I recently did my first Ask Me Anything livestream with Richard Hanania on Substack’s new video feature. As I explained in our conversation, I’ve never been interested in livestreaming. But Substack has been such a great platform for writers and independent creators that I figured I’d give it a try. More enjoyable than I expected. If there’s interest, we’ll do more in the future.

You can watch the full recording above.

Below is a transcript, lightly edited, from our conversation. You’ll have to open this in a different tab if you want to read, as Substack informs me this post is too long for email:

Rob Henderson:How’s life, Richard? What have you been up to?

Richard Hanania:It's been okay. I have guilt about the election. Why is Trump so bad? He’s just so bad. He just isn’t sane. He lies so much.

Rob Henderson:But you posted that article. It was something like, "Why I Still Support the Stupid Party (the Republicans) Despite All of Their Flaws."

Richard Hanania:Yeah, but now I’m feeling like maybe I should become more about… I have to be on the right side of history.

Rob Henderson:What’s the right side of history here—voting for Kamala Harris? Richard, this is literally my first live stream ever. I’ve never done Instagram, I’ve never done Periscope. The only other time I livestreamed was on my OnlyFans.

[laughter]

Richard Hanania:I’m getting subscribers. I’ve gotten a couple of subscribers in the last minute. We’re getting some paid subscribers now who want to be a part of this. Okay, reading a question now: "Really enjoyed the podcast with the other Richard (Richard Spencer). The two of you should talk more." People thought that was fun.

Rob Henderson:I didn’t realize Richard Spencer had such a dramatic transformation. I remember he endorsed Biden in 2020.

Richard Hanania:He never pops up on your Twitter feed?

Rob Henderson:No, I don’t follow him.

Richard Hanania:I was afraid to follow him for a while. People are gonna be like, "Oh, you and Richard Spencer are still friends?" I said, “Hell with it.” He’s still a white identitarian. He still thinks everything I think about the Republican Party, but he just takes it to the level of, "Okay, these people are that bad." He’s into Israel too—that’s another difference between us. He likes Ukraine, but yeah, okay, so he’s more...

Rob Henderson:More consistently dissident-right in his opinions than you, it sounds like.

Richard Hanania:But dissident-right is just... I don’t think you can. You can’t be for Kamala, you can’t be against Trump and still be part of that club, because that’s all they’re about.

Rob Henderson:So is Richard Spencer for Kamala Harris? He’s against Republicans?

Richard Hanania:Yeah, he just thinks Democrats... He was saying recently that he was hoping the FBI would arrest all the conservatives as Russian agents. So he’s kind of out there. Someone asked about the Reagan movie. Did you see it? I didn’t see it.

Rob Henderson:I heard it’s three hours long. That’s a long movie. Dennis Quaid plays Reagan, and it’s one of these movies that has 14% with the critics and like 80% with the audience. Ordinarily, that would make me more interested in seeing a movie with that kind of disparity, but this time I’m concerned it’s just too overly propagandistic and glorifies Reagan. It doesn’t necessarily show the complexities of his character. Also, Dennis Quaid is a well-known Republican actor, so...

Richard Hanania:So it’s in theaters right now?

Rob Henderson:It was in theaters as of two weeks ago. I’d be up to watch it if you are. We could review it.

Richard Hanania:Okay, you know what I just started today? I just started "Game of Thrones" again. The aesthetic, everything was so beautiful about those first few seasons. I really want to go back... I mean, you’ve watched "Game of Thrones," right?

Rob Henderson:I saw the first season, but I didn’t get into it.

Richard Hanania:Oh, you didn’t get into it? Okay. The first season, everyone is just so beautiful. The landscape is beautiful, and bad things happen to them, but yeah, I love that universe.

Rob Henderson:I’ll be honest, though, we’ve never reviewed a fantasy movie. That’s not my genre. I remember at one point you and I were discussing revisiting "The Lord of the Rings" series, but I tried watching "The Fellowship of the Ring," the first movie, three different times in my early 20s. This is like 10, 15 years ago. I tried to watch "Fellowship of the Ring" and couldn’t get into it. Everyone’s like, “What’s wrong with you? ‘Lord of the Rings’ is a classic,” but I just... anything with dragons or magic...

Richard Hanania:You don’t get magic until late in the first season of "Game of Thrones." It’s pretty naturalistic for the most part, except for a few big things. I’m watching "Rome." Have you seen the "Rome" miniseries?

Rob Henderson:I saw the first season. I remember really liking the first season, the Caesar arc.

Richard Hanania:Yeah, I’m just starting season two now, finished season one. Okay. Who’s gonna play you in the "Troubled Movie"? Someone wants to know.

Rob Henderson:I have no idea. The other day someone said Henry Golding, the guy from "Crazy Rich Asians," but that guy’s like 38. He’s like the only well-known mixed-race Asian actor.

Richard Hanania:They would have to cast a kid version of you too.

Rob Henderson:

Yeah, one possibility would be two stories running in parallel: the kid version of me in foster homes, maybe the story of me being adopted, and then the adult version of Rob Henderson in the military, transitioning into Yale or something like that. I know you have some mixed-race Asian kids, Richard, so maybe one of them could get into show business.

Richard Hanania:Yeah, my son could play you. He’s about five, but he would be a terrible actor. He doesn’t do anything. My daughter, though, could play you, but unfortunately, you’re not a girl.

Rob Henderson:They could exercise some creative license, right? Without even explaining it. They could just show a kid version of me as a girl, and the adult version as a guy, and never explain the gender transition. It might win some points with film critics.

Richard Hanania:Yeah, that’s like a Golden Globe or Oscar move. Whatever they give to movies—Oscars, right? You mentioned something, and now I want to go to Twitter and tell people to come to the stream. So, someone asked a question: "As writers, do you fear cancel culture? Are you taking any preemptive defense against possible cancellations? Any advice for others?"

Rob Henderson:I don’t think I fear cancel culture. I probably feared it more when I was still a PhD student two years ago. I was more unfiltered than most academics, even more unfiltered than tenured professors at that time. But I was still relatively careful. I wasn’t reckless the way some others have been. Now, I don’t really fear it. I think I’m relatively open with my opinions. I don’t know if there’s anything I’d be afraid to express. Although, in a way, that’s kind of a bad sign—maybe I should have something I’m a little wary of expressing. What do you think?

Richard Hanania:There’s always something. If you don’t have something, maybe you’re just not pushing enough boundaries. But yeah, I mean, there are diplomatic ways to say things, and then there are more provocative ways to say the same thing. But I feel like most of my opinions, if not all, are ones I wouldn’t be afraid to say, depending on the context. Right now, for example, I’d say just about anything, but it really depends.

Rob Henderson:Yeah, some people have a hobby horse, and they bring it up regardless of the conversation—whether it's repealing the 19th Amendment or talking about race and IQ. They just jump to that stuff.

Richard Hanania:Yeah, I’m not for repealing the 19th, but honestly, I might support it just because people who are against it annoy me so much.

Rob Henderson:Yeah, the only reason to support women's rights: just to annoy the people who don’t.

[laughter]

Richard Hanania:Cancel culture... Yeah, I mean, it’s real, but I don’t fear it anymore. I feel like I’ve already been through the worst of it. As long as I’m not banned from platforms, I can still reach people. I’ve got an email list I can take with me wherever I go. So, I’m not worried.

Rob Henderson:Yeah, you mentioned that in your after-action report after the Huffington Post piece. You said it’s not really possible to be canceled on the right.

Richard Hanania:Yeah, but I also go out of my way to piss off the right too. I’m always talking about how dumb they are. I’m not like their favorite person anymore, but I haven’t been "canceled" by them. I don’t go on their shows anymore, but how would I even know if I’m canceled?

Rob Henderson:Well, there are different types of cancellation. There’s financial cancellation, where you’re fired from your job. Then there’s reputational cancellation, where your social group abandons you. Like, you’re still making money as an independent creator, but no one publicly associates with you anymore. They don’t want to take photos with you, or...

Richard Hanania:It’s usually not that bad. It’s a spectrum. Some people have a little fear of associating with you, some don’t. But yeah, we’re more independent than most people. We don’t have bosses. You don’t have a boss, I don’t have a boss.

Rob Henderson:Would you ever consider taking a staff position somewhere? Giving up your Substack?

Richard Hanania:No, probably not. If The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times offered me some huge amount of money, then maybe. But they’d have to let me keep posting on Substack. Nothing that realistically might happen. Yeah, something like that. Sure. Well, I had to stop posting on Substack completely. Not completely, but I think...

Rob Henderson:There are columnists—Ross Douthat has a Substack, like some other big-time columnists have Substacks. I’ve heard that some columnists have an agreement in their contract that they can’t post that often. It’s like some rule about how most of their original content or ideas have to be sold to their employer.

Richard Hanania:Yeah, Ross Douthat hasn’t posted since December 2022. He does have a Substack. Okay, so we don’t fear it. Advice for others? It really depends on your situation. You can’t give generic advice. I think people are too fearful in general. I see people interacting with me—professors, lawyers, people with normal jobs—and it’s never like they’re afraid. Even during the worst days of cancellation, normal people with normal jobs, under their own names, were talking to me on Twitter.

Rob Henderson:Well, the worst days of cancel culture in 2020—you weren’t yet as prominent as you are now. I remember in 2020-2021, when you and I first started talking, we were both more cautious because we were still in academia. I think you were doing your postdoc at Columbia. We were posting and shitposting, but in a more cautious way. Right, so it was different. Even though the culture and atmosphere were more tense, we were still more cautious about what we were posting. I’ve spoken with people about the likes thing on Twitter. Some have told me they’re more generous with how they like or favorite tweets now, compared to before when people could track it. I think I’m more forgiving than you of anonymous accounts, though. I know you’ve criticized people for hiding behind pseudonyms, but I think it’s fine.

Richard Hanania:Well, you turned off your replies! You don’t have to deal with them. You set it so only verified subscribers can reply now, right?

Rob Henderson:Yeah, you have to pay eight dollars a month to reply to some of my tweets. That eliminates a lot of stupidity, honestly. And I think that’s okay because there are anonymous accounts I follow too.

Richard Hanania:Yeah, that’s true. I just want my account to keep growing. If they dunk on me or hate me, I’ll still grow. Maybe it’s my fault. I’m just using them when I could be ignoring them. But there are quality accounts.

Rob Henderson:Maybe that’s why I’m more forgiving. I’ll block real people too, though. If I see people posting under their real names and they post something stupid, I’ll block them. But the anonymous accounts are worse because they don’t have to face any accountability.

Richard Hanania:Yeah, they can say anything. They don’t have to face any consequences.

Rob Henderson:Blocking people is a way for them to receive some feedback, though. If you block someone, they might realize they’re being stupid and become more thoughtful about what they post next time. Okay another question here, “What’s your favorite Nietzsche text?” You’re more well-versed in Nietzsche than I am. I don’t think I’ve ever actually read an entire book of his.

Richard Hanania:Yeah, I read Nietzsche when I was 18 or 19, then forgot about him for a while. But in the last year or two, I went back and read some texts. I read Genealogy of Morals and realized I’d forgotten how much of my worldview incorporated Nietzsche. He sort of burrowed into my mind and shaped how I view the world. His ideas about morality being driven by resentment, the distinction between master and slave morality—that’s a fundamental distinction in my mind. I love Zarathustra too. The Kaufman translation is beautiful.

Rob Henderson:I haven’t read that one. I read excerpts in undergrad, assigned readings from Genealogy of Morals. I’ve listened to Johnathan Bi’s lecture on Nietzsche, and I read your review. Nietzsche is one of those rare continental philosophers whose work is comprehensible. You can immediately apply his insights to the world, and it makes sense. Nietzsche helps to clarify the world instead of obscuring it. Someone’s asking: “Who’s the guy who isn’t Rob? Can we get an introduction?”

Richard Hanania:Yes, I’m Richard Hanania. I also have a Substack.

Rob Henderson:Okay this is Richard Hanania, political scientist and author of The Origins of Woke and Public Choice Theory and the Illusion of Grand Strategy.

Richard Hanania:Law degree, renowned scholar in political science, and “doctor”...

Rob Henderson:Did you ever think about putting “Dr. Richard Hanania” as your Twitter handle? The only time I use the title “Doctor” is when I check into a hotel or an airline. My mom worked at a motel and told me that using “Doctor” might get you an upgrade. And it worked—I got upgraded to business class once. But I’ve never changed my Twitter handle or anything. It feels kind of cringe.

Richard Hanania:Yeah, it makes sense. If you’re a doctor, it implies higher income, so maybe they want to keep you happy.

Rob Henderson:What do you think about academics who insist on being called “Doctor”? I think it’s cringe when non-medical doctors insist on it outside of a university setting. If you’re teaching students in a university setting or something, fine, but asking the general public to call you “Doctor” feels lame.

Richard Hanania:Yeah, I agree. In common parlance, we say, “Is there a doctor in the house?” You know, it’s like that meme where someone on a plane says, “Is there a doctor on board?” and someone responds, “Yes, I have a gender studies PhD.” It’s cringe. Obviously, people in education do this a lot because it’s a fake field. But “doctor” has a meaning in the English language, and it doesn’t mean gender studies PhD. Officially, you’re entitled to the title, but nobody really thinks of that as a doctor.

Rob Henderson:I see Chris Best here saying we should introduce each other. The thing is, you and I have done so many podcasts together that we just assume people know who we are. These are our subscribers, our listeners.

Rob Henderson:Okay, so let’s introduce ourselves. This is Richard Hanania. He’s a political scientist and author.

Richard Hanania:And this is Rob Henderson. He lived a tough childhood, wrote a book called Troubled about his experiences, grew up in foster care, went to Yale, and writes on Substack.

Rob Henderson:We both took different paths from the traditional academic route. I did my PhD in psychology, and you did your PhD in political science. But we both left the tenure-track academic path, kind of in response to the stifling conformity of academia. A lot of the most interesting academics I know have ended up leaving.

Richard Hanania:Yeah, I didn’t find academia that intellectually fulfilling. It was so narrow. I rarely read something in political science that blew my mind. If I spend all day reading Substacks and popular articles, I’ll come across something that changes my perspective. You have to be a generalist to say anything interesting about the world as a social scientist. If you’re a biologist, you need to specialize, but anything having to do with humanity, like understanding American politics, requires taking in information from multiple fields. There isn’t a strict division between political science, economics, and psychology—they’re all part of the world. You need to be a a hedgehog not a fox.

Rob Henderson:Explain the hedgehog and fox dichotomy.

Richard Hanania:I think this comes from—I don’t know where it originally came from—but Phil Tetlock, the forecaster guy, talks about it. Basically, there are people who know one thing very well, like an expert in 19th-century British history, and those are hedgehogs. Foxes know a little bit about everything and dig into what they need to when necessary. Tetlock’s point was that when you look at forecasting, foxes generally do better than hedgehogs because they take a broader view of things.

Rob Henderson:Yeah, I read Tetlock’s Superforecasting. He’s riffing off the idea from Isaiah Berlin, the 20th-century British philosopher. The quote comes from an ancient Greek poet: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” Tetlock used that to explain his findings on skilled forecasters. People who are dogmatic and rigid, like Karl Marx, are hedgehogs. People who take different perspectives, like Abraham Lincoln, are foxes.

Richard Hanania:Was that from Isaiah Berlin, or did Tetlock use the Lincoln example?

Rob Henderson:I thought the Lincoln example came from Tetlock, but I could be wrong. Anyway, some thinkers are more like foxes. Maybe Richard Hanania will be described as a fox.

Richard Hanania:Hopefully, yeah. Put that on my gravestone: “He knew a little about everything.”

Richard Hanania:Someone here is saying, “Oh, stop the anti-Trumpism. Trump has his problems, but he gave us great judges.” Yeah, to say he has his problems is an understatement.

Rob Henderson:I think the idea here is that pragmatically, yes, Trump has his problems—maybe they’re even big problems—but because, whatever, like we, as in the Republicans, have an election to win, let's not beat up on him too much until after he becomes president. Is that the idea here?

Richard Hanania:Maybe, maybe. But I’m not capable of doing that. Other people can be a team player and say, “Hold your criticism for the next two months.” Yeah, I’m not going to do that. It’s a good time to give political analysis. This is when people are paying attention, so it’s a good time to say what I think about Trump. If I cost him the election, well, that means I’m very powerful, but it’s just a risk I’ll have to take. I don’t know.

Rob Henderson:I mean, I don’t know if any one individual pundit or commentator really has that much sway.

Richard Hanania:Someone has to be the tipping point, you know, like the tipping point state in the election forecast. Somebody has to be the intellectual who makes the argument that destroys the campaign.

Rob Henderson:I’m pretty burned out on this election already. I didn’t even watch the Trump-Harris debate. I watched the Trump-Biden one, and that was enough for me. I’m just less enthused or interested in it compared to the last two election cycles. I’m just not that into it anymore.

Richard Hanania:Yeah, I loved it. I wanted to see how Kamala... I mean, we saw Biden and Trump. It was just boring. And Kamala came along and gave us something new.

Rob Henderson:Are you going to watch the Vance-Walz debate next?

Richard Hanania:Oh, yeah. I’m fascinated by that matchup. You have like the normal school teacher, principal-like guy—Coach Walz. You know, he was a coach, a teacher, right? And Vance is like this sort of online rightist intellectual.

Rob Henderson:Yeah, he follows you, and he follows me. He’s definitely plugged into the online right.

Richard Hanania:Yeah, he’s an online right guy versus a school teacher.

Rob Henderson:And he’s more intellectual than Walz, right? That was the point of one of your articles, that he’s a little too into ideas, and that may not appeal to people.

Richard Hanania:Yeah, I’m interested in that matchup too. How will that go? Interestingly, Vance wants more debates, and Walz doesn’t. And on the top of the ticket, Kamala says she’ll debate again, and Trump won’t. They all know—Vance knows he’s going to be able to outthink Walz. His mind works faster than Walz’s. And Trump and Kamala, Trump’s gone at this point. He can’t hold his own anymore, and I think he knows that.

Rob Henderson:Interesting, so Trump doesn’t want any more debates?

Richard Hanania:Yeah.

Rob Henderson:Do you think he would want them if it were still Biden?

Richard Hanania:Yeah, I mean, he was the energetic one, and Biden was the senile one. But now he’s the one who looks old. I tweeted the other day that with Biden dropping out, Trump became Biden.

Rob Henderson:Yeah, everyone’s looking at Trump like, “Visibly old, visibly enfeebled.”

Richard Hanania:Exactly.

Rob Henderson:Okay, maybe that was the move. I heard rumors that one of the reasons Trump chose Vance is because he needed a younger person to offset himself. In the same way, the logic of Harris choosing an old white guy was to balance herself out as a woman of color—you want a moderate, normal-looking white guy. And Trump just wanted someone younger to counterbalance his age. Anyway, what do we have next?

Richard Hanania:“Favorite Roman emperor?” Rob, do you have a favorite Roman emperor?

Rob Henderson:I mean, I feel like I’m too innocent of ancient Roman knowledge to say. Was Julius Caesar an emperor?

Richard Hanania:I think it was his son. Do you call Caesar an emperor? The first Roman emperor was Octavian, right?

Rob Henderson:Caesar Augustus.

Richard Hanania:First Roman emperor was Constantine, no? That’s not right. No, it was Julius Caesar, yeah.

Rob Henderson:Julius Caesar? Oh, okay. He’s the one I know the most about, so I guess by default I choose him, but that’s not a good reason.

Richard Hanania:Justinian the Great, maybe. Justinian I, because he tried to bring back paganism.

Rob Henderson:Wait, that’s why you like him?

Richard Hanania:Yeah. I’m with Gibbon. I think Christianity destroyed the ancient world, and Justinian was trying to undo that. It was too late, but at least he tried. He was apparently a great emperor.

Rob Henderson:Okay, when did you read Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire?

Richard Hanania:I read all six volumes of Gibbon. I switched between audiobook and reading. It’s mostly accurate, but scholars don’t think it’s perfect. It’s entertaining though. Gibbon was writing in the 18th century, part of the generation of deists like the American founders who hated Christianity. Thomas Jefferson thought the ancient world was great, and Christianity brought it down. So, Justinian is a hero in that worldview.

Rob Henderson:Is that because Christianity promoted Nietzschean slave morality, or...?

Richard Hanania:No, this was before Nietzsche. They just thought Christianity was superstition. People prayed all day instead of thinking about being a good citizen. Christianity closed people’s minds and led to the Dark Ages. Educated people in the West used to blame Christianity for Rome’s collapse.

Rob Henderson:I know Roman history predates Nietzsche. I just meant Nietzsche’s critique of slave morality—that Christianity made people weak. That’s similar to Machiavelli’s argument that Christian morality isn’t effective for governing states and promoting strength.

Richard Hanania:Yeah, that’s true. Anyway, “What are some interesting things you think are likely to happen by 2030?”

Rob Henderson:Probably something in the AI space. By 2035, it seems likely we’ll have realistic sex robots, or at least robots that can communicate and are in the uncanny valley. That’s one of my fears—that sex robots and VR porn will be so good that people will just keep dropping out of society.

Richard Hanania:We’ve never used technology for sex to the extent we could. The iPhone doesn’t have porn apps, for example, because Steve Jobs didn’t want it.

Rob Henderson:Why didn’t he want porn apps?

Richard Hanania:He was an Arab and thought it was dirty or something. He just didn’t want to do it.

Rob Henderson:Wasn’t he adopted and raised by normal white people?

Richard Hanania:There was a story where someone sent him an email, and he responded, “If you want porn, go buy an Android.”

Rob Henderson:Wait, does Android have porn apps?

Richard Hanania:No, I don’t think so, but...

Rob Henderson:It’s probably wise. Congress would be all over it if kids had access to porn apps on their phones.

Richard Hanania:Yeah, that would be a huge headache. You know, there was this guy, Mark Robinson from North Carolina, and there was this scandal like 20 or 30 years ago. He was going to porn shops five days a week before they had the internet like they do now. He was just in porn shops all the time. But we always push commercial sex stuff to the side. Are there going to be VR cafés, like brothels where you go in? I doubt it. I doubt malls are going to have something like that. I just don’t think society will accept that.

Rob Henderson:Oh, interesting. So you’re almost taking the opposite stance of the common line that eventually all technology leads to porn or sex, like, you know, “The internet is for porn.” You’re saying we keep it more contained?

Richard Hanania:Yeah, like you can buy OnlyFans subscriptions in the privacy of your own home on a desktop or even on your phone, right? But it’s not like we have a free market in sex work. If we did, we could open up a store where OnlyFans models would come in, and you could, you know, touch them or something. But we don’t do that. We have strip clubs, but they’re in certain zones. People are ashamed to go there. It’s not openly advertised. We don’t fully commercialize sex.

Rob Henderson:Yeah, but people are still going to get their hands on it, right? Like, I don’t know. Kids still smoke cigarettes, and they find ways to get around taboos. They’ll get their hands on VR porn or whatever.

Richard Hanania:They will, but there will still be restrictions. We don’t make it easy. We regulate it, and I think that will continue.

Rob Henderson:So maybe it’ll be restricted in the same way strip clubs are today—zoned off, not really mainstream. People will still get access, but it won’t be everywhere.

Richard Hanania:Exactly. Society won’t embrace it in a mainstream way. You won’t see VR brothels in your local shopping mall.

Rob Henderson:The idea that technology is always going to lead to more porn access doesn’t necessarily play out in every case.

Richard Hanania:Right. There are limits. We’ll have better technology, but it’ll be controlled. Even if it’s available privately, we won’t integrate it into public life in the same way.

Richard Hanania:

Right, but it's not going to have the biggest corporations and the biggest promotional budgets, and it's not going to have social acceptance. It's still going to be something that people... I think so, yeah. I think that's sort of a sexual... about that. I think it's honestly overrated. I think you're probably... For the amount of pleasure you can get, you could probably get something very, very good right now, probably for a few thousand dollars, and nobody... But when the price drops, right? Like by 2035...

Rob Henderson:

Affordable sex robots for the price of a PlayStation 5 or whatever. Yeah, it's pretty cheap now. I don't think... I would be surprised if you can't get a good one.

Richard Hanania:

I've never shopped for one. Maybe one of our... If it wasn't pretty affordable, but still underused compared to what you might think. Yeah. So 2030, 2035, I sort of think... I have a hunch that we go through these phases where... how political society is. And maybe this is wishful thinking, but I think once Trump is gone, people are just going to be so tired of politics. Like 10 years, 14 years of this guy, whatever it's going to end up being, that people are just gonna... It's gonna be like... Hopefully we go back to the 1990s, where politics is politics, but then the rest of the culture is just the rest of the culture. That's maybe wishful thinking, but...

Rob Henderson:

Yeah, you don't think there's like a replacement for Trump? Like someone who's equally...

Richard Hanania: No, there's no... He's a once-in-a-century, once-in-a-millennium figure. His celebrity plus his personality... Like, you know, nobody's gonna... Nobody's gonna get people that excited for or against him. Like, he's not gonna inspire people to... Nobody else is gonna inspire people this much love or this much hate. He's just a very, very unique figure.

Rob Henderson: Yeah, that sounds right to me. That's actually... Okay, that's like an optimistic forecast that, yeah, by 2030, 2035, we'll go back to sort of politics as usual. Young people aren't going to care. You're not going to be able to yet inspire so much love or hate or... Yeah, just drama around one man. That would be nice, actually.

Richard Hanania: "Wildest prediction for the next five to ten years." That's a... Is it the same... No, this is a... Yeah, it's the same guy, same person asking.

Rob Henderson: Things are so interesting. I mean, whatever. I think we... I think we... Wildest... What is a wild...

Richard Hanania: I mean, I don't have wild predictions. Yeah, I'm sorry. I just think that like... Yeah, I know politics well... I don't know. I just... Yeah. I wonder... I'm trying to think geopolitically if there's some kind of... I think, you know, Putin dies. I think that's gonna be interesting. I don't know what's gonna happen to Russia at that...

Rob Henderson: Do you think he'll die in the next 10 years?

Richard Hanania:

I think that Europe is, you know, probably going to... You know, I'm interested in what's gonna happen with the African population. It's like exploding, and like how many of those people will go to Europe? I've actually got to look into this, and I've got to see whether Europe has been... I think they've been closing the borders the last few years, but I'm not sure. You know, that'll be... That'll be sort of interesting whether, you know, Europe sort of gets swamped by African immigration. But yeah, these are some of these things that are like... Going to have like... There's gonna be an answer. It's gonna come down one way or another.

Rob Henderson: But you're for that though. You're an open borders guy.

Richard Hanania: No, I don't think so. I'm not an open borders guy.

Rob Henderson: Just in America. Yeah, we have enough space. Yeah, we're geographically sort of... We're geographically, I think...

Rob Henderson: Fortunately situated.

Rob Henderson: All right, "What reforms do you think the U.S. military needs most?" I've seen some of the woke ads. Those were kind of silly. I wrote this piece for the Free Press, I think it came out last year, where I essentially said that they need to change their recruitment strategy. I just think that appealing to narrow self-interest actually isn't the right way to go. And this is why... This is one reason among many why they're having recruitment shortfalls. I mean, now if you look at the ads, they're all about how they're going to pay for your college and they're going to give you all these benefits. You know, you're going to get a lot of benefits like health care and medical and insurance, and you get... There's some VA benefits when you buy your first house, and all of that is great. But I do think there's something more inspiring to young people about saying, "You're going to go on an adventure. You're going to transform yourself. You're going to do something that very few people your age have ever done." You know, that's sort of like the cliched John F. Kennedy quote about what you can do for your country, that kind of thing, rather than what your country can do for you. And I think that is one reason why the Marines, that's the only branch that hasn't had any recruitment shortfalls, because that's the only branch where they tell you... Like they almost discourage you from enlisting because they tell you how much it's going to suck. And I think that is actually an appealing message to a lot of young people, and especially young men, that like this is actually not going to be fun, but that's why you should do it. Whereas the other branches are more and more leaning into, you know, "We're going to give you a signing bonus, and we're going to like, whatever, hold your hand through the process," and all this, which I think is, yeah, not a great plan, not a great recruitment campaign.

Richard Hanania: Yeah, apparently we can't make enough shells to support Ukraine. I'm wondering what's going on with that. So we need to figure out sort of industrial... You know, being able to make these, like, basics, which apparently we've neglected over the years. So that seems important.

Rob Henderson: “Thoughts on Bronze Age Pervert? Seems like he isn't a big fan of yours.” I don't know if this question is directed at me or to you.

Richard Hanania: Yeah.

Rob Henderson: BAP follows me. Does he follow you?

Richard Hanania: No, he doesn't follow me. How insulting.

Rob Henderson: I tweeted a Times article about Nathan Cofnas, where they basically said like, whatever, like, "Cambridge academic under fire for comments on race."

Richard Hanania: You know what? I'm insulted here, Rob. He follows 11,600 people, so it's an accomplishment for me not to be followed.

Rob Henderson: Yeah, so he followed me, like, literally minutes after I tweeted basically in support of Nathan. I'm like, yeah, like, Nathan didn't actually say anything factually incorrect. I mean, and I tweeted the article and basically supported Nathan in his sort of situation with Cambridge. And then, yeah, I think someone like... It got a lot of attention, it got retweeted a lot, and I think BAP retweeted it too and then followed me. I read the first book, "Bronze Age Mindset," and then I read excerpts of his Selective Breeding book. It wasn't as interesting to me as the first book. He's a character. He's interesting, but I think he had his moment, right? I don't know if he still has the same kind of influence, and I don't know. It's sort of... I mean, it's sort of a performance art. It's performance art.

Richard Hanania: It's like, oh, a strong man who, you know, whatever, this or that. Then it's like, I don't know. I feel like it gets old. I feel like you could be an intellectual or come up with... It's hard to be a performance artist, and I know he has ideas, but it's like, it's like 80% act, like 20% ideas, right? And like the act, I just find sort of gets old.

Rob Henderson: I appreciate the way that he advocates for aesthetics. A lot of young guys started lifting weights because of him. They started, like, taking their appearance more seriously because of him. I think just so many young guys look like, I don't know, just checked out. They're not really focused on grooming and hygiene and fitness, and I think he may have moved the needle a little bit to getting more guys actually...

Richard Hanania: Peterson tells people to do... I mean, does he tell them to... He doesn't...

Rob Henderson: Well, he doesn't tell them so overtly the way Peterson does, but he just, like, just through the pictures he shares and just through his, like, yeah, the performance art.

Richard Hanania: Yeah, the homoeroticism, the nude bodybuilding stuff. So here's another: "How do you navigate the stigma that comes with making a transition or change in your life? You might not feel... You might not measure up to your classmates or friends. Do you find yourself worrying about being judged by others?"

Rob Henderson: An example from my life would be when I transitioned out of the military and into Yale. Like, I didn't start undergrad till I was 25, so I did feel like I was taking a huge step backwards. You just got to deal with it. Like, you just have to, like, feel the feelings but then just accept that, like, that's how life goes. If you want to accomplish things, if you want to redirect your life trajectory, like, yeah, you're gonna feel it, but make a plan and figure out what you do. Like, I don't know. I don't really have, like, great advice for dealing with feelings. I'm just like, it's gonna suck. It's gonna be uncomfortable, but just, like, err on the side of taking action.

Richard Hanania: And find other ways to, like, seek sources of fulfillment for your self-esteem or whatever in the meantime.

Rob Henderson: Whether, yeah, it's like lifting weights or hanging with friends or whatever, your girlfriend or something.

Richard Hanania: You know, feelings are like, you know, when you focus on them too much, that's when they become bad. When you're action-oriented, it just distracts you from the feelings, from the negative feelings. I personally, I mean, I'm into, like, you know, sort of... This is not, like, a leftist word, but interrogating my feelings. Like, why do I feel inferior? Well, if I'm inferior in this way, I mean, it must be... You know, why do I feel nervous? Maybe it's because I feel inferior in this way. If so, the only option is to, like, be better. Okay, let's say you're right. Like, you suck at this thing. Okay, be better or suck at whatever. But, like, you know, it's like, to me, it's like just putting it into words so, like, others say, "Okay, now what?"

Rob Henderson: I wonder if it's just something that comes with age, too, because I think when you're a teenager, maybe in your early 20s, you haven't yet learned that the feelings you have are fleeting, right? Like, when you're, like, 18 and you're angry, you're like, "Fuck the world. Everyone sucks. Like, I'm angry, and maybe this is how I'll always feel about everything all the time." And then when you're happy, right? Like, you're in love, you're like, I don't know, you have a girlfriend or stuff, like, things are going well, you're like on cloud nine, and you feel like life will always be this good. And then you get older and you experience some setbacks and some heartache, and you have good moments and bad moments, and you realize, like, whatever you're feeling in the moment, it'll pass. Like, you're gonna feel different, you know? And you learn that you can control your own mood, right? After a gym session or after, I don't know, reading something or after hanging out with friends, even after eating, right? Like, even after a meal, you're gonna feel different. Like, little things will sort of change how you feel, your sort of subjective emotional state, and you just learn what you need to do to sort of let those feelings pass or change your mood by, yeah, like taking action.

Richard Hanania: Yeah, yeah, that's true. Things do... Like, it's like when you think about politics or the news, like when you're like 18, like, you've only experienced like one president, like one moment of history, and like even being 30 or being 40, you're like, "Oh, wow, there was things that were going on when I was 15 in society," or sort of a vibe of what was going on that's just, like, not there anymore, and you realize, well, you know, things change.

Rob Henderson: Yeah, you gain perspective.

Richard Hanania: Yeah, you gain perspective. Speaking of which, they say, "Rob, how has fame changed the way you see elites and institutions?"

Rob Henderson: I've probably become slightly less cynical, just because I've interacted with more people over time, more elites, more people who are, you know, influential and prominent and have influence. I think, like, most people want to do the right thing. But the thing is, like, so many elite institutions, it doesn't take that many people. You only need 10, maybe 20 percent of people who all share the same ideology and belief system, and they can quickly take over, right? Like, I mean, I think, like, the New York Times is... It's sort of swinging back around, but there was a period where, like, they were, like, hemorrhaging some of their best reporters and journalists because of maybe 10 percent of their junior staffers were, like, very coordinated and very careful on Twitter about, like, how to create standards for this new moral framework that they were promoting. I used to think, like, that elites were worse. I think they're a little bit better than I'd originally thought. I've never been, like, anti-elite either. I just criticized our elites. I'm not anti-institutions. I'm not one of these people who say, like, tear it all down. I think we can do both. You can reform the existing institutions and also aim to build new ones. I'm not, like... I don't see why you have to choose one or the other.

Richard Hanania:

Here's a question: "What's your approach to language learning? You mentioned studying Russian, Arabic, and French."

I knew a good bit of French. Language—you have to go. I don't know if it's worth it. Everyone speaks English, and AI is getting so much better. I think if you want to find a girlfriend or something and study in some foreign country, often, you know, as an American, you can have status, and if you learn the language, you can sometimes meet someone. But yeah, I think you've got to live in the place and immerse yourself if you want to do it.

I love the logic of language. I used to love Arabic and Russian—they have such complicated grammars. There's a logic to it; it's a very cool underlying logic. It's like studying some kind of mathematical problem, like how to put the words together. So Arabic is my favorite language for this. Russian is also good. Some languages don't have that, but I think Russian and Arabic are two very interesting ones. And French—French phonetics—I love French phonetics.

Rob Henderson:

Just wordcel things.

Richard Hanania:

Hey, language has a very deep structure. I mean, that's understanding scientific linguistics—that's real stuff, even though, yeah, Noam Chomsky's out of his mind.

Rob Henderson:

I learned German when I was stationed there, and it did give me an appreciation. Also, because I didn't pay attention in class when I was learning English—all of the subject, objects—I didn't learn pronouns, adverbs. I didn't really learn all of that in a formal way. So I had to relearn all of that when I was learning a new language, and I realized, like, oh, it's much more sophisticated than I thought.

I think I read excerpts of The Language Instinct, Pinker's book, and realized, yeah, this thing we take for granted is actually more intricate.

There's a question earlier that I found here. It says: "Have you come across Cory Clark's theory that with the rise of women in education and the workplace, combined with women being more sexually fluid, if women are hypergamous, women are outpacing men in education, they out-earn men, women might be more attracted to other women in higher rates?"

I guess the question here is that because men are falling behind and women are the ones who are doing well in society, and women are attracted to those qualities of ambition and success, will they just start to date each other? I mean, that's interesting. I don't know if all of those things are powerful enough to outweigh basic biological attraction to the opposite sex, but maybe on the margins more women will be more bisexual

Richard Hanania:

It makes sense. Women are very fluid in their sexuality, and they can just like other women, and they do sort of just like other women when you don't have a taboo on homosexuality. When they say 25 percent of women are bisexual, I believe that.

Rob Henderson:

I don't think it’s 25 percent.

Richard Hanania:

That's what they say.

Rob Henderson:

Well, yeah, the young—haven't you seen the data with, like, Generation—you know, oh, Gen Z.

Richard Hanania:

I believe women are lesbians. I believe women—we should believe women.

Rob Henderson:

Never mind, we agree. Yeah, let's believe all women.

Richard Hanania:

"Richard, you should talk about your family more." Sorry, maybe one day.

"When you read, do you take notes on what you're reading to improve your writing?"

Rob Henderson:

I do that, actually. If I come across a phrase that I like or a passage that I think is beautifully written, I will write it down or save it or put it in a file somewhere, just as a reference point of, like, okay, I like the way that the sentence was structured, so I'll borrow it later, or I like the word choice. Yeah, this author's word choice—things like that. I'll try to take notes if I find something that I like.

But I don't do it as often as I'd like. It's not as formal and structured as I would like.

Richard Hanania:

Yeah, I never thought—I never really systematically thought about my writing. I did read—just because it's by Steven Pinker, and I read pretty much everything Steven Pinker writes—The Sense of Style. So I did read his style book. It's sort of, you know, sometimes you read something, I guess it's like, oh, this is stuff that I sort of knew, but it helps to have it spelled out for you.

And so, yeah, I've sort of just picked it up just by reading a lot. Like, I don't know, you get better—like, in my experience, I found reading all the time made me a better writer, just because I just pick it up. I sort of know what works, I know what doesn't work. Like, you know, I can't say—it's like playing a guitar or playing a sport. It's like you don't know exactly what your arms are doing when you're shooting a basketball or whatever all the time, but you just have enough practice and sort of get what works. And so, yeah, get better writing through reading and then writing a lot along.

Rob Henderson:

Have you noticed your own writing change, Richard? Have you ever revisited your archives from two, three, four years ago and realized your writing has changed, evolved in any way, or has it kind of been consistently the same?

Richard Hanania:

Not on that small of a scale—well, short of a scale. But like, the stuff I used to write back in the day was pretty crazy. It's too hostile. Yeah, I just felt like a lunatic. It was me, but it was me without any kind of brakes, where now I have brakes. Like, people will look at me, "You're still out of your fucking mind," but like, yeah, it was much crazier back then. You just sort of see the maturation as a person.

Yeah, I look at my academic stuff, and it's like I write like such a boring academic, and I just feel like, you know, it's good that I can do these styles—I can write an academic journal paper—but it's just such a, I think, waste of talent. I think I could write so much better than, like, sort of you have to to get published in academic journals.

Rob Henderson:

I think I've become more long-winded. When I first started writing for the public, when I had my original iteration of my newsletter, maybe early days of Substack too, I was more concise. I think I felt this urge to just—like, people are busy; how am I going to build an audience? I have to give people information in the most compressed, straightforward way possible.

And now that I have an audience, I notice I have a tendency to be more long-winded. I'm like, well, people are going to read my stuff now; I have sort of a built-in readership. I can afford to meander a little bit more or throw in some anecdotes or maybe say the same thing in two different ways, which is probably unnecessary, but I just like the way it looks or sounds. So yeah, I think small changes like that. But overall, like, the writing style itself is the same. I'm just less likely to edit it and compress it.

Richard Hanania:

"Here's—the national GOP is a feckless joke, but the state Republicans are much more competent. Yeah, that's a good governor, effectively promotes 'Go Troy.' When Trump goes away, is there a chance that conservatism can compete nationally?"

So actually, I have a theory on this. I think that the Republican parties do well because right-wing media does not pay attention to them. So sane people get elected and do sane things. Your problem with conservatism is Fox News. It's talk radio, and now it's the crazy people on Twitter. And so they pay attention to Republicans. So I think that the presidential politics are the most cursed, and then Senate—they nominate a lot of crazy people now. These crazy people in right-wing media—the Alex Jones types and Bannon types—are not paying attention to state legislative races in Arizona. They're not even paying attention to that—well, maybe in Arizona, the election is stolen, and they're focusing on that. But yeah, mostly they're not. So I think it's not just Trump; I think it's the conservative sort of media sort of echo chamber that's the problem here.

Rob Henderson:

Oh, interesting. I've heard you make that argument before—that Republicans should, like, actually not elect and appoint crazy people and just sort of quietly let them pass laws and legislation and not bring so much attention to themselves.

Richard Hanania:

But the base likes crazy people, sadly. Yeah, they like this Mark Robinson—I mean, they love Mark Robinson. That's what they want.

Rob Henderson:

I read the whole CNN piece on Mark Robinson’s comments on the Nude Africa porn forum, where Robinson said, "I like tranny porn because it takes the man out while leaving the man in!"

[laughter]

Richard Hanania:

I like the idea of having your porn and your forum in, like, the same place. So you're all just chatting about the porn. I don't get, like, people who want to do that, but it's interesting.

Rob Henderson:

It brings people together.

Richard Hanania:

He used to go down to the porn shops. I mean, that was the big scandal before the internet. He was in these adult bookstores. I mean, he's a guy—he should have just owned it.

Rob Henderson:

I wonder if—do you see that hurting him? I just feel like now the culture, even on the right—I think the right, like, there are sort of pretensions to social conservatism of proper conduct, but I just feel like things like sexually—especially norms—have become so unraveled that, like, they're like, okay, so he watches—you know, he's a grown man, and he watches porn, and he posted some inappropriate comments. Who cares?

Richard Hanania:

He's down by, like, 14 points.

Rob Henderson:

Oh, really? Okay, I didn't realize. Okay, they were bad before.

Richard Hanania:

I don't think it's actually moved much, but he was already known for being crazy, and he was already down by 10. Carolina—I mean, it's pretty much even for the Trump year. So yeah, there's evidence he's not a good candidate, so he's doing all this and winning.

Rob Henderson:

Okay, okay. Well, yeah, I just wondered, like, did the CNN piece—all these revelations—did it actually—but you're saying that people already knew he was crazy. I didn't realize he had a lot of...

Richard Hanania:

I mean, the Republican primary voter—that's why they liked him. I mean, he was famous for just going around being a big black guy saying crazy things.

Rob Henderson:

"On reading making you a better writer, how important is it to curate what you read? In your opinion, sometimes I come across shitposts I regret letting come into my eyes.” I'm actually pretty careful about that. Like, I try not to expose myself to too much crazy shit. Like, you're one of the few people who post provocative things that I'll go through and read, but I know there are a lot of—especially anon accounts or people who are actually sort of leaning into their own weird grift, and I try not to follow those people. I just try to spend more time reading actual substantive posts, Substack essays, long-form content, books. You could, if you want, spend forever on Twitter or any other social media platform, and I try to limit it, you know, certain times of the day.

Richard Hanania:

Yeah I try to limit Twitter. It's just bad. Elon really destroyed it. I mean, it really is just like—there are accounts with, like, 400,000—they're just posting nonsense. They're just making stuff—they have 400,000. There's a guy named Matt Wallace who has 2.1 million followers, and he's like, "Breaking: Diddy has videos of Kamala that are, like, really bad." It's just like—it's that level. It's just—he's making stuff up, and Mark Robinson's watching that right now. He's probably making $300,000 a year doing this. It's like a shame. It's like, you know, "Oh, misinformation people." My God, you guys are right.

Rob Henderson:

I see. What about the community notes? Like, did the community notes pop up and say, like, this is false or this is whatever?

Richard Hanania:

He's doing this all day. I mean, sometimes they—you know, I think he just gets away with most of them. And yeah, he's got 2.1 million followers. I think they demonetize individual posts—I don't know how it works exactly—but yeah, it's supposed to discourage it. But yeah, these people are everywhere.

I'm gonna—I gotta probably get back to family stuff, but let me answer this one fun question that's in our section at your word: "What are your thoughts on Zionism? Does Zionism have a conservatism problem? Yeah, low status among out-group Gentiles—that's true—and the direction of mass—it allows for supporting the newly annoyed victims. That means you can expect lower-status people and dishonest ones to be drawn to Zionist signaling. This will create a vicious cycle—out-group human capital."

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a problem with the future of Zionism. Well, I mean, I don't know if that's true in Israel, because my understanding is that Israel—the left has collapsed in Israel. Basically, everyone is right-wing now, and if American conservatives are low human capital and they support Israel—I mean, they're just low human capital. It doesn't really affect Israel's—you know, other than give Israel all the support it wants and let it do what it wants.

Rob Henderson:

Republican elites support Israel too, right? Like, there are—you know, maybe in the aggregate there is a sort of competence or human capital problem on the right, but still, like, the top five percent or the top one percent of the Republican Party is overwhelmingly in favor.

Richard Hanania:

Yeah, that's true. But I think the question here is, like, a lot of things that are dominated by low human capital tend to go in that direction. So if, like, 80 percent of people who love Israel in America are just, like, senile boomers, that could influence, like—but we don't micro—it's not like we micromanage Israel's, you know, foreign policy—especially Republicans wouldn't. So yeah, it's something I have to think about. You're right, that is a good question at the intersection of our work.

Yeah, so I've got to—so many questions. Yeah, this was fun. I like this.

Rob Henderson:

We'll do another one sometime. Make it a regular thing.

You're getting a phone call.

Richard Hanania:

That's probably my wife calling to yell at me.

Rob Henderson:

I'll post this for my paid subs later. And yeah, we'll reschedule and do another one of these sometime soon.

All right, Richard. Take care. Thanks, everyone. Later, man.

Richard Hanania:

Bye. Thanks, everyone.

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AMA with Rob Henderson and Richard Hanania (Sept 24, 2024)

Rob Henderson's Office Hours (private feed for [email protected])

AMA with Rob Henderson and Richard Hanania (Sept 24, 2024)