It's been years since Jonah Goldberg's name on a piece of writing could be taken as a mark of quality, but this is still deeply stupid analysis even for him. Let's make a thread about it.
"there was nothing new — and nothing that made news" -- First, what does newness have to do with the truth or falsity of his words?
Second, "nothing new" is funny coming from a guy who repackages the same rants about Trump and the Right every few weeks & calls it a G-File.
Second, "nothing new" is funny coming from a guy who repackages the same rants about Trump and the Right every few weeks & calls it a G-File.
"There was nothing that will move actual votes in Congress" -- this assumes any Democrats are good-faith actors that were open to being persuaded by anything Trump could have said. Even Goldberg can't possibly believe that...can he?
"it wasn’t well-delivered, moving, or otherwise compelling as a matter of writing or rhetoric" -- sniffling about delivery or writing technique is really grasping at straws, & that Jonah wasn't moved says more about him than about Trump.
"He wants to talk about super-scary terrorism, not humanitarian crises. He wants to make it a crisis that warrants him assuming military powers. This address got him no closer to that" -- It was bad because it didn't fit the objectives *you assumed* Trump had? Seriously?
"how can he plausibly invoke a national-security crisis a week from now, if he didn’t make that case from the Oval Office?" -- First, this assumes that's what Trump will do/wants to do. Second, you're the one asserting any crisis has to be national-security related.
Third, it should be pretty obvious that such an invocation would be *stronger* coming after the American people saw him make his case directly to them and one last negotiation attempt fall on deaf Democrat ears. He could say "this really is our last recourse."
"Last, he failed to make the case for why right now is different. He has run the GOP-controlled government for two years. And yet he waited for this moment" -- this is the ONLY thing Goldberg has that even begins to resemble a point, and it still comes up short.
Yes he should've acted sooner (but Jonah's heroes McConnell & Ryan also deserve part of that blame). But past negligence isn't a reason not to get one's act together. Nothing needs to be different for the speech to be true, or for holding the line now to be warranted.
Trump spent two years offering little more than hot air on the issue, but now that the Right finally pressured him to act -- y'know, what NeverTrumpers SAID WE NEEDED TO DO IF TRUMP WON -- Jonah turns around, plays dumb about why, & conjures excuses to snipe about it.
Final takeaway: this insipid, bad-faith dreck is the latest in a long line of reminders that Buckley's NR is well and truly gone.
