Tear down this dam?
By Victor Davis Hanson // The Hill Oroville dam, the tallest in the nation, is currently in danger of structural failure. Thousands living downstream from its desperate cascading water releases are evacuating their homes in Hollywood disaster-film fashion. Something premodern and apocalyptic like this was not supposed to have happened in a postmodern California of […]
The Oroville Dam disaster is yet another example of California’s decline
By Victor Davis Hanson// Los Angeles Times A year ago, politicians and experts were predicting a near-permanent statewide drought, a “new normal” desert climate. The most vivid example of how wrong they were is that California’s majestic Oroville Dam is currently in danger of spillway failure in a season of record snow and rainfall. That […]
The Uses of Populism
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review The economy, academia, immigration, and the environment could benefit from Trump’s unorthodox approach. Populism of the center (as opposed to Bernie Sanders’s socialist populism) has received a bad media rap — given that it was stained in the past by xenophobic and chauvinistic currents. Who wishes to emulate all […]
California Goes Confederate
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Threatening secession is far from the only thing that the Golden State has in common with the Old South. Over 60 percent of California voters went for Hillary Clinton — a margin of more than 4 million votes over Donald Trump. Since Clinton’s defeat, the state seems to have […]
Make Haste — Deliberately
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review If Trump shows that his actions are a reaction to past extremes, his changes will win public support. The emperor Augustus who oversaw the transition from the nonstop civil war of a collapsing republic to the Principate — with all the good and bad that such a transition entailed […]
California’s Polarization
by Richard Sousa Monday, February 6, 2017 With all due respect, I believe my colleague Sam Abrams has it all wrong. He argues that when examining California voter registration data at the county level, the polarization along party lines and the partisanship in the state are not as deep as commonly portrayed. He is, however, […]
Things to Watch?
The Corner The one and only. By Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Trump by intent has ignited the Left. But diverse criteria will determine to what degree it can do him damage: 1) Will his reforms kick-start the economy? If Trump reaches even 3 percent real GDP growth over a year — Obama was the […]
VDH UltraPostmodernism by Another Name
02/03/17 From an Angry Reader: Re: Fake News: Postmodernism By Another Name While I thought the article was well written and cited several good specific examples. I find is a bit disingenuous that only the progressive movement is called out. Perhaps it would be worth mentioning the “Swift Boat” stories that were promulgated against John […]
VDH Ultra
02/02/17 From an Angry Reader: Dear Victor: I have long been a reader of your essays. I am befuddled by your steady defense – or at least by your stayed hand of criticism – of Donald Trump. I sense – and share – your glee about the comeuppance that the Democrats received in this past […]
When Normalcy Is Revolution
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Trump’s often unorthodox style shouldn’t be confused with his otherwise practical and mostly centrist agenda. By 2008, America was politically split nearly 50/50 as it had been in 2000 and 2004. The Democrats took a gamble and nominated Barack Obama, who became the first young, Northern, liberal president since […]
Our Game of Thrones
The Corner The one and only. by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review The Trump administration’s flurry of reversing the earlier flurry of Obama executive orders and the Left’s hysterical response is proving a sort of strategic Game of Thrones. Trump’s opponents believe that they are bleeding him from a thousand nicks. Without the requisite political […]
The Democrat Patient
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Ignoring the symptoms, misdiagnosing the malady, skipping the treatment If progressives were to become empiricists, they would look at the symptoms of the last election and come up with disinterested diagnoses, therapies, and prognoses. Although their hard-left candidate won the popular vote, even that benchmark was somewhat deceiving — […]
Four Fonts for Victor Davis Hanson When young I thought all wealth came from the soil, forests, seas and mines. My finest early lines were blessings on our farmers and their toil. I’ve praised the fishermen, the loggers too. Noble, the miner’s soul digging the earth for coal, for iron ore that builds a penthouse […]
Trump and Mexico
The Corner The one and only. by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review I think concerns expressed that Trump treat Mexico and President Peña Nieto with dignity and respect are well-taken and wise. But part of the problem inherent in Trump’s pushback is that the present relationship has become asymmetrical for so long that merely returning […]
VDH Ultra
From an Angry Reader: Angry Reader Bill Anderson Hi I know it is a job but …. He is awful. Why he writes this tosh and why anyone would read it is beyond peculiar, Try to get him seen. Even for bozo right wing ideologues there are limits. Best Wishes Bill Anderson Victor Davis Hanson’s […]
Fake News: Postmodernism By Another Name
by Victor Davis Hanson//Defining Ideas After the election, Democrats could not explain the inexplicable defeat of Hillary Clinton, who would be, they thought, the shoo-in winner in November. Over the next three months until Inauguration Day, progressives floated a variety of explanations for the Trump win—none of them, though, mentioned that the Clinton campaign had […]
Prosperity Is Destiny
By Victor Davis Hanson// National Review If the economy grows during Trump’s administration, his opposition will dwindle. “Ten thousand cuts an awful lot of family ties.” — Pike Bishop in The Wild Bunch When Ronald Reagan entered office in 1981 amid negative economic growth, roaring inflation, and high unemployment, his critics immediately grew emboldened and […]
Trump and the American Divide
How a lifelong New Yorker became tribune of the rustics and deplorables By Victor Davis Hanson//City Journal Winter 2017 At 7 AM in California’s rural Central Valley, not long before the recent presidential election, I stopped to talk with an elderly irrigator on the shared border alleyway of my farm. His face was a wrinkled […]
It’s No Revelation That Intelligence Agencies Are Politicized
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Trump is acknowledging a fact that recent history has repeatedly demonstrated. Furor has arisen over President-elect Donald Trump’s charges that our intelligence agencies are politicized. Spare us the outrage. For decades, directors of intelligence agencies have often quite inappropriately massaged their assessments to fit administration agendas. Careerists at these […]