436 episodes
The Fifth Column Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welch
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4.6 • 2.6K Ratings
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Your weekly rhetorical assault on the on the news cycle, the people who make it, and occasionally ourselves. Kmele Foster (Freethink), Michael Moynihan (Vice), and Matt Welch (Reason) talk and laugh and drink their way to at least quasi-sanity in a world gone mad, often with the aid of clean and articulate guests. Weekly Members Only subscription edition often comes with listener mail and professional-quality (if inappropriate) singing. Analysis. Commentary. Sedition.
wethefifth.substack.com
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#452 - The Strawberry Statement 2024 / The Eternal Adderall Shortage (w/ C.J. Ciaramella)
A two-for-one offering from The Fifth: first, the lads discuss the ongoing student stupidities, free speech and protest, Kmele at TED, and how your views are probably pretty normal (ed. note: considering the full-court coverage of the Columbia intifada, it’s sort of surprising that no one is referencing this terrible 1970 film, written by Ad-Roc’s dad). And then, some bonus content with Reason’s C.J. Ciaramella, who joins to discuss the government war on Adderall, his own ADHD diagnosis, and why it took him two months to get his prescription filled.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribe -
Members Only #207 - Columbia Breakdown: Next Stop Baader Meinhof?
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wethefifth.substack.com
* Swedish breakdown
* Columbia breakdown
* The continued rise of American extremism
* The politics of “genocide”
* The politics of propaganda
* Chicago expectations
* A newborn in the Fifdom
* Our Batya episode
* Trusting anti-trust?
* The NPR excel spreadsheet
* Books on McCarthy
* Three best presidents?
* The Watergate conspiracy is at least fun to believe -
#451 - The Battle of Batya (w/ Batya Ungar-Sargon)
You asked, we delivered. Our pal Batya Ungar-Sargon enters the octagon to (politely!) fight the Globalist Fifth on trade, Trump, robots, unions, automation, and a bunch of other stuff. But we also agree on lots of other things! Hear Batya talk about her wild Israel debate on Zerohedge, how her last book foresaw the NPR madness, and why perverse incentives have created a boring media echo chamber.
Thanks for listening! Love, Oskar and Raoul
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribe -
#450 - Republican Wine Moms and a Dead Double Murderer
* Ozempic Joe
* The Juice has expired
* Revisiting the “Trial of the Century”
* The double murderer who “abandoned his race”
* In defense of Marcia Clark
* Dementia dads
* Matt Lauer emerges
* Nutty MTG, drunky Boebert
* Arizona abortions
* Operation Bubble Wrap
* Poor guy in a ski mask shoots at cops
* Group condemnations and the “IDW”
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribe -
Members Only #206 - Hitting From the Ladies' Tee
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wethefifth.substack.com
* Kid rapping
* Saturday Night Fever is dark, dark movie
* Girl dadding
* Anti-communist manifestos
* On Andrew and Israel
* Big bombs in Iraq: not so fast, Andrew!
* The normalization of extremism
* Don’t be Paul Robeson
* What it means to be “anti-war’
* Dehamasification
* A bachelor party in NY
* And much more! -
#449 - The Prince of Tide Pools (w/ Andrew Sullivan)
Third time’s even more charming! Andrew “Cheech” Sullivan is back, puffing away and ruminating on Israel, Iraq, conservatives, the trans movement, loud music from bluetooth speakers, the awfulness of Trump (who won’t be a dictator, btw), the resilience of American democracy, the resounding victories of the gay rights movement, and the general boringness of identity.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribe
Customer Reviews
Hilarious
First discovered these guys on YouTube Megyn Kelly Show. Always entertaining!
Did I change or did you guys?
I’m not sure which but for a very long time this podcast has been such a voice of reason; a place where events and ideas are discussed and debated in good faith, representing each side fairly, and with an appropriate amount of levity to keep things interesting. I could listen to you guys present and debate challenging topics and learn while I clarified where I land, laughing all the way. It was so refreshing. But lately it’s become more snark than informative or enlightening discussion. I’m not saying you need to be the end all/be all for your audience but something seems to be missing. The takes seem to be more and more just judging from a distance and making fun of certain people/perspectives rather than engaging with the meat of the opposing arguments so the audience can learn what you know as journalists. The Russia/Ukraine war is a good example of this. Perhaps I missed an episode where you hashed this out but from the beginning it’s been a very overt “obviously Russia is in the wrong and Ukraine is in the right” type certainty without explaining why the dissenting views and all the various historical evidence supporting said views should be dismissed. It’s been many months since I’ve been able to get through a whole episode without turning it off bc it’s not really helping me understand the local and global landscape the way it used to.
Gone way down hill (used to be five stars)
I've been a Never Fly Coach subscriber since they started their Substack (and for a bit before that on Patreon), but I won't be renewing my subscription this May unless they drastically improve. I don't necessarily need them to change their positions, I just want them to stop mischaracterizing the positions of those they disagree with and actually engage with them instead.
It started with the Russia/Ukraine war, where they mischaracterized anti-war people as being pro-Russian. Then with the Israel/Palestine conflict, where they mischaracterized people being critical of the actions of Israel's government as being antisemitic and/or pro-Hamas (yes, there are idiots on the left who are pro-Hamas, but there are also plenty of people who condemn Hamas while also being critical of Israel).
Despite being a mostly libertarian podcast, they seem more willing to speak with liberals and conservatives than with libertarians who are more radical than them. The fact that they're more interested in talking with Ben Shapiro (who they've said they'd like to have on the podcast) than with someone like Scott Horton says a lot.
On cultural issues and criticizing the media, they're great. On foreign policy, they've become awful, and foreign policy is too important for me to overlook what they've been saying on the topic. Again, I don't need them to change their positions, I just want them to actually engage with people they disagree with. They do that on other topics, so they should do it for foreign policy as well.