Podcast: Are centrist podcasters insufficiently panicked about Trump's presidency?
Josh Barro, Megan McArdle, Mike Pesca and I talk about the news.
Hey there cats and kittens,
, , , and I jumped on another podcast from the center and chatted about all of the [motions widely] stuff going on in the news.(You can listen in Substack above or if that isn’t your cup of tea, here is the Apple link.)
The opening premise of this episode is that a lot of reader feedback to the previous episodes was that we were insufficiently panicked about everything going on with Trump.
Speaking for myself, I think it’s all been pretty bad so far. But it’s gone bad in a way that has made me pretty confident that the GOP is not going to play a long game here, which would ultimately be more politically endurable. It seems like they’re doing unpopular, chaotic, messy things that are pulling their numbers down. That’s what is supposed to happen.
I don’t totally get around to articulating it like that in this episode, but when you hear me sort of be on the more unruffled side, that’s essentially my position.
We also discuss various and sundry topics like Andrew Cuomo and Snow White.
As always, everyone else is much smarter than me anyway, and you should listen to it to feast on their juicy brains, and maybe at least enjoy some of my jokes.
Xoxo,
Ben
P.S. This chat show is still in the pilot season stage, where we are particularly sensitive responsive to feedback—what do listeners like? what do they not like? is it perfect and listeners have no notes? should we not do this at all and instead cut apologies into our skins so that medical examiners will be able to identify our bodies after we are pulled from the waters into which we should suicidally jump?—so no matter what you think, you should tell us what you think, unless you think the last one about cutting and medical examiners, in which case you can probably keep it to yourself.
I've enjoyed every pod so far!
It feels like everyone brings a slightly different perspective, and you are each willing to disagree without being disagreeable. It helps that it comes across like you all genuinely like each other.
As a long-time Barro follower, I also enjoy that your jokes can occasionally get Josh to deviate from his polite stage laugh that he uses 99.9% of the time.
I haven’t listened to the podcast yet but I’m also catching a little bit of blowback about how I’m supposed to feel right now and that’s akin to telling me what I’m supposed to write and I will rebel against that shit every time.