The next two months are going to be dark, people. Good luck finding a corner of American life that won’t be co-opted into the great national binary of Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden, a struggle (we’ll be told) where civilization itself hangs in the balance. People you once found sane will show up in your driveway, eyes bulging like Marty Feldman’s, ranting about the dark forces on the verge of unleashing a thousand-year reign of terror. It’s guns and guillotines all the way down.
Or maybe not? Today’s Reason Roundtable podcast, featuring Nick Gillespie, Peter Suderman, Matt Welch, and Katherine Mangu-Ward, ping-pongs between pessimism and psychotic breaks, as the gang discusses Portland, Kenosha, Minneapolis, Trump, Biden, the RNC, the DNC, federalism, media, coronavirus, basketball, and modern love, more or less in that order.
Audio production by Ian Keyser and Regan Taylor.
Music: “Night Driver” by The Whole Other.
Relevant links from the show:
“How Portland’s Protests Drifted into ‘Dangerous Territory,’” by Nick Gillespie
“When You Say Yes to Hate: Dispatch From Portland,” by Nancy Rommelmann
“Protesters Tell Rand Paul, Who Wrote the Justice for Breonna Taylor Act, To Say Breonna Taylor’s Name,” by Robby Soave
“Trump Authorizes Deployment of 2,000 National Guard Troops to Kenosha,” by Christian Britschgi
“Kenosha Doesn’t Have To Be a Vision of America’s Future,” by J.D. Tuccille
“Qualified Immunity Is a Disgrace, No Matter Where You Live,” by Billy Binion
“Bourgeois Libertarianism Can Save America,” by Brian Doherty
“Nixon May Be Trump’s ‘Law and Order’ Model, but He Was Smarter on Crime,” by Jacob Sullum
“Trump Warns America: ‘Biden’s America’ Will Look Like Trump’s America,” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown
“In Convention Speech, Pence Warns: ‘You Won’t Be Safe In Joe Biden’s America,’” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown
“The Shaky Foundation of Trump’s Pose As a Criminal Justice Reformer,” by Jacob Sullum
“Remember When a Democratic Polling Firm Fired the Guy Who Thought Violent Protests Could Backfire Politically?” by Robby Soave
“NBA, MLB Games Postponed as Players Protest Jacob Blake Shooting,” by Eric Boehm
“Trump Promotes the Outlandish Claim That COVID-19 Has Killed a ‘Minuscule’ Number of Americans,” by Jacob Sullum
“Could the COVID-19 Epidemic Fade This Fall Without New Lockdowns?” by Ronald Bailey
“CDC Issues New Guidelines That Discourage COVID-19 Diagnostic Testing,” by Ronald Bailey
“A Summer Without Summer Movies,” by Peter Suderman
“Prepare Yourselves Now for a Miserable Fall Television Rollout,” by Glenn Garvin
