{"id":11541,"date":"2018-11-28T14:42:09","date_gmt":"2018-11-28T22:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=11541"},"modified":"2018-11-28T14:42:09","modified_gmt":"2018-11-28T22:42:09","slug":"the-trump-paradox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-trump-paradox\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trump Paradox"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review<\/p>\n<p>Today,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/the-morning-jolt\/obama-used-tear-gas-at-the-border-too\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jim Geraghty writes snidely<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>VDH writes, \u201cThe hostile reaction to Trump is a sort of proof of his success.\u201d Does it follow, then, that if Trump was widely loved, it would be proof of his failure?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Geraghty creates a false either\/or binary. The hostile reaction against Trump\u00a0<em>does\u00a0<\/em>largely arise from his controversial agendas that are proving for the most part on the economy and foreign policy to be successful. And yet it is simultaneously true that if he were to moderate his positions and stick with the status quo, he might be more popular \u2014 and yet I think less effective.<\/p>\n<p>Geraghty also did not read carefully what I wrote. The opposite of \u201cthe hostile reaction\u201d as \u201csort of proof of his success\u201d is\u00a0<em>not<\/em>\u00a0\u201cwidely loved\u201d and \u201cproof\u201d (absolute as opposed to sort of proof) of his failure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But aside from either Trump\u2019s diehard supporters or critics, the larger point of the column was a disconnect \u2014 that the upswing in the economy and restoring deterrence abroad, counterintuitively, seem to free voters to focus on a variety of issues less resonant in recessionary or wartime conditions. And that paradox does not necessarily benefit Trump.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/the-trump-paradox\/\">Read the full article here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Today,\u00a0Jim Geraghty writes snidely: VDH writes, \u201cThe hostile reaction to Trump is a sort of proof of his success.\u201d Does it follow, then, that if Trump was widely loved, it would be proof of his failure?\u201d Geraghty creates a false either\/or binary. The hostile reaction against Trump\u00a0does\u00a0largely arise from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1161,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-309","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11194,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/how-democracies-end-a-bureaucratic-whimper\/","url_meta":{"origin":11541,"position":0},"title":"How Democracies End: A Bureaucratic Whimper","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 21, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness One strange trait of the die hard NeverTrump Republicans and progressives is their charge that Donald Trump poses an existential threat to democracy. Trump, as is his wont, says a lot of outrageous and weird things. But it is hard in his 16 months\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Democrats&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Democrats","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/democrats\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10527,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/10527-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":11541,"position":1},"title":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National\u2026","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 29, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review \u00a0 Partisan conflict is not new, nor is GOP internal dissent. What\u2019s new is in-fighting among the elites. \u00a0 The Left-Wing Trump Haters About a third of the Democratic party (15\u201320 percent perhaps of the electorate?) loathes Trump, from reasons of the trivial to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Conservatives&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Conservatives","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/conservatives\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11622,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/angry-reader-01-23-19\/","url_meta":{"origin":11541,"position":2},"title":"Angry Reader 01-23-19","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 23, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"From An Angry Reader: Re: IMPEACH TRUMP Dear Sir: I just read your article in the opinion section of the Albuq. Journal today. I guess I want to ask you if you approve of the President of our Country, the role model for our children, going out there every day\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11620,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-mueller-squirrel-case\/","url_meta":{"origin":11541,"position":3},"title":"The Mueller Squirrel Case","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 23, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Special Counsel Robert Mueller recently indicted yet another peripheral character in his Trump probe, Russian attorney Natalia V. Veselnitskaya, for alleged money laundering in a matter quite separate from Trump. Like almost all of Mueller\u2019s indictments of the past 20 months, the charges against\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Donald Trump&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Donald Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/donald-trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9733,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-trump-rumors\/","url_meta":{"origin":11541,"position":4},"title":"The Trump Rumors","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 12, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\"The Corner\" by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review The breaking intelligence disclosures about Trump are so bizarre and self-contradictory that it seems wise not to speculate about anything until the entire story is properly sourced, especially since the documents were for-hire hit-pieces and have been peddled around for some time,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Trump&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9366,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-long-trump-summer\/","url_meta":{"origin":11541,"position":5},"title":"A Long Trump Summer","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"When have voters faced a choice between two such unpalatable, unprincipled candidates? By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online Before summer is over, we may see things now scarcely imagined that will make Brexit seem anticlimactic. Trump\u2019s Attack Mode I think the following is an accurate statement: No major\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;UK&quot;","block_context":{"text":"UK","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/uk\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11541"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11541"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11543,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11541\/revisions\/11543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}