The Free Press
Honestly with Bari Weiss
How to Save America with Peggy Noonan
0:00
Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -1:02:29
-1:02:29
How to Save America with Peggy Noonan
1HR 2M
Listen On:

Peggy Noonan does what we try to do every day at The Free Press: tell the truth, make sense of things plainly and without pretension, frame the news in a way that helps the reader make sense of things, and put things in a historical context that gives the day-to-day depth and meaning. 

The very annoying thing about Peggy Noonan is that she makes the thing that we know is so very hard look so very easy. And she does it week after week after week in The Wall Street Journal—which adds up to more than 400 columns over the last 25 years. 

In her newest—and ninth—book, A Certain Idea of America, she collects 80 of her best columns published over the last eight years. Now, the idea that old newspaper columns might be good fodder for a book sort of seems like a weird idea, given that newspapers are most famous for being the next day’s fish wrapper. But somehow this book feels urgent and timeless. Which means that Peggy Noonan’s old columns are better than most people’s brand-new ones.

That’s probably because she knows a thing or two about rhetoric and American politics. She was a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan. She helped President George H.W. Bush get elected. She consulted for the TV show The West Wing

In today’s conversation, we talk about how Peggy understands Trump’s win and the political revolution that we’re living through, what it feels like to lose in a values war, and what it feels like to defend things like civility and decency in 2024. We also talk about Trump’s appointments so far, Peggy’s first meeting with Trump, and how, despite our troubles, America remains a good and great country—and why it’s so important for young people to know that. 

If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today.

This show is proudly sponsored by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). FIRE believes free speech makes free people. Make your tax-deductible donation today at www.thefire.org/honestly.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I used to be a big fan of Peggy Noonan - until I found her TDS to be too much. But to claim, as she said in the beginning of this podcast, that politics took a nose dive in decency in 2015? As someone who had to deal with teenagers and younger children asking about oral sex during the Clinton years, I beg to differ.

Expand full comment

Geeze, Bari. You started TheFP to stand up against the establishment dogma that is so often wrong. Right? But more and more you seem to have become the very embodiment of that dogma. You can be so much better than this. I've seen you do it.

Expand full comment
24 more comments...