The Hanania Show

This week, Inez and I begin on the OceanGate tragedy, and the reaction to it. We have similar intuitions about the story, which is that society progresses through risk taking and pushing the frontiers of science and technology, and that often involves doing things that are risky and dangerous. One can’t both want a more dynamic civilization and then demand government regulation every time something goes wrong. Ezra Klein wrote a recent op-ed on DeSantis’ latest book, and also had a podcast

This was a great conversation with Inez, as it got into some deep differences regarding how we see politics. We start by discussing the Trump indictment, and how bad the charges against him are. From Inez’s perspective, this is just the latest part of the story of a permanent bureaucracy going after its political opponents. My argument is that, while sometimes conservatives can make a reasonable case that they’re being treated unfairly, this is not the best way to understand the Trump indictment

This week, Inez and I start by talking about Chris Christie and Mike Pence entering the 2024 race. We talked about the potential impact of a Trump federal indictment, which we found out was happening less than two hours after our recording. That led to a discussion of the slippery concept of norms, why they’re necessary, and how they’re broken. I bring up my theory that Bob Dole hawking Viagra breached some kind of threshold and changed our politics. We also talk about the role of the Clinton

This week, Inez and I start by talking about a recent article arguing that the definition of “conservatism” has come to mean loyalty to Trump. We then go on to discuss the entrances of Mike Pence and Chris Christie into the race, and what their roles in the primary might be.Inez hopes that Trump participates in the debates and thinks that him doing so would be good for democracy. This leads me to ask her what she thinks about the DeSantis strategy of freezing out the press.Josh Hawley recently wrote

Hi everyone, with Ron DeSantis’ announcement yesterday, it feels like the 2024 election is officially underway. A lot of smart people I talk to hate the superficial aspects of politics, as I learned when interviewing Bryan Caplan recently, but I can’t help myself. To me, it’s the best show on earth. I like to think my social and political views are sophisticated and nuanced, but I find the sillier aspects of our democracy as enjoyable as boomers who spend their evenings glued to cable news. Yes, I