Four years ago, then-candidate Donald Trump promised an end to neo-con adventurism in the Middle East and to shift greater global responsibility to America’s NATO allies. Supporters and critics alike agree that, as president, Trump has followed through. Arguably, his “America first” strategy has brought greater stability even as it confounds the Beltway commentariat.
At home, however, America has never seemed more dived. Historian Victor Davis Hanson places the blame on Trump’s domestic enemies: “They tried to strangle his infancy in the cradle”.
If Trump campaigns for the forgotten man, Hanson tells his story. Trump is their hero, Hanson their scribe. And unlike many of his academic peers, the classicist and military historian eschews the ivory tower, instead living close to the land and the people whose lives he chronicles.
When he’s not on tour selling his latest tome, the 67-year-old California native can be found on his grandmother’s farm in Selma, California. No mere gentleman farmer, he rises before dawn to cultivate his vines. He drives his pickup truck to school where he teaches immigrants and working-class students Greek and Latin. Back home on his farm, at the end of his day, Hanson locks himself in his study to write bestselling volumes on war and peace.
Should former Vice President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party sweep the elections next Tuesday, Hanson believes dire consequences await. He warns that Democrats “want to recalibrate America so that someone like Donald Trump can never be elected again.”
