Comey’s Overdue Departure
The Corner The one and only. by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review If a FBI director is doing his job, we probably should neither see nor hear of him much on television. The FBI director by his very office holds enormous power. And like the IRS director, by definition he or she must show restraint […]
How to Blow an Election — in Five Easy Steps
By Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Counting the ways, and Comey is not among them. Hillary Clinton recently took “full responsibility” for her 2016 loss. Only she didn’t. Instead of explaining what the historian Thucydides once called the “truest causes” (aitiai), she went on to list at least three pretexts (prophases) for her defeat: sexism, […]
VDH UltraAngry Reader
From an Angry Reader: Mr. Hanson, I don’t know anything about Stanley Baldwin, but I’ll assume your description of him is accurate. In that case, you have to stretch quite a bit to make Obama into Baldwin. For instance: You call Baldwin a pacifist. Obama is decidedly not a pacifist. He is a Niebuhrian realist […]
Potemkin Universities
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Behind the facades, universities have broken faith with a once-noble legacy of free inquiry. College campuses still appear superficially to be quiet, well-landscaped refuges from the bustle of real life. But increasingly, their spires, quads, and ivy-covered walls are facades. They are now no more about free inquiry and […]
How the Obama Precedent Empowered Trump
By Victor Davis Hanson American Greatness.com April 27th, 2017 Donald Trump was elected president by sizing up the Electoral College, and the voting public, and then campaigning accordingly. A number of the things that explain Trump’s election also point to unique opportunities to overturn the Obama legacy. This, in turn, explains why the Left is […]
You Gotta Lie
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Oh! What a tangled progressive web we weave . . . Red/blue, conservative/liberal, and Republican/Democrat mark traditional American divides. But one fault line is not so 50/50 — that of the contemporary hard progressive movement versus traditional politics, values, and customs. The entire menu of race, class, and gender […]
Trump’s Cultural Optics
By Victor Davis Hanson|American Greatness.com April 9th, 2017 Every movement president is soon accused of selling out to the establishment and drowning in Washington’s permanent and deep swamp.“Let Reagan be Reagan” was an early lamentation of conservatives, fearing their godhead was being watered down by Jim Baker and diluted by George H.W. Bush centrists. […]
VDH UltraAngry Reader
From an Angry Reader: Mr. Hanson, Did you volunteer or were you drafted (like so many of us) to fight in Vietnam? Did you know “we” lost that war to those so called “commies” and now those “commies” make Trump brand shirts and ties? Also, are you willing to pay for increased US […]
Will 2020 Be Another 1972 for Democrats?
by Victor Davis Hanson//National Review Going hard to the left was the wrong lesson to learn from their narrow loss in 1968, and they could repeat the mistake. Forty-nine years ago, Vice President Hubert Humphrey was the Democratic candidate for president. The year 1968 was a tumultuous one that saw the assassinations of rival candidate […]
VDH Ultra
From an Angry Reader: Dear Continually Angry Reader Steve Faddy Hey Vic, I understand you are a historian, but please write a timely piece, maybe touching on the brilliant incoherence of the foreign policy of the Mad King Don. Obama is no longer the President. Write something relevant to the present populace instead of another […]
Nukes + Nuttiness = Neanderthal Deterrence
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Acting crazy has worked for rogue regimes, but Western appeasement is not a long-term solution. How can an otherwise failed dictatorship best suppress internal dissent while winning international attention, influence — and money? Apparently, it must openly seek nuclear weapons. Second, the nut state should sound so crazy and […]
VDH Ultra
04/24/17 From an Angry Reader: Mr. Hanson, As a registered Republican, I am disgusted with the behavior of President Trump and always surprised with the support he receives from people who appear to be well educated knowledgeable, and intelligent. I would give your written opinion more credit if you did not position yourself so far […]
The Tar Pits Abroad
by Victor Davis Hanson// Defining Ideas As missiles fall on Syria in retaliation for Bashar Assad’s medieval use of chemical weapons—and as voices call for the use of some American ground troops to expedite his removal—we might reflect upon American military interventions in the post-Vietnam era. America’s major interventions include Iraq in 1991, the […]
Apocalyptic Progressivism
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Instead of overcoming challenges, progressive politicians exploit them to expand government. Shortly after the 2008 election, President Obama’s soon-to-be chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, infamously declared, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste.” He elaborated: “What I mean by that [is] it’s an opportunity to do things […]
What Happened to the ‘Special Relationship’?
The Corner The one and only. by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Not all that long ago we were lectured that Obama, with his charisma and savvy, had won over Recep Tayyip Erdogan and formed a new partnership with him that would lead to Middle East stability and a new Turkish omnipresence as a force […]
VDH Ultra
From an Angry Reader: You used to be my favorite columnist, in fact the only one I read. But it seems you’ve recently become overly mesmerized with Trumpism and the resulting anti Obamaism. I wish you’d returned to objective history. Doug Waltner Victor Davis Hanson’s Reply: Dear Sort of Angry Reader Doug Waltner,You should […]
Restoring Deterrence, One Bomb at a Time?
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review The only thing more dangerous than losing deterrent power is trying to put it back together again. The Tomahawk volley attack, for all its ostentatious symbolism, served larger strategic purposes. It reminded a world without morality that there is still a shred of a rule or two: Do not […]
Obama Is America’s Version of Stanley Baldwin
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Both leaders put their successors in a dangerous geopolitical position. Last year, President Obama assured the world that “we are living in the most peaceful, prosperous, and progressive era in human history,” and that “the world has never been less violent.” Translated, those statements meant that active foreign-policy volcanoes […]
04/10/17 From an Angry Reader: Mr. Hanson – In your truly myopic article about the Russian/Trump connections you point out the Democrats’ contacts with Russians but you fail to make an apples and apples comparison. You don’t mention BUSINESS and MONEY. You don’t mention Trump making $50 million on a house worth much less in […]
Hall of Mirrors in Syria
The Corner The one and only. by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Syria is weird for reasons that transcend even the bizarre situation of bombing an abhorrent Bashar al-Assad who was bombing an abhorrent ISIS — as we de facto ally with Iran, the greater strategic threat, to defeat the more odious, but less […]