Trump

Is There Still a Conservative Foreign Policy?

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Trump did not create the divide in the GOP policy world — he exposed it. The Trump victory and the Republican establishment’s mostly negative reaction to it have in matters of foreign policy called into question who is conservative, who not — and whether the old ideological rubrics […]

Share This

Why Does the Left Suddenly Hate Russia?

by Victor Davis Hanson National Review After 70 years of accommodating and appeasing Russia, Democrats suddenly foment a red scare. Russian Realism? No one doubts that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is no ally of the U.S. But rivalry is quite a different notion than returning to the Cold War, when enemies faced each other down with

Share This

McMaster and Mattis Are Rare Assets—Not Deep State Liabilities

By Victor Davis Hanson American Greatness There is a larger context concerning the recent controversies among the architects of Trump’s national security team and agenda, and the criticism of National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster. Recall first that the foreign policy of Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, Susan Rice, and Hillary Clinton could be best termed “provocative

Share This

The Problem of Competitive Victimhood

by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Divisive identity politics are fading in favor of a shared American identity. The startling 2016 presidential election weakened the notion of tribal identity rather than a shared American identity. And it may have begun a return to the old idea of unhyphenated Americans. Many working-class voters left the Democratic

Share This

Trump — And the Use and Abuse of Madness

By Victor Davis Hanson National Review Fiery and unpredictable rhetoric can be a powerful strategic tool, but only if it’s not habitual. Occasionally insanity, real or feigned, has its political advantages —largely because of its ancillary traits of unpredictability and an aura of immunity from appeals to reason, sobriety, and moderation. Rogues often try to

Share This

Why is Everyone Suddenly Quoting Thucydides? By Victor Davis Hanson| American Greatness Currently, the historian Thucydides is the object of debate among those within the Trump Administration and its critics, who, like scholars of the last three millennia, focus on lots of differing Thucydidean personas. Did Thucydides warn in deterministic fashion about ascendant powers like

Share This

Republicans and the Lost Art of Deterrence

By Victor Davis Hanson| American Greatness In a perfect and disinterested world, when Washington, D.C. is deluged in scandal, a nonpartisan investigator or prosecutor should survey the contemporary rotten landscape. He would then distinguish the likely guilty from the probably falsely accused—regardless of the political consequences at stake. In the real cosmos of Washington, however,

Share This

Trump’s Circular Firing Squad

By Victor Davis Hanson National Review Trump and his critics are attacking each other, failing to focus on the only story that counts: the welfare of the United States. The American political system has never quite seen anything like the current opposition to President Trump and his unusual reaction to it. We are no longer

Share This

Sessions, P.S.

The Corner: The one and only. By Victor Davis Hanson National Review Donald Trump’s core support is found among those who want existing immigration laws enforced, an end to state-rights nullification of federal law, and no more legal adventurism that seeks to create new laws ex nihilo. Sessions, in these regards, has been excellent. Even

Share This

Trashing Jeff Sessions — Enough Already

The Corner: The one and only. by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review   President Trump has made the point for the nth time that the recusal of Jeff Sessions on matters of alleged Russian collusion invariably led to a series of events that culminated in the appointment of Robert Mueller, a prior associate of James

Share This