John Ellis On The News And GOP History

John is a journalist, media consultant, old friend, and George W Bush’s cousin. He’s worked for NBC News as a political analyst and the Boston Globe as a columnist. In 2016, he launched a morning brief called “News Items” for News Corp, and later it became the Wall Street Journal CEO Council’s morning newsletter. News Items jumped to Substack in 2019 (and Dishheads can subscribe now for 33% off). John also co-hosts two podcasts — one with Joe Klein (“Night Owls”) and the other with Richard Haas (“Alternate Shots”).

For two clips of our convo — on the nail-biting Bush-Gore race that John was involved in, and Trump’s mental decline — head to our YouTube page.

Other topics: born and raised in Concord; his political awakening at 15 watching the whole '68 Dem convention with a fever in bed; his fascination with Nixon; the Southern Strategy; Garry Wills’ book Nixon Agonistes; Kevin Phillips and populism; Nixon parallels with Trump — except shame; Roger Ailes starting Fox News; Matt Drudge; John’s uncle HW Bush; HW as a person; the contrasts with his son Dubya; the trauma of 9/11; Iraq as a war of choice — the wrong one; Rumsfeld; Jeb Bush in 2016; the AI race; Geoffrey Hinton (“the godfather of AI”); John’s optimism about China; tension with Taiwan; Israel’s settlements; Bibi’s humiliation of Obama; Huckabee as ambassador; the tariff case going to SCOTUS; the Senate caving to Trump; McConnell failing to bar Trump; the genius of his demagoguery; the Kirk assassination; Brexit; immigration under Boris; Reform’s newfound dominance; the huge protest in London last week; Kirk’s popularity in Europe; the AfD; Trump’s war on speech; a Trump-Mamdani showdown; Epstein and Peter Mandelson; and grasping for reasons to be cheerful.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy. Coming up: Wesley Yang on the trans question, Michael Wolff on Epstein, Karen Hao on artificial intelligence, Katie Herzog on drinking your way sober, Michel Paradis on Ike, Charles Murray on finding religion, David Ignatius on the Trump effect globally, and Arthur Brooks on the science of happiness. As always, please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

From a fan on last week’s pod on the Constitution:

Hi Andrew! I just heard your wonderful episode with Jill Lepore; she’s fantastic (as are you, of course).

Please invite Akhil Amar for a discussion of his new book, out this month, on the Constitution and birth equality!

Another listener dissents:

I thought your discussion with Jill Lepore was going to be an interesting exchange of ideas, and it was for 15 minutes or so before you strangely turned it into an ideological battle. Some of your statements seemed to come out of left (or maybe right) field, making impassioned arguments as though you were refuting positions that she never expressed. You didn’t even pose them as questions. You just made a statement and thought she owed some sort of explanation.

Of the few liberals you have had as guests since I subscribed to your podcast about a year ago, James Carville is the only one you treated with respect. You should really try to get more liberals on your show, or even conservatives like David Frum or Max Boot, or people like Anne Applebaum; but I could understand if they would decline to participate.

Then you should really check out the pod archive, since we’ve had Anne on twice, and Frum three times. The number of liberal guests are too many to list here. I don’t quite recognize your account of our conversation, to be honest. My problem with the book is that it wanted to make an argument — that we should keep amending the Constitution — while posing as just history. In op-eds, Lepore has made her position clearer and I was trying to get her to flesh out her argument.

A recommendation for a future guest:

Would you ever interview Drew Gilpin Faust, the former president of Harvard? She’s also a leading historian of the American South and the author of a book on how death was handled in the Civil War. She’s also the biographer of South Carolina politician James Henry Hammond, a white supremacist on steroids.

What does she think about erasing bad things from history? And what is happening to Harvard? Any parallels between HIV death toll and Civil War?

Hmm. Another rec:

I appreciate your show immensely. I don’t normally do this sort of thing, but the late Hitch’s brother, Peter Hitchens, has long been one of my favorite commentators on just about anything he chooses to speak on. Notwithstanding his opinions on marijuana, it occurs to me that his thoroughgoing and authentic English conservatism probably appeals to you as well. I imagine he’d fit in especially well with a few recurring Dish topics: England’s present and future, Christian faith, and of course Christopher.

Peter is also the co-host of one of my new favorite podcasts, “Alas, Vine and Hitchens.” I know I’d enjoy the crossover, and I doubt I’m the only one.

Another points to recent guest:

I’m a subscriber to the Dish and I love most of your insights and writings and share them with my dad as a counterweight to his media diet. Recently, I found an interesting article from the Sunday Times refuting arguments about America’s decline into authoritarianism. The author quoted your posts on the matter. Perhaps you could reply to this piece, or discuss where the Times went wrong or right? Just a friendly suggestion from a Dishhead.

That piece was written by my good friend Niall, who was on the Dishcast a couple weeks ago. Here’s an exchange over Trump’s authoritarianism:

A reader writes:

Your column on Charlie Kirk was one of your very best. Every callout was richly deserved but delivered without venom. I fear your readers are mostly convinced already, and that the people on both warring sides who really need to heed your message have already classed you with their respective enemies — because you have espoused at one time or another some view they want to cancel instead of debating. But there’s always hope, so please keep it coming.

Another reader:

I was glad you took the time to watch Kirk’s videos yourself and not rely on the mainstream media’s summaries that painted him as a fascist, racist, or religious fanatic. Do you remember when he was booted from Twitter for “misgendering” Rachel Levine, most likely because of pressure from the Biden administration?

And in the first hours after his assassination, the NYT and all the other usual suspects tried to control the narrative and paint him as a right-wing racist fanatic, a misogynist MAGA extremist “provocateur.” You were able to see the dignity with which he carried himself and the empathy he had shown towards others, even the students he debated.

What made Kirk a target of the left was his influence on college students. By having a short conversation and getting them to question everything they had been taught up until then, he could reverse 10 years of indoctrination. The left — and I mean the radical postmodern left that has taken over from the traditional liberals — can not argue their position when going up against facts. “If you seek the truth, you must leave the left,” wrote Thomas Sowell (a former communist). Not mentioned much is that Kirk only attended one semester of college. He started TPUSA almost right out of high school, which I bet angered academics even more.

The president-elect of the Oxford Union, George Abaraonye, also celebrated Kirk’s death. Abaraonye debated Kirk just a few months ago:

Andrew, you were president of the Oxford Union and hold a lifetime membership. There is going to be a motion to put forward a vote of no confidence to remove the president-elect from office in October. Oxford has already made it clear his post did not violate the university’s code of conduct, so he will be just fine. I just implore you to please publicly cast your vote to remove him. What he did was wrong. He is not some naive kid; he is, after all, a man of Oxford. And if that is to mean anything going forward, the members have to say NO to his kind of behavior.

I never do this usually, but I signed a petition by previous office-holders in the Union, calling on Abaraonye to resign. I liked the way the letter framed the issue:

We reiterate our belief that for the university to punish you for your comments would itself be a flagrant attack on freedom of speech. But two wrongs do not make a right. Serving as the President of the Oxford Union is a privilege, not a right, and your words make you unable to carry out the duties of the Presidency.

Here’s a dissent:

Nice work, Andrew, but you are too laudatory of a guy whose views, from what I can tell, were truly abhorrent — e.g. opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That is not a mainstream view by any measure, although it’s a view he should legally (and safely) be allowed to hold, even if he should bear professional (not violent) consequences for holding it.

As if to bolster your point that the mainstream left will not rein in, condemn, control — or even acknowledge — the doings of the radical left, check out the NY Times’ editorial against political violence. The BLM riots of 2020 are completely elided! I guess burning down a police station, attempting to burn down a local courthouse with prisoners inside (Portland), or running over police officers in cars does not count as “political violence.”

The Civil Rights Act position is indeed not in the mainstream. Chris Caldwell made the strongest case. Check out our pod discussion on it. But the critique of the act is a principled one, and not “hate speech” or bigotry.

Another has a “bit of a dissent”:

I want to address the lecturing of the chattering, podcast, media class this week over the demands to “lower the temperature,” saying “this is not who we are,” and the constantly reminding us that Kirk was a husband and father; we listeners should be less divisive and give grace to fellow Americans on social media; and we should be less in our bubbles. This is a turning point — and the decision is ours.

But I’m trying to figure out why this event has had a different response compared to the assassinations in Minnesota in June — both in type and degree. Was it because Kirk was young, charismatic, handsome, and more popular than Melissa Hortman? Was she not a wife, mother, and dog owner?