by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
This is the second of four parts written for\u00a0Private Papers.<\/em><\/p>\n Part Two<\/strong> There are a variety of ways to account for this unhinged hatred detailed in \u201cThe new candor about killing George Bush.\u201d Al Gore won the popular vote in the 2000 election. Many Democrats don\u2019t quite understand or perhaps even believe in constitutional republicanism\u2014the votes of the Electoral College on rare occasions outweighing the popular expression of majority will\u2014and thus see Bush as an usurper appointed by a Republican Supreme Court residing over an illicit administration. In their view illegitimate Presidents do not deserve measured criticism within legitimate and traditional parameters.<\/p>\n It is also an election year in a polarized nation. Should the Republicans win, not only will the executive and legislative branches remain under the aegis of conservatives, but also as many as three or four Supreme Court appointments will be made in the next two or three years, changing the ideological complexion of the judiciary for decades. Control of the three branches of government would be seen as confirmation that Democratic liberalism continues to lose public support. Who wouldn\u2019t be desperate and shrill when confronted with that unprecedented realignment?<\/p>\n In addition, Democrats other than Howard Dean were mostly silent after the three-week victory in Iraq. Yet the subsequent rocky occupation and reconstruction have re-ignited the old anti-war protest mantras of the 1960s, bringing back the likes of a Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Ralph Nader, and Robert Scheer to castigate Iraq as the new Vietnam, and George Bush as another Richard Nixon. Much of the venomous opposition to George Bush\u2019s Iraq war, then, is not that it is inherently immoral in the manner that ANSWER or Not in Our Name alleged in their initial opposition; but that, unlike a year ago, it appears not to be going as well as promised and therefore offers the potential to galvanize grassroots opposition. Kerry has flipped-flopped repeatedly on Iraq; close examination of his mercurial comments would show that he has supported his past votes in favor of removing Saddam when ongoing events in Iraq bode well (3-week victory or capture of Saddam), while protesting that he was also always opposed in spirit to the operation\u2014when American casualties mount or beheadings are broadcast worldwide.<\/p>\n Bush hatred is said also to involve the personality of the President himself. The Texas drawl\u2014Americans in their long history have\u00a0never<\/i>before elected a Republican with a southern accent as either President or Vice President\u2014NASCAR conservatism, embrace of bible-belt Christianity, occasional inarticulateness, and deliberate snubbing of the east coast liberal elite are force multipliers of the Bush administrative agenda, contributing to the current caricature of an anti-intellectual, hyper-religious, red-neck American leadership.<\/p>\n Yet despite the general politics of the day and specific personal calculus of George W. Bush, there are still larger undercurrents that help explain this fury of Leftist resentment. Hating Bush the man is yet another symptom, but still not properly the disease itself.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Perfect Storm\u201d explores what festers in our society tomorrow when we present \u201cPart Three: The wages of postmodernism\u2026\u201d.<\/p>\n \u00a92004 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson This is the second of four parts written for\u00a0Private Papers. Part Two Why the new hysterical hatred? There are a variety of ways to account for this unhinged hatred detailed in \u201cThe new candor about killing George Bush.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[798],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1c1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1704,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-all-the-wounded-fawns\/","url_meta":{"origin":4589,"position":0},"title":"Why All the Wounded Fawns?","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Why are charges of racism and political extremism suddenly in the air? Party politics is always the norm, but what is unusual this time around is the juxtaposition between the once-soaring Obama unity rhetoric of the past and the hardball Chicago politics of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "April 2010"","block_context":{"text":"April 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/april-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3544,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-many-enemies-of-george-bush\/","url_meta":{"origin":4589,"position":1},"title":"The Many Enemies of George Bush","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services George Bush is not a very popular fellow. Witness the enraged reaction last week from critics to his suggestion that leaving Iraq now could have the same dire consequences as our withdrawal from Vietnam did. \"It just boggles my mind, the distortions I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "September 2007"","block_context":{"text":"September 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/september-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1295,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-derangement-syndrome\/","url_meta":{"origin":4589,"position":2},"title":"Obama Derangement Syndrome?","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 29, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media I\u2019d say if you live in the United States of America and you vote for George Bush, you\u2019ve lost your mind. \u2014 John Edwards When does the legitimate \u201cI oppose Obama\u201d descend into the illegitimate \u201cI hate Obama\u201d? It is popular now to suggest\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Punditry"","block_context":{"text":"Punditry","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/punditry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4621,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/on-loathing-bush\/","url_meta":{"origin":4589,"position":3},"title":"On Loathing Bush","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 16, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"It's not about what he does. by Victor Davis Hanson For now Americans seem to be split 50-50 over the reelection of George W. Bush. Such a hotly contested election is hardly new. We saw races just as close in 1960, 1968, and 1976. Had Ross Perot not run in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "August 2004"","block_context":{"text":"August 2004","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2004\/august-2004\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11939,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/will-2020-be-a-repeat-of-2004-for-democrats\/","url_meta":{"origin":4589,"position":4},"title":"Will 2020 Be a Repeat of 2004 for Democrats?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Democrats by 2004 had become obsessed with defeating incumbent President George W. Bush. Four years earlier, in the 2000 election, Bush had won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote. Democrats were still furious that Bush supposedly had been \u201cselected\u201d by the Supreme\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2283,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/now-wait-just-one-minute\/","url_meta":{"origin":4589,"position":5},"title":"Now Wait Just One Minute…","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Maureen Dowd wrote another unfortunate, poorly argued, and thinly researched column yesterday. She alleges that racism is behind the growing suspicion of the Obama administration and its initiatives. But almost everything we've seen so far has a parallel with liberal attacks on George W.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "September 2009"","block_context":{"text":"September 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/september-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4589"}],"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=4589"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4590,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4589\/revisions\/4590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWhy the new hysterical hatred?<\/strong><\/p>\n