Jonah Goldberg stories, Page 9
Jonah Goldberg: What do midterms — and 2024 — hold for GOP?
Republicans are in a triumphalist mood. Last week’s red wave election has many in the GOP counting on a crimson tsunami come next year’s midterms and fueled even more confidence that Joe Biden will be a one-term president. Some skepticism is in order, though a little triumphalism is warranted as...
Jonah Goldberg: ‘Let’s go Brandon’ is what passes for oratory now. Be worried.
The first thing to know about the “Let’s go Brandon” thing is: It’s funny. Or at least, it started out funny. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s how it started. In September, largely or even entirely in response to the Biden administration’s botched handling of our...
Jonah Goldberg: To fight climate change seriously, nuclear power must be on the table
World leaders are heading to Glasgow to come up with yet another plan to tackle climate change. Joe Biden had hoped to have a stack of climate-related legislative accomplishments to brag about. But they’re being held up and threatened in the fight over the price tag of the Build Back...
Jonah Goldberg: The trouble with ‘Build Back Better’ is no one really wants to pay for it
Here is a very basic fact: People tend to like getting stuff for free. Ask most people, “Do you want a fancy new Mercedes?” and they’ll likely respond, “Yes.” But ask them to pay full price for it and demand drops dramatically. Hold that thought. Sen. Bernie Sanders is very...
Jonah Goldberg: A third party could impose some pain on the Trumpified GOP
In 2020, many on the right had modest hopes for President Biden. The hope hinged on the not implausible theory that he would govern as a centrist because that’s how he campaigned. Biden did markedly better than Hillary Clinton’s 2016 performance with Republican-friendly constituencies. Indeed, 7% of 2016 Republican Trump...
Jonah Goldberg: The problem isn’t raising taxes, it’s spending, spending, spending
Confession time: I’m open to raising taxes. As a lifelong conservative, making this case comes as easily as arguing for a weak national defense, or more United Nations funding. So please bear with me as I walk through why I’m open to the idea. One of the most important lessons...
Jonah Goldberg: Verbosity isn’t Biden’s problem — misreading the room is
If you’ve spent any time in Washington, you’ve heard stories about Joe Biden’s loquaciousness. Asked to give brief remarks, he’d famously meander for 30, 40 or more minutes about whatever came into his mind. But his verbosity is a symptom of his larger problem: a lack of situational awareness. After...
Goldberg: Biden’s foreign policy: Too leftist or too Trumpist?
It’s one of the strange ironies of American politics. Few things are as politically polarizing as foreign policy, and yet it’s on foreign policy where the differences between the parties are often narrowest. Indeed, viewed from abroad, our allies and adversaries often think that the biggest problem with any new...
Jonah Goldberg: Biden’s stance will feed pandemic culture war
Maybe President Biden should handle covid-19 the way he’s handled Afghanistan. It’s a strange thought, given how badly he botched the U.S. withdrawal. But at least Afghanistan Joe had a clear idea about what we needed to do. Covid Joe has no such exit strategy. He’s making it up as...
Jonah Goldberg: Partisan squabbling after 9/11 was a preview of the present
I got back to the U.S. from my honeymoon on Sept. 10, 2001. My wife went straight home to Washington, D.C, to start her new job at the Justice Department. I went to Washington state, where we’d gotten married, to retrieve our dog Cosmo, whom we’d left with family. I...
Jonah Goldberg: Blame Congress, not Supreme Court, for eviction ruling
In a major victory for constitutional norms, the Supreme Court overturned a lawless and essentially authoritarian policy of the Trump administration, and progressives are furious. You read that right. Let’s catch up. On March 27, 2020, Congress passed the CARES Act, and Donald Trump signed it into law. One provision...
Jonah Goldberg: Will GOP go back to heeding its voters on foreign policy?
President Biden’s inept execution of his — and his predecessor’s — policy of withdrawal from Afghanistan was a political gift to the GOP. It has made foreign policy, at least temporarily, a unifying issue on the right. For conservatives, whether you supported or opposed withdrawal, Biden’s shambolic implementation has something...
Jonah Goldberg: Afghanistan withdrawal shows allies that U.S. isn’t a reliable partner
When Joe Biden came into office, we were told that the “adults are back in charge” because he immediately set to work undoing as much of Donald Trump’s legacy as he could. “The new president in his first week issued more than three dozen executive actions on a wide range...
Jonah Goldberg: With eviction moratorium, Biden joins presidents who violated oath
President Biden has already violated his oath of office. The good news for him: He’s in fine company. In 2002, George W. Bush signed the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill into law. At the ceremony, he expressed his “concerns” that the law he signed “restrains the speech of a wide variety...
Jonah Goldberg: Is Trump losing control of the GOP? Don’t bet on it.
Donald Trump has had a very bad summer. This has given some people hope that the end of the Trumpian captivity of the Republican Party is within sight. I wish I could share their optimism. It’s certainly true that his post-presidency isn’t going great. Because he didn’t want to get...
Jonah Goldberg: New mask requirement would be a bridge too far
The CDC wants us to go back to wearing masks indoors, even if you’ve been vaccinated. This is where I get off. If you’ll forgive a little testifying, I’ve tried hard to be reasonable throughout the pandemic. I’ve bent over backward to give public officials the benefit of the doubt...
Jonah Goldberg: Accepting defeat in Afghanistan is a terrible choice
Talking to reporters on July 2, President Biden was pressed about the sudden, embarrassing evacuation of our air base in Afghanistan and widespread predictions the Afghan government would fall quickly to the Taliban. The president testily replied: “I want to talk about happy things, man.” His retort seems to have...
Jonah Goldberg: Biden administration has made Facebook a pandemic scapegoat
Let’s say you’re Joe Biden. For entirely valid and legitimate reasons, you staked much of your presidency on getting the country vaccinated. You had a very good start, but then things started to stall right as a new, more contagious delta variant of the coronavirus was spreading. This is a...
Jonah Goldberg: Republican stance on voting rules doesn’t amount to a war with democracy
What a mess. Democrats (and their allies in the media) have convinced themselves that the Republican Party is at war with democracy. Republicans (and their allies in the media) have convinced themselves that the Democratic Party is at war with democracy. They’re both wrong, although in very different ways. Let’s...
Jonah Goldberg: Anti-vax hysteria is anything but pro-life
On a recent flight from Texas to North Carolina, a woman came so unglued that she tried to open the plane’s door. The flight crew had to bind and gag her with duct tape. This was an extreme example of a disturbing trend in air travel: People are becoming unruly...
Jonah Goldberg: Defenders, opponents of critical race theory prone to exaggeration
Put aside what you may have heard — pro or con — about terms such as systemic racism or critical race theory (CRT) for a moment. There’s a lot of exaggeration out there among both defenders and critics. Instead, let me tell you a story. After the civil rights movement...
Jonah Goldberg: Recalls are the only option when there’s 1-party rule
It’s on. California will vote on whether to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sept. 14. I am deeply conflicted on the question. I am opposed to recalls on principle. In 2003, I was one of the few conservatives to oppose the recall of then-governor Gray Davis. My reasoning hinged on...
Jonah Goldberg: Biden needs a do-over
In 2020, it was widely reported that Joe Biden wanted to be a “transitional” president. At a campaign event in Detroit, appearing with several younger, more progressive Democratic politicians, he seemed to endorse this idea. “Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else,” Biden said. “There’s an...
Jonah Goldberg: Infrastructure battle bodes well for our politics
The ongoing infrastructure drama in Washington is a perfect illustration of how, when dysfunction becomes normal, normal politics looks dysfunctional. Let’s set the context. For most of U.S. history, major legislation worked its way up the committee system in Congress. Deal-making, logrolling and agenda-setting would get hammered out over months...
Jonah Goldberg: Parties, politicians don’t really represent ‘the American people’
What if elected politicians actually did what the American people want them to do? Now, you might respond: “Isn’t that what they already do?” or “Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work in a democracy?” The answer to both of these questions is: “No.” Let me explain. “The American people”...
