Tag: Jonah Goldberg

Try burning a flag or a cross in front of the wrong audience and then tell me symbolism is nothing. If you study the history of nationalism, it is often a story of symbols. What books will we revere -- or burn? For Catholics, having a Catholic on the throne felt like a restoration of English identity. President Trump makes much of that look quaint, given that Bush and Obama at least made the effort to sound as if they were looking out for the interests of all Americans. Trump's wall is now an entirely symbolic affair. But none of that matters now because the symbolism is more important than the reality. Serious restrictionists readily concede that a wall would be far less useful than mandatory E-Verify and other such efforts to make hiring illegal immigrants more difficult. But both sides understand that the base cares more about the symbolism of the wall fight. We treat the presidency like it's a symbolic monarchy, but real monarchs have the power to make compromises for the common good.

Opinion Modal Trigger If there’s a single idea that has defined the politics of the last 70 years it is the notion of “the center.” What constituted the center of American politics has always been up for debate. Did the center mean mushy moderation? Or was the center whatever positions could win over enough people who called themselves “centrists” or “independents”? On countless other issues, from trade and foreign policy to immigration, Trump’s underlying positions are much less controversial than the way he talks about them or handles them. Most Americans don’t want immigration increased, and most Americans don’t like the way Trump talks about immigrants. Most Americans don’t want to see Confederate statues toppled, and I suspect that most Americans don’t like the way he talks about that issue either. Meanwhile, Democrats, in part as a reaction to Trump’s base-appeasing style, have become policy extremists. Thus, the political incentive for most politicians isn’t to cultivate the center to cobble together a majority coalition, but to gin up the base as much as possible. It didn’t work very well for the rest of his party. The GOP didn’t moderate under Obama either.

He fired off a tweet yesterday that said, quote, "we cannot allow all of these people to invade our country. The president's hard line on immigration plays well in certain conservative political circles, less well in others. JAMES LANKFORD: I would prefer the president would step out and say a lot of these are folks that are coming for economic reasons. MARTIN: Is immigration a good issue for Republicans this year? GOLDBERG: Well, look; there are people in the White House who are absolutely convinced that whenever the national conversation is on immigration it's good for Donald Trump and for the Republicans. GOLDBERG: ...That's a - just a very different message. And that's why the administration was so desperate to turn it into an MS-13, turn it into a gang violence sort of story because talking about these little kids who aren't MS-13 - they're not even MS-3, right (laughter)? MARTIN: Also, Republicans, though - some of these Republicans are in tough re-election districts... GOLDBERG: Yeah. MARTIN: Right. And this story, as it was playing out, was devastating for those congressmen.

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