Inez and I start off by discussing the latest in the Israel conflict, covering topics from my two recent essays on the war, a Washington Post article showing the damage that the bombing campaign has inflicted so far, and Edward Luttwak’s recent piece on what a ground invasion would look like. We then go on to talk about the domestic political impact of what is happening in the Middle East. We have a debate on whether wokeness will eventually make the Democratic Party left wing on foreign policy. Inez takes the affirmative on this, while I argue the opposite position. See my recent thoughts touching on how the Democrats have been able to silo foreign policy and avoid it being swallowed by the Great Awokening. The campuses have always been anti-interventionist, while we’ve had half a century now of the liberal establishment keeping such views at a distance and not allowing people who hold them to obtain too much power.
We also talk about the unrequited love that Evangelical Christians have for American Jews. Inez says that Jews have been bad friends and argues that they are irrationally transferring historical trauma from Europe to the American context. We close with some swing state polls showing that Trump has a very good chance of being president again, and the possible logistics of him being sentenced and then working in the White House. As a general matter, foreign policy chaos tends to help Republicans, and this will especially be true when the public will have reasons to contrast the relative peace of the Trump presidency with what is now happening in the world.
Finally, good news on the transcripts. It now has the option of allowing us to label the speakers, so starting this week they’re a lot more useful. It unfortunately still gets our voices confused in at least one case I saw, but I trust the Substack team is going to continue improving this product.