By Victor Davis Hanson // Defining Ideas Image credit: Barbara Kelley By the end of 2015, it had begun raining and snowing throughout California after fifty months of drought. Meteorologists had long forecasted that the cyclical return of the so-called El Niño Southern Oscillation—the episodic rise in temperature of a band of ocean water that develops in […]
By Victor Davis Hanson // Works and Days by PJ Media I recently took a few road trips longitudinally and latitudinally across California. The state bears little to no resemblance to what I was born into. In a word, it is now a medieval place of lords and peasants—and few in between. Or rather, as
Memo to RNC: Stop ridiculing Trump and look at what voters see in him. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online A disclaimer: Trump is not my preferred candidate. I hope he does not win the Republican nomination. But I understand why millions seem to be mesmerized by his rhetoric. I certainly wish that
By Victor Davis Hanson // Works and Days by PJMedia Western culture is deservedly exceptional. No other tradition has given the individual such security, freedom, and prosperity. The Athens-Jerusalem mixture of Christian humility (and guilt) and the classical Socratic introspection combined in the West to make it a particularly self-reflective and self-critical society, in a
Victor Davis Hanson // Tribune Media Services In politically driven moods, the ancient Romans often wiped from history all mention of a prior hero or celebrity. They called such erasures damnatio memoriae. The Soviet Union likewise airbrushed away, or “Trotskyized,” all the images of any past kingpin who became politically incorrect. The Obama administration seems
The Oscar nominations have brought a corrosive racial politics to the fore. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online One of the stranger demands of various campus affiliates of Black Lives Matter was the call for “safe spaces.” That is a euphemism for designated racially segregated areas. In such zones, particular minority groups are
By Victor Davis Hanson // Works and Days hosted by PJMedia Polls confirm that Obama is the most polarizing president in recent memory. There is little middle ground: supporters worship him; detractors in greater number seem to vehemently dislike him. Why then does the president, desperate for some sort of legacy, continue to embrace polarization?
By Victor Davis Hanson // Tribune Media Services Hillary Clinton recently said she would go after offshore tax “schemes” in the Caribbean. That is a worthy endeavor, given the loss of billions of dollars in U.S. tax revenue. Yet her husband, Bill Clinton, reportedly made $10 million as an advisor and an occasional partner in
By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online What to fear in Germany — an ideologically driven leader who unilaterally is changing the demographics of the nation without public support, or an angry populist counter-movement that vows to keep Germans safe by any means necessary when the government won’t? Both, or neither? Is Germany postmodern
By Victor Davis Hanson // Tribune Media Services Three truths fuel Donald Trump. One, Barack Obama is the Dr. Frankenstein of the supposed Trump monster. If a charismatic, Ivy League-educated, landmark president who entered office with unprecedented goodwill and both houses of Congress on his side could manage to wreck the Democratic Party while turning