Border Politics and the Use and Abuse of History
Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Much has been written — some of it either inaccurate or designed to obfuscate the issue ahead of the midterms for political purposes — about the border fiasco and the unfortunate separation of children from parents. Rich Lowry’s brief analysis is the most insightful. The media outrage usually does not include […]
The Dream and the Nightmare of Globalization
Victor Davis Hanson // American Greatness After World War II, only the United States possessed the capital, the military, freedom, and the international good will to arrest the spread of global Stalinism. To save the fragile postwar West, America was soon willing to rebuild and rearm war-torn former democracies. Over seven decades, it intervened in […]
‘Future Pres’ Hillary — the Font of all the Scandals
Victor Davis Hanson // National Review The investigators assumed their new boss would reward them for going to extremes to help her. Review the Clinton email scandal, the Steele dossier, the insertion of at least one FBI informant into the Trump campaign, the misleading of the FISA court by FBI and DOJ officials intent on […]
The IG Hall of Mirrors
Victor Davis Hanson // National Review The professionally written and admirably researched IG report is in some sense a hall of mirrors, with all sorts of reflections that are contorted and warped, and into which all parties claim to see reality. Often the euphemistic conclusions are not supported by the data produced. The only constant […]
The Silencing of the Inspectors General
Impartial watchdogs are useless if the government stonewalls them and ignores their findings of wrongdoing.Department of Justice inspector general Michael Horowitz, an Obama administration appointee, is scheduled to deliver a report this week on DOJ and FBI abuses during the 2016 campaign cycle. Remember: His last investigation of FBI misconduct advised a criminal referral for […]
The Bad Iranian Deal Was Always Going to Get Worse
Victor Davis Hanson // National Review The more we learn about it — as Iranian and Obama-administration deceptions are uncovered — the more we know it was a disaster from the start. When Donald Trump withdrew from the so-called Iran deal in early May, almost all conventional wisdom in Washington was aghast. The Left thought […]
06-11-2018 Angry Reader
From An Angry Reader: Subject: 1972 REDUX….The carnivores of civil liberties. “You talk like a man with a paper ass”. Someone needs to enlighten you about the need to cite examples. How did you ever get your job at Stanford? Gary Seager –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Dear Angry Reader Gary Seager, In such a brief note, you still […]
A Reply to Ronald Radosh’s Smear
Victor Davis Hanson // National Review In a strange attack on my criticism of former CIA director John Brennan’s lack of veracity, Ron Radosh alleges that I have engaged in a sort of conspiracy theory about the deep state. He quotes me in an article largely devoted to Jerome Corsi’s new book, which I have not read […]
Ten Paradoxes Of Our Age
Victor Davis Hanson // Hoover Institution The 21st century is reminding of us of some uncomfortable truths. Abroad, recent controversies over the rise of Chinese mercantilism, the specter of Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons, tensions in the European Union, the calcified Palestinian question, mass migrations, and the resurgence of Islamic terrorism all offer a […]
Europe’s Vanishing Calm
Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Europeans claim to be building a new democratic culture but the governing elites of the European Union consider voters little more than members of reckless mobs. AVIGNON, France — The Rhone River Valley in southern France is a storybook marriage of high technology, traditional vineyards, and ancestral villages. High-speed trains […]
Elites Value Mellifluous Illegality over Crass Lawfulness
Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Obama defies the Constitution but sounds ‘presidential.’ Trump follows it but sounds like a loudmouth from Queens. Donald Trump blusters nonstop. He offers contrasting messages about whether, on any given day, he might fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. His […]
The Good Populism
Victor Davis Hanson // The New Criterion Populism is today seen both as a pejorative and positive noun. In fact, in the present age, there are two sorts of populism. Both strains originated in classical times and persisted in the West until today. One in antiquity was known as the base populism. It involved the […]
The Scandal on the Other Foot
Victor Davis Hanson // American Greatness Consider the following alternate reality. Imagine that it is now summer 2024. A 78-year-old lame-duck President Trump is winding down his second term, basking in positive polls. His dutiful vice president in waiting, Mike Pence, is at last getting his chance to run for president. Imagine also that Pence […]
California and Conservatism
Victor Davis Hanson // National Review I share some of the sentiments of Jay Nordlinger’s Corner post expressing confidence that some day in the future there may be hope for California conservatism. That’s why I continue to live in the house that I grew up in, despite vast changes in the nature of the rural community I […]
The Post-War Order Is Over
Victor Davis Hanson // National Review The 75-year-old post-war order crafted by the United States after World War II is falling apart. Almost every major foreign-policy initiative of the last 16 years seems to have gone haywire. Donald Trump’s presidency was a reflection, not a catalyst, of the demise of the foreign-policy status quo. Much […]
The Great German Meltdown
Victor Davis Hanson // Hoover Institution Every 20 to 50 years in Germany, things start unraveling. Germans feel aggrieved. Ideas and movements gyrate wildly between far left and far right extremes. And the Germans finally find consensus in a sense of victimhood paradoxically expressed as national chauvinism. Germany’s neighbors in 1870, 1914, 1939—and increasingly in […]
U.S. Has Leverage in Dealings with Iran and North Korea
Victor Davis Hanson // National Review America and our allies have several ways to deter the rogue nations. There has been a lot of misinformation about both getting out of the so-called Iran deal and getting into a new North Korean agreement. The two situations may be connected, but not in the way we are […]
The Trump Rationale
Victor Davis Hanson // National Review His voters knew what they were getting, and most support him still. Why exactly did nearly half the country vote for Donald Trump? Why also did the arguments of Never Trump Republicans and conservatives have marginal effect on voters? Despite vehement denunciations of the Trump candidacy from many pundits on […]
How Democracies End: A Bureaucratic Whimper
Victor Davis Hanson // American Greatness One strange trait of the die hard NeverTrump Republicans and progressives is their charge that Donald Trump poses an existential threat to democracy. Trump, as is his wont, says a lot of outrageous and weird things. But it is hard in his 16 months of rule to find any proof that […]
The Miraculous Image Rehabilitation of Former Republican Presidents
Victor Davis Hanson // National Review It’s an evergreen media strategy for disparaging the sitting GOP executive. When Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980, many in the media considered him a dangerous extremist. Some reporters warned that Reagan courted nuclear war and would tank the economy. He certainly was not like the gentleman Republican […]