Historian’s Corner

VDH UltraThe Politics of Indictment. Part One

Victor Davis Hanson Mike Pence had initially condemned Trump without context for his flawed archives protocols (he seems to be backtracking now). So has Chris Christie and Nikki Haley (she too had second thoughts). They are right that everyone must obey the law. But there are two other issues in play here: one, equality under […]

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VDH UltraThe Trump Indictment—In 10 Bothersome Paradoxes

Victor Davis Hanson Yes, we are told Trump is facing serious charges. Experts tell us he will be going to prison. Some of his legal team have quit. Yes, he was sloppy about communicating with the lawyers of the National Archives. Yet, read the 1978 Presidential Records Act (put into place after the typical sloppy

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VDH UltraOssified Americana. Part Two

Victor Davis Hanson Affirmative Action Can we count the ways that this stagnant relic from the 1960s is neither coherent nor needed? 1) Class and race are no longer synonymous. Why give special preferences to the children of Prince Harry or Eric Holder or LeBron James? Were the Obama children in need of special help

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VDH UltraOur Great Illegal Immigration Mythologies. Part Three

Victor Davis Hanson Myth #3: The Noble Illegal Immigrant Somehow from all the photos of the thousands swarming into across the border, we have constructed the would-be illegal alien into a nobility of sorts. But well aside from the hypocrisy—we fired military personnel who chose not to be vaccinated, but welcomed in illegal aliens who

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VDH UltraOur Great Illegal Immigration Mythologies. Part Two

Victor Davis Hanson Myth #2: Our two-party establishments oppose illegal immigration. 1) Corporate America/the Chamber of Commerce/the Wall Street Journal business intelligentsia all welcome open borders. They oppose E-Verify, The Wall, deportations, etc. Under their euphemism “comprehensive immigration reform” they want to return to the Reaganite Simpson–Mazzoli Act nothingness that destroyed border enforcement and the

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VDH UltraOur Great Illegal Immigration Mythologies. Part One

Victor Davis Hanson Myth #1: Mexico is our “partner.” Joe Biden has recently praised President Andrés Manuel López Obrador as working hand-in-glove with him to alleviate the influx of illegal immigrants crossing into the U.S. from his country. In fact, Obrador is one of the main reasons there have been over seven million illegal entries

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VDH UltraThe Unappreciated Rustics. Part Two. Classics in a Dumpster

Victor Davis Hanson In any case, I forgot about the electric motor shop after I went away from the farm for a decade both overseas and at school over on the coast. After the death of my grandfather, when I had returned to farm myself, I noticed that the young guy whom I remembered years

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VDH UltraThe Unappreciated Rustics. Part One. Historians in a Motor Shop

Victor Davis Hanson Since antiquity farmers have been characterized as boorish (Greek agros, “farm/field,” English “agrarian”; Latin rus, “countryside,” English “rustic”), as if nature coarsened those who worked with it. My experience of more than six decades on the farm is that such impressions certainly can be true. I remember the old ditch tender, whom

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VDH UltraCivilizational Killers. Part Three. Borders and Security

Victor Davis Hanson The history of nations is a story of borders. Most wars break out over a nation’s private space, essential to create and maintain a unique culture. I once studied why Greek states fought three out of four years in the fifth century B.C. The answer was easy: disputed borderlands. Democratic Athens was

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VDH UltraCivilizational Killers. Part Two. Debt and Inflation

Victor Davis Hanson Debt and its twin inflation destroy civilizations. Ancient coins were sometimes called “redheads” as the raised impressed silhouettes of grandees stamped on “silver” coins were the first to have their silver veneers worn away revealing the “red” bronze beneath. Our paper money is similarly becoming less and less valuable, the more we

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