The lifting of Title 42—which allowed the government to use the COVID pandemic to expel migrants for public health purposes—has not resulted in “chaos” at the border, according to most press accounts. Intended or not, this is a great example of managing expectations. Because President Joe Biden predicted things would be “chaotic for a while” after Title 42 expired, “chaos” at the border suddenly became the political metric to watch for, as if a monumental crisis absent chaos is no big deal.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Dispatch, based in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, enormous lizards roamed the Earth. More immediately prior to that, Jonah spent two decades at National Review, where he was a senior editor, among other things. He is also a bestselling author, longtime columnist for the Los Angeles Times, commentator for CNN, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. When he is not writing the G-File or hosting The Remnant podcast, he finds real joy in family time, attending to his dogs and cat, and blaming Steve Hayes for various things.
