Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
The United States obsesses over whether biological men can compete in women’s sports as transgendered males.
Crime is spiking at levels not seen in 40 years. But it is considered racist to suggest that arrests, indictments, convictions, and incarcerations deter crime.
Major U.S. downtowns almost overnight went from mostly safe and clean to terrifying and toxic—and we brag that we are at least “tolerant” of the medieval conditions.
The Pentagon and CIA put out recruitment videos that sound like kindergarten diversity, equity, and inclusion programming.
Yet the military is less eager to explain why the United States met utter humiliation in Afghanistan or why the army only has met about 50 percent of its scheduled recruitment targets.
Few dare to attribute declining morale, inept strategic thinking, and anemic recruitment to the stereotyping and targeting of middle-class white males, Soviet-style workshops, and diversity, equity, and inclusion mind conditioning.
The Biden Administration in its first 18 months warred on the U.S. oil and gas industry. Radical cutbacks in fossil fuels supposedly would “transition” the world to a greener future.
Biden expressed little worry about the resulting economic damage to the middle class or the lack of commensurate efforts in India and China to curb emissions.
During COVID American popular culture has collectively demonized any who were lax on masking and social distancing as “super spreaders.”
Federal employees and military personnel who skipped the new mRNA COVID-19 inoculations on grounds the shots were not fully vetted, were stereotyped as red-state conspiracist super-spreaders. They were accused of endangering all Americans by their supposedly selfish behavior.
Yet there has been no such judgmental criticism of individual conduct during the current monkeypox outbreak.
Given the loud woke media, few would dare suggest that social distancing, or avoiding areas where promiscuous sex is frequent might slow down the dangerous epidemic—95 percent of whose cases so far have been sexually transmitted between men with recent multiple partners.
The daily stuff of tabloids is cancel-culturing, virtue signaling, and suing over race and gender.
Recently, the woke movement may have jumped the proverbial shark when a family filed a $25 million lawsuit against Sesame Place Philadelphia. One of the guilty theme park’s costume character actors apparently missed seeing a young African-American girl in the crowd reaching out for a hug.
The American middle class is learning just how much poorer they are after suffering a collective $3 trillion stock loss in retirement accounts.
For some reason, their stocks pummeled despite Wall Street’s past loud commitment to politically correct Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investment. That new woke idea puts green, racial, and gender issues ahead of profit and loss investment calculations—at least for the declining middle class.
ESG may be a permissible luxury in a bull market, but it can help to ruin millions of lives in a bear one.
The new “anti-inflation” budget bill manages to increase federal spending in times of inflation, while upping taxes and regulation during a recession.
Interest rates must climb far higher to slow down spiking prices. But the higher they go, the harder it is to service the gargantuan $30 trillion—and climbing—national debt,
Our enemies abroad, particularly China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, are watching all this woke, comic madness with absolute glee.
They are delighted the United States is diverting trillions of dollars and man-hours away from production to ideological witch hunts, woke cannibalism, green virtue-signaling, spendthrift consumption, racial and gender fixations, warped science, suicidal surveillance, and commissariat indoctrination.
Woke means that Americans have less money, labor, and time to hone their military readiness. They will produce less competitive energy, but more pseudo-science, non-meritocratic advancement, and unsound investment—all the reasons why America will no longer dominate the world.
Most analysts abroad do not believe that being woke translates into more accurate missiles, more lethal infantrymen, more efficient industrial production, better medicine, cheaper, more plentiful energy, a more united, cohesive population—and a higher standard of living.
So, our unwoke adversaries certainly want us to stay woke.
And why not? Russia already has better hypersonic missiles and more nuclear warheads.
China can likely sink any $12 billion American aircraft carrier and its 5,000 diverse “they/them” crew that dares to venture into the Taiwan strait.
Beijing already produces 90 percent of U.S. antibiotics, and nearly as large a percentage of our key vitamins and painkillers.
India and Brazil do not want any more pot-to-kettle U.S. lectures on their need for better elections and racial relations.
While we war on our past, our competitors abroad prep for the future.
They are more likely to erect than tear down statues. We spend what we borrow; they invest what they earn.
How odd America once taught the world what works—only now to mock its own lessons.
I am an American an also a woman of color. I know the reality of racism systemic and personal and sexism. I believe there needs to be a very real effort to remediate these issues, on a personal and systemic level. I agree with everything you wrote, I might differ on some things but your overarching theme is spot on. I voice many of the things you said and many “blacks” and “whites” think I’m an “Uncle Tom”, lol. This culture is ridiculous, I don’t want to be mean but the things that our nation is focused on puzzles me, our reliance on China for goods and manufacturing is utter stupidity. I’m not a politician but why would a nation be so dependent on a country with a completely opposite ideology 🙄. They make our meds, food, technology. We are so indebted to China. They banned k/j pop because the males are so effeminate and they know that doesn’t bode well for advancing there agenda. So I’m saddened to see the decline of our nation. This woke business has so much satanic Marxism imbedded in it, I as a black American woman want no parts of it, even while acknowledging there is real change needed in regards to racial equity.
God bless
Good on you, Hannah.
Thank you for your comments, Hannah. Of course, this means as “a black American woman” of independent mind, who also reads Victor Hanson, you’re a member of an even smaller minority. This country could use more of your kind. God bless you for sharing.
Dan
Because we are run by self-serving, duplicitous, greedy, power-hungry politicians who could care less about what we, the people, want or need. Oops– I forgot angry, senile, and vindictive.
Once conservatives are running the show, I sincerely hope that the feckless Republicans truly punish the miscreants that are destroying our country. Prosecute them, indict them, jail them. Letting them go with slaps on the wrists is what they expect and why they did what they did in the first place. We need KARMA, and consequences for their destructive actions.
Woke America now feels like Germany in the 1930s when an evil political party got control of government and media (i.e. deep state), and rallied the masses behind them by falsely vilifying an identifiable part of the population that had no defense against the poisoned state apparatus.
The question in my mind is….Why does America accept Wokeism and the attendant ills that come with the notion? The people who are promoting Wokeism seem to be a distinct minority of our population. Good examples are the exceptionally large turn outs for all Trump rallies compared to a handful of people that turnout for Biden not to mention that Biden has not even had a major press conference in months. The problem as I see it is one of Leadership — there is little to no positive leadership with those in power in America today — mostly all negative in conjunction with an “I don’t care” attitude relative to most things that are important e.g. crime, inflation, illegal immigration, a failing education system, a failing military, an imbalance of world power, trade and a fraudulent election system in many states. Those in power have control of the levers that are needed to reverse the awful trend that seems to have come into existence almost “over night”. If we don’t fix the election system in America and elect true leaders again such as Donald Trump who have the best interests of America as their objective as well as enforcing our laws, our country is indeed lost. The notion of one political party in power forever will seal our doom. The situation is indeed complex but I think the answer is relatively simple with the right brand of leadership. Time is not on our side and history indeed repeats itself. The people of Germany in the 1930s had a choice.
Wow, so spot-on. Hope? I guess I tend to clutch at heroes. so am kind of hoping Ron DeSantis understands all that and may save us. (Less so for Trump, who has been successfully toxified, partly attributable to his own faults.)