Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
Two strange phenomena now characterize the political landscape.
One, opposition to the Trump administration’s initiatives has reached a near-unprecedented fever pitch.
The frenzy is manifested in strange ways. At the bottom end, there is an epidemic of street terrorism, including the keying of Teslas, bullying their owners, firebombing dealerships, or vandalizing charging stations.
All that is mostly the logical but dirty reification of those in the media and the Democrats who brand Elon Musk as a foreign-born counterfeit citizen and a disloyal un-American foreigner, thus deserving to be “taken down,” in the words of Rep. Jasmine Crockett. Or is he to be ostracized as an “ass-h*le” in the invective of Sen. Mark Kelly and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz? The latter cheered a downturn in Tesla stock prices, contrary to the interests of his own state’s public portfolio.
Sometimes, the impotent Democrat Congress issues kickboxing/ninja videos of its feistier female representatives. At other moments, senators race to the bottom, echoing each other’s pottymouth expressions of “sh*t.”
Rep. Al Green could neither disrupt nor end Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress by shaking his cane and screaming epithets. Nor, as he damned Trump on the floor of the Senate for 25 hours in a filibuster to nowhere, could Sen. Cory Booker offer a single word that might offer his supposedly better way to address crushing debt and deficits.
Two, there is a second common denominator to all this frenzy and fury: there is so far no alternate agenda on trade deficits, budget deficits, and debt.
That is, no one on the left—or, for that matter, the libertarian right or the now inert Republican establishment—can outline an alternate pathway to Trump’s remedies for America’s dire problems. Just as the left used to worship Tesla’s breakthrough EV cars and now tries to destroy them, so too it once lectured the country on the merits of tariff-enforced symmetrical trade—until Donald Trump made that his signature issue.
So in lieu of serious counter-proposals, we get from the left vulgarity, the smash-mouth of Rep. Crockett, and street terror against fellow Americans. All this inanity is the natural bookend to the prior four years of lawfare, the efforts to remove Trump from state ballots, the Mar-a-Lago raid, and two assassination attempts.
Most of the organs of Wall Street, the free-market think tanks, and the few liberation university economics departments likewise issue virulent denunciations of tariffs, of even massive DOGE cuts in the federal workforce and budget, and, strangely, of the deportation of Tren de Aragua, a terrorist-designated violent foreign gang whose members entered and now reside illegally in the United States.
So why does the left not simply claim that its prior support of tariffs was wrongheaded? (See the now-ancient denunciations by Nancy Pelosi and Bernie Sanders of Bush-era “free trade,” deindustrialization, globalization, and lost jobs.) Now, the left supports… what exactly? Mini-tariffs? No tariffs? Reciprocal tariffs?
Absent is concern about the ticking time bomb of $3 billion in interest payments on the debt per day, in addition to the monstrous $37 trillion in debt itself. Did Cory Booker spend a single minute of his 25-hour address to outline ways to reduce our 125% debt to annual GDP?
Per year, the interest cost on the debt is larger than the defense budget; does AOC ever note that? The current Biden vestigial budget is nominally $1.7 trillion in the red. Is there a Democrat agenda to head us toward balanced budgets?
So, what does the left propose as its financial remedies?
Is it to raise taxes on those who should “pay their fair share?” That is, do they want the top rates to rise from 37% to 40%, 45%, 50%, so that their own constituent “affluent” in blue states like high-tax California, Illinois, and New York should properly and deservedly pay the IRS 50% to 60% of their earnings in income tax alone?
Does the tax-and-spend left prefer instead a value-added tax or some sort of federal sales tax? Or do they think current levels of spending are just fine?
Is there really no waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal budget, but instead too few federal workers?
Or are they modern monetary theorists, who believe money is but a construct, one that the government can do with in whatever manner it wishes? Thus, debt is simply remedied by printing more of the construct, or finding ways to expropriate private wealth, or inflating our way out of debt?
But again, please tell us how the left has a superior agenda to Trump’s that will get us more quickly and efficiently to a balanced budget, if not a reduced national debt.
Or is debt itself not supposed to be a problem? Does the left believe interest rates are the real crux? As in the recent past, if interest rates are no more than the rate of inflation, then essentially, the government can borrow all it wants at zero interest—and literally did so at times over the last half century. Is that their remedy?
Can the Republican establishment help out and pause a moment from their napalming of the Trump initiatives? Can it issue briefs that outline how to take us to either a balanced budget and reduced debt or convince us that debt in all manifestations is no big deal?
Then we turn to trade deficit. Again, there is utter silence about solutions from most critics. No counter-proposals, no alternate agenda, just fury and hysteria—or denials that deficits and debt are a problem at all.
So, does the left or right believe that 50 years of continuous trade deficits do not matter? Who cares if we are running a near $1 trillion annual outflow in the gap between what we export and import?
Please make the argument that the real losers are the recent economies of India, China, or Mexico, which supposedly foolishly tax imports and yet demand tariff-free exports, all to run up surpluses. Are they suicidal and we, the masters of trade deficits, the real geniuses?
Does it matter that almost all of the proposed Trump tariffs are in some way responsive? In that sense, they are calibrated on autopilot, leaving the proverbial ball in the court of those with high tariffs and huge surpluses to set new shared reciprocal rates.
So, if it was wrong for Trump to level reciprocal tariffs, was it right for others to initiate asymmetrical tariffs on us?
Is it more logical to damn those who object to $1 trillion in annual trade deficits rather than those whose tariffs resulted in their warped surpluses?
Or is it wiser to blame the victim? The U.S. deserves its trade deficit because it is too affluent, too naïve to object, or too profligate to be saved?
Or is the argument one of the Sermon on the Mount: we must turn the other cheek as we have for a half century? Or, as an affluent sort of good Samaritan, can we afford to stay forbearing and take the hit for the global team?
The final problem with the notion of Trump as the 80-day destroyer of America is not just the poverty of economic counterproposals from the left or right. It is also the complete news blackout of what Trump has already accomplished in 10 weeks.
Does anyone notice that, almost overnight, America’s southern border is now magically secure, with virtually no illegal immigration—and without the much-ballyhooed need for “comprehensive immigration reform?”
How did we go from 10,000 illegal aliens a day to near zero? What was so bad about identifying hundreds of billions of budgetary dollars in fraud and waste in a mere two months?
Why are we now talking about ways to end the Ukraine war rather than boasting “as long as it takes” to feed the new Stalingrad?
Why are the Houthis now being abandoned by the Iranians, who, in a matter of weeks, no longer seem to be the feared bully of the Middle East? Were not their terrorist tentacles just months ago considered unstoppable and sacrosanct?
Was it wrong finally and dramatically to reflect the wishes of 80 percent of the American people, who do not want biological males to overturn a half-century’s worth of hard work to obtain parity for women’s sports?
We, as a nation, need to calm down.
Either acknowledge, however reluctantly, the good that has already been done in the first ten weeks. Or, if one feels the border should be open, or the war should be accelerated in Ukraine, or the campuses were just fine until 2025, or women just need to get over losing to transgendered men, then just say so.
Or if one believes huge trade and budget deficits and unsustainable national debt are no big deal, then argue just that.
Or, if the rub is that Trump is addressing these existential and long-neglected crises in the wrong way, then please present alternate plans for quicker and better resolutions or better messaging.
Should he limit tariffs only to those nations with deficits and asymmetrical tariffs? Should he speak more quietly and mention more frequently that he was moved to act only by a half-century of neglect? Could he emphasize more that the $3-4 trillion in promised foreign investment will ignite job growth within a year?
But if there is no alternate agenda, no constructive criticism, then why would anyone listen to those who either helped to get us into this mess or have no clue about its solutions?
Professor Hanson, your analyses have been spot on for as long as I can remember, and, at my age (80), I had pretty much abandoned my dream of a country that more closely resembled that of my youth, before unchecked politicians realized no one was really watching and have behaved accordingly far too often.
You have an army of fans, sir, and I look forward to every podcast, interview and essay with which you grace us. Thank you!
Great comment! Imagine a world where President Trump’s ideas and actions were fully supported
Victor. I have a question for you.
What is the status of Germany? Is it still under US occupation controlled by the CIA? Did the fall of the Berlin Wall on Oct 3/1990 change that status?
Also what is the current status of Japan?
I just listened to Professor Richard Werner in Glenn Beck and his comments certainly provided info I never knew.
Excellent points
Professor Hanson, I know this article wasn’t about climate change but if you’re interested in learning why burning fossil fuels doesn’t cause climate change read my book: HOAX, why burning fossil fuels does not cause climate change. You can get it on Amazon by searching HOAX Darwin Throne. It’s based on a lot of peer reviewed research and presents a solid model that shows that atmospheric pressure and solar radiation control our climate over decadal time scales. The model is backed up by 24 years of radiation data from the CERES satellite. There is no other theory that can make this claim.
I am sure that this is an old idea.
Pass a law that states that if we are in debt, we must pay off “x percent” of the known debt with today’s budget. That required percent must precede all other payments. Also, if in debt already, assume no new indebtedness.
Whatever social welfare, defense, agricultural, or other payments would go to the back of the line.
This is how an individual gets out of debt. We cut back on non-essentials, stop taking on more payments, and focus on debt reduction. Why can’t we do the same as a country?
I know. Just too simple. But it would save the country from financial ruin and stop all ridiculous Democrat spending (bribing their constituencies with our tax money).
Any better ideas? This is not as complicated as most think. By making certain “entitlements” mandatory, we are adopting constraints that make solving the problem impossible. Re-think priorities and take a stand. Otherwise, the deluge.
Yes please.
The other revenue generation idea that seems to be percolating to the front is lease fees. The Dept of the Interior had something like double the number of acres leased out 30 years ago and the DOI actually generates more revenue for the government than the IRS. Sounds like opportunity.
Another excellent analysis. I posted to my own social media and summarized as “put up or shut up”.
Great photo at the head of this excellent article. It captures better than a thousand words the ignorance of so many on the left. They are apparently unaware that no cabinet secretary in the history of the United States has ever been elected. They are appointed by the President. Like Social Studies 101. Duh.
I never thought anybody in our lifetime would seriously challenge our out-of-control spending. Everybody else has just kicked the can down the street.
Every one of them.
If you do the math then you know that the lion’s share of our budget is off-limits entitlements. We could double our taxes, cut the crap out of “discretionary” spending and still never touch the national debt.
I had never considered the tariff idea. Few others have, either.
Do we have any other options than to get others to help us pay down the debt? If we go under, so will all of them.
Trump is trying to keep our economy from driving off a cliff. Or into a brick wall. Choose your metaphor
“You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.”
Hello, Reality.
This is the most Socratic review of the U.S. political scene I have ever read. Very effective presentation. Of course, the Democrats, the Left ( but I repeat myself ) HAVE no alternative proposals. We have been living in the aimless, desultory political morass they called an administration for the last four years, and to paraphrase that old song “Fifteen Tons”, as Tennessee Ernie Ford once crooned, all we got was “another four years older and deeper in debt.” Actually, four years older and buried in debt. And fifteen tons of leftist nonsense.
True, nobody voted for Elon Musk, but nobody voted for the precedent of Woodrow Wilson’s “dollar a year men” either and the President has the right to hire any outside “experts” he wants to help run the country more efficiently. It’s been an established practice for over a century.
Nobody voted for NAZI astrophysicist Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun (a German Baron-royalty of a former enemy country) either, but were he not working for our government, we wouldn’t have a space program, which has been surpassed by Mr. Elon Musk.
Someone had to rip off the bandaid and President Trump knows this. He is equipped with bravery and the selfishness that one must possess to forge ahead regardless of his hateful opposition.
Trump thrives on media exposure, which he uses to get his message out. The main stream media, which is mainly Left Wing, is trying to merely starve him of oxygen. When Jake Tapper, the King of Kool-Aid consumption, recently stated he was not Left Wing, it shows the depth of the loss of ‘true journalism’ in news reporting. Where are Huntley and Brinkley when we really need them?
Thanks Victor! Your last short paragraph is an excellent summary of the wilderness the dems have created for themselves. They realize that they have been rejected (as individuals and as a group) by the majority of Americans. No one wants to hear them anymore and so to counter this reality they scream and use foul language for shock value. When this doesn’t work they scream louder and use more extreme utterances. Kind of pathetic! Since they act like two year olds trapped in adult bodies, their tantrums now turn to violence. Here is where the real problems begin.
that would help but like in the case of my friends and family, it is a religion……logic and reason are not the basis of the beliefs…
When a political party acts out their “Terrible Twos”, should they be given a bar of soap for their potty mouths and a bucket of cold water for their temper tantrums?
Bingo!
Professor Hanson,
I started reading your commentary when you submitted for National Review. Your voice, and perspective on political and social issues serve as a beacon in the night. Since then I’ve read a number of your books including , “The End of Everything” and “The Case For Trump”. My favorite, “The Second World Wars”. In addition I listen weekly to your podcasts with Jack and Sami and greatly appreciate the personal stories you share describing life on the generational family farm. I want to thank you for your courage and insight in defending Donald Trump and am convinced you won many over in helping him out of the political wilderness. Donald Trump is a unique, historical individual and I’m grateful to him for the counter-revolution currently underway. By the way, my favorite movie is “The Searchers”.
Yeah, more taxes on the working/middle classes — that’s the answer!
What a thing of beauty this article is.
Sounds like a partial solution to the runaway U.S. Debt. In Addition I propose we (taxpayers) Demand a Cut of 10 % on all Welfare Payments, a Cut of 10% from Food EBT Cards, 10% increase in Rent requirement for those on Housing Assistance., Return of the Free Iphones given to Illegal Aliens. I could go on and on Call Me 🙂
The anti-Trump rhetoric is just that, simply what Trump wants and does is wrong—reinforced by the MSM. Unlike the Biden and Obama administrations, doing the opposite would have rightened the ship, whereas opposing every proposal and action from Trump is, as you say, not policy.
The beauty of the President is his innate understanding of normal working people and the skill to “brand” his response in an appealing manner.
The Trump Brand: Positivity, Strength, Patriotism, Pride, and Optimism. A return to what America once was. And for the majority, this is more than enough.
Yes, excellent, definitely. Reassuring also to read/listen to a cool, scholarly assessment of what makes us ill.
My personal opinion, not that it matters a squat, is that until and unless something is done about Soros and his spawn, the useful idiots will only continue their virtual rage.
Space in the comment section is too limited to address your challenge by presenting an alternative view/analysis. So, first, I would agree generally that I have no issues with DJT’s program about illegals and the border. No issue about the many successes of DOGE and Elon, though errors are ammo for the Dem’s and should be avoided. Debt, deficit, and trade–separate issues. Debt reform–> simple, 10% surcharge on each person’s federal tax obligation until debt declines to 25 trillion. Then, once reached, we can re-assess. Deficit’s? Not allowed unless passed by Congressional majorities of 65%. Trade? I need more space. or call me
The usual razzle-dazzle isn’t so dazzling anymore to put-upon voters. The age-old reactionary weapons “have” to be deployed to prevent the rooting out of our national despoilers.
excellent as always..I would love to see a leftist try to answer any of this but of course they never will….they are too busy protesting at their once loved Tesla dealerships because it is better to be ‘cool’ than logical…….
With regard to my opinion (on this article): What he said.
The left is the party of satan
Blunt (put up or shut up) but true.
Excellent as usual. While excoriating the pitiful Democrats hits the target, we could use some constructive criticism of some of the Trump policies. We now have a one party system since the Democrats have gone mad. A one party system is never good in the long run. One of the worst aspects of our current national Trainwreck is the loss of our two party system. if the Democrats are irredeemable, something is going to have to replace them to keep the Republicans honest.
So…you’re perfectly happy with the outcomes tgat keep coming??
No, self critique?
Thank you VDH. I believe you should consider your own radio talk show. You are well respected and knowledgeable. Please. consider this. Something people can listen to while they work.
I’ve learned over the years that the progressive left believes there is an endless pot of gold available for our government and there is no problem with expanding the size and reach of our government as long as they get to choose how it is spent. They actually believe the government can best provide prosperity to the country and either ignore or don’t care about private investment and the need to encourage, not discourage it.
For far too long Republican politicians have bought into the expanding size of government, but at a slower rate. Neither view was ever sustainable. The Republicans could claim their position was more sustainable than the Democrats, but nonetheless would bring us to the same place, but at a later date. Trump has changed all that. If he should fail in this significant directional change, I’m not sure the country ever recovers.
The Left has exhausted all logical responses leaving only verbal rage and increasingly physical violence.
Study results published today regarding attitudes towards criminal acts, including fire bombings and assassinations of Trump and Musk specifically, describe a “normalization” and “ideation” of these acts on the Left. It describes committing “virtuous” violent acts provides a means of creating identity with Leftist causes, ie; Mangione style murder-as-virtue.
Leftists have been here before with Weather Underground/Red Army Faction movements. This time around, they also have funding by billionaires pumping resources into their “causes”.
Excellent Socratic challenge to the “resistance”