The Alienated American
by Victor Davis Hanson// Defining Ideas Many Americans increasingly seem psychologically, if not materially, disengaged from their own country. A few vote with their feet and move to quieter enclaves in the American rural West or to no-income-tax states in the South and hinterlands. More withdraw with their minds, by shutting out most of […]
Lessons From the Highway of Death
By Victor Davis Hanson // Town Hall California State Route 99 is the north-south highway that cuts through the great Central Valley. And it has changed little since the mid-1960s. A half-century ago, when the state population was about 18 million — not nearly 40 million as it is today — the 99 used to […]
VDH Ultra
Comment from an Angry Reader: Dear Sir, Maybe if Trump wins, you can be one of his pet intellectuals, whom he will despise and humiliate. Sincerely, Kurt Lipschutz Victor Davis Hanson’s Reply: Dear Angry Reader Lipschutz, I voted against Trump in the primaries and am on record that he was not among the 5-10 […]
Sanctimony, Inc.
by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Time was, leftists complained of rigged elections, the media paid attention to dirty tricks, and conservatives cared more about results than rhetoric. Donald Trump, in characteristically muddled and haphazard fashion, said he thought the election might end up “rigged” (if he lost). Therefore, he would not endorse the […]
Comment from an Angry Reader: Donald Trump’s campaign statements have consisted of proposals including, but not limited to: Violation of the NATO treaty by threatening to withhold assistance from allies based on alleged financial discrepancies; Ordering the US Military to commit first-degree murder of non-combatant civilians (“take out the families” of suspected terrorists) — a […]
Uncommon Knowledge
On Grand Strategy, Immigration, And The 2016 Presidential Election by Victor Davis Hanson via Uncommon Knowledge Recorded on September 22, 2016 Hoover Institution fellow Victor Davis Hanson discusses Russia, China, and the danger of American withdrawal from the world stage. In addition, Hanson talks about immigration and assimilation in the United States throughout time. Hanson […]
This Election Year Features More Than One Presidential Race
By Victor Davis Hanson // Town Hall A presidential campaign is figuratively called a “race.” Two runners sprint toward the Election Day finish line for the prize of the presidency. But the 2016 presidential campaign has spawned lots of weird races. The first sprint is one between embarrassments and scandals. Will another WikiLeaks disclosure confirm […]
Our Neutron Bomb Election
by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review The shells of our institutions maybe survive the 2016 campaign, but they will be mere husks. The infamous neutron bomb was designed to melt human flesh without damaging infrastructure. Something like it has blown up lots of people in the 2016 election and left behind empty institutions. After […]
The Case for Trump
by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Conservatives should vote for the Republican nominee. Donald Trump needs a unified Republican party in the homestretch if he is to have any chance left of catching Hillary Clinton — along with winning higher percentages of the college-educated and women than currently support him. But even before the […]
A Postmodern NFL
by Victor Davis Hanson // The Corner: The one and only. In an essay that could come right out of 1984, Washington Post Ministry of Truth writers Drew Harwell and Rick Maese struggle to explain the abrupt erosion of the NFL’s televised audiences. They manage to cite every conceivable longer-term trend, such as saturation of […]
Angry Reader
Comment from a Reader: “But even before the latest revelations from an eleven-year-old Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump crudely talked about women” TRUMP DID NOT TALK CRUDELY ABOUT WOMEN ON THIS TAPE- HE TALKED ABOUT HIS RIGHT AS A CELEBRITY TO SEXUALLY ASSAULT WOMEN!!! YOUR CONFLATING THE TWO IS UNBELIEVABLE. IF YOU HAVE A […]
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 […]