Our Populist Hissy Fit Needs to Stop | Ruminant

Dear listener: There are few places Jonah Goldberg hates more than O’Hare International Airport. Yet, in a sad irony, he has spent a significant percentage of his life sitting in a Chicago terminal waiting on a plane. Though Jonah is not generally inclined to process his life through song, today’s Ruminant kicks off with a slow, mournful dirge memorializing his travel nightmares. But fret not; Jonah quickly recovers himself and holds forth admirably on all manner of subjects, including the Vladimir Putin diesel deal, Ukraine and the West, Cornell, Ilhan Omar, politicians and the media, silos, James Talarico, NatCons, J.D. Vance, Katie Zacharia, bad socialist policy, and governing like a grown-up. Show Notes: The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Want to see more of The Dispatch in Google search? Add Us as a Preferred Source Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Dispatch, based in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, enormous lizards roamed the Earth. More immediately prior to that, Jonah spent two decades at National Review, where he was a senior editor, among other things. He is also a bestselling author, longtime columnist for the Los Angeles Times, commentator for CNN, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. When he is not writing the G-File or hosting The Remnant podcast, he finds real joy in family time, attending to his dogs and cat, and blaming Steve Hayes for various things. The podcast transcription below was generated using artificial intelligence and may include occasional errors or misspellings. Jonah Goldberg 0:00 Hey, everybody. This is gonna be kinda cool. Uh, "The Dispatch Podcast" is gonna do a bunch of pre-election live streams. The first one will be on Monday, October 19th at 7:00 PM Eastern. We'll g- we'll try to cover a whole bunch of different stuff. How confident can we be that the 2026 midterms run smoothly? Will Donald Trump seek to meddle in the election process and vote counting? When will we know who won majorities in the House and Senate, and what might keep us from understanding who won? Steve Hayes will be joined by election experts Steven Richer and Mark Sawyer for answers to those questions and many others. Then I, Jonah Goldberg, I will join along with our panel, Mike Warren and Chuck Todd. It's gonna be so much Midwestern Jonah Goldberg 0:45 Packers nonsense. We'll look at the races likely to shape the majorities and how candidates in competitive races will make their closing arguments. Join "The Dispatch Podcast" for what will be an informative and lively conversation about these very important midterm elections. 7:00 PM Eastern, Monday, October 19th. Music 1:02 [upbeat music] [groans] [upbeat music] Ladies and gentlemen, uh, Music 1:19 can I please have your attention? Can you dig it? [crowd cheering] Jonah Goldberg 1:30 Greetings, dear listeners. Interactive transcripts are available to Premium members. Join to follow along with the audio. Join Now More We Think You’d Like