I hate to disagree with you because I always enjoy your contributions here and elsewhere, but I don’t even agree with the first part of that. She has a sort of weird, “noble savage”-type view of the American “working class”—a group of people whom she is certain she has become intimately acquainted with, to the point of being their Brooklyn-dwelling tribune on Bill Maher and other such glitzy programs—that seems like essentialism of the rankest sort, and like many such essentialisms, it doesn’t even have the virtue of being true.
I’m from Birmingham, Alabama. I live in Queens, New York City. Both places, absolutely chock full of “working-class” Americans, despite the rising cost of living here in Queens—and yet the differences between them significantly outnumber the similarities. Everything from unionization to ethnicity to culture to social attitudes to where they tend to live to how much money they tend to make, and on and on. And these are just two examples in an *enormous* country!
I also spent a few years living in my ladyfriend’s native St. Louis recently, a prototypical Rust Belt, “forgotten” city—and look it’s true: it is rusty, and it has been largely forgotten by most of the country! That sucks really, really bad; it’s a fucking crime what’s been done to that city, both through active policy and sheer neglect. But guess what? The working class there are also completely different than in Alabama and New York. So this idea that there is such a thing as an archetypal working-class American—much less one with a particular set of policy preferences like insane tariffs that lead to higher consumer prices, or a huge crackdown on friggin’ H1-B visas of all things (a big bugbear for Batya for some reason)—is bunk, in my incredibly humble opinion.
So I just don’t get what she thinks she’s saying. If she dialed back the intensity/vehemence of her claims by about 85%, maybe she’d have more of a point (at least in my eyes). But as of now… yeah, I’m just not pickin’ up what she’s puttin’ down, as we say.
It was just a bad interview. Rikki Schlott spoke with Ungar-Sargon on a podcast I don't think she's doing anymore, "We Never Had This Conversation," focusing on how she went from someone who despised Trump in 2016, through her disillusionment with the left, to her eventual embrace of MAGA politics and it was a fascinating and revelatory discussion -not because of what it covers about Ungar-Sargon personally but it how it charts the shift in populist politics through the heart of the Republic party. I am not sure anyone tracks Trump with greater focus or attention and she has an incredible insight into how he operates and what motivates him -which is simple enough that superficially everyone has that answer, popularity and success, but which is pretty interesting when you see how seriously he takes trying to figure out what will be popular and has the potential for success. Whatever else she is wrong about economically, she has managed to convince me that Trump does have a sincere interest in working class concerns, and not just as a means to an end. As alien and unfamiliar as his political perspectives are to me, as distasteful as I find his tactics, as uncomfortable as I am with how he uses power and the ends he works toward, there is something authentic in his motivation which explains why people who politically should not matter are so committed to him and also why it is easy to despise him from a distance but it becomes increasingly difficult the closer one works with him..
The guys squandered an opportunity and abused decorum, much as Josh Szeps did when he had her on. They let the conversation become personal for them and forgot she was a guest and the deference which is supposed to be shown toward guests -the accommodation which guests are shown, after all, is a reflection of the host's largess, tolerance, and character. Anyway, all of that is a long way of saying that I agree with you, but when the odds are three to one, no one should be cornered unless you are out for blood.
Yeah, I don't really agree. Batya will say something like "countries are coming to the table to negotiate, this is a win!" And the boys would say "what countries" and she would say "Japan" and they would say "with whom we had a trade surplus..." and she would change the subject. She is a talented and eloquent political operative. She's not a reliable source of truth.
I think you may have the idea I am defending her perspectives or position. I'm not. Neither am I suggesting her claims should have got without scrutiny or contest.
What I am saying is that she does have insights which are interesting and useful and they chose instead to focus on areas where her expertise is weakest. That is the wasted opportunity. The key to good interviews is extracting as much value from your subject toward your topic as is possible and that was not done here. The bulk of my reply was sharing an example of someone who had managed to do that illustrating that it was an attainable goal and there is little excuse for why it was not done here. The rest had to do with tone which doesn't seem to be dispute.
I don't see any significant disagreement. She was elusive, no new ground was covered, it wasn't an enjoyable listen -and if we differ at all it is that I hold the hosts responsible for the poor tenor and lack of substance, not the guest.
Nah, it's not like they asked her about her opinion on gardening, her entire shtick is selling Trump's agenda to the public. This is her entire media persona, it's hardly an area of low expertise.
Maybe you're newer to the Fifdom, but if the interview didn't work for you that's fine -- this is the exact area of her public commentary you'd expect these hosts to push her on. And on which anyone responsible *should* push her on because, again, she has put herself in this position as MAGA cheerleader and never misses an opportunity to put the work in.
I didnt see it as an “interview.” I saw it as four friends having drinks and bitching at each other about disagreements 🤷♂️. Cant imagine they would have behaved that way if they werent friends outside the political arena (eg, Im thinking of the Tiabbi interview after Russia invaded Ukraine). I agree…no nee ground was broken, but I didnt think that was the point/purpose of the episode.
Thanks for the comment. Found the ep on YouTube and I’ll check it out. FWIW I saw this Fifth ep as part two of their other episode with Batya where they pretty much let her yell at them and get her points out. Was it overall as enlightening as it could be? I dunno. I’m curious how Rikki handles it.
Very interesting comment and I can tell you’re coming from a serious place here, so it’s interesting just how much I disagree with you on this idea that Trump has any sort of authentic care for the fate of working-class Americans—and, frankly, with the entire idea that populism is something that ought to be entertained as serious politics rather than a festival of demagoguery. Maybe it’s because I’m from the land of George “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” Wallace—whom my grandmother literally taught Sunday school, btw, which blows my fucking mind to this day—but I don’t see populism as a legitimate form of politics. If you really want to help people, whipping them up into a frenzy over the threat from some dark outside forces is not the way to do it. And I know you have multiple caveats about his tactics and how uncomfortable it all makes you; this isn’t really directed at you.
But that last part of your first paragraph is something I’d warn against, if I might be so presumptuous. Interpersonal feelings are not a reliable guide to how one ought to view political actors or other public figures; their own motivations and actions are what matters. It’s that old line about George W. Bush being someone you’d like to have a beer with: definitely true—but not a good reason to support anything he does or says publicly!
And I’m surprised by your comment about Szeps’ episode with her; I thought he was incredibly restrained, actually, to the point that I remember feeling frustrated by it at the time. I’m curious as to why you thought he “squandered an opportunity” or “abused decorum” with her, because that is radically at odds with my own experience of listening to that interview. As for the boys, I think it was appropriate to give her a hard time: extraordinary claims (which she makes with her every breath) require extraordinary evidence, and I’m sure she knew ahead of time that she was going in there to defend her publicly stated positions.
I admit that I found myself confused by the consternation over the Batya episode. It sounded like nightly dinner when I was growing up. And I’m not exaggerating.
I love a great back and forth- it was a really fun episode.
I would be thrilled if you guys had Ben Shapiro on the show, but you guys have been threatening to have him on for 7 years. So I'll believe when I see it!
Moynihan, you have nothing to apologize for in the last episode. People who are that aggressively ignorant about economics deserve to be yelled at.
I’m a retired graphic design teacher—I think I’m supposed to call myself a professor emeritus—and always subjected my students to a grimmer version of “kill your babies.” I told them they would spend the rest of their lives making Sophie’s choice. (I, of course, had to explain the reference and tell them who Styron and Streep were/are.) You don’t give up your ideas based on self-effacement but on their likely survival in a particular environment.
Hey Matt- in the last episode you mentioned the Mitch Daniels/Tim Miller thing and I had no idea about that. I did some googling and yeah that sounds pretty scummy! I’m a born Hoosier that came of age after his governorship and that was the first I’ve heard of it.
Also you mentioned that it’s a bummer the Angels don’t have a beat writer- you sure about that after the last two nights?
I like Matt and Tim, but in this case I feel a bit irritated that Matt left out a rather crucial thing about the Mitch Daniels thing: Tim Miller did a mea culpa about that *in his own book* (literally called “Why We Did It”, lol, so not exactly hiding the ball)! The following is from a 2022 interview on Fresh Air:
“I look back on things like [going after Daniels in such a personal way on behalf of Jon Hunstman, for whom Miller was working at the time]. I look back on things like me dealing with Steve Bannon and the Bretibarts of the world, to have them attack the other more mainstream candidates, you know, on my candidate's behalf. That was something that I did regularly. And I think - I mean, this was all technically within the rules of politics, right? I wasn't doing anything illegal. But, you know, stepping back from everything, I was actually kind of harming the candidates that I thought were better suited to run and, in a lot of ways, helping the more extreme candidates. I was participating with people that were spreading very toxic, at times racist, material on their website. And I was, you know, kind of favor-trading with them.”
That’s pretty straight-up, IMO. So you can criticize Tim Miller all you want, but he has been very open, apologetic, and regretful about all of that stuff, to the point of writing a book-length mea culpa about it. It’s hard to ask for much more than that, especially when you consider that he’s now devoting his professional life to fighting the malign forces that he is fully aware of having enabled in the pretty recent past. So I don’t think it’s a very impactful critique, with all due respect to the great Herr Professor Doktor Welch.
Funny thing about the Cato thing was at the same time people were worried about Cato becoming a Republican Party mouthpiece or whatever there were people screaming about Cato becoming a mouthpiece for the left.
I’m watching Real Time and noticing the blue cards for the first time — Swisher and McCarthy both have them! Bush league, lol — I will refuse it when my turn comes.
The problem with the Batya episode was only Michael’s in the respect that he invited her on. I’m sure she’s nice- but every view she has is so, so, so dumb.
Retired employee of a company bought by Koch Industries, owned by the Charles Koch. Nothing but respect towards Charles. That started my path towards libertarianism.
One of his cancer research grants paid my salary for a year. Didn't personally meet with him, but my PI did and word was (despite a difference of political opinions) he was a fine dinner guest and very gracious for the work we were doing.
Ugh Batya maybe infected me but…near the two hour mark, you guys laughed at Trump’s speech about industry. Isn’t that what America needs? Jobs for the middle bit that is foundering? I don’t understand why it’s funny.
Given my third-world mindset—if the manufacturing came to my shores, I’d rejoice—I can’t help but wonder if Middle America is more like Honduras than like New York…
The issue is that we are still second in the world for manufacturing and we also have tons of unfilled manufacturing jobs now. You can still get those jobs. How are we going to fill the new factories with employees if we can't fill them now?
I think what people yearn for are the manufacturing jobs that allowed a person to have a new car every couple of years and a little vacation cottage where you could go fishing on the weekends, all without having to go to college. Even if you on-shored/re-shored those kinds of jobs today, they're not going to provide those kinds of benefits anymore, because it used to be the case that the supply chain wasn't global and those not just anybody could fill those positions.
Speaking of organic moments on TV talk shows and crossing a few streams here -- Maher was semi-recently on Red Eye and Gutfeld was about 22 minutes into a retarded unfunny monologue and Maher randomly interjects "do the guests ever get to speak on this show?" Absolutely hilarious, took the piss out of the whole show.
The boys went far too easy on Batya. She repeatedly said "so we can all agree...[batshit communist class analysis]". Her premises needed to be refuted more explicitly.
What bothered me is that they did not get into basic economics.1 does a trade imbalance mean anything, 2 how tariffs are taxes, 3 the autarkic implications of dictating to firms and consumers what they should buy, 4 how distinctions between moving factories to Alabama or Vietnam are meaningless and arbitrary, 5 how tariffs hurt jobs by raising input costs. They also did not focus enough on the erratic nature of trump's positioning that undermine the (admittedly weak) best case defense of trump's plan to isolate china. Or, how American business are weakened by being unable to plan in trumps America. Batya is also strikingly chauvinistic and aggressive towards non-Americans. One can be pro-american without glorifying jerkiness and zero-sum, nietzschian thuggery.
Agreed on all points. I'll add that Batya's stated goal of getting the 6m dudes that are out of the workforce back into the workforce should be questioned. 1. Why do we think that tariffs will achieve this goal? 2. Why THE FUCK should the rest of us have to risk fucking the greatest economy the world has ever known so that a tiny minority of guys that have for whatever reason given up hope of ever being productive members of society again can have maybe (probably not) more manufacturing jobs to apply to (they won't)?
That is one of her annoying tactics. She was doing that on the latest Honestly as well. “We all agree that in the middle of a pandemic that China started it was bad to rely on China for masks. We all agree that we need to be able manufacture our own masks. We all agree that avocados are bad and that Elon is a CCP operative and that Android is better than Apple and Trump is the only one who is willing to be a man and do something about it!”
This is a very old political speech trick, it's amazing that she sticks to it so thoroughly, I'm almost amazed she didn't start every answer by thanking the questioner for such a great question
She did that to The Dispatch's Jamie Weinstein, too. Meantime, I'm thinking "Yeah, I'm pretty sure Jamie doesn't think that" which of course Jamie is too polite to say.
One of the commenters there said Batya sounds like "a five year old try[ing] to explain how the world works", which IMO is a pretty good characterization.
I listened to the Batya episode twice and loved it. She can hold her own.
Also, I’d bump my subscription up to NFC if Moynihan does a series where he gets drunk and berates guests.
She can hold her own in volume alone. Her ideas are the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.
…she can hold her own…
breath as she spews forth a ceaseless word salad of non-sequiturs, incoherent talking points, and mis-construed concepts.
Indeed, she truly is the Kenny G of slavish, emotion-based political commentary.
I think she is great at diagnosing the problem and terrible at coming up with solutions.
I hate to disagree with you because I always enjoy your contributions here and elsewhere, but I don’t even agree with the first part of that. She has a sort of weird, “noble savage”-type view of the American “working class”—a group of people whom she is certain she has become intimately acquainted with, to the point of being their Brooklyn-dwelling tribune on Bill Maher and other such glitzy programs—that seems like essentialism of the rankest sort, and like many such essentialisms, it doesn’t even have the virtue of being true.
I’m from Birmingham, Alabama. I live in Queens, New York City. Both places, absolutely chock full of “working-class” Americans, despite the rising cost of living here in Queens—and yet the differences between them significantly outnumber the similarities. Everything from unionization to ethnicity to culture to social attitudes to where they tend to live to how much money they tend to make, and on and on. And these are just two examples in an *enormous* country!
I also spent a few years living in my ladyfriend’s native St. Louis recently, a prototypical Rust Belt, “forgotten” city—and look it’s true: it is rusty, and it has been largely forgotten by most of the country! That sucks really, really bad; it’s a fucking crime what’s been done to that city, both through active policy and sheer neglect. But guess what? The working class there are also completely different than in Alabama and New York. So this idea that there is such a thing as an archetypal working-class American—much less one with a particular set of policy preferences like insane tariffs that lead to higher consumer prices, or a huge crackdown on friggin’ H1-B visas of all things (a big bugbear for Batya for some reason)—is bunk, in my incredibly humble opinion.
So I just don’t get what she thinks she’s saying. If she dialed back the intensity/vehemence of her claims by about 85%, maybe she’d have more of a point (at least in my eyes). But as of now… yeah, I’m just not pickin’ up what she’s puttin’ down, as we say.
Kenny G is a treasure, and you keep his name out'ya mouth!
Yeah I respect her sticking to her guns, but I think she got cornered quite a bit and just changed the subject to get out of it.
It was just a bad interview. Rikki Schlott spoke with Ungar-Sargon on a podcast I don't think she's doing anymore, "We Never Had This Conversation," focusing on how she went from someone who despised Trump in 2016, through her disillusionment with the left, to her eventual embrace of MAGA politics and it was a fascinating and revelatory discussion -not because of what it covers about Ungar-Sargon personally but it how it charts the shift in populist politics through the heart of the Republic party. I am not sure anyone tracks Trump with greater focus or attention and she has an incredible insight into how he operates and what motivates him -which is simple enough that superficially everyone has that answer, popularity and success, but which is pretty interesting when you see how seriously he takes trying to figure out what will be popular and has the potential for success. Whatever else she is wrong about economically, she has managed to convince me that Trump does have a sincere interest in working class concerns, and not just as a means to an end. As alien and unfamiliar as his political perspectives are to me, as distasteful as I find his tactics, as uncomfortable as I am with how he uses power and the ends he works toward, there is something authentic in his motivation which explains why people who politically should not matter are so committed to him and also why it is easy to despise him from a distance but it becomes increasingly difficult the closer one works with him..
The guys squandered an opportunity and abused decorum, much as Josh Szeps did when he had her on. They let the conversation become personal for them and forgot she was a guest and the deference which is supposed to be shown toward guests -the accommodation which guests are shown, after all, is a reflection of the host's largess, tolerance, and character. Anyway, all of that is a long way of saying that I agree with you, but when the odds are three to one, no one should be cornered unless you are out for blood.
Yeah, I don't really agree. Batya will say something like "countries are coming to the table to negotiate, this is a win!" And the boys would say "what countries" and she would say "Japan" and they would say "with whom we had a trade surplus..." and she would change the subject. She is a talented and eloquent political operative. She's not a reliable source of truth.
I think you may have the idea I am defending her perspectives or position. I'm not. Neither am I suggesting her claims should have got without scrutiny or contest.
What I am saying is that she does have insights which are interesting and useful and they chose instead to focus on areas where her expertise is weakest. That is the wasted opportunity. The key to good interviews is extracting as much value from your subject toward your topic as is possible and that was not done here. The bulk of my reply was sharing an example of someone who had managed to do that illustrating that it was an attainable goal and there is little excuse for why it was not done here. The rest had to do with tone which doesn't seem to be dispute.
I don't see any significant disagreement. She was elusive, no new ground was covered, it wasn't an enjoyable listen -and if we differ at all it is that I hold the hosts responsible for the poor tenor and lack of substance, not the guest.
Nah, it's not like they asked her about her opinion on gardening, her entire shtick is selling Trump's agenda to the public. This is her entire media persona, it's hardly an area of low expertise.
Maybe you're newer to the Fifdom, but if the interview didn't work for you that's fine -- this is the exact area of her public commentary you'd expect these hosts to push her on. And on which anyone responsible *should* push her on because, again, she has put herself in this position as MAGA cheerleader and never misses an opportunity to put the work in.
I didnt see it as an “interview.” I saw it as four friends having drinks and bitching at each other about disagreements 🤷♂️. Cant imagine they would have behaved that way if they werent friends outside the political arena (eg, Im thinking of the Tiabbi interview after Russia invaded Ukraine). I agree…no nee ground was broken, but I didnt think that was the point/purpose of the episode.
Thanks for the comment. Found the ep on YouTube and I’ll check it out. FWIW I saw this Fifth ep as part two of their other episode with Batya where they pretty much let her yell at them and get her points out. Was it overall as enlightening as it could be? I dunno. I’m curious how Rikki handles it.
Very interesting comment and I can tell you’re coming from a serious place here, so it’s interesting just how much I disagree with you on this idea that Trump has any sort of authentic care for the fate of working-class Americans—and, frankly, with the entire idea that populism is something that ought to be entertained as serious politics rather than a festival of demagoguery. Maybe it’s because I’m from the land of George “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” Wallace—whom my grandmother literally taught Sunday school, btw, which blows my fucking mind to this day—but I don’t see populism as a legitimate form of politics. If you really want to help people, whipping them up into a frenzy over the threat from some dark outside forces is not the way to do it. And I know you have multiple caveats about his tactics and how uncomfortable it all makes you; this isn’t really directed at you.
But that last part of your first paragraph is something I’d warn against, if I might be so presumptuous. Interpersonal feelings are not a reliable guide to how one ought to view political actors or other public figures; their own motivations and actions are what matters. It’s that old line about George W. Bush being someone you’d like to have a beer with: definitely true—but not a good reason to support anything he does or says publicly!
And I’m surprised by your comment about Szeps’ episode with her; I thought he was incredibly restrained, actually, to the point that I remember feeling frustrated by it at the time. I’m curious as to why you thought he “squandered an opportunity” or “abused decorum” with her, because that is radically at odds with my own experience of listening to that interview. As for the boys, I think it was appropriate to give her a hard time: extraordinary claims (which she makes with her every breath) require extraordinary evidence, and I’m sure she knew ahead of time that she was going in there to defend her publicly stated positions.
This is such a weird and bad take.
I admit that I found myself confused by the consternation over the Batya episode. It sounded like nightly dinner when I was growing up. And I’m not exaggerating.
I love a great back and forth- it was a really fun episode.
INT. MOLLY’S KITCHEN - NIGHT
Molly’s dad: Would you pass the potatoes, dear?
Molly’s mom: DON’T FUCKING MAU MAU ME ON MY OWN FUCKING PODCAST!
How did you know that potatoes were served every night??
Midwest is literally part of your name!
YES! They’re being so dramatic about it! Even in the episode notes there was a big warning that got me worried but it was NOTHING!
Yeah, I felt bad for her til she called Moynihan a little bitch.
Where's the fun in minimizing drunken regrets?
I would be thrilled if you guys had Ben Shapiro on the show, but you guys have been threatening to have him on for 7 years. So I'll believe when I see it!
Moynihan, you have nothing to apologize for in the last episode. People who are that aggressively ignorant about economics deserve to be yelled at.
Yes! My dream guest as a regular Shapiro listener as well. My number 2 guest is Wilfred Reilly
I’ve been asking for a Shapiro interview for years, too…
Matt,
I’m a retired graphic design teacher—I think I’m supposed to call myself a professor emeritus—and always subjected my students to a grimmer version of “kill your babies.” I told them they would spend the rest of their lives making Sophie’s choice. (I, of course, had to explain the reference and tell them who Styron and Streep were/are.) You don’t give up your ideas based on self-effacement but on their likely survival in a particular environment.
Very good way of putting it. The *environment*, or at least awareness of it, must be at or near top of mind.
Hey Matt- in the last episode you mentioned the Mitch Daniels/Tim Miller thing and I had no idea about that. I did some googling and yeah that sounds pretty scummy! I’m a born Hoosier that came of age after his governorship and that was the first I’ve heard of it.
Also you mentioned that it’s a bummer the Angels don’t have a beat writer- you sure about that after the last two nights?
Sorry ;) Go Tigers!
Tim Miller is a douche.
His pearl necklace on Maher was all I needed to know to form an opinion
Can't clutch your pearls if ya ain't wearin' 'em.
I missed any mention of the Tim Miller/Mitch Daniels thing. What happened?
I like Matt and Tim, but in this case I feel a bit irritated that Matt left out a rather crucial thing about the Mitch Daniels thing: Tim Miller did a mea culpa about that *in his own book* (literally called “Why We Did It”, lol, so not exactly hiding the ball)! The following is from a 2022 interview on Fresh Air:
“I look back on things like [going after Daniels in such a personal way on behalf of Jon Hunstman, for whom Miller was working at the time]. I look back on things like me dealing with Steve Bannon and the Bretibarts of the world, to have them attack the other more mainstream candidates, you know, on my candidate's behalf. That was something that I did regularly. And I think - I mean, this was all technically within the rules of politics, right? I wasn't doing anything illegal. But, you know, stepping back from everything, I was actually kind of harming the candidates that I thought were better suited to run and, in a lot of ways, helping the more extreme candidates. I was participating with people that were spreading very toxic, at times racist, material on their website. And I was, you know, kind of favor-trading with them.”
That’s pretty straight-up, IMO. So you can criticize Tim Miller all you want, but he has been very open, apologetic, and regretful about all of that stuff, to the point of writing a book-length mea culpa about it. It’s hard to ask for much more than that, especially when you consider that he’s now devoting his professional life to fighting the malign forces that he is fully aware of having enabled in the pretty recent past. So I don’t think it’s a very impactful critique, with all due respect to the great Herr Professor Doktor Welch.
Funny thing about the Cato thing was at the same time people were worried about Cato becoming a Republican Party mouthpiece or whatever there were people screaming about Cato becoming a mouthpiece for the left.
I’m watching Real Time and noticing the blue cards for the first time — Swisher and McCarthy both have them! Bush league, lol — I will refuse it when my turn comes.
The problem with the Batya episode was only Michael’s in the respect that he invited her on. I’m sure she’s nice- but every view she has is so, so, so dumb.
Retired employee of a company bought by Koch Industries, owned by the Charles Koch. Nothing but respect towards Charles. That started my path towards libertarianism.
One of his cancer research grants paid my salary for a year. Didn't personally meet with him, but my PI did and word was (despite a difference of political opinions) he was a fine dinner guest and very gracious for the work we were doing.
Ugh Batya maybe infected me but…near the two hour mark, you guys laughed at Trump’s speech about industry. Isn’t that what America needs? Jobs for the middle bit that is foundering? I don’t understand why it’s funny.
Given my third-world mindset—if the manufacturing came to my shores, I’d rejoice—I can’t help but wonder if Middle America is more like Honduras than like New York…
The issue is that we are still second in the world for manufacturing and we also have tons of unfilled manufacturing jobs now. You can still get those jobs. How are we going to fill the new factories with employees if we can't fill them now?
I think what people yearn for are the manufacturing jobs that allowed a person to have a new car every couple of years and a little vacation cottage where you could go fishing on the weekends, all without having to go to college. Even if you on-shored/re-shored those kinds of jobs today, they're not going to provide those kinds of benefits anymore, because it used to be the case that the supply chain wasn't global and those not just anybody could fill those positions.
I for one support Kmele’s decision to boldly go on using his ungrammatical intro.
I have to be honest. Before I even read this posts header the first thought that went through my mind? I miss when they don't do bullet points.
Speaking of organic moments on TV talk shows and crossing a few streams here -- Maher was semi-recently on Red Eye and Gutfeld was about 22 minutes into a retarded unfunny monologue and Maher randomly interjects "do the guests ever get to speak on this show?" Absolutely hilarious, took the piss out of the whole show.
I have tried giving Gutfield a chance, but no matter how many times I try watching, I continue to be baffled that people find him funny.
Absolutely same. He’ll say one sane thing that's kinda clever once every 5 years and I’ll be like “well maybe” and then pretty quickly, no.
The boys went far too easy on Batya. She repeatedly said "so we can all agree...[batshit communist class analysis]". Her premises needed to be refuted more explicitly.
What bothered me is that they did not get into basic economics.1 does a trade imbalance mean anything, 2 how tariffs are taxes, 3 the autarkic implications of dictating to firms and consumers what they should buy, 4 how distinctions between moving factories to Alabama or Vietnam are meaningless and arbitrary, 5 how tariffs hurt jobs by raising input costs. They also did not focus enough on the erratic nature of trump's positioning that undermine the (admittedly weak) best case defense of trump's plan to isolate china. Or, how American business are weakened by being unable to plan in trumps America. Batya is also strikingly chauvinistic and aggressive towards non-Americans. One can be pro-american without glorifying jerkiness and zero-sum, nietzschian thuggery.
Agreed on all points. I'll add that Batya's stated goal of getting the 6m dudes that are out of the workforce back into the workforce should be questioned. 1. Why do we think that tariffs will achieve this goal? 2. Why THE FUCK should the rest of us have to risk fucking the greatest economy the world has ever known so that a tiny minority of guys that have for whatever reason given up hope of ever being productive members of society again can have maybe (probably not) more manufacturing jobs to apply to (they won't)?
That is one of her annoying tactics. She was doing that on the latest Honestly as well. “We all agree that in the middle of a pandemic that China started it was bad to rely on China for masks. We all agree that we need to be able manufacture our own masks. We all agree that avocados are bad and that Elon is a CCP operative and that Android is better than Apple and Trump is the only one who is willing to be a man and do something about it!”
It’s so disappointing to see an Episode of Honestly on a topic that sounds interesting and the guests are Batya and Brianna Wu.
This is a very old political speech trick, it's amazing that she sticks to it so thoroughly, I'm almost amazed she didn't start every answer by thanking the questioner for such a great question
She did that to The Dispatch's Jamie Weinstein, too. Meantime, I'm thinking "Yeah, I'm pretty sure Jamie doesn't think that" which of course Jamie is too polite to say.
One of the commenters there said Batya sounds like "a five year old try[ing] to explain how the world works", which IMO is a pretty good characterization.
Do we have an impostor in our midst? Who is this Michael Moynihan actually reading comments?
Emails, anyway.