This interview of Jonah Goldberg by Ben Domenech is instructive. Of the #NeverTrumpers among Conservative, Inc., the two discuss (at the 10:00 marker) how GOPE has for the most part begun to adjust to Trump’s agenda, except for the “the foreign policy community” who, Goldberg notes, are more stridently NeverTrump than ever before. As examples, Goldberg cites Max Boot, Elliott Abrams, Jennifer Rubin, and (later) David Frum. It’s rather funny how the word *** or Israel never pops up once.
Another instructive segment takes place at 23:00 to 25:07, where Goldberg makes a passing reference to the rhetorical question “why are Jews so liberal?” As an example, he cites a (presumably non-Jewish) conservative scholar who wrote a book proposing the end of NATO, and how this scholar was absolutely pummeled by the aforementioned “foreign policy community”. Goldberg speculates such wrath is reserved for that sort of conservative figure rather than Irving Kristol. It’s an interesting dancing-around-the-subject.
At the 37:00 marker, the two discuss ‘fascism’ and the usual liberal tropes about Trump. Goldberg, who is no fan of Trump, waxes at how America is founded on government’s justification being limited to minimal unity and “to protect spheres of individualism”. He rejects calls for a greater collective cause as the ‘cult of unity’. “That is Sparta!” he intones. At the 42:00 marker, Goldberg notes his discomfort with Trump’s ‘blood of patriots’ rhetoric, then makes passing reference to what he sees as the troubling Alt Right ‘blood and soil’ critique of immigrants.
Goldberg rejects identity politics for white people, as part of his (alleged) rejection of identity politics in general. “Identity politics IP taken to its logical conclusion, he warns “could spell the end of this country.”
To his credit, Domenech displays a much better grasp of the trajectory our country is on, arguing that the proliferation of identity politics is where we are inexorably heading, a rational reaction to the Prime Mover that is the wildly growing Identity Politics of the Left.
