Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
The present-day Left bears little resemblance to the old civil-libertarian, integrationist Democratic Party that existed from the 1960s through 2000.
The antecedents to its current madness were once previewed in the old party’s extremist wing of campus radicals of the 1960s and 1970s. They were accentuated by Black Lives Matter and Antifa during the Obama years, forged during the COVID lockdown and George Floyd riots, and polished during the era of Trump derangement syndrome.
On almost every issue, Democrats have repudiated their prior reverence for the Supreme Court.
They distrust individual liberty and free expression.
They now worship the money and clout of corporate America.
Racial ecumenicalism and integration are seen as passé.
There is little need for borders to protect vulnerable American workers, given the advantages of inviting in millions of poor illegal immigrants without audits.
Democrats have transmogrified into a Soviet-style socialist binary of rich and poor, run by an elite nomenklatura that dictates its orders to its foot soldiers of the underclass. An entire new left-wing vocabulary—clingers, deplorables, irredeemables, dregs, chumps, ultra-MAGA, semi-fascists—has come to express their hatred of the middle class.
On the Supreme Court
The Left has adopted Franklin Roosevelt’s once infamous (but now sanctified) 1937 approach to destroying the autonomy of the Supreme Court by threatening to pack it.
Note how any means necessary are justified in their attacks. Swarm the conservative justices’ private homes to leverage future opinions, with the assurance that an ethically bankrupt Justice Department will never enforce existing laws prohibiting such intimidation of the justices.
Have the Democrat Senate minority leader scream threats to justices by name at the very doors of the court and at the head of a mob—promising to individual justices a whirlwind to reap and unrecognizable forces that will soon hit them.
Wage ad hominem attacks on traditional justices in the media. Allege they are corrupt, on the theory that they are limited in their means of defense and any rebuttal will lack the wherewithal of the original unfounded smears.
Talk nonstop about changing the number of the court justices in order to intimidate conservative justices to move leftward. Move left or be packed!
Argue for nullifying Supreme Court decisions if they lack legal sanction, given the conservative majority of the Court.
Drive down the Court’s approval ratings in polls by nonstop screams that the justices cruelly hurt left-wing constituencies.
Claim that the presidency and the Senate, both in leftist hands, are the true voices of the people, rather than ossified edicts of heartless conservative justices.
Note the current attack has no principle other than neutering a conservative-leaning court until it can be rebooted left-wing, after which it will return to its former sacrosanct status.
Individual Liberty and Free Speech
In our Animal Farm left-wing world, free speech is “hate speech” and “individual liberty” is selfish privilege.
The ACLU transmogrified into an activist group targeting conservative expression deemed “hateful.”
Universities’ “hate speech” codes and “free speech” zones are Orwellian. They are subtexts for ensuring that any prominent conservative speaker should expect to be shouted down, threatened, slandered, and run off campus—sometimes violently—for infringing on the “safety” of the marginalized and vulnerable.
Social media, Google searches, and internet access are warped by corporate efforts to alter the flow of information. Once dangerous censorship has become a noble effort to silence “misinformation” and more dangerous “disinformation”—as adjudicated by ignorant 20-somethings at computer screens in Silicon Valley and obsequious 30-somethings in government cartels.
Corporate Grandees
Corporate America and its financial power are now left-wing approved.
CEOs now, in politically correct or woke ways, put their gains (once deemed ill-gotten) to the service of the people. Disney, Target, Anheuser-Busch, the airlines, and sports franchises all “get it.”
The Left has co-opted corporate America. So it says to them, “Use your money and clout to fast track our woke agenda, and in return, we will reinvent you, erasing from memory our past slurs of “bloodsucking leeches” and “running-dog capitalists,” and welcoming you into the pantheon of community-minded guardians of our culture. And you will make untold money from our globalized endorsement as never before.”
By absorbing the MBA programs at the major universities, the Left ensures that the new corporate credentialed elite has never gotten its hands grubby or stained in the lower echelons of business, or worked its way up the long, grimy corporate ladder. Instead, unpolluted the new execs transition from their MBA courses in diversity, equity, and inclusion, and in environmental, social, and governance to the activist corporate boardroom.
Remember, only mega-wealth is good. It is a revolutionary force that can bury wannabe capitalists, whose parochial right-wing millions stand no chance against enlightened left-wing globalized billions. Just ask George Soros, Bill Gates, Mike Bloomberg, and Mark Zuckerberg.
From Class to Race and Sex
Class no longer matters to the new Left, except as a force multiplier lever if the supposedly marginalized are the nonwhite or nonbinary.
Otherwise, the poor of East Palestine, Ohio or the recruits who join the military from upstate New York or rural Texas are to be written off as the most dangerous demographic in America, full of white “rage,” “supremacy,” and “privilege.”
Segregation and separatism are noble ideas that perpetuate proper racial distinctions on the necessary pathway to massive transfers of reparatory wealth. Tribalism is a good word now. Superficial appearance alone can be reliable proof of exploitation.
“Crime” is a social construct, fabricated by wealthy white men whose manipulation of the economy is reflected in the laws they make to oppress and further victimize.
Segregated dorms, graduations, and safe spaces are necessary to fight integrationists and assimilationists who would culturally appropriate or rob the identities of the Other. There is a good racism necessary to fight bad racism, once experts like Ibram X. Kendi can instruct us which is which. Racism is “systemic” like air, but only trained DEI czars can detect it everywhere.
Poverty is now to be redefined. White poverty is the deserved fate of the stupid who never caught on to globalization and mindlessly try to convince us that ossified farming, the drudgery of mining, icky construction, the stink of fracking, or the monotony of assembly work remain vital industries.
Nonwhite poverty is the fault of the exploitative middle class, which lacks the romance of the distant poor and power and good taste of the rich corporate elite.
The Left’s once disliked intelligence and investigatory agencies, the despised Department of Justice, and the loathed Pentagon hierarchy are now deified on the principle that 1) by fiat, they can implement overdue cultural changes by bypassing the messing right-wing roadblocks of an archaic legislature, and 2) their extralegal powers can ferret out counterrevolutionaries and destroy them in a way impossible by others bound by a calcified and counterrevolutionary Constitution.
The value of these weaponized bureaucracies is endless. FBI directors can lie if the cause is deemed good, and with impunity under oath. Compliant FISA courts that are willingly deluded by false writs can help to spy on right-wingers.
Noble ex-CIA directors can round up “authorities” to issue false manifestos to influence elections. Enlightened attorney generals can overlook corruption and money laundering like that of the Biden family to emasculate any looming political rival.
Whistleblowers are neutral characters: deified when useful to the Left, to be despised as quislings when they disclose left-wing crimes.
The Border
The southern border is a mere construct created by fascists to exclude the Other.
Its removal fast tracks a new demography, dependent on leftist largess and eager to reciprocate with loyalty at the polls.
The triumphalism of the slogans touting a “New Democratic Majority” and “Demography is Destiny” sanctifies the reality that citizenship is defunct and mere residency has replaced it with all its former rights, but none of its erstwhile responsibilities.
Any who object to the cynicism inherent in the new demographic realities are racist adherents to the Great Replacement Theory, who are not wrong in deciphering leftist agendas, but to be damned as enemies of the people for exposing them.
How and Why?
Finally, how did the Left reinvent itself as a revolutionary Jacobin party and so easily stage its revolution?
First, it claimed that there is no Republican Party when in fact there has never been a more viable one that is racially inclusive and representative of the beleaguered middle class. Instead it is to be smeared as “ultra-MAGA” and “semi-fascist” and supposedly as “unrecognizable” as the new Left is demonstrably recognizable as militant socialist.
Second, the Left destroys people.
Cancel culture, doxxing, deplatforming, and shadow banning are all synonyms for left-wing character destruction, an updated electronic form of Trostkyization and Lavrentiy Beria-style “show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” persecutions.
Anyone who strays—a Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Matt Taibbi, or an Elon Musk—will be targeted by the woke bureaucracies, libeled in the media, and ostracized by the popular culture.
The message is one of deterrence: stay properly left and you are accorded the James Comey/Andrew McCabe/James Clapper/John Brennan/Anthony Fauci/Hunter Biden/2020 rioters exemptions from legal accountability for lying under oath, rank profiteering, or abject violent rioting.
Swerve improperly rightward, and you will be vaporized by the long arm of the politicized law.
A final note. The Left’s only problem is that it has bequeathed a new legacy that has the potential to boomerang should it ever lose power.
So what has the Left conferred on America?
Impeachment once, twice, and more still is a good thing. Better still, it is to try a president even as a private citizen.
Special counsels are wonderful—all the more so if they have nearly two years and $40 million to hire a dream team of partisan lawyers.
A good attorney general is a president’s “wingman” who uses the law to go after enemies and exempt friends and families from the law, while using indictments to pave the way for reelection.
Lawfare is a legitimate tool of the president, especially when targeting a rival threat to his reelection.
High office is a path to riches. Selling your name for tens of millions of dollars is not only legitimate, but a necessary perk of the vice presidency and presidency.
The FBI, the Pentagon, the CIA, the Justice Department, and the IRS are underused assets. With the right mindset and willpower, all are vital tools in neutering your political enemies.
The media is utterly corrupt. What it covers and what it omits are entirely political decisions and thus can be warped accordingly by government rewards and punishments.
What the Left now fears most is the revolutionary model it has bequeathed to America—and what might happen if its monstrous creation falls into politically incorrect hands.
What’s so fascinating about much of this is the doublethink when you point it out. I’ve never really been secretive about my views (being conservative)and even took pride that liberals at work seemed to be fine with talking about controversial topics with me. but that isn’t really a thing anymore. the refuse to engage about anything covid related or about the ubiquitous corruption we are seeing. Trump derangement syndrome is a hell of a drug. What I see more now with them is a sense of fatalism. They are in the seat of culture, hold most power in the government, yet still act like their views aren’t really represented. They see we are on some sort of collision course and won’t even consider the insanity of their positions. As for being afraid of the monster they created I’m ambivalent. I would hope righteous leadership would be above using the dirty tactics they have used on us, but the rage is palpable. As always, I appreciate your thoughts and insight. -God bless.
Excellent points, as usual. Thank you, Victor.
VDH, the root cause of Wokism is philosophy. Our grievance studies departments were introduced to existentialism (existence precedes essence, one determines their essence through the choices that they make). The thought experiment blew their minds and they couldn’t let it go of it. They brought it into the sociology departments, where they declared that, society precedes essence. Now it followed that the elites determine one’s identity. The individual becomes a subject of the elites. Knowledge becomes a form of propaganda, controlled from the top. Postmodernism went from being a dumb thought experiment, brewed up in French philosophy department, to a fascist ideology that takes control of our schools. (Critical Theory gave them the mechanism to mainline it.) The elites liked this new philosophy because it empowers them, without doing all the hard work of teaching. Sadly, they were too willing to give up Western civilization in the process. Cynical Theories summarized it well.
Democracy + Christianity + Capitalism led to the West. (The goal is to empower the individual.)
Your helpful analysis uncovers the rationale and mechanisms that Wokeism uses to take control of society. It seems that your conclusion is that its purpose is to control the individual and its means is to replace the essential elements of Western civilization. If Wokeism is to lead to a totalitarian government, will a dictator emerge?
High office is a path to riches. Selling your name for tens of millions of dollars is not only legitimate, but a necessary perk of the vice presidency and presidency – AND SEC OF STATE.
Brimming over with good information relative to what has happened to our country right before our eyes. I still have to ask who is at the helm of all the disorganization and hate that has befallen America? The “Deep State” must be alive and well but who is in charge of our downward spiral? All this “stuff” doesn’t happen by itself. Could this be the real Russian interference of which Trump was accused?
The left appears often to act as a single entity across the nation or at least is highly organized.
Which might lead one to ask about the actual goal and psychology of George Soros and his methodology for selecting orgs he financially supports that diminish or alter America’s Founder values.
What happened to the ‘Left”? It became a religious cult. Cults are not democracies in any way, shape, or form and are held together more by charismatic leadership.. Where once the rationale for membership was a clear statement of goals and ethical actions, once the charismatic character of the leaders replaces that rationale the goals become blurred into wide ranging assertions. One of the strongest criticisms of John Rawls work, “Justice” is that justice is what John Rawls says it is. But how can anyone dispute the idea of ‘Justice’ being a worthy goal. Add to that the growth of the cult to large scale organization with the ascendant rise of authoritarianism as its main reason for existence and we can see what is left of a once grand idea, fascism and totalitarianism. You can blame Eisenhower for his failure to challenge the New Deal and instead embark on increasing the size of government. I suppose now that we shall no longer like Ike.
A perfect accounting of Americanized marxism, that the democrat party has crafted, in order to destroy precisely what makes our constitutional republic, representative of, by and for the people.
We are now in a new Civil War, not between states, but rather between the Neo-Marxist left and the rest of society. We have two hopes: (1) the Neo-Marxists will be overwhelmed by a civil society that adheres to the Constitution and civil discourse, and (2) the Civil War will not become hot.
Victor,
Join the Legal Strategic Offense I’ve been pushing since the 3rd week in August of 1975 when I started my first boycott against Levi Strauss & Company.
At least go read it, and see how it tries to do strategically something nobody hopes to accomplish at all outside of voting every 2 years. You’ll learn how we have to wage Legal and Peaceful conflict to maybe save our Republic. Something nobody but me even articulates and conceives of!!!!!
https://79million.net/petition.aspx?id=42
I have quoted this before, but as time goes on it seems more and more appropriate to the mindset of the American politician; certainly for Dems; also, to a lesser degree, for Republicans……………..”He was a clever, but stupid man.” Lev Tolstoy, describing the land steward for Pierre, a character in War and Peace.
Rigging elections to empower the far left includes its failure in 2016, its probable stolen victory in 2020, and was perfected in 2022 to avoid the “disaster” of losing the senate. Now that rigging has been perfected, what might be the ruse used to rig the 2024 election. I fear the worst–a permanent Stasi one party state. I hope I am wrong. Thanks, VDH. Bob Geist
Victor Hanson once again has succinctly summarized the State of our Union as of Today.
For those who are unaware of the inroads of devout Marxists aka the Democrat Party, either because of censorship or voluntary Ostrich like political detachment you would do well to completely read and comprehend this article.
I emphasize the word “Today” because like a hyper-sonic missile, the dedicated and focused agendas of those aligned to remove every freedom, every liberty and every ideal from the existence from the minds of citizens has accelerated to the point that these forces of pure EVIL are no longer at the gates, they have breeched them and the destruction of our Republic is Now, not tomorrow.
It remains to be seen if the House revelations of evidence incriminating the political powers aligned against the citizens of America will be able to turn back the tide of utter corruption at the highest levels of our government.
The Democrats have proven without shame that their Corruption sustains Corruption. Many Republicans stand aghast with open mouths but do not as a whole denounce the outrage of a government dedicated to destroying our nation.
We the deplorables need to cling to those final recourses of our liberties so disdained by the Demon Obama: “Clinging to their Guns and their Religion”. It is past time for us to repent of our sins and fervently pray that God will deliver or nation from itself.
I love your comment, Old Goat ! I will use it on Facebook as forward to the American Greatness link to Victor’s chilling article — with attribution to “Old Goat’s Comment, NOT mine, but better.”
Excellent❤️🇺🇸❤️
Victor has left no stone unturned…well done!
This End of Times battle seems awfully one-sided. ‘They’ seem to have all the money, muscle and Will to Dominate, to reorganize mankind in a system of global governance.
We, ordinary people, are merely serfs. Most of us were completely ignorant that the foundation for the Great Reset had been laid. All today that smacks of circuses, mass insanity and the end of civil institutions may be just sideshows, turbulent eddies in the great current of humankind’s change.
In 16 months in America we vote for help, for hope, for the Great Correction. Who believes the election will be, could be, will be allowed to be fair?
I’m going to have to partly disagree with The Left having changed. It hasn’t. The changes in its rhetoric only reflect where the Left draws and has power.
The Left was shapening its politics of personal destruction against Reagan. They hated Reagan for taking back the Presidency which should have been theirs for decades after watergate and the Nixon pardon. The cancel culture and blatant intimidation of supreme court judges we see today reflects a decades-old anger now combined with the Left’s power over corporations and law enforcement.
The Clinton Admin played with authritarianism when it contemplated putting the “V-chip” in new computer hardware that would grant it the improved encription needed to do online business securely but gave government instant access to the machine over the internet should it desire.
We’ve been concerned about the southern border and illegals practically since Reagan inked the first time the US turned a millions of illegals into citizens. What’s changed is the Left’s control over the government bureaucracy.
The Left loved the Supreme Court when it was ruling their way and only hates it now because it doesn’t.
The Left needed Free Speech when that was how it spead its message. Now that it is everywhere, soaked into nearly every boardroom and media company, it is a tool of thier enemies and they hate it.
The only thing that’s changed is power and who has it.
To Jack Bowers,
Who is at the helm?
Embark on a thorough study of Charles III and you will find your answer. Begin with Prince Charles of Whales’ heraldic achievement. Good luck
The Dying Citizen is leading to the dying of the USA!
IMO we have one last opportunity to right this sinking ship of a country. Make the right choice and make your vote count in 2024.
Thank you Dr. Hansen for your insight. I depend on it to make sense of this crazy world.
Leftists, whether in the hall of our Congress or rioting on our streets, psychologically behave as “a child of their age.” Dangerously immature, as are all leftist ideologies, leftists have nothing to contribute to American culture except yelling and screaming and colorful bandanas. We know their modus operandi–stealth, lies, violence, extortion, egotism, whining, crying, terror–characteristics of children in a playpen demanding food, drink, but especially attention. This is not funny…or fun to watch on our nightly news after a full day of hard work. The 60s and 70s saw hippies behaving like “flower” children and “Make love not war.” Fun. But it didn’t work at bringing American culture to its knees. The American mind, en toto, is too large. It encompasses the best of itself as well as from every nation and culture on earth. But now leftists, who went underground after the collapse of the Soviet Union, is attempting yet another coup of the American Way. Their methods are too-often dangerous. Their demands are “me too” platitudes. And their behaviors are deliberately perverse. Like little children within a playpen.
Excellent summation of the Left but you failed to mention Covid-19 and the Left’s foray into globalism and rule by an unelected, unaccountable elite class. They are embracing a China model of benevolent totalitarianism where the suppression of human rights and individual liberties are necessary for the common good and done in the name of “safety”.
Also, the Left’s collusion with the Establishment Right, once unthinkable, and their embrace of crony capitalism , driven by an insatiable greed for money and power.
This is Elijah Lim from Singapore. I’ve watched, or listened to, quite a few of your conversations, especially on Uncommon Knowledge, GoodFellows and on the Hon John Anderson’s show. That’s beside the talks you’ve delivered at Hillsdale, etc. I am blessed.
[[There is little need for borders to protect vulnerable American workers, given the advantages of inviting in millions of poor illegal immigrants without audits.]]
How is it that American workers are “vulnerable”?
American workers are vulnerable to lose their jobs because illegal aliens work for less money from unscrupulous employers.
Let’s hope those fears are well-founded.
History will show just how unhinged Mr. Hanson has become. He’s the one who lives in an Orwellian world. Everywhere he sees Leftist enemies and conspiracy. He should read the famous quote about fighting monsters and staring in to the Abyss.
To Josh Please troll somewhere else you Commie pond scum! We really have no need for you here because all we have to do is turn on to hear the MSM and please keep drinking the kool-aid Jim Jones style!
If you love the founding documents and what they said, you have only a handful of spokesmen to take the stage with a verbal trumpet to call us to arms. That is Victor Davis Hanson, may his tribe increase.