Matt Welch
speaker
460 appearances
11 recordings
2 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard May 2025
Matt Welch’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
The Bulwark Daily · 'The Hottest Circle of Hell Is for Those Who Stay Neutral' · 27 Dec 2024
podcast
I find, you have been saying that libertarians are, and like reason itself is, sort of a default right wing. I, like Nick, just reject that. I don't come from that.
Yeah, I don't. I live in fucking Brooklyn.
But no, intellectually as well. You know, I wrote a book in 2008, you know, there's a safe election to be on the right. I wrote a book called or the magazine cover for a reason was Be Afraid of President McCain was my contribution to that.
As someone who's interested both in ideas and for having a sense of protection, similar to yours in one sense, like citizens should engage in self-defense against the people who would use power against us or in our name. So that exploration for me is done best if I am open to everyone's experience and I am not inhabiting the role of telling people who they should vote for.
I'm very happy and Reason has done this forever since 2004 with like the only publication who does it, we go through who the staffers are voting for, all their terrible votes. I love that article.
Yes.
Firm and supreme all the way down. In a way, it is picking a side. But there is some role to be had when you don't lose your mind all the time in partisan politics and the hysterias thereof. You can keep your wits about you and describe the actual threats as opposed to the imagined threats. And the actual threats many times are worse. But the way that
a lot of journalists, let alone people who are in opinion journalism, have reacted by sort of shrieking. They have dulled the ability to drill down into the things that are particularly threat level from Donald Trump. So I think there is a tactical advantage in having some amount of kind of comportmental neutrality as opposed to like telling people who they should vote for.
We can shriek and have our wits about us at the same time with the absence next door, I think, after the...
I highly recommend reading Reasons Jacob Solom, who's written three pieces about Kash Patel over the last week going into... at some meticulous detail, all of these criticisms.
Let's see. We're also using audio visuals here. Garcon? This is from, so Sarah was talking about the importance of making good decisions as a publisher and editor. This is I think the Bulwark, I've heard of this. I'll read it for those in the cheap seats here. It says, what unites Elon Musk and the United Healthcare CEO is their belief that laws do not apply to them, unquote.
There's a class warfare, populism out there waiting for someone to harness it. What the actual fuck is that? It's sort of a rhetorical question. What that is is your brain on brain rot politics. This is when you're doing either trolling out there trying to get clicks successfully, whether they're hate clicks or love clicks, or Jonathan Last actually
believes that there is a useful comparison between Brian Thompson and Elon Musk. Because we don't like Elon Musk now, and Brian Thompson is dead. It's very difficult. I only got to the paywall part, and I couldn't go further afterwards. This is what happens to people when you get into a life and death struggle about politics. in every breath.
Has Elon Musk, to show someone here, has he gotten smarter since he's decided to get into politics? No. Has Rob Reiner gotten smarter since he's gotten more involved in politics? No. This is where people go. They get into this very oppo research type of mentality, and it leads you to some dark and morally kind of cretinous places.
If the world's dreamiest libertarian, if Javier Millay comes down here, he's the current world's dreamiest libertarian, I would be enthusiastic to vote for him. I would probably write nice things about him. And I would not take a sign because I'm a journalist. I don't take signs. Next question.
I didn't say support. I would be interested in writing about him. I would cheer him along. But it's like I am not telling people who to vote for.
Oh, my God.
Absolutely. I mean, that is such an impossible to imagine thing.
I like the sound of your meetings, except for the part where there was meetings in them. Everything else sounds really great.
No, there are political parties. There should be political parties. And I should not join any of them. That is that is my been my view my entire life.
Showing 421–440 of 460 · page 22 of 23
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