Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
Governor Ronald Reagan, in his 1967 inaugural address, famously remarked, “Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction.”
Reagan today might have expanded on his theme by declaring that civilization itself is both fragile and can lost by a generation that recklessly spends its inheritance while neither appreciating nor replenishing it—if not ridiculing those who sacrificed so much to provide it.
Such is the noxious epitaph of the Baby Boomer generation that is now passing after a half-century of preeminence and whose Jacobin agendas have nearly wrecked the nation they inherited.
In contrast to them, eighty years ago this week, the Allied powers of World War II—chiefly the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada—landed on five Normandy beaches to begin what Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied expeditionary forces, would call the great “crusade” to liberate Western Europe from four years of brutal Nazi occupation.
The plan was to land within a few hours and in stormy weather well over 150,000 Americans, British, and Canadians on the Atlantic Coast beaches of France, where they were to charge directly into the fire of tens of thousands of enemy troops. They were to charge uphill in the sand while being fired upon by entrenched German troops occupying the hills above. From there, the beachhead was to serve as the launching pad for two million more troops, who were to somehow drive eastward through France and into Germany to end the war and the devastation the Third Reich had inflicted on the world.
All that was accomplished in the ensuing 11 months. That can-do American generation assumed that impoverished teenagers emerging from the Great Depression, with equipment often inferior to their seasoned German enemies, would, over the ensuing months, surely prove able to route Waffen SS veterans. Many of them were hastily transferred from the murderous Eastern Front, such as the nihilist 2nd SS Panzer Division das Reich (“The Empire”). No matter, the Americans did the impossible in less than a year—from the Normandy beaches to well across the Rhine River.
That same generation went on to save South Korea, build an anti-totalitarian world order, defeat Soviet communism, and pass on to the Baby Boomer generation the strongest economy, military, and political system in history, or, to paraphrase the poet Horace, “monuments more lasting than bronze.” Or so we, the inheritors, thought.
And what are the now septuagenarian and octogenarian children of the veterans of Omaha Beach and Iwo Jima, leaving as their own legacy?
The self-infatuated and do-your-own-thing generation that gave us the Sixties and the counterculture has left the country $36 trillion in debt, now borrowing $1 trillion nearly every three months. Worse, there is not just no plan to balance budgets, much less to reduce the debt, but also no intention to stop or even worry about the borrowing of some $10 billion a day.
The U.S. military is almost unrecognizable to that of just a few decades ago. It was humiliated in Kabul. In surrealistic fashion, it abandoned some $50 billion in lethal weaponry to the Taliban—along with our NATO allies, American contractors, and loyal Afghans. And our supreme command labeled that rout a brilliant retreat. Meanwhile, the military suffers from depleted inventory of key munitions while being short 45,000 annual recruits.
The Pentagon is torn by internal dissension over DEI, woke, anti-meritocratic promotions, and a politicized officer class—well, apart from now also being outmanned and outgunned by the Chinese. Many of the world’s key maritime corridors—the Red Sea, the Straits of Hormuz, the Black Sea, and the South China sea—are apparently beyond our navy’s ability to ensure the world safe transit.
For perceived cheap political advantage, the Baby Boomers destroyed the southern border, most recently allowing in nearly 10 million unaudited illegal aliens. With the disappearance of our national sovereignty, so too was lost the once-cherished idea of a melting pot of legal immigrants arriving in America longing to assimilate, to integrate in self-reliant fashion, and to show gratitude for the chance of something far better than what they left.
The country’s major cities are increasingly medieval, with a million homeless camped on fetid streets. Criminals terrorize the law-abiding. They assume their violence will be contextualized away by vacuous “critical legal” or “critical race” or “critical penal” theories. This generation releases violent felons to prey on the weak and sheds hardly a tear as police officers are shot unnoticed at the rate of nearly one a day.
America’s once great universities—such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT—are now into their fourth year of abolishing much of their prior standards. The youth who sought to wreck them from the outside in the 1960s now succeed in finishing the job as elders on the inside. These bankrupt campuses now adjudicate admissions and hiring by race, tribe and gender and then wonder why their students are entitled, ignorant, and arrogant yet unable to meet the very standards that the universities once insisted were critical to ensuring their preeminence.
Worse, the more elite the campuses, the more they became hotbeds of unapologetic anti-Semitism, gratuitous violence, and hatred for the country’s very institutions that guarantee their own freedom of action and speech. Who taught them and allowed them to think that as they illegally occupied buildings, defaced and defiled monuments, and shouted Jew hatred, they were absurdly entitled to free food deliveries and amnesties?
A rapacious higher education welcomed in profitable anti-American students and billions of dollars in hostile foreign cash from those who mock the laws of their host and feel a covetous America can be bought for 10 cents on the dollar. And as we learned after October 7, they were mostly correct.
Abroad, our nomenklatura opportunistically demonizes a democratic Israel trying to fight a terrorist Hamas that slaughtered 1,200 mostly unarmed citizens at a time of peace in the most grotesque fashion of the 21st century.
Yet our elite cannot distinguish killers from our democratic allies. Hamas deliberately drafted their own citizens to serve as shields to protect the terrorists safely ensconced in the tunnels below—on the sick assurance that Israel would surely try to avoid killing civilian shields whom the cynical Hamas apparat deliberately exposed to protect itself.
America hectors its most loyal ally in a way it does not its chief enemies, communist China and theocratic Iran. Not content with hiding its role in birthing the gain-in-function COVID-19 virus, now with impunity China helps kill 100,000 Americans a year through the export of fentanyl. It sends nearly 30,000 adult males into the US illegally. It relies on the espionage abilities of its students and visitors —and apparently exempt spy balloons—to ensure the People’s Liberation Army’s technological parity with the U.S.
But the greatest baleful legacy of this fading generation is the weaponization of the government against its own perceived American citizen enemies. That bastardization of institutions extends now to the very destruction of the once-hallowed tradition of American jurisprudence.
The degeneration was not just that our government and its political ancillaries cooked up the Russian collusion hoax that warped the 2016 campaign and crippled a presidency—but that, to this day, its unapologetic architects remain smug that they pulled it off and would do it again.
Ditto the efforts of “intelligence authorities” to delude the American people about “Russian disinformation” and the Hunter Biden laptop. The Sixties generation’s new normal is to impeach a president twice, to try him as a private citizen, and to seek to remove him from state ballots.
All that was now characteristic of a generation that learned in the 1960s that if it did not get its way, it would wreck what it could not control. So, it was logical that it sought to pack the court, to end the filibuster, to destroy the Electoral College—and to corrupt the law to achieve political ends. Or as the Sixties generation taught us, “by any means necessary”—an arrogant affirmation of Machiavelli’s dictum that “the ends justify the means.”
Now we are left with a final toxic gift from this generation: the destruction of jurisprudence, a system designed not to easily protect the popular and admired but those often pilloried in the public square, the unorthodox, eccentric, and unliked.
Even Trump’s antagonists know that had Donald Trump been a man of the left, or had he not run again for president, he would never have been charged, much less convicted, of felonies or been punished with nearly a half-billion dollars in legal fees and fines.
We all accept that the charges brought against him by a vindictive and left-wing Letitia James, Alvin Bragg, Fani Willis and Jack Smith—all compromised by either past politicized prosecutorial failures or boasts of getting Trump—have never before been brought against any prior political figure or indeed any average citizen. They were instead invented to target a single political enemy. So what hallowed law, what constitutional norm, what ancient custom, or what Bill or Rights has the fading left not destroyed in order to erase Donald Trump from the political scene?
There is now no distinction between state and federal law. Once a prosecutor targets an enemy, he can flip back and forth between such statutes to find the necessary legal gimmick to destroy his target.
Statutes of limitations are no more as errant prosecutors and political operatives in the legislature can change laws to dredge up supposed crimes of years past, to destroy their political enemies, by employing veritable bills of attainder.
The very notion of an exculpatory hung jury depends on who is to be hung.
Judges can overtly contribute to the political opponents of the accused before them. Their children can profit in the tens of millions by selling to politicos their relationship to the very judge who holds the fate of their political opponents in his hands.
In sum, the First Amendment guaranteeing the right of the defendant to free speech is now not applicable. Asymmetrical gag orders are.
The Fourth Amendment is now torn to shreds by those who boast of “saving democracy.” When the FBI, on orders from a hostile administration, storms into the home of the leading presidential candidate and ex-president’s home, armed to the teeth, treats a civil dispute as a violent felony, and then doctors the evidence it finds, then constitutional insurance against “unreasonable searches and seizures” becomes a bitter joke for generations.
The Fifth Amendment’s protection that no person “shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” has been destroyed when an ex-president cannot summon expert legal witnesses to testify on his behalf and when he cannot bring in evidence that contradicts his accusers. There is no due process when one ex-president is indicted for the very crimes his exempted successor has committed.
The Sixth Amendment’s various assurances are now kaput. No one believes that Trump was tried “by an impartial jury of the State”—not when prosecutors deliberately indicted him in a city where 85 percent of the population voted against him and are by design of a different political party.
No longer will an American have the innate right “to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor” when Donald Trump was never informed by prosecutor Alvin Bragg of the felony for which he was charged, with little advance idea of all the hostile prosecutorial witnesses to be called, and with no right to call in experts to refute the prosecution’s bizarre notion of campaign finance violations.
The Seventh Amendment is likewise now on the ash heap of history. The publicity-seeking judge Arthur Engoron, a political antagonist of Trump, warped the law in order to serve as judge, jury, and executioner of Trump’s fate, without recourse to a jury of even his biased New York peers.
The Eighth Amendment will offer assurance no longer to the American people that “excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
Donald Trump was fined $83.3 million in the E. Jean Carroll case for an alleged assault of three decades past, brought by partisan manipulative waving of the statute of limitations, with the politicized accuser having no idea of the year the assault took place, with her accusations arising only decades later when Trump became a political candidate, with her own employers insisting she was fired for reasons having nothing to do with Donald Trump, and with her narrative eerily matching a TV show plot rather than any provable facts of the case.
By what logic was Trump fined $175 million for supposedly inflated asset valuation to obtain a loan that was repaid with interest to banks that had no complaint? Since when does the state seek to inflict such “unusual” punishments for a crime that never before had existed and never will again henceforth?
In sum, our departing weak-link generation leaves us this final Parthian shot— that when a toxic ideology so alienates the people who are rising up to prevent its continuance, then the desperate architects of such disasters can dismantle the rule of law to destroy its critics.
And so, a single generation has broken apart the great chain of American civilizational continuance. But if this weak-leak generation thinks the evil that they wrought is their last word, they should remember the warning of a great historian:
“Indeed men too often take upon themselves in the prosecution of their revenge to set the example of doing away with those general laws to which all alike can look for salvation in adversity, instead of allowing them to subsist against the day of danger when their aid may be required.” – Thucydides 3.84.3
Wonderful summation. Turn out the vote!
ModRNA Made in a laboratory and Patented by US Law 2013 not “Natural mRNA” which by US Law 2013 cannot be patented: mRNA means injected humans are now genetically modified to produce “protein” toxins that their own body tries to destroy
Ever heard the term auto-immune disorder? If not, you will very soon, and quite often. It starts with even the healthiest people, who got brainwashed by the Pharma cartel into getting the toxic “forever” jab, where human cells are tricked into producing virus-mimicking “protein” prions, that are produced indefinitely (counter to medical narratives) and spread throughout the body. This signals the human immune system that every organ is under attack by foreign invaders, and the immune system is taxed, hyper-activated constantly, and the heart and CNS start breaking down too.
Just like GM corn and GM soy, the Covid-jab-injected human’s DNA system is now a toxic protein creating factory, but instead of killing insects and worms, the human body is destroying itself. In other words, the “pest” is itself, and the immune system identifies it this way. Still wondering why the Covid-vaxxed masses keep dropping like flies, from unexplainable heart attacks, spontaneous abortions and stroke-inducing fibrous vascular clots?
These mRNA-injected humans are now walking bio-weapons factories, and their doctors are never allowed to discuss it. The medical industry has every employee parroting and regurgitating all the false-narratives (disinformation) about how
brilliant essay.
“Weak men create hard times.” But the cycle will begin again. And, “Hard times will create strong men.”
I wouldn’t characterize the Baby Boomer generation as Jacobin – if I had to give it a name, I would call it more “Realpolitik” in the Machiavellian sense at least as far as foreign policy is concerned – and broadly speaking capitalistic, domestically and in foreign trade, with sometimes imprudent interventions in the economy by the government (witness the last 3 years).
Most of what I witnessed in both Republican and Democrat governance (with some exceptions) are what I would call small “c” conservatism, and small “l” liberalism – at least relative to the radicalism we’ve collectively seen the the last 10 years. That radicalism I would whole heartily characterize as Jacobin.
I wouldn’t use “Realpolitk” to describe us Boomers, either. I’d use “immature”, “adolescent”, “self-centered”, “narcissistic”.
Remember, a generalization allows for exceptions-it just has to be generally true.
To clarify, I used Realpolitik to describe foreign policy during the Boomer generation – I would not describe Boomer foreign policy as “immature”, “adolescent”, “self-centered”, “narcissistic”. Harry Truman’s words regarding what he thought of the CIA (that he created) in 1963, are a case in point.
I used “capitalistic” to describe the Boomer approach to domestic concerns. Your adjectives could have some application there – although, I think they are more derogatory than accurate description – perhaps more accurate to reiterate Gordon Gecko’s words (Wall Street, 1987) in describing the Boomers domestic outlook – “Greed is good”.
Right on. These are the spoiled, rebellious, and lazy whiners we endured in our classrooms back in the 60’s (mho).
A major factor in the decline of western culture has been the the reversal of the roles of men and women. What began as a much needed women’s equal rights movement has given way to an outright hatred of men. Men must be made more like women once were. So goes the message in media, entertainment, commercial advertising, politics and every facet of communication. And women must now be like men once were.
Tv commercials are blatantly anti men. Women are cast as supervisors, managers, owners and directors of all business positions. Only attractive women can drive new cars ( and they do so with an aggressive stare forward, tightly gripping the wheel ). When a man, especially a white man, appears in an ad he is depicted as weak and stupid. He changes diapers, washes dishes, does laundry and cooks a fine meal for his wife when she gets home from work.
Movies cast women as superheroes fully capable and quite willing to beat up men twice their size. This was once sort of funny but it now dominates our culture. Much to the decline of respect of women by men. And guess who gets the blame for that. Yep, you got it.
The good news is that all these movies are flops. They will not sustain themselves. Meanwhile, the infrequent “Top Gun” type of movie kills it at the box office.
And our newest Justice can’t define one!
All of the ills you describe above are the result of the feminization of universities, the military, the legal profession and all other institutions. Not a matter of which generation. It was the change from a patriarchy to our current matriarchy. For the first time in world history we live in a country where the majority of kids are raised by single moms. Women out vote men because women vote together. Men don’t. Women didn’t like the country that men built so they replaced it with what we see today.
I agree. With 50+ percent of work force now filled by women, many in management positions, it’s only natural for changes to take place in the work place & societal views. Yet, personally, I find women tend to obsess over feelings & minutiae to point of not being able to objectively assess situations and exercise good judgment in making decisions. It seems to begin in puberty where we all know boys need to be closely monitored for irrational behavior, but girls seem to get a pass in terms of controlling their emotions. I’m probably wrong and will be labeled a sexist, but that’s my observation for whatever it’s worth.
Jenkins, if you are a sexist then stand tall and wear the label proudly. There will be bouts of the vapors along the way from your hyper-reactive foes, but that is the price of free speech.
Thank you, Jim. I don’t back down from anyone, but have learned to pick my fights. As we get older, we tend to cut to the chase and not worry about what others might think, since they can’t hurt us.
More specifically, Eric Holder (Barack Obama) weaponized the DOJ, hiring highly idealogical peers while casting out moderate voices.
Then the FBI went from hiring often ex Military (loan conservative), to hiring on college campuses (liberal). (Source: attorney ShipwreckedCrew.) They then used the powerful new 9 / 11 surveillance tools to target political opponents. 85% of NSA database searches wete “non compliant”? BLM and Antifa walk free, while J6 protectors are setup.
Liberal women.
I believe the technical term is: “Bat-Shit Crazy Women”. Most women are wonderful, or at least OK.. However, we need to avoid the BSCW types in all cases.
Victor – not quite right. All the rights you say have been destroyed are alive and well for those on the left. I seriously doubt if there will be a violation of the 1st, 6th, 7th, or any amendment in the upcoming Hunter Biden trial. I also believe that Hunter will find a favorable judge and sympathetic jury. So the system seems to work for him (and Joe and Hillary and Barack). So you are only half right.
VDH was not claiming that these amendment violations also applied to the Left, but rather that they are selectively applied by the Left against political enemies, in this case Trump.
Your blog has quickly become my go-to source for reliable information and thought-provoking commentary. I’m constantly recommending it to friends and colleagues. Keep up the excellent work!
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Dr. Hanson, as always, you are so right. As I have said, we(I was born 1947) are definitely not the greatest generation. I would add to the list of our failures the widespread embrace and/or tolerance of illegal drug use. Not everyone used, but there was not the widespread rebuke there should have been. Another failure was, and still is, the acceptance of the Democrat party as the intelligent and kind party. In the process of working, making a living, and just trying to get by, we put our vote on automatic pilot and pulled the lever for the kind and intelligent party giving them decades of cover to become what they are today. It is extraordinarily embarrassing and humbling to acknowledge that, but there it is. If we, as a nation, are to preserve the shining city on the hill, it will take a lot of introspection from a lot of well-meaning voters who are still providing cover. I have faith in the American people and the idea they can, and still want to, self govern. Hope springs eternal.
I like Dr. Hanson, and I’m within weeks of the same age, and I know it’s a national sport to condemn the baby boomer generation for all the ills of the world coming out of the 1960s, but all but the oldest boomers were kids during the ‘60s. The hippie generation was largely the pre-boomer group just before us in the late ’30s and early ‘40s.
Those of us born in the ‘50s began our working lives during during the 1970s, a period of high unemployment, stagflation, with many US industries staggering from foreign competition, and, unfortunately, disco music. Largely we buckled down, worked hard, fueled the technology boom, made American industry competitive again, and bought our first houses with very high interest rate mortgages, and had children only to discover that the schools weren’t what they once were. And yeah, our hair might have been a little shaggy and we liked rock and roll.
If you want a daffy generation, look to the one born in the late ‘30s and early ‘40s – Joe Biden’s and Bernie Sanders’ generation. They were old enough for the Summer of Love. In fairness, it can be argued that too many boomers were swayed by these people, but so was Gen X, the Millennials, and Gen Z. But a lot of boomers voted for Reagan and, as it turns out, also support Trump. The country is divided, but it’s not just one generation to blame.
I like Dr. Hanson, and I’m within weeks of the same age, and I know it’s a national sport to condemn the baby boomer generation for all the ills of the world coming out of the 1960s, but all but the oldest boomers were kids during the ‘60s. The hippie generation was largely the pre-boomer group born just before us in the late ’30s and early ‘40s.
Those of us born in the ‘50s began our working lives during during the 1970s, a period of high unemployment, stagflation, with many US industries staggering from foreign competition, and, unfortunately, disco music. Largely we buckled down, worked hard, fueled the technology boom, made American industry competitive again, and bought our first houses with very high interest rate mortgages, and had children only to discover that the schools weren’t what they once were. And yeah, our hair might have been a little shaggy and we liked rock and roll.
If you want a daffy generation, look to the one born in the late ‘30s and early ‘40s – Joe Biden’s and Bernie Sanders’ generation. They were old enough for the Summer of Love. In fairness, it can be argued that too many boomers were swayed by these people, but so was Gen X, the Millennials, and Gen Z. But a lot of boomers voted for Reagan and, as it turns out, also support Trump. The country is divided, but it’s not just one generation to blame.
I am a great admirer of VDH’s writing and have learned a lot from it but I don’t think that it’s fair to blame or for that matter give credit to an entire generation for its accomplishments or its faults. A great deal depends on leaders and on circumstances. Some of the worst driving forces of the civilizational decline that we are now experiencing was not started by the boomer generation but by certain members of the previous generation known sometimes as the slack generation. For example the feminist movement was started by the likes of Betty Friedan and Germaine Greer, neither of whom are boomers though they did indeed manage to indoctrinate many boomers. President Nixon, who was also not a boomer got us off the gold standard which has enabled all of the inflation that has occurred since then and also indirectly the borrowing that VDH is talking about. Nixon also created the EPA which is a huge supporter of the so-called Green revolution that
has been destroying our economy. It was both Woodrow Wilson and FDR, also not boomers who laid the groundwork for the deep state, the huge government Leviathan that is swallowing the polity whole. Admittedly many members of the boomer generation exacerbated all of the trends that were set in place before they had any power but in doing so they were mainly doing what all generations do, seizing the opportunities before them. Bear in mind that things are different in Israel. Netanyahu who is a great leader, is a baby boomer, and…
…continued from above…the young Israelis who are fighting Hamas are nothing like their counterparts who are occupying North American campuses. They are prepared to fight and die for their country as did American and Allied youth during WWII. Over 300,000 of them returned from safe and lucrative perches overseas after October 7 to report for duty at army bases to fight Hamas. Though some elite boomers have greatly contributed to the havoc that we are now seeing most are decent people who have tried in their own way to contribute to society. And let’s not forget that the roots of the present malaise go back further, way further than the characters that I have mentioned, to thought-leaders of the nineteenth century such as Marx and even way before that.
I agree. The emasculation of men in the media & elsewhere has been going on for some time. The whole movement to empower women in this manner has become laughable, were it not so destructive in many respects.
While we Boomers can only hang our heads in shame, plead guilty to almost all you say, rend our garments and heap ashes on ourselves, it is noteworthy that the sudden acceleration of the collapse of our civilization you so methodically cite has been presided over by a remnant of the “Lost Generation” that preceded ours – a malicious creature born in 1942 who has been a member of the government for half a century.
Born 1/1/1944. I am a female engineer from Vanderbilt. Married to another Vanderbilt engineer for 54 great years. Both conservatives and voted for Donald Trump twice and will a third time. 2020 was stolen and the country has paid for it. We had four good years under Trump in spite of the undermining of the country and its institutions during Obama’s 8 years and the deep state followup.
We’re both strongly opposed to the false environmental destruction of our country with acres of wind turbines and solar panels that do not provide basic electricity. We need more nuclear power plants which are the most reliable sources of electric power. Electric cars are a power drain that negatively affects a solid power base that is urgently needed.
Born 1949. Went to UCSB during the riot years of the early 1970s. Two degrees, music and computer science.
My wife, who was a federal employee for over 30 years, and I have NEVER voted democrat. Never crossed our minds. They have always seemed like idiots to both of us.
Democrats have always been the party of lies, buying votes, breaking the bank, and supporting chaos at every step. Recently they have joined forces with Big Pharma, the military industrial complex, Big Finance, Big Education, Big Justice, Big Government, and have totally taken over the universities. Same party of dunderheads, just much more powerful and potentially harmful.
Mr. Hanson,
You Sir, are a Baby Boomer (as am I). Joe Biden is NOT a Baby Boomer.
I suspect Your ‘rant’ would be better directed at Democrat and Republican party POLICIES… –rather than indicting all Baby Boomers.
Very Respectfully,
Phil Foley
I considered replying, but scrolled down to found a reply that echoed my feelings. While I would not call his article a ‘rant,’ you exactly stated my view on this article.
Excellent piece by Dr. Hanson and cogent comments by all who responded. Without doubt, all the examples mentioned above in the piece and in the comments section are causes, one way or another, for our current predicament. Furthermore, I believe a move away over the last 50 years or so from our founding religious tenets have added to our problems. In the Bible, every time the Israelites turned away from God, He removed His protection from them. I believe we are seeing this now in our time – in our country. I hope it’s not too late to make an important course correction…
Americans have moved away from the Bible and the God of the Bible.
We have witnessed the consequences of a nation that suppresses the truth of a divine creator who deserves to be honored and thanked.
Collectively, our thinking has become futile, and our foolish hearts have become darkened.
We believe ourselves to be sophisticated, yet we are fools, so we worship ourselves, and other created things.
Hence, the consequences of our times – fornication, homosexuality, transgenderism, and a host of character flaws.
Romans 1:16-32
I am a member of the baby boomer generation – and not proud of it I recall a phrase by James Reston of the NY Times written several decades ago -” America in one generation has gone from puritanism to hedonism”. It has been all down hill since.
The persistent evil of The words, plans and inclinations of the democrats
have become almost beyond imagination and comprehension. Successful leadership out of this morass will require more than just complaints and committee hearings. Our governmental mess is a loud and strong argument for term limits.
I paid for my own college and repaid my own loans in the late 60s. On my campus the theme was do your own thing! Unsaid was, as long as it is not conservative. That generation raised 2 successive generations with the demand: I want to do what I want, when and where I want, without repercussions or consequences. The degree to which you will do this, I will vote for you and not care what you do for yourselves.
My college years were 1966-1972 at MIT, so I can be accused of being a boomer. I observed a wide variety of social and political attitudes in that group, first hand. This big picture is obscured by the onesided view of that era that is now in vogue, thanks to radical writers. The problem was that the non-communists just went about their later lives, while the single-minded communists wormed their way into every key institution that used to guard the Constitution, and became the leaders. The allegedly conservative or moderate Republicans did well for themselves, but lazily let the sociopolitical menace grow to staggering proportions with little opposition.
RAM, I agree completely.
While us conservatives just want to be left alone, the other side is busy trying to control us. That’s how we got where we are today. Is it any more complicated than that?
I went to UCSB 68-73. Have never voted democrat.
I disagree. It’s easy to blame boomer’s, but the deterioration is really from Marxist , leftists versus boomers who embrace a conservative, religious point of view.
My conservative father a WW II veteran is honored by his children. However, the more this generation ages, the closer we entertain mortality and recognize the necessity for God in our lives! Train a child in the way he should go and he will not depart from it in his old age.
Institutions have failed the boomers as they are captured by leftist extremism. Our government has been captured by greedy self serving politicians who lack integrity, bordering on being consumed by evil intentions. It’s a moral question, both men and have been fed diabolical lies, recently stated by Harrison Butker and reiterated by myself today.
Most politicians appear to be either blackmailed or bought off. Hard to do the work of the people under those conditions. “Joe Biden” is the most glaring example of this.
The problem is a non-specific buyers’ remorse that has been steered by massive propaganda efforts. As a boomer I experienced my draft physical upon by 18th birthday. The promises of the political class were extreme. Civil rights, poverty, making the world safe for democracy, and even the Moon shot, were the hope. Only the Apollo mission delivered as promised. Vietnam was the only acknowledged failure. Westmoreland and McNamara had no strategic goals. It was a war of attrition. We traded pilots in A4s, F-105s, and A6s plus helicopters full of troops and flight personnel for companies of North Vietnam troops blown to smithereens by B-52s and bridges damaged by small bombs. We declared victory when the body count ratio landed in the 20:1 range in our favor. Ho Chi Minh did not share this view of the purpose of war. It was only when Nixon began bombing Haiphong Harbor, a strategically important target, that “peace” broke out. Alas the Democrats quickly undermined this possible path to victory. As the generation paying the price for these failures, and don’t forget the bombings and riots that that characterized the Vietnam decade, it is understandable that we were disaffected. Our lives have been characterized by ever-increasing public policy failures. The only relief in this tale were Reagan’s two terms. Everything else has been marked by massive malfeasance. Curiously, our media has been silent for six decades. We now know it has been complicit.
It appears that the Vietnam experience was exactly what Ike warned us about: the power of the military industrial complex. It is doubtful that Kennedy was going to go that way, so he was eliminated. Johnson then immediately ramped up the whole shootin’ match and 50,000 Americans died. But what advances we made in military machinery, weaponry and warfare! That is a facetious comment. The boys in my high school class who did not go to college ended up in Vietnam. Most returned, but they were not unscarred.
Our civilization is like a winning football team…once it is disbursed, it can not be reassembled, for the factors that made it a civilization are changed…. The only thing remaining is to plant the seeds for the next civilization… Our Constitution is an article of faith..what will protect us when faith in equal protection under the law is lost?
Although I truly appreciate the essay overall, the Baby boom generation usually defined as 1946-1964 and therefore could not include Alvin Bragg, born in 1973. The prime movers of the onslaught against Donald Trump must also include Nancy Pelosi, born 1940, George Soros, born 1930 and many others on the Left. The Boomers have had a great deal of help from other generations to destroy the roots of liberty embodied in the Bill of Rights.
Every Democrat President Clinton, Carter,Obama,Now Biden have done their best to fundamentally change America those are the ones to blame. Boomers get to vote just like everyone else .
They have also left us a culture where too many Americans would see a defeat as not only ok but justified, because we suck.
Thanks for all you do Victor, it is much appreciated.
We are a part, perhaps the culmination, of the Great Falling Away from God. I’m in this demographic but have been fighting it since 1971.
I’m not quitting while I draw a breath. Christ Is King.
Thomas , yes! Christ is King today and reigns in the hearts of those He has called and rescued. If we as a ‘collective’ would stand against the evil Christ haters of the day- we’d see a revival for sure.
World without end.
An overwhelming vote will not be enough in this year of numerous black swans. American Patriots, especially those Boomers who realize the drastic harm that this Baby generation committed by failing to maintain any semblance of historical respect for the American Experiment must be willing to provide both Votes and Boots on the Ground to salvage what remains. That will undoubtedly require more than votes. Standby.
Patrick, are you saying that this is the “hill to die on”?
These are the many destructions laid on us by the political Left, not by a particular generation. I’m a baby-boomer and neither did nor support any of these things. Comey, Bragg, Merchan, James, Willis, Smith, Wray, Strzok, Sullivan, Blinken, Stephenopolous, Maddow, etc. are not baby-boomers but did.
Fentanyl may not be the only thing venturing across the border. Dozens of Mexican political figures were killed by cartel members leading up to their latest election. Are we arrogant enough to think this can’t happen here?
I’ve always wondered about why Mexico is so corrupt and why our country, generally, did not seem to have near that same level of broken government.
I believe we are soon going to find out what corruption really feels like. In fact, it is already happening.
We have arrived. The Manhattan fiasco is the canary that just died.
Dr. Hanson, your essay rightly identifies the failure of the Baby Boomers to uphold the values acted upon by the Greatest Gen, sometimes called Mature Generation. I’m a baby boomer and am puzzled how this happened. “They” say that upon coming home from the war, families “boomed” with exorbitant freedoms, gadgets, 4+ TVs, appliances, 2 cars, while women who worked for the industrial military complex successfully transitioned to the private sector and never looked back. meanwhile, America de-churched its youth, similar to that of Europe who was ahead of the curve. ironically many Gen-Z parents are home schooling or sending kids to parochial schools to instill a higher level of morality than the me-too, myself, hedonistic idolatry of self worship in this time, this generation.
Sadly, the “big-one”, whatever that portends, may be the only jolt that will turn the ship around.
Ted in Milwaukee.
Liberalism in the seminaries preceded the Boomer generation.
Perhaps the seeds of spiritual destruction were planted and bore fruit when the cultural permitted it.
Cultural Christianity is insufficient to keep people from self-indulgence and other forms of progressively increasing sin.
Clarification: Theological liberalism in the seminaries preceded the Boomer generation.
Theological liberalism and its disregard for the inerrancy of the Scripture unleashes man to invent all types of beliefs without a biblical interpretation.
Theological liberalism and its consequent distorted beliefs may be thought as a contributing factor in social and political liberalism.
Lady liberty is in tears. America in tatters. We need help from on high to get out of this mess. I earnestly pray every day for our fair country. The drug addled Jacobins shall not have the last word if we the people have the courage to do the right thing.
I believe that you are right to pray to God for help that only he can provide as the root of the problem is in the human heart which only God can change.
It is only when more hearts are changed that the culture and politics can improve.
Winning elections are only a short-term reprieve from the lunacy of sin, but I think that we need to win those elections to give God time to change men one by one otherwise, disaster comes quicker.
Romans 1:18-32
“The self-infatuated and do-your-own-thing generation that gave us the Sixties”
Actually, the Boomers in were in their low- to mid-teens in 1960, and less than half had cast a vote by 1970. The generation that failed were those who were 40 years old, or thereabouts in 1970. They were the deans who let the rioters take over their offices. They were the ones who selected the new faculty members hired to accommodate the massive influx of new students in our universities. By the mid-70s these fools were being selected as the presidents and department heads all across the country. My alma mater hired a Stanford dean as its new President, and she promptly treated the students to an Oxfam-Feast … randomly divide the student body into three parts, lowest get nothing to eat, mid-group eats sandwiches on the lawn, elite group gets a five-course meal with candles and silverware … no mention of the causes of poverty in the third world which include a lack of law and order, no protection of private property, no freedom of expression, etc. I have donated very little to this miserable little school as a result. Our donations have pretty much focused on Hillsdale.
This foolish woman was the younger, distaff side of McNamara. She was driven by ideology, ego, and emotion, a bad combination. The failures were obvious. What you call Boomers was just a symptom, the cause started at the top, and dibbled down.
I have heard that the knowing leftists calls those who do their bidding “useful idiots.”
It may be that those who have strategized society’s destruction are so crafty that those who follow do not know the implications of their ideas.
Perhaps Boomers were the foot soldiers, and the masterminds were in the previous generations.
There was much leftist scheming around 1920 according to those who document that the communists made inclusive plans to infiltrate American institutions in order to overthrow the country.
Thank God for VDH. As horrible as the truth is, VDH reads the tea leaves and gives us the truth.
Brilliant Victor and also heartbreaking. Thank you for your hard work, I always look forward to your wise words. Bless you, Nancy
I recall a Biden statement around the time that Trump declared that I found peculiar at that time, but now see it foretelling: “We just have to demonstrate that he will not take power if he does run, making sure he — under legitimate efforts of our Constitution — does not become the next president again” https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/3728174-biden-suggests-trump-will-not-take-power-again-if-he-runs-in-2024/ At the time I wondered what that peculiar language meant. Its now clear
Victor – You have an amazing talent for clearly describing the situation at hand. We have to find a way to get your message in front of all Americans so they can fully understand the peril at hand. The missing link is the consideration of what the God who established this country and it’s freedoms is thinking. This country and it’s freedom was established for His work to go forward – which it is – however it seems we are perilously close to a tipping point where we will no longer be preserved by His matchless power. Your brilliant outlay of information Victor – combined with faith, prayer and action of honest Americans to reject those who would take our freedom is the only solution. Listen to the words of a prophet of God written for our day and tell me how well it applies.
And now behold, I say unto you, that the foundation of the destruction of this people is beginning to be laid by the unrighteousness of your lawyers and your judges. –
You can read the entire dialog in the 10th chapter of the Book of Alma in the Book of Mormom. The parallels to today are striking.
Jesus promised his apostles that they would be taught all things, remember all Jesus’ words, and be led into all spiritual truth.
Jesus’ apostles all died in that generation so subsequently, any teaching that they did not have is not a teaching that Jesus promised to them. (All things, All Jesus’ words, All spiritual truth)
Hence, there are strong warnings in the Bible not to add to the Bible’s teaching.
John 14-16, Revelation 22
Victor, I hate to tell ya, but both you and I are Boomers. I just happen to have a seven year head start on you and was a member of the dreaded Class of 1968. That said, you and I are not Jacobins.
The Jacobins are those of the elite professoriate, now apparently in the majority at their institutions, and politicians unable to make a living otherwise, who, jealous of hard working businessmen, professionals, and others with some economic clout and moral substance, decided that the best way to take away their power was to corrupt the institutions that sustained them.
Lots of Boomers and their progeny have inflicted our current affairs upon us. However, there are plenty of our generation who are as appalled as you.
Excellent summary on the judicial end, especially. If President Trump’s attorneys don’t understand these points, and why they make a direct appeal to the Supreme Court more than necessary, and before the Republican Convention, they should be fired.
Very disappointed. VDH is brilliant, but is playing the generational blame game. It is too simplistic to frame it in these terms. Can we lay the blame for everything that’s happening right now on the silent generation (biden)?
Silent generation as potus, Gen X/Millennials/Z with over 50% of the house, and the Boomers in control of the Senate.
We’ve all enhanced our knowledge of history over the last decade or two and often thanks to the great VDH. Thanks to Dr. Hanson and others, we now more deeply understand how we’ve gotten to this point over the last 60+ years and it certainly can’t be laid at the feet of the Boomers alone.
Since the article assesses blame, which generation is responsible for the 1963 coup d’état of President Kennedy? Was that the Boomers too?
Somewhat agree with you. I, like most of the people here, am a Boomer.
As I see it, the later generations are just waiting for us to die off.
At that point there will be no VDH and no VDH followers left. You can generalize this comment to predict what our country will look like in 20 years. There are virtually no non-Boomers on this thread.
Our primary sin was to mind our own business while the Left took over every institution in America.
We were just being good Americans. They were planning to take over the country. Given that scenario, guess who eventually wins?
My heart breaks for the men and women who have served and died for our country…we have messed it up…no going back.
Very interesting however that those who have been lifted out of poverty and slavery are the ones going after our way of government….which will take them back into poverty and slavery one day under someone else….man has no sense!!
IMO – This reads like and after action report and
or Eulogy of and for the Republic –
ALL should read – but it is a lot a words !
Thank you Victor for this excellent account of the destruction of the promises afforded by the American Constitution. I am reading your current book “The End of Everything” and the hubris and naïveté of our progressive, Marxist left parallels the reasons for failure of past civilizations. The most disturbing thing about our destructive progressives that “one-ups” the people of Thebes, Carthage and others that you explore in your book is that they are destroying the country they live in because of the hatred of ONE man. Or could it possibly be that the ONE man represents the majority of Americans that they want to intimidate?
The Greatest Generation lived through the Depression, World War II, and defeated Soviet Communism, eventually. They sacrificed to do so. And when they started their families, they said, “We want our children to have everything we didn’t have.”
But in giving their children everything they didn’t have, they failed to pass on the one thing they did have-their values.
You can point to exceptions-“Well, MY parents taught ME their values!”
That’s as may be. Generalizations allow for exceptions. But they are generally true.
Perhaps the Greatest Generation emphasized material wealth and comfort for themselves as well as for their children at the expense of other values.
Hard work and achievement is good but not at the expense of your soul.
Luke 12:13-21…”Take care and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”…But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
The generation we have justifably labeled the ‘Greatest generation’ lived through adversity of the Great Depression and WWI in which, some served in that war. My father was part of that generation as he and nearly everyone of my uncles on both sides enlisted and served in WWII and the ‘Forgotten War’, Korea. Those military members returned to the US as heroes. That diversity created men and women of enormous mettle.
The Baby Boomer generation came of age, some served during Vietnam, some protested the war in mass numbers. Those who served, most drafted into the service, came home as ‘baby killers’. John Kerry disparged his fellow Vietnam veterans contributing to the hatred of the military. Still men and women of mettle but fewer than previous generations. The trend continued to reduce the numbers of men and women of character as technology made life easier and time became more consumed with video games and leisure time.
Professor Hanson has addressed this on several occasions as downfall of civilizations fall due to decadence and corruption. Corruption is not new to the declines of nations and we are witnessing an overbearing corrupt government that will destroy this country.
Yes . . . absolutely brilliant and spot-on . . . as I baby boomer, I do feel a little guilty that I’m not doing more toward restitution . . . Well, at least I do little things (like switching my subscription four years ago from the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal; hearing/affirming brilliant voices such as yours (cf. Shapiro, Prager, et al.); voicing occasional low-key rejoinders, as appropriate, to well-meaning [but sadly misguided?] colleagues here at Ohio State; and making appropriate donations (e.g., no longer to Princeton University but instead to Princetonians for Free Speech; and, most recently, to organizations fighting to election integrity). Again, your commentary is absolutely brilliant and spot-on.
In all due respect Dr. Hanson, I remind you that you too are a baby-boomer, yet you hold none of these despotic views anymore than I do, nor the millions of Americans, boomers included, who find them despicable. I was a young Marine in D.C. with some friends and we happened to find ourselves in the middle of an antiwar protest. Thousands of people were there, many participating, most watching as the symbols of death and destruction marched solemnly by. We followed the leading edge to the Washington monument, watching as hundreds of the protestors swarmed over the grounds. As we stood shocked at the scene and the brazenness of the crowd, something caught my eye. I happened to look up to see the American flag falling to the ground after having been hacked away from the anchors by a guy who had shimmied up the tall pole. To our complete dismay, this same guy hung a flag of North Vietnam in its place. In an instant my juvenile political views were set ablaze as we realized that these people protesting were not simply college kids out for a stroll on the weekend. These were the radicals that have been successful in their long march through the institutions. While the rest of us came home from the military or the university and built families, careers, homes, and businesses, all the while attending church, and becoming responsible citizens, these set out to destroy our way of life. They have nearly succeeded, but they will fail. Why? BUT GOD!
Not Baby Boomers:
Nancy Pelosi, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., Harry Reid, George Soros, Mitch McConnell, Bernie Sanders, Diane Feinstein, Richard Durbin, Maxine Waters, Steny Hoyer, James Clyburn, A.O. Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Eric Swalwell, Dan Goldman, Cori Bush, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, Hakeen Jeffries, Pramila Jayapal, Ketanji Jackson, Ruth Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, David Souter, Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O’Connor, John Paul Stevens, Harry Blackmun, Warren Burger, Thurgood Marshall, William Brennan, jr., Earl Warren, William O. Douglas, Hugo Black, Robert Byrd, Jimmy Carter, Lyndon Johnson, FDR, John Kerry, Robert Mueller, Ted Kennedy, John McCain, Mark Zuckerberg, Anthony Fauci, Warren Buffett, Gavin Newsom, Alvin Bragg, Gretchen Whitmer, Michael Madigan, Leon Panetta, Robert Mueller, Fani Willis, G.H.W. Bush
Chieftain – Thanks for your listing of key figures in the shaping of America. Many people of various generations have been influential in helping shape our culture.
“Shut up, Hippie!” – President Reagan
The Sixties was the start of the Rising Generation’s disrespect to the Ruling Generation. It’s so backwards to this day that the Ruling Generation submits to the Rising Generation in an attempt to be young and “cool”, resulting in men who are nothing but boys and woman who are nothing but girls. Overly spoiled, arrogant, and scared as they raise the next generation. Kids having kids. No more “Mr., Mrs., or Miss”, Just a first name or an ungrammatical title as “They”. Don’t say the word “mature”, either.
The majority of Atheists of the Baby Boomer Generation also explains our cultural degradation. It’s one last attempt at eutopia on Earth before eternal darkness.
P.S. – I was born in ’79 and even I recognize this.
Mr. Zeth Swanson – Thank you for a well-illustrated and descriptive post.
It is noteworthy that atheists by a large majority vote Democrat.
Atheism is increasing in our country and may be due to the acceptance of the hypotheses of abiogenesis and Darwinian evolution.
Reagan was a Hollywood Liberal & lifelong New Deal Democrat–and governed like it even as a “small govt Republican”.
The Reagan Myth is one of the delusions of self-greatness that Boomers desperately cling to.
Very much agree. And while Reagan was not a boomer he certainly enabled a lot of the generation’s bad traits. Of course everyone is formed by the previous generations, but it doesn’t justify what the boomers have done to harm later generations.
73 comments and no pushback on the rabid philosemitism? The extent of elite capture is absolutely astonishing. Is it Stockholm syndrome? Quid pro quo? Brainwashing? Desire for buttered bread?
The Boomers are the most evil generation in the history of humanity. Lets review what thy have done:
1. Ruined the real estate market for Gen Z and Millennials.
2. Allowed diversity to flourish
3. Destroyed traditional Christianity
4. Made the cost of higher education unattainable
5. Aborted 40 percent of Generation X- my generation.
Not to mention made some of the worst TV shows, music and contributed to culture denigration; occurred with Boomers. Boomers destroyed the dot.com revolution due to the total lack of understanding of technology. They cannot still use iPhones and are just now understanding Facebook/social media.
They are stuck in Freshman year of high school and think the world is made for them and they love themselves only. Gen Z and Gen Alpha will probably, if they survive, set the nation back on a steady course. Once the Boomers die, along with vinyl records, we can forget them, thank God we can forget them. They were the largest voting block from 1965 to 2005 and did NOTHING to stop the destruction of the culture or nation.
Whoa! I have a few vinyl records and still enjoy them, occasionally.
Losing by 1% to the liberal zealots does not make me a piece of crap.
Never voted democrat and saw through their BS the whole time.
How am I guilty?
When my generation dies there will be no resistance to what we are seeing in plain sight.
The best thing the Boomers could do at this point is die as quickly as possible before they do even more damage & squander what little remains of American prosperity…1/3 of my generation (X) was butchered in the womb by these pieces of absolute shite…
Don’t trust anyone over 30, especially if they murder your president for trying to stop the next regularly scheduled war.
Lumping together by generation is a lazy way to identify those who cause change.
This thread took an interesting turn.
Troll-fed or real?
I’ll stick with my original thesis. Boomers took care of their own lives while libs took control of our institutions. They love control.
The result is the result.
Is it possible to turn the ship around? Only with deep committment.
Give me a break.
When the Greatest Generation bought into Medicare and its sequels it sold its children down the river to avoid having to take care of their parents in their old age. They seemed to think winning the “good war” entitled to them to a lifetime of, well, entitlements. And it was the Russians who won that war.
And “democratic” Israel?
Jesus wept.
CS Lewis and Generations
“Each generation exercises power over its successors: and each, in so far as it modifies the environment bequeathed to it and rebels against tradition, resists and limits the power of its predecessors. This modifies the picture which is sometimes painted of a progressive emancipation from tradition and a progressive control of natural processes resulting in a continual increase of human power. In reality, of course, if any one age really attains, by eugenics and scientific education, the power to make its descendants what it pleases, all men who live after it are the patients of that power.” CS Lewis, “The Abolition of Man”
It is strange to read the comments that babble about the evil of a particular class of people as if they themselves will never make a mistake in the future. Of course, the hubris of youth always sees clearly.
The oddity of blaming one generation for the downfall of American exceptionalism and ideals that are embodied in the constitution, comes not from the fact of the fall, but the not mentioning the poison that was already seeping into the system before WWII. Where are the Wilsonian, the FDR, and and the miscreants that were already dripping the poison into the cup? Each generation inherits a past that is difficult to master, that is where the children of the 60s and the Summer of Love failed. They did not master, nor did the greatest generation that bled the pain of WWII or the Great Depression, give them the tools to do so.
What a COP-OUT. How can you blame one generation for all the bad things that have happened over the last 80 years and give all other generations a pass? Do no other generations have any responsibility in keeping Freedom alive? Ronald Reagan believed that they do. Immediately after saying “Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction” he said “It is not ours by way of inheritance. It must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation.” How convenient that part was left out, but that would have destroyed the narrative of this COP-OUT article.
So what have all the generations that came after the Baby Boomers done to fight for and defend Freedom? NOTHING. Which is worse, those that steal our Freedoms or those that stand idly by and watch our Freedoms being stolen? I submit that the generations after the Baby Boomers are the ones who are destroying Freedom. They are the people who are now in charge of the government. They are the people who are now committing all of these crimes against Freedom mentioned in this article. They are the people pointing fingers at everyone in their 70s and 80s and blaming them for all things bad, all the while raising their hands and saying “It wasn’t me.” EVERYONE will be to blame if we lose our Freedom.
It is everyone’s responsibility to fight for and defend Freedom. Before, during, and after the Baby Boomer generation.
Victor is a bit disingenuous with his condemnation of the entire generation. Most of us have nothing to do with much of his list of offenses. Yes, the elites are guilty of ruining the Republic, but they are not the majority.