{"id":12260,"date":"2020-03-23T11:50:31","date_gmt":"2020-03-23T18:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=12260"},"modified":"2020-03-23T11:50:36","modified_gmt":"2020-03-23T18:50:36","slug":"trump-the-uniter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/trump-the-uniter\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump the Uniter?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Editor\u2019s Note:<em>&nbsp;The following is the second excerpt from the revised and updated edition of&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Case-Trump-Victor-Davis-Hanson\/dp\/1541673557\/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Case for Trump<\/a><em>, out Tuesday from Basic Books. You can read the first excerpt&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2020\/03\/book-excerpt-the-case-for-trump-democrats-overhyped-midterm-house-takeover-over-focused-on-impeachment\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So\u00a0what had happened to the Democrats\u2019 predicted blue wave that supposedly would rack up huge House majorities and win back the entire Congress? And why did not $1 billion in campaign spending and a 13\u20131 negative to positive ratio of NBC\/MSNBC and CNN media coverage of the presidency neuter Trump or his party after two years of governance? Why did Mueller\u2019s 22-month investigation \u2014 and its epigones from the invocation of the 25th Amendment and the Emoluments clauses to the various circuses of Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen, and Michael Avenatti \u2014 all fail to derail the Trump presidency?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The answers to those questions are thematic throughout this book. Aside from popular anguish over the way that Democratic senators had savaged Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and worries over another larger immigration caravan of asylum seekers inching toward the southern border, voters in November 2018 and would-be voters in 2020 were and still are uncomfortable with progressive politics and happy with the Trump economic boom. In statewide races of 2018, almost all hard progressive gubernatorial and senatorial candidates, from Florida to Texas, lost, if often narrowly so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First, Trump\u2019s economic and foreign-policy initiatives since 2017, if examined dispassionately, have been largely those of the centrist conservative agendas that have worked in the past, and have continued to do so in the present. Unlike other past flash-in-the-pan mavericks, such as former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger or Minnesota\u2019s recent governor, Jesse Ventura, Trump adopted traditional conservative issues and learned, if belatedly, to work with the Republican Congress to enact them. In counterintuitive fashion, the provocative and often off-putting Trump proved to be a far more effective uniter of his party than had any prior elected populist maverick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2020\/03\/book-excerpt-the-case-for-trump-united-gop-governed-centrist-conservative\/\">Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Editor\u2019s Note:&nbsp;The following is the second excerpt from the revised and updated edition of&nbsp;The Case for Trump, out Tuesday from Basic Books. You can read the first excerpt&nbsp;here. So\u00a0what had happened to the Democrats\u2019 predicted blue wave that supposedly would rack up huge House majorities and win back the [&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":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-3bK","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12949,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/post-trump-or-trump-redux-the-future-of-the-gop\/","url_meta":{"origin":12260,"position":0},"title":"Post-Trump or Trump Redux?: The Future of the GOP","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 11, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Post-Trump or Trump Redux?","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13511,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-lethal-wages-of-trump-derangement-madness-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":12260,"position":1},"title":"The Lethal Wages of Trump Derangement Madness","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 7, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness Think about it: For about five years,\u00a0anything\u00a0candidate, president-elect, and President Trump said or did, the media, the Left, and progressive popular culture opposed in Pavlovian fashion. Anything that Trump touched was ridiculed or discredited\u2014regardless of evidence, data, or cogency. The merits of a Trump\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 6 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 6 comments","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-lethal-wages-of-trump-derangement-madness-2\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11961,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-mythical-trump-hydra\/","url_meta":{"origin":12260,"position":2},"title":"The Mythical Trump Hydra","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 29, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness Many are the hissing heads of the\u00a0polycephalic\u00a0Donald Trump\u2014at least according to the progressive Left and the NeverTrump Right, who see the president of the United States as some sort of mythical nightmare. Here are a few of his supposedly monstrous manifestations. Trump, the Profiteer\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11196,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-trump-rationale\/","url_meta":{"origin":12260,"position":3},"title":"The Trump Rationale","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 22, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis\u00a0Hanson \/\/ National Review His voters knew what they were getting, and most support him still. Why exactly did nearly half the country vote for Donald Trump? Why also did the arguments of Never Trump Republicans and conservatives have marginal effect on voters? Despite vehement denunciations of the Trump\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":12655,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/trump-escaping-wile-e-coyotevirus\/","url_meta":{"origin":12260,"position":4},"title":"Trump, Escaping Wile E. Coyotevirus","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 7, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Once\u00a0it was announced that President Trump had COVID-19, the media almost immediately talked of all the people in the \u201cTrump orbit\u201d who fell ill from COVID-19 \u2014 including many on his staff, U.S. senators, and at least three White House reporters. The surreal subtext\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11738,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/can-trump-win-again-in-2020\/","url_meta":{"origin":12260,"position":5},"title":"Can Trump Win Again in 2020?","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 22, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness In 2016, Donald Trump overwhelmed 16 qualified Republican primary rivals and became the first major-party presidential nominee without prior political or military experience. Against even greater odds, Trump defeated in the general election a far better funded and politically connected Hillary Clinton. What are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;2020 Election&quot;","block_context":{"text":"2020 Election","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/2020-election\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12260"}],"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=12260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12266,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12260\/revisions\/12266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}