By Victor Davis Hanson // Tribune Media Services Changes of administrations usually mark dicey times in American foreign policy. But transitional hazards will never be greater than in 2016. Over a span of just a few months in mid-1945, new president Harry Truman lost all trust in Soviet Union strongman Josef Stalin — in a […]
By Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media We live in an expanding culture of victimhood fueled by identity politics. Americans are supposedly saved from themselves by a new hipster generation of Silicon Valley zillionaires, socially aware techies, progressive government bureaucrats, crusading liberal journalists, and cranky, mostly irrelevant academics. So why do they not address the
Consider California’s upside-down logic. By Victor Davis Hanson // Tribune Media Services California has given us three new truths about government. One, the higher that taxes rise, the worst state services become. Two, the worse a natural disaster hits, the more the state contributes to its havoc. And three, the more existential the problem, the
Western elites and Third World critics both enjoy Western largesse. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Professing dislike of the West and its culture and legacy is an industry on campus. The subtext of “white privilege” is that it consists of unearned status accorded those of European background. To listen to the anti-Westerners,
By Victor Davis Hanson // PJMedia The modern art of a community organizer seems fairly simple. The proverbial agitator identifies a particular aggrieved racial, ethnic, gender, or class group that believes equality of opportunity must guarantee equality of result. Then he “organizes” the victims by claiming that their ostensible failure to obtain parity can only
What Obama doesn’t understand about human nature. By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Deterrence makes someone not do something. A parent promotes good teen behavior not just by providing cars and smartphones, but also by the explicit specter of graduated punishments that an adolescent does not wish to repeat, and thus chooses instead
By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online California has given us three new truths about government. One, the higher that taxes rise, the worse state services become. Two, the worse a natural disaster hits, the more the state contributes to its havoc. And three, the more existential the problem, the more the state ignores it.
By Victor Davis Hanson // PJMedia Comparing great things to smaller ones, is Donald Trump, in spirit, becoming our version of Napoleon Bonaparte? For a decade and a half Napoleon wrecked Europe. He hijacked the platitudes of the French Revolution to mask his own dictatorship at home and imperialism abroad. Yet today, two centuries after
By Victor Davis Hanson // PJMedia Barack Obama entered office in 2009 with overwhelming popular goodwill and solid majorities in both houses of Congress. He chose not to translate that political heft into passing “comprehensive immigration reform” (i.e., open borders and amnesties) or more gun control. He opposed gay marriage. He warned that he could
By Victor Davis Hanson // PJMedia President Obama talks a lot about the scientific method. On climate change, he has often invoked the idea of a great divide between those on the progressive left, such as himself, who believe in “settled science” and thus a looming man-caused climatological disaster, and those, presumably on the Neanderthal