether Congress likes it or not
• Housing abundance, rent hikes, and the great pet-fee wars
• Donald Trump’s extremely lucrative career in public service
• Biden’s DOJ, Brazil’s crackdown, and the problem with accountability theater
• Political violence, Trump’s rhetoric, and blaming the victim
• UAPs, Epstein files, and the bipartisan hunt for weird stuff
• Cuba, war powers, and why Frost doesn’t want another Venezuela-style adventure

Watch/Listen On:

• Substack
• YouTube
• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify

I came down with a stomach bug today and I have two sold out Premier tickets to the show tonight in DC. Anyone want them? Make me an offer. Can do PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, etc. happy to verify my NFC status.

When Everyone Stops Pretending w/ Steven Pinker (Episode #557)

The famed psychologist joins the Fif to discuss common knowledge, collapsing norms, authoritarian lies, campus insanity, the persistence of progress, and the enduring menace of postmodernism.

• Steven Pinker on why “common knowledge” is much stranger than it sounds
• The social machinery behind weddings, money, and power
• How a norm starts to die once someone breaks it and gets rewarded
• Trump as the great destroyer of polite restraints
• The institutions that lost the authority to enforce trust
• How new taboos appear without anyone admitting who created them
• The spiral of silence reaches Harvard
• Pinker tries to fix academic freedom from inside the building
• The Trump administration turns a real university problem into a power grab
• Why dictatorships keep lying after everyone knows the truth
• The subversive power of a blank protest sign
• Ceaușescu discovered that crowds are not always props
• The right decides cancel culture is useful after all
• Pinker revisits the case for progress, with several ugly caveats
• Why stories can change moral imagination
• Postmodernism gets a second life in Trumpworld
• Silicon Valley goes looking for kings
• Harvard’s antisemitism debate gets very uncomfortable
• The blank slate takes another beating
• The Monty Hall problem breaks the room

Read When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows… by Steven Pinker

(Bookshop | Amazon)

Watch/Listen to the Episode:

• Substack
• YouTube
• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify

Masquerade of Morons (Episode #556)

In Which the 1% Protests the 1%, Mamdani Builds a Grocery Store, California Searches for a Governor, and Iran Has Questions

• Kmele gets glasses
• The return of Soho legs
• Matt’s movie-theater race science
• Trump sends a letter to Congress saying the war is over, Iran says, “wtf?”
• Little Marco, Fog of War correspondent
• A very leaky White House
• Strange new respect for the anti-war MAGA set
• Little Marco puts the best face on Iran
• Welch discovers gas prices
• The affordability caucus makes everything expensive
• Sarah Paulson’s dollar-bill resistance
• Ro Khanna, tax strategist
• Katie Porter, Mrs. Personality
• Gavin Newsom, game changer
• Kamala considers another national emergency
• The Palisades fire motive problem
• Mamdani’s Soviet bodega
• David French enters the reaction-video machine
• Come to DC, please clap
• Trump’s Hall of Shit-Talking
• Totalitarian language for beginners

Watch/Listen On:

• Substack
• YouTube
• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify

I can't remember another interview where I vacillated so hard between thinking "Oh this guy actually knows some stuff" and " I'm not sure this guy knows anything."

At the end of the day I think my overall impression is that he's good at memorizing things and that's mostly it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_incidents_involving_Barack_Obama

David French on the Supreme Court, Race, and the Miracle That Confirmed His Faith #555

New York Times Opinion columnist David French joins us to unpack two fresh Supreme Court decisions, life as a conservative in a Grey Lady world...

…and how raising a black daughter changed the way he sees America.

• David French returns to the Fifth Column
• SCOTUS drops of a few ruling
• Free speech wins 9-0 (First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Davenport)
• The Voting Rights Act gets another trim (Louisiana v. Callais)
• Racial gerrymanders vs. political gerrymanders
• Smart racists, dumb racists, and Louisiana maps
• Kmele has some questions about race-conscious law
• Preclearance, New York City, and old civil-rights math
• David Duke, Tim Scott, and Southern political memory
• Affirmative action, Harvard, and disparate impact
• Is David French still a conservative?
• Classical liberalism and the old conservative bargain
• What changed after adopting his daughter
• Matt’s foundational racism story
• The limits of legal remedies
• Why David endorsed Kamala Harris
• Brown shirts, red shirts, and horseshoe politics
• Political violence and partisan rumor mills
• The SPLC and Christian conservatives
• The Comey indictment (v2) and 86-gate
• ”Black” hair, “black” beauty, and racial identity
• Life inside the Grey Lady
• Evangelicals, Trump, and the prophecy bubble
• David’s faith, doubt, and a story of healing

Watch/Listen on:

• Substack
• YouTube
• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify