Jonah Goldberg, political commentator, author and news contributor, spoke to members of the Hofstra and Long Island community on Wednesday, Oct. 17, as part of the Hofstra Votes campaign. Goldberg’s standing as a political conservative among the majority of left-leaning speakers brought to the University provided a more diverse perspective to the campaign.
Political science professor Richard Himelfarb wanted Goldberg on the roster for Hofstra Votes for this reason. “The whole idea of the Hofstra Votes speaker series is you’re going to present students and faculty with different perspectives that are going to inform their decisions when they go to the ballot box, and part of that means inviting people who have different ideas,” Himelfarb said.
“He was really confident in his opinions, and I saw that through his body language,” said Darian Kukral, a freshman journalism major who shares Goldberg’s political leanings.
Goldberg did not shy away from his beliefs as he discussed his most recent book, “Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy.” Goldberg argued that Americans have been rapidly losing gratitude for the “miracle” of liberal democratic capitalism, which he says sparked massive human development and innovation approximately 300 years ago.
Goldberg explained the current political turmoil as a reversion to a more basic time of human activity when people were just “semi-hairless apes foraging and fighting for food.” According to Goldberg, as people lose appreciation for America, they become more divided, returning to the tribe mentality of the past. “The second the thin veneer of civilization disappears, we revert back to our programming,” Goldberg said.
Despite Goldberg’s conservative views, he does not support President Trump.
This position was welcomed by students in attendance. “I thought it was actually really interesting,” said Danielle Barbarito, a sophomore majoring in accounting. “Usually whenever a conservative comes in, they’re always pro-Trump … he had mixed views about certain things, and he wasn’t always on the right. He leaned back and forth between both.”
In regard to Goldberg’s conservatism in the liberal-dominated Hofstra Votes campaign, Gina Ferrara, a sophomore accounting major, felt he brought a new type of diversity to the campus. “At Hofstra, we encourage diversity, and a lot of it is not political diversity; and I think that this is definitely opening the door to more opportunities.”
Goldberg touched on political diversity when talking about the media, suggesting that stations like MSNBC and Fox News tell their viewers exactly what they want to hear.
Media stations have become notably partisan in recent years, a trend mirrored in the American public. “We live in one of the most partisan moments in American history, and yet the parties have never been weaker,” Goldberg said.
Goldberg presented an uncommon solution for the feelings of misrepresentation and despair among the partisan American public, saying, “We’ve got to stop looking at Washington to solve our problems. The government can increase your net worth, but it cannot increase your self-worth.”
Instead, Goldberg recommended that people “send power down to the most local level possible.” He argued that the general population will find power in their local governments, not Washington.
“We too often tell people that the measure of their civic engagement begins and ends with whether or not they vote,” Goldberg said, regarding young voters. “I think voting should be the end product of taking politics in your country seriously … voting is a more valuable sign of protest than waving a flag around.”
