Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Europeans claim to be building a new democratic culture but the governing elites of the European Union consider voters little more than members of reckless mobs. AVIGNON, France — The Rhone River Valley in southern France is a storybook marriage of high technology, traditional vineyards, and ancestral villages. High-speed trains […]
Europe’s Vanishing Calm Read More »
Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Obama defies the Constitution but sounds ‘presidential.’ Trump follows it but sounds like a loudmouth from Queens. Donald Trump blusters nonstop. He offers contrasting messages about whether, on any given day, he might fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. His
Elites Value Mellifluous Illegality over Crass Lawfulness Read More »
Victor Davis Hanson // The New Criterion Populism is today seen both as a pejorative and positive noun. In fact, in the present age, there are two sorts of populism. Both strains originated in classical times and persisted in the West until today. One in antiquity was known as the base populism. It involved the
Victor Davis Hanson // American Greatness Consider the following alternate reality. Imagine that it is now summer 2024. A 78-year-old lame-duck President Trump is winding down his second term, basking in positive polls. His dutiful vice president in waiting, Mike Pence, is at last getting his chance to run for president. Imagine also that Pence
The Scandal on the Other Foot Read More »
Victor Davis Hanson // National Review I share some of the sentiments of Jay Nordlinger’s Corner post expressing confidence that some day in the future there may be hope for California conservatism. That’s why I continue to live in the house that I grew up in, despite vast changes in the nature of the rural community I
California and Conservatism Read More »
Victor Davis Hanson // National Review The 75-year-old post-war order crafted by the United States after World War II is falling apart. Almost every major foreign-policy initiative of the last 16 years seems to have gone haywire. Donald Trump’s presidency was a reflection, not a catalyst, of the demise of the foreign-policy status quo. Much
The Post-War Order Is Over Read More »
Victor Davis Hanson // Hoover Institution Every 20 to 50 years in Germany, things start unraveling. Germans feel aggrieved. Ideas and movements gyrate wildly between far left and far right extremes. And the Germans finally find consensus in a sense of victimhood paradoxically expressed as national chauvinism. Germany’s neighbors in 1870, 1914, 1939—and increasingly in
The Great German Meltdown Read More »
Victor Davis Hanson // National Review America and our allies have several ways to deter the rogue nations. There has been a lot of misinformation about both getting out of the so-called Iran deal and getting into a new North Korean agreement. The two situations may be connected, but not in the way we are
U.S. Has Leverage in Dealings with Iran and North Korea Read More »
Victor Davis Hanson // National Review His voters knew what they were getting, and most support him still. Why exactly did nearly half the country vote for Donald Trump? Why also did the arguments of Never Trump Republicans and conservatives have marginal effect on voters? Despite vehement denunciations of the Trump candidacy from many pundits on
The Trump Rationale Read More »
Victor Davis Hanson // American Greatness One strange trait of the die hard NeverTrump Republicans and progressives is their charge that Donald Trump poses an existential threat to democracy. Trump, as is his wont, says a lot of outrageous and weird things. But it is hard in his 16 months of rule to find any proof that
How Democracies End: A Bureaucratic Whimper Read More »