Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
The decade-old age of fables like Russian collusion, laptop disinformation, or the pangolin/bat cause of COVID is not over; it is just hitting midstream.
For much of April, amid stock downturns, in the classical paranoid style, we were assured by the Wall Street Journal news reporters and the liberal press that Trump had either a) guaranteed an inevitable recession, b) engineered a losing trade war he likely regretted, c) crashed the stock market, d) lost his once majority favorability ratings, e) mostly had a failed first 100 days, or f) all of the above.
Some of us thought these diagnoses and prognoses were absurd. How in mediis rebus, during a radical counterrevolution never quite seen before, could anyone issue such bleak predictions? Would these same observers have said the U.S. was doomed to lose World War II after the bleak first five months of mostly failure in the Pacific, or North Africa, after the utter U.S. army disaster at the Kasserine Pass?
When the Biden administration compiled two consecutive quarters of negative GDP—the supposedly classic definition of a recession—most of these same pundits assured us that the data was meaningless and irrelevant. The same left-wing media throng insisted Biden was in his cognitive prime until hours before he abdicated from the ticket under pressure. They swore to us that Robert Mueller’s “walls were closing in” on Donald Trump, who would legitimately go to jail, buried by 93 lawfare indictments.
As for their polls showing that Trump was all but through after three months in office, almost all of them were not just off in the 2016 presidential race, but again in 2020. And given the chronic temptation to warp polls to create Democratic momentum and fundraising, they rigged their polls yet again in 2024—even when they knew in disgrace that they were ruining their brand. A former Harris campaign official just admitted that internal polls never showed Harris ahead—even as the majority of polls predicted her victory.
So why would anyone believe any of these people? Take the now-defunded Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Its recent NPR/PBS News/Marist poll assured us that 45 percent of the public gave Trump an F for his first 100 days, with only 42 percent expressing approval of his job so far.
But this is the same bunch that also assured us in its final authoritative 2024 election poll, on the very eve before the voting, that Kamala Harris would win the race by 4 points—a lead proverbially “outside the margin of error.” (The next day, she lost the popular vote by 1.5 percent or 2,284,952 votes and the Electoral College by 312-226). The public broadcasting polling partnership was off 5.5 points, perhaps suggesting that it wished to aid the Harris campaign more than either adhering to professional and ethical norms or fearing to lose what little was left of its reputation.
As soon as the Washington Post and the New York Times issued their dismal Trump bias polls, observers quickly pointed out they had, by intent, vastly underpolled those who voted for Trump in 2024. In contrast, the polls with the best 2024 records had Trump’s 100-day approval ratings near even or positive: Rasmussen was 50-49%, and the joint national surveys by Insider Advantage and Trafalgar Group had Trump up at 100 days, 46-44%.
As far as the supposed economic and stock meltdown, the March and April monthly economic reports showed that job growth was not only impressive but well above market expectations, with special emphasis on permanent rather than part-time jobs, even as the number of federal workers went down.
News of massive, multi-trillion-dollar investments and relocations to the U.S. continues. Far from having all the pressure levers in the tariff standoffs, China is starting to realize that the U.S. market is still the center of the world, while its own autocratic party dictatorship—again contrary to pundits’ warnings—is far more vulnerable to rising popular dissent than is a constitutional republic like the U.S.
Inflation in March and April either did not increase or, in fact, declined. Corporate profits were solid. Energy costs went down. Now that we have actually passed Trump’s first 100 days, where is the crashed stock market that supposedly signaled the recession on our doorstep?
The Standard & Poor 500 is back at the level of March 10, roughly where it was before the hysteria—and 12 percent up from a year ago. By May 2, both the Dow and S&P indices showed the longest continued gains in over 20 years. The Dow is now about where it was in September and October before the election—at levels that had not so long ago made investors giddy.
The media-academy nexus is also in hysterics over Trump’s threats of suspending federal funding to higher education unless it makes reforms consistent with Supreme Court decisions and Department of Education guidelines.
Many of us have warned campuses that it would be wiser to compromise, given the public would soon learn of what they had been doing for decades—and would be unpleasantly surprised. After all, private, multibillion-dollar endowed elite campuses took billions of dollars in easy federal money—despite endemic anti-Semitism, flagrant flaunting of U.S. civil rights laws and court decisions by continuing to use racial and gender biases, lucrative but unsavory financial partnerships with illiberal regimes of the Middle East and communist China, spiraling annual tuition costs exceeding the annual rate of inflation, 40-60 percent surcharges and overhead gouging of federal grants, and nonexistence of First Amendment protections for visiting speakers and lecturers, and on and on.
No matter. As soon as Harvard vowed that it would rally its elite brethren campuses against the administration, news predictably began to leak about the culpability and exposure of the real Harvard. Why did it only now and so suddenly rush to end its sister-campus relationship with the terrorist-supporting Birzeit University on the West Bank, or why now replace directors of its radical Center for Middle Eastern Studies program—in a fashion it never had previously dared even after the massacres of October 7?
Then, news of a joint China-Harvard program abroad suddenly surfaced. Allegedly, Harvard had aided members of what some have called a Chinese “paramilitary organization,” despite that group previously being sanctioned for its role in the Chinese state violence conducted against the Uyghurs—a fact that apparently did not surface publicly or perhaps even particularly bother any of the usually hypersensitive and quick-to-demonstrate Harvard students and faculty.
Shortly thereafter, a comprehensive Harvard in-house anti-Semitism report surfaced, documenting in detail the routine harassment of and threats to Harvard Jewish students. In truth, even if it wished to, Harvard now could not control its out-of-control and institutionalized anti-Semitism. It is a bane that Harvard has systematically ignored. It permeates the entire campus and is deeply embedded in the university’s Middle East Studies DEI architecture and recruitment of illiberal foreign students from dictatorial regimes.
The Harvard Law Review (currently being investigated by the Department of Education’s civil rights division) just bestowed a $65,000 fellowship to law student Ibrahim Bhramar. What did Bhramar do to earn such Harvard lucre?
Apparently, he was rewarded either for or despite attacking a Harvard Business School Jewish student during one of the recent anti-Israel campus protests, racking up misdemeanor criminal charges in the process. The prosecutor had noted that Bhramar had conducted “a hands-on assault and battery…and actual interpersonal violence” against the student. Rewarding an anti-Semitic attacker with $65,000 says it all. In 2024, hundreds of Harvard students and faculty disrupted their own graduation, commencing with walkouts and shouts of “free Palestine.”
In sum, despite the Harvard hysteria, it quietly knows what it has been doing, what the stakes are should it lose $2-9 billion in ongoing taxpayer support, and why it would not like full disclosure to the public of both its many excesses and lapses. So, if it is smart, Harvard will likely quietly seek a compromise with the Trump administration.
Finally, we are watching a full Democratic/left-wing meltdown.
Its puerile anti-Trump antics have gone from the clownish to the obscene and violent.
What is the point of disrupting a presidential congressional address by screaming and cane shaking, or of a silly 25-hour pseudo-filibuster? Who believes that smutty sh*t and f*ck congressional videos, or foul-mouthed threats to Trump and Elon Musk (e.g., “dipsh*t,” a**hole”) will win over Independents?
What is the strategic logic behind Democratic governors and senators threatening to cause havoc at Republican officials’ town halls, or to ignite “mass protests” and “disruptions,” so that “Republicans cannot know a moment of peace”?
Does anyone believe that yet a third impeachment of Trump will ensure a Democratic midterm victory?
Or is the correct left-wing playbook to champion a motley array of assassins, spousal abusers, and gang members? Is it wiser then to either laud or ignore attacks on Tesla dealers, owners, and chargers, or wink and nod at blatantly anti-Semitic demonstrations and protests?
Is there anything taboo for the hysterical left?
Yes—it cannot offer the country a simple “Democratic Contract for America”—listing its own solutions to the nation’s existential crises.
There is not a single Democratic blueprint of how to address a $2 trillion budget deficit, $3 billion in daily interest payments, $37 trillion of national debt, or a $1.2 trillion annual trade deficit.
There is no post-Biden corrective agenda to deal with his legacy of 12 million recent illegal aliens, added to the existing 20 million current unlawful immigrants.
Not a single Democratic senator, representative, or party official has put forth any plan to end the Biden-era conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine.
Nor will they even discuss the challenge of biological males wrecking women’s sporting events, institutionalized campus anti-Semitism, or unlawful race-based chauvinism.
On all these matters, the Democrats and their leftist supporters have offered no counter-proposals, no alternate agendas, and no unique solutions to the nation’s problems—other than boring, profanity-ridden venom and tired performance-art buffoonery.
Reliance on warped polls, untrustworthy and biased reporting, and media sensationalism will not help such poverty of thought and character.
Obscene, hysterical, and clueless is no way to appeal to Americans, Democrats.
Once true journalism becomes partisan narrative, it implodes the society in which you live.
Where would the Dems be without demagoguery?
If they mystically somehow could not use this means of deception, they would have no choice but to move toward sanity,
Thank you Victor for yet another expose of the Democrat Marxist party and of the “elite” universities that ensure that there will be and endless supply of recruits. Perhaps we should take a page out of their playbook and disregard laws and bribe favorable judges as they do. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind sharing this tactic! After all, they have perfected it!
The democrats are behaving like wounded animals. And not a good look to the sober, judicious minds watching. But this is different from the deliberate destruction of America orchestrated by the schools of higher education.
For years now I have been replying to commentary that the Democrat Party is not an American political party, it is a criminal organization. They seem to believe they have been in charge of our country long enough to believe they are untouchable, and that they can act as they want and do whatever the want to do without being held accountable. The number of what should be unlawful things they have done just in the last 16 years should have placed several of them in a prison cells. We all kept waiting for that with our arms crossed and our foot tapping the pavement. The puerile (as VDH called them) Democrats will do it all again if they are not held accountable for their actions. I’m a grandfather with two adult sons and six young grandchildren, mostly girls — trust me, I know.
Another potent review of the looney tunes Left!
From now on, when I’m in mixed political company and someone starts complaining about the new Trump policies, I will ask, “Do you know who Victor Davis Hanson is?”
If they say “yes”, I tell them “I agree with his views.”
If they say “no”, I tell them “You should definitely check him out.”
One does not expect an infant to self-examine and self-correct. Same came be said for anyone of a liberal mind-set.
MAGA
Trump 2.0
For those whose moral and ethical compass is defined by, ‘The ends justifies the means’, there is nothing that is taboo.
“Animal House” was a funny movie when they were students, but not so funny when they are in charge of the Universities…
Jim Reynolds and so many others: Clearly said. I’m comforted to be in the reading company of you folks.
I keep hearing that it’s possible/likely Dems will do well at mid-term, but I just don’t see it. We watch the Marxist double down on stupid daily.
Continuing to follow their same ideology that just lost them an election. The MSM propaganda machine amplifies their message which falsely gives the impression of more Dem support than actually exists.
Of course, we know they will be cheating, so there’s that.
VDH.
I have two points to make.
1) The left thinks they will pick up seats during the midterms in Congress because historically that is what always happens to the party out of power.
They will push that narrative along with all the same nonsense you mentioned above.
2) Do not think for one moment that everything stops when Trump can no longer run for President. Trump can take it.
The question is can JD Vance, Rubio, DeSantis, “et al” take the slings and arrows. Quite frankly that is the question.
My fear is they will not be able to.
One can only hope that the Lefties / Dems (sorry for the redundancy) keep acting as they’ve been acting since the election; their behavior should guarantee they’ll keep losing future elections.
The Democrats can’t possibly “present” their proposed policies because they mostly involve ignoring both law and common sense. In such a vacuum, Trump has been able to lead a party that can be on the 80 or 90% side of every issue and basic common sense. The Dems have gone so far left as to sede the moderate and left of center grounds.
Notable how the uproar over abortion rights (the issue by which the Dems intended to win the 2024 election) has virtually fizzled out. Trump let the Supreme Court solve the issue (despite Chuck Schumer’s wailing and threatening) Each State now reflects the majority will of their electorate and both sides have safe havens.
My hope is that this incarnation of the Democrat party with their poisonous influence dwindles to the point of irrelevance and we end up with a milder split in the populace. Then we can stop all the extreme slurs and lies and thrive as the greatest country on earth.
Thank you Dean Wormer. Obcene, hysterical and clueless is a fine analog to fat, drunk and stupid.
Brilliant assessment VDH. 100%. Trump’s interview by meet The Depressed was his best yet even though it still falls on deaf ears. MAGA.
Thank you again, Dr. Hansen, for gathering so many facts and putting them all together to paint such a clear portrait of the current situation. It’s one thing to have a sense about all these matters, but it’s quite another to also have the facts laid out so clearly.
“Let thy speech be short, comprehending much in few words.” VDH and the other comments have achieved in these “few words” all that needs be said. We done!
“Obscene, hysterical, and clueless.” It’s as if Dean Wormer’s advice to Flounder now applies to the whole of the American left. How fitting.
Hi Victor,
I wonder if you could expand on how the left-wing hysteria has been an integral part of their playbook for years? Even though they’re focused on illegal immigrants mostly loudly right now (probably just a proxy issue for race/DEI at large), I can’t help but remember your previous article about the tariffs and I wonder how/when they will attack on-shoring manufacturing as soon as the trade deals are negotiated.
That must be what the longer-term thinkers of the leftist-and-definitely-not-communist party will be planning for. Because since declaring the intention to on-shore manufacturing and regain control of our supply chain domestically… Trump isn’t able to keep those next steps close to his chest the way he is with the tariff negotiations.
I know you didn’t mention “green-energy” but I couldn’t help but think that that is one of the biggest elephants in the room in upcoming manufacturing. Specifically because climate/green energy have been used to discredit nuclear energy practically from the get go (the surplus of nuclear engineers from the 70s were hit hard). Are there parallels we can draw to prevent those kinds of blocks from bein effective?
I know this isn’t exactly on topic, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. Specifically because it’s not getting as much attention at the moment, that the green agenda it was deeply affected by USAID freezes and will not be a sufficient source of domestic energy to support onshoring manufacturing once it arrives
Well said.
The legacy media could try to accuse Victor Davis Hanson (VDH) of spreading misinformation, but doing so effectively would be a tall order. Here’s why:
• VDH is extremely careful with facts: His background as a military historian and classicist shows in his work. He references history, primary sources, and logical structures more than emotion or tribal talking points. That makes him tough to catch in a clear falsehood.
• He frames arguments, not hoaxes: Even his sharpest critiques of the left are grounded in data, precedent, or observable trends. He’s not known for peddling conspiracy theories or fabricated polls — unlike some prominent figures on both sides.
• The media usually attacks his tone or associations: Rather than call him a liar, critics often label him a ‘right-wing intellectual’ or claim he ‘legitimizes extremism’ through his associations (e.g., Hoover Institution, Trump-world). That’s not the same as debunking his facts.
• It mostly goes one way: Legacy media outlets do tend to give more scrutiny to figures like VDH, but rarely with the same savagery they reserve for someone like Trump or Tucker Carlson. Ironically, they often ignore VDH — because debating him directly is riskier than pretending he’s irrelevant.
So no — there’s no credible list of “VDH lies” that parallels the mountain of false narratives pushed by the Democrats and their media arm. If anything, VDH is a disciplined counterweight to that ecosystem.
Amen!
1. “Hunter’s laptop is Russian disinformation.”
Fake.
2. “The border is secure.”
Fake.
3. “The 2020 riots were mostly peaceful protests.”
Fake.
4. “Trump told people to drink bleach.”
Fake.
5. “Joe Biden is sharp and fully in control.”
Fake.
6. “Inflation is transitory.”
Fake.
7. “The Afghanistan withdrawal was an extraordinary success.”
Fake.
8. “There is no evidence linking the Bidens to influence peddling.”
Fake.
9. “Republicans want to ban books and erase black history.”
Fake.
10. “75% of Americans support Biden’s economic policies.” (From a poll of 612 likely DNC interns.)
Fake.
Cue Elaine:
“Fake, fake, fake, fake.”
(eye roll, dramatic exit)
Democrats are professional liars. That’s all they know how to do.
Even George could see this.
At this point, our best weapon is savage ridicule.
Professor Hanson, very good views here, all of them truthful in my opinion.
It is time for the American citizenry to stop voting for Democrats, and send them packing from Congress. They only care about their power, nothing else.
Amen brother. Glad I have a sense oh humor because these democrats are a joke.
It continues to amaze me how actually Stupid this country is. Where theater is believed because knowing the truth would not let you Feel as good. Our country has been lied to by many in leadership positions (govt, churches, families, think tanks, and especially social media). We have been puppets of all forces who can easily manipulate the mind of self consumed, protest hungry, activist who don’t have a clue what Truth is, but they feel good about going along with the crowd and being radical in their excitement for stupid stuff. This country has been too privileged. Marxist/socialist lies have captured weak minded followers, who have no idea what it means to be individually accountable for the choices you make. I wish your messages were rebutted by those who oppose our Country, but they can’t cause that know what you are saying is true. Thank You Victor for What you have Done and Continue to Do, I hope America will survive. Time will tell if it can prevail against all it has faced and will continue to face, given that many want the power to redirect it to a Marxist/Socialist/Totalitarian country under the guise of calling themselves Democrats/Progressives/Leftists/BLM/CRT/LBGWIT???/Humanists/Globalist/Elitists-Smarter than everyone else Monied connected. This country is destined for the dust bin if Americans, who believe in the Constitution, Freedom, Bill of Rights, Individual Accountability/Responsibility and the Real God, not the Me God driving all these other forces, DO NOT NOW STANDUP TO THE TYRANNY now being uncovered by the Trump administration.
VDH, it’s “flouting” of civil rights laws, not “flaunting.” You really should know better.
In ‘69 I left SDS and the campus protest movement for the farm. I was repulsed by their adoption of Palestinian ‘freedom’ fighters as role models. While continuing to resist our involvement in Vietnam, the increasing tolerance of antisemitism among the democrats was revolting.
Returning to academia in ‘81 I received a dose of burgeoning political correctness. I had planned for an academic career after completing my graduate degrees, but was happy to escape and establish a private practice and the ideological smothering that occurs in the academic environment.
While I consider myself to have been lucky with two escapes, there are many fools today who revel in their roles, demonstrating hypocrisy and expressing vitriol.
Thank you, Professor Hanson, for describing it.
You are always spot on. Love your articles. Keep spread the truth.
The Progressive Left has no need of comments. Their actions do speak louder than words, but are those actions intended to be an influence or to further hide what events they have activated that are hidden beneath ordinary view?
The fundamental transformation is not stopped.