Ben Dreyfuss, Megan McArdle, Mike Pesca and I discuss Trump's war on left-identified institutions: media, civil service, non-profits and academia. Plus, the returns of Andrew Cuomo and Snow White.
This was my 3d listen, and I am impressed. Nice fast pace, humor, no hysterics but you get to the heart of the matter with plenty of strong opinion. There is so much subject matter knowledge among you. And I can finally distinguish between Ben’s and Mike’s voices. This episode felt more prepared than the first ones - good move.
I agree with the comment that it’s becoming easier for me to distinguish between Mike and Ben’s voices! (Sorry, Mike and Ben.)
One other piece of criticism: as a non-New Yorker, I don’t care at all about New York State or city politics except insofar as there is a real national nexus. I feel like every other journalist spends an inexplicably large amount of time talking about New York politics, so this market is already well served. However, if the rest of the listeners are all from New York, I will take back my objection and live with it.
Megan, I'm curious about how the same Americans (NOT LIKE US) who do not have friends or relatives working at research universities – and thus apparently don't have skin in the game of funding cuts – seem to know enough about those same institutions' leftward lurch to revel in DOGE's attempts to burn them to the ground? Like how do they know what's going on in Ann Arbor or New Haven?
I'm beyond disappointed in the level of discussion about deportations. One of the panelists suggested that Trump's immigration actions have had a positive result, focused on reductions in the US-bound immigration flow and sending ICE into Rikers. Completely ignored by were the shackled asylum seekers deported to various places such as a remote beach in Panama, with signs begging for help, one of whom committed suicide, perhaps rather than being sent back to whatever danger they fled.
If this is an acceptable solution for "centrists" then I want no part of it. Whatever happened to "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free?" Shameful.
I hear these concerns that all the miserable procedures that obstruct the functioning of government and the economy will remain in place if you fire all the people implementing them, but isn't there an argument that it will be easier to get rid of the bad procedures when they become unworkable? That the mistake was in hiring an army of paper pushers to put lipstick on a pig and make an awful bureaucracy function sufficiently enough that there isn't an imperative to fix it? Fire all the porcine cosmetologists and maybe congress will finally do something about the pig.
It could take years if not longer to "get rid of the bad procedures" – some of which were mandated by Congress.
The agencies themselves, especially their staffs, often know more about how to meaningfully get things done, while it's the stupid requirements mandated by elected officials with political agendas that usually muck up the works.
In the meantime, some pretty important stuff will just grind to a halt. As someone who spends too much of his workday dealing with governmental regulation and approvals, I have never once thought to myself "gee I wish there were *fewer* people available to review my application or answer my call/email"
Just as fighting inflation requires a period of uncomfortably high interest rates, fighting red tape will likely require a period of uncomfortably dysfunctional bureaucracy as we peel back all the cosmetic fixes that have served to conceal the problem.
As someone who spends too much of your workday dealing with government bureaucracy, don't you think you and your superiors might increase the angry letters and calls to your congresspeople if it gets worse? If a president can take cosmetic solutions off the table, don't you think that will steer congress towards more substantive solutions?
Well this is doing it assbackwards. Want to make the government more efficient? Change/repeal problematic laws through Congress. Then, when their ranks are no longer required, staff can get reduced.
I personally have no interest in my economy, life, safety, and livelihood getting fucked for a generation just to fellate of a bunch of post-pubescent Redditors’ and their musings on “efficiency”
I know you asked for constructive criticism, but I really have no notes. I've thoroughly enjoyed all episodes and unlike a couple comments below, I'm enjoying the longer, free-flowing discussion (IMO this type of podcast works best when it isn't overly edited). The mix of intelligent discussion and humour without all the usual talking points and biases that are so typical on most of these "panel discussions" is great to listen to.
Just imagine me posting that dominos meme where the small domino falling reads “Bill Clinton gets a blow job from his intern in the Oval Office, doesn’t step down” and the big domino reads “Elon Musk fathers 14th(?) kid with fifth (?) mother while unmarried to her while helping run second Trump administration” and I think that would help explain a lot as to why the GOP doesn’t care a lot about his personal transgressions.
I felt like the conversation devolved into non sequiturs with no stable throughline of argument a couple times during the middle of the episode. Still love the show, but if you're looking for feedback, I felt like the editing needed to be a bit tighter at a couple points.
The graph that Megan mentions of Elon's twitter posting times is hiding too much information. Days are scrunched together, so him having a 10pm-6am sleep one night and a 2am-8am sleep the next night would leave the impression he never sleeps.
What I'm saying is that I'm really interested in the graph but with the days spread out.
This was my 3d listen, and I am impressed. Nice fast pace, humor, no hysterics but you get to the heart of the matter with plenty of strong opinion. There is so much subject matter knowledge among you. And I can finally distinguish between Ben’s and Mike’s voices. This episode felt more prepared than the first ones - good move.
I agree with the comment that it’s becoming easier for me to distinguish between Mike and Ben’s voices! (Sorry, Mike and Ben.)
One other piece of criticism: as a non-New Yorker, I don’t care at all about New York State or city politics except insofar as there is a real national nexus. I feel like every other journalist spends an inexplicably large amount of time talking about New York politics, so this market is already well served. However, if the rest of the listeners are all from New York, I will take back my objection and live with it.
Megan, I'm curious about how the same Americans (NOT LIKE US) who do not have friends or relatives working at research universities – and thus apparently don't have skin in the game of funding cuts – seem to know enough about those same institutions' leftward lurch to revel in DOGE's attempts to burn them to the ground? Like how do they know what's going on in Ann Arbor or New Haven?
*will some Serious Trouble listener please applaud my Kendrick Lamar reference?*
I'm beyond disappointed in the level of discussion about deportations. One of the panelists suggested that Trump's immigration actions have had a positive result, focused on reductions in the US-bound immigration flow and sending ICE into Rikers. Completely ignored by were the shackled asylum seekers deported to various places such as a remote beach in Panama, with signs begging for help, one of whom committed suicide, perhaps rather than being sent back to whatever danger they fled.
If this is an acceptable solution for "centrists" then I want no part of it. Whatever happened to "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free?" Shameful.
*attempted suicide
I hear these concerns that all the miserable procedures that obstruct the functioning of government and the economy will remain in place if you fire all the people implementing them, but isn't there an argument that it will be easier to get rid of the bad procedures when they become unworkable? That the mistake was in hiring an army of paper pushers to put lipstick on a pig and make an awful bureaucracy function sufficiently enough that there isn't an imperative to fix it? Fire all the porcine cosmetologists and maybe congress will finally do something about the pig.
It could take years if not longer to "get rid of the bad procedures" – some of which were mandated by Congress.
The agencies themselves, especially their staffs, often know more about how to meaningfully get things done, while it's the stupid requirements mandated by elected officials with political agendas that usually muck up the works.
In the meantime, some pretty important stuff will just grind to a halt. As someone who spends too much of his workday dealing with governmental regulation and approvals, I have never once thought to myself "gee I wish there were *fewer* people available to review my application or answer my call/email"
Just as fighting inflation requires a period of uncomfortably high interest rates, fighting red tape will likely require a period of uncomfortably dysfunctional bureaucracy as we peel back all the cosmetic fixes that have served to conceal the problem.
As someone who spends too much of your workday dealing with government bureaucracy, don't you think you and your superiors might increase the angry letters and calls to your congresspeople if it gets worse? If a president can take cosmetic solutions off the table, don't you think that will steer congress towards more substantive solutions?
Well this is doing it assbackwards. Want to make the government more efficient? Change/repeal problematic laws through Congress. Then, when their ranks are no longer required, staff can get reduced.
I personally have no interest in my economy, life, safety, and livelihood getting fucked for a generation just to fellate of a bunch of post-pubescent Redditors’ and their musings on “efficiency”
I know you asked for constructive criticism, but I really have no notes. I've thoroughly enjoyed all episodes and unlike a couple comments below, I'm enjoying the longer, free-flowing discussion (IMO this type of podcast works best when it isn't overly edited). The mix of intelligent discussion and humour without all the usual talking points and biases that are so typical on most of these "panel discussions" is great to listen to.
Just imagine me posting that dominos meme where the small domino falling reads “Bill Clinton gets a blow job from his intern in the Oval Office, doesn’t step down” and the big domino reads “Elon Musk fathers 14th(?) kid with fifth (?) mother while unmarried to her while helping run second Trump administration” and I think that would help explain a lot as to why the GOP doesn’t care a lot about his personal transgressions.
I felt like the conversation devolved into non sequiturs with no stable throughline of argument a couple times during the middle of the episode. Still love the show, but if you're looking for feedback, I felt like the editing needed to be a bit tighter at a couple points.
The graph that Megan mentions of Elon's twitter posting times is hiding too much information. Days are scrunched together, so him having a 10pm-6am sleep one night and a 2am-8am sleep the next night would leave the impression he never sleeps.
What I'm saying is that I'm really interested in the graph but with the days spread out.
Snow White and the 7 Cats Butthole Cut.