Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
When the progressive woke revolution took over traditional America, matters soon reached the level of the ridiculous.
Take the following examples of woke craziness and hypocrisy, perhaps last best witnessed during Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution.
The Biden administration from its outset wished to neuter immigration law. It sought to alter radically the demography of the U.S. by stopping the border wall and allowing into the United States anyone who could walk across the southern border.
Over seven million did just that. Meanwhile, Biden ignored the role of the Mexican cartels in causing nearly 100,000 ANNUAL American fentanyl deaths.
Then border states finally wised up.
They grasped that the entire open-borders, “new Democratic majority” leftwing braggadocio was predicated on its hypocritical architects staying as far away as possible from their new constituents.
So cash strapped border states started busing their illegal aliens to sanctuary blue-state jurisdictions.
Almost immediately, once magnanimous liberals, whether in Martha’s Vineyard, Chicago, or Manhattan, stopped virtue-signaling their support for open borders.
Instead, soon they went berserk over the influx.
So now an embarrassed Biden administration still wishes illegal aliens to keep coming but to stay far away from their advocates—by forcing them to remain in Texas.
That means the president has redefined the US. border. It rests now apparently north of Texas, as Biden cedes sovereignty to Mexico.
Precivilizational greens in California prefer blowing up dams to building them.
They couldn’t care less that their targeted reservoirs help store water in drought, prevent flooding, enhance irrigation, offer recreation, and generate clean hydroelectric power.
Now an absurd green California is currently destroying four dams on the Klamath River. In adding insult to injury, it is paying the half-billion dollar demolition cost in part through a water bond that state voters once thought would build new—not explode existing—dams.
The Biden administration is mandating new dates when electric vehicles will be all but mandatory.
To prove their current viability, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm led a performance art EV caravan on a long road trip.
When she found insufficient charging stations to continue her media stunt, she sent a gas-powered car ahead to block open charging stations and deny them to other EVs ahead in line.
Only that way could Granholm ensure that her arriving energy-starved motorcade might find rare empty charger stalls.
In some California charging stations, diesel generators are needed to produce enough “clean” electricity to power the stalls.
The state has steadily dismantled many of its nuclear, oil, and coal power plants. It refuses to build new natural gas generation plants.
Naturally, California’s heavily subsidized solar and wind plants now produce too much energy during the day and almost nothing at night.
So the state now begs residents to charge their EVs only during the day. Then at night, Californians may soon be asked to plug them in again to transfer what is left in their batteries into the state grid.
Apparently only that way will there be enough expropriated “green” electricity for 41 million state residents after dark.
One of the loudest leftist voices to defund the police, and decriminalize violent crimes in the post-George Floyd era, was Shivanthi Sathanandan, the 2nd Vice Chairwoman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.
She was recently not shy about defunding: “We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department. Say it with me. DISMANTLE.”
But recently the loud Sathanandan was a victim of the very crime wave she helped to spawn.
Four armed thugs carjacked her automobile. They beat her up in front of her children at her own home, and sped off without fear of arrest.
The reaction of the arch police dismantler and decriminalizer on her road to Damascus?
The now bruised and bleeding activist for the first time became livid that criminals had taken over her Minneapolis: “Look at my face. REMEMBER ME when you are thinking about supporting letting juveniles and young people out of custody to roam our streets instead of HOLDING THEM ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS.”
Andrea Smith was an ethnic studies professor at the University of California, Riverside. But now she has been forced out after getting caught lying that she was Native American.
Prior to her outing, she was well known for damning “white women” (like herself) who opted to “become Indians” out of guilt, and (like her) for careerist advantage.
The common theme of these absurdities is how contrary to human nature, impractical, and destructive is utopian wokism, whether in matters of energy, race, crime, or illegal immigration.
There are two other characteristics of the Woke Revolution.
One, it depends solely on its advocates never having to experience firsthand any of the nonsense they inflict on others.
And two, dangerous zealots with titles before, and letters after, their names prove to be quite stupid—and dangerous.
A taste of their own “medicine” . . . but does any reflection/reform follow?
Not without citizens exercising their Unalienable rights
Your dictionary is upside down in the room where you were interviewed by Mark Levin. Just thought you’d like to know.
Thank you for your ability to state the obvious.
You are a 💎
Two of my adult daughters and I were vacationing in California recently. We enjoyed our trip ( Yosemite, Sequoias, Redwoods, etc). We actually were in your area ( Fresno). But after hearing and reading your thoughts, I had an opportunity to see first hand some of the issues in California that you have alluded to. Always enjoy your perspective.
Donald Wright
I watched a documentary on YT about the folk music movement back in the 1960s.
These people were the first lefty zealots. They were so serious and sure that they were right in everything they believed in. It was their job in life to enlighten us, the masses of America.
Two of their causes stood out: 1.) integration, and, 2.) No Nukes!
In 2023 the current left wants to have more segregation, not less. So, I guess, the 1960s freedom fighters were wrong all along. I wonder how they feel about that? They fought ardently for integration and the subjects have now told them, “No, we don’t want that!”. Tom Paxton, Judy Collins, Joan Baez — what do you have to say about integration now?
The No Nukes movement has turned out to be one of the most embarrassing mistakes ever for the green crew. Nuclear energy may be the only practical way to produce an adequate supply of clean energy. The left managed to just about kill the golden goose. We’ll see if they can pivot on this one. Due to the fact that hypocrisy is not a part of their self assessment vocabulary, changing No Nukes to Safe Nukes shouldn’t be that difficult. We’ll see. However, I would like to hear what Carly Simon and James Taylor have to say about No Nukes in 2023.
Turns out that our cherished folk singers were just typical lefty idiots. Every single one of them.
Thanks for sharing some rememberances of the hypocrisy and self-destruction of left.
Two Marxist strategies to gain power and destroy America are racial division and
protecting the environment. The environment is all-encompassing vague term that can refer to anything and everything. Separating people based upon race is an effective way to gain people’s allegience and gain control of the government.
The earth was cooling during the mid-1960’s to about 1980 and it was thought to be due to man’s activity. My sixth grade teacher told my class that my generation would need to solve this man-caused global cooling and the expected depletion of oil which would run out in 20 years.
Part of integration back then was interracial marriage. Thinking back, at least as those who did so said, it was all about love. I think it was genuine. Unfortunately it seems that many of their offspring do not reflect that sentiment today. I can’t understand why they so thoroughly despise the white side of themselves and thus disdain that whole social experiment.
I wonder how long Post-Postmodern America becomes Post-Mortem America?
Good question, Greg,
One might suspect IF the Dems/leftists win in November of 2024, then January 2025 will be the time for the white lilies.
‘That means the president has redefined the US. border. It rests now apparently north of Texas, as Biden cedes sovereignty to Mexico.’
It may just be exactly what he is working for ….. Mexico taking back its territory, with help from some ‘unknown’ help for now …… losing the oil content. I have thought for quite some time that hb is
in with the border trade since the loss of ‘whole country grift’. Just a few thoughts!
Great read, especially the Woke characteristics at the end
Reality is so terribly inconvenient when you are a “liberal” progressive leftist.
Reading this, that old saw “the inmates are running the asylum” comes to mind…except that the inmates were all released long ago.
Now they are running the country.
Well said.
Valerie Jarrett is Nurse Ratched.
Stupid is as stupid does.
He who keeps Gods laws has no reason to break laws of the land.
Pain through personal experience is an effective teacher as it motivates men to change.
A retail worker at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts told me that the local law enforcement allows people to steal $900 worth of merchandise from his shop without consequence. His employer will fire him if he tries to intervene and he said that it was technically “verbal assault” if he tried to dissaude theives with words. He said that people come into his store everyday with a smile on their face and take what they want knowing that they can’t be stopped.
A retail worker at Office Depot told me that she can’t intervene to stop shoplifting. One evening, a man and a woman came into the store and the two of them carried away a printer together.
Even with store theft insurance, all customers indirectly pay for these thefts.
Has society had enough pain yet? How can we direct the consequencies of leftist ideals back to them so that they change their ideology?
This is unique to Blue cities and their Blue virtue signaling suburbs. And no, they have not had enough. They are now like a swarm of locusts spilling out of cities and destroying red suburbs and towns.
Its great to point out the problem, but how do we stop it? I suggest we stop it hard and cold on our towns. If it takes root through invasion , sorry but you’ll have to leave and fight harder where you land.
Apparently some have had enough. That two Indian (non Native American) business owners took it upon themselves to administer a good ‘spanking’ to a thief who had robbed them twice before, may be the start of some citizen justice.
If the governments, federal state and local, fail to protect the people it will be up to the people to protect themselves.
Regarding dams, I heard on the BBC radio broadcast that the flooding in Libya was due to dams that had not been recently maintained.
It is time, pertinent time, for the people to petition Congress to remove the sitting President, the Secretary of the DOJ and those responsible for obstruction the members of the FBI who have done likewise, the Sec of Homeland Security, and Dept of Education.
It is time for the people to petition Congress to openly and widely announce the truths of the crimes, conspiracies, and the results of what has been done to the people of America, the harm policies of the Democratic Party. It is time for those in Congress who have conflicts of interest re legislation that benefits them monitarily to be removed and their profit assets seized. It is time.
If we didn’t know any better we would believe this is all an imbecilic comedy routine, that will eventually pass. All the World War 2 veterans and people of that era used to refer to these thoughts and ideas as crack pot. The acceptance and tolerance of such idiocy will eventually lead to an unfortunate demise that we may not easily recover from. Thankfully we are privileged enough to have someone like Dr. Hanson who brings this to light. We desperately need to wake from this apathetic acceptance of the absurd and get to work. Hopefully the decline in pragmatic thought is able to be reversed soon or this will continue to be the new normal. Stand strong and disregard this for the insanity that it is.
This country is not evenly split as VDH knows and tries to tell all of us. He often enumerates how the left has all the levers of power from the NBA to the corporate boardroom, ad infinitum, so we are at a severe disadvantage always. And we see how they contort what was once the rule of law to prevent your and my voice any opportunity on a fair playing field. Did you have standing as a legal voter regarding the 2020 election, to bring an action? I certainly did.
I have queried on this webpage and directly to Victor’s email whether he feels after writing his conclusion to his book “The End of Everything” that the hope we good people of this nation will hold onto to save us, is the 2024 presidential election, and in doing so, will we doom ourselves into extinction.
Because what will good people, being good people, be willing or able to do should the 2024 presidential election be as flawed as the last, and how can we anticipate(HOPE) for different when the same heavy hands levering power will be the ones pulling the strings again, after hours, on election night?
Abraham Lincoln said
“We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who would pervert the Constitution.”
I believe his words demand an obligation from all of us. I believe inherent in the language of the Constitution, is a like obligation – to defend. But how do we take off the gloves in non-Marquess of Queensberry rules?
You start by supporting Trump 110%. You don’t say I will support him only if he wins. That is a laughable stance. So stupid! If you have a public voice and you are not supporting him now, please don’t support him in the general. You will hurt him with your flip flop position— but maybe secretly you want to hurt him. Only you and God will know your intentions.
What good will supporting Trump do if he fails to get the GOP nomination? Yes I support Trump in the primary and will do so in the general if he is the nominee.
Voting for Trump in the general if he is NOT the GOP nominee will be a wasted vote and likely put the democrat in the Oval Office, even if it is the corrupt and demented Joe Biden. This nation cannot afford 4 more years of any democrat in the White House.
1. Persuade men with ideas using words to vote for those who will uphold the Constitution.
2. Participate in election security by volunteering at polling places.
3. Financially support efforts to educate the American public in conservatism and truth.
4. Pray for God’s mercy, be reconciled to Him through Jesus Christ.
Reach out to our neighbors and establish home groups to study and discuss materials such as Victor Hanson’s articles and podcasts.
It would need to be done very delicately to educate people in order to persuade them and unite them rather than having angry arguments where people storm out and never come back.
A friendship approach with true caring could slowly change minds. Perhaps a potluck or barbecue or dessert could be provided.
Climate Change – Ken Ham, Answers in Genesis
The Return of Christ – John MacArthur, Grace to You
Conservatives can logically prognosticate; moderates can learn from the experience of others. Liberals must learn from their own experience and possibly take corrective measures. Progressives are better at causing than avoiding train wrecks.
Dr. Hanson,
I have a good voice. I am volunteering to read your columns to make them available for listening.
All of the immigrants that come through Ellis Island in WW One into WW 2 assimilated into their new country with a Newly Found Freedom and honored our laws and helped America become the Great Society. The Immagration that had been going on with this Biden administration is SHAMEFULL! CLOSE THE BORDER JOE-BAMA!
I once sat in a room with ONLY Joe Biden present. It was the one time in my life that I felt I was the smartest man in the room. We were at an athletic facility in Pennsylvania watching our daughters at a lacrosse clinic. While I was watching my daughter sharpen her skills he was reading the NY Times. What else. This was the same daughter he apparently showered with. He had by then been taken out of his first quest for the presidency by pretending to be Neil Kinnock. The idea that this man would one day be at the head of a WOKE movement that could and will destroy America if not stopped was certainly something I couldn’t ponder on that day back in 1988. But here we are today with that scenario a distinct possibility. Thank you VDH for everything you do to stop the MADNESS of the left from realizing their goals.
Thanks again Victor for allowing American citizens to see the scope of the progressive marxist hypocrisy. Your anecdotes remind me of the classic observation by Mike Tyson – “everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”.
Postmodernism is a philosophy that destroyed our colleges. It opened the door to the cultural Marxists because it allowed for fascist power-knowledge to take over (those with power can determine the reality for everyone else). The first few chapters of Cynical Theories, is very helpful. It describes postmodernism like this.
Postmodern knowledge principle: Radical skepticism about whether objective knowledge or truth is obtainable and a commitment to cultural constructivism. (Culture determines reality.)
Postmodern political principle: A belief that society is formed of systems of power and hierarchies, which decide what can be known and how.
The four major themes of postmodernism are
1. The blurring of boundaries (male/female, adult/child, etc.)
2. The power of language
3. Cultural relativism
4. The loss of the individual and the universal
Thanks for sharing some research on postmodernism.
This will not stop until the citizens wise up and not elect these obtuse politicians.
“…. Andrea Smith was an ethnic studies professor at the University of California, Riverside. But now she has been forced out after getting caught lying that she was Native American.
Prior to her outing, she was well known for damning “white women” (like herself) who opted to “become Indians” out of guilt, and (like her) for careerist advantage….”
And yet Faux-Cahontas pays no price for HER sins!
It’s good to be a Lying Commie from Massachusetts!!!!
Thanks for the reminder that people of influence such as politicians and professors advance their careers through lies about their race and try to change society with their equity of outcome beliefs.
I had an odd thought last night. Many of us support Trump because he has our values and did what he said he would do when in office.
Another way of judging it all is to look at the people who hate him so much, and try to imagine aligning yourself with them. It’s kind of what many did in 2020. They voted against Trump. We all need to vote against people who promote “gender affirming” healthcare for children, fat liberation, sanctuary cities and states, progressive treatment of criminals. Ask people if they really identify with all of that.
We are just not like those people, and I believe they are a small, very vocal minority that has cost our country so much.
Modernism itself was overrated in its time.
Post modernism or Neo feudalism with a green twist. It will not end well.
Renegade777…Thank you Dr. Hanson for your clear & incisive insights into “wokeism” & it’s real life consequences!
I have lived and worked in the SF Bay Area since 1978 after driving across country from Connecticut, mainly for the educational opportunities in California. I was 18. Over the course of my life in the east bay and peninsula I owned a few houses but in particular sold a house in Fremont that I made a lot of money from the sale. Rather than leave the state, this was 2016, I bought a one acre “tiny farm” in West Gilroy with a few Nigerian goats and some chickens and a lovely lot and house far off of the street. I live there now. My wife commutes to Fremont every day in a plug in hybrid and charges is with a level 2 charger installed in our garage. An app on her phone allows for setting the charging time so we don’t interfere with the grid loads.
I an dying of cancer and frankly welcome my death in this paradise I live in rather than live to see further degradation and destruction of California and the United States. The American Dream is dead. American Exceptionalism is dead. The central government is corrupt. And please stop being so damn polite and politically correct; WOKE = COMMUNIST
Thanks, love your work