Jonah Goldberg stories, Page 5
Jonah Goldberg: Has the Democratic Party been led astray by progressive activists?
According to a recent poll conducted by the Democratic firm Blueprint, only 5% of Americans say that Joe Biden is “far more conservative than me.” Ask yourself, what percentage of Democratic activists, liberal TV hosts, White House staffers, liberal think tankers and donors believe that Biden is “far more conservative”...
Jonah Goldberg: On Thanksgiving, step away from the outrage industry
One of the remarkable things about our political and cultural battles is how many of them are fought on behalf of other people. For instance, there are plenty of Americans with deeply personal investments in the plight of Israelis or Palestinians, due to familial or historic ties. But millions of...
Jonah Goldberg: After a week of mostly bad reelection news, Biden has only 1 choice
One of Joe Biden’s favorite campaign lines is “don’t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative.” In the wake of a series of polls earlier this month, Democrats were thrown into a panic because voters in key battleground states did exactly that and chose Donald Trump as...
Jonah Goldberg: China has a role in making the whole world talk about Israel
While the whole world is talking about Israel, let’s take a moment to talk about China. Why? Well for starters, one of the reasons the whole world is talking about Israel, is that’s the way China wants it. In the wake of Hamas’ barbaric anti-Jewish pogrom on Oct. 7, anti-Jewish...
Jonah Goldberg: Will the media get coverage of the crisis in Israel and Gaza right? It all depends on the editors
If you ask most people, including most journalists, what the job of the press is, they will reasonably respond with a number of high-minded cliches: “report the news,” “hold the powerful accountable,” “inform the public,” etc. That’s all well and good. But you almost never hear anyone say the job...
Jonah Goldberg: House Republicans need a sudden onset of political maturity. What are the chances?
Israeli diplomat Abba Eban famously said that the Palestinians “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Watching events in the Middle East over the last two weeks, that quote might seem newly relevant. But it seems even more fitting for the House GOP. At a time of international and...
Jonah Goldberg: Israel and Ukraine? Americans should remember it’s the same war on two fronts
In normal times domestic political fights over foreign policy breakdown more or less along a conventional left-right divide. These are not normal times. The right is largely united around the need to support Israel in its war with Hamas, but increasingly divided about backing Ukraine in its war with Russia....
Jonah Goldberg: Who’s to blame for Hamas attack on Israel — debate already off the rails
Within hours of the slaughter in Israel, the question of Israel’s “massive intelligence failure” — as many have called it — came to dominate a lot of the media coverage and conversation. On one level, this is entirely defensible. Israeli officials acknowledge the obvious fact that it was, with the...
Jonah Goldberg: What the Republicans forcing a government shutdown have in common with 1960s radicals
This week, yet another government shutdown appears inevitable because a sizable chunk of the House Freedom Caucus believes, in the words of Otter in “Animal House,” that “this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.” What situation? Before we get to that, it’s...
Jonah Goldberg: Why the Republicans’ impeachment of Biden may be stupid enough to work
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s decision to move ahead with impeachment proceedings — and the Democrats’ response — reminded me of something Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser reportedly once said: “The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves, which make us wonder...
Jonah Goldberg: Mike Pence is railing against populism among Republicans. But he’s late to the game
Last week Mike Pence gave a speech at Saint Anselm College that, depending on your view of the man, was either courageous or desperate — or both. Titled “Populism vs. Conservatism: Republicans’ Time for Choosing,” the speech was an homage to his hero, Ronald Reagan, who in 1964 gave a...
Jonah Goldberg: Biden’s age poses a big issue he can’t get around
In December 1998, Rep. Bob Livingston, Republican of Louisiana, was set to succeed Rep. Newt Gingrich as speaker of the House. Gingrich had announced his resignation from Congress and the speakership in the wake of a disastrous midterm election for Republicans as well as revelations that he’d been having an...
Jonah Goldberg: China’s faltering economy is a result of state-directed planning. Now comes the global fallout
“China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man,” scoffed then-presidential candidate Joe Biden in 2019. Two years later, now-President Biden declared: “The Chinese are eating our lunch. They’re eating our lunch, economically. They’re investing hundreds of billions of dollars in research and development. … We got to compete.”...
Jonah Goldberg: It’s too late, GOP also-rans. Nothing will stop Trump, except maybe the law.
So, Ron DeSantis gets it after all. “A movement can’t be about the personality of one individual,” DeSantis told the Florida Standard. “If all we are is listless vessels that’s just supposed to follow, you know, whatever happens to come down the pike on Truth Social every morning, that’s not...
Jonah Goldberg: Small donors have become a destructive, dividing force in American politics
There’s an approach to political questions that the conservative in me rebels against. Let’s call it the “You can’t have too much of a good thing” fallacy. Almost every popular idea in American life has cheerleaders for this fallacy. You’ve surely heard someone say something like: “The only cure to...
Jonah Goldberg: Trump’s indictment reflects the failures of our populist passions
America blew it. I generally support special prosecutor Jack Smith’s indictments of Donald Trump. The classified documents case is open-and-shut, as far as I can tell. As for the charges dealing with the former president’s attempt to steal the election, they are a heavier lift as a strictly legal matter....
Jonah Goldberg: Can we shift the Republican conviction that only Trump will save them?
”They’re not indicting me, they’re indicting you. I just happen to be standing in the way,” Donald Trump declared (again) in the wake of a new updated federal indictment connected to the classified documents case. The claim is as effective as it is stupid. The federal government is not, in...
Jonah Goldberg: Why July is the cruelest month for GOP presidential candidates — unless they’re Donald Trump
Perhaps T.S. Elliot was wrong. July, not April, is the cruelest month, at least for GOP presidential contenders trying to supplant Donald Trump. Before July, the campaigns have excuses for why the momentum hasn’t kicked in yet. They can say they’re just in exploratory-committee mode, or they’re just getting the...
Jonah Goldberg: Yes, cluster munitions are awful. No, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give them to Ukraine.
The controversy over the Biden administration’s decision to supply Ukraine with cluster munitions reminded me of my old boss William F. Buckley’s famous rejoinder to claims the United States and the Soviet Union were morally equivalent because they both possessed nuclear weapons and spent a lot on defense. His phrasing...
Jonah Goldberg: Why blocking Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan is healthy for politics
Last week, the Supreme Court scuttled the Biden administration’s attempt to forgive more than $400 billion in student loan debt. As a matter of policy, broad-based student debt cancellation remains a terrible idea for a host of reasons. While targeting relatively small debts held by lower income community college graduates...
Jonah Goldberg: Wagner Group’s coup attempt may be over, but it shows a real crack in Putin’s power
Like many people, I was glued to the news for much of Saturday, watching what seemed, at least for a moment, to be the first stages of a coup d’état — and it still might be. The only thing we know for certain is that if this is the beginning...
Jonah Goldberg: Most Americans think life was better 50 years ago. That’s ridiculous.
“Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.” — Marcel Proust Nostalgia, a term that originated as a medical diagnosis for Swiss mercenaries suffering from homesickness, is the sorrowful longing for a lost past. An April Pew survey found that nearly 6 out of...
Jonah Goldberg: Republicans wanted Clinton prosecuted for her emails. And now they defend Trump?
In the wake of Donald Trump’s latest indictment, two basic defenses have been offered: He did nothing wrong, and it doesn’t matter that he did anything wrong. So far, most of his defenders are more comfortable making the latter argument. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is one of the few exceptions....
Jonah Goldberg: Why Trump’s childish bullying of his Republican opponents works
“Congratulations to Nikki Haley for following President Trump’s lead and doing a CNN town hall. Ron DeSanctimonious is too chicken to ever do something like this.” — @TrumpWarRoom Here, in microcosm, is the dysfunction plaguing the GOP presidential field, thanks to the Trumpian captivity. As with most Trumpian pronouncements, there’s...
Jonah Goldberg: Why ‘Bud Lighting’ isn’t stopping any time soon
A lot of conservatives are very excited about “Bud Lighting” — a freshly minted term for boycotting companies that cater to various “woke” causes, particularly transgender issues. The term derives from the spectacular implosion of Bud Light in the wake of its decision in March to enlist transgender social media...
