Jonah Goldberg Columns category, Page 11
Jonah Goldberg: Ted Cruz shows why the GOP isn’t going back to Reaganism
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...
Jonah Goldberg: Cold War approach won’t work with China
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...
Jonah Goldberg: Give globalism its due for speedy vaccine rollout
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...
Jonah Goldberg: Texas AG’s lawsuit is a shameful display of hypocrisy
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...
Jonah Goldberg: Trumpism unlikely to be an enduring ideology
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,...
Jonah Goldberg: Conspiracy theories have no place in serious conservatism
You aren’t a conservative if you believe in conspiracy theories. Before I defend this statement, I should say that as a general rule, I do not like statements that begin, “You aren’t a conservative if … .” It’s not that I always disagree with such assertions. For instance, “You’re not...
Jonah Goldberg: Republicans need to find a way out of this mess
“How do we get out of this?” That’s the question preoccupying the right these days. The specific “this” varies, but what unites all the concerns is the mess Donald Trump has made. For Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the “this” is the embarrassing mess in Georgia, where many gettable Republican...
Jonah Goldberg: Today’s Republicans see conservatism as a mere tool
In 1965, William F. Buckley, the founder of National Review magazine and, as much as anyone, of modern American conservatism, ran for mayor of New York City. It was a quixotic endeavor. When asked what he’d do if he won, he responded, “Demand a recount.” Buckley ran, in other words,...
Jonah Goldberg: Why forgiving student debt is a bad idea
One good rule of thumb is to judge parties and politicians by their priorities. Politicians often pretend to be for every good thing under the sun, so the best way to judge them is to look at which things they actually work to achieve or spend political capital on. This...
Jonah Goldberg: To the end, Trump’s presidency is all about him
“Despite the Left’s attempts to undermine this Election, I will NEVER stop fighting for YOU,” President Trump assured me in a fundraising email. I don’t take campaign fundraising emails seriously (never mind literally). They’re all pretty stupid. But this one was obviously different, for the simple reason that the election...
Jonah Goldberg: Why Joe Manchin is more important to Democrats than AOC
Here’s something you probably won’t hear from either the left or the right: West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin is a much more important and influential Democrat than New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (or “AOC” for marketing purposes). Manchin has done something far more consequential than anything AOC has done in...
Jonah Goldberg: Trump-GOP marriage heading toward ugly divorce
Bad marriages usually lead to ugly divorces, and that’s where the GOP is heading. After Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination in 2016, the word went forth on the right: It’s a binary choice. You’re either for Hillary Clinton or you’re for Trump. I never agreed with this reasoning, but...
Jonah Goldberg: Trump was right — the election was about him
At a rally in Wisconsin the day before the election, President Trump was talking about the choice between him and Joe Biden. He started to say, “This isn’t about …” and then stopped himself and said, “Yeah, it is about me.” He was right. The election was about him. Republicans...
Jonah Goldberg: De-emphasizing politics may be the best way to mend fences
The day before Election Day, Reuters ran a story about the personal toll politics has taken on some peoples’ lives. Mayra Gomez told her 21-year-old son she’d be voting for Trump. He essentially disowned his mother in response. Gomez says he told her: “You are no longer my mother.” Gayle...
Jonah Goldberg: Pandemic and politics aside, it’s a great time to be alive
Whatever is going to happen with the election is going to happen. Most people have made up their minds, and it’s unlikely that any October surprise — or even a November surprise — will change that. The polls have been stable for literally years now, and as of this writing,...
Jonah Goldberg: GOP disdain for big cities is a losing strategy
“God bless real Michigan. God bless real America. God bless the greatest president in our lifetime, Donald Trump,” Ted Nugent recently declared at a Michigan rally. It’s ironic that Trump, the first president born and raised in New York City (or any major city) since Teddy Roosevelt, has hitched his...
Jonah Goldberg: Press shouldn’t let election calculations dictate coverage
Much of the mainstream media refuses to cover the substance of the Hunter Biden laptop story. I think this is more defensible than Trumpworld claims. President Trump says journalists who don’t cover it are “criminals,” which is criminally stupid. Still, I think the press shouldn’t be so scared to deal...
Jonah Goldberg: Liberals panicking over possibility of a 2016 repeat
The 2016 election lives loudly in everybody right now. On the Trumpian right, “the polls were wrong before” isn’t merely an observation, it’s a catechism. And on the anti-Trumpian left, it’s a constant source of anxiety bordering on panic. It’s making a lot of folks a little crazy. My friend...
Jonah Goldberg: Barrett’s ‘originalist’ stance is only one that makes sense
Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, is an “originalist.” Given that originalism is a term coined by lawyers, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that there are many different flavors of originalism. But, as Barrett explained in her confirmation hearings, they all share the basic idea that the meaning of...
Jonah Goldberg: Is America really a democracy?
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has been tweeting some interesting things. During Wednesday night’s vice presidential debate, Lee declared on Twitter, “We’re not a democracy.” That raised some eyebrows, to say the least. He followed up by tweeting, “Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity are. We want the...
Jonah Goldberg: Is Trump’s treatment an example of VIP syndrome?
A few years before he died, my friend Charles Krauthammer, a psychiatrist turned Pulitzer-winning political commentator, told me that the quality of health care you receive tends to rise in tandem with your income — up to a point. For some people, the two lines separate when they get so...
Jonah Goldberg: Trump isn’t unpatriotic because of tax avoidance — just a lousy businessman
What shall we make of the president’s tax situation? If The New York Times’ accounting is correct, Trump has paid little (or nothing) in income taxes for a long time. In both 2016 and 2017, he paid $750 to Uncle Sam. In 10 of the last 15 years, he paid...
Jonah Goldberg: NY Times owes an explanation for 1619 Project reversal
Something strange is going on with The New York Times and the 1619 Project. By now you’ve probably heard of the 1619 Project. It began as a special issue of The Times’ Sunday magazine to mark the 400th anniversary of African slaves being brought to the Jamestown colonies. But it’s...
Jonah Goldberg: GOP deal with Dems on court vacancy would make sense, but will never happen
I’ll confess: There was a time when I would have considered the question facing Republicans a no-brainer. Of course they should seize this opportunity to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a conservative. Moving the courts — especially the Supreme Court — rightward has been a conservative lodestar for...
Jonah Goldberg: Israel deals result of changing tides, but Trump still deserves credit
By any conventional or historical measure, the recent breakthrough between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain is a good thing, and the Trump administration deserves its share of praise for it. The refusal of much of the media to take this moment seriously only lends credibility to President...
