America Is Haunted by the Ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi | Ruminant

The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg

The Dispatch

Politics, News

4.7 • 6.6K Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2026

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jonah Goldberg, like Plato’s cave-man philosopher, has briefly returned from the land of book writing and enlightenment to ruminate before us poor, shadow-watching mortals. Jonah considers the origin of the term slush fund, waxes poetic on military etymology, and reflects on the Lewinsky scandal, all before getting stuck in on feminism, John Bolton, the republican spirit, Graham Platner, party self-sabotage, and the cult of authenticity. Show Notes: —The Dispatch at the 92nd Street Y —Robert Nisbet - Prejudices: A Philosophical Dictionary —Jonah’s underrated second book —Jonah’s mom on TV —Friday’s DisPod —Wednesday G-File —NYT Graham Platner piece —The Argument —Cult of authenticity G-File —Suicide of the West The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Attention all passengers.
0:03.0	The Uber ride for Jeff's rugby team will depart in five minutes from Platform 15.
0:09.0	Your ride comes with six toilets and a refreshments carriage that you'll empty within five minutes.
0:16.0	Thank you for booking your tickets on Uber.
0:19.0	Trains on Uber. Trains on Uber.
0:36.2	Ladies and gentlemen, can I please have your attention?
0:41.1	Daniel Jiggan!
0:47.4	Greetings, dear listeners, this is Jonah Goldberg, host of the Remnant podcast, brought to you by the Dispatch and Dispatch Media.
0:56.3	It's not as early Friday morning as I would like it to be. I got a kind of a late start here,
1:02.9	even though I was out of bed, let's say, at 5.15 this morning for the first of two walks I had to take because Pippa's, our spaniel's,
1:13.7	limp is so bad that she really can't go on long walks and Zoe needs the, and the dingoes
1:18.7	needs to get her yaya's out. So I end up taking them twice in the morning and then Pippa's just
1:25.0	getting old. It's very sad. I think it's kind of funny. Like,
1:32.6	I know it's kind of a self-indulgent thing where I talk about how my brain isn't up to speed yet and all that kind of stuff. But most mornings, I basically haven't talked to anybody until I
1:39.4	start yapping into this thing. And if I have talked to anybody, it's basically my wife or the dogs. And very
1:46.8	briefly, this thing's just so weird to do. Anyway, my wife slept late. I waited and waited and
1:53.2	waited for her to wake up. And finally I said, screw it. I got to get out of here. I got to get
1:57.2	the day started. And so I left her behind. The exciting news for me is,
2:02.4	I guess, word got out because I complained on here or to one of my colleagues about some
2:09.3	things about my office in the annex at AEI. And then Yval and Nicole from my shop at AI sprung into action and moved me into a nicer office with a window on a different floor and super fancy.
2:27.1	And we moved all my stuff yesterday. So now I'm like between, I think, Fred Kagan and Hal Brands, which means I am, I'm helping the collective
2:37.8	IQ on this side of the office regress back towards the mean a little bit, but it's pretty
	...

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