Jonah Goldberg Columns category, Page 7

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”...

It feels like yesterday that my wife and I were shopping for grade schools for our daughter — the same daughter who just graduated from high school. We visited a bunch of private schools where the children of Washington’s elite get turned into the feedstock of the meritocracy. The most...

“If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” I’ve long argued that this exhortation is a soft form of totalitarianism. It’s rhetorical bullying. The speaker assumes he or she has authoritative knowledge of not just the problem but the solution. And if you disagree, you’re a...

President Joe Biden and Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin are scheduled to meet today for the first time since Biden was elected president. For many in the foreign policy establishment and diplomatic press corps, this is an exciting opportunity to conjure some Cold War drama. Historically, such summits were major happenings....

ProPublica obtained the tax returns of the richest Americans and discovered what every informed person already knew: They don’t pay as much in income taxes as some people would like them to. This is being called a great scandal by many Democrats and liberal journalists. Meanwhile, that these returns were...

It’s official: In the great existential battle between a return to normalcy and a new progressive era, normalcy is winning. Recall that Joe Biden ran as a moderate in 2020, not just in the general election but also in the Democratic primaries. Biden triangulated off the Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth...

I think Joe Biden’s decision to fully withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan is a mistake. It’s mistaken on strategic and moral grounds. I hope I’m wrong. But when even administration officials, and experts who favor the decision, concede that our pullout — of a very small contingent of troops —...

Over Memorial Day weekend, Michael Flynn, who briefly served as Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, appeared at a QAnon-affiliated conference in Dallas. During a Q&A session, an audience member asked, “I want to know why what happened in Myanmar can’t happen here.” What happened in Myanmar was an old-fashioned...

A remarkable consensus has emerged in the last few weeks: It’s no longer crazy to think that the covid-19 pandemic was the result of a “lab leak” in Wuhan, China. Just to set the stage, the lab-leak theory isn’t that China deliberately unleashed the virus as some sort of biological...

Last summer, after months of protests and riots in response to the murder of George Floyd, the phrase “mostly peaceful,” often used by the media and Democrats to describe the protests, achieved parody status thanks to a CNN clip. It showed a reporter in Kenosha, Wis., standing in front of...

The Supreme Court recently announced it will take up Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a challenge to a Mississippi law that all but bans abortions after 15 weeks. It’s the first case in years that could result in the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that,...

If you’re the kind of person who boasts about being a political independent, this may be hard to hear: You’re part of the problem. This no doubt will come as a shock, in part because independents get such fantastic press. That in itself is odd, given that independents have no...

In his address to Congress last month, President Biden used some variant of “compete” a dozen times. “We’re in competition with China and other countries to win the 21st century,” Biden said. “We’re at a great inflection point in history.” Chinese President Xi Jinping, Biden said, is “deadly earnest about...

“Banned in Boston” is a phrase that probably doesn’t resonate with many people today. But there was a time when “Footloose” might as well have been set in Beantown. Founded by Puritans in the 1630s, Boston held onto its Puritan zeal — if not necessarily the Puritan faith — for...

We don’t know what the Biden years will ultimately look like, but one thing is pretty obvious, at least to me: It won’t be a new New Deal, nor will this be the beginning of a new Progressive Era. First, a bit of history. The New Deal, particularly in the...

Joe Biden didn’t just campaign as a moderate. He signaled again and again that he would be an affable placeholder president who’d clean up the messes created by his opponent, mend some fences with allies and get the pandemic under control. “Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as...

Joe Biden’s first 100 days as president will be in the books Friday, and one thing is clear: Boring is a superpower. But first, let’s start by noting that the whole “first 100 days” thing is a pseudo-event that’s only a big deal because politicians and journalists agreed to make...

Nothing is more vital to serious thinking than the ability to make distinctions between superficially similar things. The gas pedal and the brake pedal look awfully similar, but if you can’t distinguish between them, good luck getting out of the driveway safely. Distinctions don’t just matter among similar-but-different things. They’re...

President Biden has decided to end the war in Afghanistan. He feels it’s time, and so do a lot of Americans. I feel it too. I’m just not sure feelings should win the day. In his televised address announcing the decision, Biden reiterated that American withdrawal can’t be “tied to...

You know all those “Florida Man” stories? “Florida man arrested for throwing alligator through drive-thru window,” “Florida man learns the hard way he stole laxatives, not opioids,” etc.? There are several theories for why Florida men stand out so much, starting with Florida is just weird. The most interesting involves...

The debate over Georgia’s new voting law has been deeply depressing to watch for a number of reasons. The first is that it hasn’t really been a debate so much as a lot of performative shouting from all directions. The second is that many of the law’s harshest critics don’t...

The Georgia debacle is a perfect example of the rolling collective action problem of our democracy. A collective action problem, simply put, is when there is a goal that would benefit everyone — in this case, confidence in our machinery of democracy — but the incentive structure for the individual...

You know what you get for spending trillions of dollars you don’t have? More fights over Dr. Seuss, cancel culture and identity politics. By any measure, the federal government has been on a spending spree for decades. Without getting bogged down in the green eyeshade stuff, suffice it to say...

American politics is caught in a perverse paradox. The bases of both parties would like nothing more than to destroy the other party. But it is precisely this animus that prevents them from accomplishing their goal. That’s because the best strategy for partisans to wreak havoc in the other party...

I get the idea of curses or bad karma. The house where a triple murder took place is going to sell for less than the one next door no matter how much you scrub the stains. I wouldn’t want to use Hannibal Lecter’s dishware no matter how much you cleaned...