Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
The decade-long French Revolution that broke out in 1789 soon devolved into far more than removing the monarchy, as it became antithetical to the earlier American precedent. American notions of liberty and freedom were seen as far too narrow, given the state, if only all-powerful and all-wise, could mandate “equality” and force “fraternity” among its subjects.
Each cycle of French revolutionary fervor soon became more radicalized and cannibalistic—until it reached its logical ends of violent absurdity.
Originally, the idea of curbing the power of a Bourbon king through a parliamentary republic became lethally counter-revolutionary.
Soon even attacks on the Catholic Church and the abolition of the monarchy entirely were deemed insufficient. The king himself and his consorts had to be beheaded. Monasteries and churches were to be ransacked, and priests exiled or lynched.
The sometimes moderate Girondins, who favored constitutional government, were mostly executed by their former friends among the Montagnards. In turn, the latter were soon deemed too conservative for the emerging crazy Jacobins. So they, too, had to be decapitated. The ensuing year-long reign of terror guillotined thousands of innocents, deemed guilty of being guilty of something.
By 1793, the revolution had turned nihilist and suicidal. The foundational date of France was recalibrated (not as 1619 but) as 1789—or “year one.”
Jacobins sought to wipe out religion, both materially and spiritually. They replaced God, first, with the atheistic “Cult of Reason” and then a stranger still “Cult of the Supreme Being”—a dreamed-up, living, humanistic god that only the murderous Robespierre could fully envision, but eerily similar to our own Green New Deal deity.
The months of the year themselves were renamed, the days of the week renumbered and relabeled. Statues were toppled, first at night, later in shameless daylight. Place names were erased and renamed. The original revolutionary heroes were not to be mentioned; their uncouth successors deified. Money was printed to “spread the wealth”—until it was worthless.
Murderous cancel culture ran unchecked. Yesterday’s French revolutionary became today’s counterrevolutionary—and tomorrow’s decapitated.
Almost everyone who originally had opposed the absolute monarchy, and, like the Americans, wished for a constitutional replacement, was eventually executed by revolutionaries who were then executed by more radical revolutionaries. The longer and more radical the revolution ran, the meaner, dumber, and more deadly the revolutionaries who emerged from the woodwork.
Finally, what could not go on, did not go on, as French society unraveled. Then the so-called Thermidors put an end to the madness of the Robespierre brothers and their sidekick, the 26-year-old Saint-Just, and did to them what they had done to thousands.
The final revolutionary correction saw a Directory, then a Consulate, and finally the dictator Napoleon—the self-described emperor who claimed he was the final absolutist manifestation of the “Revolution.”
A Revolution of the Disingenuous
We are swept up in similarly scary revolutionary times, after the perfect storm of the 2020 rioting, the COVID destructive lockdowns, and a radical socialist takeover of the old Democratic Party.
Decades of successful and legitimate efforts to ensure equality of opportunity, a safety net for the poor, and increased civil liberties have transmogrified into an “equity” agenda, or state-mandated equality of result—or else!
“Diversity” is now an Orwellian word for racial essentialism to the one-drop degree. Jim Crow racism was not eliminated permanently. It now has resurfaced as woke or “good” segregation. Racially separate facilities and events are apparent “reparatory justice.” Black activists are calling for $800 billion in reparations from San Francisco, a city that is melting down as we speak.
The old precivilizational tribalism and monotony of thought are now deemed “diverse.” “Inclusion” means replacing one racial hierarchy of the 1950s with a newer one of the 2020s. Woke leftists prove “inclusive” by excluding as “haters” and “denialists” any who disagree and cannot be easily refuted.
Opportunists Abound
The Nike admen Colin Kaepernick and LeBron James ended up with millions of dollars in endorsements ultimately derived from Communist Chinese exploiters of servile labor—a fact that all their pseudo-revolutionary performance art cannot mask.
Like the rich and elite Montagnards and Jacobins, well-off, degreed suburban grifters suddenly became “woke” arbiters of the “correct.” Thousands of diversity, equity, and inclusion czars bloated administrations, broke university budgets, and terrified faculty and employees with their panopticon surveillance. And yet did any of them result in a single better student reader, or at least one more accomplished university math major? Have K-12 scores soared with DEI monitors on hand?
We have not descended to the guillotine yet, but we are getting there with online cancel culture, doxxing, deplatforming, boycotts, mandatory diversity statements, indoctrination training, ostracism for an incorrect word, and violence redefined as activism.
Black Lives Matter ended when its supposedly Marxist architects all vanished into comfortable bourgeoise estates and cushy retirements—along with the millions of dollars they shook down from guilt-ridden corporations.
#MeToo sputtered out once the mantra of “believe women” turned its attention to candidate Joe Biden and Tara Reade. It turned out that she most certainly must not be believed when she swore the Delaware Democrat had sexually assaulted her.
Supposed transgendered heroes vie for profitable TV endorsement commercials that are as lucrative to them as they are ruinous to their employers.
In our revolutionary times, mediocre biological male athletes “transition” into female sports and suddenly become rich and famous. Women who transition to males, for some reason, find no such profits from male competitions.
A black transient with 42 arrests and three assault convictions is accidentally killed by a would-be Samaritan bystander who takes action to stop his threats on the subway. The tragedy becomes a rallying cry for “activist” leaders, eager for continuous notoriety and profits, while 10,000 black people murdered per year, mostly by other black people, do not earn a snore from these same “civil rights” leaders.
The World Upside Down
Like Revolutionary France, our woke revolution was contrary to human nature and therefore had to be imposed by force or coercion.
Merit is the great enemy of wokeness. One day SAT tests were blind mechanisms to allow the less privileged to compete on the basis of talent rather than parentage. The next day such tests were deemed counterrevolutionary, racist enemies of the people. Universities boast of rejecting 60-70 percent of those who scored perfect on SATs, as if their excellence was proof of their “privilege.”
Jurisprudence was tarred as racist, as if laws against shoplifting, looting, smash-and-grab, car-jacking, and arson were created only by elite white men who never had the need to steal or loot and who therefore made silly, arbitrary laws against them.
Like the Jacobins, our woke elite deem prisons arbitrary detention centers. So thousands of those arrested for committing violent crimes have either never been charged, never convicted, never sentenced, or never incarcerated. These exemptions rest on the principle that the revolutionaries who destroyed the enforcement of law have the wherewithal to protect themselves from the dystopia they created.
Borders disappeared, apparently on grounds they were 19th-century racist relics. Yet sanctuary cities prove the least welcoming of the tens of thousands they all but invited into distant other towns and counties.
The homeless were no longer deemed vagrants, or selfish in their take-over of public spaces, but the victims of an oppressive society.
So public defecation, urination, fornication, and injection were rebranded as mere lifestyle choices of the unfortunate, not to be judged wrong or unlawful by the victimizers who supposedly made thousands homeless. Ancient laws of hygiene and municipal cleanliness were thrown out as bourgeois, as cities reverted to the protocols of their medieval forebears.
Leftists who created these Frankenstein-like monsters, like the fictive Dr. Frankenstein himself, became targets of their own experiments. It was no longer enough to support civil rights for the transgendered. Suddenly any questioning of the wisdom of biologically born males competing in women’s sports or of teenagers with penises undressing among teenage girls in locker rooms, or of state-sponsored drag-queen shows with children in attendance condemned one as transphobic and worse.
Advocating a secure border and strictly legal immigration was proof of nativism. Equal opportunity for all races was racism. Advocacy for the use of natural gas as a needed transitional fuel indicted one as a climate “denialist.”
As our woke version of the Jacobin revolution accelerated, society itself began to unwind—as expected given America relied on meritocracy, free expression dissent, the rule of law, forbearance, and tolerance.
In less than three years, our major cities became filthy to the point of unhealthiness. Violent crime and thievery drove businesses and commuters away. Subways at night became the domain of the homeless and criminal. Vacancy rates in San Francisco or downtown Portland shot up to 25 percent or more. Millions began leaving Jacobin blue cities and states, and headed for sanctuaries in more suburban and rural red states.
Once-trusted and familiar government agencies became weaponized—and inevitably incompetent. The FBI was not interested in the organizers of 120 days of violent looting, arson, murder, and rioting in summer 2020, or the threatening mobs who showed up at the homes of Supreme Court Justices. Instead, it fixated on parents at school board meetings, Latin Mass Catholics, former Trump Administration officials, and anyone daring to question the Russian collusion or Russian disinformation laptop hoaxes.
The Pentagon brass oversaw a flight from Afghanistan, in the greatest military humiliation in modern American history. Yet at the same time, it focused on rooting out white rage and white privilege despite presenting no data to substantiate its accusations. Former intelligence officers and “authorities” misled the country and warped an election, to ensure Americans did not take seriously the incriminating evidence in Hunter Biden’s laptop of the Biden family’s widespread corruption.
So, the world became topsy-turvy. Throwing a firebomb into a police-occupied patrol car earned a light sentence, while protesting illegally at the Capitol won a decade in prison.
An American who did not get vaccinated was to be thrown out of the U.S. military; an illegal alien crossing the border unlawfully without a vaccination might earn a free phone and free lodging in a big-city hotel.
The more the government printed money it did not have, the more the country was slandered as cruel and mean to its underclass. The more standards were dropped for admission, hiring, promotion, and retention, the more employers were deemed unfair and bigoted.
As the American Jacobin phase accelerated, the more it, too, seemed to pursue its own destruction. Few now trust that the graduates of the Ivy League and marquee universities know what they once did. And why not, when students are admitted without test scores, but are assured passing grades, watered-down classes, and graduation to be synonymous with admission?
The U.S. military fell short by thousands of recruits. And why not, when it advertised for manpower with invitations from drag queens, and hounded those as racists who had died at twice their numbers in the population in Afghanistan and Iraq?
A Counterrevolution Is Coming
At peak woke, our reign of terror is beginning to lose momentum because its continuation would erode all the work of 247 years of American progress and sacrifice.
Former and current liberals—an Elon Musk, Bill Maher, Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Glen Greenwald, Naomi Wolf, or a Richard Dreyfuss—are deemed counterrevolutionaries for questioning the excesses of wokeism, and so began questioning the premises of wokeism itself.
New polls showed scant public support for open borders, for multiple sexual identities, and for biological men competing in women’s sports. Reparations from an insolvent government to black Americans—on the principle that those whose ancestors might have been enslaved eight generations ago were owed money from those whose ancestors might have owned slaves eight generations ago—is widely rejected by the general population.
When corporations like Anheuser-Busch or Disney tried to ingratiate themselves to the woke Jacobins, they lost billions in revenue—just as the woke Pentagon has lost thousands of recruits.
Woke networks like CNN have smaller audiences than some one-person podcasts.
A desperate and woke NBA now brags that its recent playoff televised audience reached over 4 million viewers. A quarter-century ago, when the U.S. population was nearly 60 million smaller, the pre-Jacobin NBA won over 70 million viewers who watched the 1998 finals.
Joe Biden, the thin veneer of the woke revolution, polls below 40 percent. Even that favorability is propped up by the consensus that he has no idea where he is or what he is saying—and thus at least is deserving of 40 percent support for not being responsible for what he has empowered.
A counterrevolution is building, not just because people are angry at what has become of their country, but because they now are learning that if they do nothing, they will have no country—and soon.
Wow, beautifully articulated. Now I want to see the VDH view of what initially sparked the downward spiral in France and more recently in the U.S. and then how the Thermidors arose. A joy to be living in the time of Victor Davis Hanson. Thank you.
I completely and totally agree. VDH speaks brilliantly and eloquently.
In order to put a stop to continued spreading of the myth that Blacks are “sub-human savages”, it is noteworthy that federal crime statistics continue to show that the annual rates of white-on-white violent crime are nearly identical to the black-on-black violent crime rates.
Please support your assertion.
Evolutionary thought has done much to promote racism. There is but one race, the human race. Differences in skin color are due to the quantity of melanin skin pigment. We are not descendants from different evolutionary branches but are all fully and equally human made by God. Ken Ham has co-authored a book documenting how evolution has been used to justify the mistreatment of others based upon their appearance and heritage.
If you are in need of an organ transplant to save your life, and the doctor comes to you and says “we have the perfect organ, blood type…everything”, are you going to ask what the ethnicity or sex of the individual is?
Did you check black on white vs white on black crime? The stats are astounding, stop pretending like there’s any significant similarity in the relevant crime rates, obvious you’re just a troll.
Both France and America had revolutions near the end of the 18th century. Both formed a Republic and enacted a constitution. America, however imperfect, is still working with her original Republic & Constitution. The French on the other hand, when not otherwise busy being conquered by Germany is on their 5th Republic & 14th Constitution. The moral of the story ( beyond it being pointless to compare the greatest country ever to exist to France) is that given a choice between behaving in a rational way that is in their self interest or behaving emotionally and shooting themselves in the foot the French will invariably choose the latter. America has not & will not self destruct. I am in Canada. We speak from experience regarding how the French go about governing & nation building. God Bless America
Incredible insight into the dilemma facing Americans today. There is hope that the folks whose way of life is attacked by these Jacobin bicoastal elites will vote out the Jacobin puppets.
Please consider making audio available to your writings…aids those who have long commutes to better utilize drive times!
“Rolling University “!
Love the good Dr!!!
🇺🇸👍👍👍
Who will be our Napoleon, Joan of Arc or, Curtis LeMay?Will we prosecute the perpetrators of our current civil destruction? Impeach Biden for bribery?Then what? A Kamala Harris presidency? May make the DEI advocates happy. Replacement of one dolt for another may be our saving grace! Is it politically possible to wind up with a president McCarthy? “Just another day in the neighborhood” or the next news cycle distraction? How does one repair fifty years of incremental and deliberate destruction? “All good things come to an end”…
Then what: first, impeach Biden for prostituting himself and us to China;
second, impeach Harris for nonfeasance, inciting riots, funding release of felons, and lack of articulation;
third, President McCarthy, the spirit of Joan of Arc.
Waiting for a hero to save us may be our doom. Our political system and cultural institutions are set up to discourage it (DeTocqueville’s observation). Hanson’s call for “each according to their station” to do what they can in their area of influence will be the kicker. Afghani Lt. Gen Sami Sadat made the observation in his recent podcast with retired general H.R. McMaster (Battlegrounds Podcast at Hoover) that Americans are great in spite of their government, not because of it. So what might that mean for us?
1. We’re all sharing our thoughts here, refining our arguments and encouraging the like-minded.
2. The well-off or rich-in-time can join charitable organizations (Soup Kitchens, Rescue Missions, Free Tutoring Centers, The Free Masons, PTAs, religious organisations, local library committees, private and charter schools, conservative college startups).
3. Those with administrative gifts can run for local school boards, alderman, city council.
4. Those with legal or financial expertise can help charities and church boards tighten up their documentation and finances to withstand legal scrutiny or take “pro bono” cases.
5. Poll workers!
6. get to know your neighbors and begin developing relationships with them so that everyone has a support structure in time of need -whatever the government is doing (the gulf states have learned this lesson since Katrina!).
7. Become independent: pay off what debt you can (if you can), grow some of your own food, etc.
My concern is that globalism will replace America. A world totalitarian government that at first addresses economic problems and then manifests itself into an overt and forced worship of one who seeks to supplant God.
God bless you Mr. Hanson.
Thanks; am becoming less depressed as I do see signs that a counterrevolution is building.
Succinct, prescient and for a change, offering a glimmer of hope after enumerating all our woes.
As clear-eyed and comprehensive as VDH describes our predicament, it is sobering and simultaneously frightening. Americans need exactly this slap in the face realization of the dire situation we are in to motivate action. Thank you again, VDH!
For the impatient, here is a summary:
=====================
The article compares America’s current social and political climate to the French Revolution and its radical descent into chaos and violence.
The author argues that America’s focus on “equity” and “diversity” has led to a disregard for meritocracy and a disregard for civil liberties.
The author criticizes the “woke revolution” and its imposition of beliefs through force or coercion.
The author highlights the failures of the current government, including the handling of the pandemic, the rise in crime and homelessness, and the incompetence of government agencies.
The article concludes that a counterrevolution is building against the woke movement due to a growing dissatisfaction with its direction and a realization that doing nothing will only lead to further chaos.
=========================
I agree that tension is growing as woke ideas continue to fail, its leaders become more repressive, and the “normals” become more pissed off.
However, just ask yourself “Who has the power?”
It is clear that we do not. Until we exercise whatever leverage we may have, nothing will change for the better.
Voting is no longer reliable.
California is not totally at the forefront of the madness, but it still continues here. San José, CA just removed the statue of Thomas Fallon. It commemorated the raising of the United States flag in 1846 before California was part of the United States. Memory hole location unknown. But we, in California, must forget and make amends for that “troubling” moment when the U.S.A. Entered war with Mexico . Odd, would the trajectory of California been very different if there had no war with Mexico for annexation of the border areas of the the U.S? We seem to have allowed a slow-rolling takeover of Mexican citizens coming illegally into our country. Curious and somewhat scary.
I think Dr. Hanson is giving the American people too much credit. I do not believe the polls, and I do believe that woke values continue to prosper under the oligarchy that controls social media, the mainstream media, & elections. Look at the last big election in Arizona. Hobbs & Kelly, two leftists won out. How could that have happened in a state that supports the 2nd Amendment & conservative values?
Darn, if only i could remember the title or author of a work 4 or 5 years ago that described the phenomenon of inter-state migration in the US. That author discovered that most fled blue states for the comparative freedom in red states from high taxes, high crime, poorly rated school districts, etc., etc. However, she discovered that unfortunately and depressingly the vast majority of those relocating had not learned from their experience and in their new states they continued voting as they had in the failed blue states. Thus, we have formerly red state, Nevada, now is mostly blue. Formerly Arizona was red but is definitely trending blue with the typical blue problems growing here. Therein lies the problem: thinking not performed and lessons not learned. Every time one sees a car with California plates, it hits home anew that change is coming and the blue contagion is spreading.
Cheating!
That things in 2023 America have not gotten quite as saguinary as they did in France under the Jacobin frenzy I attribute to one of the most reliable and rigorous of the “Checks & Balances” so beloved by the founders (and all who apprecite them): the Second Amendment to our Constitution. There are plenty of would-be volunteer head-loppers among the endlessly angry leftist fringe these days, but the bloody delight of dragging a guilottine from town to town loses a lot of its luster when they consider that in our nation’s smaller towns even today you are likely to meet a decent proportion of the population (and not males alone) on the village green armed far more lethally than were the Minutemen of Lexington and Concord. Not wishing to end up literally hoist with their own petard, that prospect has not allowed similar slaughters here … so far.
Yes.
Your description reminds me of an instance in the small town of Snohomish, about 45 minutes north of Seattle about four years ago. It was after a larger violent act by antifa in Seattle earlier. Word quickly spread around Snohomish that the violent thugs were headed to their small town. However, the fly in the soup of the antifa useful idiots was that when they arrived in Snohomish, many citizens were standing outside their homes and businesses with rifles in hand. The loud-mouth bullies with nose rings, tattoos, green hair thugs quickly turned around and headed back south to Seattle’s Capitol Hill.
WOW! VDH best yet to understand the repeat of history!
As always…spot on. Thank you.
Great article!. I would encourage you to read the book The Great Controversy.
I hope that the counterrevolution is coming. My concern is that voters are giving these people mandates to continue with these policies. Why would Californians elect to keep Gavin Newsome when given the chance to boot him? Why would Chicagoans get rid of Lori Lightfoot and then elect someone more radical than she? The democrats don’t act scared in the least of the voters. Biden brazenly announces his run for reelection. Surely those who are behind him know that we all know that he couldn’t remember he’d been in Ireland three weeks ago. I don’t know what the next year and half will bring, but my sense is that the Democrats have figured out how to bend voters or elections in their favor.
Jill,
Sorry, but the voters have little to do with this. I believe, and particularly in CA, that people like Pelosi, Boxer, Feinstein, Newsome, etc. have probably, via legal votes, been voted out more than once. But the fraud machine kicks in and assures otherwise. 2020 and 2022 were prime examples of fraudulent tweaking of the system. And in 2024, unless the conservatives are overwhelmingly voted for, the same will happen. And I mean massively. Not an easily jiggered 60\40 split in favor of conservatives.
Jill, you are getting warmer! To me, the 2020 election was absolutely stolen from the voters. Now, the ‘enemies of the U.S.A.’ are setting the stage to do it again.
And when they do, the onus will be on We, the People to fight in order to keep and preserve our land of the free and home of the brave.
You are probably right, but I don’t see the kind of uprising that is needed to end this. There should be a moment like you suggest, but I fear that too many Americans are “brain dead” to the problems.
Trump Derangement Syndrome continues to be the most useful tool in the Progressive/Marxist playbook and the mainstream media can bury anything; they’ve proven this again and again. We need a real cathartic moment in U.S. current events… or all is lost.
It will be a year and a half before Joe “Nobody FFFs with a Biden” Biden is forced out of office; he’s proven he can do terrible things in just two years already.
Yordie,
I think the problem resides in having something to lose. All that head rolling in old France was caused by people that had been drained of anything worth worrying over should they do something about it. You know, if they had even a fraction of our modern comforts those heads would have remained firmly attached to those bodies. Yes, you are right regarding the brain dead, the unreasoned dislike of Trump regardless of his accomplishments in SPITE of all those aligned and arranged against him. We who actually go to work and have built a life and pay the taxes will only rise up when all that has been taken away. Right now, we’re just frogs being slowly rendered into frog soup.
Yes. Dire sickness can either be cured, or the patient will die.
Another wonderful read Victor!! I heard this from my son yesterday. He said the tide is turning but I am not convinced as yet. He said even his liberal friends have had enough, they could not vote for old Joe again! As I drove down the country road from my home a big new sign regarding illegal dumping had been installed and all the trash human garbage and junk were gone!! The sign stated a fine and called for people to rat out the culprits. to a 800 number. I also heard a public announcement regarding Roadside dumping… Stating it is illegal to dump it is unhealthy etc. I thought to myself have we gone soo far down we need PS announcements on illegal dumping with a number to call? I heard the horrible 12th street homeless camp in Oakland and miles long trash heap had been cleaned up, signs posed threatening arrest! So it appears there is some small movement back toward a civil society. Are people getting tired of what our country has become I still wonder. I heard another high end tax payer aka famous person was leaving his blue state. I wonder if this summer or next will be yet another summer of love? Will the violence spill over into the burbs this time? Should I move too and where can I go? It’s personal now for all of us. Small changes are nice. to see but the border is still open, more banks are failing and the radicals are still running the country. I am not sure the citizenry has had enough yet, but the little glimmers are encouraging nonetheless!
The United States is no longer a country, or even a region that lives by the values of Western Civilization. There will be no counterrevolution.
In these pages, I am rightly identified as the “it’s over” guy. I partly convey that sentiment to get our side juiced up a bit. But I also mostly believe it, too.
So, how can we look more optimistically at our current sitch?
1. The House is uncovering a lot of dirt and lies. This was not happening a year ago. We will hold our judgement until somebody goes to jail.
2. Bud has shown us the Light. Certainly we can become a bit creative with what this debacle (for AB) has taught us.
3. We are a well-armed citizenry. This is unprecedented in the annals of history. Will it make a difference? Of course, I would never advocate for violence of any kind.
4. Hunter, at least until he is pardoned, appears to be toast. That can’t be a bad thing.
5. Trump is no longer de-platformed and silenced. He built his own. Could be a major factor in our media driven world.
6. The pandemic and everything around it was made up. If people go to jail for their lies, then we may have a chance. Without deterrence, nothing will change.
7. As stated, the “crazy” parts of woke culture are universally disliked. This can’t last much longer without absolute repression of “normal” thought.
8. The tremendous reaction to Tucker’s departure is encouraging. We care and we are listening. His re-emergence will be telling. I only watch Fox for the more entertaining segments. Sorry about that, VDH.
Enough for now. Are you optimistic? Why?
Optimistic cuz we have a good bench in Trump, DeSantis, Ramaswamy, Flint, Pompeo, Lake, + House Reps Comer and Jordan; plus some really reat conservative websites.
Opposition: the Dems’ have Biden, Harris, their penchant for lack of ethics & cheating.
Thanks for posting this and the summary! You did something today by doing this (just sayin’, because it’s true; I know you know and don’t need anyone to tell you). Despair may be a theological sin, but it’s also just a plain failure to grasp the uncertain nature of reality (see atheist Tom Shippey on Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings found in the commentary on the Extended Editions of the Films or in his book Road to Middle Earth).
Thanks for the history lesson and maybe a forecasting history lesson too.
Always thrilled by the gloomy prognostications coming out of VDH’s skull-like head.
My own schtick is to recite CYBELE & ATTIS, PINDAR OLYMPIAN #1, Odyssey Book II, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses Apollo and Cyparissus, and Daphne & Apollo, to model a proper progression towards normal heterosexuality.
But I’m certainly entertained by VDH’s gloomy visions of helicopter rides and heads on the chopping-block. 😉
—Mark Miner
mrminer071166@yahoo.com
I recite Sappho and Catullus 51 plus listen to Queen and Rocky Horror Picture Show to remember when trans was edgy and cool and didn’t need guns and government to enforce it. 😉
Sad and scary times especially when friends who are far from stupid refuse to see what’s happening.
Thanks for your clarity!
Best regards Amy Meighan catladymeighan@gmail.com
The counterrevolution is building because people are sick of having all this woke BS shoved in their faces and when they rebel by not buying beer or signing up for the military nothing can be done to them. Unlike the J6 folks who have gotten the most unjust sentences seen in this country in a lifetime.
The time to exercise the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence is upon us. This government need to be removed, as it is the enemy of the people; the enemy of the Constitution; and it violates the precepts discusses by Calvin Coolidge in his 1926 speech in Philadelphia on the anniversary of the Declaration: an excerpt: About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning cannot be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction cannot lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
You gonna start shooting first?
Excellent reminder…thank you
Good one, Bernie.
Also a nice button.
Wow. As I read this description of America today. I envisioned the people if the distant future in 500 or 1000 years reading Victors analysis
Perfectly describing the decline of a civilization and why it happened
Evil prevails when good men do nothing. Maybe, just maybe, good men and women are waking up.
Peter,
But are YOU waking up. Are you ready to don your Kevlar, grab your AR and “take that hill”? Right now, all seem to be in collective agreement that SOMEone has to do something. Until we get to the point that we hear I am doing something and this is what it is. And at that time, we can only hope that that something is effective, done in unison and en masse.
Bob, if anybody were “doing something”, I doubt that they would disclose the details in this forum. You realize that we are all likely being monitored. VDH is a well-known conservative voice. If you were running the corrupt FBI, wouldn’t you follow this blog?
I could be wrong. But I doubt it .
The question of real consequence on fighting back against these woke agents is this: Will it have to be violent?
The flash points for such a turn are hard to predict, and could come from a black swan event. It is not a majority decision, and it could arrive without warning.
There is no way to quell the violence until it, too, becomes unbearable, and many innocents have already been lost to unreasoned purges.
It may require the dissolution of the United States — something that seems increasingly desirable to both sides.
Any evidence that most conservatives desire “the dissolution of the United States”?
It seems prudent that we become as learned as possible and persuade others with ideas that have made America special such as individual liberty, personal responsibility, industriousness, limited government, freedom of speech and thought, religious freedom, a biblical morality, meritocracy, and free market capitalism. Ultimately, we have been blessed by God and the key is to return to him individually and corporately. My hope is that our nation turns around and that includes me who should seek to honor the Creator and give thanks to him.
Yep a Revolution is coming.
Growing up in Detroit the corrupt Democrat govt machine lead the city to absolute destruction. My parents $10K house purchased in 1955 could not sell for $13K in 2007. Crime exploded from 1967 to present. Average police response in the 1980’s to an emergency call for shots fired was roughly 45 minutes which is the same time today. Almost all gun owners are felons because they can’t get concealed permits.
Many of us God and Constitution loving Americans have been preparing for our 2nd Revolution. We aren’t surprised by any summary of the lunacy of the last three years.
As predictable as any commie plot they don’t know how to deal with us Patriots. We have too many guns. We are too well trained and experienced in combat operations. And we posses a patience the commie can’t fathom. Like good hunters we are stalking our pry which happen to be commies.
At present we are consolidating our lives and really becoming independent of societal conveniences. We are the commies worst nightmare.
So what happens now going forward? Denying the commies and corrupt government the ability to function. Oops. Be careful what you ask for.
Think the ONLY thing left out is the now 4th branch of government. Free rein without accountability.
Might be the most Jacobin of all!
Woo-Hoooooo! Control, Money and POWER with no one to stop us!
Biden entered the office as “President 0-fer “.
His batting average has not changed.
This piece accurately chronicles the topsy turvy life of a conservative in America ever since Donald Trump strode down the golden escalator and announced his candidacy.
Thank you Professor Hanson. We will struggle against the insane destruction of America.
Jim Gray
Thank you Professor Hanson. We will struggle against the insane destruction of America.
Dear Victor,
Thank you for your thorough review of American society and politics. Your specific evidence and reasoning helps explain our current circumstances. You have seen how man has acted in the past and are able to identify patterns that he follows today.
Likewise, Romans 1:18-32 catalogue man’s descent into an immoral sexual revolution, followed by a homosexual revolution which culminates in a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. American culture has followed this pattern since the 1960’s as it continues today.
I hope that the American voter can reverse his support of popular culture and save our nation from a progressive dystopia. On the surface, our problems and madness seem to be political, educational, and cultural but I suspect that there is a deeper spiritual root.
As an Israeli-American, I am watching also the situation in Israel right now, which has been moving in parallel lines to the going one here. I am eager to see which culture will arrest the attempts at its destruction from within first or more efficiently…. The Jewish tradition has its strengths, the Christian, others… I hope both will prevail.
I, too, have been closely monitoring events in Israel, wondering the exact same thing.
Thanks for sharing that this is happening in Israel as well. I had heard that Western Europe was ahead of the United States in decadence but did not know that this is a phenomenon in the Middle East. I am concerned that this is a global movement which will have great repercussions. May God bless Israel and the Jewish people.
Victor, you are one of my absolute heroes who has come to light during these desperate times. I’m sad to say I’m one of your California brethren but glad to know we’re in it together. If and when you need a man of honor I sincerely hope you’ll call on me to help stem the tide and pursue the cause for good.
Corporations are not guilt-ridden. They are well within the American tradition of paying protection money.
They’re actually both.
Indeed, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”
VDH has articulated the reason “that those who deny/ignore/don’t know history are doomed to repeat it”. Wonder when our Napoleon will emerge? I think the American people will come through & throw off this completely insane woke nonsense. How about you?
So many people need to see and read this presentation of extraordinary thoughts, but sadly won’t for a number of reasons. Those of us who have read to the end may become emboldened with real hope and possibly action of some nature. Thank you, Mr. Hanson, for sharing!
Wow! What am I supposed to make of this confusing rant by someone I don’t know.
I respect his right to voice his opinions on a number of topics he covered but it is a linguistic morass, conflating unconnected historical events and reciting a concatenation of terms popular in the non- referreed social media.
Did I miss him mention January 6, 2021?
I get my information somewhere else.
Humans make up words all the time. DEI are just acronyms for legitimizing concerns of some people who want to champion causes to level the playing field to American “success” in their lives. Yet they themselves take paying positions for what amount to advocates for dreams. This is. Or an “equal”world. Did you notice what’s happening to the people
In Ukraine, Sudan, China etc where groups are being decimated by dictators who control the minds of their people through propaganda?
OK. We are living in a world where anyone can just post anything. Things so remote from the real world. This ranting posted by an esoteric group is one of them.
Cool. I see the Phd.: do you have a specialty that gives you insight into some of these things? If so, could you go into some detail or point us to some accessible sources? When you just sniff, even if it’s warranted, you decrease the willingness of non-degree holders to listen. One of the keys to Hanson’s enduring success is that he has spent decades communicating his ideas in an accessible manner. If you want to combat or redirect his influence, you’re going to need to do the same.
Did you read anything on Twitter prior to Musk’s rescue or listen to any of the alphabet channels?
An old Chinese adage holds that arrogance is the first step toward decline and one of their advised traits is to start out by flattering an opponent they want to make fall. Humility wins in the end.
We welcome those with a different point of view.
However, I found your input difficult to follow. For me, it just does not hold together very well. After reading VDH, who, above all, writes clearly, you simply do not express yourself in a way that is easy to understand.
I take it your PHD is not in a hard science. That’s where I come from, so maybe it is just my problem.
I ‘ll mention Jan 6. There were a lot of feds involved and the government did not want to release 40,000 hours of video, just like they are not releasing the manifesto for the trans person who killed 6 people in cold blood, including 3 children.
Some say this is because the video and the manifesto do not support the “narrative”, whatever that is.
Do you support the feds not releasing the trans’ manifesto? Do you support not allowing America to view 40,000 hours of Jan 6 video?
You claimed you get your information from other sources. We are dying to know who you consider to be respectable outlets.
Did you support “Russian Collusion” for four years?
Thank you so much Mr Hanson for all you do! 🇺🇸👍🏼
How did the US ever make it out of 30 years of Soviet penetration, including Stalin and the theft of nuclear secrets?
We’ve been. here before.
What can we learn from the past?
Those who study history are doomed to see it repeated.
Yep a Revolution is coming.
Growing up in Detroit the corrupt Democrat govt in machine lead the city to absolute destruction. My parents $10K house purchased in 1955 could not sell for $13K in 2007. Crime exploded from 1967 to present. Average police response in the 1980’s to an emergency call for shots fired was roughly 45 minutes which is the same time today. Almost all gun owners are felons because they can’t get concealed permits.
Many of us God and Constitution loving Americans have been preparing for our 2nd Revolution. We aren’t surprised by any summary of the lunacy of the last three years.
As predictable as any commie plot they don’t know how to deal with us Patriots. We have too many guns. We are too well trained and experienced in combat operations. And we posses a patience the commie can’t fathom. Like good hunters we are stalking our pry which happen to be commies.
At present we are consolidating our lives and really becoming independent of societal conveniences. We are the commies worst nightmare.
So what happens now going forward? Denying the commies and corrupt government the ability to function. Oops. Be careful what you ask for.
The answer to my previous comment. I am shamed to have been so impolite. Thanks.
Love your intellect and insight. Take exception to “illegally protesting” at the Capitol – is that a typo?
Thanks Victor. I needed that shot of applied history. Skål!
Thank you VDH, you are a prophet.
History teaches us so much. Bad and good behaviors are easily understood. Our future responses are for us to make unique and not repeat history. The Lord is with us and the righteous shall prevail.
Having studied the French Revolutions until my brains fell out from sheer exhaustion, and having observed the American cultural debacle closely for the last fifty years or so, I’d say VDH has nicely catalogued both disasters, along with their disturbing resemblances to one another. On a lighter note: do we owe to the original French Thermidors the famous, eponymous lobster recipe? Cheers!
We have met the enemy…
Mr. Hanson, I wish I had the platform and the money to try to transform this country. I’m just a former Marine and retired mailman and very conservative. Sir you were made for this job. You are saying someone needs to step up but you’re not sure who will be that person. VDH you are the man! Please reconsider and get in the Presidential race. Your common sense and knowledge would destroy anyone on the debate stage. Thank you sir for your voice in such an insane world.
Dear Dr. Hanson,
I pray you are correct about a counterrevolution coming. I hope it will not be violent and bloody! Though I am only 74, I fear I will not live to see a renewed America like the one I proudly served as an Army nurse many years ago. God bless you sir and God bless our country!
Thank you for all you do for us!
I have read this excellent article twice now, each time resonating with me like a vibrating needle scratching on a paper drum, warning of an impending earthquake.
The question I have is this: In the Jacobin era, the guillotine was used with dispatch on both sides, but what are the contemporary – if only figurative – ‘guillotines’ whereby the Jacobins of our day can meet with their own demise?
‘Just curious how you see these modern abnormalities – through the lens of history – coming to an end, because they have truly upended the American way of life.