'Principled Conservative' Facing Backlash for Mocking TPUSA After First Election Since Charlie Kirk's Brutal Murder
Of all the NeverTrumpers who fled to “principled conservative” outlets that carried water for the left in the years since The Donald took his ride down the escalator, Jonah Goldberg has usually been one of the more tolerable, thoughtful, and insightful ones. Usually.
In the wake of Tuesday’s blue wave, where Goldberg decided to mock Turning Point USA for failing to turn out the youth vote — just a year after its founder and chief organizer was murdered on stage for his political beliefs — The Dispatch founder offered dispositive proof that even the most principled “principled” conservative has contracted some offshoot of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Now, pretty much anyone who can read data can tell you that the youth vote not only didn’t come out for conservatives this cycle, but defected to the Democrats, and defected big.
The most moderate estimates showed a roughly 20-point swing in the under-30 vote, as exit polls from the Associated Press did.
A low voter propensity — only about 1 in 10 voters in the midterms were under 30 — mitigated the impact somewhat. Still, the Iran war and opposition to President Donald Trump drove a shift that was larger than in other demographics.
So, yeah, noting and addressing this fact is important for any conservative. But, in the ultimate example of it’s-not-what-you-say-but-how-you-say-it, here’s Goldberg on Wednesday, snarking out over Turning Point not getting out the youth vote like it generally does:
Thank God TPUSA mobilized the youth vote.
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) November 4, 2026
This went down as it should have:
@JonahDispatch Oh hey Jonah, I realize you think this is snarky and funny, but maybe you missed the part where they murdered the leader of TPUSA in the most horrific political assassination of our time, hampering the organization’s ability to pursue its mission.
— Megan Basham (@megbasham) November 5, 2026
DESPICABLE: @LarryOConnor RIPS Jonah Goldberg for ridiculing Turning Point USA’s youth turnout efforts a year after Charlie Kirk’s murder:
“We’re not arguing with you on the data, you prig.”
“That’s just despicable. And he’s supposedly on our side, whatever our side even means anymore.”
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) November 6, 2026
The same “principled conservatives” who will lecture you about “violating norms” will take a cheap shot at a good man who was recently assassinated by a deranged leftist. Disappointing, but not surprising.
— Christopher Rufo (@christopherrufo) November 6, 2026
This reads as “lol, it turns out TPUSA is a lot less effective when you assassinate its charismatic leader”
Which is certainly not what Jonah meant, but it is what the left celebrates every time they make fun of Kirk’s death.
— PoIiMath (@politicalmath) November 6, 2026
Jonah woke up and at 7:55am decided to roll out of bed and mock an organization whose leader was murdered one year ago. Basically Jennifer Welch with a beard at this point.
— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) November 6, 2026
Jonah Goldberg always hated Charlie and TPUSA. He didn’t gloat over his murder as some did, and I want to be clear on that, but he loathed that Charlie helped expose him as irrelevant, as intellectually smug and pretentious, and relegated to the fringes of CNN as a former thought leader of the right.
— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) November 6, 2026
In various responses after the post, Goldberg called this “horses***” and “a bulls*** reading” of his post.
“This has nothing to do with Charlie Kirk. It has to do with the TPUSA today. I didn’t mention Kirk, Have not spoke ill of him since he was murdered, and I think 14 months later, it’s perfectly legitimate to criticize TPUSA and the extended MAGA industrial complex,” Goldberg said in his response to Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute.
“I am sorry if people sincerely took this as an insult to Kirk or mockery of his heinous murder. But they are mistaken. I am not sorry for calling out the bulls*** opportunism and bad faith of people projecting false motives on me in order to have a comfortable talking point to distract from their abject political and ideological failures on display this week.”
Except that failure was traceable directly to… Kirk’s murder.
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There were plenty of “abject political and ideological failures on display this week,” but one of them wasn’t a structural issue at TPUSA in turning out the youth vote.
The issue was losing the man who was the face of the organization and of the young conservative movement. His “abject failure” was not being alive, and there being no replacement for a generational political icon.
That’s not an excuse, Jonah. That’s saying, “I am sorry if people didn’t take my plausible deniability as plausible.”
In his defense, I think this was stupid and thoughtless and callous and callow, not Goldberg becoming Hasan Piker in Bill Kristol’s clothing.
But Goldberg, at 57, cannot blame it on callowness, and he’s based his “principled conservatism” on the idea that Donald Trump and the “MAGA industrial complex” are stupid and thoughtless and callous, yet he chooses to dig himself deeper for the same instead of just, you know, apologizing and deleting.
It looks like the “principled conservatives” who went mad over Trump qua Trump — not over any of his policies or how they’ve been implemented, but simply the man himself — have stumbled upon the problem, if only they’d notice. It’s them.
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