{"id":9599,"date":"2016-11-11T12:06:58","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T20:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=9599"},"modified":"2016-11-11T12:06:58","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T20:06:58","slug":"braver-new-world-for-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/braver-new-world-for-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Braver New World \u2014 for Now"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The Corner<\/div>\n<div>The one and only.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>By Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ <em>National Review<\/em><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Given the status of the post-election state legislatures and executive offices, the Republican-controlled House and Senate, a Republican president, and a Supreme Court that will not go leftward for a generation, it is hard to see how conservatives could be anything other than relieved by Tuesday\u2019s result. Even Trump\u2019s critics must concede, one, that he incurred the right enemies, whose post-election teeth-gnashing was not unwelcome to them; two, that Phoenix-like (or to his enemies vampire-like) he was insidiously resilient, overcoming enormous odds and electioneering disasters, some self-inflicted, that would have sent most other candidates with lesser energy or purpose into therapy; and, three, that his cabinet and Supreme Court picks will likely slow the leftist trajectory of the country.<\/div>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Donald Trump also did what neither Barack Obama, the Bushes, nor Mitt Romney could accomplish: He at last put the Clintons into permanent political retirement. He showed that identity politics and tribalism do not doom Republicans, that there really were \u201cmissing Romney voters,\u201d that being politically incorrect was still a lesser sin than the censorship and restricted speech of political correctness \u2014 a fact which will have a liberating ripple effect on free expression throughout the country.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>He eroded the idea of a blue wall, restored the electoral importance of fly-over America, and left the mainstream media discredited and, for a while, impotent. And odder still, he reminded us that billion-dollar campaigns that demand huge investments in ground games, polling, costly consultants, opposition research, cash bundlers, official endorsements, and celebrity entertainers \u2014 the stuff now of the Podesta WikiLeaks archive and elite liberalism \u2014 can still fail if opposed by an enthused candidate and a committed movement.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>If one collates Trump\u2019s positions on military spending, illegal immigration, taxes, regulations, the Second Amendment, the debt, abortion, fossil fuels, or Obamacare and compares them with his spats with Republicans over entitlements, trade, and foreign policy, the bridge is far greater than the abyss.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The \u201cdivider\u201d Trump for now also leads a far more united Republican party (if indeed 90 percent of Republicans \u201ccame home\u201d in the final days) than does the \u201cuniter\u201d Obama who leaves as his legacy a vastly reduced, out-of-power and soon to be strife-ridden Democratic party reduced to the municipal level that could duplicate only Obama policy failures but never his personal electoral successes. And whereas the Bushes, McCain, and Romney soberly and judiciously fended off left-wing hits, Trump, for better or worse, has created a sort of deterrence, in the sense that although he may be baited, he may also reply with megatonnage inordinate to the provocation. And that is a not necessarily a bad thing.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>The worry is not Republican fratricide, but the unenviable task of applying medicine that in the short term will be more painful that the disease Trump inherits of a wrecked Middle East, a no-growth economy, huge debts, scandal-ridden agencies, racial animosity, half-a-trillion-dollar budget deficits, and near record labor-force non-participation, along with a ruined health-care system and a lunatic university system under $1 trillion in student debt \u2014 in addition to likely crises incurred by a lame-duck and recessionist president in the next 90 days.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Corner The one and only. By Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review Given the status of the post-election state legislatures and executive offices, the Republican-controlled House and Senate, a Republican president, and a Supreme Court that will not go leftward for a generation, it is hard to see how conservatives could be anything other than [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"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":[1092,1090,31,46],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2uP","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":830,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/campaigning-on-grievances\/","url_meta":{"origin":9599,"position":0},"title":"Campaigning on Grievances","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 17, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services In 2008, a mostly unknown Barack Obama ran for president on an inclusive agenda of \u201chope and change.\u201d That upbeat message was supposed to translate into millions of green jobs, fiscal sobriety, universal healthcare, a resetting of Bush foreign policy, and racial unity.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Campaign 2012&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Campaign 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/campaign-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10229,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-nightmares-and-the-realities-of-never-trump\/","url_meta":{"origin":9599,"position":1},"title":"The Nightmares and the Realities of Never Trump","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 30, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson American Greatness Rarely in the last half-century have so many elite conservatives and intellectuals been so estranged both from a Republican administration and from those who voted for it\u2014neither have they become so animated in their antipathy and disgust for a sitting president. During the 2016\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;McMaster&quot;","block_context":{"text":"McMaster","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/mcmaster\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9605,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-trump-won\/","url_meta":{"origin":9599,"position":2},"title":"Why Trump Won","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 14, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ Defining Ideas \u00a0 Throughout the course of the 2016 election, the conventional groupthink was that the renegade Donald Trump had irrevocably torn apart the Republican Party. His base populism supposedly sandbagged more experienced and electable Republican candidates, who were bewildered that a \u201cconservative\u201d would dare to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;The Clintons&quot;","block_context":{"text":"The Clintons","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-clintons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4589,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-perfect-storm-of-hating-bush-part-ii\/","url_meta":{"origin":9599,"position":3},"title":"The Perfect Storm of Hating Bush: Part II","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 30, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"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 Al Gore won the popular vote in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;September 2004&quot;","block_context":{"text":"September 2004","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2004\/september-2004\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9353,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/politics-not-personalities-will-likely-determine-the-presidential-election\/","url_meta":{"origin":9599,"position":4},"title":"Politics, Not Personalities, Will Likely Determine the Presidential Election","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 16, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The candidates may be unconventional, but their political agendas fall along a conventional divide. By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online At first glance, 2016 sizes up as no other election year in American history. For more than 30 years, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have been high-profile\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":9574,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/never-trump-republicans-spoilers-or-saviors\/","url_meta":{"origin":9599,"position":5},"title":"Never Trump Republicans: Spoilers or Saviors?","author":"Megan Ring","date":"November 3, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review If enough of them decide that Hillary\u2019s corruption is too much to take, she could be finished, at last. Will there be an eleventh-hour Never\/Against\/No Trump Reconsideration? The question gains new relevance as a Hillary Clinton landslide, widely predicted until recently, now seems\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;The Clintons&quot;","block_context":{"text":"The Clintons","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-clintons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9599"}],"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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9599"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9600,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9599\/revisions\/9600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}