Liberal Apartheid

The elite mostly lead a reactionary existence of talking one way and living another.

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

One of the strangest things about the modern progression in liberal thought is its increasing comfort with elitism and high style. Over the last 30 years, the enjoyment of refined tastes, both material and psychological, has become a hallmark of liberalism — hand in glove with the art of professional altruism, so necessary to the guilt-free enjoyment of the good life. Take most any contemporary issue, and the theme of elite progressivism predominates. Continue reading “Liberal Apartheid”

Illegal Immigration: Elite Illiberality

The elite charm of comprehensive immigration reform.

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

The divide over immigration reform is not primarily a Left/Right or Democratic/Republican divide; instead, it cuts, and sharply so, across class lines. Continue reading “Illegal Immigration: Elite Illiberality”

The Moral Low Road in the Immigration Debate

by Victor Davis Hanson

NRO’s The Corner

Now elites are wistfully recalling the Bracero Program as a sort of model for the new “guest worker” provisions. Continue reading “The Moral Low Road in the Immigration Debate”

Krugman’s California Dreaming

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

It is rare, even in the case of Paul Krugman, to read a column in which almost everything that is stated is either wrong or deliberately misleading. But his recent take on California’s renaissance is pure fantasy. Continue reading “Krugman’s California Dreaming”

Obama’s Non-Triangulation

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

After the election, dozens of op-eds — I wrote one myself — cautioned the president about second-term overreach, focusing on how either hubris or simple fate has seemed to do in most modern second presidential terms. Continue reading “Obama’s Non-Triangulation”

The Face of Things to Come

by Victor Davis Hanson

NRO’s The Corner

Campaign Rhetoric

The campaign contour is pretty clear: The Obama reelection team will not make the case for the advantages and popularity of Obamacare, for the Chuian advantages of $4-a-gallon gas, for the dynamism of a 1.7 percent GDP growth rate, for the stimulatory effects of adding $5 trillion in new debt, or for why 8 percent unemployment does not qualify under the old rubric of a “jobless recovery.” Continue reading “The Face of Things to Come”

The New Age of Falsity

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

We live in an age of falsity, in which words have lost their meanings and concepts are reinvented as the situation demands. The United States is in a jobless recovery — even if that phrase largely disappeared from the American lexicon about 2004. Good news somehow must follow from a rising unemployment rate, which itself underrepresents the actual percentage of Americans long out of work. Continue reading “The New Age of Falsity”

A Presidency Squandered

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

The Obama narrative is that he inherited the worst mess in memory and has been stymied ever since by a partisan Congress — while everything from new ATM technology to the Japanese tsunami conspired against him. But how true are those claims? Continue reading “A Presidency Squandered”

The Fantasy House

by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

It All Failed?

By Fantasy House I do not mean — or rather only mean — Barack Obama’s La-La land in which Austrians speak Austrian, Hawaii is in Asia, Afghans speak Arabic, the Maldives lie off Argentina, there are seven additional states, servicemen are zombie corpse-men, and Kansas twisters kill 10,000 at a time. Continue reading “The Fantasy House”

Let Bush Be

by Victor Davis Hanson

Tribune Media Services

The theme of the president’s 2012 re-election campaign is that George W. Bush left such a terrible mess that Barack Obama could hardly be expected to clean it up in four years. Continue reading “Let Bush Be”