Words Matter

Victor Davis Hanson Police Killing of the Unarmed (Continued) So, unlike the Chauvin case, Byrd’s name and identity were long suppressed. There were no media sensational stories that always follow when a law enforcement officer shoots an unarmed suspect, especially when the former is white and the latter black. In this case, allegations arose that […]

Victor Davis Hanson Police Killing of the Unarmed Following George Floyd’s death, the Left went ballistic that the Washington Post of all places had found that unarmed black suspects were not necessarily killed in percentages higher than the percentages of blacks among the some 11 million who were arrested each year. The distinguished Harvard University

Victor Davis Hanson “Election Denialism” I don’t listen much to the leftwing charge of “election denialism.” Why? Not because Republicans who had problems with the 2020 election did not deny its validity. Many did, perhaps because, in a first, in many key states nearly 70 percent of the balloting was not done on Election Day—even

Victor Davis Hanson I turn on my computer and often receive from two universities all sorts of the latest campus news. But the news is different than it was pre-Covid/George Floyd riots. “The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act” is now some 32 years old. And it is increasingly

Victor Davis Hanson In reading and listening this holiday week I encountered nothing really other than outright lies. I was sitting on a farm buffeted before Christmas by near record cold temperatures and after Christmas by near record precipitation. Yet almost weekly we receive stories about California’s “permanent drought” of hot/dry weather and an environmental

Victor Davis Hanson The third psychodramatic day that rendered great dividends was the buffoonish January 6th riot at the Capitol. Somehow the Left turned a few hundred out-of-control idiots, some replete with cow horns, painted faces, and sloganeering signs into a cabal of sophisticated revolutionaries seeking to storm the Capitol, hold it, and prompt a

Victor Davis Hanson A second seminal false narrative psychodrama followed the death of George Floyd. No sooner had Floyd died while in police custody than his deified image began appearing in street art with a halo and wings. We may have given the Taliban billions of dollars in invaluable military equipment, a billion-dollar embassy, and

Victor Davis Hanson Of the hundreds of psychodramas of the last decade, perhaps three have changed the course of history. All were either outright misinformation, half-truths, or remained obfuscated with the full details suppressed. The entire COVID narrative of early 2020 ended up all but destroying the Trump administration, ruining a robust economy, and likely

Victor Davis Hanson For every pre-election October surprise, there is always a post-election November psychodramatic “bombshell.” This year, right after the vote, there was the sudden announcement that a special prosecutor was appointed to investigate Donald Trump—on grounds of purported complicity in the January 6 riot and the hysterias arising over his presidential papers. But

Victor Davis Hanson The Brawley-Sharpton legacy can help to explain these latter psychodramas like the Smollett caper and the Duke Lacrosse lies. Fabricated “racist” physical or verbal attacks on innocent people of color feed national hysteria. They are usually followed by the embarrassing truth that causes no embarrassment, much less apologies. Instead, again for the