Jonah Goldberg stories, Page 6
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...
Jonah Goldberg: Ron DeSantis may be the one Republican voters want now. Can he make that last?
Imagine a popular Republican governor from an important state. Despite intense criticism from the national media, he’s notched some huge policy wins that are simultaneously popular with donors, base voters and conservative intellectuals. His key theme is fighting the Washington establishment and the institutions of progressive power. Then, fresh off...
Jonah Goldberg: Ukraine’s fight benefits U.S. national security. House GOP is on wrong side
We are entering the 12th month of a “special military operation” that was supposed to be over in well under 12 days. The Kremlin even told Russian officers to pack dress uniforms and medals for the intended military parades in Kyiv a few days after the shooting started. Things turned...
Jonah Goldberg: Biden should admit to mistakes in his classified documents scandal
There’s an understandable compulsion in the media and among Democrats to emphasize the differences between Joe Biden’s classified documents scandal and Donald Trump’s. The two cases are different in many important respects. The most significant is obviously that the former president refused to cooperate with the National Archives and Justice...
Jonah Goldberg: GOP’s deficit reduction is a cynical performative gesture
For several years now, I’ve been told that the old consensus of fiscal conservatism and limited government was dead. So, you might think I’m delighted by the sudden rebirth of Tea Party-style budget-cutting zeal on display in the GOP’s brinksmanship over the debt ceiling. Not so much. I’ll get to...
Jonah Goldberg: Fight over Kevin McCarthy was never about conservative ideology
Kevin McCarthy’s epic struggle to become speaker of the House produced a lot of memorable images, but the most unforgettable was probably of Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., being physically restrained from opening a fresh can of whup-ass on Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., after Gaetz ensured McCarthy’s 14th failure to get...
Jonah Goldberg: So Congress is a mess. It’s supposed to be messy.
It’s not exactly a blistering insight into how Washington works, but nothing will get you more praise and respect than being powerful and wielding that power effectively. So, it should be no surprise that Nancy Pelosi finished her tenure as speaker of the House to lavish applause. Many dubbed her...
Jonah Goldberg: Trump has supplanted Nixon as the saddest figure in post-presidential politics
“The tapes are the real man — mean, vindictive, panicky, striking first in anticipation of being struck, trying to lift his own friable self-esteem by shoving others down,” Gary Wills wrote of Richard Nixon in the 2017 preface to his book, “Nixon Agonistes.” Wills added, perhaps unfairly, that “Nixon’s real...
Jonah Goldberg: It was a bad year for authoritarianism
As 2022 draws to a close, it’s worth celebrating that this hasn’t been a good year for authoritarianism. This might seem Pollyannish. After all, just last month, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance issued a report concluding that democracy is in decline while authoritarianism is deepening. Freedom House...
Jonah Goldberg: Sorry, Iowa and New Hampshire. Having voters choose candidates is bad for democracy
At President Biden’s behest, the Democratic National Committee is poised to throw Iowa and New Hampshire under the bus. Assuming he gets his way, the new order will be South Carolina, followed by Nevada, New Hampshire, Georgia and Michigan. It’s fine with me. I like both Iowa and New Hampshire,...
Jonah Goldberg: McCarthy may win House speakership, but he can’t control the clown caucus
Kevin McCarthy’s quest for the House speaker’s gavel is a near perfect inside-the-Beltway story because it’s about pure politics and personal ambition without many narrative-muddling concerns about principles, governing philosophy or policy considerations. McCarthy was never a policy wonk or doctrinaire conservative; he’s a dealmaker and glad-hander, which is why...
Jonah Goldberg: Republicans want to win — and Trump’s now a loser
A lot has changed since the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, the country club resort and unofficial classified document storage facility where Donald Trump resides. Back in August, the search was denounced by many on the right as an unprecedented outrage befitting a banana republic that challenged the very legitimacy of the...
Jonah Goldberg: Will the GOP finally do something about its Trump problem?
On election night, Donald Trump took to his post-truth social media platform, Truth Social, to spin the results. His first utterance was to celebrate Republican Joe O’Dea’s loss in the U.S. Senate race in Colorado. “Joe O’Dea lost BIG!” Trump crowed. “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!” O’Dea had distanced himself from...
