Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
Hunter Biden has a train of a dozen lawyers defending him on felony indictments ranging from several counts of tax fraud to gun violations. From time to time, the contents of his laptop come up, both in these criminal trials and in civil suits. The information on the laptop is, of course, incriminating and useful to various prosecutors and litigants.
Yet Hunter himself is suing the computer repairman with whom he dropped off his laptop and never retrieved—and never paid—despite signing a waiver relinquishing ownership if and when in default of payment and claim.
But the weirdest element of the Biden labyrinth of illegality is that both Hunter and his attorneys footnote their writs and statements with the inexplicable notion that the laptop is not necessarily Hunter’s own—but then again, it could be.
In other words, they are not presenting evidence to show that either the photographs, texts, or emails are concocted, even while they are suing various parties for defamatory dissipation of the sort of true, sort of false contents. Translated: The surreal truth is that Hunter is very mad that what he did illegally in part is evidenced on his own laptop, and he wants that information either suppressed or disowned, but without perjuring himself by stating the material on his laptop is not his own—because of course it is his.
The same alternate universe surrounds Joe Biden’s cognitive decline. To prove that the Biden administration’s appointed special counsel was unprofessional and in error by referencing proof of Biden’s dementia, Biden gave a sudden and unusual press conference.
But almost immediately, he lost his temper. Biden lied numerous times in contradicting the evidence of the special counsel’s report, falsely claiming many files in question were not classified. He lied that the files were securely stored in locked cabinets when they were sloppily strewn around in boxes in a rickety garage. He falsely asserted that he had notified authorities once he discovered that he had classified files in his possession, although he did not do so for roughly another five years—just days before his administration was to appoint Jack Smith to investigate Donald Trump for many of the same alleged crimes that Biden might also have been guilty of. And inter alia, he referenced President Abd el-Fattah el–Sisi of Egypt as the president of Mexico—apparently as part of his public demonstration of his own mental cogency.
Biden further misled by damning the special counsel for supposedly prompting Biden about the date of the death of his son, the year of which Biden did not recall. But in truth, Biden himself, not Mr. Hur, brought up Beau Biden’s passing voluntarily to Mr. Hur—although again without the ability to cite the year in which he died.
Furthermore, it is President Joe Biden who serially raises the tragic death of Beau (who died in a Washington, D.C., hospital from a glioblastoma brain tumor), often among grieving gold star families, by falsely stating variations of “We lost Beau in Iraq.”
Note Biden’s general disconnect: serial lies about special counsel Hur’s report; lies that Trump’s once secure border is somehow responsible for Biden’s by-design open border; lies that Trump caused the Putin invasion of Ukraine on Biden’s watch that never occurred on Trump’s.
In the last week, Biden’s circle—press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Democratic Congress representatives and senators—have all publicly emphasized not just that Biden is alert but vigorous, hale, and more dynamic than most in his briefing sessions. That alternate reality is at odds with 70-80 percent of the American people who variously poll in surveys that their president is not fit to serve and should not run for reelection. The more Biden flaks insist the President is dynamic, the more he restricts his schedule to a three-day work week, forgets where he is and what he is to say, and confuses names, dates, and people daily.
Since January 2021, the southern border has been destroyed. It no longer exists as a protective bulwark of American sovereignty. Some 8 million illegal entrants have made their way into the US—illegally, without audits, criminal background checks, English fluency, or skills to become self-supporting.
No matter: for the last 1000 days, Americans have watched on their televisions and computer screens thousands swarming the border every day, juxtaposed with assurances from recently impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Kamala Harris, and President Biden that the “border is secure.”
Now with an election looming, the Bidenites are no longer either indifferent to or preening about their accomplishments of allowing (“surging”) millions illegally into the U.S. but instead scrambling to blame their suddenly declared “secure border” on Donald Trump or Republicans in Congress. Even more bizarrely, they are blaming the Congress for not giving them new laws and more money to resecure a supposedly already declared secure border, even though Donald Trump left office in 2021 with a genuine secure border and without any need for more appropriations or legislation.
President Biden keeps bragging about Bidenomics and its role in lowering inflation (January 2024: 3.1% rate of per-annum increase) and his massive deficit spending since January 2021 of perhaps $10 trillion dollars in borrowed money that spiked interest rates threefold.
Yet Biden ignores the fact that since he was elected, the average price of consumer goods has risen 17.2 percent. Even that increase does not represent the reality that most important consumer purchases such as staple foods, appliances, automobiles, rent, mortgages, building supplies, and home purchases have soared about 30-40 percent in the last three and a half years and have neither abated nor been matched by commensurate increases in wages.
The analogy to Biden’s fallacious argument that inflation is nearly licked might be that of a victim who suffered a near-fatal, unhealed wound and is then supposed to be relieved that subsequent additional wounds were relatively minor—even as he suffers permanent injury from the initial lesion. So the more Biden praises his fiscal policies, the more the public polls reflect the fact that in just three years, accustomed consumer goods are now unaffordable.
A final example of these strange disconnects is the Biden administration’s courtship of Iran. The more it has lifted sanctions on Iran, begged to restart the Iran deal, restored funding to Iranian surrogates like Hamas, or taken the terrorist Houthis off the terrorist list, the more Iranian satellites have butchered Israelis and attacked 170 American installations. In response, the more the United States offers the boilerplate that, while Iran may have supplied such aggressors, there is no direct evidence of Iranian skullduggery to justify an accounting from Teheran.
So everyone knows Iran is at the heart of the exploding Middle East, and everybody knows that they are not supposed to say they know, lest it lead to holding Iran accountable.
What explains all these alternate realities? In a word, we are witnessing the meltdown of an entire American presidency. It was born in a 2020 Faustian bargain in which a cognitively challenged, ethically compromised candidate agreed to run by offering a pseudo-moderate veneer in exchange for the support of the far left, which in turn owned his agenda.
Since then, the Biden apparat has tried to square the circle of packaging and promoting a far-left menu that the American people did not want, delivered to them by someone who, by any fair standard, would not be able to serve as a teacher, Uber driver, or lawyer. The result was the present construct of a supposedly dynamic president promoting a traditional Democratic agenda that has succeeded brilliantly here and abroad.
And to sustain that myth requires constant deception and falsehood.
Thank you Victor for your continued service to the American people. Your writing the truth about the sordid biden regime more than counter balances the lies we are force fed by the biden/obama/clinton toadies. There is definitely a negative visceral reaction by the American electorate to being continually “poked in the eye” by the blatant hypocrisy and prosecutorial conduct of our very own modern day “Jacobin Club”.
It’s that visual evidence (Biden’s incoherently sputtering face, that increment-coded map of San Francisco, that first-place swimmer grotesquely towering over “her” legitimate competitors, etc.) of the absurd that will remain in the public mind and that will be the most difficult for the spinners to overcome.
“A republic, ma’am, if you can keep it.”
We passed that point long, long ago.
Amazingly concise and accurate analysis
I listen to your podcast regularly and really appreciate your insights. Will you please listen to the Tucker Carlson interview of Mike Benz and weigh in on that content?
Hunter’s criminality and legal strategies, Biden’s dementia and surreal defense, the open southern border, blaming Trump and Republicans, real inflation of 30-40%, and Iran.
That’s quite a current list – and it doesn’t include Ukraine, Russian, and China with whom Pres. Joe Biden enjoys an awkward relationship of having transacted for family profit with oligarchs, and communist party members, while placing himself in a weak position to counter aggressive measures by all three.
Ukraine canceled elections, Russia invaded, and Putin killed his political adversary Navalny in prison, and China is injecting 100’s if not thousand of sleeper cells over the southern border, when they’re not flying balloons over military installations.
Constant, almost comedic embarrassment on the world stage is another issue, referring to conversations with dead people, confusing countries and their leadership, getting lost on stage, shaking invisible hands, falling down, etc.
Looking backwards, there was the dreadful pullout from Afghanistan, 13 US soldiers unnecessarily losing their lives, an innocent Afghan family blown up by US military, 50 billion in equipment left behind, people clinging to the wheel wells of departing aircraft, some to fall to their doom after take off.
What a mess! And nothing to do about it until Nov. because clueless Democrats and their cronies will double down on imprisoning Trump, manipulating elections, censorship, and media propaganda until hell freezes over.
For real? How short-sighted of him. He’d have to be a real idiot to do that. At least they to hadn’t announced Navalny’s death in order to preserve Putin’s good image (which he acquired in the eyes of much of the conservative audience, apparently, after his famous interview with that Tucker). But they just killed him and announced his death to the whole world. So amazing that it’s hard to believe.
Speaking of Tucker…
A unique perspective on Tucker’s interview with Putin, the essence of which no one understood (backed up with all the necessary sources). I mean, there really is nowhere else to meet it, backed up by the necessary factual justification. In case you are interested in more details, scroll down and review the next comments of the same person. This, for example (recommend). And I argue that this is exactly the actual reason for the interview (review, open the links and review more if you wish).
Explanatory context, concerning the above.
(I have no idea exactly what this site is and I don’t care.)
Victor. too many people for sentimental reasons WANT to believe Biden even when they know Biden is lying. Biden is the Last Gasp of those affected by WW2; I’m ten years younger than Biden by I noted this growing up in the ’60’s and ’70’s. The WW2 Hallowed Dead Must Not Have Died In Vain is the basic principle. This means many voters always have to vote for a Democrat and rationalize that support–otherwise The Hallowed Dead etc. When the FDR Centennial happened in 1982 I noted many alive when FDR was around talked of FDR the War Leader and not FDR the man who ended The Depression. Plus, after all, Uncle Joe Stalin was the Russian Roosevelt so many would like to support the Communists and other Leftists. We really shouldn’t have had the Cold War and been at odds with the Soviets and the ChiComs. Castro was an agrarian reformer said the NY Times; in th early days of Pol Pot many Leftists fought as false any stories of mass killings in Cambodia and there were full-page ads denying those stories in the NY Times running even on the very day that the NYTimes ran a front-page lower right-hand corner story with pictures on page 3 of the skulls in the catch basin. (Yes, I saw that story and the ad.)
Cognitive Dissonance, that’s what it is. Tight mass commitment to shibboleth beliefs is a characteristic of mass Democracy; I suspect it happens in other countries. Victor, have some of your grad students work this thesis with special look at India and Hindu Supremacy.
I might add, if Biden lives he will be re-elected because people WANT to believe. Plus he identifies with Extreme Irish Nationalism and that will get him some more votes from Hibernian-Americans many of whom DO care about Ireland in a classic “let’s you and him fight!” attitude and love that he knocks Britain every chance he gets! THAT is what got him the extra votes he supposedly got in 2020—if he got those at all without “cheating”—that is the ONLY explanation for PA and maybe MI; WI and GA is iffy for this Hibernian Effect.
So the poor Democrats have to run Joe even if they have to run him embalmed as Joe “Bernie” Biden! BTW, consider that the Presidency may be becoming something akin to the Japanese Shoguns with the real power behind a figurehead Emperor/President who goes through the motions and keeps enough voters happy.
“…To sustain that myth requires constant deception and falsehood.”
Ha! That is the easy part. The entire media will continue to lie to the American public with impunity in order to accomplish Democrat long-term goals.
Fifty years of the media mantra, “Democrats are nice, Republicans are mean….” and labeling every (R) candidate as “Hitler” and their supporters as “racists” gets big results every time. Probably always will, which is why it doesn’t stop.
It’s astounding how quickly America is becoming a third world country.
The judicial system is now a proven political weapon. $355M, no victims at all. Banks happy, Trump organization happy, just a prosecutor that literally ran a political campaign stating “I will get Trump” and a whacked out radical Democrat, New York, judge.
Sanctuary cities with human feces all over the place. Open drug use, Mass shoplifting with no penalties.
Sex Surgeries on minors being taken from their parents by CPS.
Men playing women’s sports by simply saying “I’m a transvestite”.
Countries, saving themselves so much money by sending all of their poor criminals right through our border. Likely close to 12, million by the end of 2024.
Luxury hotels, food, lodging monthly payments, cell phones for all illegal immigrants. Paid for by tax dollars from the middle class.
Roughly 20,000 Chinese nationals in our country in the past month and a bit. Mostly military aged men.
Illegal immigrants, beating up cops and flipping off the camera while they head out to California. I guess if you’re going to head somewhere after beating up Cops, California is certainly the place to go!
Where does it end?
I have not read VDH’s book “The end of everything”and I haven’t even read a summary or anything like that yet so I’m not even certain exactly what the book is about. But that title sure does come to mind.
Is this the end of everything?
I’m late to post here. The power of the English language is to too puny to express my gratitude to VDH. So in a word I’m “GRATEFUL” to VDH.
But my heart is heavy. My heart is heavy because I remain in a state of constant doubt regarding election integrity. It feels like there is no election integrity now. We can vote, but does our vote matter?
Some state legislators have tried make changes but haven’t they been well vetoed? What changes have been made to prevent Zuc Bucks, ballot healing, ballot harvesting, voter ID, computerized vote counting, “dead” voters, a surge of ballots from no where weeks later to win for the other guy? What about the destruction of persons who question the same?
My fear is that no matter how many vote for DJT, the forces of evil disallow this. We’re still being told that JB got more votes than BHO for Pete’s sake, running for potus in silence from a basement. All this feels Orwellian to me. Feeling pretty sick here in SC.
Finally, if DJT were to win potus, won’t he have another cycle of Republicans & Democrats fighting him every step of the way? And every alphabet federal agency wiretapping him, embarrassing him, intimidating him, and arresting his cabinet? Aren’t these lever holders cooking up plans for just this possibility right now? Our poor nation.
If the Biden presidency were a proposed hollywood movie plot, no producer would make the movie because it was just too far over the top.