Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
Sheer chaos and anarchy on the border?
Afghanistan—the most humiliating defeat in recent U.S. military history?
A labor-starved supply chain in shambles and holiday shelves emptying out?
The worst inflation in 30 years that seems soon ready to match Carter-era levels?
Gas hitting $5 a gallon with winter heating fuels soaring?
Free-for-all looting in the major cities without consequences?
Joe Biden’s policies and Biden himself diving in the polls?
Never in recent American history has any administration birthed such disasters in its first nine months.
Yet most Americans are arguing not over the sheer chaos and disasters of the Biden Administration, but rather how could such sheer pre-civilizational calamity occur in modern America?
Were these disasters a result of historic incompetency? Or mean-spirited nihilism? Or a deliberate effort to create the necessary turbulence to birth a new American revolution? Or a bit of all three?
Start instead with the idea that what most Americans see as sheer ruin is not what the left-wing puppeteers, who are pulling the strings of the Biden marionette, see.
Our catastrophes are their minor glitches. For them bad polling is mostly a public relations problem of an occasional uncooperative media. Otherwise, a few broken eggs are always necessary to create the perfect socialist omelet.
The Left now controlling Washington believes that the U.S. border is a mere construct. Every impoverished person has a birthright to cross into America illegally. The 2 million who are scheduled to enter this fiscal year alone is a wonderful, if occasionally sloppy, event.
Our border calamity is their celebration of humanity and a long-overdue recalibration of ossified American demography, one that will properly warp the Electoral College to provide the necessary election result.
If you believe that a culturally imperialistic America needs to be taken down a notch overseas, then the flight from Afghanistan is “impressive” and a “success”—by how quickly and efficiently we skedaddled.
Why worry about a lost $1 billion embassy, a $300 million refit of the Bagram airbase, or $80 billion lost in military hardware and training?
Empty shelves? Boohoo.
Grasping, upper-middle-class consumers are angry that the working classes are not willing to risk COVID infection to supply them with their accustomed holiday trinkets.
So, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg intoned that the shortages mean only that the consumer class has to wait a wee bit—until Christmas Eve—to splurge on gifts.
Who worries about a little inflation? Under new monetary theory, printing dollars brings prosperity. Or as White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain put it in a retweet, inflation is a mere “high class problem” of the Peloton elite.
Only those with money worry their ill-begotten pile shrinks. But the majority without money will eventually rejoice that it is everywhere now—finally and properly “spread,” as former president and now multimillionaire Barack Obama once promised.
As AOC swore, gas and oil are going to be gone anyway in 10 years. So, if Joe Biden slashes over 2 million barrels a day in U.S. oil production, what’s wrong with that?
Didn’t Steven Chu, Obama’s energy secretary, long ago brag that when we hit $8-10 a gallon, we’d approach European levels of proper fuel usage? Why whine about paying over $100 to fill up, when the planet more quickly cools?
Did not Americans learn “critical legal theory” and “critical race theory”?
Or as the architect of the “1619 Project” reminded us, destroying or taking someone’s property is no big deal. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey shrugged off torched downtown buildings; such torched stuff, he said, is mere “bricks and mortar.”
It is only a crime to “steal” over $500 of needed merchandise from a Walgreens in San Francisco, because the rich who make such absurd laws never have to steal goods from a pharmacy shelf.
If racists wish to point out that African American male youths are disproportionately represented in the latest crime wave, then maybe America should be learning not to create the conditions that force them to break the law.
In sum, we are on a left-wing roller coaster headed to a socialist nirvana.
Most Americans believe it is instead an out-of-control “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride” nightmare with incompetents at the wheel.
But the architects of such “hope and change” shrug that the occasional disturbing news that the media sometimes accidentally leaks out is merely the cost of an equitable America.
One man’s anarchy is another’s road to justice.
Keep that mentality in mind and the absurdities that are mouthed by Joe Biden, his advisor Ron Klain, press secretary Jen Psaki, Homeland “Security” Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, or the ravings of the Squad, make perfect sense.
They are merely trying to explain to us dummies that what we think is purgatory is actually the new paradise—a promised land that, once we are properly programmed and educated, we too will welcome and thank them for our deliverance.
Glad you mentioned that the planet is “quickly cooling.” That is what the data shows (not the manufactured/manipulated data that comes out of government sources).
Wow!!…not a lot of solutions in this article….well at least we aren’t living under your preferred ruler…the fascist dictator trump….I guess pick your poison!
You forgot orange…
Name something he did that was either fascist or dictatorial.
Better yet, produce the PeePee Tape.
“fascist dictator trump”
Did Donald Trump ever order his AG to surveille and, if need be, prosecute parents for voicing their concerns at a school board meeting?
Did Donald Trump ever get the IRS to deny tax exempt status to conservative and Tea Party groups in an election year? The IRS formally apologized for their actions in May of 2013.
Did Donald Trump ever illegally surveille and wiretap the AP, Fox News, and reporter James Rosen?
What the hell is the matter with you? Too much Kool Aid this AM?
The solution is incredibly easy and readily apparent for those not completely brainwashed or intellectually bankrupt. Return America to a Republic. Eliminate the divisive policies to indoctrinate our youth. Eliminate the absolute lack of accountability in Washington DC. Eliminate the dark money in our politics. Hold Mainstream Media accountable for spreading Racism, Hate Misinformation and Lies. Eliminate career politicians. Prevent the Federal Law enforcement Agencies/officers from political persecution, and limit their ability to act in partisan favor. Stop the revision of American history. And above all, hold our government to abide by Federal Law. You say Trump was a “Fascist Dictator”. This proves you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, but take pride in the fact that by fear and hate spread by Propaganda News, you took down an American Patriot. And ushered in the very thing you apparently were most afraid of, and wrongly and ignorantly accused Donald Trump of being. Congratulations.
Apparently another copy of projective identification has emerged. Right out of the ether without any credible explanation of course.
At any rate your summarized and wholistic solution is well received by the majority here. Certainly well stated.
What did you NOT like- aside from “mean tweets “. Did you NOT like $2 a gallon for gas, full shelves in grocery stores while reasonably priced; secure borders; respect from the rest of the world- enjoy socialism when you can’t see a doctor for months if not a year ( that is happening in Canada for “routine” checkups); long line and high prices for basic food; blackouts; no privacy- government control of bank accounts. And more..,,,
When you say “well at least we aren’t…” you probably don’t realize that you agree with the assertions made here by VDH – which is very scary especially for a TDS type to admit.
U are simply wrong! Trump is/ was not a fascist. He espoused freedom!! You ppl on the left can’t see the forest for the trees. It is a sad state of affairs. You don’t see the dismantling of America for a socialist, failed state! Just so sad!
The world has gone crazy. The Romans called it “Lucsus” our mob has become insane. How else could people believe cow gasses promote global warming.
Trippy…
First at all congratulations with your latest book…it’s written for today’s happening and fir us to understand better where the current situation comes from.
Second: Your comment are always well described with common sense , straight to the point with truthful and effective wording.
Third: Have learned a lot since reading your books and commentary, Thank you.
So long as Americans remain docile sheep, it won’t stop
All of the Independents, moderate Democrats, and Never Trumpers who voted for “No Malarky” Joe Biden must be feeling like old King Lear wandering the stormy heath and thinking to themselves, has the world gone mad, or have I?
Has Joe Biden really shirked his constitutional duty to “faithfully execute the law” and created the worst border chaos in history?
Has inflation really hit 5.1% while ships back up off the coast of California and Biden and his useless transportation secretary do nothing?
Has Joe Biden really canceled the Keystone pipeline and eliminated fracking on federal lands while gas tops $5/gallon?
Has Joe Biden really left American citizens behind in Afghanistan along with Bagram AFB and some $80 billion dollars in military hardware?
Has the AG of the U.S., under the direct instructions of Joe Biden, really threatened to inflict the Patriot Act on concerned parents exercising their First Amendment rights at school board meetings?
Why did any of these colossal unforced errors happen and what others does Joe Biden have planned?
The tragedy of King Lear is that nobody won. All that was left of a once fine kingdom after Lear’s foolishness was a smoky ruin.
Its perhaps time for everyone to acknowledge there are limitations the Federal government can’t avoid period. There’s a time and cause for default. There’s a purpose for nullification.
‘Interference with the power of the States was no constitutional criterion of the power of Congress. If the power was not given, Congress could not exercise it; if given, they might exercise it, although it should interfere with the laws, or even the Constitutions of the States.’
James Madison to the Members of the First Congress. Article VII Amendment X
Never overlook the possibility in fact probability, that the “enlightened” wish to punish us for simply existing.
clear ether
eon
Professor Hanson, please tell us the two, three our four things we need to do to rectify the chaos and idiocy caused by Democrats.
I highly recommend listening to Darryl Coopers (Jocko / The Unraveling podcast) episode on Joseph McCarthy. It is outstanding.
If you are wondering how weak and pathetic and cowardly many conservatives are today, consider how few of them are willing to defend McCarthy.
Joseph McCarthy properly respected the communists – in the sense that he understood what they were capable of if they ever got the keys to drive the car. What is taking place is our nation is not a matter of ‘incompetence.’ But as VDH properly states: it is a matter of deliberate calculation. There does not exist a quicker way to tank a country than to import endless hordes of third worlders into your nation. It is fiscally, socially, and morally indefensible.
Everything factual mentioned is true. Afghanistan was a costly and catastrophic debacle. My cousin can’t get her washing machine REPLACED or REPAIRED. She is washing her clothes by hand in the bathtub. Something is very very wrong.
I agree. This is a purposeful degradation of American values by the left. They see what they are doing as the proper steps to their utopia.
What really bothers me the most is that so many “elected” democrats just fall in line. I have a hard time believing that most of our Democrat Representatives believe the same thing as the most liberal wing of their party but they are silent. Very sad.
Sadder still is that the citizens who are democrats will still vote for them and allow themselves to be pushed around by their own party. I personally think Trump won over 4 years ago was because the Republican or independents who voted for Republican candidates where tired of the “bait and switch” and chose a person who was not a politician. They lost trust in the party and showed it with their vote.
The underserved constituency known as the middle class.
We have to destroy the village in order to save it.