Daniel, previously the editor-at-large at The American Conservative, is currently the editor of Modern Age, a conservative academic quarterly journal. He’s also a Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at the Heritage Foundation and a columnist for The Spectator — and one of the few Trump supporters allowed to write op-eds for the NYT. I wanted to engage the most intelligent defense of Trump I could find. And Dan did not disappoint. But you be the judge.
An auto-transcript is available above (just click “Transcript” while logged into Substack). For two clips of the episode — on Trump as a corrective to the liberal establishment, and questioning how revolutionary the American Revolution really was — head to our YouTube page.
Other topics: born into a Navy family in Missouri; going to UK grammar school in the Thatcher years; George III; Locke and self-government; the French Revolution and Jefferson; Washington and US neutrality; Jackson and populism; the Spanish-American War; Burke and Oakeshott; paleoconservatism and Pat Buchanan; the rise of China’s economy; the managerial elite; mass migration; multiculturalism; Obama the deporter-in-chief; nuke proliferation and the JCPOA; Trump as disruptor; Hazony’s The Virtue of Nationalism; January 6; Biden betraying his moderation; the woke youth vs weak liberals; lawfare against Trump; shutting down the border; ICE in Minneapolis; evangelical fervor over Israel; the antisemite card; the Iran War; ethnic cleansing in Palestine; Ukraine’s drones; NATO finally stepping up; the Trump cult and AWOL Congress; caving to China over rare earths; Bezos and the WaPo; the ballroom; crime down in DC and better parks; and Trump purging dissenters.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy. Coming up: Tiffany Jenkins on privacy in a liberal democracy, John Gray on Trump’s new world, Bob Wright on the evolutionary force of AI, Stephen Grosz on the struggles of love, David Thomson on cinema history, James Verini on Ukraine, John O’Sullivan on Hungary, and Robby George on all our disagreements. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
From a listener who enjoyed last week’s pod with Ben Rhodes:
Terrific episode. Although my career path has somewhat paralleled Rhodes’ (though with a Republican Party that no longer exists), I rarely find myself in the same place politically and philosophically as both you and Rhodes. But I don’t think there was anything in your 90-minute dialog I would quibble with.
Except this, about Rhodes’ new book on speechwriting: For our political climate today, I would choose Lincoln’s first inaugural, rather than his more eloquent second, to capture and explain American identity. Speaking to a nation deeply divided but not yet completely rent asunder by secession, Lincoln said Americans shouldn’t worry because the president had “limited power for mischief.” And he believed that “while the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no Administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can very seriously injure the Government in the short space of four years.”
But “the mystic chords of memory” of the Revolution and the framing of the Constitution that still hadn’t faded in 1861 gave way long ago. And “the people” (or at least most of their representatives) have utterly failed to retain their virtue and vigilance. Like the Founding Fathers, Lincoln simply couldn’t imagine “the people” countenancing anyone like Trump becoming president or the tyranny he’s unleashed upon them.
Trump is indeed the Founders’ nightmare come true. The American presidency’s lowest ever point.
Here’s a clip of Ben addressing the latest clusterfuck in the Middle East:
Here’s a dissent:
I had to stop listening to that interview when Rhodes casually referred to the “genocide” in Gaza. Your position on Israel is making it hard for me to continue subscribing, and guests with misinformation like that don’t help. I’ll try to stick it out, because as a 79-year-old lifelong liberal Democrat, I’ve greatly enjoyed hearing conservative takes on a wide variety of subjects. But come on now, you are too smart to buy the genocide, apartheid, colonizer nonsense.
Ben is entitled to his opinion, but I’ll remind you that the Dish is on the record opposing the “genocide” label in Gaza, while ethnic cleansing is a different story. And more people are coming around to that reality. Daniel Seidemann — a Jerusalem-based lawyer and founder of the NGO Terrestrial Jerusalem — wrote this week:
For many years, I took barbs for refusing to call Israel’s policy in East Jerusalem “ethnic cleansing”. After all, there were 60,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem in 1967, and 400,000 today. Occupation sucked, and included war crimes, but it wasn’t ethnic cleansing.
That has changed now.
There are 3 Palestinian neighborhoods, all of whose residents are being or are about to be displaced: Batan al-Hawa and al-Bustan in Silwan, and Um Haroun in Sheik Jarrah. The latter two are being razed, or will be razed in the near future. And immediately to the east, the Bedouin hamlet of Khan al-Akmar, adjacent to E-1, is about to be expelled, part of an attempt to “cleanse” Area C between East Jerusalem and the Jordan River valley of its Palestinian residents. Regrettably, I can think of no other term to use other than “ethnic cleansing”.
Sixty-one new settlements are planned as well. And Sam Harris won’t debate it. Another dissent:
Have you forgotten that it was Ben Rhodes who bragged about creating the media echo chamber to push through the JCPOA, or that Obama’s staff’s nickname for him was “Hamas”? He created the false dichotomy that Obama peddled: either the JCPOA or war. Continuing sanctions as an alternative was somehow forgotten.
The tell is that none of the supporters of the JCPOA had a coherent answer to Netanyahu’s critique delivered before Congress. Instead, the spin was to attack the messenger, which usually suggests they have no answer on the merits. What always concerned me about the JCPOA was the 21-day notice provision for any inspection, and that’s after all research conducted on military bases was made off-limits. And then there were all the sunset provisions, after which Iran was free and clear to do whatever it wished.
Secretary of State Kerry’s pronouncement that he had complete insight into Iran’s nuclear program was undone by the documents the Mossad stole from under the regime’s nose in Tehran. To put it charitably, he was misled. I recall the initial response from Bernie Sanders’ then-foreign policy guru Matt Duss about the Mossad heist evidence. He said it was an Israeli forgery created to make Iran look bad … and even after it was all authenticated, he never apologized; he just moved on to his next anti-Israel hit job.
And does anyone remember Biden’s quest for a “longer and stronger” JCPOA — itself an admission that the original was lacking in safeguards, among other things? He got precisely nowhere.
What are we to make of all this? If you actually listen to what the Iranian regime has been saying for decades and give them the courtesy of treating them as agents in their own destiny, you could very reasonably conclude that it wants to be the regional hegemon and will get its nuclear weapons in the same manner that North Korea did: keep the US and its allies in endless talks until it actually tests one. The difference in scenarios is thanks to US and Israeli joint disruptive operations in Iran that the US was incapable of pulling off in North Korea.
As a consequence, Seoul and its millions of inhabitants are held hostage to North Korea’s nukes and missiles. We have had a taste of what Iran has in mind for the Middle East. If it has an impenetrable ballistic missile shield and nuclear weapons and then decides to “close” or impose a toll on the Strait of Hormuz, then what? Risk the incineration of Riyadh, Amman, Doha, Jerusalem, or some other city?
Sadly, the JCPOA was never an answer; it was just kicking the can down the road. The Shia Twelvers who control Iran with great brutality simply don’t look at the world through Western eyes. What is required, as should be evident, is that the stranglehold of the ayatollahs and their IRGC henchmen needs to end; the Iranian people need to take back control. And as the January massacres have demonstrated, they need outside help.
It really is that simple. The only question is whether anyone will see the war to its conclusion. If only those who oppose Trump had a reasonable alternative. I haven’t heard any, and so here we are.
Look: your view is that war is and has been the only thing that will work. Fine. Make the case to the American people for a new, major war of invasion and occupation of another Middle Eastern country, far greater than Iraq. Or accept the realities of geopolitics.
As for your point — “He created the false dichotomy that Obama peddled: either the JCPOA or war,” — well, Trump nixed the JCPOA, and now we have war. Maybe Ben was onto something. We can contain Iran’s nuclear threat to the US, if there is one, without the war you want. That’s not in Israel’s interests, but it is absolutely in America’s. Another reason we are going to have to end our current, toxic relationship with that country.
One more on Israel:
Unlike some people, I don’t deny that Hamas operates out of civilian infrastructure. I do deny this is distinctively evil, given that (1) nearly all insurgencies over the last 50 years use guerrilla warfare that operates out of civilian centers instead of the open battlefield (check out the Viet Cong’s use of tunnels during the Vietnam war — were they a “death cult” too?), and (2) Gaza is the densest urban environment in the world, so Hamas couldn’t operate away from civilians even if they wanted to, and (3) Mossad operates in a civilian area too, and Israel has been documented using human shields.
But none of this gets to the root of the issue, which is whether Israel needed to kill 70,000 people to obtain its military objectives due to Hamas’s use of “human shields,” and whether Hamas is therefore responsible for those deaths. There are a few problems with that claim.
First, Israel certainly did not need to kill that many people. We know that the IDF had the capabilities for targeted munitions, taking out specific targets or apartments. But they needed to use 2,000-lb bombs and the equivalent of five atomic bombs on hospitals and schools? Gaza armed groups are certainly responsible for putting civilians in harm’s way, but that does not absolve Israel’s responsibility — ethically or legally — for actually killing them.
Second, there are many atrocities in Gaza where the concept of human shields is irrelevant. Doctors have described sniper headshot wounds on children. World Central Kitchen aid workers got blown up despite getting IDF approval. Hind Rajab waited for an ambulance only for the paramedics to be slaughtered with her. And that’s to say nothing of the aid blockade; I fail to see how withholding baby formula can be blamed on “human shields.”
Here’s a guest rec:
Dish subscriber and fan here, thanks for your great work! I first heard you through the Sam Harris podcast many years ago. I suggest you get in contact with Irish academic David Horan, who recently translated the complete works of Plato, from Greek into English. I heard him on an ABC (Australia) show and think he might have some good insight into current events, especially with your interview skills.
Another writes, “Dish readers are SUPER”:
Just a quick note to say that, while I enjoy you and your guests VERY much, I find your long quotes from your readers that you include in the Dish to be a real plus for you and your subscribers. They’re well curated (thank you!) and well thought out. Your comments on them are always excellent. Keep it up! Other sites could benefit from “extending” the conversations in this manner. It must take a lot of time, and we DO appreciate your efforts!
This is all Chris’s doing. We kinda have a separation of church and state: he selects the dissents and makes me respond to them. He’s a brilliant curator, and much of what you get each week is a result of his magic touch and ever-wandering eyes.
I have a few thoughts on your latest column, as someone who has followed this topic as basically a closeted trans person, but also as a political conservative historically (I’ve drifted toward the center on some issues in the MAGA era, not just on trans issues.) I’ve opened up a bit to one aunt, but it’s been a struggle, frankly, and I don’t know that I’m ever going to be able to come all the way out of the closet, except in old age.
I think you’re correct that the “queers” have given the right a lot of ammunition in recent years, and you’re correct that ugly forces have been unleashed as a result. I can make a case on a limited basis that trans girls should be able to compete in women’s sports in high school, but there’s clearly been a backlash, partly because the public isn’t convinced that a trans girl is actually a girl or should be treated as a girl.
Likewise, I’m not nearly as certain as you are over the extent to which there have been wrongful diagnoses of minors with gender dysphoria (particularly among males), but I agree the science should be absolutely sound when making diagnoses and intervening medically. If you start removing breasts and penises off kids with temporary gender dysphoria, you’ve fucked up — no question.
And a lot of this other stuff — “birthing persons,” rewriting Stonewall, insisting on queer as a substitute for LGBT — ranges from goofy to offensive, and certainly doesn’t help matters. However, you’ve acknowledged that ugly forces have been unleashed in response, but the extent to which you’re angry about those forces seems muted in your rolling commentary on Substack Notes compared to your offense at the far left.
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