Jonah Goldberg Columns category, Page 10

A decade ago, one of the first things Republicans did after taking back the House of Representatives was get rid of earmarks. For those of you who don’t recall, “earmark” is the term of art for when members of Congress bring home the bacon to their district. The GOP was...

You wouldn’t know it from how Republicans and Democrats are talking, but the 2020 election was actually a success. During a pandemic, we had a national election with record-breaking turnout. The presidential candidate receiving the most votes in both the Electoral College and in the popular vote was rightly declared...

There’s a difference between saying something can’t be done and recognizing that you can’t do it. For instance, I can’t run a marathon — at least not without some profound lifestyle changes. But that doesn’t mean marathons can’t be run. Happens all the time, just not by me. Likewise, when...

After the Senate passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, President Joe Biden came out to take a bow. This measure came “not a moment too soon,” he said. “For over a year, the American people were told they were on their own.” This is the kind of thing presidents...

In our increasingly secular age, being on the side of science is similar to being on the side of God — a way to settle an argument by not actually making an argument. Just enlist an unassailable authority and move on. That’s how Joe Biden campaigned for president, vowing to...

Greater Orlando, Fla., hosts several of the most visited theme parks in the world. At the Magic Kingdom you can dress up like a princess, pretend you’re a pirate or just act like you’re a kid again. Universal’s Islands of Adventure lets diehard Harry Potter fans pretend they’re students at...

Joe Biden ran for president on a “return to normalcy.” His challenge is that there are three competing definitions of normalcy for him to contend with. Biden didn’t actually use the slogan “return to normalcy.” But as numerous political observers (including yours truly) noted during the campaign, that was both...

The Republican Party is broken. If Mitch McConnell were just another Republican senator, I’d say he was the eighth bravest. The seven bravest are the ones who voted to convict Donald Trump. For weeks I’ve been saying that if you honestly believe the Constitution forbids the Senate from convicting a...

The House impeachment managers state in their brief: “Our constitutional system simply cannot function if the President, acting to extend his own grasp on power against the expressed will of the people, prompts an armed attack against a coequal branch that prevents it from performing its core constitutional responsibilities.” I...

After three presidential impeachments, I’ve seen enough to conclude that one of the worst things about them is the lawyers. Even among some of my favorite legal commentators the problem is the same. They say something like: “Of course impeachment trials aren’t criminal proceedings. Impeachment is a political process.” And...

As an American, I wish President Joe Biden every success in defeating the pandemic and getting the economy moving again. But when it comes to the dysfunction of our political system and the polarized climate generally, it’s becoming clear he’s part of the problem, not the solution. I don’t think...

Warning: Disturbing stuff ahead. There’s a conspiracy theory called Frazzledrip. Even for QAnon types, it’s pretty fringe, which is saying something. Recall that the central belief in Q-world is that there’s a secret cabal of Satan-worshiping, sex-trafficking pedophiles running the government. Frazzledrip is worse. It’s the name of an imagined...

The debate over whether to hold Donald Trump accountable for his role in the events that led to the siege of the U.S. Capitol has slipped into partisan farce. Let me say up front I think it’s an open-and-shut case that Trump committed numerous impeachable acts, and in a healthy...

As many feared, after President Joe Biden was inaugurated, a mob unleashed destruction. They stormed the Democratic Party headquarters. They spray-painted “ Biden!” and smashed the Democratic HQ’s windows. One sign read, “We don’t want Biden, we want revenge!” Federal law enforcement used tear gas to repel the gangs...

“You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” Harvey Dent, the heroic district attorney of Gotham, proclaims in “The Dark Knight.” The fatalistic idea being that one can only do so much good in the world before you start balancing out the scales...

I have never been a free speech absolutist. I am, however, somewhat closer to being a First Amendment absolutist. Many free speech absolutists don’t like this distinction because they think the First Amendment should guarantee the ability to express yourself in virtually any manner you like, in any setting. But...

An attempted bank robber who doesn’t hurt anybody is still guilty of attempted bank robbery. If someone gets hurt, though, the penalties are greater even if the robber didn’t intend harm. This is how I think about what Donald Trump did last week. Of course the violence makes everything worse....

The president of the United States incited a mob. It was a disgraceful, inexcusable, impeachable act. Donald Trump’s defenders offer any number of excuses in order to shave off the shame. The media didn’t condemn riots last summer by left-wing groups, and therefore this was inevitable or just desserts or...

A lot of stupid things are said about history. For example, there is no “right side” of history, if by that you mean events are destined to play out in some sort of preordained way. But there is such a thing as being on the stupid side of history —...

Behold science, the sword and the shield of progressivism. Over the course of the pandemic (and before that, in debates over climate change, stem cells, etc.), liberals have insisted that we must listen to science and heed the scientists. It was a cornerstone of President-elect Joe Biden’s campaign and a...

Throughout Donald Trump’s captivity of the GOP, many Republicans have held fast to the hope that after he leaves office, the party can return to the sunny Reaganism of the Before Times. Of course, Trump’s bitter-enders have made it clear that they’d be happy to tear down not just the...

It’s easy to miss, given how polarized our politics are, but there is a growing consensus around a very big issue: China. Foreign policy experts, military leaders and politicians across the ideological spectrum all tend to agree that a new era of confrontation with China has begun. Many on the...

In normal times, most people don’t think of vaccines as a political issue at all. But a small minority — one that defies easy pigeonholing on the left or right — thinks vaccines are either unsafe or shouldn’t be mandatory or, presumably, both. (At this point I wouldn’t be shocked...

I’m angry. I have been defending the Electoral College and the larger Madisonian vision behind it — often called “federalism” — for decades. As a pointed critic of the president, this put me in the awkward position of defending the legitimacy of his presidency — Donald Trump lost the popular...

In the aftermath of President Trump’s 2016 victory, many of his supporters wanted to construct an ideological worldview that would, they hoped, not only supplant traditional conservatism but redefine American politics. As an intellectual project, it was pretty much a bust. For instance, Julius Krein started a journal, American Affairs,...