Whenever I’m having trouble finding something to write about, I have a simple solution. I go to the commie websites and find the TDS fueled raving of some lunatic to ridicule. Robert Reich is usually a good source of material. You can almost visualize him flinging spit on his keyboard every time he types “Trump.” Paul Krugman has singlehandedly done more to undermine the credibility of the people issuing Nobel participation trophies than even Yassar Arafat. But today I want to turn my attention to Jonah Goldberg.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I used to be a big fan of Goldberg’s – going to the National Review Online daily to see if he’d posted anything. But like several others at NRO, he caught that nasty virus that eats away at one’s cognitive abilities until their vocabulary is reduced to the words fascist, tyrant, and Nazi – Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Jonah Goldberg has an article in The Dispatch entitled “Pretext Upon Pretext.” He starts the article by explaining that a pretext is a lie used to justify an action:
When Russian President Vladimir Putin says Ukraine has been taken over by Nazis, that’s a pretext for his unlawful invasion. If former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz were to tell a woman she has a spider on her blouse and then gropes her to get rid of it, the arachnid warning would be a pretext.
I think Joe Biden would have been a better example than Matt Gaetz. Jonah could have used something like: Joe Biden could have told Tara Reade that he suspected a yeast infection as a pretext for her pelvic exam. But Jonah didn’t use that because … TDS.
Jonah then tossed in this little nugget for good measure:
I’m sorry if I sound condescending in spelling this out. I’m sure most of you know what the word means. I’m just not sure very many people know pretext when they see it—particularly when they don’t want to see it.
Let me translate: I need to be condescending because you MAGA imbeciles are being willfully blind.
Jonah then gets to the meat of his argument that pretext (i.e. deception) is a basis for everything President Trump does.
On the issue of immigration Goldberg asserts:
He (Trump) invokes the Alien Enemies Act, which grants certain powers to the president during a war or invasion, when we’re not at war and not being invaded. … serious people can agree that for every Iranian or Chinese spy in the U.S. who came in illegally, there are, I dunno, a half million illegal immigrants who came here in search of landscaping jobs and the like.
Um, no. Goldberg’s statement is based on the pretext that the only bad immigrants are spies. Actual “serious people” can agree that international actors who wish America harm are flooding it with unvetted criminals and Marxists like human autonomous drones. Further, the numbers who represent a threat to our security are much higher than one in a half million. If Goldberg doesn’t think what has been happening at the border constitutes an invasion, then he must think D-Day was a beach party for guys who didn’t dress appropriately.
As if to close the debate, Goldberg tosses in:
More to the point, Congress didn’t declare this an invasion or war.
His pretext being that unless Congress declares it, it isn’t.
Of course, that’s a pretextual argument – not a true statement at all. A war is a war when either side starts it. When the USS Cole was attacked, it wasn’t a nautical accident – it was an act of war. When over 3,000 people were murdered on 9/11, it wasn’t because “some people did something” – it was an act of war. Radical Islamists have been waging war on the United States since the Iranian hostage crisis. Congress’s failure to declare it a war hasn’t reduced the carnage, nor relieved the President of his duty to protect America from it.
On the topic of tariffs, Goldberg writes:
On trade, it’s the same thing. He invokes emergency powers to impose taxes on the American people when the “emergency” he has in mind is that the American economy isn’t structured the way he wants. That’s not an emergency. That’s the modern economy, which he fundamentally doesn’t understand.
Jonah’s pretext is that Trump is acting out of malice, because … Orange Man Bad.
Perhaps Jonah hasn’t noticed that our national debt is approaching $37T, and is growing at between 2 and 3 trillion dollars per year. If he doesn’t realize that’s a crisis, then he’s the one who doesn’t understand our “modern economy.” To fix that crisis, Trump could slash spending – but the courts have enjoined that. Congress could raise the taxes of the average family by around $3,000 PER MONTH. Or alternatively, we could start keeping more of our wealth here, by rebalancing global trade. Faced with rapid collapse via unrestrained borrowing, slow collapse via unrestrained taxation, or recovery by putting America first, Trump chose to put America first by incentivizing other countries to come to the negotiating table … and it’s working.
Goldberg is also really unhappy about pulling funding from Harvard. He writes:
And now Trump is pulling grants for cancer research from Harvard under the pretext of what? Fighting antisemitism? Come on.
Um, fighting antisemitism isn’t a “pretext” if that’s what Trump is actually doing. How does a self-professed Jew fail to see that antisemitism has reached a crisis level, and our major universities are the incubators of that hatred.
But did you notice that Jonah slipped his own “pretext” into his argument? He’s claiming that Trump is using a pretext of antisemitism to defund Harvard, while he is using a pretext that defunding Harvard will prevent a cure for cancer. The former statement is his bias, while the latter is gaslighting intended to provoke anger.
Goldberg continues his tirade against everything Orange Man Bad:
- Trump is attacking law firms because they didn’t represent him, not because they engaged in undermining the rule of law.
- RFK is attacking the fine people at the department of Health and Human Services with studies based on fiction, as opposed to Fauci’s sound science.
- Trump is using fentanyl as an excuse for tariffs on Canada because he’s got something against lumber and maple syrup.
Jonah wraps up his piece with his own “pretext” based argument:
But you know who Trump’s obviously pretextual arguments work on? The people who simply want Trump to have as much power to do whatever he wants. They want Trump to have monarchical power.
His pretext being: MAGA is a fascist movement determined to undermine our self-government and all of Trump’s motives are evil.
Clearly Goldberg thinks President Trump is an ignorant tyrant doing stuff with no basis in logic, to acquire power rather than advance America. If President Trump’s actions aren’t beneficial to America, I’d like the learned Mr. Goldberg to explain:
- Why is inflation lower than … since the last time Trump was President?
- Why is the economy growing faster than … since the last time Trump was President?
- Why is the rate of illegal border crossings lower than … since the last time Trump was President?
- Why are more nations interested in fair trade deals with the United States than … since the last time Trump was President.
- Why are more hostages being released now than … since the last time Trump was President.
- Why is more waste of taxpayer dollars is being uncovered now than … since the last time Trump was President.
- Why for the first time in three decades, does a majority of Americans think the United States in on the right track … under President Donald J. Trump.
None of that really fits with the whole “we’re sliding into tyranny” pretext, does it? I’ve got a piece of advice for Mr. Goldberg: When the “pretext” of your article doesn’t comport with reality, check your premises.
Author Bio: John Green is a retired engineer and political refugee from Minnesota, now residing in Idaho. He spent his career designing complex defense systems, developing high performance organizations, and doing corporate strategic planning. He is a contributor to American Thinker, The American Spectator, and the American Free News Network. He can be reached at greenjeg@gmail.com.
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