We are very far from a politics of ideological purity and high character. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Many have weighed in on whether Donald Trump’s agendas — to the extent that they are different from what are now ratified Republican policies — are crackpot, unworkable, or radical: e.g., building a […]
With four more months until Election Day, be prepared for chills and spills. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Hillary Clinton has outspent Donald Trump in unprecedented fashion. Her endorsements bury Trump’s. The Obama administration is doing its best to restore her viability. The media are outdoing their 2008 liberal prejudices. And yet
When have voters faced a choice between two such unpalatable, unprincipled candidates? By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Before summer is over, we may see things now scarcely imagined that will make Brexit seem anticlimactic. Trump’s Attack Mode I think the following is an accurate statement: No major public figure has ever before
Opportunists are at least attuned to public opinion, unlike ideologues. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Hillary Clinton is a seasoned liberal politician, but one with few core beliefs. Her positions on subjects such as gay marriage, free-trade agreements, the Keystone XL pipeline, the Iraq War, the Assad regime in Syria, and
Other public figures won’t admit they agree with him — but they often quietly adopt his ideas. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Donald Trump has a frightening habit of uttering things that many people apparently think, but would never express. And he blusters in such an off-putting and sloppy fashion that he
By Victor Davis Hanson // Defining Ideas Before the Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC), where Philip II of Macedon prevailed over a common Greek alliance, the city-states had been weakened by years of social and economic turmoil. To read the classical speeches in the Athenian assembly is to learn of the democracy’s constant struggles
The candidates may be unconventional, but their political agendas fall along a conventional divide. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online At first glance, 2016 sizes up as no other election year in American history. For more than 30 years, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have been high-profile and controversial celebrities. Both have
We still have five more months of Trump vs. Hillary. Then four or eight years of — what? By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online The Disaffected. Will stay-home so-called establishment Republicans outnumber renewed Reagan Democrats, Tea Partiers, and conservative independents, some of whom likely sat out 2008 and 2012, but who now are
By definition, progressives cannot be guilty of bias. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online For a variety of historical and cultural reasons, most of those who work in the media are progressives. They believe that government must undertake to fix an array of social maladies, such as income inequality, perceived racial and gender
If the ‘high IQs’ of the establishment have let America down, where is a voter to turn? By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Donald Trump seems to have offended almost every possible identity group. But the New York billionaire still also seems to appeal to the working classes (in part no doubt