Victor Davis Hanson Historian’s Corner Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama at various times have called for either junking the 233-year-old Electoral College, the 180-year-old filibuster, the 60-year-old 50-state union, the 150-year-old nine-justice Supreme Court, and the 233-year-old Constitutionally mandated responsibilities of states to have primary responsibility in crafting balloting laws in national elections. […]
Victor Davis HansonHistorian’s Corner One can look for real authoritarianism and threats to the Constitution in the Obama and Biden administrations. The Obama justice department surveilled any Associated Press reporters they suspected of leaks. They monitored the communication data of Fox reporter James Rosen—mostly on the correct assumption that the media was so biased and
Victor Davis Hanson Historian’s Corner About once a week a progressive or Never Trumper writes about Trump’s “destruction” of the Constitution and the “existential threat” he posed to democracy—without providing much evidence other than a boilerplate Trump tweet. Fascism is often the charge against the former president. But while Trump blustered about and raged, few
Victor Davis HansonHistorian’s Corner 1. Isn’t it a given that if Trump runs, most Republican voters would probably vote for him in the primaries? A. If he is nominated, could the polarizing Trump still beat the Democratic nominee, dismal as that candidate would likely be? i. Which raises the question, can there be Trumpism without
Victor Davis Hanson Historian’s Corner President Biden’s chief of staff Ron Klain claimed that the Democratic implosions two weeks ago were due to Virginian voters who were furious that Biden has not “done more.” That “more” is now defined as borrowing variously anywhere from $4-6 trillion for “infrastructure” (a term used to define anything from
Victor Davis HansonChild’s Garden Growing up in a rural multiethnic community, I remember all sorts of unfamiliar hysterias. Once a household by the local rural market about two miles from our home announced that the Virgin of Guadalupe had appeared on their shower door, etched in calcified sediment, as if on stained glass. Suddenly over
Victor Davis Hanson Historian’s Corner Unfortunately, the pandemic and quarantine were only the first of the many recent stress tests of citizenship. In May and June 2020, such questions were no longer theoretical, but reappeared as all too real. When African American George Floyd died on May 25, 2020, while in the custody of arresting
Historian’s Corner I think we have forgotten just how much the idea of a national quarantine in 2020 was seen as a way to “fundamentally transform” the United States. I say that not as a conspiracist, but one who remembers well what was said by those giddy precisely because they discovered a lever to move
Victor Davis HansonHistorian’s Corner Whether the Athenian pandemic that destroyed a quarter of the Attic population in 430-29 B.C. and made it nearly impossible for Athens to win the Peloponnesian War, or the outbreaks of Yersinia pestis (A.D. 541–49) that ended the Byzantine emperor Justinian’s grand idea of a reunified Rome headquartered in the East,
Victor Davis Hanson Words Matter cis—fancy Latin preposition used by those who know no Latin class—a now taboo word that died around 2020 cultural appropriation—not dying your hair blond dark money—never used again since it is now all leftwing diversity—segregation revival equality—far worse than “inequality” equity—capitalism for me, Marxism for you fragility—a slur used by