By Jonah Goldberg
Saturday, April 11, 2015
Congratulations! You are reading a “news”letter written
by someone who was A1 in the boarding of a Southwest Airlines flight. That’s
right. I am secular royalty. The Elect. As I walked down the aisle to the
bathroom, a small child looked up from his Gameboy. His mother clutched him
close with her hand over his face, “Don’t look him in the eye!” she scolded in
a loud whisper.
I thought it was fairly magnanimous of me to even use the
lavatory given that I am entitled to use of the Southwest airlines pissboy. But
that’s just how I roll. I am a man of the people (though I did use the
pissboy’s shirt to dry my hands when I left the bathroom).
Anyway, like a list of good reasons to eat at Subway, I’m
going to have to keep this short.
Mullah Goldberg
But, not only am I flying like steak sauce (A1 baby!),
I’m also in lockstep agreement with the supreme cheese of Iran (as I am heading
to Wisconsin, I’m already using more dairy-related adjectives). Okay, I’m not
in perfect agreement with him about everything. We differ on the whole “Death
to America!” thing and the eschatological hootenanny about hastening the
apocalypse. Plus, I’ve heard rumors that he liked the ending of Lost, and on
this we will never see eye-to-eye. But on the issue of the Iran deal we’re pretty
much on the same page. On Tuesday I began my USA Today column (“A Must Read” —
Senator John McCain):
“The first thing one needs to know about the nuclear deal
with Iran is that it is not, in fact, a deal.”
And here’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: “Everything done so
far neither guarantees an agreement in principle, nor its contents, nor does it
guarantee that the negotiations will continue to the end.”
That’s the Wall Street Journal’s translation of his
remarks. But I suspect that if I busted out my Farsi skills, it would read:
“The infidel pig-monkey-Zionist Goldberg is right.”
I have to hand it to Obama, even by his own standards
he’s been impressively dishonest about all of this. Basically the “framework”
he announced was really a declaration that the talks had failed and he needed
yet another extension. Talk about turning sh*t into shinola.
There Will Be Blood
We are entering the very early stages of the
family-squabble phase of the Republican primaries. In metaphorical
popular-culture terms, it’s a heady mix of the Thanksgiving food-fight from
Cheers, Festivus from Seinfeld, the Red Wedding from Game of Thrones, and the
battle scene from Anchorman.
I’ve witnessed such bloodlettings four times from my
perch at National Review (2000, 2008, 2012, and now 2016). I don’t want to
exaggerate National Review’s stature on the right, or traffic in stale
political clichés from cable-TV shouting matches, but I feel a bit like a
member of the College of Cardinals during a succession crisis over the mantle
of Holy Roman Emperor during the Ottonian dynasty.
Already, I’m hearing from people who insist that
criticism of, or even a lack of enthusiasm for, Ted Cruz or Rand Paul or Ben
Carson is some kind of heresy driven by impure or devious motives. Opposition
to Cruz means you hate the Constitution. Skepticism about Paul is a sign you
want eternal war. And reluctance about Carson is wrong because YOU JUST DON’T
GET IT!
If this is your first rodeo and you’re shocked by the
nastiness of the conversation, all I can tell you is what I would tell the guy
who complained when his prison cellmate “Tiny” insisted on braiding his hair:
“This is the nice part; it’s going to get much, much, worse.”
I remember the days when our criticism of Newt Gingrich
(or allegedly insufficient enthusiasm for, variously, Gary Bauer, Fred
Thompson, Rick Perry, or Michelle Bachmann and many others) caused many friends
on the right to say really dumb things about National Review (though it’s
amusing how many people act as if I don’t remember what they said. That’s why I
will have to leave a nice note explaining why they’ve woken up with a
half-starved ferret sewn into their abdomens).
Don’t get me wrong, I cannot lie, I like big butts — if
by big butts you mean, knock-down, drag-out, primary fights. (If you actually
mean large derrières then, well, not really. I’m not all about that base, ’bout
that base.)
I think big intra-partisan debates are mostly a good
thing for the GOP and the conservative movement. But I really have little patience
for all of the mind-readers out there who can see straight past my explicit
arguments to my implicit motives. So I’ll just say it now: If I end up
disagreeing with you about your preferred candidate, it’s probably not because
I am a socialist, RINO, squish, sell-out, Georgetown-cocktail-sucking remora on
the underbelly of the leviathan state. Of course I still might be entirely
wrong — it’s happened many, many, many times — because sometime my brain no
good makes things together go. But even before I was A1 on this flight, I felt
that I earned the right to be called wrong for the right reasons, at least from
fellow conservatives.
Notes on a Nominee
So since we’re on the subject, what do I think of 2016
right now (other than the fact it is divisible by 1008 which, according to
Louis Farrakhan, means that it will be a good year to plant hemp for our alien
saviors because vests have no sleeves on account of the Jews)?
As I’ve written a lot over the last couple years, I think
the GOP has a persuasion problem. There are lots of reasons for it. Among them:
• George W. Bush was an honorable man, but a lackluster
speaker and intellectual salesman. He testified about what he believed more
than he argued or explained. It’s been a very long time since we had a president
who could articulate a conservative worldview in the way Barack Obama and Bill
Clinton could articulate theirs.
• The Republican party and conservative movement reward
people who can most effectively tell audiences what the audiences already believe
and want to hear. This can lead to contests over purity rather than ones over
effectiveness or persuasiveness.
This dynamic has elements that are unique to the right,
but it also aligns with larger cultural and technological changes that allow
people to choose what they want to hear from the media à la carte.
• Non-sequiturs are really underrated.
I never liked the way many of George W. Bush’s defenders
insisted that his malapropisms were an asset because he “talked American.” It’s
all well and good to note that the coastal media is full of snobs. But that
fact doesn’t mean that Republicans shouldn’t try to be good communicators, it
means that they have to be better communicators than their opponents to cut
through the built-in advantages Democrats have. This was the secret to Ronald
Reagan’s success and William F. Buckley’s, too. (If the media had its way,
George Wallace, not WFB, would have been the official spokesman of conservatism
in America.).
Who Do I Like?
I haven’t picked a favorite in the field yet, and I
really don’t plan to for quite a while, if ever. But I will say that my bias is
towards those who can effectively and persuasively articulate the conservative
position and/or have an established record of actual policy accomplishment. The
first criterion disproportionately benefits the senators, the second the
governors.
We’ve probably never had a better field when it comes to
articulating conservative arguments. Nearly everyone is a better talker than
John McCain or Mitt Romney when it comes to articulating conservative
principles. And they are leaps and bounds better than Hillary “there’s no
eating in the library” Clinton.
But glibness alone isn’t what’s required. Persuasiveness
matters. Ted Cruz is one of the most impressive talkers in American politics,
but can he persuade people who don’t already agree with him? That remains to be
seen. Rand Paul and Ben Carson are great at saying what they planned on saying,
but they have more trouble answering questions they didn’t want to be asked.
I’ve yet to see Rubio, Cruz, Jindal (or Fiorina) thrown by a question. I can’t
say the same about Scott Walker, who I still have very high hopes for. While I
think he isn’t in the same league as Cruz, Rubio, Jindal, Christie, or (sorry
folks) Bush in being able to discuss and debate national policy issues, Walker
has the advantage of having accomplished things that none of the others can
hold a candle to (with the possible exceptions of Jindal and, again sorry, Bush).
Cruz can talk a lot about how hard he fought, but he can’t point to a lot he’s
accomplished as senator.
Anyway, I’d happily vote for any of them over Hillary,
which is a pretty low bar since I’d vote for the Southwest Airlines pissboy
over Hillary as well.
Keep it in the Tent
If I’m right — and it is an irrefutable fact that I am
right nearly every time I’m not wrong — then the primary will at times resemble
a junk-punching contest in the land of Kilts and Iron Gloves.
There’s nothing I can do about that. But I would
encourage people to avoid the anathematizing urge. I think the recent ad blitz
against Rand Paul was a mistake. I disagree profoundly with Paul about some
foreign-policy issues, but I don’t feel the need to freak out about it. It
strikes me that Paul’s heart is in the right place and there’s no need to
excommunicate him or his followers. (I am far less generous about his father.)
Let him make his arguments. Oh, and if you’re nodding at that, the same goes
for Bush, Christie, and Huckabee. There’s no treason or heresy here in
supporting any of them. I know that sentiment puts me crosswise with
defenestration brigades, but so be it.
I mean, it’s not like Jon Huntsman is running.
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