Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
Half the country thinks something has gone drastically wrong in America, to the point that it is rapidly becoming unrecognizable. Millions feel they are virtual lab rats in some grand research project conducted by entitled elites who could care less when the experiment blows up.
Consider: Our military turns over $60 billion in state-of-the-art weapons to terrorists in Kabul and then flees in disgrace?
Terrorist flags fly in place of incinerated Old Glory at the iconic Union Station in Washington as radical students and green card-holding guests deface statues with threats that “Hamas is coming” while spewing hatred toward Jews—and all with impunity?
A wide-open border with 10 million unaudited illegal immigrants?
Once beautiful downtowns resembling Nairobi or Cairo—as paralyzed mayors spend billions without a clue how to remedy the self-created disaster?
Fast food drive-ins priced as if they were near-gourmet restaurants?
In truth, this apparent rapid cultural, economic, and political upheaval is well into its third decade. The disruptions are the results of the long-term effects of globalization and the high-tech revolution that brought enormous wealth into the hands of a tiny utopian elite. Almost overnight, every American household became a consumer of cellular phones and cameras, laptop computers, social media, and Google searches.
We then entered into a virtual, soulless world of hedonism, narcissism, and the cheap, anonymous cruelty of click-bait, cancel culture, doxing, ghosting, blacklisting, and trolling. The toxic COVID lockdown and the DEI racist fixations that followed the George Floyd death only accelerated what had been an ongoing three-decade devolution.
By 2000, a former market of 300 million American consumers was widening to a globalized 7 billion shoppers—at least for those mostly on the two coasts, whose expertise and merchandising were universalized in megaprofit high-tech, finance, investment, media, law, and entertainment.
Americans of the 20th century had never quite seen anything like the mega-global celebrities from Michael Jackson to Taylor Swift, or a Bezos fortune of $170 billion, or the sorts who fly in their Gulfstream private jets to Davos, Sun Valley, and Aspen to lament the ignorance of the backward muscular classes and to plot their noblesse oblige salvation for them.
Indeed, for those reliant on muscular jobs and the production of the material essentials of life—agriculture, fuels, construction, assembly, timber, mining, and services—their livelihoods were often xeroxed abroad. Millions of their jobs were offshored or outsourced to third- and second-world countries with cheaper labor, abundant natural resources, and less overhead that made investment “wiser” and more profitable.
Anointed Americans in the “soft” or informational economy achieved levels of wealth never seen before in history. Meanwhile, Americans in the “hard” or concrete sectors saw stagnation in wages, job losses, and the erosion of middle-class life itself.
That the universities, the media, the administrative state, entertainment, high tech, and the federal government were mostly on the coasts became a geographical force multiplier of the growing economic and cultural divide—perhaps in the manner that the Civil War became not just an ideological conflict but one of definable geography as well.
Red-state and blue-state cultures followed these radical displacements in the global economy. Urban bicoastal America created an ethos and an accompanying narrative that it was blessed, rich, and all-knowing because it had been rightfully rewarded for supposedly being innately smarter, better credentialed, more worldly and—given its wealth—more moral than the losers who fell behind. The new multibillionaires reinvented the Democrat Party into a concord of the hyper-rich and subsidized poor, abandoning the now caricatured working and losing middle classes.
Indeed, a sort of atheistic, reverse-Calvinism arose. The elite left-wing, monied classes were left-wing and monied precisely because of some sort of fated reward for their obvious innate superior virtue and wisdom—even as millions fled from failing blue states to their freer and more prosperous red counterparts.
An entire moral vocabulary of condemnation followed to stigmatize those who supposedly lacked the know-how or morality to appreciate their elite benefactors—clingers, deplorables, irredeemables, hobbits, chumps, dregs, and “crazies,” to use the parlance of Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden. Their targets were the relics of a vanishing America who did quirky things like salute the flag, go to church, believe there were still only two sexes, honor America as always far better than the alternative, and believe they were the muscles that kept the nation fed, fueled, and housed for one more day.
The chief characteristic of the 21st century American revolution’s vast recalibrations in wealth was not just the transition from the muscular to the supposedly cerebral, but from right to left. Look at the Fortune 400. There is a pattern in the rankings—mostly progressives and rich—and the winners’ wealth is usually not created from old sources like transportation, manufacturing, agriculture, or construction.
The real multibillion-dollar fortunes in America are now in tech and investment. The hierarchies that own and manage Amazon, Apple, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Google, JPMorgan, Chase, Microsoft, or Morgan Stanley are now decidedly left-wing Democrats. That 21st century reality marked a radical change from the past. Democrats now typically vastly outraise Republicans in most national campaigns. Their philanthropic foundations dwarf those of their right-wing rivals.
Elite hard-left universities are flush with multibillion-dollar endowments in a manner unimaginable just 40 years ago. And they are no longer merely liberal but overwhelmingly woke and uncompromisingly hard left—with millions of dollars to waste on their unicorn chases of mandated equality and racist “anti-racism.” Hollywood, the media, new and old, and Wall Street are not just far wealthier than ever but far more intolerant and sanctimonious as well.
It was not just money that gave the new left-wing oligarchy such clout in the administrative state, Wall Street, tech, the media, the corporate world, and the university. It was the accompanying assurance that, unlike other Americans, the lab rats of the mostly rural or interior parts of the country were exempt. They were to be free to apply their bankrupt agendas—open borders, DEI, globalism, climate change gospels, critical legal theory, modern monetary theory, critical race theory—to distant others. They assumed correctly that they were never really to be subject to the concrete and real-life disasters arising from the implementation of their ideology.
Certainly, guilt over their largess, together with our 21st century secular update of sanctimonious New England puritanism, explain this overweening left-wing new zealotry to change the world, but largely at others’ expense. They are the descendants of Salem, who share the same superstitions and fanaticism to punish all who doubt their purity and wisdom.
So arose the idea among elites of a borderless America, where yearly 2-3 million poor and downtrodden of Latin America, and soon the world at large, could surge into a humane and progressive America—without the ossified and illiberal idea of background checks, or legal “technicalities.”
The arrivals’ abject poverty would remind the bigoted American middle classes of the need to expand their welfare state—as if a lifelong victim of the institutional oppression of Oaxaca, Mexico became a legitimate victim of white capitalist America the very moment he set foot across a now mythical border. Importing massive poverty would remind the middle classes that racism and inequality were still on the rise.
The locus classicus of this self-righteousness and contrition was emblemized when a few dozen illegal aliens were redirected toward tony Martha’s Vineyard. The locals immediately rushed to reveal to us two realities: 1) shower the illegals with food, upscale clothing, and other essentials to virtue signal their universal concern for the downtrodden; and 2) bus them out of the neighborhood as quickly as possible to where they “belonged”—either among the inner-city poor or struggling rural Hispanic communities of the American southwest.
In the abstract, open borders were what any progressive nation should aspire to; in the concrete among the architects of such idealism—not in their backyard.
Following the death of George Floyd, corporations, universities, and administrative state agencies rushed to compete to “level the playing field” by eroding meritocratic criteria such as calcified SAT tests, background checks, resumes, etc., and began hiring by race, gender, and sexual orientation.
Tens of thousands of DEI commissars and their henchmen have now spread far beyond their birthplaces in the university (where elite schools routinely restrict so-called whites [ca. 65–70 percent of the population] to 20–40 percent of incoming classes). At some Ivy League schools and their kindred elite campuses, grades are “adjusted” to ensure 60-80 percent are A’s.
Almost everything in revolutionary America has “evolved” beyond silly notions like “meritocracy” and “standards” and has instead become DEI hot-wired—from the hiring and promotion of airline pilots, selection of actors, management of the Secret Service, and the rank and file of FBI and CIA operatives to admissions to medical school, corporate boardrooms, and advertising.
In response, a dangerous underground cynicism grows commensurately. As in the old Soviet Union, so too here arises our official “truth” beside the subterranean truth that most rely on when an incompetent Secret Service hierarchy allows a shooter to take pot shots at a president’s head, or there is a sharp rise in passenger jet near misses and go-arounds, or students in mass demand exemptions from final schedules or expect amnesties when they storm campus buildings, or major corporations—like Disney, Target, Anheuser Busch, and John Deere—ostentatiously virtue signal.
In sum, we are knee-deep in an authoritarian commissariat that we do not even dare formally acknowledge. DEI, like open borders, was predicated on the idea that the good one percent who ran the country was too good to experience the trickle-down from the commissar system it imposed on others.
Ditto the top-down green revolution. We are to assume that sweaty truckers should have no problem juicing up their battery engines every 300 miles. Hispanics in Bakersfield should appreciate turning down their air conditioning when it hits 115. Lower-middle-class moms should learn the advantages of high-cost electric stoves and ovens once they are forcibly weaned off their cheap but too-hot natural gas appliances.
Meanwhile, the sales of designer Italian cooking platforms, 10,000-square-foot air-conditioned second homes (the Obamas own three), private jets, yachts, and huge limo SUVs have reached record levels. The model is John Kerryism—or the rationale that to help the uneducated, dumber, and less moral people survive global warming, the enlightened need the tools to do it. So, they must avoid messy airports, 9-hour delays due to missed connections, and the stuffy, cramped middle seat on modern commercial jets.
The idea of 100,000-200,000 legal immigrants admitted annually and meritocratically, charter schools in the inner city, beefed-up policing in our major urban areas, nationwide civic education, reemphasis on assimilation, integration, and intermarriage of the melting pot, wide use of nuclear power—all the things that might make the life of the middle class more secure, more prosperous, and more confident—are deemed corny and passé.
Again, what we got in the last quarter century was a shrill elite that subjects their Jacobin theories upon a distant other but has absolutely no intention of ever getting near the very disasters they wrought, much less suffering the collateral damage that was inevitable from their social engineering.
Or, to put it another way, they were to be our few genius white-coated researchers while we were their many expendable lab rats.
I wholeheartedly agree with Victor’s description of the last 3 decades. I would like to add a comment on the 3 decades prior to that – yes, all the way back to the ’60’s – IMO a lot of the problems we’ve experienced more recently were born in that period. I’ve included a link to a contemporaneous 1977 NYT article as background.
“Affirmative action” programs grew out of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and an executive order the following year that banned “discrimination” by employers holding Federal contracts.
Discrimination, we were told at the time, was to be solved by “reverse-racism”, to “pay for the mistakes of the past”. Sound familiar?
By the early ’70’s, it was not uncommon for job applicants to see a sign posted that said: “White Males Need Not Apply”. The incidents of this were so rampant that in 1977, the NYT wrote the following article to describe the situation:
https://www.nytimes.com/1977/11/24/archives/white-males-challenge-affirmative-action-programs-more-white.html
In 1996, Thomas Sowell wrote “The Vision of the Anointed”, describing the wrong-headed “implementation” of the social justice vision, citing 30 years of destructive social policy – including attempts to destroy the family unit. Sowell wrote:
“the preservation of the family as an autonomous decision-making unit is incompatible with the third-party decision making that is at the heart of the vision of the anointed”.
Sadly, I think much of the tragedy of our times goes back that far.
Yeah, my graduating class. Once I found out a few years back that he had lunch twice with George, he told me, my drug dealer in highschool (matriculated with Obama at Columbia),I know where the 1000’s of hits of pharmaceutical grade LSD that flooded are fair city of Southfield, Mi (home to GBI stash house, it’s all connected) came from… It wasn’t a Theory, but it’s a Conspiracy.
P.S. H.M., I loved Azimov..
I’m in my 70’s now, and well remember the 50’s-60’s-70’s etc. Back in the 50’s the “House un-American Activities committee” went tooth and nail against some very famous people who were supportive of the communist movement. Actors and hollywood types were in the mix, as well as some union leaders. My point, the communists have pretty much always been a problem here in the USA, but never to this level, which I lay on the doorstep of obama and company. Ya’ll know what to do this November…
Spot on!Thank you Victor!We need you voice in America to save our country!
I agree wholeheartedly with your statement that all this cultural shift began in the 1960s. As an elder in today’s world, I recall the 1950s and early 1960s quite fondly as stable and secure. We seem to have been at odds with each other since that time. Woodstock (1969) should have been an awakening of another kind – that of cultural war. Affirmative Action is now DEI – a better definition might be discipline, excellence and intelligence. The self-annointed, as defined by Sowell, was a very impressive look at what was happening then. Today, we have Victor Davis Hanson carrying on our enlightenment.
The following quote in 1787, by professor Alexander Tytler, University of Edinburg, when speaking about The fall of the Athenian Republic some 2000 years prior.
“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority will always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.”
Explosive! Victor just pulled his finger out of the dike…
Thank you Mr Hanson.
Great read
I read your article this morning and I agree with your synopsis of our current situation. Whatever the future holds for us, I feel that better days are before us starting in November 2024. Thank you for publishing the article! Praying that you have a great start to August with good health as well as your family.
Best Wishes,
Sheryl Q
Sheryl, I hope you are right about “better days…starting in November 2024.” But I’m afraid the Democrats have permanently rigged the electoral processes to ensure massive ballot box stuffing with fraudulent D votes from illegal immigrants, ghost voters, etc. If electoral process integrity can’t be maintained, then America will continue it’s rapid slide into something like the dystopia in the “Idiocracy” movie.
The presidential election in Nov 2024 will not help improve things in the US, no matter which candidate is elected. In my opinion , they both clearly are unworthy and unqualified to lead this nation. I hope for decent choices in 2028! Actually, we haven’t had any in many years!
Well, IF you feel can’t get it done, WHY DONT YOU DO THE JOB?
1.) Wealth conflated into moral superiority and license to manipulate the masses
2.) Two truths… the official “big lie” and easily visible reality
3.) “Virtuous Elite” acting without consequences for their choices
4.) Shadow rulers unaccountable to the law
These dynamics create a volatile society. There’s a palpable feeling in America that it is increasingly ungrounded, unstable and building momentum toward a reckoning. VDH knows better than most; eventually elites are brought low and face elimination when society reaches the end state. There aren’t walls high enough or governments strong enough to face down the masses when they’ve had enough.
Thank you, Mark, for giving me a glimmer of hope.
I believe many people have woken up in the past few years and that God has not forgotten us. The awakening is happening (although seemingly slowly at times) because of prayer and our love for Him and His for us. Only two countries have a covenant with God. He with Israel and the US with Him. Pray for all our leaders and thank God for working behind the scenes. In God we trust.
You’re on the mark, again, VDH. The question is how do we “turn around this speeding bus heading towards the cliff” without Civil War?
Brilliant !!!
Thank you for another outstanding article. As I read it, I couldn’t help thinking that everything you wrote is self-evident. However, I realize the necessity of reiterating such thoughts as much as possible because so many people are taken in by dishonest, deceitful, and misguided mainstream messaging.
America’s Lab Rats: A Rendition in the Style of Edgar Allan Poe
Half the land, in shadow, feels a dread profound,
As if a dark experiment unfolds around.
Entitled elites, with careless mirth,
Conduct grand designs, disregarding worth.
Behold, our soldiers leave in disgrace,
$60 billion in arms left for a savage race.
Terrorist banners where Old Glory once waved,
Union Station defaced, and statues engraved
With threats and hatred, unrestrained,
While the law looks on, silent, pained.
The border wide, ten million surge,
A tide unchecked, a nation’s dirge.
Cities, once grand, now echo despair,
Mayors spend blindly, solutions rare.
Fast food prices soar to near gourmet heights,
In this landscape of artificial lights.
For three decades, upheaval took root,
Globalization’s fruit, high-tech’s loot.
A nation’s soul traded for virtual glee,
Hedonism, narcissism, cruelty run free.
Click-bait, cancel culture, the cruel jest,
Ghosting, doxing, leaving no rest.
From 300 million, a market expands,
Seven billion shoppers, across distant lands.
The coastal elite reap megaprofits grand,
While the working class, their livelihoods strand.
The rich lament ignorance from their lofty planes,
Plotting salvation with noblesse disdain.
The muscled hands that built our land,
Their toil outsourced to distant sand.
Anointed by wealth, the soft elite rise,
As the middle class fades before their eyes.
Universities, media, the state’s embrace,
A force multiplier in this cultural race.
Jim Reynolds
I have written poetry/Stories/Songs etc. for 55 years. I am fully aware of the puzzling cerebral efforts required to analyze some other data and put it into a written/rhyming story as you have done with VDH’s article. I must tell you how impressively you have rewritten his analysis into rhyme which to me you have exceptionally and wonderfully, done.
With my Most Sincere Admiration, Dennis Wilson
Dennis, thanks for the compliments.
However, you must know that a human will find it almost impossible to write something of this high quality and yet so quickly.
I can’t do that.
But I do understand technology well, being a former software engineer, including some experience in AI.
I feed the robot the essence of VDH’s article and then edit its original poetry as needed. It is a collaborative effort for which I cannot take full credit. I’ve written plenty of poetry, songs, and prose, but this is another level, particularly when we take into consideration its rapidity.
I thought Poe would be the proper angle, given the gravity of the subject, and instructed the robot to take that into consideration.
This is a public service for all the intelligent people on this thread. Wake up, folks.
In the mean time, I hear some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
Try it out. You will be amazed and entertained.
Do I have your permission to copy?
Kudos! Do you belong to a poetry group? I am looking for one so if you do and could give the name I’d appreciate it. I write some poetry too, not as good as yours but a work in progress. 😁
Anna, please see the reply above.
You are quite kind, but I have an electronic accomplice.
I could have had it done as a Piet Hein grook, a limerick, a Stephen Foster song, a Shakespeare sonnet, or a Mark Twain short article.
Yes, it is amazing. But I am just a decent poet/song writer with an appreciation of modern software technology.
Wow! You sure are gifted. What a way with words you have! A poetic “cliff notes” to the beautiful prose of VDH! Bravo 👏🏼
Do you mind if I share this and credit you?
Allie C,
Please see the two replies above.
Not only can you use whatever I present here, you can create your own.
I only get credit for understanding how to collaborate with modern software technology.
This is entirely different than anything we have seen before.
Boom! We are in a different world.
And now to blow your mind (and everybody else on this thread): I have taken roughly organized subject matter and fed it to the robot, then asked it to write an essay in the style of VDH.
The result is NOT VDH, but is damn good!
Jim,
Your poem is absolutely brilliant and should be showcased. What great lyrics for a song.
Brilliant. I was just telling my husband that Dr Hanson’s essay is somewhere between prose and poetry. Perfect poetic interpretation!
Genius!!
Unbelievable! This is fantastic!
bravo.
[cont’d]
Urban, coastal ethos takes hold,
Blessed, rich, and morally bold.
The new Calvinism of the left elite,
Wealth as a reward, a virtue seat.
Middle classes scorned, their values old,
In a land where money and morals sold.
Thus, we stand, lab rats in a maze,
While elites conduct their grand displays.
In America’s shadow, we toil and tread,
In a land where freedom, they said, once led.
Wonderful, well done…
Scott, make sure and check out the above replies I left for others.
The real key is VDH’s incredible original content. Let’s not forget that.
Here is how it started: I don’t have time to read long essays. So I needed a way of summarizing longer works. I needed to cover more territory in less time. So I started feeding articles to the robot and asked for various forms of summaries, lists, detailed lists, single paragraph, one-pagers, etc.
Then I asked myself, why not ask the robot to use the basic published info and create a poem, song, different form of an essay, an essay with a different point of view, etc. This is all possible.
That’s how I got here. Any resourceful person on this site could do something similar.
Did you by any chance, Mr.Reynolds, run VDH’s essay through ChatGpt and ask that those words be made into a poem…? Asking for a friend….
Glenda, please read the above replies.
The robot does some things remarkably well, much more quickly than a human.
Sometimes it appears to be art.
Our imagination is the limiting factor here.
But like most anything else related to software, the inputs are critical.
The formula seems to be to buy the trust of people; take that trust and their votes, betray it, sell it to special interests in return for power and riches; then abandon the folks who trusted them. For those who are giving their trust today, it will also happen to them.
Excellent, sir.
I ask/suggest that you offer your support to DJT in any way that can help him win the election.
Your calm demeanor and thoughtfulness might go a long way to assist Mr. Trump.
In spite of all the words written and true concerns about America’s future, why in God’s name should I or anyone vote for a convicted FELON, a convicted Sex Offender, a man with still with many believable outstanding charges. A president that watched for hours, ignoring calls from his own to speak to prevent the iligal and dangerous happenings on 1/06 at our Capital, by those he incited to “fight” . He altimately caused 5 to die! A proven pathological lier, cheat and racist! I may not be blessed with words, but sure as hell know the right and wrong character to represent me and America. Trump never was and will never be what America deserves or needs!
The left, as evidenced by VDH’s article above, is quite proud of you for buying into the MSM portrayal, without one ounce of independent research. Amazing.
Joan dear – what you’ve been propagandized to come to believe about Trump is all entirely untrue. If you are so ill informed as to write a post stating that there were 5 deaths caused by the events of Jan 6th, then you’ve just identified yourself as being an acknowledged low information voter. There was a single death of a woman by the name of Ashley Babbit, who was murdered, yes murdered by an outlaw Capital Police Cop. You obviously should get your information from other sources and think for yourself.
So DJT’s own daughter was among the propagandists then?
I think you’re talking about Donald Trump’s niece Mary Trump. Donald Trump’s daughters – Ivanka and Tiffany – support him.
It’s interesting how Trump’s critics have to be corrected because they don’t bother to do any research.
Actually, two women died that day. Babbit and Roseanne Boyland had her skull caved in by a female policewoman. Actual videos starts about 10:00.
Joan, I am sure that you changed not one mind on this site.
But keep regurgitating Rachel Maddow.
I find your behavior fascinating.
Joan – simple answer: zBecsuse, no matter how bad the candidates, one of them will win.
No matter what you think of Trump, the party that attempted tobri g down one President and did bring down another is offering an undemocratically selected option far worse than Trump.
Joan, any specific policies that Trump championed during his time in office that you like or dislike. If junk about candidates is your thing then lets start with Kamala and her background, and record as a DA, Senator, and VP. Then the conversation will be real and perhaps both of us can learn something.
Sad! A true case of TDS! I hope you can recover.
Depressing, albeit accurate summary of the state of our country today. Always enjoy reading your commonsense analysis Mr. Hanson. So many of us long for the life we had in the 60’s, 70’s and even 80’s; but know that those days will never be revived. Living in the midwest, far from the bigger cities, it is easy to get lulled into thinking all of this doesn’t affect me; but in reality, it does. I am trying to be hopeful for the upcoming election, but not sure if even it will be enough to help our nation. The novel I read in junior high: “1984” is definitely not fiction anymore.
True…but what to do? Must it get worse? We are seriously given Kamala as a choice for president! In your summation of your book, to liberally paraphrase, you mentioned the hubris of believing we were still “America”, the greatest country with the greatest military. As you said, that was our parents and grandparents. Not us, not now. As Russia and China take the mock our woke policies, the new America is in for a very rude awakening.
Spot on! Today in 2024, only 1 percent of Americans volunteer to serve in military uniform. This apathy began during Obama’s 8 years of presidency when he allowed trans people to serve openly in the U.S. military. And approved of trans surgeries paid by the taxpayers. Imagine U.S. military commanders like myself adjusting to these radical changes. For decades, we had to medically discharge military members reliant on diabetes and mental health prescriptions because they were deemed “non-deployable” to combat zones. Only large military bases can guarantee access to pharmacies. Now we allow trans personnel to serve in the military. How many are being sent to forward operating bases (FOBs) without physical access to Wing hospitals and MASH units? Obama did not invoke a military draft that would have prevented the burnout, multiple rotations of our special forces. My son, a combat medic Army Ranger returned from three consecutive tours to Afghanistan with severe PTSD. And after Biden’s horrific, reckless withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, no patriotic family or muscles from the rust belt, heartland are willing to volunteer! Why do you think enlisted military personnel wear stripes on their arms? Answer: Enlisted personnel are the backbone, “muscles”, heavy lifters of the military!
I definitely could not have said this better than you. Thank you for all you say and write Victor.
Couldn’t be more “on-point”. A spectacular overview of the landscape of the socio-economic and political environs that surrounds- engulfs, really- the American experiment.
A succinct summary of what we hav become.
So depressingly true and the supposed “opposition” party as fully invested and rewarded as their Democrat allies and are actively or passively supporting the Democrat’s every more sophisticated & successful voting corruption. The identification of over 500,000 illegal voter registrations in each swing state by Omega4America is being deliberately ignored by even the Trump campaign despite the fact that those undeliverable ballots from Wal-Marts, NGO’s, abandoned strip centers voted almost 100% in the 2020 & ‘22 elections. It’s too late to remove them from voter roles but not too late(barely) to stop those ballots being mailed out. They will be picked up by Democrat operatives at those addresses or at post offices where they are brought back as undeliverable. They will all be voted as thoroughly documented(and ignored) by “True the Vote” in 2020.
As frightening and uncertain as times currently are, it is truly an honor to witness your work and be subjected to such insights that parallel not only my own opinions, but the silent majority in this country. You are someone I will never know, but who I respect and admire from afar. Undoubtedly, I will be reading your works of today in the years to come as american canon and intellectual master class.
Thank you sir, and please keep writing for the everyday citizens. We need you, and others like you, now more than ever.
I grew up in CO, and I was taught that made in USA really meant quality. When my parents went to the store for anything, they looked at the label for Made in USA. I started working on cars & trucks as a teenager. I looked for replacement parts with that same label because I believed, America made the best in manufactured parts. I have restored ’65-’70 Mustangs & Shelby’s GT 350 & GT500’s for over 50yrs. I work on a newer Mustang & I look on the label of a Genuine Ford replacement part & it states “assembled in USA with global materials”. The new American cars & trucks are designed to fail at a predetermined mileage or yrs of service. Some guy in a white coat decided in order to replace a turbocharger on my ’08 Ford F250 you have to lift the cab up off the frame to access to the bolts. What idiot hired this guy ? Oh I forgot the same people that forgot about the working middle class & took auto. metal & wood shop outta schools. They force a owner to take it back to the Stealership & have it worked on for a unaffordable price to get Y’all to buy the new improved made outta global parts assembled in Mexico or Canada or lastly USA. Y’all gotta have a computer with a Factory Shop Manual downloaded to do anything to find out if you can reuse a bolt. The new gotcha is TTY (torque to yield ). The bolt stretches to achieve a one time torque & is none reusable. So the guy in the white coat has a brother that owns a bolt factory in Taiwan. Thanks John Kerry for worrying about my stove.
Welcome back, Victor, you are obviously tanned, rested and ready. Go git ‘em!
Dear Professor Hanson. You explained everything that has gone wrong in America in great detail over the last quarter century. As always you produced an outstanding thought piece. I would add one additional factor to your assessment – the media – the commercial assemblage that serves as the marketing department for all the bad things you described. In my opinion, the media is largely responsible for promulgating the damage that has been done to America and her people. Thank you VDH.
Yes, we depend on them for our national discussions, and they have betrayed us.
Good Lord Victor, you’ve struck so many chords of regret, sadness, distress and anxiety for us and our Republic that I only wish every voter in America could read and absorb your insight. Your cri de coeur is of such depth and insight that it saddens me to know that most won’t have the interest or patience to listen even if it were read to them.
Please shout your message to the rooftops as hopefully do most of your readers.
From a Darwinian perspective, are the new elites more likely to survive and advance? Or are they so dependent on technology for communication and networking and wealth acceleration that they are highly vulnerable to sudden collapse and extinction? Or will they be victims to their own bad ideas and be subject to revolution and sudden overthrow as the civil society of the “lab rats” implodes.
When Britain had a more rigid class system the upper class was very dependent on their butler and other staff for their needs, could not function on their own. Tho the staff and lower classes knew this, they continued on within this system. I envision big headed people with pale weak bodies sitting in computer rooms all the time, running programs that control the people who do the physical work of supplying their needs. Maybe the big headed, big eyed aliens are really humans from the future.
Would you be open to the idea of advising Trump if he wins? Brilliant analysis as always.
Second sentence: “could care less” should be “could not care less”
“Could care less” is a popular saying. Most know what it means . It is important to communicate in a way that most would understand and I understood this instantly and had to think about your offering for a minute. Sayings don’t have to be grammatically correct.
About 4-5% of the US labor force is undocumented.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/what-we-know-about-unauthorized-immigrants-living-in-the-us/
It is not clear to me how much, at current employment levels, you can that get rid of without causing economic havoc.
An open border policy is insane, but not quite an accurate description of the status quo of weak enforcement and an easily abused asylum system that is advertised by social media.
I see no need to address the desultory whining in the article.
I don’t remember the details of the campaign finance reform that added that little checkmark to our 1040s… did it work as intended? If its goal was to reduce the influence of megadonors, I’m guessing it failed. I’d love to hear Victor’s thoughts on this.
Once again, great column. I share all of them, hoping that they will make even one person think for themselves.
It is not to late to remind The Lost Children of the Enlightenment that we can save George Washington’s Great Experiment in self government. It is not too late to rekindle the Re-enlightenment of America, one small spark at a time, and one Individual at a time. You, who read this, is that Individual and is that Spark!
This is our David and Goliath moment. A Trump-Vance administration is a good beginning.
The moral turpitude that “they” have brought has descended us to the point that the attempted assignation of a former president and front runner in the current campaign does warrant even a “fake” timely response from the “1percenters”. “They” believe there is nothing the plebes can do about. If “they” go too far again “they” may find this to be a major miscalculation that may result not only in a national civil war but also their demise. We the “muscle” class will see to it.
When people peruse this recent essay from you Victor, it’s enough to give up and cease thinking something will change. I’m 56, I once belonged to the ‘middle class’. Comfortable, employed, educated with a few dollars for a getaway once a year. I ate well and could spend money to buy decent presents at Christmas for those I love. Not anymore. It’s a week to week and day to day proposition to live these days. I’m bitter and angry. Not at those who I live with in this suburb, we are in the same boat, but at those who are wealthy and live a life with no budgets and financial restraints. I’ve never been like that before. I’ve never felt the way I do right now. People preach to me on TV about how hard it is to live with the cost of living crisis but I look at their teeth funnily enough and I say, ‘well you can afford to have nice teeth’. How sad is that? I cant even smile these days because I’m embarrassed of my teeth. And I know it will be like this till the day I die. And we wonder why people ‘lose it’ and go out ‘guns blazing’! Thank god that’s not me. I’ll continue to wake up each morning and put my feet on the ground. Another day. Don’t ask me how or why I’m here. I don’t know. And I’m fully aware there are people doing it 100 times worse than myself. I’m a white single male. And I wait for the grim reaper to knock on my door daily.
Wow, I am a 57 year-old white male, you have described exactly the state I am in, except I, thankfully, have a wife of 38 years who is living this hell with me. It is no wonder the suicide rate among white males is so horrendously high.
Ditto. Except the single white male part. I am a single (widowed) white female. I wonder what my children and, even worse, my grandchildren will have to endure to live in what is left of this country, I loved so much.
Once again VDH pretty much sums up the current state of this country. The “lab rat” analogy perfectly describes those of us who are not part of the “ruling elite”. The elite have now taken it upon themselves to chose for the voters the next Democrat presidential candidate, one who was never voted on by the people. And, the elite have done this in the open, without any fear of the disenfranchised Democrat voters. I just hope that the voters this time around are not fooled by this very overt tactic. I seriously don’t think that this country can sink much further.
Thomas Garrova
Dickson, TN (formerly a California resident)
Well said! As you say, they did it in front of everyones sight as the rats continued looking at their “Smart Phones” i.e. oxmoron title. Thanks
Lines from my Father which, in my youth and ignorance, I scoffed – –
“We are broke. We have been for some time. We just don’t know it yet”
” We will change when we have felt enough pain. Nobody is hungry yet, but they will be”
“What we call “money” is paper. It is just paper.”
Ya’ got any cheese?
Great reply sir. As my friend used to say in high school about a particular person, “he eats cheese with both hands”
Thank you for keeping us focused.
As usual, and poignant description of the destruction of the middle class by the elite by VHD. Nothing new, only more exasperated by the parabolic rise of technology primarily benefiting those with a place in that sector. But with this AI spurred new industrial revolution what is the solution for those left behind? Those will only increase with robotics replacing many of the tasks of labor intensive occupations if not eliminating them altogether? Will the programing of AI evolve to create more opportunities for the lower ranks on workers or be used to further squelch their incomes? A example of poor design is facebook’s AI asserting the assassination attempt of DJT was a false report? While not a direct destruction of labor occupations it belies the ill intent of it’s creators. Who will it bring the spirit Carnegie’s libraries spread across the country to inspire new innovation of the non-elite?Will it be only Elon Musk and Peter Thiel as outliers in the techno innovators?
Thanks, VDH. As always, you perfectly described the situation, causes, barriers to fixing it, etc.
Just a couple questions:
1. What possibilities do you see for a restoration of electoral process integrity, to prevent counting of fraudulent votes (ballot harvesting, illegal immigrants, etc.)?
2. What can be done to counter the collusion between the DNC and the mainstream media? If that continues, our slide into failed state status is guaranteed. Musk’s cleanup of X has been a wonderful improvement. But, what else?
Brian McKibben, hopeful Independent
Victor,
Well summarized and absolutely true. I would say the initial significant movement of this trend aside from the onset of the technology boom was in the mid 80’s. I remember the late John Leo called it out explicitly in his article in U.S. News & World Report regarding the dangers of the religion of “Multiculturalism” and political correctness. Of which espoused that all cultures worldwide were equal and not to be criticized as it entered our Public Education system. He was 100% on the money.
Brent Rains
Bowling Green, KY
A committee in the Harris camp, dissects your work, looking for specific words, to re-appear, in their talking points.
The committee has adopted your continual use of the word “weird”.
When we were in highschool in the 60’s, “weird” was our go to word, as was “neat” and “sharp” and “no way, yes way”.
Perhaps a single bromide for all of us these days, and a recipe for preferred optimism rather than the prevailing pessimism, would be to simply turn off all our flat screens and smart phones for 2 hours every night, and make an effort to communicate with those closest to us, or if that is too much to bear – just read a couple of good books? Its a start. Our children will emulate that practice.
While we’re at it, lets stop using the term “middle class”. Its un-American. None of us are born into a class system here in America. We are not living in Europe. We are about “equal opportunity, NOT equal results”. None of us should take money for free, without doing something productive in society to get it. Victor, I judge your summary of our past few decades on the mark and enlightening, but look to our mass media feeding us rats the cheese we need, as the drug addicting us daily, not ourselves. Just turn the TV off.
Pelosi has stated in the past she can take a glass of water and put a D next to it and she can get it elected. God help us all.
As a VA Test Dummy for the past 20+ years, I hereby re-enlist. And yes, Navy is my preferred pronoun.
It’s so sad to see how poorly run our government is.
I worry about our country a lot. Some young people don’t understand what’s changed. Great article!
Prof. Hanson,
As always an excellent piece with great insights. It is difficult to read as it rings with absolute truths, but so depressing and so dispiriting.
You state,
“In truth, this apparent rapid cultural, economic, and political upheaval is well into its third decade. The disruptions are the results of the long-term effects of globalization and the high-tech revolution that brought enormous wealth into the hands of a tiny utopian elite. Almost overnight, every American household became a consumer of cellular phones and cameras, laptop computers, social media, and Google searches.”
In my opinion the changes we Americans are experiencing are both “currently rapid” and have been occurring over significantly more than three decades. It is just that now we are nearing an end point. Fifty-four years ago Alvin Toffler published “Future Shock” about the coming societal changes he foresaw. While he did not necessarily foresee the decline we are living in, he did make one crucial point that I have always felt was true: Since prior to 1970, not just dramatic changes were occurring, but the rate at which those changes were occurring was itself increasing. A graph of “societal change” would therefore become near vertical and intolerable at some point.
It seems to me that Alvin Toffler was right, just maybe not in the beneficial way he envisioned it in 1970.
Hey Guys,
Would anyone care to see “What Really Happened at the State Capitol on Jan.6,2021!
I HAVE THE VIDEO WITH 20,000 VIEWS ON TWITTER!!!
Best summary of our current state. Awareness that we are lab rats is the key to stopping this madness. This is a must read for everyone.
You got the elites ALL wrong sir, the Elon Musks and Kochs and Jeff Bezos are all behind Trump for the tax cuts and deregulations, non-enviornmental leaning policies, and merger-friendly administration. I really believe the John McCains and other centrists are NOT in Washington. However, America, to be able to carry own, has to quit tearing itself apart and find common ground again.
Many good points are made here, but the full political and economic context is missing. You make many good points, but fail to mention how the Reagan/Bush Sr & W years of Republican control laid the groundwork for the new Democrats to become a wealthy elite – by union busting, deregulation of everything made/mined/shipped/moved by train, taking PAC/lobbyist money to push pro-corporate/pro-gl9balist agendas and pork barrel stuffing of bills when there was bipartisan support for legislation, and -most ESPECIALLY – the deregulation of banking and Wall Street. Reaganomics’ entire point was to increase the wealth of the most wealthy so it would “trickle down” to the middle and working classes. Not to mention cutting staffs & budgets of the few regulatory agencies left to police the economic Wild West of the Roaring 80s &, under W, the bilking of our economy by privatizing & subcontracting the US military-industrial/ intelligence/”Homeland Security”/FEMA with Boeing, Northrup Grummond, Lockheed Martin & private militaries & subcontractors given blacked-out budgets – like Blackwater (the latter let our military & CIA keep their “hands clean”).
So there’s much you fail to contextualize despite the good points you make & you also fail to recognize that the Democrats & Republicans have grown economically & financially closer ideologically over the last several decades than they ever were before, which is why outsiders like Bernie or Dump were so attractive to most Americans in the fir
Yes. Oddly, the last 2-3 decades the Democrats have adopted the economic and foreign policies of the neo-cons, while Trump has changed the GOP into the party of the working/middle class. In the process the business elites switched from GOP to the Dems, joining those of the MSM, universities, and permanent bureaucracy.
I am really starting to believe that all this “culture war” stuff – which is as old as the heyday of conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, who’s dead now – is merely the latest smoke & mirrors, bread & circuses mass distraction narrative designed to distract the people from what is REALLY going on.
It is no coincidence that the invisible upper echelons of power whose global capitalism has wrought the Hoovering of money away from ordinary Americans – the growing wealth disparity that has shrunk the middle class & forced people en masse down the ladder of what used to be called “upward mobility” – have increasingly engaged in this “culture war” and pushed it to replace the righteous anger of the 99% after the economic Depression caused by the 2008 crash.
They simply CANNOT have people question the structure that has allowed the biggest wealth transfer in American history – so, by all means, they prefer us fighting about genders & bathrooms, DEI & critical race theory. They’re perfectly safe while we are at each other’s throats over things that will not fundamentally change the status quo that continues to enrich the stupifyingly wealthy 1%.
The more I watch everyone be distracted from the fundamental economic underpinnings by “culture war,” the more I understand why black Marxist Adolph Reed is hated by liberals and the left – he sees through all the anti-racist noise-making to the heart of the problem: this is end stage capitalism, & this is what it does.
I was 100% on board with all you said. Yes we are in a scary place with some real socipathic bozo’s at the wheel. I love your use of the english language to describe what we are up against.
Then I saw the nuke commentary and about choked. Can we maybe not be so eager to promote nuclear? I mean, look at how many nuclear waste sites we have just in Oregon and Washington from weapons to fracking to nuclear plants. Add to that frequent violation issues as this waste is illegally disposed of and/or infrastructure ages and leaks. THIS hurts the working class for hundreds of years. Have you ever seen the xray’s of people raised near hanford? Did you know the contamination got into the dairy farms and cattle and kids were raised on nuclear meat and milk, besides their water and other contamination exposures? Nuclear radiation is excruciating and makes bones look like spontges, while reeking havoc on the whole body… if you don’t die of cancer first. Agent capture has removed adequate diversionary incentives & hefty repercussion for carelessness and harm, whether fracking or nuclear. The wanton carelessness of energy and nuclear tyrants as well as the illness and bodies being obscured by their profit margin is a huge part of the problem. I am genuinely confused, how can you be so clear that the current regime is misusing just about everything they touch, yet you’d suggest handing these same elites the reigns for more nuclear energy & nuclear waste?
Nuclear waste is a nit, compared to, say, fentanyl deaths. When I was a 5th grader, in 1983, I took a field trip to Hanford. one of the teachers had a Giger counter to record the dangerous radiation, he sampled it an multiple spots all through the day and never detected any. If it decays quickly it is dangerous for a short period of time. if it decays slowly it lasts but is never dangerous. Chernobyl and three mile island were found to kill no one, while the COVID policies and Vax, 31M (Rancourt, et. al.). There are too many real major issues to be concerned with, nuclear waste isn’t even close to making my list.
Where are you getting your facts on nuclear deaths and injuries? Who provided the data and sponsored studies you are referencing? Have you ever tried suing big energy or big oil for death and injury? You must be aware that’s nearly impossible, hence a data void, no? But still, there’s readily available, verified counter data. Your giger story is interesting but thats been 40 years ago, it’s somewhat unbelievable and maybe right after a clean up in specially select locations?
Nuclear waste is active for tens of thousands of years. Have you reviewed Hanford’s current leaks & deteriorating storage? This waste isn’t something thats going away & we don’t get the luxury of pretending it’s not there. I know people raised around Hanford and have seen their imaging which is undeniably described by nuclear pollution as it presents such a unique damage pattern. Think Hanford has ever published, acknowledged or helped? Think this doesn’t cut lives short without being counted?
What of the next earthquake or volcano and this nuclear waste?
Sure, you are welcome to ignore truth of nuclear harm and pollution while pitching out fast balls on other serious issues which fire the amygdala and obscure seriousness & permanence of nuclear issues, but why? Nuclear is SO dangerous, long-lasting and harmful as are the captive agents which do more to protect & promote the campaign contributions of the regulated than to prevent human harm.
Buckle Up
Comes to mind
I will admit that I am still trying to grasp the state of the state after living a lifetime of believing many of the lies that the government (and my employers) promoted over the years. Your article is an eye-opener, to say the least. and brings some clarity. I would love to understand the relationship (Vin Diagram if anyone has one) of the relationships of the elites (political and cultural), NeoCons, the military-industrial complex, and the rest of the government. Did I leave other factions out? Such as WHO, WEC, etc. Maybe that’s too broad. If anyone has seen such a document, I would appreciate seeing it. If not, I will continue to read and learn.
There’s a typo in a critical section of the text that inverts the meaning:
“..unlike other Americans, the lab rats of the mostly rural or interior parts of the country were exempt…”
Doesn’t this ruin the thesis, if the lab rats are exempt from the experiment?
Could the answer be to just stop buying and using what the big techs are selling? Should we go back to flip phones, no Google, shut down Facebook and Instagram? If they are the biggest threats to us why would we continue to give them our money just so they can stab us in the back with it??
Cogent and compelling, as always, Mr. Hanson. Only correction is “couldn’t care less” instead of “could care less” in the opening paragraph. I presume a typesetting transcription error.
I am saddened by the truth of VDH’s insights. But even more despondent that so many replies here praised the poem that AI wrote. That is exactly what’s wrong with our electorate and our university students. Why didn’t the AI attribution precede the poem rather than a (welcome) admission later? If there had been no praise, would the admission have been offered? Isn’t that the moral question that everyone misses? That willingness to obscure the truth of authorship–an epidemic now in the age of AI–is what drove me from the academy.
“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,” Romans 1:22
Victor, your fine article overlaid upon Truth fills in the nitty gritty details of Truth. Well done.
At his 1978 Harvard address Solzhenitsyn started by quoting Harvard’s motto “Veritas.” In the remainder of his address he shredded “Veritas” based on Humanism – Man the egocentric, Man the center of all things, Man the Proud, Man the measure of all things, Man the God.
He urged the restitution of Harvard’s original motto “Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae”, “Truth for Christ and the Church”, in 1650 becoming “In Christi Gloriam”, “For the Glory of Christ”.
The most hated of scriptural doctrines is the doctrine of man’s total depravity. Our present society is the result of rejecting that doctrine and Truth.
Victor what you call “sanctimonious New England puritanism” wrote the first two Harvard mottoes. The puritanical preaching of Jonathan Edwards and others prepared the settlers to write our founding documents and to fight our War of Independence. It was the driving force behind the abolition of slavery in America. It was also the same reason why 20 died from the Salem witch trials as opposed to many thousands in Europe which was swept by the same mania. Judge Samuel Sewall repented of his actions and the trials ended.
You misunderstand them. I say this kindly and humbly. I love your writings and podcasts.
I dashed this out. Forgive poor syntax.
A former lab rat here. I worked in the polymer characterization lab at SOHIO in the mid 70’s. This post was referenced in a Y tube video I watched this afternoon:
“Mike Rowe Takes Up CLASS WARFARE with Victor Davis Hanson | The Way I Heard It.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-bgX9eQ58w
The pain at the socket got worse for PG&E customers on the first of September- rates changed again. Residential rate pricing (pge.com) notes e-1 rates, for non-care customers, are up to 39 cents/kWh for baseline usage and are up to 49 cents/kWh for usage over baseline.
https://www.pge.com/content/dam/pge/docs/account/rate-plans/residential-electric-rate-plan-pricing.pdf
The time of use rate plans charge 50 to 60 cents/kWh at peak time (4 pm to 8 or 9 pm) in the summer months. Glad we moved out of CA back in 2021.