America’s Versailles Set
by Victor Davis Hanson // Defining Ideas During the last days of the Ancien Régime, French Queen Marie Antoinette frolicked in a fake rural village not far from the Versailles Palace—the Hameau de la Reine (“the Queen’s hamlet”). “Peasant” farmers and herdsmen were imported to interact, albeit carefully, with the royal retinue in an […]
Never Never Trump
The Republican dilemma By Victor Davis Hanson //National Review Online Any Republican has a difficult pathway to the presidency. On the electoral map, expanding blue blobs in coastal and big-city America swamp the conservative geographical sea of red. Big-electoral-vote states such as California, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey are utterly lost before the campaign […]
The Legacies of Barack Obama
Without policy achievements to hang his hat on, Obama’s rhetoric will be how he’s remembered – and the results have been ugly. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online On his recent Asian tour, President Obama characterized his fellow Americans (the most productive workers in the world) as “lazy.” In fact, he went on […]
Is Deference Really Safer than Deterrence?
Beware international affairs the next five months, a dangerous period for America. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review online Deterrence is a nation’s ability to discourage aggressors by instilling in them a credible fear of punishment far greater than any perceived gain that could be achieved by an attack. Deterrence is quite different from […]
Trump Up, Hillary Down, Obama Out
Without traditional battle lines to fight over, Hillary Clinton is lying low while a frenetic Donald Trump talks nonstop. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online In most presidential elections, the two candidates spar over issues. The president campaigns for his party’s nominee in hopes of continuing his legacy. Democrats champion liberalism, Republicans conservatism. […]
Who Are Those Darned “Elites”?
by Victor Davis Hanson Defining Ideas The United States and Europe are seeing a surge in populist anger toward the so-called elites. The German public, for example, is furious at Chancellor Angela Merkel for her position on immigration from the Middle East. British voters have forsaken the postmodern European Union. And working class Americans have […]
The Trump Bump
By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online No one knows how long Trump can stay on message. (He turns out to be an effective teleprompted speaker who, unlike Obama, can go off the script for brief moments without stuttering and seeming confused.) No one knows how long he can continue to take on taboo […]
The Virtue-Mongers
If you playact being shot by the police, cry “racist!” on Twitter, or denounce capitalism, you, too, can feel good about your capitalist’s privilege. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online In an affluent postmodern society of nearly unlimited freedom and opportunity, elite celebrities, pampered athletes, comfortable academics, conniving politicians, and careerist journalists find […]
The More Things Change, the More They Actually Don’t
Technology hasn’t changed the core of who we are, and history proves it. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online In today’s technically sophisticated and globally connected world, we assume life has been completely reinvented. In truth, it has not changed all that much. Facebook and Google may have recalibrated our lifestyles, but human […]
Why Hillary Is Never Held Accountable for Her Lies
The media excuse her mendacity because it serves the progressive cause. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Everyone rightly catalogues Donald Trump’s fibs, distortions, and exaggerations: his assertions about his net worth, his charitable contributions, his initial supposed opposition to the Iraq War, or his “flexible” positions on illegal immigration. After all, he […]
Imagine There’s No Border
A world without boundaries is a fantasy. By Victor Davis Hanson // City Journal Borders are in the news as never before. After millions of young, Muslim, and mostly male refugees flooded into the European Union last year from the war-torn Middle East, a popular revolt arose against the so-called Schengen Area agreements, which give […]
Diversity: History’s Pathway to Chaos
America’s successful melting pot should not be replaced with discredited salad-bowl separatism. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Emphasizing diversity has been the pitfall, not the strength, of nations throughout history. The Roman Empire worked as long as Iberians, Greeks, Jews, Gauls, and myriad other African, Asian, and European communities spoke Latin, cherished […]
Trump 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 . . .
By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online There was always only one sensible position on immigration: ensuring that legal immigration was meritocratic, diverse, and measured to facilitate rapid assimilation and integration — while ending illegal immigration entirely through a mixture of new border fencing/stepped-up patrolling, increased visa and refugee scrutiny, employer fines, and rapid […]
The Nine Lives of Donald J. Trump
Whatever his faults, a Trump victory is preferable for the Republic. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Seasoned Republican political handlers serially attack Donald Trump and his campaign as amateurish, incompetent, and incoherent. The media somehow outdid their propaganda work for Barack Obama and have signed on as unapologetic auxiliaries to the […]
Where’s The Letter From Democratic Security Officials Opposing Hillary?
By Victor Davis Hanson//Town Hall A group of 50 conservative foreign policy elites and veteran national security officials of prior Republican administrations recently wrote an open letter denouncing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. They cited especially his lack of character and moral authority — and his “little understanding of America’s national interests.” Particularly bothersome, they […]
The Great Regression
Today, it seems that Orwell’s 1984 would better have been titled 2016. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Technical progress is often associated with moral and political regress, a theme as ancient as Hesiod’s seventh-century b.c. poem Works and Days. In 200 b.c., not a male could vote freely in Hellenistic Greece, but […]
The Betrayal of the Intellectuals?
After nearly eight years of aiding and abetting Obama, leftists now fear the possible constitutional overreach of our next president. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Peter Beinart writes angrily in The Atlantic of the supposed Trump intellectuals, apparently on the premise of not whether one has endorsed formally the Trump candidacy, but whether […]
The Immigrant’s Dilemma
by Victor Davis Hanson Defining Ideas Image credit: Barbara Kelley Nearly a half-century ago, Bob Dylan wrote a mixed ode to the immigrant, in a way that no doubt might earn him charges of racism, nativism, and xenophobia in today’s politically-correct age. Yet Dylan was trying to express the paradoxes of leaving one’s homeland for […]
Hillary’s Neoliberals
Some Republicans have cultural and political affinities that are pulling them away from Trump and toward Clinton. By Victor Davis Hanson //National Review Online Many elections redefine political parties. The rise of George McGovern’s hard-left agenda in 1972, followed later in the decade by Jimmy Carter’s evangelical liberalism, drove centrist Democrats into the arms of […]
Trump vs. Trump
Can Trump get out of the trap of running against himself? By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Donald Trump is not so much running against Hillary Clinton as against the inner demons of Donald Trump. The 2016 election still should easily be his to win. Americans do not historically like the twelve-year regnum […]