210 Quotes by Jonah Goldberg

Both Lincoln and King were appealing to the story – the best story – we tell about ourselves. That our story begins with Americans falling short of the ideals embedded in the Founding is not an indictment of the ideals; it is testament to the nobility of America’s story arc.

Unlike classical liberalism, which saw the government as a necessary evil, or simply a benign but voluntary social contract for free men to enter into willingly, the belief that the entire society was one organic whole left no room for those who didn’t want to behave, let alone “evolve.

This is why the Third Way is also authoritarian. It assumes that the right man – or, in the case of Leninists, the right party – can resolve all of these contradictions through sheer will. The populist demagogue takes on the role of the parent telling the childlike masses that he can make everything “all better” if they just trust him.