Jonah Goldberg's Above It All

National Review has been one of the leaders of the #NeverTrump movement and Jonah Goldberg is a senior editor.  That is a perfect place from which to position himself above the fray.  Goldberg and NR hate the Trumpian populism with a burning hatred that far exceeds their dislike of the Left. 

During the 2016 election they preferred Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump.  Their hate of Trump and what he represents transfers to anyone who is on the same side of the cultural spectrum as Trump.

 

Which bring us to Roy Moore, Republican candidate for Senate from Alabama.

In this article he casts big stones at Judge Roy Moore who has been hit with a flurry of just-before-the-election sexual accusations.    

Right-wingers tell me that Al Franken must resign for behavior far less offensive than what Roy Moore has been accused of.

See what he did there?  Equating an unproven accusation with a fact that has been memorialized with pictures.  

Where there's an opportunity to stop another Trumpian figure an accusation =  a fact.  

In this respect, Goldberg is vying for a SJW award; since SJWs tell us to always believe the women, unless the accusation is against a Democrat. 

Goldberg deplores hypocrisy, and in an ideal world hypocrisy is to not a virtue, although I am reminded  of the old saying that “hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.”   Hypocrisy is a human failing.  What I find even worse is that in so much of modern society virtue is no longer honored and vice is no longer condemned.   Where vice is normal, hypocrisy can't exist.

The problem with Jonah’s argument is not that it’s not abstractly worthwhile but it’s vacuous.   In years past, when NR was Bill Buckley’s magazine, Jonah wrote for the Conservative Republican audience.  Now that he’s a full fledged member of the #NeverTrumpers his writing is meant for a very small coterie and, except for some ankle-biting of Trump and his supporters, his writing has absolutely no effect on the culture.

It’s a form of onanism.  He’s writing for a fringe of a fringe.  That doesn’t make him a public intellectual; it makes him a jerk.  Someone who pretends to be something he’s not.  He’s not on the field where the game is being played; instead he’s wandering the sidelines jumping up and down hoping for attention.

Jonah's an entertaining writer, but opinion writers should be held to different standards than novelists.  The novelist only needs to entertain to be successful.  Opinion writers should have somewhat loftier goals.  Advancing their ideas, for one. 

Let’s check the scoreboard.

Didn’t National review call for the end of the Clinton Presidency during Whitewater and the Lewinski affair?  Yes.  And what happened?  Bill Clinton won two terms.  "We’ll just have to win" said perjurer/rapist/sleazebag Clinton.  And he did. 

Did National Review inveigh against the Obama presidency?  It most definitely did, and what happened?  He won two terms.  And, I might add, changed America … as he promised; not for the better but for the worse.  Not in the direction of National Review or the conservative direction, but in the direction of The Nation.  The country became the country of "Hands up don't shoot" and Black Lives Matter.  It honored Harvey Weinstein.   It became the country of Big Lies like the UVA Non-Rape and the Duke Lacrosse non-Rape Case.

But, but, but ....That’s not fair, cries NR and the #NeverTrumpers.  You can’t expect an opinion magazine and a few articles in the Wall Street Journal to effect an election.  It’s the rest of the press and the Democrats who are to blame. 

Can we be honest?  The people who were the intellectual Generals of the Right were as effective as the Washington Generals, the patsies for the Harlem Globetrotters.  The Washington Generals lost to the Harlem Globetrotters over 16,000 times.  They were there to make the Globetrotters look good.  And that's the role that Goldberg, and the others leaders of the "Respectable Right" were assigned.  And they played their role to perfection.

So here we are.  But in the meantime a strange, totally unexpected, intruder has entered Washington.  Despite unified opposition from Democrats, the Press (but I repeat myself) and the Establishment Right, we have a Republican President and he has a nominally Republican Congress.

And at this juncture, when the economy is picking up, the stock market is reaching all-time highs,  regulations are being repealed, energy production is booming, unemployment is at record lows, Jonah Goldberg calls us to commit political suicide.  To repeat the totally ineffective, ineffectual plays that were called before.  As the Democrats are circling the wagons around Al “Fish Lips” Franken, Goldberg demands that Republicans lose the Senate seat in Alabama.  Bill Buckley once said that the Constitution is not a suicide pact, but Jonah Goldberg doesn't believe it.  It’s said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. 

Jonah Goldberg's not insane.  He's comfortable.  The old Conservative objectives of limited government and rescuing America from decline is not his objective.  His eyes are closer to home.

He’s doing fine.  He’s got a job at NR, a syndicated column; he’s on Fox News from time to time as one of the designated “conservatives.”  He writes books, he’s happy, particularly content with the audience he’s got and the paycheck he receives.  Jonah Goldberg is a business, a persona, an actor  playing a role, just like many of the people who are doing well in the Swamp.  In reality he’s a guy with a pretty good career and he isn’t about to blow it.   That’s what pays the groceries and keeps a roof over his head.  He's not that much different from the sales rep who’s meeting his quota.  And he has just as much influence on the culture and the direction of American politics.

Which is interesting.  Because the current President – Donald Trump – is a gifted amateur.  And he’s doing a great job changing the culture, changing Washington, making America Great Again despite having to fight this particular fight virtually alone.  That’s why it’s time to roll right over the professionals – the Generals who have lost the last wars; every damn one of them.  It's time to go with a new team – and go with amateurs who will, at the least, fight.  Because the fight means something to someone who still cares.