Christopher Caldwell On Trump And Europe
The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Sullivan
4.6 • 836 Ratings
🗓️ 28 February 2025
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Chris — an old friend and, in my view, one of the sharpest right-of-center writers in journalism — returns to the Dishcast for his third appearance. He’s a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, a contributing editor to the Claremont Review of Books, a contributing writer for the NYT, and a member of the editorial committee of the French quarterly Commentaire. We covered his book The Age of Entitlement on the pod in 2021, and in 2023 he came back to talk European politics. This week I wanted to talk to a Trump supporter as we survey the first month. And we hashed a lot out.
For two clips of our convo — on the vandalism of DOGE, and why Chris thinks Trump has been more consequential than Obama on policy— see our YouTube page.
Other topics: the final demise of affirmative action; the 1964 Civil Rights Act; how DEI created racial strife; warring Dem interest groups; Biden’s belated border enforcement; why Harris was picked for veep and party nominee; the minorities disillusioned with Dems; the rise in public disorder; looming inflation; Trump’s tax cuts and tariffs; Trump vs Reaganism; DOGE vs Clinton’s downsizing; Bannon vs Musk; Thiel a harbinger of Trump’s broligarchy; USAID and NGOs; the Swamp; Musk calling for the impeachment of judges; his ignorance on government; his craving to be cool; RFK at HHS; Bezos ditching dissent at the WaPo op-ed page; America’s new foreign policy; Trump’s alliance with Russia against Ukraine; pushing reparations on an invaded country; NATO’s Article 5 void under Trump; his love of strongmen; Vance’s disdain of European leaders; Brexit; mass migration; the German elections; China and Trump; Syria and Obama; the DCA helicopter crash; the awfulness of Bluesky; the Gulf of America; and debating the extent to which Trump’s rhetoric is just noise.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Evan Wolfson on the history of marriage equality, Nick Denton on China and AI, Francis Collins on faith and science, Michael Lewis on government service, Douglas Murray on Israel and Gaza, Ian Buruma on Spinoza, Michael Joseph Gross on bodybuilding, and the great and powerful Mike White, of White Lotus fame. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Hi there. Welcome to another dishcast in the great new era of Trumpery, part two. Trump |
| 0:37.4 | 2.0 continues as we speak. We have a pretty great lineup of guests coming up. |
| 0:44.0 | Michael Lewis coming on, done this lovely book about government employees, a subject obviously of extraordinary timeliness, as I don't know how he does it, but he always manages the pick, |
| 0:54.5 | the topic you want to think about 18 months in advance. Screw him. Anyway, Evan Wilson, |
| 1:00.2 | on the history of marriage equality, he's probably the most important figure in that history, |
| 1:04.7 | and it was worth going back and remembering what actually happened and not see it as some |
| 1:09.6 | kind of inevitability. and look at the tactics |
| 1:11.8 | and arguments that were used that are currently not being used and see what they might tell us |
| 1:18.7 | about where we are. Nick Denton is going to come on talking about China and AI. Francis Collins, |
| 1:24.6 | ex-Collins is coming on. Talk about faith and God and knowledge. Michael Gross is |
| 1:31.6 | coming on to talk about bodybuilding, the culture of muscle in America. Mike White of White |
| 1:37.8 | Lotus is coming in. Douglas Murray is coming back to talk about Israel and Hamas and a lovely light to come. |
| 1:46.1 | Ian Baruma and I sit down and talk about Spinoza. |
| 1:49.8 | I mean, maybe you don't think that's a delightful thing to do. |
| 1:52.0 | But in fact, we had a good time. |
| 1:53.7 | It's already in the bag, so it's coming up at some point. |
| 1:55.9 | But obviously Spinoza, not hugely timely right now. |
| 1:59.0 | So occasionally we do want these in advance. so I get a breathing space at some point. |
| 2:04.3 | But this week in the middle of really a lot going on in the world and a lot to sort of get our heads around, I've invited back. |
| 2:13.3 | My old friend and great man, great and powerful, that's what, broken quote, the great and powerful, |
| 2:21.5 | Chris Caldwell, who is just one of the best writers in journalism right now. And definitely, |
| 2:26.7 | if you're interested in conservatism as an evolving philosophy, I think Christopher is someone you |
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