Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
Somehow the United States ended up this summer with no engaged president and an absent vice president who avoids the missing president and is frantically repudiating everything she co-owned the last three years.
The world was already confused over how President Joe Biden was apparently declared by unnamed Democratic insiders and donors unfit and unable to continue as their presidential candidate—as if he were a dethroned Third-World usurper.
It further wondered how those who staged his removal had no problem allowing him, in his debilitated state, to continue as America’s commander-in-chief until January 20, 2025. They demonstrated their priorities that focus on retaining power, not the welfare of the nation or the will of over 14 million Biden primary voters.
Vice President Kamala Harris, until Biden’s forced abdication, was judged by these same backroom fixers as too incompetent to ever be commander-in-chief and thus for three years a good reason why Biden apparently was not forced out earlier.
Now nominal Vice President Harris is on the campaign trail nonstop, while Biden has taken the most vacation time off and worked the shortest workweek in presidential memory.
The world again wonders who is in charge, what they believe, who is a friend, and who is an enemy. Harris is busy trying to get elected on three premises: disowning her prior co-ownership of what was mostly a disastrous Biden term and certainly no recommendation for reelection; reinventing her affluent radical past and present as moderate and working-class; and keeping absolutely silent about any detailed agenda or policy plan for governance as president.
Our rivals and opponents abroad cannot decide which is better for their own anti-American agendas—a derelict and absent Biden-Harris or dealing with a cognitively challenged Biden and a linguistically loopy Harris?
So, again, who or what now governs America?
Is it Biden again at the beach or closing up shop at noon for his nap and early bedtime?
Or is it Vice President Harris, far from the White House, out campaigning and confused over who she really is or wants to be, what, if anything, she plans on doing if elected president, and how to avoid any unscripted moment?
Or are our real rulers the stealth cabal of Democratic grandees and billionaire donors who arranged the Biden presidency by forcing out his 2020 primary rivals, staged the conspiratorial silence about his real disabilities for well over three years, ambushed him, and forced him off the Democratic ticket, and are now frantically reinventing Kamala Harris as capable and centrist when just a few months ago they had written her off as incompetent and a hopeless wannabe California radical?
As a result, a confused but also encouraged world of enemies watches the listless United States and wonders whether to try something stupid.
In this widening vacuum, lots of foreign opportunists, outright enemies, and nihilists are seizing the day—on the assurance that Biden is not a lame duck, but a lame, lame duck, and Harris is a near functionary in search of an identity and an idea.
The Houthis, a ragtag cabal of terrorists who hijacked Yemen after shaking off a few prior Biden “precision” retaliatory strikes, now “own” the Red Sea. They just hit a Greek-flagged oil tanker that is now adrift and polluting the Red Sea. It serves as their warning for commercial ships to keep clear of their mare nostrum.
The Houthis expect neither a Western nor an American response to ensure safe transit in and out of the southern Mediterranean by the world’s commercial fleet. Apparently, they believe that they are so backward, and their drones are so cheap and simple that the top-heavy U.S. cannot afford to hit their ad hoc launches with sophisticated, multimillion-dollar, and often misapplied weapons. And they are probably right.
Indeed, under Biden-Harris, the world has now lost free and safe transit in the Red Sea, the Black Sea, the South China Sea, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Eastern Mediterranean. Will the Caribbean or mid-Atlantic be next? The military is short thousands of troops, the merchant marines idling ships.
Our NATO enemy/“ally” Turkey—when it is not threatening to send missiles against fellow NATO member Greece, bragging about once again ethnic cleansing Armenians, leveling more warnings to Cyprus, bombing the Kurds, colluding with the Russians and Chinese, trying to veto Finnish and Swedish NATO membership, or claiming US nuclear weapons based in Turkey are virtually its own—apparently has created such an anti-American climate that its pro-Erdogan street thugs feel they can beat up visiting American sailors, docking at Izmir to help aid the Turkish navy.
Not a peep follows from the White House. If it had, President Recep Erdogan would have leveled one of his accustomed unhinged responses.
Hamas just murdered more of its Israeli hostages, among them an American citizen.
Now non-candidate Biden is apparently still more worried about 250,000 Muslim voters in Michigan (who profess more solidarity with Hamas than lament the murder of a fellow citizen) than US interests in the Middle East. He customarily and matter-of-factly issued one of his empty editorials before returning to form by performance art blasting Israel.
In Biden’s world, our closest and only democratic ally in the Middle East is at fault because it will not, this election year, give constant concessions to the murderous Hamas clique. Biden-Harris forget that Hamas started the current war by butchering 1,200 Israelis at a time of peace, scrambled back to its subterranean labyrinth with over 250 hostages, hid their terrorist killers under schools, hospitals, and mosques, murdered any who were about to be rescued by Israeli forces, and promised to kill more if rescue attempts continue.
The Biden-Harris messaging seems simple: pro-Western, civilized, and consensually governed nations are rational and so listen to the U.S. and therefore should be leveraged and often punished for rationality; anti-American, medieval, and theocratic terrorist cabals do not and therefore should be appeased and exempted from criticism or retaliation given their lawlessness.
Normally, when asked about foreign threats to harm Americans or their interests, Biden gives one of his accustomed blowhard, one-word threats, “Don’t!” That empty and tired banality is now interpreted abroad as zero consequences will follow when you harm America. As a general rule, an animated Biden is far more likely to threaten to beat up or go after Trump than Hamas or Iran.
Harris has been mum—other than her usual on the one hand/on the other hand vacuity. Her vice presidential candidate running mate, the usually frenetic and loquacious Tim Walz, when asked directly about the murder of an American hostage, similarly goes mum—and simply waved off the question and turned away. Walz seems as terrified as Harris of any unrehearsed utterance, as if he knows only his silence masks his foolery.
Brazil, as was warned by many, is heading toward full-scale Latin American communism of the Venezuela/Nicaragua/Cuba sort. It is now waging a censorship war against Elon Musk with the tacit approval of the Biden-Harris consortium—for the crime of turning the former useful Twitter leftwing and censored megaphone into a global free speech pavilion.
Ukraine has now been inside Mother Russia for weeks, which is strategically understandable but geo-strategically dangerous against a nuclear hyperpower run by a ruthless dictator. Biden has no clue what the U.S. is doing other than supplying enough arms to Ukraine not to lose but more than enough to trigger a wider theater war. Ask Biden and Harris what the U.S. strategy is on Ukraine, and one will mumble incomprehensibly, the other, if unguarded, plunge into a circular word salad about the “art of diplomacy” or “democratic fragility.”
Iran is more afraid of an Israeli response than U.S. threats.
Or is it worse than that? Does the theocracy now rely on Biden-Harris to restrain any Israeli retaliation for the tens of thousands of rockets launched by Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran against the Jewish state.?
All Biden-Harris had to do was continue the Trump protocol of warning Iran to stay out of the conflict. Instead, it de facto greenlighted the Iranian supply chain to Hamas and Hezbollah and turned all of them loose to murder.
In truth, US foreign policy toward Iran is the resumption of the Obama-era embrace of the supposed underdog Shiite/Persian counterweight to Gulf moderates and democratic Israel. Biden-Harris cares not a whit whether Iran goes nuclear and might even in their warped Ben-Rhodes/Barack Obama-era imbecility tacitly support such nuclearization to “rein in” the Jewish state.
Mexico’s outgoing “president,” Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has now unabashedly also gone full communist. As he preps the way for his even harder-left successor, Obrador is seeking to destroy what is left of Mexico’s democracy.
AMLO, remember, bragged of the tens of millions of illegal aliens that Mexico drove out and into the U.S.—especially given the $60 billion in remittances they send to prop up an otherwise failed narco-state. In retirement, he will brag that he was the first Mexican president to destroy the U.S. border.
He even urged all Mexican-American expatriates to vote anti-Republican. For the next few months, he will cooperate with the US to slow down the influx northward in order to allow Harris-Biden to claim they are for pre-November 5 election-cycle “border security.” And thereby help Harris get elected and welcome in another 10 million illegal aliens.
In his delusions, AMLO—who proved one of the truly dangerous anti-Americans on the world stage—thinks he is winning phase two of the 19th-century Mexican War. In fact, all he is proving is that millions of Mexicans want out of his country and only romanticize it when they are safely and permanently distant from its numerous failed paradigms.
In sum, there really is no President Biden or Vice President Harris. The former is non compos mentis and failing ever more rapidly. The latter has no clue who she is or what she should do. The cabal that engineered their respective exits and entrances cares more about retaining power than using it for American interests.
So, we are in perilous times.
All of our enemies and even former neutrals are coming out of the woodwork. They are convinced that the next two months offer one-time advantages—unless Harris is elected and thus can extend their opportunities for four more years of what Americans see as a chaotic decline, but the world abroad views as a rare and ripe opportunity.
Meanwhile, as all of you pundits mull over all of the supposed political ramifications that your limited viewpoint can think about, just as in the past, the US government is pursuing the inevitable path that so many other governments have tread. That path is the corridor to where they believe that no matter how bad they screw up- they think they are immune to revolt- with their Armies and security forces and secret services.
If the Democrat CHEATING MACHINE appoints Harris as the American President- we are facing a civil war and the second American revolution. THAT IS WHAT YOU SHOULD BE REPORTING.
Yes, you are 100% correct!
VDH should be doing EXACTLY that, but he never does.
Maybe VDH thinks that he’ll avoid the Gulag by prattling around the edges of directly addressing reality.
Who wins a civil war? Not us. Just look at what they did to Jan 6 folks taking a casual stroll through the capitol.
“It is painful enough to discover with what unconcern they speak of war and threaten it. They do not know its horrors. I have seen enough of it to make me look upon it as the sum of all evils.”
— Stonewall Jackson
Times are rough no doubt. And injustice seem to be the only news.
But be wary of the threat of war. It is an evil even worse than what is going on now.
Your question as to what Harris will do if elected is easy. She will do what Obama and his followers will tell her to do, much the same as Biden has done. A marionette presidency.
Brilliantly written, I always stop to hear any commentary from this esteemed wise man.
Unfortunately Israel knows it can’t take advantage of the apparent lack of US administration as the cabal that really runs the country is still intact and will punish them for acting now, especially considering the possibility of a continuation of the current US policy under a Harris administration.
Similarly, nefarious world stage actors are caught in a knife edge equilibrium where acting now might seem opportune, but could end electing Trump in any chaos generated.
So both are stuck in an uneasy state of doing nothing.
Good point, if America’s enemies act now then Trump will be elected which would hurt them for the next 4 years. They will wait to help Harris get elected. America will not be drawn into a war till after the election.
It’s simply to read Victor’s commentary & listen to his interviews to crystalize one’s thoughts, especially for those of us caught up in day-to-day matters.
Thank you, Victor, for your in-depth analysis & encouragement during these difficult times.
November Options:
Trump: return to Prosperity and Peace
Harris: continue Chaos and War
Unfortunately many people don’t want to vote for Trump because of who he is. They aren’t looking at policy and action vs inaction.
It’s scary what will happen to this country if Harris elected. It will be 4 more years of Obama and Soros making all decisions with Harris as their puppet.
I’ve said for years, “I don’t care how Trump holds his teacup”. God uses lotsa folks for their courage and talents who might not be our favorite neighbor…. Anyone with long experience quoting scripture would likely not have the vocabulary for global relationships…. And not many standing in line for a chance, after the recent Butler PA event. Anyway……
The chaos is caused by Democrats’ lawfare and personal attacks on Trump, e.g., comparing him to Hitler who murdered on estimated 6 million Jews, disabled, infirm, gypsys & other minorities, not to mention 2 indictments on false charges & court cases that will most likely be dismissed or overturned in appellate courts for lack of evidence. Meanwhile, Democrats rack up millions of dollars in legal fees to be born by American citizens and waste everyone’s time.
These are arrogant, power-hungry people whose policies are not liked or wanted by most Americans and will do anything to maintain control of people while they self-rich. Democrats can’t win elections, so they distort the truth or outright lie to the American people and engage in lawfare to get what they want which, again, is political power. Democrats are truly the “threat to democracy.”
Most of Victor’s ( correct ) descriptions and analysis will fall on deaf ears. Americans have, in large measure, not only lost the plot, they are no longer even interested in the story. They are an amorphous, apolitical blob, as Vlad Vexler describes the majority of the Russian people. Absorbed and preoccupied with their own problems and pleasures, they have no appetite for being citizens, even as the Left completely destroys the very concept of citizenship. This is a dangerous, even fatal, combination. And, as Mr. Hanson points out, again and again, the world is watching, and our enemies waiting…
Agree. Those who should read VDH cannot because they lack the vocabulary and historical perspective to even be able to contemplate what he brings to the table. “It’s too hard” so let’s look at TicTok or elsewhere for our news.
So true, and so scary!
Can this “functionary in search of an identity and an idea” (such an apt description) memorize enough to remain spinnable after tomorrow night?
All truth Ole Wise one Professor Hanson,
It’s not about the core. It’s about the undecided, not only how they might vote but if they might vote. Pretty much isolated in the “swing states” as all have predicted. You preach to the choir which is soothing to our ears but are we making end runs on these undecided? I hear the conservative pundits say that Trump is actually doing better than the poles and the lib pundits are saying pretty much 50/50 with slight Kamala lead. What the Trump and Republicans must have is active voting all the way through poles closing up and down the ballot. Go vote. It has never been more important at least as long as I’ve been voting at least which is 1980.
You’re not alone.
Are ballots or machines a better choice?
Insurers have 3 main categories of non-rental residences: owner-occupied, unoccupied, and abandoned, of which the last is effectively uninsurable. Which category applies to the current White House? Actually, there’s another: vacation second home. Maybe that’s it.
An “ignominious end” comes to mind when reading VDH’s commentary as does Franklin’s warning about citizens too corrupt to sustain a constitutional republic.
Victor, “you hit the nail on the head.” Unfortunately, a majority of young people don’t have critical thinking skills. They rely on TikTok, Google, Alexa, Meta, and Instagram to get their information. They are unaware of the biases AI generates on these platforms. I fear this 5th generation warfare will change our country as we know it. If Harris wins in November, we no longer will be a Constitutional Republic. The Democratic party will destroy the Supreme Court, the electoral college, and will completely destroy our 1st and 2nd amendment by law fare. GOD help us Victor!
“ The Biden-Harris messaging seems simple: pro-Western, civilized, and consensually governed nations are rational and so listen to the U.S. and therefore should be leveraged and often punished for rationality; anti-American, medieval, and theocratic terrorist cabals do not and therefore should be appeased and exempted from criticism or retaliation given their lawlessness.”
Well explained. One senses this treatment also of illegal immigrants vs. citizens, of looters and shoplifters vs. business owners. The wild ungovernable useful idiots are treated like needy children while those of us who try to live in peace and pay our dues and contribute are punished because we’ll continue to take it.
Also, didn’t the Biden administration take the Houthis off the terrorist list and then restricted arms sales to Saudi Arabia who had been in a hot conflict with the Houthis since 2016.
The Constitution is clear about who runs the executive branch, and what happens when the president becomes disabled. Would circumventing The Twenty-Fifth Amendment and illegally using the powers of the president be treasonous, and punishable by death?
Our beloved American Republic is in the hands of madmen. Ready your minds and bodies. Things will get worse before they get even worse.
I’m 66 years along and have always dreamed of each day growing better than the past. Our country has lost headway in so many directions that I’m in fear of never realizing what could have been. I will, however, do my part in paving the way for the next better day for our youth.
A treasure. Thank you.
Whew!
What a dang mess!
I pray that a sufficient number of citizens – and noncitizens 😉 – understand the risk of placing Harris as Commander in Chief.
It is notable and highly troubling that approximately half the Nation’s voters think Harris is suitable material for our Presidency. Holy Smokes!
We are dumbed down to a dangerous level.
Cackles will nore BE the CinC thn DopeyJoey has been/is. He, and then She, will be he marionettes operated by the REAL CinC. And WHO might that be? I will not mention his name, but he is sometimes known as the kinyun.
Please read the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence which permits us to stop this cabal revolt and its course which leads us all to the Road to Serfdom. Also, peruse President Cavin Coolidge’s speech given in 1926 in Philadelphia on the anniversary of the Declaration. Page six has the most pertinent paragraph as applies to today’s mess. We must stop this.
The problem is whether there are enough patriots within the 300 or so million willing to take up the cause to abolish the current tryanny! We must first try to vote it out come November but if that fails, do we have the wherewithal to use force?
I will have to read what Coolidge wrote but we may be well beyond taking back the Republic peacefully, particularly if the election is rife with fraud!
Professor, if Pearl Harbor was what it took to “awake a sleeping giant”, I shudder to think what it will take to “awake a strung-out, comatose giant”!
What a bloody mess.
Are we missing the China influence operations?
Yes , VDH, Plato understood the problem and offered a solution. Perhaps in the not too distant future we wil be Abe to bury the odiferous corpse of democracy
Thank you Victor, I enjoy your clarity
Mr. Hanson…I very much appreciate your knowledge of the constitution and American history. You never stray from using them as solid backgrounds for your detailed perspective. You lay things out in understandable ways.
Scary, albeit interesting times we live in. It’s unfathomable to be that we are where we are. Hurtling like an unchecked train toward a dark tunnel.
Hopefully the VP will crash and burn so spectacularly tonight those voting on race and female chromosomes, and those in media trying to suppress her ineptness, will see the wizard is actually a very rich cabal of power brokers laughing at us. And again hopefully, with the November 5th vote, we can show that cabal we still have teeth and will not be treated like the idiots they obviously think we are.
The willingness for so many Americans to subjugate themselves to the vagaries of the left baffles me to no end. It proves to me that lack of common sense and apathy take precedent now. It is more important to spend at least 8 hours/day transfixed to social media on their cell phones than listening to VDH analysis on the realities we are now facing. At least the one bright spot is that Alan Dershowitz is now an Independent!! Way to go Alan and why the HE_ _! did it take you so long??? Pray for divine intervention my friends as the power of prayer is real. God bless America, our military and our Veterans.
Unfortunately, the Dems have another card up there sleeve that nobody is considering. That witch hunt trial in New Jersey has not been completed. Sentencing. Could they possibly use it to send Trump to prison instead of the White House?
Being one of your students back at CSU Fresno was and is a favorite memory!!
According to a commentator from the less than objective WSJ Harris predictably has proclaimed the accusation of untruths predicted in debate by the conservative opponent translating to a notification of her own act of misleading the American citizenry as she audaciously hopes to deceive the center of a supposed split electorate of her veiled political intention. Nonetheless a consistent progressive custom. HT
I’m a huge fan of Professor Hanson. I always appreciate his brilliant analyses of the state of our country and the world. I thank him.
My thoughts of late is regardless who wins in November we are going see much more chaos in this country and the world. What is happening is a global takeover of the most evil kind. We are in a spiritual battle of good against evil. Pray to Almighty God not just for our country but our world. May He be merciful.
Once again the ignorance and naivety and paranoias of Americans. What is this country coming to? It is neither Biden’s (nor Harris’ – yet) nor even el Capitain El (Teflon) Don Trumpo’s, fault the mess we are in but decades of adminstrative efforts (both right and wrong).
The country is failing not by fault of one party but by not sticking to facts and truth. Donald thinks he can snap his fingers and solve all things bright and beautiful. As do all who first inherit power – but he should know better.
A report on the news stated that the Debates (today) are not about Policy. Why the hell not? They are simply bash the other guy Punch and Judy shows (to hide the fact that “I too am incompetent” and wondering indeed how anyone can solve this fine mess you’ve (all prior admins) gotten us into”). This is not how the country was founded. It’s about the need for dialogue, compromise and not hiding by partial truths in those TV ads – quoting snippets of truth – stating the sources (fine print) which no one will read for “the rest of the story”. It’s bogus and maybe partly due to the juvenile state of history here. Look to other countries with 1000’s of years of history – not a mere 250 years of trying to figure things out. Time to grow up, get real and seek the facts Americans.
Or it could just be the end, no matter which clown prince (or princess) is elected come November.
Unlikely to end the US and it’s GDP monstrosity.
Young as it may be its freer and more resilient than any version unmentioned. Easy to dismiss the positive global impact the US achieves for autocratic ideologues like Barack Obama undermining democracy and promoting instability at home and abroad.
“If I could make an arrangement where I had a stand-in, a front man or front woman, and they had an earpiece in,” B H Obama
“The Biden-Harris messaging seems simple: pro-Western, civilized, and consensually governed nations are rational and so listen to the U.S. and therefore should be leveraged and often punished for rationality; anti-American, medieval, and theocratic terrorist cabals do not and therefore should be appeased and exempted from criticism or retaliation given their lawlessness.”
This geo-political mindset applies just as well to domestic politics:
Want to go to work, church, visit grandma during covid lockdowns. No way- we will arrest and fine you.
Want to protest BLM in the 10s of thousands and burn buildings and attack police? Absolutely- the right to protest “racism” is more important than public saftey.
One thing I credit Dr. Hanson for is educating me in the mindset of the Left. Now, thanks to VDH, I can spot the neo-marxist patterns in many areas where they have power. Reckon it’s that binary “oppressed-oppressor” that simplifies their logic, that and having absolutely no concept of morality.
John Adams wrote in his 1776 treatise, “Thoughts on Government, ” the following: “Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone, have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government, and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it”.
We are at the last part of this quote, namely: ….THEREFORE, THE PEOPLE ALONE, HAVE AN INCONTESTABLE, UNMALIENABLE, AND INDEFEASIBLE RIGHT TO INSTITUTE GOVERNMENT; AND TO REFVORM, ALTER, OR TOTALLY CHANGE THE SAME, WHEN THEIR PROTECTION, SAFETY, PROSPERITY, AND HAPPINSS REQUIRE IT….
It is my belief (time will tell) that the powers that be, will not allow Trump to be president, even if he wins. Then it will be time for a conservative State to stand up and say they will no longer comply with the laws, directives and actions of the current government and begin to function as an independent country.