Interview: Jay Cost Discusses Spoiled Rotten

Jay Cost is, of course, the proprietor of the Weekly Standard’s popular “Morning Jay” column. As the subhead of Spoiled Rotten makes clear, his first book focuses on “How the Politics of Patronage Corrupted the Once Noble Democratic Party and Now Threatens the American Republic.” During our interview, recorded on the day of the Supreme Court’s rather “taxing” ruling on ObamaCare (and due to the Fourth of July holiday and our recent server issues, postponed until today), you’ll hear Jay discuss:

•  Where both sides go from here after Judge Roberts’ ruling.
• How the Democratic Party evolved from a party that at least paid lip service to reform, but is now the party of special interests.
• How the 1960s and the Carter-era transformed liberalism.
• The rise of the New Left in the 1960s and their strain of what James Piereson dubbed “punitive liberalism,” also in the Weekly Standard.
• How Bill Clinton tried to bring his fellow Democrats back to the center, and why his reforms were rejected by his successors on the campaign trail in their presidential bids in 2000, 2004 and 2008.
• How much of the rhetoric of today’s left, such as environmentalism, “investing in America” and “stimulus” are all merely smoke screens for corporatist cronyism.

And much more. Click here to listen:

(18 minutes long; 16.8 MB file size. Want to download instead of streaming? Right click here to download to your hard drive. Or right click here to download the 5.2 MB lo-fi edition.)

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