An Extinction-Level Event for MAGA

Steve Hayes is joined by Jonah Goldberg, Megan McArdle, and David French to discuss the results of the midterm elections, J.D. Vance’s postmortem on X, and whether Democrats can resist the pull of their own base. The Agenda —Is nature healing? —Corruption as voters’ top concern —It’s all Stephen Miller’s fault —Trump’s $5,000 bribe —J.D. Vance’s explanation for the GOP loss —How the White House distorts reality —Whether Democrats follow the moderates or the DSA —How much influence Trump retains over the GOP —NWYT: “Pick another protein" Show Notes Want to see more of The Dispatch in Google search? Add Us as a Preferred Source Steve Hayes is CEO and editor of The Dispatch, based in Annapolis, Maryland. Prior to co-founding the company in 2019, he worked at The Weekly Standard for 18 years, covering Washington, politics, and national security. Steve is the author of two New York Times bestsellers. He also worked as a contributor at CNN and Fox News, and currently serves as a political analyst at NBC News. When Steve is not focused on The Dispatch, he’s probably traveling with his family, grilling, or riding his mountain bike. Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Dispatch, based in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, enormous lizards roamed the Earth. More immediately prior to that, Jonah spent two decades at National Review, where he was a senior editor, among other things. He is also a bestselling author, longtime columnist for the Los Angeles Times, commentator for CNN, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. When he is not writing the G-File or hosting The Remnant podcast, he finds real joy in family time, attending to his dogs and cat, and blaming Steve Hayes for various things. David French is a columnist for the New York Times. He’s a former senior editor of The Dispatch. He’s the author most recently of Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation. Megan McArdle is a Washington Post columnist, host of the Reasonably Optimistic podcast, and the author of The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success. The podcast transcription below was generated using artificial intelligence and may include occasional errors or misspellings. Steve Hayes 0:00 [upbeat music] Welcome to The Dispatch Podcast. I'm your host, Steve Hayes. On today's roundtable, everything turning blue. We'll discuss the massive win for Democrats in state houses, in governor's mansions, in the House of Representatives, in the Senate. Big wins in deep red states, including Kansas, South Carolina, Texas, and maybe even Mississippi. What just happened, and what does it all mean? And then, what will the Democrats do with this new power, and what should we expect in the coming civil war on the right? How much influence will Donald Trump continue to have over the Republican Party? And finally, for Not Worth Your Time, we're going back to meat one more time. I'm joined today by Dispatch Editor in Chief Jonah Goldberg and Dispatch contributors David French of the New York Times and Megan McArdle of the Washington Post. Let's dive right in. [upbeat music] Jonah, it's been a minute, as the kids say, since the election. What the hell just happened? Jonah Goldberg 1:14 I kind of want to say that nature is healing, but I feel like we ran through the tape on Jonah Goldberg 1:22 n-nature healing and went Jonah Goldberg 1:25 quite a ways further than that. What we saw was... Jonah Goldberg 1:30 Look, it's a positive way to talk about it, there's a very positive way to talk about it, and then there's a more troubling way to talk about it. The very positive thing is that American politics proved yet again that there are no permanent coalitions, that having voted for a Republican is not like being left-handed or gay- Interactive transcripts are available to Premium members. Join to follow along with the audio. Join Now More We Think You’d Like