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1 week ago | 
richardhanania.com | Richard Hanania |Michael Tracey
Michael Tracey is back for a discussion of whether we will soon be at war with Iran. Some of you have complained about Michael, but he’s very knowledgeable and the perfect interlocutor for when I haven’t had enough time to follow geopolitical events as closely as I would like. Here, he helps clarify Steve Witkoff’s role in Trump administration policy. When you understand Witkoff as a pro-Israel partisan, the approach to negotiating with Iran begins to make a lot more sense.
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3 weeks ago | 
richardhanania.com | Richard Hanania
I just did a livestream where I talked about Yarvin’s bizarre thread on German WWII POWs, the Korean incel election, Trump’s war on Elite Human Capital, and what I think about the Big Beautiful Bill. Korea might be a warning of where we are all headed. Check out these age and gender gaps. Right now, Korea has societal traits that we are observing across the developed world but in a more extreme form due to specific characteristics of the population.
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3 weeks ago | 
richardhanania.com | Richard Hanania
There’s a strange shadowboxing quality to the whole abundance debate. While on the surface two liberal factions seem to be at odds over technical economic questions, in reality there’s an undercurrent of a struggle over what exactly the left should be. The abundance crowd isn’t simply arguing for deregulation in housing, and it’s not a coincidence that they are often the same people who think DEI and cancel culture have gone too far, and many of the pro-Palestine protests are counterproductive.
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4 weeks ago | 
richardhanania.com | Richard Hanania
1. This is excellent on the “Lost Cause” narrative emerging surrounding DOGE. No, it’s not that they had good intentions that were thwarted. It’s that most of what they said was lies, their theories and beliefs about government were false, and they made no effort to even seek out the knowledge that would have helped them achieve their goals. This was clear from the very beginning.
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1 month ago | 
richardhanania.com | Richard Hanania
I’m going to be writing a monthly column for UnHerd going forward. What I’m planning to do with this for the Substack is send out a link to an article every time one comes out, then provide further thoughts here. I’ve always found word limits stifling, but publications always have them, for good reason. The beauty of the Substack though is that I can go on as long as I want. The UnHerd article is a review of Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin, on the coverup of Biden’s decline.
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1 month ago | 
richardhanania.com | Richard Hanania
Just did a fun livestream with friend of the show Radical Feminist Hitler (X, Substack). I looked back at our last podcast and realized that it was all the way back in 2023. I’m glad that so much of my life is documented online because I have no sense of time at all. Sorry about the video quality on my end. I don’t know what it is, but the last two livestreams have been really bad, even though I’m using the same internet and nothing has changed. I’ll hopefully figure this out.
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1 month ago | 
richardhanania.com | Richard Hanania
Daniel Sz: What do you think of the role of people like Chris Rufo & Alex Epstein in the current environment? I think they are similar in the sense that they are still in MAGA’s good graces but do not have complete right wing brain worms yet. I have the sense that compared to you they seem to be more focused on their specific issues (universities/wokeness & energy respectively) so they are still trying get something out of the MAGA movement & are much friendlier to it.
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1 month ago | 
richardhanania.com | Richard Hanania
I’ve noticed that whenever you start joking around with a little kid, there is this moment when they realize that they are entering into a new social reality. One second they are coloring or moving an action figure around. Then you make a face or say something goofy and their expression changes. You can observe the brief second when they are surprised at noticing that although we were just doing one thing, we’ve now moved on to something else. This sometimes happens with adults too.
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1 month ago | 
richardhanania.com | Richard Hanania
Tickets are still available for the event Tuesday night in DC with Aaron Sibarium. We now have the following celebrity guests as confirmed attendees. Tracing WoodgrainsMichael TraceyBobby MillerJames LynchThere will be more to announce later. It will be a great crowd of influential and interesting people in DC. Click here to buy tickets. I haven’t done a Mailbag in a while, so leave your questions below. Anyone can ask a question, but only paid subscribers will get the answers.
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1 month ago | 
richardhanania.com | Richard Hanania
Just did a livestream discussing Trump’s trip to the Middle East, and a new Free Press piece on the influence of Qatar. I go over the differences between campaigns by foreign governments targeting Elite Human Capital and Low Human Capital. Later, I discuss some further thoughts on my article on Yarvin’s case for populism, and whether we can build a decent case for the idea that something like MAGA is needed to check the power of American elites.