Historian’s Corner

VDH UltraTo the Last Ukrainian—or Not? Part One

Victor Davis Hanson Ukraine has recently pulled off some spectacular successes, such as the attack that damaged the key Kerch bridge linking Crimea to Russia. If permanently derailed, the loss may curtail one key Russian supply line and cost a considerable amount of time and investment to restore it—but only to be hit again by […]

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VDH UltraTheir California Dreams, Our Nightmares, Part Three

Victor Davis Hanson The coastal elites gave us sanctuary cities and a sanctuary state. They oppose deportations (remember the campaign videos of Kamala Harris chanting and demonstrating to stop federal deportations of illegal aliens from California). They virtue signal their liberality and then are shocked that a 13.3% income tax rate will still not bring

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VDH UltraTheir California Dreams, Our Nightmares, Part Two

Victor Davis Hanson Consider the following four examples: 1) Massive solar and wind projects, while dismantling hydroelectric, nuclear, and natural gas generation, spiked electricity costs to over 30 cents a kilowatt. For the coastal elite, whose affluence means they can run their air conditioners as they please (and their ocean-side climate makes that optional in

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VDH UltraTheir California Dreams, Our Nightmares, Part One

Victor Davis Hanson California has become for some time a one-party state: no Republican statewide office holders; supermajority of Democrats in both state legislatures; only nine Republican Congressional representatives out of the 52-member state delegation; no Republican governor in the last 15 years; and the majority of local and state judges leftwing Democrats. Why the

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VDH UltraThe Failure of Modernism, Part Four

Victor Davis Hanson Why is modernism never held to account, its results judged, its costs compared to its benefits? Does anyone doubt that a Yale BA graduate of 1960 was far better trained than his counterpart of 2024, and could be so assessed on tests and evaluations? How could that be given the revolutions in

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VDH UltraThe Failure of Modernism, Part Three

Victor Davis Hanson Modernism gave us a general coarseness of culture. Why do mostly leftwing politicians now routinely cut videos where senators and house members use the sh*t and f*ck words? I like Sen. John Fetterman, but cannot he wear long pants to the hallowed chambers of the Senate? I also watch the Gutfeld! show

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VDH UltraThe Failure of Modernism, Part Two

Victor Davis Hanson Yet it was in popular culture and the university where the real damage of modernism was found. The repulsion in the 1920s against all the hierarchies and protocols that had led to the recent destruction of European manhood in the Great War swept away the good of the West along with the

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VDH UltraThe Failure of Modernism, Part One

Victor Davis Hanson First, what is modernism? In a word, it was the rejection of traditionalism in every imaginable aspect. Starting in the mid-eighteenth century, the trend accelerated in art, literature, architecture, politics, religion, and all cultural and social life. The French Revolution, the revolutions in Europe of 1848, the Industrial Revolution, the faith in

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VDH UltraAbsurdities of the Age. Part Two

Victor Davis Hanson Firing Generals and Defense Board Members The media went crazy when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth removed the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Charles Q. Brown, Jr., and now has fired members of the Defense Policy Board. I have no idea whether these removals were entirely justified, arbitrary, controversial, unnecessary, or long

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VDH UltraAbsurdities of the Age. Part One

Victor Davis Hanson The Stock Market Entitlement Complex On Friday, April 24, the stock market closed about 40,000 on the Dow Jones, or where it was variously just recently between May and August 2024. Yet we still hear from the investor class (10 percent of the nation’s own 93 percent of stock market capitalization) cries

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