Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
Recently, Democrats have been despondent over Joe Biden’s sinking polls. His policies on the economy, energy, foreign policy, the border, and COVID-19 all have lost majority support.
As a result, the Left now variously alleges that either in 2022, when they expect to lose the Congress, or in 2024, when they fear losing the presidency, Republicans will “destroy democracy” or stage a coup.
A cynic might suggest that they praise democracy when they get elected—only to claim it is broken when they lose. Or they hope to avoid their defeat by trying to terrify the electorate. Or they mask their own revolutionary propensities by projecting them onto their opponents.
After all, who is trying to federalize election laws in national elections contrary to the spirit of the Constitution? Who wishes to repeal or circumvent the Electoral College? Who wishes to destroy the more than 180-year-old Senate filibuster, the over 150-year-old nine-justice Supreme Court, and the more than 60-year-old, 50-state union?
Who is attacking the founding constitutional idea of two senators per state?
The Constitution also clearly states that “When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside.” Who slammed through the impeachment of Donald Trump without a presiding chief justice?
Never had a president been either impeached twice or tried in the Senate as a private citizen. Who did both?
The Left further broke prior precedent by impeaching Trump without a special counsel’s report, formal hearings, witnesses, and cross-examinations.
Who exactly is violating federal civil rights legislation?
New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in December decided to rationpotentially lifesaving new COVID-19 medicines, partially on the basis of race, in the name of “equity.”
The agency also allegedly used racial preferences to determine who would be first tested for COVID-19.
Yet such racial discrimination seems in direct violation of various title clauses of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
That law makes it clear that no public agency can use race to deny “equal utilization of any public facility which is owned, operated, or managed by or on behalf of any State or subdivision thereof.” Who is behind the new racial discrimination?
In summer 2020, many local and state-mandated quarantines and bans on public assemblies were simply ignored with impunity—if demonstrators were associated with Black Lives Matter or protesting the police.
Currently, the Biden Administration is also flagrantly embracing the neo-Confederate idea of nullifying federal law.
The Biden Administration has allowed nearly 2 million foreign nationals to enter the United States illegally across the southern border—in hopes they will soon be loyal constituents.
The administration has not asked illegal entrants either to be tested for or vaccinated against COVID-19. Yet all U.S. citizens in the military and employed by the federal government are threatened with dismissal if they fail to become vaccinated.
Such selective exemption of lawbreaking non-U.S. citizens, but not millions of U.S. citizens, seems in conflict with the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
After entering the United States illegally, millions of immigrants are protected by some 550 “sanctuary city” jurisdictions. These revolutionary areas all brazenly nullify immigration law by refusing to allow federal immigration authorities to deport illegal immigrant lawbreakers.
At various times in our nation’s history—1832, 1861-65, and 1961-63—America was either racked by internal violence or fought a civil war over similar state nullification of federal laws.
In the last five years, we have indeed seen many internal threats to democracy.
Hillary Clinton hired a foreign national to concoct a dossier of dirt against her presidential opponent. She disguised her own role by projecting her efforts to use Russian sources onto Trump. She used her contacts in government and media to seed the dossier to create a national hysteria about “Russian collusion.” Clinton urged Biden not to accept the 2020 result if he lost, and she also claimed Trump was not a legitimately elected president.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has violated laws governing the chain of command. Some retired officers violated Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice by slandering their commander-in-chief. Others publicly were on record calling for the military to intervene to remove an elected president.
Some of the nation’s top officials in the FBI and intelligence committee have misled or lied under oath either to federal investigators or the U.S. Congress—again mostly with impunity.
All these sustained revolutionary activities were justified as necessary to achieve the supposedly noble ends of removing Donald Trump.
The result is Third World-like jurisprudence in America aimed at rewarding friends and punishing enemies, masked by service to social justice.
We are in a dangerous revolutionary cycle. But the threat is not so much from loud, buffoonish one-day rioters on January 6. Such clownish characters did not for 120 days loot, burn, attack courthouses and police precincts, cause over 30 deaths, injure 2,000 policemen, and destroy at least $2 billion in property—all under the banner of revolutionary justice. Even more ominously, stone-cold sober elites are systematically waging an insidious revolution in the shadows that seeks to dismantle America’s institutions and the rule of law as we have known them.
What the democrats really want is two unicameral bodies elected by popular vote. Their current blatant attacks on our system, are shown to be hypocritical as their leadership is recorded stating the opposite position. It only proves they only have one political philosophy and that is absolute power.
I think you could just as well substitute republican for democrat in this comment.
Excellent
Thank you Prof Hanson for the list of offenses. We need frequent lists to show our friends who would not have the patience to read an article that is even as short as this.
I know you love literature and I’m learning to at 71, but the average citizen is so involved with just making their way in life, they usually trust the legacy media for their information, understandably.
My reason for the lists is to reach them with the items and the challenge to accept as true or prove they are not.
I did this with a Trump hater friend who gave me a ride when I was locked out of my vehicle. Talking about being vaxed she asked my political leaning. Conservative voting mostly R I explained and yes did vote for Trump. I also explained that he had nothing to do with my concern about the vaccine, which she thought was brought to us by Biden.
She did not know it was Trump who authorized the pre-purchase of over 3 million doses before approval on a gamble, to have it immediately available at manufacture.
She could still say nothing good about Trump, when I explained that it was his Admin that brought the Warp Speed vaccine into existence, even trusting me that it was true.
We have a good friendship and I suggested she was stuck in her prejudice, which I did not condemn. She had the self awareness to admit it, “yes, I’m stuck in my bias”.
Brief conversations like this on bullet point items can open doors and having those bullet points at the ready is a useful tool to break through bias.
It’s just democrats doing what they have always done. It’s about what they do, not what they say. They have always been on the side of racism. As a southerner, I have witnessed it my whole life. If I remember right, Al Gore Sr of D Senator TN lead the opposition to the the Civil Rights legislation in the 60’s and Rep. actually passed it. Dems founded the KKK and revitalized in the early 20th century under Wilson.
VDH thanks for being an ELB and helping us get BACK TO THE FUTURE. Sincerely.
Please, everyone, send this around as much as you possibly can.
Write on VDH, right on!!!!! Does there exist any longer a doubt that globalist elites are seeking to crash the American system using the same system to pirate a $4Trillion – year asset? Is there any way to count up the minimum number of Soros funded people in the right places, Sec/State, Atty Generals, election officials, etc. in key states to steal an election & then suppress the audits? What group of individuals is wealthy enough and powerful enough to hijack the entire legacy media and control its every word with their agenda driven talking points? Coincidence? Not Hardly! Keep on bringing the truth and the heat.
Al
Thanks for adding me to your email list. I read articles on your website daily. Common sense seems to be a rare commodity these days.
Anarchist revolutionaries no longer lay siege–we’re past that point–they operate levers of power. Our natural defense of an educated population with a proper appreciation and perspective of history was the focus of their siege. Thus, today’s grievances carry momentum because they’re both voiced and heard by people who never read a dystopian novel or a history book. These same people, having made themselves as gods, consider pride a virtue and humilty a vice. There is little we can do for these.
Alas, what they’ve been able to accomplish over decades is not quickly reversed. Let’s begin to right the ship by instilling gratitude and humilty in our children. These cultivate perspective. Gratitude allows us to see how blessed we really are. Humilty…that we’re not God.
Spot on! The left doesn’t want to hear it. Enjoy reading your articles. I have also read your books. Thank you for some sanity.
The Dems in the Wash. DC bubble were horrified when Jan. 6 happened. People actually entered the politicians’ DC House, their elitist bubble where they thought no one would ever dare to enter their elevated domain where only those who think they are better than anyone else consider the rest of America as bouguoise lower class peons. It never bothered w b enough ANTIFA and BLM burned cities,
injured and killed citizens. So the elites were shocked and terrified, obviously never relating with small businessowners, judges, lawyers,, police, who were inside those burning facilities. How DARE the Deplorables come into the Capitol?
Because it ALL belongs to WE THE PEOPLE!
Victor Davis Hanson, thank you for your honesty and your lucid citation of facts the American people have witnessed in just the last half decade.
You are a patriot and I pray the Lord God will continue to use you for His glory. May you be in His favor and bless you in everyway and in everything you do in His Name.
Oh that this factual would really matter.
I so admire your style & you love for America & our God inspired Constitution.
Thank you!
The entirety of the Left’s narrative and self-perception is based upon a self-assigned moral superiority. An ironically religious-fundamentalism in action from an atheistic cohort. Will wonders never cease?
Thanks. On the money!!
“rationpotentially lifesaving new COVID-19 medicines, partially on the basis of race, in the name of “equity.” ”
It seems to me, that Democrats have always been the more racist party.
Could you send this article to Sen. Cruz?
He called the J6 protesters “terrorists”. He needs to be reminded of the summer of terror that occurred prior to the last Presidential election. Maybe then he’d notice the difference in scale and results.
That summer the President was taken to a bunker in the White House for his safety. Did anyone call that “terrorism”? Did Sen. Cruz?
Congress justified and celebrated that death and destruction. “We, the People” were the ones being killed. I guess that wasn’t as important and threatening as putting your feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk, wearing a furry hat with horns, or walking through the Capital carrying a flag.
Thank you for remembering and tallying the destructive results of the summer of terrible riots.
If you want to get at the truth, you must ask the right questions.
Thank you for asking them.
VDH is such a wise man.
I so wish our media would be honest like this article is! this is TRUTH!
This country is drowning in deception!
The Constitution doesn’t enforce itself. Until the American sheep do something about it, the Left will continue to ignore the law and use power as they wish
Jan 6 was clearly a three letter identifier planned action. We now have an American gulag in DC. Not a single “perpetrator “ has been charged with insurrection. Mostly illegal trespass on federal property???? Sort of similar to making a wrong turn in the West and ending up in a federal park after posted hours??? Really dangerous criminal activity, right? Now there – I am on the watch list – whatever
Thank you for all that you do. This Essay is so critically important for people to read and understand. We are being destroyed from within.
The January 6, 2021, as an event was promulgated by The Speaker of the House and her minions by active commission or omission. Her failure to increase security after being advised to do so is dereliction of her duties. The information on the warnings from security professionals in provided by Judicial Watch as part of the FOIA information they received. The other possibility is a planned “Riot” through the cooperation of the FBI, ANTIFA and BLM. All of whom had informants or participants in the crowd. Again witness statements, persons changing their clothing masking up and inciting and in some cases making entry at the behest of the Capital Police.
We need a civil war, we need to admit that America has been hijacked by the same freaks that hijacked Russia and we need to suspend the united states of America until we arrest and imprison them all and reshape America in a way that protects white people from racists that clearly cannot handle the freedom white people tried to bake into out government.
We need Bush and Trump to control our nation. They are Republican Christians and that the insurrection was caused by supporters of Clinton and Obama, not Bush and Trump as the corrupt satanic democrats say. Become a Christian by becoming a Republican.
Understand that joe biden, kamala harris and jen paski are being under the control of the liberal media that support Clinton and Obama. Clinton and Obama accused George Bush and Donald Trump of “sending American troops overseas to take advantage of other countries for financial gain” and that is proven wrong. They were out to restore order to the nations so that we will have good relationships with other nations. We need a new reform policy so that America will become a better nation.
Concise and brilliantly summarized as only VDH can do, but missing a damning commonality among these neo-Whig so-called “progressives”: they are all pro-abortion on demand.
Exactly. I only hope the American people wake up to what is going on.
Amen Mr.Hanson
VHD has exactly Encircled the true, unpunished , crimes of liberal, traitorous, attempts to destroy the constitution of the United States ! It burns a hole to the bottom of my soul to see our country torn apart by our elected (?) leaders.
Equally disturbing is the clear expose of the acts against the citizens of our Republic brought by intellectuals such as Victor Davis Hanson, et al. But no counter measures are discussed and every alternative course correction sits, unused, while the republicans sit on their collective butts. Are we doomed to wear gray jump suits with a red star on their baseball cap?
Thank you, Dr. Hanson, for this compilation of what is really happening to our Republic! It seems Ben Franklin’s response, “A republic, if you can keep it” may become prophetic.
The left – not just in this country, but in the World – are scum poison. It is every sane person’s job to, on their private, small or large level, resist and fight it with all their might. Bless us all.
The very premise seems to be based on the “business as usual idea” that things that happened between the election in 2020 and 6Jan were typical.
Much of what was written here had all that not occurred might pose a valid critique of partisan politics.
Given what DID happen on 6Jan, the rhetoric is farcical
According to Dr. Navarro on nationwide TV last week there actually was a plot to extend the Trump presidency by challenging over and over again the validity of the votes during the counting of the Electoral College votes. Wear out the TV audience and cast doubt as to the true result after hours of debate. Sitting member of the GOP were in on the action and party to it. Then the roused mob came in.
What’s ironic is that his boss (Trump) went out on the lawn that day and so stirred the crowd up as to riot into the Capitol – and kill the real plan was torpedoed by their actions.
The Senate reconvened in hiding and finished the task of validating a free and fair election.
Thank God for the mob. Now as a matter of consequence many of them will be locked up. A class action suit is being spoken of by them against the former POTUS.
Thank God for the mob. Trump might yet be in the White House had they not not been riled up by him to riot.
The coup was a failure because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Hail to the mob.
Thank you for the excellent article. Brilliant, as usual. Americans need to pay attention to this.
These statements of sane judgment and knowledgeable observations from Victor Davis Hanson need to be used in order to restore the damaged American psyche.
You are correct, Dr. Hanson. The Left and neo cons are insurrectionists.. Treacherous traitors. Their only goal is to get hold of the Treasury and to get rich off Americas resources. Period. All their social justice blathering is the cover story for their motivation. In the future, I want to see them imprisoned and hanged. No mercy. That is what is warranted.
Two excellent, outstanding points made by Mr. Pascucci:
Most folks just making their way in life and dependent on legacy media
Too many folks ignorant of Trump accomplishments and not willing to separate the man from his policies.