Clown Car: 5/25/23

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 want reasonable legislative and regulatory changes that improve the world, but I also want to be entertained, and there’s nothing like the arena where policy and showmanship interact, especially during election season.

I’m going to be having a lot of thoughts on the 2024 cycle, so I decided to start a podcast to get it all out of my system. It’s called Clown Car, and it’s going to focus on the election, along with other topics in American politics. My co-host is Inez Stepman, who is a policy analyst for the Independent Women’s Voice and whose work appears across a wide swath of conservative media. We’re aiming to release a new episode every Thursday evening, after being recorded on the same day. She’s right-wing and smart, so I enjoy talking to her, and I look forward to many more conversations. This week, the topics covered are:

- The glitchy DeSantis rollout

- The state of the 2024 race

- What DeSantis’ strategy should be

- Whether focusing too much on wokeness issues is a mistake

- If optimism or pessimism sells in politics

- Tim Scott’s campaign announcement as a kind of throwback

- Richard Hanania