Campaigns Can't Get Worse, Can They?

Plus: A listener asks the editors about President Joe Biden holding up arms shipments to Israel.

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Campaigns Can't Get Worse, Can They?

In this week's The Reason Roundtable, editors Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Peter Suderman conjure up a few changes they'd wish to see in the vain hope of improving U.S. presidential campaigns and consider the Biden administration's threat to cut off arms shipments to Israel.

00:35—Desirable presidential campaign reforms

23:00—Weekly listener question

33:20—FreedomWorks is disbanding

49:34—This week's cultural recommendations

Mentioned in this podcast:

"6 States" by Liz Wolfe

"Social Security and Medicare Are Going Insolvent. Neither Biden nor Trump Has a Plan for It." by Eric Boehm

"The New York Case Against Trump Relies on a 'Twisty' Legal Theory That Reeks of Desperation" by Jacob Sullum

"Biden-Backed DISCLOSE Act Would Dox Donors to Groups That Run Political Ads" by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

"Patrick Ruffini: Why Blacks and Hispanics Are Turning Toward Trump" by Nick Gillespie

"Last Night's Debate Was a Disaster. That's Exactly Why There Should Be More of Them." by Eric Boehm

"The AWOL Electorate" by Nick Gillespie

"Trump Leads in 5 Key States, as Young and Nonwhite Voters Express Discontent With Biden" by Nate Cohn

"Is America's Blank Check for Israel Ending?" by Matthew Petti

"Biden, the Arms Supplier" by Liz Wolfe

"Chaos in Rafah" by Liz Wolfe

"Tea Party Nihilism vs. Occupy Wall Street Participatory Democracy" by Nick Gillespie

"Tea Party Confidential: Live From the September 12 [2009] Taxpayer March on Washington" by Nick Gillespie, Matt Welch, Michael C. Moynihan, Dan Hayes, and Meredith Bragg

"Peter Schiff Speaks for the 1 Percent at Occupy Wall Street" by Anthony Fisher

"Marco Rubio Used To Know How Tariffs Work. What Happened?" by Eric Boehm

"How GOP Fiscal Sanity Died, in 7 Easy Steps" by Matt Welch

"Legendary Punk Producer Steve Albini Says the Internet Solved the Problem With Music" by Peter Suderman

Send your questions to [e-mail]. Be sure to include your social media handle and the correct pronunciation of your name.

Today's sponsor:

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Audio production by Ian Keyser

Assistant production by Hunt Beaty

Music: "Angeline," by The Brothers Steve

• Audio Production: Ian Keyser
• Producer: Hunt Beaty

What are we consuming this week?

Nick Gillespie

• Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History, by Nellie Bowles

Peter Suderman

• RIP Steve Albini

Katherine Mangu-Ward

• Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

Matt Welch

• Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion

---

Comments

[JesseAz]

Yeah. Nominate a bake that cake, Hillary was a good SoS, push for the original Romney as VP, and what is Aleppo like Gary Johnson for the libertarian ticket. Make it a 3 way clown show.

[Rick James]

Libertarians for the destruction of the nuclear family!

[MrMxyzptlk]

Sure, that's what it's all about. Jesus Fucking Christ get over your paranoia. Not everyone is out to get you.

[Don't look at me!]

Yes, they are.

[Mother's Lament]

"Not everyone is out to get you."

You are.

[JesseAz]

Can you tell us about Christian Nationalists again?

[Rev Arthur L kuckland]

Just the doj, hhs, epa, dhs, dol, doe... Etc

[Rick James]

Someone has unpersoned Jo Jorgensen in their own mind.

[Chumby]

Some faux libertarians version of a nuclear family is Fat Man and Little Boy.

[Vernon Depner]

The traditional Afghan family.

[A Cynical Asshole]

Hmm:

FreedomWorks is disbanding

Disbanding, or giving up?

[Rick James]

Based on what I'm hearing is that FreedomWorks was largely about cutting spending and marginal tax rates, but then it went in an illiberal 'anti-immigration' direction. Which is funny because America's most Libertarian Governor who Just Wants To Leave You Alone expressly extended massive government benefits not just immigrants, but immigrants who are here illegally.

One almost gets to wonder if illegal immigration and spending and marginal tax rates might have some kind of tenuous connection.

I guess it's all going to come down to whom we can strategically and reluctantly vote for in 2024.

[Social Justice is neither]

With the glee at tenuous lawfare tactics being expressed here is there any wonder who they're going to not so strategically or reluctantly fap to voting for?

[Mother's Lament]

"I guess it’s all going to come down to whom we can strategically and reluctantly vote for in 2024."

I'm betting their initials don't start with a DJT or an RFK.

Libertarians for the most anti-libertarian president in 80 years.

[Mother's Lament]

Edit: Or actually maybe ever. Franklin D. didn't have his main rival arrested on phony and novel charges.

[JesseAz]

Dems will tell us freedom doesn't work so they are disbanding

[Don't look at me!]

Is Joe still looking for Jackie?

[JesseAz]

Why, is she here?

[Chumby]

White Mike’s still looking for Eva Nolan Braun.

[Don't look at me!]

Good to see you again.

[Mother's Lament]

Chumby's back!

[MrMxyzptlk]

The election of Thomas Jefferson was actually pretty damned dirty. Adams and his fellow Hamiltonians didn't just throw mud at Jefferson, they threw quite a lot of shit. Jeffersons people got into the shit throwing as well. It was a serious shitstorm with plenty of charachter assassination going both ways.

Elections have always been nasty, the voters only knew about the nasty shit being said in their region. Now with the 24 hour news we are aware of every little offense given or taken.

[Mother's Lament]

Did Adams have his Stasi manufacture evidence and then arrest him on ludicrous charges?

[MrMxyzptlk]

At the time there wasn't a federal law enforcement and prosecution machine like we have today for politicians to abuse. If it were available I suspect Adams would have tried.

[JeremyR]

I don't think it's the mudslinging, so much as both candidates are senile narcistic pathological liars. Only difference is that Joe is a pedo, while Trump at least likes adult women

[MrMxyzptlk]

Yeah, that's a good point. At least with the Jefferson/Adams business you had two actually good candidates to chose from. This time around the pickings are pretty slim.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

"...while Trump at least likes adult women."

Like his own daughter...

[Roberta]

The thing Mr. Welch asked for — an organization to ask a set number of identical questions to each candidate for a paragraph’s worth of response — keeps getting asked for in ignorance of the fact that it’s existed for decades. The first I knew of was Project Vote Smart, but there’ve been others since. The major candidates tend to ignore them, so the voters tend to ignore them, which makes people think they don’t exist.

[Roberta]

The only reason we have presidential debates is the tradition that was started in 1972 that candidates are afraid to be seen as wimping out on, and they still get enough of an audience to not be completely spurned by the major media instead of being tossed around as a hot potato.

[Mother's Lament]

Is this going to be the reason for Biden skipping the debates this year?

[Chumby]

Perhaps the Democratic Party could find some egotistical retard that has a penchant for sniffing, groping, and kissing minors to run. That could make it worse. Oh wait.

[JesseAz]

He treats other kids like his own family.

[Chumby]

It is quite touching.

[Don't look at me!]

He showers them with affection.

[Chumby]

His presidential library will be named Neverland Ranch.

[Mother's Lament]

Walmart will have a President's Day sale with children's underpants half off.

[Chumby]

For him it would be a minor attraction.

[Ersatz]

this thread is like watching a ping pong game where everyone is a winner

[sarcasmic]

Did you get to see the any northern lights? As in the recent solar event. I went to a relatively dark spot but couldn't tell if it was northern lights or the lights from next town to the north reflecting off the clouds. Pretty meh.

[Don't look at me!]

If you had seen them, you would know.

[JesseAz]

Or he did see them then got drunks amnesia by blacking out.

[Rick James]

Going to agree to disagree. I've seen the northern lights here once back in the 90s and I live about as far north in the contiguous 48 as you can get. And it was not like it is at the north pole. It was a very subtle effect. And in fact, a lot of locals said that they couldn't see anything until they took a picture, then it showed up in the picture.

[Don't look at me!]

Gotta go to Norway for the real deal.

[Chumby]

Yes, I did. But it wasn’t like say Iceland or Alaska with puff the magic dragon flying around. It showed up better in the photos but they were meh at best. Sunday morning at like 2 AM.

[sarcasmic]

Aren’t those photos long exposure? Like the pictures that show the Andromeda galaxy is three times as big as the moon. But too dim.

So it's always going to be a disappointment, since the cool pictures are minutes or more of light.

[Chumby]

Just the phone taking a longer exposure since it was dark.

[sarcasmic]

People just 60 miles north of me were texting and saying it looked so cool. But not here. So yeah you're right. I just didn't have something that a long exposure could have captured.

[JesseAz]

Just say south of that nasty northern border with those disgusting Canadians you hate.

[EISTAU Gree-Vance]

Didn’t see it, but that chick from the view that looks like she mighta been kinda hot 20 years ago said the northern lights are caused by climate change.

True story. Not a joke.

[Chumby]

ENB’s now on The View?

[DaveH]

Peter talked about libertarians not flocking into a mass movement of some kind. My experiece:

At some sort of mass rally some years ago, there was a pro-capitalist rally just around the corner. Of course I wandered over to see what was going on.

There was a speaker trying to get the group pumped, trying to start a chant, trying to appeal to crowd emotion.

Embarrassed to be seen with them, we went away.

There might be a reason libertarians don't show up for rallies...