Author: Jonah Goldberg

There was a time when one of the worst sins you could commit on the American Right was to buy into “false moral equivalence.” During the Cold War, this usually meant saying that we were no better than the Soviet Union. For example, Democratic Sen. William J. Fulbright — Bill Clinton’s mentor — said of […]

Phyllis Schlafly died this week at the age of 92. I had my disagreements with the legendary conservative activist, particularly of late. She died the day before publication of her last book: “The Conservative Case for Trump.” The title alone should offer the reader a hint of at least one of those disagreements. Indeed, the […]

Since it’s been seven months since the Iowa caucuses and it’ll be another three-plus years until that hell is fresh again, this is the best time to talk about ethanol. Just in case you didn’t know, ethanol is very popular in Iowa and other corn states, which is why most presidential candidates swear once every […]

Last week delivered one of the most remarkable moments of this most remarkable political season. A major politician defended the conservative movement and the Republican Party from guilt-by-association with a fringe group of racists, anti-Semites and conspiracy theorists who have jumped enthusiastically on the Donald Trump train: the so-called alt-right. “This is not conservatism as […]

Do you know the old wheelbarrow joke? It’s truly funny only to grandpas and the grandkids they tell it to, so I won’t bother with the elaborate setup. For years a factory worker pushes a wheelbarrow full of straw past a security guard on his way out. Suspicious that the guy is stealing something, the […]

One of the most exhausting things about politics is a mindset that says “scandal for thee, but not for me.” Consider the perennial (alleged) scandal of presidential golf. When George W. Bush was commander in chief, he played a lot of golf, and his critics were outraged — or at least pretended to be. Whether […]

If you want proof of the journalism profession’s staggeringly high self-regard, you could do worse than to study the kerfuffle over the not-quite-demise of Gawker. Gawker was a successful news and gossip site founded by Nick Denton that often prided itself on being mean-spirited, prurient and callous all in the name of attracting as many […]

To listen to both his defenders and critics, Donald Trump represents the U.S. version of a new nationalism popping up around the world. I’m not so sure. In a fairly representative analysis, Politico’s Michael Hirsh explained the “new nationalism” as “a bitter populist rejection of the status quo that global elites have imposed on the […]

Donald Trump’s supporters complain that the media is fixated on the billionaire’s wild and crazy campaign while ignoring or at least downplaying Hillary Clinton’s gaffes, missteps and outright scandals. And they’re right. There is a double standard. Actually, it’s a multipronged standard. For some in the mainstream media, good old-fashioned left-wing bias is at work. […]

Donald Trump has the GOP trapped in not one Catch-22, but two. Call it a Catch-44. The first Catch-22 has been the subject of widespread conversation over the last few weeks. As GOP pollster Glen Bolger summed it up for The New York Times: “Do we run the risk of depressing our base by repudiating […]

One of my all-time favorite lines is from Henry Thoreau: “Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.” It came to mind this week when the White House and State Department insisted that the charge the U.S. paid a ransom to get back American hostages was purely circumstantial. […]

Among the innumerable flip-flops, course corrections and reinventions that have come to define Hillary Clinton’s three decades in public life, perhaps the most interesting one is her decision in 2016 to go all in as the woman-candidate. In 2008, Clinton downplayed her gender. Mark Penn, her chief strategist in that campaign, had a “FWP” (First […]

Dear Mainstream Media and Democrats: It’s your turn. Now that Donald Trump has been formally nominated, the formal responsibility to stop him passes from the right to the left, from Republicans to Democrats and the journalists who amplify their values. You’re going to find it a very tough slog. And it’s your own damn fault. […]

CLEVELAND — In normal times, the report this week that Donald Trump wanted John Kasich to be the real president would have made more of a splash. According to Kasich aides, the Trump campaign desperately wanted the Ohio governor to be his running mate. Kasich, out of concern for his eternal soul or his political […]

CLEVELAND — It was reported late in the second day of the GOP convention that a large number of Republican National Committee staffers were stricken with the norovirus. Most commonly associated with the sorts of gastrointestinal crises aboard cruise ships that attract wall-to-wall CNN coverage, the norovirus is known for inducing bouts of “explosive diarrhea […]

If you love Hillary Clinton just the way she is, you’re in luck. If you adore Donald Trump and don’t want to ever see him change, congrats. But if you’re a passionate liberal who is sour on Clinton and hoping that the “real Hillary” will break through, my advice to you is, “Start drinking heavily.” […]

It seems almost ghoulish to look for a silver lining in the dark cloud that blanketed the nation last week. But I think there was one. The killings by police in Minnesota and Louisiana, quickly followed by the killings of police in Dallas, knocked the lazy certainty out of almost everybody. At least for a […]

It was clear from FBI Director James Comey’s congressional testimony Thursday that he thinks Hillary Clinton lied to the American people, even if he was reluctant to say it in so many words. But then he didn’t need to. We’ve known for over a year that Clinton has been lying about her server. She lied […]

Load up on popcorn: The Republican ticket may be poised to go to 11. According to numerous reports, Donald Trump is considering Newt Gingrich as his running mate. And as traffic-baiters like to say on the Internet: You won’t believe what happens next! But first I should come clean. I like Gingrich. My wife worked […]

I have an idea. The federal government needs to compile a list of women who shouldn’t be allowed to get abortions. The criteria for getting on the list must be flexible. If an official at, say, the NIH or FBI think that a woman should be a mother for some reason or other, he or […]

Donald Trump should put his money where his mouth is. The real estate mogul says he’s worth “in excess” of $10 billion. I think he’s lying, as does pretty much every expert and financial journalist who has looked into the question. Forbes has put his net worth at $4.5 billion. Bloomberg says it’s below $3 […]

It’s anyone’s guess how things will go in Thursday’s referendum on British membership in the European Union, also known as “Brexit.” Right now the polls are essentially tied at around 47 percent for and 47 percent against (not that British polling has a particularly good track record). But win or lose, the fight over Brexit […]

What a dumb time to be alive. In a normal country during normal times, the jihadi terrorist shooting in Orlando in which 49 people were murdered in cold blood — and more than 50 injured — would be a cause for a serious debate about national security. Instead, it has been taken as an opportunity […]