President Nobama

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by Victor Davis Hanson//National Review

 

Trump is commonsensically undoing, piece by piece, the main components of Obama’s legacy.

 

Donald Trump continues to baffle. Never Trump Republicans still struggle to square the circle of quietly agreeing so far with most of his policies, as they loudly insist that his record is already nullified by its supposedly odious author. Or surely it soon will be discredited by the next Trumpian outrage. Or his successes belong to congressional and Cabinet members, while his failures are all his own. Rarely do they seriously reflect on what otherwise over the last year might have been the trajectory of a Clinton administration.

 

Contrary to popular supposition, the Left loathes Trump not just for what he has done. (It is often too consumed with fury to calibrate carefully the particulars of the Trump agenda.) Rather, it despises him mostly for what he superficially represents.

 

To many progressives and indeed elites of all persuasions, Trump is also the Prince of Anti-culture: mindlessly naïve American boosterism; conspicuous, 1950s-style unapologetic consumption; repetitive and limited vocabulary; fast-food culinary tastes; Queens accent; herky-jerky mannerisms; ostentatious dress; bulging appearance; poorly disguised facial expressions; embracing rather than sneering at middle-class appetites; a lack of subtlety, nuance, and ambiguity.

 

In short Trump’s very essence wars with everything that long ago was proven to be noble, just, and correct by Vanity Fair, NPR, The New Yorker, Google, the Upper West Side, and The Daily Show. There is not even a smidgeon of a concession that some of Trump’s policies might offer tens of thousands of forgotten inner-city youth good jobs or revitalize a dead and written-off town in the Midwest, or make the petroleum of the war-torn Persian Gulf strategically irrelevant to an oil-rich United States. Continue reading “President Nobama” →

Why Socialism Fails

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by Paul R. Gregory

Wednesday, January 10, 2018
 Defining Ideas

Image credit: Barbara Kelley

As the collapse of the Soviet Union approached, Francis Fukuyama proclaimed the victory of liberal democracy over planned socialism in his 1989 essay, “The End of History?” More than a quarter century later, the USSR has indeed disintegrated. Its former east European empire lies inside the European Union. China has a market economy, though the nation is led by a single party. And the “socialist” states of North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela are in economic ruin.  Few now advocate “back to the USSR.” At the same time, many people still consider socialism an appealing economic system. Consider, for example, that Bernie Sanders—an avowed supporter of a socialist United States—is America’s most popular politician—and that as many millennials favor socialism as capitalism.

The analogy of the jockey and the horse explains the continued appeal of socialism. Socialists believe that socialist regimes have chosen the wrong jockeys to ride the socialist horse to its deserved victory. Bad jockeys such as Stalin, Mao, Fidel, Pol Pot, and Hugo Chavez chose tactics and policies that led their socialist horse astray. But actually, a look at how the Soviet Union actually worked reveals that it’s the horse itself that’s the problem.

After gaining power a century ago and then holding onto it through a civil war, the Soviet communists were intent on building a socialist state that would overwhelm capitalism. State ownership and scientific planning would replace the anarchy of the market. Material benefits would accrue to the working class. An equitable economy would supplant capitalist exploitation and a new socialist man would rise, prioritizing social above private interests. A dictatorship of the proletariat would guarantee the interests of the working class. Instead of extracting surpluses from workers, the socialist state would take tribute from capitalists to finance the building of socialism.

The basics of the Soviet “horse” were in place by the early 1930s. Under this system, Stalin and his Politburo set general priorities for industrial ministries and a state planning commission. The ministers and planners worked in tandem to draw up economic plans. Managers of the hundreds of thousands of plants, factories, food stores, and even farms were obligated by law to fulfill the plans handed down by their superiors. Continue reading “Why Socialism Fails” →

Trump Threatens to Deal Another Blow to the Palestinian Cause

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by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review

 

By cutting off hundreds of millions in American aid to the Palestinian Authority, the president could radically alter the Middle East.

 

President Trump set off another Twitter firestorm last week when he hinted that he may be considering cutting off hundreds of millions of dollars in annual U.S. aid to the Palestinians. Trump was angered over Palestinian unwillingness to engage in peace talks with Israel after the Trump administration announced the move of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

 

Given that the U.S. channels its Palestinian aid through third-party United Nations organizations, it’s unclear how much money Trump is talking about it. But in total it may exceed $700 million per year, according to reports.

 

A decade ago, the U.S. row with the Palestinian Authority would have been major news. But not now.

 

Why?

 

The entire Middle East has radically changed — and along with it the role and image of the Palestinians.

 

First, the U.S. is now one of the largest producers of fossil-fuel energy in the world. America is immune from the sort of Arab oil embargo that in 1973–74 paralyzed the U.S. economy as punishment for American support of Israel. Even Israel, thanks to new offshore oil and natural-gas discoveries, is self-sufficient in energy and immune from Arab cutoffs. Continue reading “Trump Threatens to Deal Another Blow to the Palestinian Cause” →

From Resistance to Nullification to What Next?

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By Victor Davis Hanson — National Review

Trump’s critics ratchet up to insurrection, but Trump’s tax reforms and our growing economy could derail their dreams.

George H. W. Bush gave up power quietly and turned to charity work and occasional ceremonial speaking after his reelection defeat in 1992. George W. Bush — like Jerry Ford in 1977 and Ronald Reagan in 1989 — did the same when Barack Obama assumed power in 2009.

Unending Presidencies

Recent Democrats emeriti — Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama — apparently had a different vision of the post-presidency, unlike the quiet retirement of Lyndon Johnson back to his ranch in 1969. The three saw politics in more Manichean terms, as an existential struggle far too important to cease at the end of a presidential tenure.

Carter freelanced abroad for 30 years in successful quest for a Nobel Prize, but he often undercut presidential diplomacy. He regularly weighed in on the shortcomings of his successors — in a way he would have deeply resented had either Ford or Richard Nixon done the same.

No sooner had Bill Clinton left the presidency than he and Hillary Clinton began the grand plan for a return to the White House in 2009, and, after a setback, then again in 2017. Theirs was a two-decade long post-presidency of glad-handing, politicking, and, to use a euphemism, quid pro quo fund raising.

Barack Obama has already weighed in, including while overseas, on the shortcomings of his successor. His aides, led by Ben Rhodes, are at the forefront of the “Resistance” to thwart the Trump administration. Susan Rice and John Kerry comment regularly on supposed Trump foreign-policy blunders, as do James Clapper and John Brennan — usually in proactive fashion to deflect news accounts that may reflect poorly on their own past tenures. Continue reading “From Resistance to Nullification to What Next?” →

It’s Worse Than a Crime . . .

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The Corner

The one and only.

by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review

 

I agree with most commentators that Michael Wolff’s sensational mythologies in Fire and Fury will be largely forgotten within three weeks — with one caveat (see below).

 

Wolff confirmed what most already knew about the Left’s abandonment of standards of journalistic integrity in order to “prove” that Trump is unfit (an “oppositional” Jim Rutenberg or Jorge Ramos had already warned us that “the norms of journalistic objectivity” in the case of Trump no longer necessarily entailed disinterested reporting [as opposed to the straight reporting, say, of Susan Rice’s post facto explanations for Benghazi or for the echo-chamber Iran Deal]), while Wolff’s most sensational charges that Trump can be gluttonous, naïve, and narcissistic were long ago either rumored or detectable within Trump’s own tweets.

 

Instead, the only point of interest in Fire and Fury is how someone like a Wolff in sheep’s clothing ever talked his way into the West Wing — sort of in the manner that an otherwise savvy General Stanley McChrystal once allowed the flamboyant, left-wing late Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone into his inner circle to sensationalize off-the-record venting about the Obama White House.

 

Three explanations are plausible (and not mutually exclusive): Some in the Trump West Wing (perhaps worried about post-Trump careers) wanted to establish their maverick fides and undermine their own president; or some wished to sandbag their own rivals in the administration; or some were simply so naïve, so egocentric, or so outright stupid to think that they could charm someone with Wolff’s record and flip him into writing a book that would make them look fairly good.

 

The first two Talleyrand-like “crimes” of disloyalty are what we expect from West Wing intrigue, but the third is unforgivable as a blunder.

Will Nuclear North Korea Survive 2018?

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by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review

 

Given several rapidly developing geopolitical factors, North Korea may look much different by the end of the new year.

 

For good or evil, we may see radical changes in North Korea in 2018.

 

The beefed-up United Nations sanctions by midyear could lead to widespread North Korean hunger, as well as the virtual end of the country’s industry and transportation.

 

In the past, the West had called off such existential sanctions and rushed in cash and humanitarian aid on news of growing starvation. Would it now if the bleak alternative was a lunatic’s nuclear missile possibly striking San Diego or Seattle?

 

To survive an unending trade embargo — and perhaps to avoid a coup — Kim Jong Un would likely either have to recalibrate his nuclear program or consider using it.
Continue reading “Will Nuclear North Korea Survive 2018?” →

Is Trump Really Crazy?

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By | January 8, 2018
American Greatness

Michael Wolff’s sensational exposé of the supposed chaos of the Trump White House is no doubt largely a mix of fantasy, exaggeration, and some accidental truth. The postmodernist author even admits that his own methodologies defy verification, and so leave it up to the reader to distinguish his facts from fiction.

Wolff’s theme is that Trump is hopelessly petty, childlike, and uninformed. The few adults in the room around him—primarily, we are asked to believe, Wolff’s chief source, Steve Bannon—must cajole, pamper, and flatter him to get anything done, when they are not backstabbing one another.

Fair enough—Trump certainly may be naïve and uninitiated. No one doubts that he is thin-skinned and far too often goes down Twitter cul de sacs. But Trump’s naiveté is not quite what Wolff thinks.

Rather, no sane president should ever have let a writer with Wolff’s dubious and often discredited background into the White House. That such a rogue was even allowed through the door raises the question of administration sobriety. Continue reading “Is Trump Really Crazy?” →

Criticisms of Comey and Mueller Aren’t ‘Character Assassination’

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The Corner

The one and only.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review

 

In his efforts to refute Charles Cooke’s recent exposé of Jennifer Rubin, I was surprised to see David Frum, in passing, attack my Hoover colleague, legal scholar Peter Berkowitz (a “Sean Hannity–style character assassination of James Comey and Special Counsel Robert Mueller”), for suggesting, in a prescient October WSJ opinion column, that the Mueller investigation into Russian collusion may well be ethically compromised (in its zeal to go after those not accused of collusion)—in even greater fashion than was the Comey investigation of Hillary Clinton (in its absence of zeal to indict for clear violations of U.S. intelligence law).
Continue reading “Criticisms of Comey and Mueller Aren’t ‘Character Assassination’” →

The Great Experiment

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by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review

 

We’ve gone from hard left, under Obama, to hard right, under Trump. Judge the ideologies by their results.

 

Most new administrations do not really completely overturn their predecessors’ policies to enact often-promised ideologically driven change.

 

The 18-year span of Harry Truman to Dwight Eisenhower to John F. Kennedy was mostly a continuum from center-left to center-right, back to center-left. Kennedy was probably as hawkish and as much of a tax cutter as was Eisenhower.

 

The seven years of Jerry Ford to Jimmy Carter were a similar transition — or even the twelve years of George H. W. Bush to Bill Clinton. The deck chairs changed, but the ship sailed in mostly the same manner to mostly the same direction.

 

Even the supposed great divide of 1981 did not mean that Jimmy Carter had been as left-wing as Ronald Reagan was right-wing. Carter’s fight against inflation and renewed defense build-up was continued in part by Reagan. George W. Bush was not as markedly right-wing as Barack Obama was clearly left-wing. In sum, there have rarely been back-to-back complete reversals in presidential agendas. Continue reading “The Great Experiment” →

A New Year’s Toast To The Old Breed

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by Victor Davis Hanson
Defining Ideas

The late World War II combat veteran and memoirist E. B. Sledge enshrined his generation of fellow Marines as “The Old Breed” in his gripping account of the hellish battle of Okinawa. Now, most of those who fought in World War II are either dead or in their nineties.

Much has been written about the disappearance of these members of the Greatest Generation—there are now over 1,000 veterans passing away per day. Of the 16 million who at one time served in the American military during World War II, only about a half-million are still alive.

Military historians, of course, lament the loss of their first-hand recollections of battle. The collective memories of these veterans were never systematically recorded and catalogued. Yet even in haphazard fashion, their stories of dropping into Sainte-Mère-Église or surviving a sinking Liberty ship in the frigid North Atlantic have offered correctives about the war otherwise impossible to attain from the data of national archives.

More worrisome, however, is that the collective ethos of the World War II generation is fading. It may not have been fully absorbed by the Baby Boomer generation and has not been fully passed on to today’s young adults, the so-called Millennials. While U.S. soldiers proved heroic and lethal in Afghanistan and Iraq, their sacrifices were never commensurately appreciated by the larger culture. Continue reading “A New Year’s Toast To The Old Breed” →

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