Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
Americans are now entering uncharted, revolutionary territory. They may witness things over the next five months that once would have seemed unimaginable.
Until the Ukrainian conflict, we had never witnessed a major land war inside Europe directly involving a nuclear power.
In desperation, Russia’s impaired and unhinged leader Vladimir Putin now talks trash about the likelihood of nuclear war.
A 79-year-old Joe Biden bellows back that his war-losing nuclear adversary is a murderer, a war criminal, and a butcher who should be removed from power.
After a year of politicizing the U.S. military and its self-induced catastrophe in Afghanistan, America has lost deterrence abroad. China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia are conniving how best to exploit this rare window of global military opportunity.
The traditional bedrocks of the American system—a stable economy, energy independence, vast surpluses of food, hallowed universities, a professional judiciary, law enforcement, and a credible criminal justice system—are dissolving.
Gas and diesel prices are hitting historic levels. Inflation is at a 40-year high. New cars and homes are unaffordable. The necessary remedy of high interest and tight money will be almost as bad as the disease of hyperinflation.
There is no southern border.
Expect over 1 million foreign nationals to swarm this summer into the United States without audit, COVID testing, or vaccination. None will have any worry of consequences for breaking U.S. immigration law.
Police are underfunded and increasingly defunded. District attorneys deliberately release violent criminals without charges. (Literally 10,000 people witnessed a deranged man with a knife attack comedian Dave Chappelle on stage at the Hollywood Bowl last week, and the Los Angeles County D.A. refused to press felony charges.) Murder and assault are spiraling. Carjacking and smash-and-grab thefts are now normal big-city events.
Crime is now mostly a political matter. Ideology, race, and politics determine whether the law is even applied.
Supermarket shelves are thinning, and meats are now beyond the budgets of millions of Americans. An American president—in a first—casually warns of food shortages. Baby formula has disappeared from many shelves.
Politics resembles the violent last days of the Roman Republic. An illegal leak of a possible impending Supreme Court reversal of Roe v. Wade that would allow state voters to set their own abortion laws has created a national hysteria.
Never has a White House tacitly approved mobs of protesters showing up at Supreme Court justices’ homes to rant and bully them into altering their votes.
There is no free speech anymore on campuses.
Merit is disappearing. Admissions, hiring, promotion, retention, grading, and advancement are predicated increasingly on mouthing the right orthodoxies or belonging to the proper racial, gender, or ethnic category.
When the new campus commissariat finally finishes absorbing the last redoubts in science, math, engineering, medical, and professional schools, America will slide into permanent mediocrity and irreversible declining standards of living.
What happened?
Remember all these catastrophes are self-induced. They are choices, not fate. The United States has the largest combined gas, coal, and oil deposits in the world. It possesses the know-how to build the safest pipelines and to ensure the cleanest energy development on the planet.
Inflation was a deliberate Biden choice. He kept printing trillions of dollars for short-term political advantage, incentivizing labor nonparticipation, and keeping interest rates at historical lows—at a time of pent-up global demand.
The administration wanted no border. Only that way can politicized, impoverished immigrants repay left-wing undermining of the entire legal immigration system with their fealty at the ballot box.
Once esoteric, crack-pot academic theories—“modern monetary theory,” critical legal theory, critical race theory—now dominate policymaking in the Biden Administration.
The common denominator in all of this is ideology overruling empiricism, common sense, and pragmatism. Ruling elites would rather be politically correct failures and unpopular than politically incorrect, successful, and popular.
Is not that the tired story of left-wing revolutionaries from 18th-century France to early 20th-century Russia to the contemporary disasters in Cuba and Venezuela?
The American people reject the calamitous policies of 2021-2022. Yet the radical cadres surrounding a cognitively inert Joe Biden still push them through by executive orders, bureaucratic directives, and deliberate cabinet nonperformance.
Why? The Left has no confidence either in constitutional government or common sense.
So as the public pushes back, expect at the ground level more doxxing, cancel culture, deplatforming, ministries of disinformation, swarming the private homes of officials they target for bullying, and likely violent demonstrations in our streets this summer.
Meanwhile, left-wing elites will do their best to ignore Supreme Court decisions, illegally cancel student debts, and likely by the fall issue more COVID lockdowns. They will still dream of packing the Court, ending the filibuster, scrapping the Electoral College, adding more states, and flooding the November balloting with hundreds of millions more dollars of dark money from Silicon Valley.
When revolutionaries undermine the system, earn the antipathy of the people, and face looming disaster at the polls, it is then they prove most dangerous—as we shall see over the next few months.
“The most important issue…is the war in Ukraine. ” – Mitch McConnell
Are these the ones purporting to be our saviors?
McConnell must go, yesterday!
Sean Hannity on his Fox news show, exposed this bunch selling aborted baby body parts.
This same crew fought with all of their might to quash, stop, and block all of the smoking gun videos and documentation, calling it right wing trash and conspiracy theory.
Now, they are demonstrating with bullhorns in justice’s neighborhoods, demanding that the taxpayer foot the bill because they refused to use contraception, and they hate white people and themselves, and the 63+ million mostly black, then Hispanic, then, white, USA abortions, since 1978, reveal exactly who, what, & why we are dealing with everything that you just presented.
They purport to hate racism and slavery, then when do they blame the white people, where 700 K died, freeing them from the Democrats who bought them from their own African cheifton, and address slavery now in Sudan, somolia, and, Libia?
Their hatred of whites, freedom, and capitalism, has furnished the Communists with an army of angry, anti white, anti American, anti capitalism, army.
They are joined by Hollywood and celebrity psychopaths, the pop culture, the media, the tech group, and the rest, who have hijacked, commendered, and besieged, the Republic, with the intent to eviserat everyone because they are kooky in the head.
They are modern day Manson family members.
Well said!
Very astute, pragmatic & articulate responses to VDH’s great & spot on comment piece. We MUST stand together & resist this quickly advancing tyranny as the leftists consider NOW their one opportunity to impose the one world government. It will be the total control they’ve lusted for & worked toward since their “creeping communism” idea appeared with the Fabian Society in 1884.
Very well stated!
Susan
First we must regain the House and Senate. Only then can we deal with McConnell.
You really think a R majority in the Senate is going to deal with McConnell?
The war in Ukraine is forcing Europe to totally rethink their energy policy. They’ve fast tracked renewables over the past decade, to their detriment. Putin has tremendous leverage on them. No matter how the Ukraine war ends, the global oil and natural gas markets have been fundamentally changed for forever. Europe must now find new sources for their nat gas and oil. This will have a great impact here in the US, both positive and negative. It will open up new markets for US domestic production but drive up the price of natural gas and oil for US consumers. It will force changes in the Middle East. It will create a new alliance between Russia and China, as Russia will have to find new markets for their natural gas and oil. It will put demand on our natural gas supplies and will alter where we source our imported oil. Because we can’t separate ourselves from the global energy market. It will force a reckoning on the supposed ” energy transition ” that is being forced on us. IMO, the war in Ukraine is the most serious issue we face because its about national security and our economy.
Dr Hanson – I love your insightful and thoughtful writing. Would not an encouraging word at the end help those of us who are also discouraged but would fight for our country if we worked together? Otherwise it is depressing to read the analysis. Keep up the good work.
Stoicism and taking action is most empowering. Sitting optimism can’t be found here.
Wow. Fantastically written. Depressing and true. I hope the pendulum has swung as far left as it will and we have time to right the ship. Unfortunately, with the media leaning so far left, any steps Republicans take to address things like illegal immigration and crime will be covered in the most unfavorable light to undermine those efforts. And every effort will be attacked, demonized, investigated, sued, etc.
I am at a loss for words. America is falling prey to left-wing ideals that will destroy this country. I feel helpless.
Some people laugh at voting. They think one vote won’t matter at all. But that one vote from many may make a difference. Write a check for $10, $50 or more and give it to someone you like. That’s what we can do. One brick at a time builds a house. It’s the best some of us can do and if we do our best we just might win.
Maybe weeks. Checked the markets recently?
Yes: choices, not fate (at least not yet).
Very good. It is drawing down to decent Americans say no more. It’s possible that the ballot box won’t do it. The sheep must say no. Will it be state against state abd against the federal government. When your government is rotten and so corrupt. The FBI thugs beating down doors and dragging citizens off to prison without charge.. we are in a serious situation.
All true. When is Biden admin sent to its final resting place? After there’s little to rebuild? When do the sheep act to salvage the country?
I don’t know if you can imagine how much we enjoy your words of wisdom! I try watching Tucker Carlson and Fox News and end up screaming at the TV! You bring a voice of reason in your delivery of the truth that is more palatable! Please do more podcast.
A nice summation of the conditions post Trump and the increasingly desperate, if incoherent reaction thereto. As usual, VDH is compellingly accurate on HALF the story.
It’s easier to understand if you imagine 1984 meets Planet Of The Apes.
Is their any hope that the revelations from “2000 Mules” will spark investigations of the election? I would love to hear your comments about the direction of this matter.
I second that emotion.
Zero chance.. people of good intent like Dinesh are not taken seriously. Sadly we are in an echo chamber.
This was the FBI that attacked Commander in Chief for entire term with fake Russia narrative. We had two phony “impeachments” and then the lies of “insurrection” all in attempt to bar President Trump from ever holding office again. Now the Musk purchase of Twitter is stalled indefinitely under SEC investigation. Why? They’re scared of us.
Remember 2000 mules, then estimated to 54,000 mules, is a very small portion of 300 million people. For better or worse, most people did what they were supposed to in 2020 elections and followed CDC diktats, health orders, state mandates, etc. because they want a civil society. The enemy cheated because they know they have lost the country. They can’t win a fair election. According to the film, the people targeted to be mules were the most vulnerable, the poor, dependent on government aid or extra income, elderly, disabled nursing home patients, homeless. This isn’t the “mesoi” or middle class people working as mules. The cartels were the enforcers and the NGO non profits were the organizers preying on the weak. Fundamentally transforming America as Obama said means changing the relationship between citizen, “subject,” and state, by destroying the middle class and the citizen’s vote. Then globalists will carve up the country and its resources, human or material. Originally only House of Rep. should be directly elected by voters.
Yes but that was only in a handful of counties imagine if you did the math across the nation!
The USA politically is noncompos mentis just like its president. Unfortunately it might take a nuclear strike to wake it up. I believe that Trump is the only one who could change this situation – he did it once and could do it again. I voted for Barry Goldwater and the democrats lied about him and have been the party of liars ever since. If Trump had a failing, it was underestimating the evil of the democrats. I believe that the 2020 election had to have been rigged. I am an 82-year-old lawyer still in practice.
“If Trump had a failing, it was underestimating the evil of the democrats.”
Very true!
Seems we have seen this civilization melt down movie before. Without knowing history we are lost in the foggy path of the future…listening to hollow elites prattle on about “the right side of history.” As if history itself chose sides.
Left out in Dr. Hanson’s analysis is the specter of despotic successors to the left wing over-reachers as happened in 18th Century France and early 1930’s Germany.
Allow me to author, from far away SC, the most cynical comment here:
“…ain’t nuttin happinin
One is left to wonder when, if ever the “tree of liberty will be watered with the blood of patriots”? I shudder to consider this but it actually seems unavoidable. The over turning of Roe v. Wade slays the left’s sacred cow, there can be no compromise or reproachment when the dividing line is literally life vs. death. What acts of terror are the leftists planning and what can be done to avert or defeat them? To say nothing about the outrageous defiling of our elections through mass fraud paid for and organized by the likes of Zuckerberg and Soros.
The discouraging thing in my opinion is that there are zero protests involving rank and file Americans. Why aren’t there 500,000, 1 million middle class Americans whose lives that are being systematically destroyed by democrats and marxists at least peacefully protesting? In my opinion, cowardice. These democrat/marxist insurgents know for a fact that conservatives will never, stand up for themselves.
See ‘ya America, it was a good run
You got that right! Cowards and the lack of courage abound!
Our people have too much to lose. That is our Achilles heel. Antifa & BLM can easily fill their ranks with welfare recipients and jobless social justice majors living in mom’s basement.. Middle-class taxpayers who have largely made actual decent life decisions have far too much to lose at any given juncture.. “Yeah, they moved the line in the sand again.. They took a little more ground.. But I’ve still got plenty of ground behind me that I don’t want to risk.. Let me just step back on the other side of the new line… Let me give up a few more rights & freedoms so I can live my life out in peace at least until my kids are out of college.. Or my retirement portfolio matures… ” That is the pervading attitude. Calling it cowardice is not necessarily incorrect..
Busy WORKING?
They’ll ALL show up when the crap hits the fan along with the majority (minority) of the others that have been asleep.
Have faith in Americans and God
We will prevail or DIE trying.
God Bless America 🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲
22 Years of my life spent defending my country. Our country. Your country. Gone in a flash.
Would I do it again. Oh, hell yes. I would also become politically involved before I became an old man.
“If you don’t pay attention to your government, you will be ruled by fools.”
I really wish I had heard that sooner.
Asterisk to southern invasion is Democratic ballots.
My fear is that if the Xiden regime stays on message that our current situation is the fault of the “ultra MAGA” and Putin and that propaganda will resonate with the ignorant and those in denial amongst us. Now add breathtaking levels of vote fraud and…
Don’t think we’re going to see a “red tsunami” come November.
Thank you for this concentrated insight of our country. I actually have serious contempt for Biden , his cabinet, his wife entire Biden Admin. the DOJ the FBT and CDC HHS CIA and Janet Yellen . My modest 401k has lost a great deal. I have worked saved and spent modestly with the intend of providing for myself until I depart in death. I have paid my taxes, enjoy my family. help sons daughters and community, and loved my country. I feel like i live in a fog . The unknown is looming and it doesn’t feel friendly . I feel like I am the enemy and need to be snuffed out. My government has not as of late – maybe 20 yrs= worked toward making Americans financially independent , helping them get off government teat. They have lost respect for our way of life and our constitution. They have made it hard to have family and care over them. Their idea is have kids or not but mom needs to go to work paying child care leaving children to the whims of strangers and schools and making sure these kids grow up ignorant and without a dad in the home. . Buying a modest home and keeping your car running and paying for health care and car insurance and food and occasionally vacations has been burdensome for many .but why? these people have been given a great honor. Govern your people, make them good people. Provide opportunity. encourage innovation , encourage work ethic and skill acquisition especially for men… encourage marriage , What happened?
I hold nothing but the highest respect for you, your work and aspirations, as they play an integral role in updating thus synchronizing my own worldviews. But I caught a slight error to your thinking, and as a caring student/fan I believe you should also examine it. You said
“When revolutionaries undermine the system, earn the antipathy of the people, and face looming disaster at the polls, it is then they prove most dangerous—as we shall see over the next few months.”
Those words don’t reveal the entire picture. It’s a little more like: Transnational, carpetbagging ruling elite hire highbinders to deliberate undermine our system, keeping us mired in hate with distractions, while they use our military and financial strength to rule the world. You are free to disagree with that but if I am even close to being correct then the American people should finally know about this. This is the only way we can rebuild this nation—It starts with coming clean and working with the truth. Otherwise we will continue to be at each other’s throats while they continue to laugh all the way to the bank
Every big problem is easier broken down into small pieces. Get involved: donate to right thinking/acting candidates, counter protest, write your reps, buy from America first companies, take care of your family friends and community, plant a tree. If each of us do a little, big things-can be accomplished.
This Republic has fallen.
1. Installed POTUS, not elected
2. no southern border
3. Mass looting of US treasury
4. War without congressional approval to hide US crimes
5. Two-tiered justice system
6. Media is simply mouthpiece for regime, truth has disappeared
Obama has destroyed America to date – whether we can retake this country from the haters and restore the Republic remains to be seen but will not happen until the sheep feel enough pain to put down their damn phones and join the resistance.
Putin is not impaired or unhinged. Russia and its citizens feel threatened by NATO & the US sending billions of dollars worth of armaments to Ukraine.
It is the US & NATO that are responsible for the situation in Ukraine.
How would we feel if a foreign power send missiles to Cuba or any country south of the US? And especially if they were capable of delivering a nuclear payload?
Would we allow it? If we would not allow it, why should Russia allow that in their backyard?
Everything you have said about the US is true. But, keep in mind that Russia is a overwhelming (74%) Christian. And they are not lukewarm Christians. They follow the law of the Old and New Testament. They are more faithful, honest Christians. The West is corrupted, but Russia is still pure.
And Ukraine is the most corrupt nation in the world who harbor actual Nazis from Hitler’s Germany. They have a whole Nazi battalion in their army.
This is my solution to the corruption of our government:
https://communities.win/c/TheDonald/p/15HIcrTRfn/wtp-freedom-manifesto-vs20/c
Breathtaking clarity, ability to express thought and fact like a Michener, Catton, or Wolfe. Eases my mind to have put down in print the whirlwind of information I try and absorb daily.
Our Country is troubled, But we Americans ARE a tough and durable lot, Whom when pushed to extremis will regain our national composure and stability. My Maternal Grandfather at age 11 ran 5 miles in the dark to a Sawmill on a lake so he could eat breakfast for free before work started at Sunrise on the water unraveling log jams. After sunset eat again for no cost, 5 miles back to the cabin. There was no food at home, 6 younger siblings. He was semi-literate and thought he was the luckiest person on the planet. This was during the other “20’s”. That kind of fortitude, AND gratitude is in all of our ancestors. I’m certain of that, and thus it’s there in all of us now. We Americans each have champions residing inside of us, WE ARE EXCEPTIONAL. As Victor has stated why else would citizens from every other county on the planet want to live in our magnificent Nation. Be happy, be grateful, revel in patriotism and Love of Country . Thank You Victor, so much.
“No weapons, no matter how powerful, can help the West until it overcomes its loss of willpower… To defend oneself, one must also be ready to die; there is little such readiness in a society raised in the cult of material well-being. Nothing is left, then, but concessions, attempts to gain time, and betrayal.” ~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn~
“The American people reject the calamitous policies of 2021-2022. ”
Mostly. But where is the outrage? Where are the millions of people marching in the streets ready to throw the bums out? And for the LOVE OF GOD, can somebody tell me what sort of brain dead, mind washed, Leftist zombies are making up the 38% that approve of Dementia Joe’s job performance? There are still way too many people in important and crucial roles in our society that are still in the dark, either deliberately or through stupidity. Either way, the effect is the same.
“George Washington’s Vision”
This afternoon, as I was sitting at this table engaged in preparing a dispatch, something seemed to disturb me. Looking up, I beheld standing opposite me a singularly beautiful female. So astonished was I, for I had given strict orders not to be disturbed, that it was some moments before I found language to inquire the cause of her presence. A second, a third and even a fourth time did I repeat my question, but received no answer from my mysterious visitor except a slight raising of her eyes.
By this time I felt strange sensations spreading through me. I would have risen but the riveted gaze of the being before me rendered volition impossible. I assayed once more to address her, but my tongue had become useless, as though it had become paralyzed.
A new influence, mysterious, potent, irresistible, took possession of me. All I could do was to gaze steadily, vacantly at my unknown visitor. Gradually the surrounding atmosphere seemed as if it had become filled with sensations, and luminous. Everything about me seemed to rarefy, the mysterious visitor herself becoming more airy and yet more distinct to my sight than before. I now began to feel as one dying, or rather to experience the sensations which I have sometimes imagined accompany dissolution. I did not think, I did not reason, I did not move; all were alike impossible. I was only conscious of gazing fixedly, vacantly at my companion.
Presently I heard a voice saying, “Son of the Republic, look a
Presently I heard a voice saying, “Son of the Republic, look and learn,” while at the same time my visitor extended her arm eastwardly, I now beheld a heavy white vapor at some distance rising fold upon fold. This gradually dissipated, and I looked upon a stranger scene. Before me lay spread out in one vast plain all the countries of the world — Europe, Asia, Africa and America. I saw rolling and tossing between Europe and America the billows of the Atlantic, and between Asia and America lay the Pacific.
“Son of the Republic,” said the same mysterious voice as before, “look and learn.” At that moment I beheld a dark, shadowy being, like an angel, standing or rather floating in mid-air, between Europe and America. Dipping water out of the ocean in the hollow of each hand, he sprinkled some upon America with his right hand, while with his left hand he cast some on Europe. Immediately a cloud raised from these countries, and joined in mid-ocean. For a while it remained stationary, and then moved slowly westward, until it enveloped America in its murky folds. Sharp flashes of lightning gleamed through it at intervals, and I heard the smothered groans and cries of the American people.
A second time the angel dipped water from the ocean, and sprinkled it out as before. The dark cloud was then drawn back to the ocean, in whose heaving billows in sank from view. A third time I heard the mysterious voice saying, “Son of the Republic, look and learn,” I cast my eyes upon America and b