Angry Reader
Comment from a Reader: Maybe you can become his campaign manager now. That is, if you can get him to sit still long enough for you to explain to him who Bull Halsey is. Victor Davis Hanson’s Reply: Your cynicism is noted. But,as you know, Trump refers to Gens. MacArthur and George S. Patton with […]
America’s Civilizational Paralysis
by Victor Davis Hanson // Defining Idea Image credit:Barbara Kelley The Greek city-states in the fourth-century BC, fifth-century AD Rome, and the Western European democracies after World War I all knew they could not continue as usual with their fiscal, social, political, and economic behavior. But all these states and societies feared far more […]
Medieval America
By Victor Davis Hanson // Town Hall Pessimists often compare today’s troubled America to a tottering late Rome or an insolvent and descending British Empire. But medieval Europe (roughly A.D. 500 to 1450) is the more apt comparison. The medieval world was a nearly 1,000-year period of spectacular, if haphazard, human achievement — along […]
Angry Reader
Comment from a Reader: Dear Mr. Hanson; I left the Republican Party soon after watching eight years of ineffective “leadership” by Mitch McConnell, John Bohner, and now Paul Ryan. But the tipping point came when Trump was nominated for president. I cannot belong to a political party that would nominate an ignoramus and blowhard who […]
The So-Called Trump Supporter/Defender/Endorser
The Corner The one and only. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online I think we at National Review have to be very careful in blanket condemnations of Trump “endorsers,” “supporters,” “defenders,” and scare-quote “conservatives” as if they were a monolithic group of mindless extremists or utter fools. Many or perhaps even most, who […]
The Tenth Life of Donald Trump
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Online By seizing control of Sunday night’s debate, he steadied his faltering candidacy — a bit. The Sunday debate recalibrated the moribund Trump candidacy. It will not end this week. The stampede and groupthink calls for his resignation will ease. Trump might have lost the debate on points […]
Angry Reader
Comment on: Is Trump Admiral Bull Halsey of Captain Queeg? October 4, 2016 So—you tuned in hoping to see “Bull” Halsey? I suppose that was a reasonable expectation if the following propositions were true: 1. “Bull” Halsey was a draft dodger. 2. “Bull” Halsey was a cheat. “Bull” Halsey was a four-flusher. “Bull” […]
Trump, Politics, and Our Sexual Schizophrenia
Conservatives should know better than to so quickly validate a dishonest narrative that benefits the other side. By Bruce Thornton // Front Page Magazine Online A few minutes into Sunday’s debate Donald Trump’s decade-old crude sexual banter with a reporter from an entertainment show was mentioned by the CNN moderator. Donald again apologized for […]
From Greek tragedy to American therapy
By Victor Davis Hanson // Town Hall | The Greeks gave us tragedy — the idea that life is never fair. Terrible stuff for no reason tragically falls on good people. Life’s choices are sometimes only between the bad and the far worse. In the plays of the ancient dramatists Aeschylus and Sophocles, heroism […]
Is Trump Admiral Bull Halsey or Captain Queeg?
by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review In debate No. 2, Trump owes it to the ‘deplorables’ to focus on the issues and exert some self-control. In the first debate, Hillary stuck out her jaw on cybersecurity, the treatment of women, sermons on the need for restrained language, and talk about the shenanigans of the […]
The Next President Unbound
There is reason to worry about both candidates abusing power as president, because Obama and the press normalized executive overreach. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Donald Trump’s supporters see a potential Hillary Clinton victory in November as the end of any conservative chance to restore small government, constitutional protections, fiscal sanity, and […]
The Construct of the White Working-Class Zombies
Hillary Clinton’s ‘deplorables’ have their antecedents in Obama’s ‘deplorables.’ By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online One of the strangest transformations in the era of Obama has been the overt and often gratuitous stereotyping of so-called white people — most often the white working classes who have become constructed into veritable unthinking and unrecognizable zombies. […]
It’s not hard to find California Trump voters, if you know where to look
A man hoists a sign during a rally of about 100 of presidential candidate Donald Trump’s Latino supporters outside Anaheim City Hall on Aug. 28. (Los Angeles Times) By Victor Davis Hanson // Los Angeles Times About 18 million of California’s 40 million residents are registered to vote. Most polls show Hillary Clinton leading Donald […]
A Hard Rain Is Going to Fall
World events seem relatively calm, but repeated appeasement has built up pressure across the globe, and someone has to be there when crisis erupts. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review This summer, President Obama was often golfing. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were promising to let the world be. The end of summer seemed […]
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 […]