Molly Jong-Fast on Trump's Impeachment, Democratic Candidates, and Why Twitter Is Great
"I don't think you should do Twitter if you think you're better than Twitter."

"I don't think you should do Twitter if you think you're better than Twitter," says Molly Jong-Fast in a wide-ranging interview with Nick Gillespie.
Molly Jong-Fast is a journalist, novelist, and memoirist who is an editor at large for The Daily Beast, where she writes frequently about President Donald Trump (she doesn't much like him) and the Democratic presidential hopefuls (she will vote for whoever wins the nomination but isn't excited by them). She's also a contributor to Playboy, The Independent (U.K.), and The Bulwark, a website started up by some folks left homeless when The Weekly Standard bit the dust a while back.
Just after the first day of the Senate impeachment trial concluded, she sat down to talk with Gillespie about the 2020 election, what it's like to grow up with famous relatives (her mother Erica Jong wrote Fear of Flying, her father is a well-respected author, and her grandfather Howard Fast was a massively popular novelist who wrote Spartacus and received the 1953 Stalin Peace Prize), and why she thinks Twitter (follow her at @mollyjongfast) is a great leveling force in contemporary media. Jong-Fast also has kind words for Bret Easton Ellis, whose 2019 book White she trashed, and explains why as a liberal Democrat she has a lot of overlap with libertarian beliefs about free trade, capitalism, and the legalization of vices.
Audio production by Ian Keyser.
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Wow, I really don't want to listen to this.
He had me at Stalin Peace Prize.
Do you win for being most efficient at liquidating enemies of the people?
I listened to her on the Fifth Column when they had her on. She was a hard 'meh'. I'd forgotten about her until this week when she tweeted the typical "wow of course a bunch of white men chose MLK day to play army man in VA".
Think I'll skip this one.
I can't help but agree with her. The day would have been better suited for a wet t-shirt contest, bikini girl car show, or a day to exchange dirty needles. Only then will it be apparent that people will complain regardless of what you do on that day.
According to the Dred Scott decision, recognizing black people as citizens "would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right...to keep and carry arms wherever they went."
If only Chief Justice Taney had known that the right to bear arms is subject to reasonable regulation, he could have breathed a sigh of relief...black people could be disarmed by permit laws, disarmament orders, purchase restrictions, universal background checks, or some excuse like that.
Look, it says may be infringed, right there in the second amendment.
"editor at large for The Daily Beast"
Cripes, a propagandist for yet another DNC party organ. I think I can safely guess all her opinions by reading Pelosi's recent press statements.
I might give this a miss too.
Molly Jong-Fast is a journalist, novelist, and memoirist who is an editor at large for The Daily Beast, where she writes frequently about President Donald Trump (she doesn't much like him) and the Democratic presidential hopefuls (she will vote for whoever wins the nomination but isn't excited by them). She's also a contributor to Playboy, The Independent (U.K.), and The Bulwark, a website started up by some folks left homeless when The Weekly Standard bit the dust a while back.
Haha. This stupid bitch sounds like all the media whores that Libertarians rail against.
Jesus Christ unreason, if I had a paper copy, I would wipe my ass with it.
I like that your guests don't even have to have any tangential connection to libertarianism anymore. It's great to see the mask drop.
Even more is that some of these people actually hate Liberty and freedom because they are Lefties and then get a forum to contort their lies to fit with Drugs, Ass Sex, and 'Mesicans.
There are hundreds of Libertarian candidates, numerous Libertarian thinkers, and millions of Libertarian-ish people out there (including President Trump) to interview.
Or maybe they understand being part of the broader cultural conversation means not just holing up inside a bubble.
Yea, holing up inside the progressive bubble is totes different
No, this was a good topic for an interview. It didn't entirely work, but it was still a useful exercise. Her reasoning (and lack thereof) was informative.
It would have been nice to hear more about how she chooses her topics for her stories , if there are differences between the various leftist magazines she works for, how agendas get set, etc. Maybe her opinions on some of the not-Trump hack stories out there. Project veritas and the CNN agenda maybe? Prolly wouldn't work...too close to Trump. My angle on it would be to ask if she had run into any pressure to push a certain narrative - like Trump-Russia. I have a feeling that she is naturally all-in on such topics, so no pressure needed, but she still might have had an interesting answer.
I take it Gillespie did not ask any such questions?
They've been doing this (talking about culture as well as politics) for a really long time.
"I don't think you should do Twitter if you think you're better than Twitter."
Ok.
Proof I am better than Twitter and that I am correct in not spending my time on it. If she is some of the best I might find there... i would do better talking to my cat.
I agree with her, which is why I am not on Twitter.
yikes
"Molly Jong-Fast"
So I'm sitting here wondering how'd I'd react to being introduced to someone with such a silly name. Sounds more like a radical diet.
Yup. It's all shit in-and-out.
The Bulwark, a website started up by some folks left homeless when The Weekly Standard bit the dust a while back.
It's not like they weren't offered a home, they just refused to accept it. "Come on in!" they were offered. "Never!" they replied.
The Bulwank is a retirement home for old warmongers like Cruise Captain Kristol.
It's a fan-zine for cruise ship conservatives.
"Ahoy Polloi!"
https://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/2020/01/cleveland-cop-who-urinated-on-girl-as-she-waited-for-bus-gets-4-12-years-in-prison.html
Stay classy, Cleveland.
Nhiwatiwa was off-duty when he drove up to the girl as she waited for the bus to take her to school, and asked her if she needed a ride, court records say. The girl refused his offers and he drove away, court records say.
Nhiwatiwa then returned on foot, pulled out his cellphone and recorded himself as he urinated on her, according to court records.
The girl yelled out to him, “What is your problem?” and Nhiwatiwa responded, “What’s wrong, b---h,” court records say.
Definitely hero material.
Thank god he got home safe that night.
The fact that you were even in the same room as this woman just goes to show how not-libertarian you are anymore.
Poor unreason. Sending in support sock trolls to make light of criticism.
unreason likes this tactic and uses it regularly with this joke of an Impeachment.
Fire up the flamethrower, the one true libertarian is in the house!
I thought I was getting advice from a Chinese woman.
perfect.
What... the flying fuck did she just say about foreign election interference?
I haven't listened yet. Did she discuss it in the context of Pearl Harbor and 9 / 11? Those are the most relevant historical comparisons.
#LibertariansForGettingToughWithRussia
Is there a transcript? Because I'm not going to spend 70 minutes listening to this.
"as a liberal Democrat she has a lot of overlap with libertarian beliefs"
Of course she does. I'm a libertarian and I agree with my progressive Democratic friends about almost everything — except the minimum wage.
"... The Bulwark, a website started up by some folks left homeless when The Weekly Standard bit the dust a while back"
It's quite disappointing The Weekly Standard collapsed. The Bulwark is great though. These days the only respectable, patriotic conservatives are the Bill Kristol variety. So glad to see they have a new home on the web for their #Resistance activities.
#LibertariansForEmbracingNeocons
#(AndLiberalDemocrats)
>>She's also a contributor to Playboy
too easy.
As long as they're not selfies.
*looks up picture*
Dear god, no!
That is a seriously ugly human
"a contributor to Playboy"
Playboy still exists?
Why?
""the Democratic presidential hopefuls (she will vote for whoever wins the nomination but isn't excited by them). ""
Funny how democrats understand this when they vote, but ignore it when the republicans win.
A lot of Trump voters don't care about Trump, they were just voting for the person that won their primary, but the left wants to treat all of them as if they are Trump disciples.
And the rest were voting against someone who lied and cheated and accepted bribes.
"And the rest were voting against someone who lied and cheated and accepted bribes."
Yeah. Not sure 2016 was so much a "I Love Trump" vote as a "Dear God, not that evil bitch," one. Mark Warner, to pick one, probably beats Trump going away. The scary thought is that Bernie Sanders might have as well...
Those of you who've thrown themselves on the 70 minute grenade, is there anything they talk about that has anything interesting to say about libertarian or free market views?
So her defense of her grandfather's love of Stalinism was that hey, "better than Hitler".
I'm good with it.
"Stalinism was better than Hitler"
Was it safer to be a Kulak than a Jew?
Were the gulags better than the ghettos?
Were bayonetings and firing squads better than gas chambers?
Was the Holdomor gentler than the Holocaust?
Was throwing corpses into a pit more respectful than an oven?
Ironically, German Communists survived much better under Nazis than under the Soviets whenever they fled there.
By, she sure is stumbling when Nick asked her what specific policies Trump is backing that she doesn't support.
She's totally pissed that Trump cut back regulations on pork. I mean, the nerve of him.
Oh my fucking Jesus, she's upset we left the Paris Climate accord? Seriously?
Do I have to link to the Guardian article declaring Britain's climate would be "siberian" by 2020?
And she supports the draft. We're done here.
Nick is awfully generous in his friendship with this one.
She seems like a perfectly nice person, someone fun to hang out with, but she's blindly partisan.
This interview was fucking sad.
"she will vote for whoever wins the nomination "
nice.
Trump should re-register as a Democrat, just to fuck with people.
So many dismaying and/or downright hilarious nuggets here:
Accuses Exxon, who provides energy that PEOPLE choose to use to make their lives better, of being the largest polluter in the U.S. "Oil spills, and all that." Huh?
"The biggest problem with Trump is not what he's doing but what he's not doing. Needs to address automation, opiod crisis, etc." Gah.
Nick: If you can't come up with here are like the five big things that Donald Trump is screwing up . . .
Jong-Fast: Okay, trade, the environment . . . that has to be figured out.
LOL. That she believes in the tired old idea that gov't can and should rework society for the betterment of all just kills any possibility for me that she is able to contribute to the political conversation in any meaningful way.
Next . . .
But overlap! Leftists who fundamentally think freedom is a vice are, like, totally the exact same thing as people who think freedom is an inalienable right to never be violated.
The. Exact. Same. Thing.
That was the money section of the interview.
Malbushim like Molly are so used to communicating via Twitter, that they have no clue how to think things through outside social media like a normal human being. They have no actual ideas of their own, and their ignorance gets exposed when they don't have their phones handy to look things up.
"NPC" is really the perfect description of today's media pundit class, especially those like Jong-Fast who have to be spoon-fed their opinions.
again..secularist, socialist..unlike every other ethnic group hers clings to communism as a way to "get even" with what occurred in the "old country"...and driven by the need to be in charge as she considers herself an "oppressed minority." This is such a typical story for a person with this family/religious/cultural background..its
that pic came from /r/confusedboner
This made me laugh and I don't know why.
You win the comment thread.
"Twitter is great"
And if pigs could talk they would probably say the same thing about their swill.
Nick!
That was .... well..... it was good in parts. A train wreck in parts. I think I may have learned a thing or two along the way - I have a Molly Jong-Fast in my circle too, so I'll take some of that as lessons in how to handle her.
Molly sounds like fun, if you keep her away from politics. Problem is, just like my version, it sounds like everything always comes back to politics.
And lord help, her politics are stupid. (That isn't as big of an insult as it sounds like.... everyone's politics are stupid) "List 5 policies or actions of Trump that really set you off" or however you phrased it... that was the best part of all. It completely exposed her as a team-first (and last... and always) political animal. So that was useful.
Then the bit where you went through various policy issues and she kept agreeing with the libertarian position or being libertarian adjacent was interesting - if frustrating. It is hard to listen to someone getting whacked with a cluestick and still not catching a clue. On most of those issues, she is at odds with her own party - and probably more closely aligned with Trump. Weird.
I was shocked at her level of ignorance on so many political topics - being a writer who lives in that world all day every day, I would have expected a broader knowledge of the details. But outside of her pet projects, she was at average American voter levels of knowledge - which is to say, loudly opinionated but lightly informed.
Overall... I can't say I feel like it was time well spent. But I was walking the dog and there was nothing else on the playlist. Still, I think you did a fair job of getting something out of her in between your in-jokes and teasing banter.
Not a surprise here. Secularist, Zionist, and Socialist..
Wow..another jewish leftist "journalist/writer"..whose parents were from hollywood. I here about diversity and inclusion all the time..so Nick let's talk to some folks who are not representative of the liberal media/woke twitter world. Great libertarians out there who are not from the cosmo woke side of the tracks. How about that guy who started the 10th amendment center..so many young "diverse" liberatarians..but here we go again with someone who is over represented in the twitter world. Let's focus on some other folks...Catholics, Protestants, Italians, Irish, you know..the rest of America that doesn't get the gigs at Salon or Slate or the Hill or the Atlantic...
Is there a reason why this is tagged "Donald Trump"?
I'm assuming you talk about more than that, right?
So much fun. So freewheeling.
But is it wide-ranging?
Perhaps Nick thought he would be interviewing an interesting leftist, like Camille Paglia or Nadine Strossen. Jong-Fast has the wisdom of a typical barista.
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She sounds like a really smart person, who's also very drunk and confused.
God damn, this woman is a statist. Mandatory public services after high school and before college. I'm glad Nick pushed back. He should have put this interview into a black hole, though. Her perspective is not worthy of a platform.
*service
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