Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
The Left is waging a full-fledged cultural revolution against traditional America. And the Maoist results are often as absurd as they are terrifying.
Special-counsel John Durham just issued his final report on wrongdoing within the FBI, CIA, and the Department of Justice.
The summary confirms that our premier investigatory and intelligence agencies interfered in the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.
Directors and high-ranking FBI officials lied under oath. They misled Congress. They altered court documents and deceived federal judges.
The FBI hired a foreign national to gather dirt on Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign—while he was being paid by the rival Hillary Clinton campaign.
The FBI contracted Twitter to suppress news stories. It kept the Hunter Biden laptop under wraps, even as former intelligence officials flat out lied it was likely “Russian disinformation.” That was a blatant effort to aid the 2020 Biden campaign.
The IRS just conceded whistleblowers were correct and the agency fired its entire multiyear audit team responsible for investigating Hunter Biden’s purported tax irregularities.
The agency claimed it was ordered to do so by the Department of Justice, headed by Biden’s appointee Merrick Garland.
California is facing a crushing $32 billion deficit. Yet it flirts with an $800 billion-dollar “reparations” payout to the state’s black residents.
No one has any idea where the money for that would come from. No one can define who would qualify. No one can explain why a state that never allowed slavery eight generations ago now owes selected Californians billions of dollars it does not have.
One of the reparations board leaders asserts blacks might be willing to accept an “installment” plan of payments.
The NAACP just issued a “travel alert” advising blacks not to visit Florida. The announcement was timed to draw negative attention to conservative Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ announcement of a presidential bid.
Chicago, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Indianapolis—all outside Florida—have the highest black murder rates in the nation.
Florida in contrast, with a black population of 3.3 million, has the second largest number of black businesses in the nation. The chairman of the NAACP’s board of directors is himself a Florida resident!
Black Lives Matter has just announced it lost millions of dollars in investments and ran up huge deficits.
The culprit was its former corrupt leadership.
Its extravagant spending, plush homes, and family hangers-on have nearly bankrupted the advocacy group. It cannot account for the millions of dollars in corporate guilt and protection money it leveraged following the George Floyd riots in 2020.
In New York, a threatening subway career criminal with 42 prior arrests was subdued by a bystander and died during the confrontation. The criminal is now deified. The would-be Samaritan is charged with felony manslaughter.
The deceased’s uncle is vocal about his late nephew’s confrontation. But he himself was just arrested with stolen property and armed with a knife. He was mysteriously still roaming the streets despite 70 prior arrests and current active arrest warrants.
In almost every American city and town, biological males, with enormous advantages in size and musculoskeletal mass, routinely win women’s sporting competitions.
They are systematically destroying decades of progress that sought to ensure parity between men and women’s sports.
Corporate America has joined this cultural revolution hysteria. Companies are apparently now hellbent on destroying their brands, profits, and net worth.
Under pressure from the LGBTQ activists, the Los Angeles Dodgers reinvited the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” to celebrate Pride night at Dodger Stadium.
Catholics and Christians had objected to the invitation because the group’s notoriety hinges on its sexualized and often pornographic mockery of Catholic ritual, the Holy Trinity, and Christian faith.
The supposedly courageous group would never dare extend its street-theater blasphemy to other religious groups such as Muslims or Hindus.
The Dodgers apparently do not care that Greater Los Angeles may be home to 6 million Mexican American citizens and resident Hispanic immigrants. Most are Catholic and many were avid Dodger fans.
Anheuser-Busch has nearly destroyed its best-selling Bud Light brand by hiring transgender performance-art activist Dylan Mulvaney to hawk the brand—and his own transitioning—to America’s working classes.
The Disney corporation, for decades, has enjoyed multibillion-dollar concessions and a veritable 40-square mile private fiefdom gifted from the taxpayers of Florida.
No matter. Disney has rebranded it films, amusement parks, and television offerings to reflect radical transgendered, gay, and race advocacies.
The results so far are billion-dollar losses in Disney stock, subscribers, and viewers.
A woke CNN has all but destroyed its once-global audience. It now has fewer viewers than certain popular podcasts.
All these implosions are not just shocking but surreal. Why are our government, corporations, and popular culture colluding in mass suicide—to the delight of our enemies like Communist China?
Whether Trump or DeSantis are elected in 2024, our government, through the deep state and through corrupt politicians in congress , will continue its malfeasances and its felonious behavior because our bureaucracies are too big to control. We had a similar problem with King George III and it took a war in 1776 to establish our rights. Today, it will require 1776 Redux against Washington, D. C., and an 1861 Redux against selective Blue states to reestablish America’s constitutional rights.
So…um…who’s going to start the shooting if that’s true? Can you offer a plausible scenario?
The best weapon for this is Mass Non-Compliance at the state and local levels, but that would take city and county leaders and sheriffs with a back bone. At the current state of our country, it would be very challenging to arrest everyone at the same time.
That seems more plausible and in tune with tactics both sides already have in play (sanctuary cities, gun sanctuaries).
Well put.
Neither will be elected.
The Left has been playing the long game for the past 50 years. They have been patient, counting on the good natured “tolerance” of the Right. Now, they have total control of media and government and most churches and are thus emboldened to force their agenda without worrying about being tolerated. The Church in America which has always been countercultural but has lost its authority because of dependence on government to do its corporal works.
Actually it goes back to Woodrow Wilson – so let’s call it 100 years.
Finally, I’m not the lone voice in the wilderness who thinks this way. The deplorable Treaty of Versailles and Woodrow Wilson’s role in it set the stage for the massive global problems that have been unleashed upon the human race since its enactment.
Most churches are businesses, therefore, are susceptible to outside interests. Many in the US regularly take fed funds even. It became clear long ago when a newspaper announced the “retirement” of a pastor. WT? Buddha did not, a Tao teacher does not, that Christian messiah did so only forcibly relocating purportedly by some to Japan. Some few might wonder whether the Big Guy’s incident at the Vatican during his first summer might have been a deliberate act of disdain. Definitely, it was a Satan-like act. Regardless, the church lost much of its original intent before this Admin.
“cultural revolution” =s treason, right?
Great litany of major malfunctions, crimes and problems.
I wish you would expand to the havoc political parties have wreaked on the entire nation, like a litany of unsolved, unaddressed, igored, exploited problems for the sake of perpetuating election issues and abdicating responsibilities to govern, I really think that is deeper and more dangerous problem than trendy woke.
Brilliant as always.
This is all so obvious to us but our liberal friends are completely oblivious….they lack a fundamental understanding of the importance of individual rights and no amount logical information can get them to recognize it…..that is one of our greatest challenges….
Reparations ?
Get in Line – How About Native Indians ?
Everyone asking for reparations needs to line up their accountants and march over to the Federal Reserve. Audit the Fed, and they can have their reparations. All I want is the justice we will have after that is done. Start crunching some numbers, Brothers!
What is it you think a Fed audit will reveal that will bring some kind of existential justice?
Doctor/Professor Hanson:
Excellent summary report. I have been a faithful of your podcast listener then two weeks ago, I decided to subscribe this website. Now, I even read it more carefully, and digest it throughly.
Thank you sir,
Great question? You combine that with an aging workforce, large criminal activity, an unstable federal government. You got a recipe for another Great Depression the like we can’t even fathom, all during a war.
A war or sending a sliver of the Pentagon budget, or a fraction of unused Covid relief, to support the defense of a country whose defense we agreed to support?
What you mean “we”, kemo sabe?
US Citizens via their elected officials and those elected officials appointees. Quit trolling.
I watched a video of a traffic stop of one of the founders of BLM recently. The woman was having a hard time finding the right registration for her late-model Cadillac and at one point told the cop that she had six cars.
In acknowledgment of this well-stated inventory of current news, when is normal America going to stand up against this cheap coup attempt?
Mr. Hanson brilliantly captured what has happened.
Now what will normal America do to stop AND reverse this? Nothing in this world is inevitable, regardless of what the crazy Left might think. And we all know this cannot go on.
A new Trump Administration will be part of that answer. That we all know.
But will the answer also include arrests? Trials for the seditionists? Labor camps? An 1970s Argentina-like temporary military strongman, with the guilty disappeared? Or will simple persuasion work? Has it worked, or has it just made the situation worse?
Or will the soft hand of Portugal’s Salazar be the path chosen to remove the Left, and replace it with a national Christianity and renewal of the American experience…and the enforcement mechanisms thereof?
Establishing a national Christianity would not address the root problem which is the wickedness of man’s heart. It is the core nature of individuals that need to be changed in order for society to change. Our culture is just the cumulative impact of individuals who are acting out their inner desires.
It is true that America is a better place to live when it does follow the Bible as it offers a decorum that protects individuals and society. The scriptures resonate with the law that God has planted in the human heart but this agreement only address the outside of man’s behavior and not the inside of man’s nature. Past generations have benefitted from a biblical worldview but as we see today, the loss of those foundations leads to destruction.
America will change when enough men have a right relationship with God through Christ to affect the culture. More than anything, what matters is each man’s standing before Christ. Please see Romans 1:18-32; 2:8-16; 3:9-26.
Or maybe they’ll just stop at Orbanism. He seems to be the current flavor for fans of historical Catholic-Fascism (not hyperbole, that’s the technical term for Salazar, Franco, Dolfuss, etc.) and those like Rod Dreher who believe Western Civilization is dead and some new post-mass-democratic order is necessary for survival.
As George Orwell said, America would accept a “friendly Fascism”.
They stood up when it hit beer and Target -just where you’d expect.
Let’s add the 2018 mid-term to the interfered with list !
100% on the mark, in a time of population collapse they want to convince children to get castrated, or is they call it get gender affirming care.
“Why are our government, corporations, and popular culture colluding in mass suicide—to the delight of our enemies like Communist China?” Why? Because women can vote.
Misogynist. Support your wild assertion with facts or the requisite Chesterton essay.
Government, corporations and popular culture are colluding in mass suicide because they hate the God of the Bible and want to defy him by exercising their own will to achieve their own sinful desires for their own glory.
God’s response to rebellion is not greater restrictions but fewer. He allows man to make sinful choices and experience the consequences of those choices and thus destroy himself.
Man’s reasoning is futile by nature and his foolish heart is ignorant so when he refuses to heed God’s truth and the protections it offers, man then reaps the destructive consequences of his rebellion and hatred of God.
Romans 1:18-32; 2:1-11
I read VDH’s articles earnestly wherever I find them, whenever they appear, & I agree with Dennis Prager when he calls him the smartest man in the world. There’s not much I can add to Dr. Hanson’s wisdom except to say that I believe the main advantage the Left has, other than the power they hold from the media (including oligarchs, Hollywood, & the music industry) is that they now have control over the minds of children & can inculcate their own standards of ethics & morality from preschool through college. When a society is being brainwashed this way, children evolve into adults with a dysfunctional moral compass. There is a good reason so many middle class individuals remain the silent majority on woke issues. They are afraid of being cancelled & forever stigmatized by the Left. Dr. Hanson is very well aware of what I’m talking about, because, according to one of his podcasts in which he expounded on a funeral he attended, he has been ostracized by fellow colleagues, as well as members of his own family. If I am mistaken, please correct me, but I don’t think I am. Thank you for your work, Dr. Hanson.
So, what is the solution?
After decades of being Presbyterian, I left the church (Presbyterian USA), as while my ability to worship in my church was canceled, the governing body and many of the members were meeting up to celebrate BLM at the behest of the church. They also issued guidance that Israel was basically an apartheid nation, among numerous other common leftist causes. So I expect the Bolsheviks who now make up the leadership of the church, much like business, entertainment, etc., will be there at Dodger Stadium celebrating the defilement of Christ like the others.
Dr. R.C. Sproul, a Reformed theologian and pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America, founded Ligonier Ministries which seeks to teach the Bible and uphold the holiness of God. Ligonier Ministries would be a good resource for learning more about the holy scriptures and to contact to find a God-honoring Presbyterian church in your area.
Another noted theologian and pastor of a non-denominational church is Dr. John MacArthur who founded The Master’s Seminary in California. He is another gifted teacher who you can learn from at Grace to You ministries and whose seminary offers help in locating graduates in the United States.
My previous post meant to say that The Master’s Seminary offers a website that you can use to locate the graduates of the seminary who are pastoring at churches in America. They are thought to be well-trained to help equip people in their faith and provide a fellowship that upholds the standards of a biblical church.
Sproul is great. Do look into Grace and Master’s before accepting any references from them. They have been awash in scandals both fiscal and sexual for years. MacArthur is noted for stretching the truth and refusing to investigate subordinates. I have a number of friends and relatives who have ties to both institutions and have been to both institutions on a couple occasions.
A litany of controls are being applied to destroy the protections provided by the Constitution. Inner-city kids are being de-educated; racial hatred is kept alive in other schools systems, the media, the commercial world, and especially in politics, public safety and the legal system. The judicial system has morphed into a political system. The government deploys PSYOPS on its citizenry, manipulating social media on an unsuspecting and technically ignorant (in terms of media manipulation) population. The list goes on, but the remedy is supposed to be the vote of informed citizens, i.e. citizens who aren’t party to the suicide of the nation. But the evil ones have just as much control over the election process. I won’t elaborate, but offer a solution instead. The Block Chain technique that assure the integrity of cryptocurrency provides a distributed ledger where data is maintained in multiple lcations (open to multiple review), changes are tracked and the integrity of these changes are mathematically assured, un-corruptible, and universally recognizable. I recommend we use this technology to assure the integrity of our voting process. Indisputable elections would provide the protections the nation’s Founders meant to correct the course of the nation.
F=Faithful B=Biden I=Interlopers
Leftist ideology internalizes misanthropic contempt. It is a latent death wish. It’s nihilism is destined for resolving in self-destruction. It never fails so. There is a season for decay.
My superpower is the recognition of brilliance.
You, sir, are the winner of my most highly coveted “Quote of the Day” award!
It is indeed absurd. It is however, “terrifying” in a magnitude that far exceeds that absurdity. It will take more ants than we can comprehend to push the rock up a steeply inclined hill and back to sanity and lawful regard for a Constitutional Republic.
Where is the Rubicon?
When will enough be enough? The mainstream media’s acquiescence, rather acceptance, even promotion of the biased, illegal policies of our government, the suppression of free speech, the move to one-party rule, and the blinders on the fentanyl and human traffic crises at the border are becoming the American way of life. The demise of San Francisco is not a one-off.
Hi Victor,
I strongly recommend that you get a grad student (or two or three!) from Hillsdale to carefully go through all your Podcasts and write concise summaries of all your talking points and facts for all the Podcasts you’ve done over the past several years. Please include your movie and book recommendations. One note- I think you should have recommended “With the Old Breed” instead of “Face of Battle”. I read this on your recommendation and found it to be one of the most gripping stories I ever read, and was even more moved when I learned how Mr. Sledge’s father essentially rescued him after the war. You need to publish these summaries on Blade of Perseus.
I would also like to see you publish the raw transcripts as well.
I think this would help your loyal listeners to engage with other people to help change their views with confidence. No matter what the left does, we must adhere to facts and seek the truth. If more people realized the truth, the nonsense would end. You are striving so mightily to educate a large group, I think this extra step would be extremely helpful.
I listen while driving or walking and would otherwise be taking notes and returning to key points.
Best Wishes,
Rich Summers
“The FBI contracted Twitter to suppress news stories. It kept the Hunter Biden laptop under wraps, even as former intelligence officials flat out lied it was likely “Russian disinformation.” That was a blatant effort to aid the 2020 Biden campaign.”
–There is zero evidence to support this assertion.
Mere emails and other communication.
Just move along please.
All of the left’s antics serve two purposes: First, they provide a distraction so that the population pays attention to their tactics and not their strategy. Second, they serve to destroy the traditional values that have historically bound the population of the USA together. The left’s endgame is the replacement of our Constitutional Republic with some version of Communism that they try to hide by calling it something less threatening. Communism by any other name is still Communism, and if the population cannot or will not recognize it because we’re focused on some inane beer can personality (et al.), then we will perish.
On the other hand, it’s still not too late to reverse the damage. It takes a while for people to realize they’re being manipulated, particularly when once-trusted news agencies have bowed to the mighty Chinese dollar (or Yuan).
God does have a sense of humor!
God commands Satan to appear before him. In a nano second the evil one bows, genuflects, and kneels before God almighty. Satan is afraid, anxious, panicky, and nervous. God states “do you want to hear the good news first or the bad news first”? The evil one is confused and hesitant.This has never happened before. With his eyes cast down he responds ” the good news first” God then announces, “The Clintons, Obama, Biden, Harris, Pelosi, Schiff, Swalwell and the Squad are your new roommates!” The evil one instantly becomes agitated and unhinged! Satan leaps up and shouts “what the hell, what’s the good news”? God laughs and states “Build Back Better, baby”. ” Build Back Better “!!!!
But the good news is: the crazier the left gets, the better your content becomes. You always need to look on the bright side. And on another note, I’m thinking of a wonderful marketing opportunity of hiring some cheap Chinese manufacturing company to make me 10,000 Bud Light counterfeit knock off cans of beer with Dylan’s face on them to sell on the black web market for gag gifts to your fellow heterosexual buddies. My latest get rich quick scheme.
Why do all critical American institutions collude in apparent mass suicide? Yes, we should ask why if we can prevent the death of America.
Our elites captured by the CCP include most of: the richest Americans; our political leadership at the highest levels; every branch of the military; all US security organizations. Most American corporations blindly follow Davos’ new (irrational) religion of ESG & DEI at the expense of profits, advancement & customer service, as if to negate the idea of free-market capitalism.
And most Americans are blissfully clueless that it’s even happening since all common communication sources here are censored.
I want to believe in the power of the vote to remove these destructive bastards from governing. However I have the sinking feeling that all future elections will be rigged.
So what then? Ride the tsunami? Rocket to Mars? Submerge into Plato’s cave of virtual joy as manufactured by Zick’s Meta (The Matrix’s blue pill)? Meh.
Indeed.
And why did the Post decide to publish the new law school grad’s rant today of all days? Who made that decision at the Post? Who at the school decided to put that new grad out front? A knock off of Maxine Waters? Why today instead of yesterday or tomorrow?
“Why are our government, corporations, and popular culture colluding in mass suicide—to the delight of our enemies like Communist China?”
Because the leftists have captured control of government and Wall Street asset managers like BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard who are now strong arming and forcing all sorts of corporations, big and small, into supporting this ridiculous woke agenda.
2 Chronicles 7:14 tells us what God says is required to heal the nation. It is conditional upon the citizenry of the nation doing certain things. Then God will do what He has promised and heal the nation. Voting will not correct the situation.
I do hope the overreach is in effect suicidal (the increasing absurdities/destructions have been triggering more attention/reaction). Maybe that’s the silver lining .