Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you're not currently on our subscriber feed, and will only be hearing the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense Podcast, you'll need to subscribe at SamHarris.org.
We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers. So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one. I am here with Jonah Goldberg. Jonah, thanks for joining me again. Hey, it's great to be back. It's great to see you.
So I think it's been about six months since you were on the podcast and a few things have happened. I think I looked at it, it was somewhere around August of last year. I have a list of things that I think we could profitably discuss, but what's most concerning you these days? Where's your head been on our political landscape?
If we're talking politically, right? I mean, there's all sorts of, you know,
the ai thing is interesting in all sorts of ways we could talk about that at all but if you're just talking about like get goldberg on to do report from inside the beltway what's going on with politics stuff i think the continued erosion of the politicization of our institutions in in distressing ways is probably the main main thing i'm concerned about i mean we're talking on
you know, February 19th or whatever, like by a time that people listen to this, we could be invading Iran. So that could make anything I say kind of outdated, but just a potpourri, you know, like just a couple of days ago or yesterday, Kevin Hassett, chief economic advisor of the president,
You know, he said that some staff economist who did a paper verifying what economists have been saying for 30 years, 50 years, 70 years about tariffs that Americans pay them and that the foreigners don't. Kevin Hassett, who I knew personally, and I know he agreed with that when I knew him, now says that those staffers should be penalized.
For releasing such a finding and you or you look at the chicanery that's going on with Stephen Colbert and the FCC. Trump is running what political scientists sometimes call a personalist regime where the distinction between his personal aims and desires and the demands of state are completely blurred. And I don't think that's going to last forever. You know, the guy's, you know, 80 or whatever.
And I don't think Vance can pull off that act or anything like that. But the problem is, is that it's like with trust. Once you violate these kinds of norms and these institutional rules, you know, the sort of Hayekian hidden law stuff, you can't recreate it overnight. We have what should have been a headline story all across the country is
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Chapter 2: What concerns Jonah Goldberg about the current political landscape?
Because it seems that any wholesale change in staffing is going to be perceived, at least by a large minority on the right, as just yet more purely partisan tribalism. I mean, it can be viewed in the most cynical way as exactly analogous to what Trump did when he came into office and staffed it all with his loyalists in the first place.
How do we, with the best of intentions, perform a reset back to something like normal that gets perceived for what it is rather than just this pendulum swing into the antithetical style or antithetical pole of hyper-partisanship?
It's very hard, right? It is just very, very hard to see how you do that. Look, I'm not, I'm still a sort of, I'm a right of center guy. I've been conservative. I was at National Review for 20 years.
I've lost all of my rooting interest in the Republican Party, but I haven't gained a lot of rooting interest in the Democratic Party, except as a way to sort of right the ship of the American political system. And I've come to the conclusion that the only way you can have a sane Republican Party is or a sane democratic party is if both parties are sane.
You can't just have one sane party because part of this has to do with for structural reasons having to do with primaries, part of it has to do with social media and the balkanizing of the landscape. But the simple fact is, is that we live in a climate now where if one party is crazy, it gives permission to the other party to be crazy as well. And that's a vicious cycle.
And so... Do you think the virtuous cycle is just as strong that once you have some sanity come over one party, it's going to drag the other party back to the normal? I do think it encourages it.
But the way you need to do that, right? The only way I know of how to do that is to get back to the system that you and I kind of grew up under, right? You remember, I probably talked about this last time I was here. It's like, you know, when we were growing up, Republicans ran a little bit to the right in the primaries to get a little bit of the base, right?
And then they ran back to the center once they got the nomination and focused on the median voter, the swing voter, the independent, whatever. Same thing with the Democrats. They ran a little bit to the left of the base in the primaries. And then once they got the nomination, they ran to the center. The problem is, is that structurally the threat to incumbency or election is
in our system now is in the primaries. It is not in general elections. Something like 80% of districts and states, if you get the nomination in a very blue state, you're going to win. And if you get the nomination in a very red state, you're going to win.
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Chapter 3: How has Trump influenced the politicization of federal institutions?
I have my disagreements with the guy. But the thing I like about Rahm Emanuel is that he's actually willing to have a real argument with the left-wing base of his own party. And I think that sentiment is how you get towards sanity. And there's rumors that if Rahm was elected, he would have... you know, Chris Christie as his attorney general, try to do a unity government kind of thing.
I think a lot of people would appreciate, particularly given how I think the Trump presidency gonna end, not just a return to normalcy, but a return to decency kind of thing. And that was a winning message for George W. Bush at the end of the Clinton era. And I have to imagine it could be an even more winning message at the end of the Trump era, but it takes the right kind of Democrat to carry it.
Yeah, yeah. So what are your expectations around the midterms, both with respect to, I guess, a result, if a clear result is achieved, but the chicanery that many people are worried about coming from the Trump administration?
Yeah. So let's just say without Trump, like doing legitimately crooked things, right? Sending in National Guard or ICE agents. Let's just assume he sits out of it for the most part. Inconceivable, not inconceivable, but really unlikely that Democrats don't take back the House by a significant margin.
I know there aren't that many competitive seats left and all of that for the reasons that we sort of alluded to before. But at the same time, you know, the historic average for a midterm election in a presidency, you know, is something like 26 seats, give or take. I mean, it's a little sui generis because Trump, this is kind of a second term and it's kind of his second first term.
So, but in a first term, it's like 26 seats. And It's not entirely clear that the Republicans are going to hold on to the House majority by Election Day. All you need is one dude to slip on a bar of soap or eat some bad clams and the Democrats are going to be a majority. They're down to a one seat majority in the in the House. The bigger question is the Senate. That is still a heavy lift.
But if you actually have a real wave, which there are reasons to think that there is going to be a Democratic wave. It does put it in play. Republicans are definitely worried about putting the Senate in play. And so I think it's going to be a good Democratic night. The question is how good is depends on your expectations.
But it's just very hard for me to imagine that Democrats don't take back the House and at least tighten the margin in the Senate.
If they got all of Congress, what would that spell for the rest of Trump's term? I mean, is that just synonymous with impeachment proceedings and endless investigations and just proper gridlock? I mean, I know most of what he's done in any case hasn't even involved Congress, so perhaps he could just keep forging ahead.
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Chapter 4: What challenges do conservatives face with the rise of nationalist figures?
But it's fairly alarming. You're much closer to these characters than I am. I don't know any of these people personally, really, except for Ben a little bit. What do you make of this schism and how do you think it's going to resolve itself?
So I think you described this schism pretty well. The way I've been saying it is, you know, like, you know how like there's this safe harbor for conservatives where they're not pro-Trump, they're just anti-anti-Trump, which is a throwback to being anti-anti-communist. It's like a lot of liberals were like, I don't like the Soviet Union, but I really hate the McCarthyites.
So like, I don't like the anti-communist people. There are a lot of people on the right who have fallen back into being anti-anti-Trump because they don't like the resistance types. I see Vance as basically the titular leader of the anti-anti-Nazi crowd. It's not so much that he's a Nazi. I don't think he is.
He just thinks part of his political interest is covered by defending people who are either Nazis or Nazi adjacent or want to have a big tent that allows Nazis in it. Or neo-Nazis or bigots, whatever. We can get down a little.
Christian nationalists, white supremacists. There's a Venn diagram here of different commitments.
There are many rooms in the mansion of bat-guano-crazy-bigoted right-wingery. And I get a little tired of people who want to have a big tent that allows all of them in the movement, but then take offense when I associate them with...
one of the other people in that they want in the tent right like if you if you want neo-nazis in the tent it is a reasonable conclusion looking from outside if you'd like to continue listening to this conversation you'll need to subscribe at samharris.org once you do you'll get access to all full-length episodes of the making sense podcast the making sense podcast is ad free and relies entirely on listener support and you can subscribe now at samharris.org
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