Jonah Goldberg stories, Page 6
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...
Jonah Goldberg: Can Republicans be persuaded to vote for someone other than Trump?
It’s official. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott is running for president. The first thing you should know is that Scott is one of the nicest guys in Washington. Capitol Hill Republicans and just about anybody who knows him likes him. Sincerely patriotic and devoutly Christian, Scott is most comfortable preaching,...
Jonah Goldberg: After Title 42, there’s a border crisis whether Biden admits it or not
The lifting of Title 42 — which allowed the government to use the covid-19 pandemic as an excuse to expel migrants for public health purposes — has not resulted in “chaos” at the border, according to most news accounts. Intended or not, this is a great example of managing expectations....
Jonah Goldberg: How comment section trolls took over the Republican Party
Is the GOP becoming a dysfunctional chatroom? In economics, Gresham’s law on currency markets holds that “bad money drives out good.” That same principle also applies to the comment sections on online sites. In comments sections — including such mega-versions like Twitter — the nastiest commenters post more, and more...
Jonah Goldberg: Tucker Carlson, not just Trump, damaged conservatism
Tucker Carlson has left the building. That in itself was unusual because Carlson hadn’t been in the building most other days over the last couple years. He rarely went into the Washington or New York bureaus, preferring his own private studios in Maine and Florida — comfortable silos from which...
Jonah Goldberg: Crime follows national trends in U.S., but it requires local solutions
We live in a moment when everyone seems compelled to talk about national trends and systemic problems. There are plenty of reasons for this. Politicians in Washington, Republicans and Democrats alike, think Washington should call the shots. Presidents and presidential aspirants feel the need to talk about our vast country...
Jonah Goldberg: Putin’s war on Ukraine is in the sinister tradition of the Russian war machine
Vladimir Putin and his war machine get more respect than they deserve from the West. This may seem a bit counterintuitive. After all, just 9% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Russia and the International Criminal Court has recently issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes. But...
Jonah Goldberg: Why Trump’s indictment is filling ‘never again’ Trumpers with dread and despair
Now is a time of woe, not just for “Never Trump” conservatives, but also for the much larger group of Republicans who made peace with Trump once but dread having to do it again. In fact, just going by my unscientific survey, the melancholy is worse for those Republicans who...
Jonah Goldberg: Congress may be out of touch with technology, but the concerns over TikTok are right
In a remarkable display of bipartisanship, Congress went to war with the social media app TikTok last week. The House Energy and Commerce Committee grilled TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew about its independence — or lack thereof — from the Chinese Communist Party. The five-hour hearing was contentious. Chew did...
Jonah Goldberg: Trump’s Stormy Daniels payoff could finally get him indicted. But should it?
“There is hardly any political question in the United States that sooner or later does not turn into a judicial question,” Alexis de Tocqueville, the brilliant observer of American life, wrote. I’m pretty sure De Tocqueville didn’t have in mind scenarios like Donald Trump using a (now disgraced and disbarred)...
Jonah Goldberg: Following the law on Jan. 6 was the least Pence could do. Why are we praising him?
On Saturday night, Mike Pence unleashed his anger at Donald Trump. “History will hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6,” Pence declared at the Gridiron Dinner, a normally jovial event for prominent journalists. “Make no mistake about it: What happened that day was a disgrace, and it mocks decency to...
Jonah Goldberg: Meet America’s most delicate snowflake — the Fox News viewer
If you search for “safe space” on the Foxnews.com website you’ll get over 46,000 results. All of them aren’t about those woke snowflakes who need trigger warnings and cry rooms. But a whole lot of them are. For instance, in 2017, shortly after Donald Trump’s inauguration, Tucker Carlson grilled a...
Jonah Goldberg: How the U.S. can turn China from a foe into a friendly competitor
The House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party held its first hearing this week. In interviews and joint statements Chair Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., have made it clear they are determined to make this committee a...
Jonah Goldberg: ‘Buy American’ might sound good, but it’s bipartisan folly
You hear it all the time, including from me: Our politics is too partisan, too polarized, too divided. Why can’t both parties work together for the common good? But it’s worth pointing out that sometimes bipartisan consensus is awful. The worst form of elite agreement is usually the product of...
