https://soundcloud.com/user-762000146/2kevins-with-grace-steel-ep-24

Episode 24 of my podcast with Kevin Steel is now posted here. My guest is Michael Brendan Dougherty, senior columnist of TheWeek.com and an old friend. In Part 1, I go rather spare about the Iowa caucuses, which many regard as a charming example of Athenian democracy, but I regard as an infuriating anachronism. We discuss Senator Rubio’s fabulous “Marcomentum,” which is rather surprising given that he is the most callow would-be President since John F. Kennedy and that his platform can be boiled down to “Invade the World; Invite the World; This Time We Really Mean It.”

In Part 2, we consider the received wisdom that “Everybody hates Ted Cruz” and the likelihood of a terrified Democratic Party establishment deciding to smother Hillary Clinton with a pillow, Roman style. Michael enlarges on his much-discussed piece about the newfound relevance of the late Samuel Francis and the similarities with and differences between Pat Buchanan’s 1996 Republican bid and Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign to “Make America Great Again.” Finally, we examine the GOPe’s increasingly desperate crusade against Trump as not a “conservative” and agree that Trump’s refusal to pay obeisance to Conservatism, Inc. is both timely and clever.