{"id":12768,"date":"2021-01-05T06:00:38","date_gmt":"2021-01-05T14:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=12768"},"modified":"2021-01-04T13:28:03","modified_gmt":"2021-01-04T21:28:03","slug":"what-will-historians-make-of-our-annus-horribilis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/what-will-historians-make-of-our-annus-horribilis\/","title":{"rendered":"What Will Historians Make of Our Annus Horribilis?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Townhall<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The year 2020 is now commonly dubbed the annus horribilis &#8212; &#8220;the horrible year.&#8221; The last 10 months certainly have been awful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But then so was 1968, when both Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. The Tet Offensive escalated the Vietnam War and tore America apart. Race and anti-war riots rocked our major cities. Protesters fought with police at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. A new influenza virus, H3N2 (the &#8220;Hong Kong flu&#8221;), killed some 100,000 Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But an even worse 2020 saw the COVID-19 outbreak reach global pandemic proportions by March. Chinese officials mislead the world about the origins of the disease &#8212; without apologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Authorities here in the U.S. were sometimes contradictory in declaring quarantines either effective or superfluous. Masks were discouraged and then mandated. Researchers initially did not know how exactly the virus spread, only that it could be lethal to those over 65 or with comorbidities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/townhall.com\/columnists\/victordavishanson\/2020\/12\/31\/what-will-historians-make-of-our-annus-horribilis-n2582320\">Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Townhall The year 2020 is now commonly dubbed the annus horribilis &#8212; &#8220;the horrible year.&#8221; The last 10 months certainly have been awful. But then so was 1968, when both Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. The Tet Offensive escalated the Vietnam War and tore America apart. Race [&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-3jW","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8100,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-seductions-of-appeasement\/","url_meta":{"origin":12768,"position":0},"title":"The Seductions of Appeasement","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 5, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJ Media Before World War II appeasement was a good word, reflecting a supposedly wise policy of understanding an enemy\u2019s predicaments. Sober Western democracies would grant tolerable concessions to aggressive dictators in Germany, Italy, and Japan to satiate their appetites for more. With such magnanimity\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;The World&quot;","block_context":{"text":"The World","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9247,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-next-president-is-going-to-be-hated\/","url_meta":{"origin":12768,"position":1},"title":"The Next President Is Going to Be Hated","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 12, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Works and Days by PJ Media Everyone hates the sourpuss who says the party is over. The next president will have to tell the American people that a reckoning is on the horizon\u2014and that it is not going to be pretty. President Obama has created\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Campaign 2016&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Campaign 2016","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/campaign-2016\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1217,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-gift-of-obamas-foreign-policy\/","url_meta":{"origin":12768,"position":2},"title":"The Gift of Obama&#8217;s Foreign Policy","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 8, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The Obama reset foreign policy has, in an unintended way, brought clarity to America\u2019s traditional role in the world. After 2004, \u201cblame Bush\u201d proved an easy way for Europeans and American liberals to delude themselves into thinking the world\u2019s problems neither predated nor\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;October 2010&quot;","block_context":{"text":"October 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/october-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3814,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-new-america-in-a-new-world-order\/","url_meta":{"origin":12768,"position":3},"title":"A New America in a New World Order","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 24, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The year is quite young, and yet it has already seen a multitude of disturbing events and trends \u2014 unrest in Cairo and North Africa; nuclearization in Iran; a growing anti-American alliance among Turkey, Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria; the expansionary designs of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;The UN&quot;","block_context":{"text":"The UN","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/geopolitics\/the-un\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7805,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-madness-of-2008\/","url_meta":{"origin":12768,"position":4},"title":"The Madness of 2008","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 26, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"A nation became unhinged by trivialities like \u201chope and change.\u201d It has now awakened. \u00a0 by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online America is suddenly angry at the laxity, incompetence, and polarizing politics of the Obama administration, the bad optics of the president putting about in his bright golf\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Obama Administration&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Obama Administration","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"On the campaign trail, October 2008 (Joe Raedle\/Getty Images)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/pic_giant_082614_SM_Barack-Obama-2008-G.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3830,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-1979\/","url_meta":{"origin":12768,"position":5},"title":"Obama&#8217;s 1979","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 17, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Obama\u2019s deer-in-the-headlights, finger-to-the-wind, \u201cI can\u2019t believe this is happening to me\u201d initial reaction to the Mubarak implosion has eerie precedents. After the debacle in Vietnam, Watergate, the Nixon resignation, and the Ford WIN buttons, voters were willing to bet on the smiling but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Commentary&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Commentary","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/commentary-obama-administration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12768"}],"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=12768"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12772,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12768\/revisions\/12772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}