Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
The Democratic Party is polling about 31 percent approval, a near-historic low.
Despite enjoying a huge lead in fundraising, legacy media favoritism, and incumbency, in the 2024 election, Democrats lost the White House to Donald Trump. Ever since, they have offered nothing new, no novel agenda, no innovative policies—nothing other than screaming that they are loudly against everything and anything that the president is for.
In the past, what did they accomplish by following their prior two impeachments with attempts to de-ballot Trump? Who thought sending an FBI swat team to raid Trump’s home or waging five lawfare civil and criminal suits and issuing 91 felony indictments against him would win over the public?
Was conducting a media barrage of Hitler-Trump invectives, or lowering the bar of demonization that likely led to two assassination attempts of Trump a good way to win an election?
Apparently not, given the Democrats have now lost the presidency, the House, and the Senate. The Supreme Court is conservative. They have no power to subpoena anyone; they cannot block any nomination. Much of their old administrative state control is eroding. All the main issues—the economy, energy, border security, illegal immigration, crime, DEI/woke, and foreign policy—poll against the Democrats. The more they shouted that biological men must be able to compete as transgendered females in women’s sports, the more that 80% of the public disagreed, women were turned off, and the absurd idea was exploded by Trump.
The power of the administrative state, the legacy network news, print media, and Silicon Valley’s social media and search engines, the billions that poured into the Biden and Harris campaign all went for naught.
The efforts of moderators to warp debates, of network news to edit out unfavorable Harris or Biden comments, of leftists to cancel, deplatform, ostracize, censor, and shadow ban their enemies have failed. More likely to succeed now are numerous lawsuits against leftwing media for chronic defamation and censorship.
Given that collective meltdown, what would a sane Democratic Party do?
If they were stable, then they might renounce political suicide and perhaps return to something akin to the Clinton efforts of 1992 and 1996. Then the once self-destructive Democrats finally gave up on disastrous out-of-touch McGovernism, Carterism, an Dukakism. Instead, they began to embrace legal-only immigration, secure borders, balanced budgets, support for law enforcement, and meritocracy.
The result?
After twelve years in the wilderness (1980-1992), the Democrats regained power for the next 16 of 24 years—only in the second term of Barack Obama to go full radical Jacobin and soon lose it.
The current self-destructive obsessions with DEI/woke racialism, bi-coastal talk-down elitism, boutique transgenderism, and nonstop America Lastism all came to fruition during the Biden years. A shameless conspiracy to use an enfeebled John Biden as a prop to masque an otherwise unpalatable radical, neo-socialist agenda ensured the MAGA counterrevolution.
But instead of postmortem autopsy and introspection, since Election Day, the Democrats have doubled down on their veritable collective self-destruction.
On immigration, after wiping out the border and allowing in 12 million illegal aliens, including more than 500,000 suspected felons, they seem deliberately to be alienating public opinion even further.
So, thousands of leftists swarm and block the freeways of Los Angeles to protest the deportations of criminals. And how exactly?
By enraging middle-class commuters, while burning the flag of the country that they demand must allow them to stay, while chauvinistically waving the flag of the country to which under no circumstances they wish to return?
New Jersey Democratic governor Patrick Murphy idiotically virtue-signaled that he would defy the law, as he bragged that he was harboring an illegal alien living above his garage.
Then, when apprised that such performance-art showboating was a felony, in theory entailing a long prison sentence, the now buffoonish governor changed his narrative that the occupant of his garage was not really illegally living above his garage.
Democratic governors and mayors vie, bragging that they will be foremost in breaking the law by impeding the efforts of the federal immigration services to find and deport illegal aliens—for now, half a million criminals. Other activists are tipping off criminal illegal-alien gang leaders to avoid US government efforts to apprehend such dangerous criminals.
Is that the way to win back the working classes? By ensuring that the felons of M-13, Norteños, Sureños, and Tren de Aragua can flee and put in danger fellow American police officers?
Elon Musk has been appointed by Donald Trump to create a new government agency, DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), to find waste, fraud, and abuse in the government spending of taxpayers money.
He and his young team of tech standouts have exposed shocking waste and fraud, but mostly insanity, in the USAID’s $50 billion of foreign aid grants.
Why are Americans paying for overseas drag shows or gay and trans advocacy in culturally imperialist fashion in traditional and conservative societies abroad? Why are we paying eight percent of the budget of the hardcore left-wing BBC? Is that a way back to the White House?
Do Politico, the New York Times, or the Wuhan gain-in-function virology lab and birthplace of COVID-19 really need millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars?
Do Democrats really think the middle class will hate Elon Musk for exposing that their government may well have handed the communist Chinese the necessary cash to birth a manufactured killer virus that took one million American lives?
Is that a winning strategy—to scream in Congress that Musk is a Nazi, a dictator for showing that Biden’s USAID under leftist Samantha Power was a clearing house to enrich and empower well-off leftist organizations that only weakened their own country abroad?
Do we really wish to spend $20 million to bequeath a woke Sesame Street to Middle East television?
Is it smart to gin up hatred of Elon Musk, who revolutionized space travel, the auto industry, and social media?
Is the Democrats’ message something like “We hate Elon Musk and will stop his free internet service to Americans ruined by fires and hurricanes and abandoned by their government?”
Or do Democrats despise Musk for providing free internet to Ukrainians battling for their lives against Russians?
Or is the key strategy to loathe Musk for crafting a risky rescue mission to save the lives of American astronauts virtually abandoned by the incompetent Biden government space program?
For Democratic officials to scream that Musk has no right to ferret out fraud is historically ignorant. He was selected by the president with the same powers that such appointees enjoy that are by statute not required to be approved by the Senate. The DOGE head is as legitimate as the National Security Advisor, who likewise needs no confirmation but also serves at the wishes of an elected president and likewise can do nothing without his approval.
Is Musk’s position in the Trump administration new?
Hardly.
Musk certainly has more legitimate legal authority via his DOGE position than that of FDR’s in-house informal advisors—such as Harry Hopkins—who from within the White House directed much of World War II foreign policy with the Soviets.
Financier Bernard Baruch held no major position for years under Woodrow Wilson and FDR and yet rebooted America’s wartime economy in two wars.
DOGE head Musk is more akin to FDR’s appointed war production board—similar to the likes of the unelected and unconfirmed Henery Ford, Henery Kaiser, and William Knudson, with the caveat that the latter three exercised far more power than does Musk.
During the confirmation hearings on Trump’s cabinet and agency nominations, Democratic senators did not question nominees like Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, and Kash Patel so much as scream, interrupt, and insult them on live television.
Rather than ask the nominees questions about their policies and agendas, almost all the interrogatives were ad hominem.
All this came from a party that oversaw the greatest weaponization of our government in modern history while leaving us with two theater wars abroad, a scary and dangerous DEI/woke destruction of meritocracy, hyperinflation, $7 trillion more in debt, 12 million illegal aliens, the erasure of the border, and a vast shortfall in military recruitment.
During the recent Democrat Party convention elections, the voting turned into a virtual DEI tutorial on why the public is repulsed by Democrats.
The Party’s carnival-like elections were overseen by race/gender/orientation censors. In incomprehensible, jargon-filled lectures, they droned on about the correct quotas—trans, non-binary, female, black, Hispanic, Native American—that would override simple democratic voting.
When one looks for sanity among the Democrat Senate and House leaders, there is only madness to be found. Sen. Corey “Spartacus” Booker is back again, now screaming and playacting as if he were Winston Churchill willing to fight Trump-Hitler on the beaches, hills, fields, etc.
Rep. Al Green was wheeled out on spec to bellow and bluster that he was introducing articles of impeachment—is it for the fourth, fifth, or sixth time against Trump?
House Minority Leader Hakim Jefferies boasts he will fight Trump “in the streets”—alongside whom? The despised Antifa? The utterly corrupt and discredited BLM?
I doubt Rep. Jefferies himself will replay the 2020 summer of destruction. More likely he will parrot Kamala Harris’s 2020 bragging of the then ongoing four months of violent protests: “They’re not gonna stop before Election Day in November, and they’re not gonna stop after Election Day, and they should not.”
Maxine Waters is back, trying to trump her earlier threats to birddog and harass Trump supporters in her usual racialist fashion.
AOC—the supposed future of the Jacobins—drones that Musk is “one of the most unintelligent billionaires” she has met. This putdown comes from the nincompoop who claimed Trump’s low unemployment rate was due only to people holding two jobs.
Does AOC think catching a rocket with a mechanical arm is proof of dumbness, and the rants of Mazie Hirono and Elizabeth Warren display wisdom?
What the Democrats don’t realize is that they staged a French-style cultural, political, and economic revolution and tried to destroy their enemies by weaponizing government and the media—and they have now lost.
This current counter-revolution is a return to centrist normalcy and just beginning. It is deemed wild only by feral Democrats, whose high crimes and misdemeanors, and various conspiracy theories over the years of their madcap rule are now being revealed every day.
An excellent analysis by VDH, as usual. Like the vast majority of political commentary, however, the focus is on the party’s strategy and tactics – in this case merely “not Trump, the evil one”. When dems lose, they only say their “messaging” (meaning their propaganda) was lacking – never their substantive policies; those, they hide, unless they are forced to reveal them. At least at some level, some of them understand that the policies they really desire are unpopular to the point of revulsion by a large majority of the population.
Now, I don’t know how to do it, but I think we would get more mileage out of much of our excellent commentary, if it succeeded in challenging the dems to tell us what they really want. Yes, it’s obvious to informed readers here. However, we do not accurately represent the population whose political awareness is constantly (and intentionally) impaired by bread, circuses and loud lies/distortions. We must keep demanding they tell us precisely what they want to do to implement all the virtues they insist repose solely within them.
Democrats keep digging a bigger hole for themselves while President Trump and his astute staff expose the rot and resolutely dig us out from under the shameful deeds and dogma of left lunacy.
Democrats are adding insult to stupidity now as Schumer is seeking whistleblowers to come forward regarding DOGE and the Trump agenda. Just months ago that the democrats were aiming both barrels at FBI whistleblower Steve Friend and others who came forward to out the corruption within some of the 3 letter agencies. As long as the democrats were in power, it was criminal to point out regime corruption from within the ranks but as long as folks are willing to rat out ‘Orange Man Bad’ the democrats are good with it. The hypocrisy never ends with the democrats.
Exploded, or exploited?
Thank you for giving us true American patriots hope for the future. Come Jesus come!
I hope this demonstrates that our Republic institutions are strong and not dependent on Trump’s political intuition and common sense and not Democrat’s tone death insensitivities.
Let them be. Encourage the Ds to speak & act louder, angrier & more aggressive. Rs lost 41 House seats in the 2018 midterms. The nuttier and more out of touch the leading D spokespeople act, the bigger the number of seats the Rs will add to their very thin majority in the House. Who knows, maybe enough to make it RINO proof. Trump is making them look like the spoiled, dumb children they are. This is a very good thing.
Sorta like stew in their own juices?
Lie in the bed they’ve made for themselves?
Be hoist upon their own petard?
they are such children they would only blame US for their own self-imposed calamity.
Lettum rot.
It would be a real hoot, if Trump would suggest that DOGE take a look at Congress for waste & fraud. I know it couldn’t happen because of the separation of powers. But it would be fun to watch the dem’s & RINO’s heads explode! Screaming that he can’t do that. Just to poke them!
The lawfare campaigns against Trump depended on being seen as legitimate action made by respectable prosecutors who had just cause. That in turn would evoke a negative judgement on Trump. Obviously they failed.
To be honest, I don’t think the Democrats are capable of playing the game any other way than that which got them where they are. In fairness it worked for a very long time before collapsing.
The more they scream, the more we all know that Musk and CO. are over the target of their power and largesse.
As a 71 year-old who has paid taxes all of my adult life, just like millions of other Americans, I am outraged (though not surprised) by theft of the US treasury. This will be shown to include kickbacks in some way, shape, and fashion to those who authorized the money distribution.
Pursue, prosecute and jail those responsible as well as demanding repayment to the Treasury to the degree possible.
Democrats and their sycophants remind me of mephitis-mephitis rooting in a garbage pit looking for tidbits and treasures. Most times they are successful in digging up something they like. However, in the end what they treasure often is malodorous as are they. Skunks and democrats now days seem that much alike.
You and the NYT need to do a little more research. The government spent $8 million on sunscriptions to a “pro level” product of politico which is offered to organizations. According to Politico it helps them do their jobs better. It’s interesting that of all the similar compilations available from a variety of news sources, USAID picked a left wing publication. And again. $8 MILLION on taxpayer money for one agency.
As for the BBC, the AP has reported that the funds went to BBC Media Action an international charity (ngo) which is “part of the BBC family”. The USAID donation was 8% of the BBCMA budget in 23/24. IMHO it’s a distinction without a difference. WHT is taxpayer money funding a charity run by a foreign news service?
In spite of all Professor/farmer Hanson delineated, the left, progressive, fringe democrats are getting all the publicity. While the media are losing lawsuits, circulation and television ratings, they continue their running-dog, apparatchik role, supporting the former. We still have young children unable to read or write, but thoroughly indoctrinated and brainwashed in the woke way of life, not fearing criminals, but climate change.
So, in their first stages of death throes, these Democrats resort to using liberal-Left judges in various jurisdictions to stay, delay, and impede a large number of Trump administration initiatives. It’s an ugly misuse of the bench, and defiance of the will of the People who elected this President to take these actions. What in the absolute hell do We the People do with this insane behavior, abusing the law for literally personal reasons? I’m deadly serious: WHAT do we do?
Really? Get some help my friend. Sane people don’t post comments like that.
I’m reading pushback to the US AID story in today’s New York Times who claim several key points are mere MAGA disinformation. Specifically the following; that the $8Million that went to Politico was merely from individual subscribers working at US AID and that no money from US AID went directly to the BBC. The Times claims these ‘rumors’ were started by Elon Musk on X and disseminated on that platform as disinformation. Knowing VDH’s stringent fact checking standards, I wonder if he can provide some source for the BBC element of the story other than a Musk tweet on X.
New York Times is pure propaganda, all the time. You could have quoted Rachel Madow and there would have been no difference.
How long will you leftist-Communists cling to your belief in the old, corrupt media machine that has been discredited over and over and over again the last 8+ years?
If you are reading the NYSlimes for your information then you will be woefully uninformed in everything except lies.
Great analysis VDH. Always insightful and well considered. The Democrats have learned nothing and are betting they can go with a historical trend where the incumbent party loses seats. They’d do well to remember that didn’t happen in 2004, and if they don’t come up with something sane it won’t happen in 2026.
PS not to pick at nits, but the typos (John Biden, Henery Ford and Henery Kaiser) are distracting. I was going to pass on commenting until I saw Henry spelled wrong – twice.
Thank you once again, for your genius prospective into these matters!! I only have an Associate Degree compared to your vast education, but I have been studying these things for years & it is time to bring it all to light! Thank God you have the platform to do so!! I enjoy your books & podcasts as well!! Thanks for all you do!!
No one says it better than VDH. All true
During the past year, Democrats in circular firing squads they aimed at Trump have demonstrated they have become master marksmen at shooting themselves in their own feet. And to top it all, after blowing off half of their feet during the last election, they just doubled down and elected Further Left people to run the party this month. The American people can teach things to the Democrats, but they can learn it for them. Bye-bye, Democrats, it wasn’t good knowing you. Please reload, point down at your feet and finish the job.
I have often wondered who would vote for these foolish ideas, especially when they have alternative choices which can make their own lives better? The Extreme misuse of taxpayer dollars to support this radical agenda begins with the ballot boxes. I am becoming convinced that is the ideas were put on a ballot where the voting was regulated with ID’s and proper counts all the nonsense would be over.
I have been waiting since Slick Willy Clinton for the end of the Democrat party. Sadly, it didn’t occur during Clinton’s term, but now maybe it will implode. I will praise God if this occurs.
Just a few millimeters made the difference between a catastrophic victory and a much deserved suicide.
Really?
It’s incomprehensible that they’re doubling down on this. Even James Carville has called it jack-**** stupid. But at this point, we should cheer them on. Let them continue making complete fools of themselves while Trump charges ahead, making America great again.
All that remains to be said is, yep.
That said, we need the Democrat party back and right now they’re a headless beast thrashing about on TV. Question is, if a dynamic, sensible, centrist Dem were to rise, would they allow it?
I have a strong suspicion that most of the Democrat Party leadership is clueless when it comes to understanding the fundamental ways in which the political landscape in America is changing. Their effort to respond by simply “demonizing Trump” ignores the fact that they’ve lost the trust of the American people, and not just in the heartland either. With the realization that the legacy media is intellectually, morally and ethically bankrupt, much of America is turning to independent journalism and social media like X.com. Most Democrats still speak as though they believe they can still dictate the narrative. The level of anger in America continues to grow as more information about the degree to which the people have been robbed and lied to is revealed. The Democrat party needs reshaping. It desperately needs new leadership. However, the risk is that like the dinosaurs of the past, they simply will become extinct to be replaced by what?
New Jersey’s governor is Phil Murphy, not “Patrick Murphy”. Still a buffoon, though.
The erosion of key liberal institutions is evident as their audiences dwindle and leaders appear increasingly out-of-touch. In their fervor to dismantle Trump, they’ve often overreached, making their actions unmistakably conspicuous—except, perhaps, to commentators on sympathetic networks.
While this is widely recognized, it’s imperative to address a critical area: the unwavering support universities provide to dubious causes. Trump has effectively challenged initiatives like DEI and certain aspects of transgender advocacy. However, he has yet to confront the predominant narrative of climate science, which we’ll term Bogus Climate Science (BCS).
BCS persists because it bolsters a totalitarian government by dictating acceptable scientific discourse and permissible public opinions, ensuring predetermined conclusions in seemingly rigorous research.
Trump should decisively challenge this, much like the symbolic act in “Scent of a Woman” where a balloon is punctured over Mr. Trask’s car. By funding research that explores alternative explanations for climate change, especially those attributed to human activity, he can expose falsehoods and diminish state power upheld by flawed scientific claims.
Nincompoop. An underused, almost archaic word yet it kind of says it all.
A crystalline summary as always.
Sorting out the vast political tableau one column at a time…
First! Prof Hanson, I noticed you called Joe Biden, “John” Biden to see if we are paying attention. I certainly am. Thanks for another insightful and important piece.
I don’t know why people think the Democrats can’t block a lot of what Trump is trying to accomplish. There are plenty of democrats still in the GOP.
Could be that Elon and Ms.Nicole Shanahan have threatened to primary any RINO opposing Trump’s cabinet picks. Then there is the fact Trump not only won the Electoral College but captured the popular vote. Any of those RINOs other than Collins (ME) are playing with fire should they fail to board the MAGA train.
Thanks Victor! As usual, you have done a magnificent job outlining and chronicling the absurdities of the Marxist left! I seriously cannot explain these pathologies other than a deep seated hatred for America and an insane belief in Orwellian tactics! The dems are bleeding to death as they are looking into a mirror watching!!
I agree. The leftist policies, often nihilistic in nature, are so unpopular with average Americans that Democrats have to resort to lawsuits & lawfare to achieve their objectives, where they consistently lose in the end. Conversely, the purging of these people from federal government & elsewhere is cathartic for our nation’s people.
Exactly right!!
the best encapsulations of the current DNC strategy I’ve read. Thank you Victor!!