Donald Trump, Postmodern Candidate
Trump defies all political orthodoxy and confounds any attempts at explanation or prediction. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Early 20th-century modernism ignored classical rules of expression. But late 20th-century postmodernism blew up those rules altogether. Barack Obama was a modernist candidate. He turned out vast numbers of young and minority voters, mastered […]
A Convention of the Absurd
The Democratic Convention was an exercise in absurdist theater. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Donald Trump, to the degree he is coherent, wants Americans to think the following of the Obama administration, the Clinton candidacy, and the entire progressive enterprise. His three-part writ could be summed up as follows: 1) Obama has […]
Why borders matter — and a borderless world is a fantasy
By Victor Davis Hanson // Los Angeles Times Borders are in the news as never before. With Muslim refugees flooding into the European Union from the Middle East, and with terrorism on the rise, a popular revolt is taking shape against the so-called Schengen Area agreements, which give free rights of movement within Europe. The European […]
Douglas MacArthur’s Brilliant, Controversial Legacy
A new biography examines the many sides of the versatile American general. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Of all the great American captains of World War II, none remains more controversial than General Douglas MacArthur, whose genius and folly have taken on mythic proportions. MacArthur alone among them fought in all of […]
When a War Went Worldwide 75 Years Ago
The irrational aggressiveness of the Axis powers teaches us not to expect our enemies to be reasonable. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Seventy-five years ago, the world blew up in just six months. World War II ostensibly started two years earlier, when Germany invaded Poland. In truth, after the rapid German […]
Trump and the Politics of Moral Outrage
We are very far from a politics of ideological purity and high character. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Many have weighed in on whether Donald Trump’s agendas — to the extent that they are different from what are now ratified Republican policies — are crackpot, unworkable, or radical: e.g., building a […]
The Dream of Muslim Outreach Has Become a Nightmare
Affirming Muslim grievances has only increased the Arab world’s sense that Obama is weak. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online When President Obama entered office, he dreamed that his hope-and-change messaging and his references to his familial Islamic roots would win over the Muslim world. The soon-to-be Nobel Peace Prize laureate would […]
Alphabet Soup Corruption
by Victor Davis Hanson//Defining Ideas Name a government agency or cabinet, and chances are its reputation has nosedived since 2008. A Pew poll, which has charted public trust in the federal government over some 57 years, hit a historic low last year, with only 19% expressing confidence in Washington. Despite President Obama’s campaign promises […]
Ten Reasons Why Trump Could Win
With four more months until Election Day, be prepared for chills and spills. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Hillary Clinton has outspent Donald Trump in unprecedented fashion. Her endorsements bury Trump’s. The Obama administration is doing its best to restore her viability. The media are outdoing their 2008 liberal prejudices. And yet […]
Three Modest Propositions
By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online In future presidential editorialization about the shooting deaths of police officers, perhaps the president himself might first offer a few “words matter” gestures that would reassure law enforcement, to use another Obama phrase, that he “has their back.” Here are just three low-bar proposals for how […]
Enemies See America As Vulnerable Prey
Our domestic tensions embolden our enemies. By Victor Davis Hanson//National Review Online Here is a sampling of some recent news abroad: A Russian guard attacked a U.S. diplomatic official at the door to the American Embassy in Moscow, even as NATO leaders met to galvanize against the next act of Russian aggression. The Islamic […]
Fundamentally Transformed
Have we reached a point of no return? By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Multicultural societies — from 19th-century Austria–Hungary to contemporary Iraq, Lebanon, the former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda — have a poor record of keeping the peace between competing tribes. They usually end up mired in nihilistic and endemic violence. The only […]
Will California Ever Thrive Again?
The state is sinking, and its wealthy class is full of hypocrites. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online There was more of the same-old, same-old California news recently. Some 62 percent of state roads have been rated poor or mediocre. There were more predications of huge cost overruns and yearly losses on high-speed […]
Washington’s Hollow Men
The government/media power elite are spectacularly ignorant of the American people. by Victor Davis Hanson//National Review Online We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats’ feet over broken […]
Anti-Brexit Elites Aren’t the Ones Who Suffer from Their Policies
by Victor Davis Hanson//National Review Online Following the Brexit, Europe may witness even more plebiscites against the undemocratic European Union throughout the continent. The furor of ignored Europeans against their union is not just directed against rich and powerful government elites per se, or against the flood of mostly young male migrants from the war-torn […]
The Highways To Orlando
by Victor Davis Hanson// Defining Ideas We know what the recent terrorist attack in Orlando was not. Forty-nine people were killed and fifty-three wounded not due to the violent outburst of a right-wing zealot. The shooter, Omar Mateen, was a second-generation Afghan-American, a registered Democrat, and a fierce critic of American politics and culture. Nor […]
A Long Trump Summer
When have voters faced a choice between two such unpalatable, unprincipled candidates? By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Before summer is over, we may see things now scarcely imagined that will make Brexit seem anticlimactic. Trump’s Attack Mode I think the following is an accurate statement: No major public figure has ever before […]
Ideologues Make for Dangerous Politicians
Opportunists are at least attuned to public opinion, unlike ideologues. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Hillary Clinton is a seasoned liberal politician, but one with few core beliefs. Her positions on subjects such as gay marriage, free-trade agreements, the Keystone XL pipeline, the Iraq War, the Assad regime in Syria, and […]
The Trump Nuclear Bomb
Other public figures won’t admit they agree with him — but they often quietly adopt his ideas. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Donald Trump has a frightening habit of uttering things that many people apparently think, but would never express. And he blusters in such an off-putting and sloppy fashion that he […]
America In Free Fall
By Victor Davis Hanson // Defining Ideas Before the Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC), where Philip II of Macedon prevailed over a common Greek alliance, the city-states had been weakened by years of social and economic turmoil. To read the classical speeches in the Athenian assembly is to learn of the democracy’s constant struggles […]