George Will and Jonah Goldberg — The conservative sensibility | VIEWPOINT

George Will and AEI’s Jonah Goldberg discuss the broad changes affecting American politics and conservatism.

(14:00)

This is an outgrowth of the Flight 93 election syndrome which is that the end is nigh unless
people listen to people like us.
It’s a way of pumping up the grandeur and magnificence and importance of people who
say, “We stand at Armageddon, and things have never been worse, but they might get worse
tomorrow unless radical things are done.”
Jonah: Right, and people who disagree with you must shut up for we are at an existential
crisis.
George: Exactly, existential crisis, but the self-dramatizing, things aren’t that bad.
I mean, I’m not happy.
No one writes political philosophy if they’re content, right?
Because you’re irritated about something or anxious or afraid or something.
But I just think this hysteria is to be ignored.
Jonah: I quote you in one of my previous books.
There’s a story you tell about how when you first got your syndicated column, you called
George…William F. Buckley, “How the heck am I going to write two columns a week?”
What was his advice to you?
George: He said, “The world irritates me three times a week.”
He wrote three times a week.
He said, “The world irritates me.”
And it turns out it’s true, the world irritates or amuses or piques my curiosity 100 times
a year.
I’ve never had a day when I didn’t have three or four things I wanted to write about.