Podcast appearances and mentions of jonathan last

My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,Global population growth is slowing, and it's not showing any signs of recovery. To the environmentalists of the 1970s, this may have seemed like a movement in the right direction. The drawbacks to population decline, however, are severe and numerous, and they're not all obvious.Today on Faster, Please! — The Podcast, I talk with economist and demographer Dean Spears about the depopulation trend that is transcending cultural barriers and ushering in a new global reality. We discuss the costs to the economy and human progress, and the inherent value of more people.Spears is an associate professor of economics at Princeton University where he studies demography and development. He is also the founding executive director of r.i.c.e., a nonprofit research organization seeking to uplift children in rural northern India. He is a co-author with Michael Geruso of After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People.In This Episode* Where we're headed (1:32)* Pumping the breaks (5:41)* A pro-parenting culture (12:40)* A place for AI (19:13)* Preaching to the pro-natalist choir (23:40)* Quantity and quality of life (28:48)Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. Where we're headed (1:32). . . two thirds of people now live in a country where the birth rate is below the two children per two adults level that would stabilize the population.Pethokoukis: Who are you and your co-author trying to persuade and what are you trying to persuade them of? Are you trying to persuade them that global depopulation is a real thing, that it's a problem? Are you trying to persuade them to have more kids? Are you trying to persuade them to support a certain set of pro-child or pro-natalist policies?Spears: We are trying to persuade quite a lot of people of two important things: One is that global depopulation is the most likely future — and what global depopulation means is that every decade, every generation, the world's population will shrink. That's the path that we're on. We're on that path because birth rates are low and falling almost everywhere. It's one thing we're trying to persuade people of, that fact, and we're trying to persuade people to engage with a question of whether global depopulation is a future to welcome or whether we should want something else to happen. Should we let depopulation happen by default or could it be better to stabilize the global population at some appropriate level instead?We fundamentally think that this is a question that a much broader section of society, of policy discourse, of academia should be talking about. We shouldn't just be leaving this discussion to the population scientists, demographic experts, not only to the people who already are worried about, or talking about low birth rates, but this is important enough and unprecedented enough that everybody should be engaging in this question. Whatever your ongoing values or commitments, there's a place for you in this conversation.Is it your impression that the general public is aware of this phenomenon? Or are they still stuck in the '70s thinking that population is running amok and we'll have 30 billion people on this planet like was the scenario in the famous film, Soylent Green? I feel like the people I know are sort of aware that this is happening. I don't know what your experience is.I think it's changing fast. I think more and more people are aware that birth rates are falling. I don't think that people are broadly aware — because when you hear it in the news, you might hear that birth rates in the United States have fallen low or birth rates in South Korea have fallen low. I think what not everybody knows is that two thirds of people now live in a country where the birth rate is below the two children per two adults level that would stabilize the population.I think people don't know that the world's birth rate has fallen from an average around five in 1950 to about 2.3 today, and that it's still falling and that people just haven't engaged with the thought that there's no special reason to expect it to stop and hold it to. But the same processes that have been bringing birth rates down will continue to bring them down, and people don't know that there's no real automatic stabilizer to expect it to come back up. Of the 26 countries that have had the lifetime birth rate fall below 1.9, none of them have had it go back up to two.That's a lot of facts that are not as widely known as they should be, but then the implication of it, that if the world's birth rate goes below two and stays there, we're going to have depopulation generation after generation. I think for a lot of people, they're still in the mindset that depopulation is almost conceptually impossible, that either we're going to have population growth or something else like zero population growth like people might've talked about in the '70s. But the idea that a growth rate of zero is just a number and then that it's not going to stop there, it's going to go negative, I think that's something that a lot of people just haven't thought about.Pumping the breaks (5:41)We wrote this book because we hope that there will be an alternative to depopulation society will choose, but there's no reason to expect or believe that it's going happen automatically.You said there's no automatic stabilizers — at first take, that sounds like we're going to zero. Is there a point where the global population does hit a stability point?No, that's just the thing.So we're going to zero?Well, “there's no automatic stabilizer” isn't the same thing as “we're definitely going to zero.” It could be that society comes together and decides to support parenting, invest more in the next generation, invest more in parents and families, and do more to help people choose to be parents. We wrote this book because we hope that there will be an alternative to depopulation society will choose, but there's no reason to expect or believe that it's going happen automatically. In no country where the birth rate has gone to two has it just magically stopped and held there forever.I think a biologist might say that the desire to reproduce, that's an evolved drive, and even if right now we're choosing to have smaller families, that biological urge doesn't vanish. We've had population, fertility rates, rise and fall throughout history — don't you think that there is some sort of natural stabilizer?We've had fluctuations throughout history, but those fluctuations have been around a pretty long and pretty widely-shared downward trend. Americans might be mostly only now hearing about falling birth rates because the US was sort of anomalous amongst richer countries and having a relatively flat period from the 1970s to around 2010 or so, whereas birth rates were falling in other countries, they weren't falling in the US in the same way, but they were falling in the US before then, they're falling in the US since then, and when you plot it over the long history with other countries, it's clear that, for the world as a whole, as long as we've had records, not just for decades, but for centuries, we've seen birth rates be falling. It's not just a new thing, it's a very long-term trend.It's a very widely-shared trend because humans are unlike other animals in the important way that we make decisions. We have culture, we have rationality, we have irrationality, we have all of these. The reason the population grew is because we've learned how to keep ourselves and our children alive. We learned how to implement sanitation, implement antibiotics, implement vaccines, and so more of the children who were born survived even as the birth rate was falling all along. Other animals don't do that. Other animals don't invent sanitation systems and antibiotics and so I think that we can't just reason immediately from other animal populations to what's going to happen to humans.I think one can make a plausible case that, even if you think that this is a problem — and again, it's a global problem, or a global phenomenon, advanced countries, less-advanced countries — that it is a phenomenon of such sweep that if you're going to say we need to stabilize or slow down, that it would take a set of policies of equal sweep to counter it. Do those actually exist?No. Nobody has a turnkey solution. There's nothing shovel-ready here. In fact, it's too early to be talking about policy solutions or “here's my piece of legislation, here's what the government should do” because we're just not there yet, both in terms of the democratic process of people understanding the situation and there even being a consensus that stabilization, at some level, would be better than depopulation, nor are we there yet on having any sort of answer that we can honestly recommend as being tested and known to be something that will reliably stabilize the population.I think the place to start is by having conversations like this one where we get people to engage with the evidence, and engage with the question, and just sort of move beyond a reflexive welcoming of depopulation by default and start thinking about, well, what are the costs of people and what are the benefits of people? Would we be better off in a future that isn't depopulating over the long run?The only concrete step I can think of us taking right now is adapting the social safety net to a new demographic reality. Beyond that, it seems like there might have to be a cultural shift of some kind, like a large-scale religious revival. Or maybe we all become so rich that we have more time on our hands and decide to have more kids. But do you think at some point someone will have a concrete solution to bring global fertility back up to 2.1 or 2.2?Look at it like this: The UN projects that the peak will be about six decades from now in 2084. Of course, I don't have a crystal ball, I don't know that it's going to be 2084, but let's take that six-decades timeline seriously because we're not talking about something that's going to happen next year or even next decade.But six decades ago, people were aware that — or at least leading scientists and even some policymakers were aware that climate change was a challenge. The original computations by Arrhenius of the radiative forcing were long before that. You have the Johnson speech to Congress, you have Nixon and the EPA. People were talking about climate change as a challenge six decades ago, but if somebody had gotten on their equivalent of a podcast and said, “What we need to do is immediately get rid of the internal combustion engine,” they would've been rightly laughed out of the room because that would've been the wrong policy solution at that time. That would've been jumping to the wrong solution. Instead, what we needed to do was what we've done, which is the science, the research, the social change that we're now at a place where emissions per person in the US have been falling for 20 years and we have technologies — wind, and solar, and batteries — that didn't exist before because there have been decades of working on it.So similarly, over the next six decades, let's build the research, build the science, build the social movement, discover things we don't know, more social science, more awareness, and future people will know more than you and I do about what might be constructive responses to this challenge, but only if we start talking about it now. It's not a crisis to panic about and do the first thing that comes to mind. This is a call to be more thoughtful about the future.A pro-parenting culture (12:40)The world's becoming more similar in this important way that the difference across countries and difference across societies is getting smaller as birth rates converge downward.But to be clear, you would like people to have more kids.I would like for us to get on a path where more people who want to be parents have the sort of support, and environment, and communities they need to be able to choose that. I would like people to be thinking about all of this when they make their family decisions. I'd like the rest of us to be thinking about this when we pitch in and do more to help us. I don't think that anybody's necessarily making the wrong decision for themselves if they look around and think that parenting is not for them or having more children is not for them, but I think we might all be making a mistake if we're not doing more to support parents or to recognize the stake we have in the next generation.But all those sorts of individual decisions that seem right for an individual or for a couple, combined, might turn into a societal decision.Absolutely. I'm an economics professor. We call this “externalities,” where there are social benefits of something that are different from the private costs and benefits. If I decide that I want to drive and I contribute to traffic congestion, then that's an externality. At least in principle, we understand what to do about that: You share the cost, you share the benefits, you help the people internalize the social decision.It's tied up in the fact that we have a society where some people we think of as doing care work and some people we think of as doing important work. So we've loaded all of these costs of making the next generation on people during the years of their parenting and especially on women and mothers. It's understandable that, from a strictly economic point of view, somebody looks at that and thinks, “The private costs are greater than the private benefits. I'm not going to do that.” It's not my position to tell somebody that they're wrong about that. What you do in a situation like that is share and lighten that burden. If there's a social reason to solve traffic congestion, then you solve it with public policy over the long run. If the social benefits of there being a flourishing next generation are greater than people are finding in their own decision making, then we need to find the ways to invest in families, invest in parenting, lift and share those burdens so that people feel like they can choose to be parents.I would think there's a cultural component here. I am reminded of a book by Jonathan Last about this very issue in which he talks about Old Town Alexandria here in Virginia, how, if you go to Old Town, you can find lots of stores selling stuff for dogs, but if you want to buy a baby carriage, you can't find anything.Of course, that's an equilibrium outcome, but go on.If we see a young couple pushing a stroller down the street and inside they have a Chihuahua — as society, or you personally, would you see that and “Think that's wrong. That seems like a young couple living in a nice area, probably have plenty of dough, they can afford daycare, and yet they're still not going to have a kid and they're pushing a dog around a stroller?” Should we view that as something's gone wrong with our society?My own research is about India. My book's co-authored with Mike Geruso. He studies the United States more. I'm more of an expert on India.Paul Ehrlich, of course, begins his book, The Population Bomb, in India.Yes, I know. He starts with this feeling of being too crowded with too many people. I say in the book that I almost wonder if I know the exact spot where he has that experience. I think it's where one of my favorite shops are for buying scales and measuring tape for measuring the health of children in Uttar Pradesh. But I digress about Paul Ehrlich.India now, where Paul Ehrlich was worried about overpopulation, is now a society with an average birth rate below two kids per two adults. Even Uttar Pradesh, the big, disadvantaged, poor state where I do my work in research, the average young woman there says that they want an average of 1.9 children. This is a place where society and culture is pretty different from the United States. In the US, we're very accustomed to this story of work and family conflict, and career conflicts, especially for women, and that's probably very important in a lot of people's lives. But that's not what's going on in India where female labor force participation is pretty low. Or you hear questions about whether this is about the decline of religiosity, but India is a place where religion is still very important to a lot of people's lives. Marriage is almost universal. Marriage happens early. People start their childbearing careers in their early twenties, and you still see people having an average below two kids. They start childbearing young and they end childbearing young.Similarly, in Latin America, where religiosity, at least as reported in surveys, remains pretty high, but Latin America is at an average of 1.8, and it's not because people are delaying fertility until they're too old to get pregnant. You see a lot of people having permanent contraception surgery, tubal obligations.And so this cultural story where people aren't getting married, they're starting too late, they're putting careers first, it doesn't match the worldwide diversity. These diverse societies we're seeing are all converging towards low birth rates. The world's becoming more similar in this important way that the difference across countries and difference across societies is getting smaller as birth rates converge downward. So I don't think we can easily point towards any one cultural for this long-term and widely shared trend.A place for AI (19:13)If AI in the future is a compliment to what humans produce . . . if AI is making us more productive, then it's all the bigger loss to have fewer people.At least from an economic perspective, I think you can make the case: fewer people, less strain on resources, you're worried about workers, AI-powered robots are going to be doing a lot of work, and if you're worried about fewer scientists, the scientists we do have are going to have AI-powered research assistants.Which makes the scientists more important. Many technologies over history have been compliments to what humans do, not substitutes. If AI in the future is a compliment to what humans produce — scientific research or just the learning by doing that people do whenever they're engaging in an enterprise or trying to create something — if AI is making us more productive, then it's all the bigger loss to have fewer people.To me, the best of both worlds would be to have even more scientists plus AI. But isn't the fear of too few people causing a labor shortage sort of offset by AI and robotics? Maybe we'll have plenty of technology and capital to supply the workers we do have. If that's not the worry, maybe the worry is that the human experience is simply worse when there are fewer children around.You used the term “plenty of,” and I think that sort of assumes that there's a “good enough,” and I want to push back on that because I think what matters is to continue to make progress towards higher living standards, towards poverty alleviation, towards longer, better, healthier, safer, richer lives. What matters is whether we're making as much progress as we could towards an abundant, rich, safe, healthy future. I think we shouldn't let ourselves sloppily accept a concept of “good enough.” If we're not making the sort of progress that we could towards better lives, then that's a loss, and that matters for people all around the world.We're better off for living in a world with other people. Other people are win-win: Their lives are good for them and their lives are good for you. Part of that, as you say, is people on the supply side of the economy, people having the ideas and the realizations that then can get shared over and over again. The fact that ideas are this non-depletable resource that don't get used up but might never be discovered if there aren't people to discover them. That's one reason people are important on the supply side of the economy, but other people are also good for you on the demand side of the economy.This is very surprising because people think that other people are eating your slice of the pie, and if there are more other people, there's less for me. But you have to ask yourself, why does the pie exist in the first place? Why is it worth some baker's while to bake a pie that I could get a slice of? And that's because there were enough people wanting slices of pie to make it worth paying the fixed costs of having a bakery and baking a whole pie.In other words, you're made better off when other people want and need the same things that you want and need because that makes it more likely for it to exist. If you have some sort of specialized medical need and need specialized care, you're going to be more likely to find it in a city where there are more other people than in a less-populated rural place, and you're going to be more likely to find it in a course of history where there have been more other people who have had the same medical need that you do so that it's been worthwhile for some sort of cure to exist. The goodness of other people for you isn't just when they're creating things, it's also when they're just needing the same things that you do.And, of course, if you think that getting to live a good life is a good thing, that there's something valuable about being around to have good experiences, that a world of more people having good experiences has more goodness in it than a world of fewer people having good experiences in it. That's one thing that counts, and it's one important consideration for why a stabilized future might be better than a depopulating future. Now, I don't expect everyone to immediately agree with that, but I do think that the likelihood of depopulation should prompt us to ask that question.Preaching to the pro-natalist choir (23:40)If you are already persuaded listening to this, then go strike up a conversation with somebody.Now, listening to what you just said, which I thought was fantastic, you're a great explainer, that is wonderful stuff — but I couldn't help but think, as you explained that, that you end up spending a lot of time with people who, because they read the New York Times, they may understand that the '70s population fears aren't going to happen, that we're not going to have a population of 30 billion that we're going to hit, I don't know, 10 billion in the 2060s and then go down. And they think, “Well, that's great.”You have to spend a lot of time explaining to them about the potential downsides and why people are good, when like half the population in this country already gets it: “You say ‘depopulation,' you had us at the word, ‘depopulation.'” You have all these people who are on the right who already think that — a lot of people I know, they're there.Is your book an effective tool to build on that foundation who already think it's an issue, are open to policy ideas, does your book build on that or offer anything to those people?I think that, even if this is something that people have thought about before, a lot of how people have thought about it is in terms of pension plans, the government's budget, the age structure, the nearer-term balance of workers to retirees.There's plenty of people on the right who maybe they're aware of those things, but also think that it really is kind of a The Children of Men argument. They just think a world with more children is better. A world where the playgrounds are alive is better — and yes, that also may help us with social security, but there's a lot of people for whom you don't have to even make that economic argument. That seems to me that that would be a powerful team of evangelists — and I mean it in a nonreligious way — evangelists for your idea that population is declining and there are going to be some serious side effects.If you are already persuaded listening to this, then go strike up a conversation with somebody. That's what we want to have happen. I think minds are going to be changed in small batches on this one. So if you're somebody who already thinks this way, then I encourage you to go out there and start a conversation. I think not everybody, even people who think about population for a living — for example, one of the things that we engage with in the book is the philosophy of population ethics, or population in social welfare as economists might talk about it.There have been big debates there over should we care about average wellbeing? Should we care about total wellbeing? Part of what we're trying to say in the book is, one, we think that some of those debates have been misplaced or are asking what we don't think are the right questions, but also to draw people to what we can learn from thinking of where questions like this agree. Because this whole question of should we make the future better in total or make the better on average is sort of presuming this Ehrlich-style mindset that if the future is more populous, then it must be worse for each. But once you see that a future that's more populous is also more prosperous, it'd be better in total and better on average, then a lot of these debates might still have academic interest, but both ways of thinking about what would be a better future agree.So there are these pockets of people out there who have thought about this before, and part of what we're trying to do is bring them together in a unified conversation where we're talking about the climate modeling, we're talking about the economics, we're talking about the philosophy, we're talking about the importance of gender equity and reproductive freedom, and showing that you can think and care about all of these things and still think that a stabilized future might be better than depopulation.In the think tank world, the dream is to have an idea and then some presidential candidate adopts the idea and pushes it forward. There's a decent chance that the 2028 Republican nominee is already really worried about this issue, maybe someone like JD Vance. Wouldn't that be helpful for you?I've never spoken with JD Vance, but from my point of view, I would also be excited for India's population to stabilize and not depopulate. I don't see this as an “America First” issue because it isn't an America First issue. It's a worldwide, broadly-shared phenomenon. I think that no one country is going to be able to solve this all on its own because, if nothing else, people move, people immigrate, societies influence one another. I think it's really a broadly-shared issue.Quantity and quality of life (28:48)What I do feel confident about is that some stabilized size would be better than depopulation generation after generation, after generation, after generation, without any sort of leveling out, and I think that's the plan that we're on by default.Can you imagine an earth of 10 to 12 billion people at a sustained level being a great place to live, where everybody is doing far better than they are today, the poorest countries are doing better — can you imagine that scenario? Can you also imagine a scenario where we have a world of three to four billion, which is a way nicer place to live for everybody than it is today? Can both those scenarios happen?I don't see any reason to think that either of those couldn't be an equilibrium, depending on all the various policy choices and all the various . . .This is a very broad question.Exactly. I think it's way beyond the social science, economics, climate science we have right now to say “three billion is the optimal size, 10 billion is the optimal size, eight billion is the optimal size.” What I do feel confident about is that some stabilized size would be better than depopulation generation after generation, after generation, after generation, without any sort of leveling out, and I think that's the plan that we're on by default. That doesn't mean it's what's going to happen, I hope it's not what happens, and that's sort of the point of the conversation here to get more people to consider that.But let's say we were able to stabilize the population at 11 billion. That would be fine.It could be depending on what the people do.But I'm talking about a world of 11 billion, and I'm talking about a world where the average person in India is as wealthy as, let's say this is in the year 2080, 2090, and at minimum, the average person in India is as wealthy as the average American is today. So that's a big huge jump in wealth and, of course, environmentalism.And we make responsible environmental choices, whether that's wind, or solar, or nuclear, or whatever, I'm not going to be prescriptive on that, but I don't see any reason why not. My hope is that future people will know more about that question than I do. Ehrlich would've said that our present world of eight billion would be impossible, that we would've starved long before this, that England would've ceased to exist, I think is a prediction in his book somewhere.And there's more food per person on every continent. Even in the couple decades that I've been going to India, children are taller than they used to be, on average. You can measure it, and maybe I'm fooling myself, but I feel like I can see it. Even as the world's been growing more populous, people have been getting better off, poverty has been going down, the absolute number of people in extreme poverty has been going down, even as the world's been getting more populous. As I say, emissions per person have been going down in a lot of places.I don't see any in principle, reason, if people make the right decisions, that we couldn't have a sustainable, healthy, and good, large sustained population. I've got two kids and they didn't add to the hole in the ozone layer, which I would've heard about in school as a big problem in the '80s. They didn't add to acid rain. Why not? Because the hole in the ozone layer was confronted with the Montreal Protocol. The acid rain was confronted with the Clean Air Act. 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But what about the machine? - Ars* 'Invasion' Season 3 showrunner Simon Kinberg on creating ''War of the Worlds' meets 'Babel'' (exclusive) - Space▶ Up Wing/Down Wing* The era of the public apology is ending - Axios* Warren Brodey, 101, Dies; a Visionary at the Dawn of the Information Age - NYT* Reality is evil - Aeon* The Case for Crazy Philanthropy - Palladium▶ Substacks/Newsletters* Claude Code is growing crazy fast, and it's not just for writing code - AI Supremacy* No, ‘the Economists' Didn't Botch Trump's Tariffs - The Dispatch* How Does the US Use Water? - Construction Physics* A Climate-Related Financial Risk Boondoggle - The Ecomodernist* What's up with the States? - Hyperdimensional▶ Social Media* On why AI won't take all the jobs - @Dan_Jeffries1* On four nuclear reactors to be built in Amarillo, TX - @NuclearHazelnut* On AI welfare and consciousness - @sebkrier Faster, Please! is a reader-supported publication. 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After a lovely day of all good martinis, there's plenty of bad and crazy for Jim and Greg today. And even the good martini is not pleasant.First, the welcome the United Nations taking five months to confirm what we all saw on October 7th last year - that Hamas used rape and other sexual assault as weapons of war. However, the UN also concluded that Hamas is still likely using these heinous tactics against the hostages.Next, a two-part bad martini highlighting President Biden's dereliction at the border and new evidence that his administration deliberately and actively flew illegals into the country. They dissect a Daily Mail report detailing how the administration admits, through a Freedom of Information request, that it flew hundreds of thousands of people (with no legal right to enter our nation) to 43 different airports in the U.S. during 2023 alone.But they also point out a recent segment on "60 Minutes," in which former Customs and Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz says he never had a conversation with President Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris during his two years on the job from 2021-2023.Finally, Jim and Greg unload on figures at the Lincoln Project and The Bulwark for their unhinged rhetoric aimed at No Labels, the group looking for a third party candidate to run for president this year. Reporting from Byron York quotes Rick Wilson of the Lincoln Project saying No Labels needed to be "burned to the (expletive deleted) ground politically." Jonathan Last of The Bulwark publicly said anyone affiliated with No Labels should "have their lives ruined," including losing their jobs and much more.Please visit our great sponsors:4Patriothttps://4Patriots.com/martiniStay connected with the Patriot Power Solar Generator 2000X on sale now.

The Bulwark editor Jonathan Last tells The New Abnormal that if Chris Christie really believes that Donald Trump must be stopped at all costs, then he has one card left to play. Plus! Anat Shenker-Osorio, host of the Words to Win By podcast, tells The New Abnormal co-host Danielle Moodie, how Joe Biden's 2024 campaign messaging is landing with voters. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, we discuss the last time David and Jonathan saw each other as friends on earth.Check us out atgraceintheshadowsor.orgdrjonathan@graceintheshadowsor.org(251) 244-4645*If you are searching for a clinical counselor and live in Alabama, Virginia, or North Carolina, Dr. Jonathan Behler would be happy to see you as a client! He does all counseling virtually through a secure portal. He will also work with you on payments - don't let finances keep you from getting counseling!If you live out of the US or not in Alabama, Virginia, or North Carolina, Dr. Jonathan Behler is an ordained minister and trained in pastoral counseling. If you are seeking pastoral counseling, please reach out as well!Check out our Etsystore and buy merch: https://shadowsofgrace.etsy.comSupport the show

This is an abbreviated version of The Michael Medved Show. To get the full program, plus premium content, become a subscriber at MichaelMedved.com

This is an abbreviated version of The Michael Medved Show. To get the full program, plus premium content, become a subscriber at MichaelMedved.com

Daily Beast congressional reporter Sam Brodey came on The New Abnormal politics podcast to talk through the ways that Trump's default talk could screw Republicans, and also to share how this stance of Trump's could possibly benefit him (or not.) Then, Jonathan Last, editor of The Bulwark, joins the show to talk through a DeSantis election theory and break down his rankings for the possible 2024 Republican presidential nominees most likely to win the election, including a very crass argument for putting Chris Christie dead last. Plus, co-hosts Andy and Danielle can't believe that Florida is turning into one big “sundown” town. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Bulwark's Jonathan Last discusses the difference in how the two parties respond to their base. Mediaite's Aidan McLaughlin reports on the latest leaks Fox News is releasing about Tucker Carlson. FairVote's David Daley provides details on the latest developments in gerrymandering and voter suppression.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What drives the world's most innovative and exceptional companies? Scottish Mortgage invites you behind the scenes to witness the extraordinary conversations that are driving the future forward.In this fascinating series, we go from ecommerce to Alzheimer's treatments, drone delivery to cultivated meat, to discover the real secrets behind visionary entrepreneurs – as well as what makes them potentially great cases for investment.Invest in Progress is a Listen production for Scottish Mortgage. The producer is Phil Sansom, and the executive producer is Suzy Grant. Mixing and sound design by Jonathan Last. From Scottish Mortgage, the presenter is Claire Shaw, the production manager is Niamh Kidd, and the editorial lead is Malcolm Borthwick.Check the podcast description to ensure this content is suitable for you. Your capital is at risk. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join the Connors Crew now by subscribing to our newsletter in just one click! American democracy is in serious trouble. We may be on the verge of the “greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War” and quite possibly the “suspension of American democracy as we have known it,” in the words of Robert Kagan. Michael Gerson laments that recent developments in the U.S. are “revealing the frightening fragility of the American experiment.” And Jonathan Last warns, “America faces an authoritarian peril.” The problems are numerous, including: Election subversion efforts by leading political figures, including the attempted coup in 2020, the threat of a coup in 2024, and ongoing anti-democratic trends among elected officials at the state and local levels. Widespread misinformation/disinformation disseminated by partisan media outlets on television, the internet, and radio. Erosion of political and popular support for democracy and growing support for authoritarianism. Deep polarization, negative partisanship, and tribalism. Government gridlock and dysfunction. Threats of violence toward elected representatives and election officials. I asked a friend of mine who worked on Capitol Hill for years the following question: What percentage of members of Congress really have no principles and are just desperate to stay in the thrill of the game, acquire and maintain power and status, and stay relevant, regardless of whether what they did in Congress helped or hurt our democracy? This person's honest answer? At least 51% and maybe as high as 80% or more, and an alarmingly high number are probably sociopaths. There is ample evidence that this may very well be true throughout the recent books by Mark Leibovich and Tim Miller. Here is a major problem with that: Weaknesses in our system that were exploited for a near coup in 2020 remain unfixed to be exploited by these numerous less-than-honorable people in the future. As University of Baltimore law professor Kim Wehle explains: “There are massive holes in the Electoral Count Act. It is stunning that there is nothing requiring states to count the popular vote. . . That is not democracy. If this is not addressed, state legislatures and/or Congress can steal the next election. The future of our republic is at stake.” Just this week, The New York Times obtained emails showing that those attempting the massive multi-state Electoral College fraud in 2020 knew what they were doing was wrong, unethical, illegal, and “fake,” as one put it in an email. . . . . . but they did it anyway: “We would just be sending in ‘fake' electoral votes to Pence so that ‘someone' in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes, and start arguing that the ‘fake' votes should be counted.” This is not democracy. Crossing our fingers and hoping is not going to fix this. We must get serious as a people and fix this through reforms to our system. Yet time is running out. And if American democracy dies, it cannot just be turned back on like a light switch. I promise that all of us, regardless of political orientation, will miss it when it is gone. The Bulwark's Will Saletan writes: “Americans like to think our country is immune to authoritarianism. We have a culture of freedom, a tradition of elected government, and a Bill of Rights. We're not like those European countries that fell into fascism. We'd never willingly abandon democracy, liberty, or the rule of law. But that's not how authoritarianism would come to America. In fact, it's not how authoritarianism has come to America. The movement to dismantle our democracy is thriving and growing, even after the failure of the Jan. 6th coup attempt, because it isn't spreading through overt rejection of our system of government. It's spreading through lies.” On this episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast, host Lawrence Eppard is joined by Jonathan Last, editor and writer at The Bulwark, and Tom Nichols, writer at The Atlantic, to discuss whether American democracy is going to survive. Strap in, this episode gets really dark. Related links: The New York Times shows that those coordinating fraudulent Electoral College electors knew it was wrong, unethical, illegal, and fake. They did it anyway. “A Five-Alarm Fire for American Democracy” by Lawrence M. Eppard. The Death of Expertise and Our Own Worst Enemy from Tom Nichols as well as his writing at The Atlantic. Check out Jonathan Last's writing at The Bulwark. Why We Did It from The Bulwark's Tim Miller. Mark Leibovich article referenced in this episode. The “independent state legislature theory” explained. Former President Donald Trump pressures/threatens Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn Georgia's election results. The Connors Forum is an independent entity from the institutions that we partner with. The views expressed in our newsletters and podcasts are those of the individual contributors alone and not of our partner institutions. Episode Music: “Please Listen Carefully” by Jahzzar (creative commons) “Draw the Sky” by Paul Keane (licensed through TakeTones) “When” by Stephan Siebert (creative commons) “Happy Trails (To You)” by the Riders in the Sky (used with artist's permission)  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A FIVE-ALARM FIRE for AMERICAN DEMOCRACY The warning signs of serious decline for many democracies worldwide are “flashing red.” In the U.S., we may be on the verge of the “greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War” and quite possibly the “suspension of American democracy as we have known it,” in the words of Robert Kagan. The problems facing American democracy are numerous, including (but not limited to) misinformation and disinformation, election subversion efforts by leading political figures, loopholes in the Electoral Count Act, partisan media outlets, political polarization, negative partisanship and tribalism, erosion of support for democracy and growing support for authoritarianism, weakening of social cohesion, government gridlock and dysfunction, an attempted coup, the “Big Lie,” an insurrection, partisan election audits, increasing authoritarianism among state legislatures, threats to elected officials and election workers, and talk of secession. I want to focus my discussion on two of these related threats: misinformation/disinformation and efforts to subvert our electoral system. The U.S. is in what many have called a “post-truth” age. For millions of Americans, feelings are becoming more important than facts and people are increasingly comfortable bending reality to their beliefs—instead of adjusting beliefs to match the evidence. The very notions of facts and expertise are being rejected by large numbers of Americans. At first glance this may seem incongruent with the fact that Americans have easier access to factual information, and more of it, than ever before. Imagine traveling back in time and asking a person that you met there to take you to their best library. Now imagine, once arriving in the building, pulling your smartphone from your pocket and explaining, “This tiny device gives me access to exponentially more information than this entire library.” You would leave him or her speechless. With all of this high-quality information at our fingertips, why do so many of us fall for misinformation and disinformation? A good portion of the blame can go to the internet, the decline of traditional news outlets and rise of partisan ones (including cable news, talk radio, and partisan websites), and the rise of social media. Despite easy access to more high-quality information than ever before, we also have easy (and often easier) access to more low-quality information than ever before. Millions of Americans do not know the difference between credible journalism and biased partisanship, lock themselves in ideological silos which continuously feed them messages and information that supposedly confirm their beliefs, and become addicted to low-quality information. There are valuable tools that can help, but many Americans are either unaware of or unwilling to use them. Imagine sitting at a table in a restaurant. Along comes your server with a plate of healthy food and places it on your table. At this point, 100 percent of the food in front of you is healthy. But before you can take a bite, another server places three more plates on the table containing unhealthy food. Now only 25 percent of the food on the table is good for you. If you desire to eat healthy during this meal, have these additional plates made your goal less attainable? Only if (a) you are unable to identify which plate contains the healthy food and/or (b) you are unable to resist the temptation to eat off of the other plates. This is a good metaphor for the current news media landscape. Our human brains are hard-wired to look for information that makes us feel good, avoid information which does not, and interpret information in a manner that makes it consistent with what we already believe and maintains our highest sense of self. This is true for everyone regardless of their political orientation. Most of us try to avoid information that might destabilize our view of the world and/or threaten our core beliefs, identities, and deeply held opinions. As social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains, “When the facts conflict with. . . sacred values, almost everyone finds a way to stick with their values and reject the evidence.” When we only have a few sources of mostly high-quality information available to us, our cognitive biases are kept somewhat under control. But when there are seemingly endless sources of information available to us, and we have difficulty differentiating what is credible from what is not, our cognitive biases are unleashed to do their worst. Think back to the movie Jurassic Park. In that film, the dinosaurs do not pose much of a threat to park patrons when the security systems are working. But once Dennis Nedry deactivates them? Well, hold on to your butts—at that point, the dinosaurs eat people. Partisan news outlets, the internet, and social media have deactivated the security systems that kept our cognitive biases somewhat at bay. Now misinformation and disinformation help diseases once thought to be a thing of the past to rear their ugly heads again. They destabilize democracies. This is not some minor problem. Lee McIntyre explains that, “The cognitive bias has always been there. The internet was the accelerant which democratized all of the disinformation and misinformation and diminished the experts. Democratization has led to the abandonment of standards for testing beliefs. It leads people to think they are just as good at reasoning about something as anybody else. But they're not. At the doctor's office, I don't ask for the data and reason through it myself and decide on the course of treatment. It takes expertise and experience to make that judgement. Just like I can't fly my own plane. There is a scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where he is in the room with all of these goblets and chalices and doesn't know which one is the Holy Grail.  That's where we are right now. We have the truth right in front of us, but we don't know which one it is.” Tom Nichols writes that, “These are dangerous times. Never have so many people had so much access to so much knowledge and yet have been so resistant to learn anything. In the United States and other developed nations, otherwise intelligent people denigrate intellectual achievement and reject the advice of experts. Not only do increasing numbers of laypeople lack basic knowledge, they reject fundamental rules of evidence and refuse to learn how to make a logical argument. In doing so, they risk throwing away centuries of accumulated knowledge and undermining the practices and habits that allow us to develop new knowledge. This is more than a natural skepticism toward experts. I fear we are witnessing the death of the ideal of expertise itself, a Google-fueled, Wikipedia-based, blog-sodden collapse of any division between professionals and laypeople, students and teachers, knowers and wonderers—in other words, between those of any achievement in an area and those with none at all.” Or as Yevgeny Simkin writes: “Let's take a short walk down memory lane. It's 1995. A man stands on a busy street corner yelling vaguely incoherent things at the passersby. He's holding a placard that says ‘THE END IS NIGH. REPENT.' You come upon this guy while out getting the paper. . . No reasonable person would think of convincing this man that his point of view is incorrect. This isn't an opportunity for an engaging debate. . . Now fast forward to 2020. In terms of who this guy is and who you are absolutely nothing has changed. And yet here you are—arguing with him on Twitter or Facebook. And you, yourself, are being brought to the brink of insanity. . . [Social media is] responsible for the tearing apart of our social fabric. . . An insidious malware slowly corrupting our society in ways that are extremely difficult to quantify, but the effects of which are evident all around us. Anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, QAnon, cancel-culture, Alex Jones, flat-Earthers, racists, anti-racists, anti-anti-racists, and of course the Twitter stylings of our Dear Leader.” A prime example of the threat that misinformation and disinformation pose to American democracy is the ongoing campaign—what has become known as the “Big Lie”—to delegitimize and overturn the free and fair election of President Biden. As Will Saletan writes in the Bulwark, “Americans like to think our country is immune to authoritarianism. We have a culture of freedom, a tradition of elected government, and a Bill of Rights. We're not like those European countries that fell into fascism. We'd never willingly abandon democracy, liberty, or the rule of law. But that's not how authoritarianism would come to America. In fact, it's not how authoritarianism has come to America. The movement to dismantle our democracy is thriving and growing, even after the failure of the Jan. 6th coup attempt, because it isn't spreading through overt rejection of our system of government. It's spreading through lies.” Saletan notes that: In the last four Economist/YouGov polls, most White Americans without a college degree said President Biden did not legitimately win the presidency. Three-quarters of Republicans in a January/February 2022 Economist/YouGov poll said they believe that Biden did not legitimately win the election. An October 2021 Quinnipiac survey found that 94 percent of Democrats said former President Trump is undermining democracy, while 85 percent of Republicans said he is protecting it. In a December 2021 survey from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, 61 percent of Republicans said Biden is illegitimate because fraudulent ballots supporting him were counted by election officials. Forty-six percent said ballots supporting Trump were destroyed by election officials. Forty-one percent said voting machines were re-programmed by election officials to count extra ballots for Biden. In a Politico/Morning Consult poll from January 2022, more than 60 percent of Republicans said that in terms of violating the Constitution, the election was at least as bad as the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. Two-thirds of these people (or 43 percent of all Republicans) said the election was worse. An overwhelming amount of evidence demonstrates that these ideas are false, and yet their support is widespread. Saletan closes by saying, “We're in a battle to save democracy, but the battleground isn't values. It's facts. We're up against a party that spreads, condones, excuses, tolerates, and exploits lies—lies about our political process, and lies about an attempt to overthrow our government—in order to make Americans think that the party of authoritarianism is the party of democracy. And we're in serious danger of losing.” Misinformation and disinformation have been powerful weapons that leading political figures in America have used recently to further their authoritarian efforts to subvert democracy. Recent examples of election subversion include former President Trump admitting to wanting former Vice President Pence to overturn the election at the electoral vote counting stage. Kimberly Wehle, a law professor at the University of Baltimore, argues that we desperately need to fix the Electoral Count Act (ECA) for this very reason. Even though the ECA was not intended to give the Vice President the power to single-handedly overturn an election for no good reason, it is vague enough that somebody might be able to abuse it to that end. Wehle explains that, “There are massive holes in the Electoral Count Act. It is stunning that there is nothing requiring states to count the popular vote. Arizona is proposing legislation to ignore the popular vote and allow the state legislature to pick the electors. That is not democracy. If this is not addressed, state legislatures and/or Congress can steal the next election. The future of our republic is at stake.” Other alarming examples of recent election subversion efforts in the U.S. include (but are not limited to): Trump prodding and threatening Georgia's secretary of state to “find” enough votes to flip his state from Biden to Trump (NBC News). Eighty-four GOP officials across seven states (including local GOP leaders, current office holders, and current candidates for public office) sending fraudulent documents to the National Archives in the hopes that these fake “alternative slates of electors” would be taken seriously and play a role in overturning the election (the New York Times, the Bulwark). Trump bringing leaders of the Michigan legislature to the White House to try to convince them to incorrectly certify that their state went for Trump when in fact it went for Biden (Politico). Partisan state election audits (Brennan Center). Trump wanting to seize voting machines and records (Politico, the Bulwark). Trump calling governors and local election officials to try to pressure them to fabricate voter fraud (USA Today). The January 6, 2021 insurrection (New York Times). Trump floating pardons for those who stormed the capital on January 6 (Politico). Trump wanting to install Jeffrey Clark at the DOJ to carry out his election subversion schemes (the Bulwark). American democracy is under serious threat. As Michael Gerson laments, recent developments in the U.S. are “revealing the frightening fragility of the American experiment.” And as Jonathan Last warns, “America faces an authoritarian peril.” This is a five-alarm fire for American democracy, and we are all going to have to do our part to put it out—and there is little time to wait.   by Lawrence M. Eppard   Joining us on this episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast to discuss all of this is Jim Swift, senior editor at the Bulwark. Swift worked at The Weekly Standard from 2012 to 2018, where his last post was as deputy online editor. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Post, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and elsewhere. Before TWS, he worked for five years for members of the House and Senate as a tax staffer, working for Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY) on Ways and Means Committee matters and Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) on Finance Committee matters. In 2004, he worked as a field staffer for President Bush's re-election campaign. For a good example of the consequences of misinformation and disinformation, check out Jim Swift's piece in the Bulwark about what happened recently in Maitland, Florida. Also take a look at this can't miss piece from Anne Applebaum in the Atlantic about what Vladimir Putin's objective is in threatening Ukraine. Further reading: “Fact Check: How We Know the 2020 Election Results were Legitimate, not 'Rigged' as Donald Trump Claims” (USA Today) “Listen to the Full Audio of Trump's Phone Call with the Georgia Secretary of State” (NBC News) “John Eastman's First 'January 6 Scenario' Memo” (Washington Post) “Read the Never-Issued Trump Order that Would Have Seized Voting Machines” (Politico) “Fake GOP Electors Subpoenaed By January 6 Committee” (Forbes) “Our Constitutional Crisis is Already Here” (Washington Post) “How Stable Are Democracies? ‘Warning Signs Are Flashing Red'” (New York Times) “The Trump Coup is Still Happening” (the Bulwark) “Anatomy of a Death Threat” (Reuters) “Arizona GOP Lawmaker Introduces Bill to Give Legislature Power to Toss Out Election Results” (NBC News) “Lies Are the Building Blocks of Trumpian Authoritarianism” (the Bulwark) “How Seriously Should We Take Talk of U.S. State Secession?” (Brookings) “Social Media is the Problem” (the Bulwark) Check out the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index Check out the Connors Forum Guide to Trustworthy News Outlets Episode Music/Audio Clips: “Please Listen Carefully” by Jahzzar (creative commons) “Draw the Sky” by Paul Keane (licensed through TakeTones) “Reading by Lamplight” by Maarten Schellekens (creative commons) Bruce Springsteen Super Bowl Jeep Commercial (publicly available on YouTube) “Happy Trails (To You)” by the Riders in the Sky (used with artist's permission)   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to 14th & G. Today, Dean is joined by Jonathan Last, editor of The Bulwark, a news network that provides political analysis free without partisan loyalties. Dean and Jonathan discuss how the media landscape has evolved, becoming more partisan with fewer gatekeepers, and if these developments can possibly benefit the country. They also break down how the Republican Party is finding its way out of the wilderness, the return of congressionally directed spending projects, and what's in store for the '22 Midterms.

Thank you for listening to another episode of The Rabbit Society Podcast. This week I had the pleasure of conversing with Jonathan Last. As well as being an experienced Parkour practitioner, hand-balancer and acrobat, Jonathan is a devout Christian, something which we discuss in this episode.Instagram:- @therabbitsociety --@Sam_Egginton--@Jonathan_Last -Support the show

On this week's Beg to Differ with Mona Charen, Kim Wehle and Jonathan Last join the usual crew to discuss QAnon and the GOP, the Biden/Harris ticket and voting by mail. Special Guests: Bill Galston, Jonathan V. Last, Kim Wehle, and Linda Chavez.

Jonathan Last is my handbalance coach. You can find him on Instagram @jonathan_lastSupport the show (http://thedailypractice.com)

Tuesday is primary day in New Hampshire. Voters are casting ballots as Democratic presidential hopefuls seek momentum. In the wake of Iowa, what can we expect as the polls close Tuesday evening? "New Hampshire voters were casting ballots Tuesday in the second contest in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, with US Senator Bernie Sanders and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg jostling to remain atop a crowded field after strong performances last week in Iowa," Reuters reported Tuesday. “Jostling to remain atop a crowded field”? According to Real Clear Politics poll aggregation, Sanders is up 7.4% and has been for a few days. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren don't even break 12%. How is that "jostling"? The field is still a crowded, though. Is this still a good thing in terms of issue articulation, or does this damage the candidates in the long run?Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg has launched an ad campaign aimed at African-American voters in which he poses with former US President Barack Obama in various pictures of them working hard together. How will this play in the African-American community as people remember his staunch defense of the racist stop-and-frisk campaign in NYC? Bloomberg is now having to answer after audio emerged of him giving a full-throated defense of the policy in 2015. “Ninety-five percent of murders — murderers and murder victims — fit one M.O. You can just take a description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, 16-25. That's true in New York, that's true in virtually every city … And that's where the real crime is.”"MSNBC's Chuck Todd Under Fire for Reciting Quote Comparing Sanders Supporters to Nazis," reads a Tuesday headline in Common Dreams. This comes after Todd's fellow MSNBC host Chris Matthews went on a wild rant connecting a Sanders win with public executions. Common Dreams reported that Todd "faced swift backlash Monday for approvingly quoting a right-wing columnist who described online supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is vying to become the first Jewish president in US history, as a 'digital brownshirt brigade.'" The anchor said, "Hey I want to bring up something that Jonathan Last put in The Bulwark today. It was about how — and Ruth, we've all been on the receiving end of the Bernie online brigade — here's what he says: He says 'no other candidate has anything like this sort of digital brownshirt brigade. I mean, except for Donald Trump.'" Is the latest example of hyperbolic opinion masquerading as journalism?GUESTS:David Schultz — Professor of political science at Hamline University. Daniel Lazare — Journalist and author of three books: "The Frozen Republic," "The Velvet Coup" and "America's Undeclared War."Dr.Clarence Lusane — African-American author, activist, lecturer and chair of the political science department at Howard University.Jon Jeter — Author and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist with more than 20 years of journalistic experience. He is a former Washington Post bureau chief and award-winning foreign correspondent.

Jonathan Last’s book What to Expect When No One is Expecting is the subject of the next Liberty Law Talk. Last, a senior writer for the Weekly Standard, points our attention to below replacement level birth rates evident in countries throughout the world (including America since 2008) and the dismal future it promises if things […]

The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters this week! To discuss the hype and stakes for the film, comedian and baritone geek Andrew Heaton joins Beltway Banthas. We get into the return of Emperor Palpatine, Rey, fanboys vs The Last Jedi and Heaton's recent interview of Jonathan Last, who notoriously penned "The Case For Empire" in the Weekly Standard. Andrew Heaton and Stephen Kent review how and if the political right's penchant for trolling online tracks with Star Wars fandom and the common arguments in favor of the Empire over the Rebel Alliance. On Reddit, this part of fandom lives on in r/EmpireDidNothingWrong.  If you want Star Wars and a healthy dash of politics, this is the podcast you are looking for.  Andrew Heaton is the host of The Political Orphanage Podcast and his new sci-fi show, Alienating the Audience. This episode is the beginning of a giveaway contest! You can win Star Wars: The Ultimate Pop Up Galaxy or Star Wars: Rebel Starfighters: Owners' Workshop Manual by writing Beltway Banthas a review at PODCHASER.COM by January 7th, 2020.  Get full access to Geeky Stoics at www.geekystoics.com/subscribe

The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters this week! To discuss the hype and stakes for the film, comedian and baritone geek Andrew Heaton joins Beltway Banthas. We get into the return of Emperor Palpatine, Rey, fanboys vs The Last Jedi and Heaton's recent interview of Jonathan Last, who notoriously penned "The Case For Empire" in the Weekly Standard. Andrew Heaton and Stephen Kent review how and if the political right's penchant for trolling online tracks with Star Wars fandom and the common arguments in favor of the Empire over the Rebel Alliance. On Reddit, this part of fandom lives on in r/EmpireDidNothingWrong.  If you want Star Wars and a healthy dash of politics, this is the podcast you are looking for.  Andrew Heaton is the host of The Political Orphanage Podcast and his new sci-fi show, Alienating the Audience. This episode is the beginning of a giveaway contest! You can win Star Wars: The Ultimate Pop Up Galaxy or Star Wars: Rebel Starfighters: Owners' Workshop Manual by writing Beltway Banthas a review at PODCHASER.COM by January 7th, 2020. 

If you like handstand, you're going to love this podcast episode and you'll love our guest Jonathan Last, who it's a pleasure to call our friend!So if you've not come across Jonathan Last yet on instagram, then you're not searching enough for amazing handstand photos. What Jonathan can do in terms of hand balancing is just out of this world.In this podcast, he shares hints and training tips to help you along your handstand journey, whether you're a complete beginner or training to learn the one arm handstand.He brings a breath of fresh air in his honesty and shares how hard it's been to get as good at handstands as he is as well as his 'love hate' relationship with social media.Was a pleasure to have Jonathan on the podcast and share his story, now we're off to practise our handstands! Class dismissed Tim & Jacko Follow Jonathan on instagram www.instagram.com/jonathan_last FREE 7 Day Trial of the Virtual Classroom - https://classroom.schoolofcalisthenics.com/pages/free-trial

Unstuck in time, Jonah and Jack resort to that most desperate measure of a beleaguered podcast: an AMA Q&A. Shownotes Jonah Goldberg C-SPAN interview with George Will BringFido.com Milton Himmelfarb Quote Kirsten Gillibrand on Abortion Deadwood Spoiler alert: not the dogs! “Revelations” –er, “Revelation” Tweet Papal Ninjas? Jonathan Last on “Frenchism” The Simpsons: Marge’s “Monkees” … Continue reading Episode 111: Unstuck in Time→ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported late last year that Americans aren't having enough babies to replace themselves. In fact, a record one in five American women will never have children, and those who do will, on average, never exceed two. As a result, the death rate is outpacing the birth rate, which means—except for immigration—the U.S. has joined many developed countries on the long, slow road of population decline. That's bad news. Not having enough children as a society has costs that are hard to appreciate on the individual level. We know from examples like Japan and much of Europe that aging countries become economically top-heavy, especially those that promise extensive government services to the elderly. This results in runaway aging and population decline, and negatively impacts every sector of the economy except for maybe healthcare, depending on how you look at that one. It also places heavier and heavier burdens on the shoulders of an ever-shrinking workforce of young people, which leaves them even less likely to have kids. On a deeper level, young members of a graying society lose hope for the future, or stop planning for it altogether. In Japan, this hopelessness manifests as one of the highest rates of suicide among youth in the developed world. To be clear, the United States is not Japan, but as Jonathan Last writes in his book, “What to Expect When No One's Expecting,” there's no example in history of a shrinking society experiencing long-term prosperity. Given the impending demographic disaster, you might think this would be the wrong time to discourage people from having children. But some are doing just that. Citing numbers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the website Market Watch recently warned that the cost of raising children has grown an unbelievable 40 percent since the year 2000. According to those USDA estimates, the average American parent spends almost a quarter million dollars raising a single child, not including college expenses. This translates to huge figures for families who have four, five, or even more kids. If these numbers are correct, a minivan-sized family will spend something on the order of a million dollars just to get their children through high school. But I'm not buying those numbers, at least not totally. The USDA's estimates don't take into account things like shared living space, hand-me-down clothes, grandparents pitching in, or other common ways parents have learned to save money. Such outlandish estimates of the cost of kids are now cited in article after article, making the case that few Americans can really afford kids. CNBC joined in recently with a piece called “Here's how much money you save when you don't have kids.” To make matters worse, they cited a study purporting to show parents are less happy than non-parents. All of this bean-counting in the government and secular media comes at a moment when the thing we need most is babies. Even sadder, it coincides with one of the hardest pro-abortion legislative pushes we've seen in decades. Our culture is simply less welcoming to little lives than ever before. And yet those of us who have kids and those who desperately long and pray to have kids know how fundamentally skewed these cost-benefit analyses are, even if their math was better. Because children are priceless, and as my friend Dr. Ben Mitchell says, anytime you put a price tag on something priceless, you cheapen it. The question of whether kids are too expensive raises much bigger worldview questions, such as, “what's the purpose of life?” and “what's the good life?” Children aren't a bucket list item, like paragliding or visiting Paris. It's an others-centered way of living—a radical statement of hope for the future—a declaration that you and I are not the center of the universe, and that the here and now is not the only thing that matters. In a society already suffering from a birth dearth, the question isn't whether we can afford to have kids. It's whether we can afford not to.   http://www.breakpoint.org/2019/02/breakpoint-the-cost-of-skipping-children/  

Jonathan Last, executive editor of The Bulwark and the last of the Sub-Beacon trio to appear on The Remnant, joins Jonah for a rollicking round of repartee about Trump, the Democrats, and Star Wars. Show Notes: Behold: The Bulwark  The Bulwark podcast that mentions me  Albert Jay Nock on “Isaiah’s Job”  The Weekly Sub-Beacon “The … Continue reading Episode 80: The Last Podcast→ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the first official Bulwark podcast, editor-at-large Bill Kristol and executive editor Jonathan V. Last join host and editor-in-chief Charlie Sykes to discuss the future of conservatism, the fate of Trumpism, the weird political moment, and how The Bulwark fits into it all. Two years into the Trump administration, Trumpism has never compiled a dominant electoral coalition, and already Trump's enablers are scrambling to protect him from a primary challenger. What courage! Whatever comes after Trumpism, it won't be the same conservatism as the 1980s or even the 2000s. Someone needs to figure out where conservatism goes from here and hold those responsible for the rise of Trump to account: Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. Special Guests: Bill Kristol and Jonathan V. Last.

(REBROADCAST EPISODE) In this week’s special episode, David compares and contrasts the economics of the Star Wars and Star Trek universes. He is joined by Zachary Feinstein, an Assistant Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and Manu Saadia, author of *Trekonomics.* Topics include the economic fallout from the destruction of the Death Star, the absence of money in Star Trek, and whether a universe can really eliminate scarcity. Original episode: https://soundcloud.com/macro-musings/feinsteinsaadia David’s blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com/ Macro Musings podcast site: macromusings.com David’s Twitter: @davidbeckworth Manu’s *Trekonomics* website: trekonomics.tumblr.com/ (you can order the book, *Trekonomics,* here as well) Manu’s Twitter: @trekonomics Zach’s faculty profile: sites.wustl.edu/fictionomics/ Zach’s Twitter: @FictionomicsWU Related links: “It’s a Trap: Emperor Palpatine’s Poison Pill” by Zachary Feinstein arxiv.org/pdf/1511.09054.pdf “The Case for the Empire” by Jonathan Last www.weeklystandard.com/the-case-for-…/article/2540

In this week’s special episode, David compares and contrasts the economics of the Star Wars and Star Trek universes. He is joined by Zachary Feinstein, an Assistant Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and Manu Saadia, author of *Trekonomics.* Topics include the economic fallout from the destruction of the Death Star, the absence of money in Star Trek, and whether a universe can really eliminate scarcity. David’s blog: http://macromarketmusings.blogspot.com/ David’s Twitter: @davidbeckworth Manu’s *Trekonomics* website: https://trekonomics.tumblr.com/ (you can order the book, *Trekonomics,* here as well) Manu’s Twitter: @trekonomics Zach’s faculty profile: https://sites.wustl.edu/fictionomics/ Zach’s Twitter: @FictionomicsWU Related links: “It’s a Trap: Emperor Palpatine’s Poison Pill” by Zachary Feinstein https://arxiv.org/pdf/1511.09054.pdf “The Case for the Empire” by Jonathan Last http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-case-for-the-empire/article/2540

8 AM - 1 - Jonathan Last from The Weekly Standard analyzes debate with us. 2 - Deez-Bates. 3 - The News with Marshall Phillips. 4 - Campus Cry-Baby Update.

On today's edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson is joined by Allysen Efferson to talk with David Pietrusza about his latest book, then Jonathan Last discusses last night's CNN debate and his latest book, The Christmas Virtues.

Governor Scott Walker dropped out of the presidential race. Why? And was it a good move? Hugh Hewitt speaks with Fox News political reporter Chris Stirewalt. Why are Republican voters furious? Hewitt talks to pollster Frank Luntz. Jonathan Last of the Weekly Standard explains how many of Pope Francis' comments are jaw dropping and astonishing. AEI's Jim Talent and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton discuss Russia, Syria, and the refugee crisis. Senator Ted Cruz speaks with Mike Gallagher about the Obama administration making the U.S. the greatest financier of terror by supporting the Iran nuclear deal. Senator Marco Rubio was on the Hugh Hewitt Show to discuss national security. Why did President Obama fawn over the young student who built a clock that looked like a bomb? Townhall.com blogger Katie Pavlich weighs in with Gallagher.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Join my discussion with the Weekly Standard's senior writer Jonathan Last for a rollicking discussion of his new book: The Dadly Virtues: Adventures from the Worst Job You'll Ever Love. What is your favorite part of fatherhood? Order this humorous and deep book for the fathers in your life. http://amzn.to/1SHC7IU

This is an archived copy of The Daily Standard podcast. Please note that advertisements, links and other specific references within the content may be out of date.

Physicist and climate change & sustainability educator, Dr. Robert Davies responded to Monday's Access Utah (about the new book: "What to Expect When No One's Expecting") by saying that the author, Jonathan Last, “was throwing out one piece of misinformation after another, contradicted by the data, utterly unchallenged." Robert Davies asked for rebuttal time, and we're happy to continue our discussion on population and the environment on Tuesday's Access Utah. We received comments from Peter, and from Dell in Minneapolis which we'll share and discuss as well.

For years, we have been warned about the looming danger of overpopulation: people jostling for space on a planet that's busting at the seams and running out of oil and food and land and everything else. In his new book “What to Expect When No One's Expecting” Weekly Standard senior writer Jonathan Last says it's all bunk. The “population bomb” never exploded. Instead, he says, statistics from around the world make clear that since the 1970s, we've been facing exactly the opposite problem: people are having too few babies.

 Capitol Day for NICHE coming up...Vickie with an update.  Pope quits.  John Zmirak,  Bad Catholic's Guide to Catechism explains what it all means.  Then,  Jonathan Last's What to Expect When No One's Expecting...calling us unto fertility.    Rep Tom Shaw and David Fisher want to liberate Iowa education for homeschoolers and Christian Schoolers.    A call to action.

Potluck...education reform...Jonathan Last talks about "singletons"..."A Nation of Singles"...  the basis of our civilization is at risk.   And are "preppers" dangerous?

Mara Hvistendahl has written a powerful and provocative book entitled Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men. She demonstrates that in China, India and other nations, there are many more men than women, the result of systematic campaigns against baby girls. In nature, 105 boys are born for every 100 girls. Jonathan Last writes ?this ratio is biologically ironclad. Between 104 and 106 is the normal range, and that?s as far as the natural window goes. Any other number is the result of unnatural events.? However, in India today there are 112 boys for every 100 girls born. In China the number is 121, with some towns in China over 150! Why this incredibly skewed ratio? One reason?abortion.