We are in a veritable war of competing visions. The strife inside the two parties is irrelevant—when compared to the larger existential war for the soul of America.
Like it or not, Donald Trump in fits and starts has chosen not to accommodate the progressive vision. But in most unlikely fashion he leads the fight against it.
Those who found him too crude, who saw his tweets as too adolescent, and who vowed never to vote for such an antithesis of conservative and family values have all weighed in.
So have those who are embarrassed that Trump—as did Obama during the Henry Louis Gates fiasco, the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case, and the Ferguson shooting and subsequent riots—quite inappropriately weighs in on current criminal investigations and trials.
And yet, warts and all, the Trump presidency on all fronts is all that now stands in the way of the completion of what was started in 2009.
The Age of Intolerance
We are no longer in the late 1950s era of liberal reform. It is now a postmodern world of intolerance and lockstep orthodoxy.
There are few Berkeley-like free speech areas on college campuses any more. Students charged with particular crimes enjoy little due process. There is no Joan Baez-style acknowledgement of the tragedy of good Southern poor men fighting for an awful cause. No one acknowledges tragedy anywhere at all; it has all become melodrama. We may yet see Joan Baez’s version of The Band’s ballad or Shelby Foote’s commentaries in Ken Burn’s epic Civil War documentary Trotskyized.
The media is not disinterested. Networks such as CNN see their role actively on the barricades, devoted to the higher cause of destroying the Trump presidency, not as reporting its successes or failures. The danger to free expression and a free media is not even Trumpian bombast. It is the far more deliberate and insidious transformation (begun in full under Obama) of journalism into a progressive ministry of truth. Even if he wished, Trump could not take away what the professional press already surrendered voluntarily.
The Cultural Abyss
After the nocturnal effort to tear down historic statuary, the NFL player psychodramas, the therapeutic reactions to radical Islamic terror attacks inside the United States, and the often unhinged profanity and assassination chic of the anti-Trump “Resistance,” Trump almost alone seems to sound off in opposition.
align=”right” And while reform and protest may be innate to the American character, traditions and values of the past simply cannot be airbrushed away because a particular generation suddenly believes that the dead of a far more hazardous and impoverished age must meet their own transitory mores of the present.
On one side are traditionalists who believe the United States is the most exceptional nation of a uniquely self-critical West. They believe that we need not be perfect, past or present, to be good and certainly are and were always far better than the alternative. And while reform and protest may be innate to the American character, traditions and values of the past simply cannot be airbrushed away because a particular generation suddenly believes that the dead of a far more hazardous and impoverished age must meet their own transitory mores of the present. Oddly, few of the Republican establishment speak out for them.
The new progressive Left believes that America has always been defined by its collective sins, which outweigh those of other cultures. They identify the white heterosexual male as the font of most pathologies (cf. the Democratic National Committee’s unapologetic effort not to hire white males for some of its jobs). Like it or not, Trump is now a central figure in resisting a full-scale dismantling of the idea of the uniquely individual, free, and outspoken American.
The Economy
Economically, the new progressive party seems either to be uninterested in or of the opinion that it can’t do much about problems such as GDP growth, labor participation rates, industrial output, and increased consumer optimism and confidence—all relatively stagnant in the last few years. Upward mobility is seen as nearly impossible anyway, given the greater need for regulating all manner of commerce. We were warned that a return to a 3 percent economic growth was little more than a right-wing fantasy.
Instead, the new Democratic Party sees the economy as largely static. Indeed, stasis is apparently good for the environment, stops the rich from getting richer, ensures the growth of compensatory entitlements and offers a fixed target for government regulators, wealth redistribution, and identity politics set asides.
Like most neo-socialists, the new progressive party that supplanted the old Democratic Party promotes social justice in relative terms, and not defined by absolute incomes of the middle class.
The new progressivism would prefer an America in which everyone made about $50,000 a year, overseen by a far greater and more intrusive government (of properly insightful and caring souls, whose selflessness would earn exemption from the consequences of their ideologies) to the alternative of a country where a small minority made well over $1 million but the middle classes achieved average incomes of $75,000.
The strange meteoric career of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is illustrative of the anti-Trump agenda: free college tuition, single-payer socialized medicine, an EPA as ultimate arbiter of government regulation, much higher taxes, and greater leeway in reinterpreting the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments to isolate those who would push back against such an agenda.
There is no longer a Democratic workers party akin to something that Hubert Humphrey once championed. or Bill Clinton’s third way Democratic Leadership Council. And there is certainly no longer an old-line Republican establishment that can win Michigan or Pennsylvania or have a shot in Minnesota and Virginia.
align=”left” Instead, the new Democratic Party sees the economy as largely static. Indeed, stasis is apparently good for the environment, stops the rich from getting richer, ensures the growth of compensatory entitlements and offers a fixed target for government regulators, wealth redistribution, and identity politics set asides.
The Marquess of Queensberry world of John McCain and Mitt Romney has ossified into either one of losing nobly or sort of an “I got mine” assumption that personal money or success will provide familial sanctuary not available to those of Youngstown or West Virginia.
Like Trump or not, by the end of his first three quarters of his presidency, GDP growth had rebounded and was growing at a pace set to achieve 3 percent for the year. Real unemployment (U6) had fallen below 8 percent; business and consumer confidence were at record levels. Energy production was likewise. Manufacturers expressed confidence unlike that seen in the last two decades. Corporate profits were unparalleled. The radical turnabout was largely Reaganesque in spirit—predicated on a new can-do psychological climate, ending insidious deregulation, the specter of impending tax-cuts, and a determination that manufacturing could return to the United States if energy was cheaper than elsewhere and industry had proper incentives. One can see the sudden bustle anywhere one goes.
In sum, the gap between Trumpian conservative economics and progressives is as wide as at any time in American history. The new Democratic Party is the updated vision of Eugene Debs. Its dream is a uniform coastal California culture, a San Francisco of renters and Presidio Heights spreading from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
For now, the unlikely Trump is the only road bump left on such an expressway to a medieval world of masters and peasants with few in between.
National Security
Obama finished off the remnants of the old Scoop Jackson wing of the Democratic Party. The post-Obama years were supposed to be a gateway to the internationalist and globalist world in which transnational agreements such as those of the EU or the Paris climate accord naturally trumped a supposedly blinkered and unenlightened popular plebiscite and their representatives in the national legislature.
The United States, given its past flaws and the blood on its hands, would remain a nominal world leader, but only in the sense of being one among many in a much to be preferred multilateral world that checked historic American aggression. Regional autocratic hegemonies—Shiite Iran in the Middle East, China in the Pacific and most of Asia, a reset Russia in the Eastern Europe, and new “moderate” socialist countries in Latin America—would naturally oversee their own neighborhoods, albeit with occasional nods to U.N. mandates on energy, the environment, and “human rights.”
Again, by mid-2017 Trump offered about the only alternative vision of an all-powerful United States, in Jacksonian fashion protecting its own classically liberal interests and those of its allies abroad, often by punitive deterrence rather than hearts-and minds-nation building,
Illegal Immigration
The current progressive party does not really believe in sovereign and secure southern borders. Preferable are large annual influxes of Latin American and Mexican indigents who would turn the American Southwest blue, and thereby provide near permanent constituents for ethnic and progressive activists.
align=”right” Diverse and meritocratic immigration would put character, not appearance, first and thus would also not serve that agenda.
The alternative—a secure border, and legal, diverse, measured and meritocratic immigration—is an anathema for the new Democratic Party for two reasons: first, the entire Latino-American diaspora would then soon resemble the Italian-American experience, given rapid assimilation, integration, and intermarriage, making it politically unpredictable and therefore of no more use to the Democrats than are Cuban-Americans; second, identity politics hinges on claims of large numbers of non-white constituents who are not achieving parity, requiring self-selected ethnic and Democratic elites to craft equality of result entitlements that enhance their own power and influence. Diverse and meritocratic immigration would put character, not appearance, first and thus would also not serve that agenda.
The result is that at least with Trump the voter sees a chance for the melting pot to work. In contrast, Trump’s opposition prays the future will be a salad bowl—a celebratory multiculturalism in which our first allegiances are to our tribes, as the United States eventually becomes a veritable Yugoslavia and our individual states become updated versions of ethnic enclaves and ideological enclaves like Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia.
Quo Vadimus?
The 2016 election showed that most registered Democrats and Republicans voted in predictably and historically partisan fashion. The “civil war” in each party was largely rhetorical and irrelevant. The real conflict instead is over the 20-30 percent of both independents and eligible voters who either do not register or who do not turn out to vote. Whomever manages to galvanize them, wins the future of the country.
The first nine months of Trump’s first year showed a president often mercurial, widely disliked, and occasionally reckless, but also improving on the job, surrounded by excellent appointees, and about the only force that consistently and without apology fought the insidious dismantling of the American project.
For now, there is no alternative other than Trump to the new progressivism. The Republican establishment bemoans Trump’s crudity. But it can explain neither why its favorites lost the popular vote in four of the last five elections, nor why it was petulant in 2016 when earlier 90 percent of the party loyally had supported centrist establishment candidates who, in the last six presidential elections, did not manage to win 51 percent of the popular vote.
align=”left” Either Trump will restore economic growth, national security, the melting pot, legality, and individual liberty or he will fail and we will go the way of Europe.
Looking back, the improbable election of 2016 proved a Rubicon moment. Once Trump crossed over the Rubicon, carried by his base of “crazies,” “irredeemables,” and “deplorables,” the die had been cast, and those who were fearful where America had been headed had no choice but to follow him through the river.
Either Trump will restore economic growth, national security, the melting pot, legality, and individual liberty or he will fail and we will go the way of Europe.
For now, there is no one else in the opposition standing in the way of radical progressivism. At best, some not actively promoting progressivism are only begging it to slow down a bit; at worst, the “I told you so” others wish for now progressivism to prevail to demonstrate what happens when the hoi polloi do not listen to their supposed betters.
element_content=””]
“For now, there is no one else in the opposition standing in the way of radical progressivism…”
I wonder if the invertebrates at NRO and the Weekly Standard are smart enough to understand this. They smear as “populism” the idea of a politician being loyal to his constituency, while seeming perfectly happy with legions of GOPe donor-poodles holding voters in contempt, while swanning around their gilded halls of power.
Something else they don’t understand is that 2016 was a point of no return. After getting a taste of a fighter, who proudly wipes his derriere with the Left’s PC rulebook, and who seems genuine in his love for American and the American electorate, I don’t see many voters EVER going back to the, “talk pretty, lose with honor, screw the voters and enrich yourself” wing of the party.
What we call the GOPe is the rotary phone of American politics: something that, until something better came along, seemed a permanent feature of our lives.
Conservatives like Hansen are clueless. They never conserved anything. The future in nationalism for now, and ethnic nationalism soon. It’s so pathetic when they try to insult Trump by calling him feckless, when he has been beclowning the GOPe and the Dems at every turn.
I largely agree with your post–save for the first sentence. I think Hansen is one of the few who’s “gotten it” practically from the start. There is a much more vast gap between Hansen and the likes of Jonah Goldberg or Bill Kristol, than there is between him and true nationalists. Although he may not be an ethnic nationalist, he is at least erudite enough to understand that in the arc of history nationalism and ethnicity have overwhelmingly gone hand-in-hand.
Kinda contradicted yourself. If they go hand in hand, why not embrace them both?
Either we hang together or we hang separately.
OK, pal, I think you’re just looking for an argument. Go have it with someone else. Over and out.
Later, cuck.
dumphuq.
Hyuge difference between Hanson and the GOP elite
“cuck” – exactly why most people, including most conservatives, do not support Trump. Everything from the Trump supporters comes down to anti-semitic or crude language. Trump has done more to aid the democrats and hurt his own party with exactly that kind of behavior. We still have a wall, we still have Obamacare, and we still have an idiot like Obama in the White house. Amazing that a minority of voters were able to elect a life-long democrat and Clinton donor to the presidency.
And we still have the 3.8%Obama care tax
To lose to the Left with what you pathetically think is class still makes you a LOSER. Ethnic nationalism is the future; you cuckservatives have never conserved ANYTHING.
Ethnic nationalism can’t be accomplished in America. You have to have kids in order to save ethnic nationalism, something you fascists seem incapable of. You’ve bought into Rockefeller’s anti-white anti-breeding ideals. Name calling won’t get it.
Exactly, and it’s mindboggling why so many people today don’t see this. It’s either the myth of overpopulation or the easy way out of immigrant bashing.
There was an election in VA just the other day and it was won by the Democrats because the racial makeup of VA has changed due to immigration. First the Marxists got whites to stop breeding in Western Europe and America and now are bringing in people of color who will vote for them. Pretty simple really. They do it right out in the open. The wars in Europe were invaluable for their plans, and the “Civil” War here in America. The Founders did not want immigration, but wanted the colonists to continue populating the continent and be the American people. Communists don’t want that at all. Engels wrote a book on it dubbed “Origins,” an attack on Western culture and white people. This book is the basis of the feminist movement and no children for whites. Fascists are right wing socialists (Marxists) and buy into it and even promote no children. Ayn Rand, and Eastern European, was a fascist and lived a lifestyle hostile to children. She seems to be the model for many “liberated” right-wing women.
Increased immigration in the USA is a result of the unholy alliance between Dems looking for new voters and Reps looking for cheap labor, so it’s not only the left. But the demographic suicide going on in the West and the rest of the world (except some countries in Africa) is a bit more complicated than “Marxists did it.” It is a built-in trait of modernity that’s been going on for a couple of centuries but that has accelerated in the last decades. I have written about this at length in my blog, and you can also read the details in books by Eric Kaufmann (Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?), Phillip Longman (The Empty Cradle), and David Goldman (How Civilizations Die).
Libertarians are for open borders also. Fascists are Leftists. American conservatives are not. Marx had communists in America before 1848, and the French Revolution was a godless revolution. There were socialists and communists before Marx came along. Marxism is now an umbrella word for many isms from Fascism to Socialism to Communism, and that is the way I used it. Marxism is anti-Christian and Capitalism. Immigration we have today was started in the 1920s in order to have immigrants from Russia be accepted in America. The U.N. is behind the latest immigration from impoverished countries to Western nations. It is a Marxist movement. Just get on the U.N. websites. If you haven’t read “Origins” you need to.
Aww, poor baby, I hear crude things everyday riding public transportation and engage in it myself sometimes. Trump doesn’t bother me at all, he speaks what is on his mind and not some politician who has been programmed to speak like a robot.
Or, read a teleprompter for every word out of his mouth.
Who wasn’t a Clinton donor? The parasitic Bush clan voted for Hillary Clinton and the government grew monstrously under Bush 2. The conservatives you write about (“most conservatives, do not support Trump”) are those hinged on portfolio performance at the top end. You don’t write for the middle, but you want too. You want to convince them that you have their pre-packaged European styled nirvana ready to go, heat-n-serve. It’ll be the same tv dinner for eternity with you ilk, and it’s one of those low cal diet ones too boot. Every iteration of Socialism pales in comparison to what you’re serving, steaming hot pile of it.
The Bush clan did NOT vote for Hillary or Obama. They did not support Trump, but that is not the same thing. I oppose socialism as much as anybody in the Tea Party does, which is totally, and I did it while Trump, and many of his alt right supporters, were still dems, but that does not mean I must totally agree with every pronouncement from the alt right Trump cultists.
Democrats are completely shut out of power, on the national level. If that is “hurting his own party” — we’ll take it.
For every office other than prez, the repub party, assisted by the Tea Party, were the ones who got those wins, before anybody ever heard of the alt right. Whether it is true that Trump is harming the repub party will not be known until we see what kind of coattails Trump has in the 2018 midterms.
I dont think Trump himself is that bad, from what I have seen he is actually governing much like Reagan/Cruz would have done, and I am pretty happy and pleasantly surprised by that. I think its not that Trump actually beleives in much, other than what is needed to get elected, as you said not that many years back he was a NYC celebrity dem. He is smart enough to know if he doesn’t keep repub conservatives happy, he will not remain around for long. But if you are completely sick of some of the worst of his alt right nutty rude cultist online supporters, many of whom think and act a lot like leftie SJW Alinski dems, I definitely agree with you on that.
Because your kids got into your prescriptions and now they’re on foot in my neighborhood looking to score just like theirs. You’re not digitally pure enough to live up to your analog ideals. In a real fight, the dude with the most hair product is the meat shield my friend and you’re pretty.
Dr. Victor Davis HansOn, classicist, military historian, and farmer. It was Hanson’s essay during the 2016 campaign, in my memory: “He Fights!”, that, with “The Flight 93 Election”, resurrected my voice. I can not find “he Fights!”, but did just find Dr. Hanson’s repository of his private papers, with so many of his inspiring essays: http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/
This launched American Greatness: “The Flight 93 Election” By: Publius Decius Mus September 5, 2016 http://www.claremont.org/crb/basicpage/the-flight-93-election/ Publius Decius Mus was, post-election, Michael Anton, who replaced Ben ‘Echo Chamber’ Rhodes as Deputy Assistant to the President for Strategic Communications on Deb. 8, 2017.
Ten months in, the ongoing Big Lie media campaign against POTUS Trump is because, two such voices have not yet found the ditch, the reset button for the mass hysteria built from confirmation bias, worse in the willfully blind punditocracy which leads and feeds the brainwashed blind media. Where is that ditch?: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bcd0afa2aaefe6a7687214fe9ad92018635deba3a49e1922548ee97704290128.png Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Parable of the Blind, tempera on canvas / Museo e Gallerie Nazionali di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy
[There is peril in a typo, especially here, with Dr. James Edward HansEn, physicist who has changed the narrative history on climate change.]
It’s very interesting that Kristol, Goldberg, Poderetz, Max Boot, the most outspoken NeverTrump- are all Jewish. Why are they so completely hardwired against Trump, a guy with an Orthodox Jew as grandchild? Is that just an uncany coincidence? I know just the mention of the question will be savaged as “anti-Semitic” but the question should still be researched & answered. I’d love Dr. Hanson to do so.
Cause they are smart.simple
It’s not a Jewish thing as much as it’s a Zionist kind of thing.
70% of the Jews in the U.S. are pretty liberal..meaning they could take Israel or leave it. It’s just a place where they came from.
Kind of like my Roman Catholic anscestors. If something happened to the Vatican, it wouldn’t be the end of the world for me. My faith trumps that.
Zionism..however…is the right of self-determination of the Israeli’s to have a Jewish state. If that didn’t exist, it would take the Palestinians (supported by the other ME states flooding the territory with new ‘citizens’) to vote out the Israeli charter and the Jews would be sent packing via ‘democracy.’
This is what nobody understands about Zionism. When Iran and other ME nations give up their Islamic State…people here who support Zionism will give up our support for the same with Israel…and not a day before.
Not the evangelicals, especially not those who believe in Revelation’s Rapture theory, particularly Book 12 which supposedly foretells the rebirth of Israel as a precursor to the Second Coming.
“If I forget thee, oh, Jerusalem….”
No doubt…the Evangelicals scare the Liberal Jews…big time.
The Orthodox Jews don’t scare so easily.
I worked for a Silicon Valley startup several years ago and the top 8 execs had all served in IDF in Israel before coming to the. U.S.
Very very conservative crew and absolutely 100% committed to making sure the company had a Christmas party for the employees. No ‘Holiday” party for them.
That’s where I learned much of what I know about how Israel survives and even thrives in the ME. Hint..it ain’t by keeping the Palestinians in rags and ghettos.
They know that opportunity is >>>>>>>>>that way and they don’t yearn for what used to be…only what’s to come.
I had an Israeli boss once – smart and sassy as a gingersnap. No nonsense, no office politics, and completely non-PC. She was great, one of my favorite bosses.
I beg to differ. It’s too easy to explain it by current issues, but you have to go back to the origins of neoconservatism, when pioneers like Irving Kristol understood their own predicament well. They were all Jewish liberals who wanted to impose democracy by force all over the world and since the democrat party wouldn’t agree because of its pacifism, they crossed over to the other side. That’s why they love Bush and McCain. But in their heart they are still liberals and that’s why they voted for Hillary without blinking.
Edit: sorry, my comment was directed at BIGtimSullivan
Not a problem. I’ve done my share of misfires over the years. ????
Most, more than half, of American Jews have shamelessly exalted their liberalism over their Judaism. For the most part they don’t support Israel or even approve of Israel’s existence. Some even side with the Palestinians. They are solidly on the “Progressive” team. Trump is a devoted supporter of Israel, but most of this category of American Jews were more comfortable with Obama, who would see Israel destroyed if he could. These American Jews are, in my humble view, pathologically delusional. [I’m not sure Jonah Goldberg can be included along with Kristol and Podhoretz]
That still doesn’t really adequately answer for the reason for these Jewish “conservatives” to all be so stubbornly aligned against Trump. It baffles me. They think the fake-Texan patrician Bushes are the bees knees when in reality the Bush family has historically belonged to clubs that excluded Jews & supported schools that similarly discriminated against them.
The stubbornness of their anti-Trump campaign is really a sight to see. I can’t understand where it comes from. They would all, without a doubt, prefer to see Hillary as POTUS. Even after all the subsequent corruption that is being uncovered. It’s clinical level Trump Derangement.
Follow the money – always.
Don’t you think it comes from their liberalism? They vote Democrat. A majority of American Jews voted for Hillary. They voted for John Kerry. They Voted for Al Gore. Nearly everyone they have ever voted for is anti-Semitic and holds contempt in their hearts for Jews, but a majority of Jews vote for them anyway. That’s what being pathologically delusional about politics does to them.
Norman Podhoretz, John Podhoretz’s father, wrote a book about this phenomenon: Why Are Jews Liberals
Disqus screwed up that reply, the last two paragraphs should be (w/o the links):
Norman Podhoretz, John Podhoretz’s father, wrote a book about this phenomenon: “Why Are Jews Liberals?”
American Jews are skeptical of the right because they have been brainwashed to believe that Nazism was a right wing movement. If only they would read this: “Why Nazism Was Socialist and Why Socialism is Totalitarian” they might be able to get their heads straight.
My best friend in life is Jewish. He was always looking to argue with me about many things. It seems to be in their DNA to be contrary, particularly with each other or those they are closest to.
You’re right. Remember, it was Progressive Jewish leaders who said in Hitler’s Germany, “We can negotiate with the NAZI’s ,” and they marched the rest of their flock off to the gas chambers.
I suspect the answer has more to do with money than with race.
Nationalism, as in respecting the founding ideal of the US, out of many one, and our many great accomplisnments as a nation and culture, fine. But ethnic white nationalism sounds just like SJW identity politics, just with colors reversed, and something just as evil.
Living, as he does, in the heart of California agriculture, and farming raisins on his family homestead, Dr. Hanson is the quintessential American voice.
“Hansen?”
He’s Swedish-American, hence HansON, and he is the very antithesis of cluelessness. You misunderstood his column. By reciting the litany of silly and shallow leftbot criticisms of Trump, he is not approving of them.
Well, actually the “sen” instead of “son” would probably make him of Danish extraction, as if that matters. It was a brilliant column by an American who gets it…past, present and future.
It was indeed. Hanson is a national treasure. I am proud to have introduced his writings to a board of Canadians, over a decade ago.
Btw, “-sen” can also be Norwegian.
Hahaha! True…just reacting more to the whole Swede and Danes rivalry! VDH is indeed a national treasure.
Ahh, you mean the super-conformist, boring, overly formal, stiff blond robots vs. the comfort-loving supposedly racist blond folk who break into song at the drop of a hat. ;)
Well, my wife’s happy, singing family minus the racism anyway.
The altruism of the Danes during the world’s darkest hour should be an inspiration to everyone.
Whatever his heritage – he is a great American.
On another board at which I post most often, he is referred to simply as *The Great One.* :)
You got a lotta nerve calling a great mind like VDH clueless.
Anyone not an ethnic nationalist by now is clueless.
I don’t think of ‘nerve’ when someone calls a thinker like VDH clueless. I think of low IQ or at least total cluelessness.
If a Congressman or h o a r e calls you ‘immoral’ do you feel shamed?
FU, commie.
Wow, that was being nice. DCK HEAD would be more like it.
Thank goodness–it’s about time someone other than themselves is be-clowning the establishment GOP. Hansen clueless or the swamp rats (McConnell, McCain, Graham, etc.) ?
At least someone has the guts to call “Trumpism” by its true name – Ethnic Nationalism. Unfortunately this is simply a polite parlor term for what it really is – Unadulterated and vicious white supremacy and racism yearning for the return of Jim Crow.
How old are you? 20? 30? 40? Because no one old enough to remember the Jim Crow South would make such a ridiculous statement. I was there; I grew up in it; I know what I’m talking about.
Jim Crow was a legalistic device enacted by the Democrat Party in the South to prevent the enfranchisement of the black population after the Civil War. The Democrats, under Lyndon Johnson, were forced to reinvent Jim Crow after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 under the guise of affirmative-action/diversity, which is nothing more than another racist policy designed to marginalize black people and ensure that they never achieve economic or political independence.
I challenge you to find any white-supremacist or racist statements made by Trump before he was a political candidate. I can show you plenty made by Hillary — with a Southern accent, no less!
How so?
Actually, we don’t want blacks around at all. Liberia is their true home, paid for by white men.
Yeah, that’s not it in any way. Maybe you have a second nom de plume: George Strong?
Really, almost no one believes that except the crazy Left (numerous) and crazy Right (not so numerous).
Read Hansen’s book “Mexifornia” from 2007. It would contradict your critique of Hansen as clueless.
As regards “feckless,” Hansen never used that word. Perhaps in skimming the article you misread: “The first nine months of Trump’s first year showed a president often mercurial, widely disliked, and occasionally reckless, but also improving on the job, surrounded by excellent appointees, and about the only force that consistently and without apology fought the insidious dismantling of the American project.”
Perhaps your use of “they” meant the media whom Trump has been be-clowning, as well.
It appears to me Hansen understands the the dominant role nation destroying levels and types of immigration that are shaping our future. What else really matters.
Jonah Goldberg and Bill Kristol should get entry level jobs at McDonald’s whilst they still can.
Not sure if either of them could handle working with mere laborers.
Wouldn’t make it for one complete shift.
Would be telling every single customer what’s good for them.
“And yet, warts and all, the Trump presidency on all fronts is all that now stands in the way of the completion of what was started in 2009.”
I would at least include the Tea Party, and the 30% of the GOP that votes with them in that as well. I dont mind praising Trump, he deserves some praise. But I am getting really sick of this bit from various Trump propagandists that every repub on earth is totally worthless, and only Trump the Great can possibly save us. I dont want a damn God Emperor, or a cult leader, where the fate of the entire nation depends on one and only one Great Man, I want a president.
You don’t mind praising Trump but his followers are deplorable. Is that what you are saying….?
Not most of them, who are just teed off conservatives who just think Trump can push conservatism better than others, I have no quarrel with them. But yes there is a small minority on the alt right, like the white nationalists, the birthers, the no immigration at all crew, the no trade at all crew, the kill every Muslim on earth crew, the every repub other than Trump is worthless crew, the Bernie soak the and screw the free market and soak the rich crew, and the ones who want to use Alinski leftist totalitarian means, who are indeed very bad for both the conservative movement and the repub party, and think more like leftists than conservatives.
So anyone who doesn’t think like a cruzbot or is not conservative or too conservative qualifies.
I have no time for white supremacists, nazi’s or narrow minded conservatives who would relegate us to the opposition party status because of their “conservatism”,
I definitely dont restrict my respect to just Cruz supporters, although I notice some Trump supporters do think like that. I am at least glad you agree all the specific types I put in my list do indeed deserve to be marginalized, since you did not contest any of them.
On tool I use for any repub in congress is long term voting records, like:
https://www.conservativereview.com/scorecard?chamber=&state=&party=R
and https://heritageactionscorecard.com/
If their record is better than 70% I treat them as definitely OK, if less than 40% definitely rino, in between case by case. It gives me some objective facts when some alt right type start throwing around the cuck establishment stuff.
I believe everyone has the same rights….all of us….the same rights no gay rights, no womens rights, no native rights, no rights rights…and in your case “conservative” rights….Only individual rights on equal terms.
You marginalize yourself when you marginalize others…those margins tend to get narrower and narrower..soon they will be barely able to make you out in the tiny little scribble which will appear in your margin, “normal conservative”.
Of course everybody has the same basic rights, or should. But that does not mean I have to agree with everybody politically, and I definitely dont agree with the leftists, or the Bannonite loons, or the full rinos, or want them to get political power over me.
The GOPe is the two-tin-cans-with-a-string of American politics but with the string made from spaghetti It LOOKS LIKE the real thing but mostly does not work.
The invertebrates of NRO and Weekly Standard are the poodles of the Republican Establishment hypocrisy. Raised wealthy, in privilege their entire lives, they rubbed shoulders with the “progressives” that now “oppose” them. They are all friends, and linked by the fact that they have never HAD to work or struggle since birth, and consequently have never achieved anything but media renown.
The poodle class would gladly usher in communism, so long as THEY sit at the top with their friendly “opposites”. After all, the Manifesto is now 170 years old, has gained respect for its antiquity and staying power, and is SUCH a cute idea!
Never mind that 100 millions had to die because they would not bow down to it.
Your observations are very much on point, particularly: The poodle class would gladly usher in communism, so long as THEY sit at the top with their friendly “opposites”. Yes, this group along with the bi-coastal elites like Bret Stephens in his NY Times op ed calling for the displacement of the (white) American working class (HRC’s “deplorables”) by tens of millions of 3rd world immigrants personify the absolute disdain and revulsion that these elites have for the rest of us. They’re perfectly happy to turn the USA into a 3rd world dystopia as long as they can retain their privileged position, although I think that most would be shocked to see that this dystopia would swallow them in the morass, too, along with we deplorables unless they’re as financially secure a Gates, Bloomberg and the rest of the class of multimillionaires and billionaires.
Just like Lenin’s Bolsheviks under Stalin-they will be dispensed with (i.e. executed or sent to the gulag).
Based on my visit to the 2 progressive Republican web sites in your 1st sentence they either:
A. Have not figured it out.
or
B. continue to lie.
And the Bush family has now piled on Trump, calling him a “blowhard”. Trump is a blowhard, but I am far more concerned with the message than the messenger. As VDH has said before, the GOP (and the Bush family) knows how to “lose gracefully”. I’d prefer to win, at whatever the costs, regardless of who is leading the charge. The GOP needs an enema.
Amen !!!
HeII, I had to actually vote for that fool Kerry (threw up in my own mouth doing it) and divided Govt rather than vote for the “compassionate conservative” loser a second time….
I knew from his first act, a 140 billion dollar farm bill, that I had made a huge mistake.
George W Bush won twice, so how that is “losing gracefully”? He also got a higher % of the vote than Trump both times. VDH is just repeating the “big lie” that only a repulsive, obnoxious megalomaniac can win elections. That is not true.
I think the issue is that since at least the end of the first Bush administration, Presidents and Government have merely been moving the deck chairs on the Titanic. They have kicked every can down every road they could…and now Trump has to address them. Cleaning up ISIS and coherently fighting terrorists without our hands tied? Working on it. North Korea nukes? Working on it (his incendiary comments are to set up a negotiating position…you can’t start in the middle and compromise with crazy. You have to move the needle to our side). Economy? 2% was the new normal, right? Working on that. Reducing the regulatory state? Check. Constitutionalist Supreme Court Justices and appellate judges? Check.
NONE of that was getting done by Dems, and Republicans – including W – talked a good game but got snookered time and again by the Dems on actually doing anything. So, yeah, it takes someone who is willing to do the RIGHT thing and not the POLITICAL thing to fix things right now. You need to remember that they have called every Republican since Reagan everything in the book – they have all been called Fascist/Hitler/Racist – and the Dems and MSM would have done the same to Romney or McCain if they had been elected. But they weren’t elected because they played it safe and DID NOT FIGHT the way Dems do. You are ALREADY in with the pigs when you go into politics…might was well get muddy.
I don’t think that GWB kicked the can down the road. Just Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden.
But you think that Trump is doing the right thing and not the political thing? Then why is he being called a “populist”? A populist is someone who does the political thing and not the right thing, just like Trump.
No, a populist represents the ideology of “We The People” being in charge of the government vs vice versa – you know, our Founding principles? Conservatism has a populist strain to it when it remembers that. What has happened in the last few years is that they have, as VDH recognizes, given up and succumbed to the liberals’ PC world view and are simply saying, “Slow Down!” very nicely. We have gone from policies on gay marriage and gays in the military that were supported by Hillary and Obama to paying for gender reassignment in the military and, if you deny the wisdom of this, you are a racist or whatever – when, as pointed out, the Dems had the same position just a few years ago!
If you are going to turn back that clock, you have to do something more than give a courtly bow and lose gracefully. And that is where Bush failed. He got pilloried in his second term on a whole host of these types of issues – and never fought back. Fighting back wasn’t as much about him as it was US…because by NOT fighting back and playing the “above it all” card, he left the field to the Dems to define the battlefield (to prepare the battlefield, in military parlance) with no opposition. What did we get? Obama. A man who could not have been elected in any other way except as a reaction to what people PERCEIVED about Bush because he let the MSM and Dems characterize him as they did. Without a peep.
As to kicking the can down the road – HIS people are the ones that set up the “arrangement” with Pakistan that led to the state that Afghanistan is in now, because Pakistan allows the Taliban to be in the tribal areas and supports them. Trump has to deal with that.
Bush didn’t settle the status of forces agreement with Iraq and left that to Obama. We know what happened there with ISIS.
Bush didn’t deal with Iran – and wouldn’t let Israel – and left that for Obama. What did Obama do? A horrible deal giving Iran money and time to develop their military and nuke program so that they can break out in 10 years.
Bush didn’t deal with NK on the nuke issue – when bombing their reactors was possible, or getting the Chinese to act was a potential. But if the Chinese don’t think you are going to act, or that you might arm Taiwan or give nukes to Japan, they aren’t going to pressure NK. So you have to reset the board and talk a little crazy, make them all nervous about what we might do – otherwise they (China) have no reason to act against NK. Bush could have done this the same as Trump – but that wouldn’t have been “prudent” to use his father’s favorite word.
So cans aplenty right there down myriad roads. And I could go on in the realm of culture and economics and the education system and EPA overreach, etc. etc. etc.
Populism is NOT one of our founding principles. The Founding Fathers wrote the constitution to prevent populism.
Sure it is! Our whole system is based on the fact that a few wealthy land owners and business men led a popular revolt against the British Monarchy! Then they founded a system of government that balanced the will of the people with the interests of the more wealthy elements of society…thus Federalism and things like the makeup of the House and Senate (one representative by population and elected ever two years to account for changes in conditions and the Senate, originally chosen representatives equally allotted to every state equally regardless of size but for a longer term to quell the momentary passions of the populists). It also gave us the Electoral college to balance our elections so that small states were not overwhelmed by larger states – much like the House and Senate. And they limited the power of Federal government and gave broad autonomy to the states – and the people of those states – to live as they saw fit in their own regions. They thought that control of government should be pushed down to the lowest levels possible so that people could control their own lives directly while the Federal government had a limited role.
So I fail to see how you can say that a government formed by men who led the ultimate populist rebellion and formed a government to further those principles could NOT have populism at its core.
The French Revolution was a “populist rebellion” and look at where that led. The American Revolution turned quite differently because it was not populist.
The only thing the French Revolution had in common with our own was that it was a Revolution and there was a King. The French had a whole host of other reasons to revolt against the ENTIRE system and aristocracy, which they did, and you will note the killing of off said aristocracy. It was a peasant revolt, not a revolt of free men under a weak monarchy.
Our Rebellion was not built on the same foundation and did not have the same aims at all….if anything, financially supporting our Revolution (as part of their war with Britain) probably caused or hastened the French Revolution due to the financial crisis that evolved. No ours was an ideological revolution in a way the French Revolution was not…it was a convulsion.
Apples and oranges. America had no interest in removing King George from the throne, reforming Parliament, or replacing civic order with anarchy and chaos. They wanted to establish a new nation, not to overthrow the Crown.
That whole “We the People” thing eludes you.
Bush II foreign policy was aggressive, pro-US. It also metastasised into never ending nation building. History will judge, but it doesn’t look good.
Domestic policy, he was a go along to get along RINO.
Hence,, Trump.
I think history will judge Bush’s foreign policy very favorably. What kind of nighmare world would we be living in if Saddam controlled the Middle East and the Taliban still ruled Afghanistan?
As far as domestic policy goes, Trump is the RINO.
Riiiiiight. What was Bush pushing for on immigration? Ah, yes, comprehensive immigration reform and DACA like amnesty. Just like JEB!.
Where was Bush on Supreme Court nominees? OK, but also subject to the whims of cronyism vs strict constructionists.
Bush, I think, did do the right thing in taking the war to the terrorists in Iraq (we removed Saddam and prepared the battle space to draw in and kill a LOT of terrorists that never thought about finding a way here when they could drive or walk to Iraq…and we had people with guns to greet them) and Afghanistan (of course!). But he left the job undone by not moving with alacrity. Why?
Because, by not fighting here against the Dems when they savaged him he let the Dems and Media sap our will to win with all their constant body counts and Code Pink propaganda etc etc Where did they all go after Bush left? War was still going on. People still being killed. But they got what the wanted – a Dem President (Obama or Hillary would have done for them, they didn’t care as long as it was a Dem). So THAT is what I fault him for – not fighting HERE for US. War is always a battle of wills and he let the MSM and Dems, as soon as they thought it was safe, work to sap our will – for no other reason than to elect a Dem President and regain power. But he paved the way.
You have obviously blocked out the blunder known as Harriet Miers. The base had to rise up in a massive revolt to force Bush to withdraw her name.
Bush doesn’t have room to criticize anyone, not after Harriet Miers, Medicare D, NCLB, and “comprehensive” immigration reform. He needs to go to Crawford and clear some brush.
A higher percentage of the vote? Sounds like another ‘Hillary won the popular vote!’ blank cartridge firing.
Had Bush won anything decisively – as Trump did – then we would not have been counting and challenging and recounting and rechallenging ballots in Florida. Why do so many people need reminding that the Electoral College is all that matters? The two parties and campaigns certainly do which is why it is their sole focus.
The ‘big lie’ you refer to exists only in your mind. Hanson is, in fact, stating the opposite in the first paragraph therefore any repetition is nonexistent here and, in fact, has not been uttered by any GOP figure or commentator, pro-Trump or anti-Trump. What Hanson IS saying is that principles and the courage to state them and stick to them are very thin on the ground in both parties. No truer words were ever written.
49% > 46% Just saying. And what principles and courage have Trump ever shown?
Do Republicans vote in NY and CA? There’s a reason those citing vote count over electoral college count are considered idiots.
He crossed Hillary Clinton and lived to tell the tale. ????????????
I think there is a reading comprehension issue here. Prof. Hanson has never said that “only a repulsive, obnoxious megalomaniac can win elections.” You made that up. What Prof. Hanson is saying is that even though Trump has flaws, the Republican Establishment should support him because, at the moment, he’s the only effective force against radical progressivism.
I am beginning to think that the conventional Republicans like the Bushes play nice because deep down they only want to win some of the time. They know that their constituents expect them to do what they promise to do to win elections, that is why they make the promises they do. If they were to really win over the American electorate, and obtain a strong majority, they would have to spend most of their time telling lobbyists no, I won’t pass that law, or no I won’t spend taxpayer money to do that.
They only care about tax cuts and fewer regulations for Wall Street. So as long as they can get those bills passed, they have no problem letting the Democrats lead on all of the other issues.
I don’t much like Trump, personally. I don’t like his demeanor or the way he speaks. However, we didn’t elect a national “buddy”. We elected a President. As long as he does the right things and has good policy I’ll support him. When he doesn’t, I’ll criticize him and remind him of the promises he made. However, the author is right. At the moment there is no alternative that doesn’t lead to socialism and all that comes with it.
I won’t speculate on the Bush’s character here. But if they don’t like the fact that he’s a “blowhard” it simply means that your emotions are getting in the way of your reason. Or, maybe they never really were in the fight against progressivism to begin with. What is, frankly, disturbing is the senior Bush actually voted for Hillary. That’s just inexcusable, based on everything we know about her. In fact, there was only one patriotic and remotely rational candidate in the Dem primary: Jim Webb. I disagree with Webb on a whole host of issues, but he was the only one that wasn’t completely crazy, incompetent, fundamentally anti-American, or irredeemably corrupt. And, THAT is why he never could have gotten the nomination.
Douche would be more apropos.
Ya know what kills me about the Bushes? After all of his supporters stood up and defended 43 against the never-ending onslaught of attack by the Left (long after many of us had became disenchanted), the family turns on the grassroots. And I just read that Cheney(!) and Rumsfeld have been added to their hit list. But never one word against Obama or Clinton.
Go Victor!
I clicked on this article but forgot to check the author and started thinking he was the best ever, perhaps even better than Victor Hanson! After a bit I scrolled up to check who it was and couldn’t stop laughing at my carelessness when I started reading.
“Like it or not, Donald Trump in fits and starts has chosen not to accommodate the progressive vision. But in most unlikely fashion he leads the fight against it.” VDH
My greatest concern in the primaries was that although I thought Trump was the most likely to win the election, I doubted he was even conservative.
While not conservative in demeanor, I’ve come to believe he is advancing a more conservative agenda than any of the others would have.
I’ve occasionally wondered if part of that comes from his combative style, and the intense opposition from the left has actually backfired against them.
Nothing he’s done so far contradicts what he had said during the campaign. He’s been consistent. Even on the Dreamers issue. At a few of his rallies he commented that some accommodation would have to be made out of fairness.
Boiled down: Trump is finally helping us fight the Left’s ‘War on White People’.
#MAGA https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/af6e7d18cc69cbf9d28fd8dd4c24d1ae1e3cab652451def73878b58bf8a87643.jpg
Victor, let me put this as simply and as kindly as I possibly can. You’re an idiot. None of this trivial rubbish about the NFL and so forth counts for anything. Trump has already been a compete catastrophe in the things that do matter. When he dropped the TPP, he opened the door to China’s dominance of Asia, and everybody in Asia knows it. That’s Asia as in more that half the world’s people live there, and Trump just handed it to Xi Jinping on a platter because he’s too stupid and ignorant to know what he’s doing. And so are you, so is anyone who thinks about Trump in your dim-bulb soap-opera terms.
So the TPP opened the door to China’s dominance of Asia did it?
Please provide some evidence of this remarkably silly statement.
No, dropping the TPP did that. Reading comprehension isn’t really your strong suit, is it?
We saw how these globalist agreements work with NAFTA. Instead of fair trade we got Mexico and Canada ganging up on the U.S, outvoting us on every controversial deal to our great economic disadvantage–and diminishing our sovereignty besides. No thank you. One-on-one from now on. We will be masters of our own fate.
Mexico and Canada gaining up on the USA? Total nonsense.
NAFTA has been very good for the US and withdrawing from NAFTA, as Trump wants to do, would be a disaster
Everyone except Xi, who’s shltting a brick at the moment….
The rest of Asia is not interested in being ruled by China.
China has a ways to go to be trusted by the rest of the world with their money. Sure, they like trading with them, but trusting them? Not too sure about that. China should certainly be the dominant power in Asia, but confidence plays a huge part as to whether another country will put more than trading faith in them. They work hard, value education, save, and now are starting to invest. They deserve to be a leader by those facts. It is just the fact that by the simple stroke of a pen they can change everything that causes nervousness. I give it another 20 years or so before they actually really gain the trust of the rest of the world.
Yes, a 20 year time frame is just what I have in mind. While Trump is biting his fingernails into stumps at the terrible threat posed by Mexico, China is building infrastructure all the way to London. Yes, you read that right–a road and rail network across all of Eurasia. So compare cowering about Mexico on one side and building a railroad from Beijing to London on the other and tell me what the upshot of that will be.
What you’d like to portray as the high ground, we see for what it is. The swamp.
Move on. You and your pseudo intellectual point of view are rejected.
Right now Trump is holding back with China because he needs cooperation regarding North Korea. Once that’s settled to his satisfaction, he’ll make his move. Even so, he’s tightening his relationship with India which makes China nervous. China needs us, we don’t need China.
Bob Acker You talk like the idiot you must be -I bet you loved Obama and cant see the picture the BIG one God Bless you John Brown IRELAND
Totally wrong. Don’t be assuming things. It just makes you look stupid, and it’s not like you’ve got a lot of ground to give away.
moron.
your candidate can’t even win a rigged election, dumphuq
Try not to be so utterly beneath contempt, OK? There’s a good fellow.
Weak.
Soros needs to get better trolls.
No, it’s you who are the idiot. Why do you suppose both China and Russia voted to impose sanctions on NK? Because Trump is using our economic leverage to squeeze China. It’s why he’s courting India, China’s trade nemesis. It’s why China finally agreed to a multi-Asian summit to include NK. He cut deals with Poland and Ukraine and the EU to import our energy and weaken their dependence on Russia. None of this is reported by the leftwing press, just as it won’t report on our booming economy, so I’m not surprised you’re clueless..
Trump DID build his business empire (such as it is) despite his stupidity. He would have made more money had he simply invested in the S&P 500.
Obama tried for eight years to get to 3% growth–and failed. Trump got there in a few months–just as he’d promised.
Uh, yeah, sure. Trump did it by magic. Of course.
Mr. Ack-er,
You had no qualms about Obama selling out our interests and relationships with the Israeli’s and Arab States to Iran..yet here you are condemning Trump’s strategy to reign in North Korea…which Obama simply did by kicking the can down the road to the point now where he has a dozen nukes aimed at LA , San Francisco and Seattle.
China was already the dominant force in APAC, along with South Korea and Japan. Economics wins the wars these days, and a sneeze in the US economy causes a cold in Beijing. They are intrinsically linked to the US Economy for their own growth goals, and if they want to bring a billion people out of conditions that we don’t allow our dogs to live in…they’ll take the hardline against NorKo.
And..despite the missile tests and increased rhetoric from Kim..the pressure seems to be working. Look, we get that you don’t like the fact Trump doesn’t bow to leaders of Iran and other world powers. That’s not his style or approach.
You asked us to be patient for 8 years while Obama did his behind the scenes deal with Iran while bypassing the American people; oftentimes doing this stuff in secret so we wouldn’t know. Trump is very very transparent. You might not like it, but it’s a strategy we the people chose on November 8th of last year.
If you don’t like it, that’s your right. If you don’t like it, you can write here all day long, but it’s not productive to bring your Progressive ideology onto a conservative forum and ask us to bend over and take it up the rear while you keep a smile on your face.
That’s what trolls do, and unless you’re willing to offer some alternatives with facts to support them..move on back to Huffington Post. They need you more than we do.
I voted against Obama twice and would again, you pathetic dunce.
Let this be a lesson to you. Don’t assume things. It makes you look stupid, and it’s not as if you’ve got a lot of extra ground to give away.
The fact you were a McCain guy is all anyone needs to know. Thanks for sharing.
If McCain had won office, North Korea would have been nuked by now..along with South Korea, Japan and the whole Eastern rim of China.
WINNING!!
Trump is imperfect for sure, but it beats bending over and taking it up the tail pipe for the 24 years prior.
Do I worry about a nuke landing in my backyard? Not at all. I’m more worried about some anonymous troll grabbing his AR-15 (because he’s so enraged with Trump )and heading to a softball game, country music concert or church to get his rocks off.
This is by far the Best Article Mr. Hanson has written & that’s saying a lot because I Pretty Much like everything he puts out. Also I totally agree with him on Shelby Foote I have his Civil War Books , I think about 5 Volumes. Awesome, General Kelly Had It Right Back Then It was a Young Country & the Main Allegiances Were To the States. I doubt if one tenth of one tenth of the Soldiers Fighting for the South had Slaves. They were Honorable Men Defending their Homeland.
“Like it or not, Donald Trump in fits and starts has chosen not to accommodate the progressive vision. But in most
unlikely fashion he leads the fight against it.”
It’s the only “fashion” that will work against the Progs, a full on war. Screw them….I like it!
Progressivism has reached the point where, if it goes any further, we cease to be. We Americans, traditionalists, conservatives, noncoformists, non-Marxists, men and women, human beings.
The great irony is that humanism ultimately leads to the abolition of man, and of woman too.
But the paradox is that as a party right now it’s the Democrats who are imploding. If the economy takes off the way it did under Reagan, they’re not likely to revive. Right now they have the media, academia, the entertainment industry and the bureaucratic deep state. But they can’t win elections–and their strongholds have been badly corrupted. The Republicans have the military, the churches and rural America. I don’t see Trump losing this battle.
Things look good for Trump–but not necessarily for the Republicans on the national level (state level, that’s another matter). Both parties are in deep internal crisis.
Not certain that I agree that there really ARE two parties. Two wings of a Uni-Party, sure. But little more than slight variations in emphasis. The Bush cabal proved that, I think. Making a trade every 8 years on who gets to sit in the Oval Office isn’t accomplishing anything worthwhile. Certainly it makes a mockery of once-bravely voiced concepts like “consent of the governed”, something that hasn’t really been true since the time of the less worthy than cow plop Woodrow Wilson (spit, spit). Angelo Codevilla’s warnings of the too-close similarities between the upper levels of the Republicrats and the Dumbocraps, have been borne out. A pox on the lot of them.
The lot of them are cordially invited to walk south until their hats float. We’d be better off without any of them. Including the neutered pundits at National Review and the Weakly Stupid.
If they run an even marginally competent candidate, you’ll see NH, where 5000 bused in Democrats flipped the EC and the Senate race by fraud.
Hansen should go on Molyneaux.
Thank God for you VDH, for articulating so clearly the crossroad (cliff?) At which we are now poised. You left out the cultural takeover being attempted by progressives, but the persecution of Christians by hedonists is sure to bring down God’s wrath. God especially will not abide harm to children, and the left is determined to teach children transgenderism before they reach first grade. The abortion of babies in the womb is also anathema which infuriates our Lord. Jesus warned specifically against harm to children. If people will repent and go back to church en masse, God may yet relent (as He relented at Ninevah when warned by Jonah). It is not too late. God can use anyone (including Stalin and Nebechenezzar) to achieve His purposes. I think He’s using Trump to beat the Progs. It’s hard to watch this stuff without wincing. Keep up the excellence VDH, you are helping to make America great again.
“Those who found him too crude, who saw his tweets as too adolescent…”
He’s just run of the mill crude and adolescent.
Funny the pundits don’t find the Clintons crude. They abuse women, they rig elections, they sell influence, they even steal furniture.
The Republican establishment had already resigned itself to the left winning in perpetuity. They’d talked themselves into believing the only course forward was acceptance and accommodation. I think many have even come to adopt the left’s views as their own, subconsciously or not.
Virtually all of the right-leaning pundits, journalists, politicians, businesspeople and Hill staffers have gone to college, and if if they studied social sciences or humanities, they were subjected to years of intense leftist propaganda. Sure, they tried to resist. They told themselves and each other they would merely parrot the “right” answers to get good grades, but they wouldn’t actually believe the things they say.
And so an entire generation of right-leaning pundits, corporate leaders, and other elites had to embrace political correctness in order to graduate with those impressive sheepskins to land the plum jobs. (Yes, even corporate positions; the old stereotype of the Republican executive is out-of-date.)
Whole generations of American elites have been trained in an educational system relentlessly hostile to America and its foundational values from kindergarten to graduate school. It’s remarkable, actually, that there are any conservatives remaining at all. The few who exist have to hide their opinions from many of their peers. A political movement cannot continue under those circumstances.
Maintaining the GOPe status quo was a recipe for accelerating decline. Only a major disruption can change the course now. Perhaps Trump can serve that role. In any event, he’s the only one who seems to be trying.
Yeah, he is the only one who seems to be trying…him and the whole Tea Party, which has also been completely dumped on by the elites.
Trump has the people behind him.
And as we hit 3% 4% and eventually 5 and 6% growth… the progressives in our midst will slink away to their coffee parties, orgies, and nihilism as we who screamed about the marxist takeover from the steps of our state capitols, enjoy our grandchildren in a free republic that has come back stronger than ever.
Our glory days are in the future, not the bleak and violent past.
Jenny Hatch
http://www.JennyHatch.com
Just so. In addition, the pundits had discovered that there was more job security in criticizing liberalism than there was in eliminating it. NR’s reaction was a classic case of someone threatening passersby from the front porch only to have one of them approach the house for a proper fight. They ran and hid behind mama’s skirts.
If I hadn’t supported Trump from the minute he came down the escalator talking about the high costs of illegal immigration, I’d have supported him the minute he started punching back. I hired a counterpunching street brawler on purpose!
You can see why there is such a hatred of the President by looking at the advertisements on CBS, ABC and NBC affiliates. They are all made subtly to demean white males. What happened in 2016 is that white people took objection to anti-white racism. That has provoked media hate, because like all racists, the anti-white racists view their opponents as “deplorables”.
Subtly demeaning white males is everywhere.For example, I received a little 128-page glossy booklet from the National Institute on Aging at the NIH two years ago. Among other things, it contains 52 pages of example exercises, illustrated by 61 models who are showing you how to do the exercises. Zero of those models are white males. Go ahead, Google it up – program is called Go4Life (Registered trademark of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services).
It pervades almost all advertising now. For everything.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvNNtBmA3SQ
These days the only time I see a white male in MSM ads, he’s pushing a stroller or doing his daughter’s laundry. Dems suppress testosterone every where they go with every idea they crap out. Trump will win men and secure, intelligent women by much larger margins in 2020.
All this verbiage just to defend a narcissistic, incompetent, bigoted con man. I distictly remember the state of our economy when Obama started his term. The S&P was below 700. At the end of his term, the economy was on its way to recovery and job growth. But to some like Hanson, all progress is due to Trump. Mr. Hanson only sees Latin American and Mexican “indigents”. Perhaps that explains his Trump sychophancy.
You live in an alternate universe. The economy was stifled under Obama. His incompetence was staggering. ISIS expansion, Libya overthrow, apology tours, leading from behind, weak GDP numbers for eight years. me, me, me, I, I, I in every single speech–talk about narcissism! Obama made Jimmy Carter look like George Washington.
Trump is not the anti-Obama.
Tired talking points spewed daily by Fox News and other right media outlets are not cogent arguments, sweet. Try harder, chump.
If you get your news from CNN, MSNBC, and others MSM outlets, you are being spoon fed biased propaganda, but even FOX, under the younger Murdochs, has hosts such as Smith, Bauer, and Wallace who would adapt well in the MSM.
Thank the FED and Sequester for keeping thee economy moping along. Wall Street used the FED stimulus to borrow in order to buy back stock and complete M & A.
“a secure border, and legal, diverse, measured and meritocratic immigration—is an anathema for the new Democratic Party for two reasons: first, the entire Latino-American diaspora would then soon resemble the Italian-American experience, given rapid assimilation, integration, and intermarriage, making it politically unpredictable and therefore of no more use to the Democrats than are Cuban-Americans”
This is typical conservative happy talk. We *still* have big problems even if we fix our immigration system and secure the border tomorrow. They’re still going to vote Democrat 2-to-1, minimum. The idea that Latino-Americans are analogous to Italian Americans is really bizarre and misguided. Republican Autopsy, anyone? Here’s why Hispanics in the 21st century do not equal Italians in the 20th either in actual or historical terms:
1. America is not culturally confident enough to assimilate disparate groups of immigrants, regardless of merit. National identity today is defined on very broad but ultimately very shallow terms. The assimilation of European immigrants in the early 20th century was imperfect in that much of the original culture was diluted in the process but those groups were overall much more congruent in comparison with post-1965 immigration. Also, we forget that lots of pressure was placed on European immigrants to adopt the values of the dominant bourgeois Anglo-Protestant culture. Americanism, our civic religion, was compulsory; much of the “melting pot” was rather unpleasant and occasionally ugly for the newcomer.
2. Unlike Italy, who is central to the history of the West, Latin America never truly belonged to Western civilization. It became its own thing. In terms of its cultural DNA, at best, it’s like a prodigal son of Western civilization like Russia. Less optimistically, it’s more similar to the post-colonial Christian countries of the third world. The civic religion of Latin America is corruption, incompetence, and demagoguery. Not promising features for conservatives.
3. The American people don’t share anything resembling a common history or common ancestors with the people of Latin America. And, yes, we look different. Again, unlike earlier, more digestible European immigration. Should that matter? Maybe not to a Whig conservative, at least, but unfortunately it does. Human nature.
4. Finally, the elephant in the room: IQ. Specifically- there aren’t enough stable, good-paying industrial jobs even for native-born American workers without college degrees as there were for, say, Italian American immigrants. How are newer immigrants today, disproportionately even less socially & temperamentally scholastic, supposed to get ahead in the information economy?
Whoever manages to galvanize them …
Thank you, Victor Davis Hanson. One of your best!
The trouble with crossing the Rubicon is that there is a mob of Senators looking to stab you in the back
Accurate and scary commentary. Go Trump.
“The new Democratic Party is the updated vision of Eugene Debs. ”
No. The new dim party is the stale vision of Joseph Stalin.
“The Republican establishment bemoans Trump’s crudity.”
Because he threatens its power as well. Fools look a gift horse in the mouth.
Amen. I do not like Mr. Trump’s style, but that’s unimportant at this point in our history. When I look at the type of man required to deconstruct an establishment as large as ours, it requires me to make an accommodation for a brute, rude and crude man who has brass balls the size of Manhattan.
Anyone with less bravado would wither amidst the onslaught of attacks from the Establishment and the Establishment Media.
VDH is always a reason to get up in the morning and engage the world. He is exactly correct. I just wonder when the “Establishment” will realize they can have everything they want with this President if they will just cooperate with him rather than act like he is intruding on the country club. To bring in “Caddy Shack”, they are acting like Ted Knight’s Judge reacting to Rodney Dangerfield, and that is not as good a comparison for them as it is for Trump!
They also need to realize that in coming for Trump in the way they have, no Republican will ever be safe or have a fair chance in the future if the precedents being set are allowed to come to fruition. The excesses of Obama in using the intelligence state against political rivals, as he apparently did in cooperating with Hillary to “wire tap” Trump and his associates and unmasking them in other calls, must be opposed. The rampant criminality of both these excesses and things like the IRS scandal, the Uranium One deal, Hillary’s email scandal, and countless other scandals ignored by a willing media must be addressed. If not, the Republican party – not just Trump – will be taken down. Trump may even survive, but none of the others will who are too weak spined to fight the PC drivel of the left. They will surely be undone and will, as VDH says, merely be saying “slow down” to the progressives.
If you want to know why we like Trump beyond all his faults, it is for the same reason Lincoln liked Grant. He fights. Every day. He doesn’t concede the field and skulk away. He fights the same way Dems fight. And if we are going to survive, we need people who fight. So it is time for the “neverTrump” Republican Establishment to stop and think. To stop celebrating and relishing those who SAY the right conservative things and get on board with Trump, who DOES the right conservative things. For the Country.
The last paragraph nails it! I hadn’t thought of the analogy to Grant, but it fits. It’s thrilling to watch and hear Trump give it back to his/our enemies, and sobering to realize how few Republicans and conservatives get the genius of it.
You are correct – I don’t get the “genius” of Trump acting like a 10 year old, which is what his “fighting back” is all about. You find it “thrilling” which says more about you than it does about Trump.
Dave, you know absolutely nothing about me, you self-righteous . . . I was going to call you names, but that would be way too 10 year old. But what I know about you and your fellow clueless brother conservative NeverTrumpers is that you are blind guides. I’ll put my hat in with VDH and the American Greatness guys anytime. Go back to NR and the Weekly Standard where your kind can congregate in your self-congratulating all-knowingness. Cheers!
“The alternative—a secure border, and legal, diverse, measured and meritocratic immigration—is an anathema for the new Democratic Party”
It’s also anathema to your comrades over at NRO and in the GOPe.
Republican politicians being gun down on a baseball field, Vegas mass killing at Country Music festival, Rand Paul being beaten, Atheist mass killing of Christians in Texas. Throw in the Black on White violent crime statistics in this country and the most victimized group of people in this country are White, Christian, and Conservative. These are the only people you are allowed to victimize without any controversy.
And you have the added advantage of being able to use lawfare legally to force them to comply with things they find morally reprehensible.
Whenever I get in an argument with a Liberal they love to bring up Norway and Sweden as their way of validating their Socialistic beliefs. I always accuse them of being racist because they cite White, homogenized cultures as example of their Utopia.
An excellent article which makes me long for the days of civil discourse when people could intelligently disagree. A prime example was William F Buckley’s Firing Line where two people with diametrically opposing viewpoints where able to discuss their positions without shouting over each other. At the end of the program, although no one’s opinion may have changed, one might actually have learned something. Nowadays, vile obscenities and physical attacks substitute for reasoned dialogue. When liberals say they want to have a conversation, what they really mean is, “Shut up and agree with me”.
At least conservatives, when they want to have a conversation, never say “Shut up and agree with me”. Tucker Carlson, Mark Levin, Michael Savage & Sean Hannity are but a few perfect examples of their respect & restraint, not conting all those who post on threads like this one accusing progressives of being Commies, socialists, anti-American,hate-mongers, treasonous or even worse. Who knew?
Did you even read the article? VDH is arguing AGAINST civil discourse. The reason Hanson has to publish this cr*p in AG is because WFB’s heirs at NRO won’t publish this nonsense.
Quite the contrary.
Is NRO still in business? It’s found a fatal fetal niche, a tiny space to curl up and die. That’s what happens when you become hermetically sealed against countervailing opinion.
Love me some Hanson in the morning, nice read, great points.
About the illegal aliens from Mexico who deluged AZ, and then CA: it’s hard to assimilate tens of thousands (millions) of non-Americans in a few years. Those who swarmed our borders were not the educated, or the sophisticated we want to be our new neighbors. Those who jumped the fence had never seen a flush toilet, had a credit card, held crayons as children, or even understood that crossing an invisible border could be the difference between light and night.
They want to stay here, and that’s understandable, but then they march on American streets while proudly waving the Mexican flag.
MrTrump has falsely been accused of hating Mexicans, he doesn’t – what he doesn’t like is illegal aliens sneaking into our country at will.
We have a immigration policy, had it for years – even when Obama was President and the Dems controlled Congress. If the Dems/Libs didn’t like our immigration laws, they had the means and votes to change it as they pleased – they didn’t do that.
I wish, ha, I wish. The old wish and one hand…..
I’m so tired of the strident fight, the hate and insults that hurt without distinction, and most of the biased and corrupt MSM that has forgotten their Mission as truth tellers, not opinion makers.
“Those who found him too crude, who saw his tweets as too adolescent, and who vowed never to vote for such an antithesis of conservative and family values have all weighed in.”
Right. And that’s why his approval rating continues to tank its way to record lows. Now he’s at the lowest point in SEVENTY YEARS.
Yet that 32% who still support him will never walk away. The main reason for that is they can never admit they were wrong, to others, but mostly to themselves. Their self image is more important than their patriotism.
What were we wrong about, exactly? Am I supposed to regret my vote because someone such as yourself disapproves of President Trump?
Why do you expect me to believe the polls regarding a 32% approval? Have you learned nothing about biased polls, “shy Trump voters” (said not to exist, but apparently did in the millions) and the real phenomenon of “social desirability bias”, where people lie to pollsters and tell them what they want to here so that they feel more “socially desirable”?
Hey, believe whatever the hell YOU want, I don’t care, but if you’re going to spout off about why people are “wrong”, at least have the balls to identify a few reasons as to WHY they are wrong. Be objective about it, too…
The Trump signs on front lawns will vastly outnumber whatever leftist candidate the Dems nominate in 2020, but the “polls” (Pew, MSNBC, WaPo, etc.) will show the leftist way ahead, just like in 2016.
Here’s a ‘leftist’ who believes in the people. And the polls don’t lie. Even the republican pollsters show that Trump’s job approval is tanking, week after week. President Nothing-to-show-for-all-his-bloviating-bombast. Read ’em and weep. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html#polls
A meteor is an apt metaphor for Bernie Sanders ie an aimless, otherwise unremarkable ball of rock randomly entering earth’s gravitational pull. He/it turns bright red from the effects of hot gas, a few people spot him/it streaking across the sky and ooh and aah momentarily, then he/it burns out or crashes to the ground, forgotten by all unless he/it happens to strike a building or a person.
Kryptonite is probably the most famous fictional meteor and Sanders, whose credentials and aptitude are also mostly fiction, would have poisoned the DNC’s chances the same way Kryptonite poisons Superman. They’re crazy but they ain’t dumb.
The deeply entrenched Country Club Republicans and RINOs (they used to call these Republican leftists, Nelson Rockefeller Republicans) will not budge from their leftist ideas of making the USA “just another country” such as we see in Europe, Central/South America, and much of Asia. The new forthcoming book by Bush the Elder and Bush the Younger is a last stand to try and regain what they once had as a well tended flock of sheeple. The Bush book should go over about as well as Custer’s Last Stand, except no one will remember it 2 weeks after its release. Even better, no one will want to remember President “No new taxes” or President DUH-bya. They both need to listen to the matriarch of their family and disappear quietly into oblivion. The country has more than its fair share of the Bushs’ and the Republican Milquetoast of the past 25 years. Time to grow a pair and stand up and be counted, rather than tucking your tail between your legs and whimpering and cowering to the Demonrats and their Stalinist/Maoist agenda.
The cleanup in aisle 9 happening now in Saudi Arabia is collapse of NWO curtesy of Trump allowing US to be a real player in global oil market. Thus gaining control of US petrodollar which defeats the Federal Reserve.
Winning!
Collapse of the (imaginary) NWO?
Defeating the Federal Reserve is winning?
Alt-right nonsense.
Education time.
Did you know that Federal Reserves stated goal is to collapse US Dollar and replace it with a basket of world currencies?
That is why Obama coerced OPEC to start accepting Yuan. Why USD has no gold or silver backing.
No, I didn’t know that – probably because it isn’t true.
Courtesy of Nixon, who removed the last pretense of the USD being anything but a fiat currency.
It’s remarkable that until Trump’s election, Nixon was the President most reviled by the Democrats; in fact, he was simply way ahead of them in globalist vision.
Answer me this Dave 781: If the US had a hard currency, just exactly what would we need the Federal Reserve for?
We are not going to have a “hard currency” because there isn’t enough gold in the entire world, let alone Fort Knox, to serve as the sole medium of exchange for a $20 trillion economy. Every major country has a central bank, and we need one too.
Yes, they are a couple of princes short from what I understand…
Brilliant.
The GOPe remains clueless and corrupt but with Trump we have a chance. The first real leader we have had since Reagan.
Democrats pander to welfare collectors, illegal aliens, LGBT and uber rich. There are just not as many freaks as there are normal people. Trump won normals vote.
We faced a similar moment before, in 1980. Reagan is lionized now, but he was vilified in similar terms to Trump then: George HW Bush described his economic vision as “Voodoo”, and Bush’s appointment as VP was viewed as a necessity to rein in Reagan’s recklessness. The straw-man Reagan created by the press was a do-nothing (“We have another Hoover in the White House”) addle-pate who called Nancy “mommy”.
The biggest difference between then and now and is that the majority of Americans had not yet been indoctrinated in collectivism in the schools and the cultural Marxists had scarcely begun their march through our social institutions. In Reagan’s era, we faced a clear and present danger; in the Trump era, we face extinction.
Yet despite Reagan’s resounding successes in both domestic and foreign policy, the Republican establishment abandoned the high ground and surrendered all of the gains Reagan had made. The Democrats already had abandoned any vestiges of free-market economics under Carter, and Republicans tripped over their own feet under Bush senior to follow the Democrats.
That is why it is now Donald Trump, contra mundum. There is nobody of stature in the Republican party to support him, only the forgotten deplorables. Except, unlike Caesar, we’re following a leader who will restore the Republic.
VP Bush was because Reagan was broke and needed RNC money.
Trump cannot be bought.
Trump is the opposite of Reagan.
The problem is that Trump has no idea what you are talking about.
Outstanding article. Prescient I aver.
Trump is better than Reagan.
I am more pro-Trump today than I was the night I won $300 on my enthusiastic election bet on him. He was sent by God, a Samson character to fight the Philistines. He is better than Samson, though. After pushing apart the two grand pillars — Republican and Democrat — holding up the corrupt uni-party elites, he still stands tall looking for more pillars to collapse.
God bless Trump.
President Trump has destroyed the Clintons Bush’s Dems Repubs MSM Political Correctness Open Borders Globalists Anit-military opposition and they are freaking out!
This war for America has just begun… we have a Representative Democracy, let’s see if we have the stones to keep it!
#MAGA
Spot on, Mr. Hanson!
Great writing!
As America elects a Republican President Senate House plus Gov Mansion State Houses in mass majority…
But then Dr Hanson lives in CA, near SF and has the Lefts fumes in his face every day giving us fair warning that the enemy is not completely politically dead.
Yet.
Economically, the new progressive party seems either to be uninterested in or of the opinion that it can’t do much about problems such as GDP growth, labor participation rates, industrial output, and increased consumer optimism and confidence
This goes back at least to Reagan. At best the Left says that improvements in these metrics is cyclical. So when good things go up and bad things go down under restrained government (which economically includes Clinton the Rapist) that is simply fortune’s favor. And the reverse is the reverse. This replaces the old postulation that socialism was a MATERIAL good; reality having made hash of it. Recall The New Normal; 2% growth (if yer lucky!) $200 oil, 1% interest rates etcetera etcetera etcetera.
Great article Mr. Hanson. I always look forward to read what you write. Spot on.
I am going to be howling into the void on this, and you know what? Fuck it, let’s do it:
“The media is not disinterested. Networks such as CNN see their role actively on the barricades, devoted to the
higher cause of destroying the Trump presidency, not as reporting its successes or failures. The danger to free expression and a free media is not even Trumpian bombast. It is the far more deliberate and insidious transformation (begun in full under Obama) of journalism into a progressive ministry of truth. Even if he wished, Trump could not take away what the professional press already surrendered voluntarily.
First of all, the “media” is not some amorphous blob of newspapers and magazines. Let’s call this what it is: the “mainstream” media, which is what you people refer to as any organization that doesn’t paint President Fuckup in a good light. Guess what, when most weeks of your presidency include massive self-inflicted wounds (calling neo-Nazis “very fine people”, lying about the size of your inauguration crowds, accusing the wife and mother of a dead soldier of lying, etc.) you’re going to get negative coverage BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT GOING ON. And complaining about a “ministry of truth” when you have an entire ecosystem of right-wing news agencies that deliberately lie and misrepresent stories in order to infuriate the gullible is massively hypocritical.
“On one side are traditionalists who believe the United States is the most exceptional nation of a uniquely
self-critical West. They believe that we need not be perfect, past or present, to be good and certainly are and were always far better than the alternative. And while reform and protest may be innate to the American character, traditions and values of the past simply cannot be airbrushed away because a particular generation suddenly believes that the dead of a far more hazardous and impoverished age must meet their own transitory mores of the present…The new progressive Left believes that America has always been defined by its collective sins, which outweigh those of other cultures. They identify the white heterosexual male as the font of most pathologies (cf. the Democratic National Committee’s unapologetic effort not to hire white males for some of its jobs).
Again, utter bullshit, this time in the form of a terrible straw man. Nobody on “the left” believes this country is evil, nor do they hate it, but it’s about recognizing that as a nation we have done great things while at the same time making some horrible mistakes, specifically in the treatment of minorities, and that everybody in America deserves the same opportunities to succeed or fail as individuals rather than because they are members of a certain group. And as a white heterosexual man myself, it doesn’t make me less of a person to admit that my ancestors did terrible things as long as I don’t repeat those mistakes. And your point about the DNC not hiring white men is completely false, by the way.
Like it or not, Trump is now a central figure in resisting a full-scale dismantling of the idea of the uniquely individual, free, and outspoken American.
No True Scotsman, etc.
The new progressivism would prefer an America in which everyone made about $50,000 a year, overseen by a far
greater and more intrusive government (of properly insightful and caring souls, whose selflessness would earn exemption from the consequences of their ideologies) to the alternative of a country where a small minority made well over $1 million but the middle classes achieved average incomes of $75,000.
Literally none of this is true. Not a single damn word.
Like Trump or not, by the end of his first three quarters of his presidency, GDP growth had rebounded and was
growing at a pace set to achieve 3 percent for the year. Real unemployment (U6) had fallen below 8 percent; business and consumer confidence were at record levels. Energy production was likewise.Manufacturers expressed confidence unlike that seen in the last two decades. Corporate profits were unparalleled. The radical turnabout was largely Reaganesque in spirit—predicated on a new can-do psychological climate, ending insidious deregulation, the specter of impending tax-cuts, and a determination that manufacturing could return to the United States if energy was cheaper than elsewhere and industry had proper incentives.”
This ignores the fact that A). Presidents have very little control over the health of the economy as a whole, and B). that what little influence they do have usually doesn’t manifest itself until late in their terms as it takes a while to shift such a massive entity. Which means that most of this economic splendor (assuming you ignore the massive income inequality) is in fact due to Obama-era policies. Don’t believe me? Here are some FAKE NEWS for you to recoil at like a vampire being sprayed with holy water:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/upshot/presidents-have-less-power-over-the-economy-than-you-might-think.html
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-presidents-economic-decisions-matter-eventually/
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-06/how-obama-s-economic-record-stacks-up
The United States, given its past flaws and the blood on its hands, would remain a nominal world leader, but only in the sense of being one among many in a much to be preferred multilateral world that checked historic American aggression. Regional autocratic hegemonies—Shiite Iran in the Middle East, China in the Pacific and most of Asia, a reset Russia in the Eastern Europe, and new “moderate” socialist countries in Latin America—would naturally oversee their own neighborhoods, albeit with occasional nods to U.N. mandates on energy, the environment, and “human rights.”
What on earth are you talking about? “Checked historic American aggression?” You’re welcome to disagree on his foreign policy effectiveness all you want, but do you really think Obama walked into the White House thinking “how can I weaken this country?” How about the fact that he was taking over for a universally-loathed American leader who had made it very difficult for the country to lead the free world as he’d burned all of our credibility on an oil war?
Oh yeah, that Obama foreign policy was so totally not hawkish, what with all the drone strikes, assassinating American citizens in Yemen, airstrikes in Syria, adding more troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, not closting Gitmo, etc.
Again, by mid-2017 Trump offered about the only alternative vision of an all-powerful United States, in Jacksonian fashion protecting its own classically liberal interests and those of its allies abroad, often by punitive deterrence rather than
hearts-and minds-nation building
You can’t even defend your own God Emperor properly. He laid out his vision in his psychotic UN address, where “America First” (nice Nazi collaborator reference, btw) means countries can do whatever they want because that’s their “culture” and America doesn’t care because it’s not our problem. And unless you clowns have a different definition of “leadership” than one in the dictionary, basically withdrawing from the world stage and letting other people try to solve global problems while not fighting for the US to get a good deal doesn’t really count. Also, a Jacksonian approach to foreign policy may have been a great idea in the 1820 when it took three weeks by boat to get anywhere, but in the 21st century of instant communication and mass transit it may not be so sound.
“The current progressive party does not really believe in sovereign and secure southern borders. Preferable are large annual influxes of Latin American and Mexican indigents who would turn the American Southwest blue, and thereby provide near permanent constituents for ethnic and progressive activists.”
You’re accumulating enough straw men at this point to start your own corn maze. Nobody really wants illegal immigrants here, the question is about how much resources you prioritize to dealing with a problem compared to other problems when there’s only a finite amount of time and money to be spent. If the vast majority of them don’t commit violent crimes (numerous studies show they commit less crime than native-born citizens), and they do the crappy jobs none of us want, why waste time and money going after all of them instead of targeting the ones that actually are terrible, like drug cartel operatives? The other piece here is that yes, they are technically committing a crime, but they are still human beings with human rights. Just because they don’t speak English doesn’t mean we should round them in Arpiao-style labor camps, or turn a blind eye to refugee children fleeing from Central America. There’s such a thing as sensible immigration policy; building a stupid wall and throwing out DACA kids is not it.
“The alternative—a secure border, and legal, diverse, measured and meritocratic immigration—is an anathema for
the new Democratic Party for two reasons:
I’ll tell you why your reasons are stupid in a minute, but this phrase itself needs to be singled out for its ridiculousness. This sounds like a logical, sensible approach, and of course it’s not at all what Trumplings have been advocating. President Fuckup himself called for a “complete and total shutdown” of Muslims and called Mexicans “rapists.”. Merit-based systems are a dogwhistle to say “people from white countries”, because that’s where the most-skilled are from. And now on to your dumb points:
first, the entire Latino-American diaspora would then soon resemble the Italian-American experience, given rapid assimilation, integration, and intermarriage, making it politically unpredictable and therefore of no more use to the Democrats than are Cuban-Americans;
What on earth? Have you not been to the Southwest recently? Like every other group in the country, first generation Latinos don’t speak English, their kids are bilingual, and their grandkids only know English. People play both soccer and football, they shop at Wal-Mart, they celebrate the 4th of July. They are integrating.
Secondly, Cuban-Americans vote Republican because the majority of them are refugees from Castro and Republicans have taken a harder line on him, so it has nothing to do with integration. Considering that Latinos are religious, love “family values” and have traditional attitudes they should be a lock for you lot, but you keep threatening them with terrible immigration laws and that’s literally the only reason why they vote democrat.
second, identity politics hinges on claims of large numbers of non-white constituents who are not achieving parity, requiring self-selected ethnic and Democratic elites to craft equality of result entitlements that enhance their own power and influence.
“Identity politics” is such a meaningless phrase. We have vast amounts of data saying that minorities are at an economic disadvantage:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/12/racial-wealth-gaps-great-recession/
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/unequal-opportunity-race-and-education/
http://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/minorities.aspx
So yes, it is clearly wrong to want to help these people get a level playing field.
The result is that at least with Trump the voter sees a chance for the melting pot to work. In contrast, Trump’s opposition prays the future will be a salad bowl—a celebratory multiculturalism in which our first allegiances are to our tribes, as
the United States eventually becomes a veritable Yugoslavia and our individual states become updated versions of ethnic enclaves and ideological enclaves like Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia.
It’s hard for it to be a melting pot when Trump throws out all the other ingredients. Also, you can’t even maintain consistency in your own metaphor: Arizona is already an ethnic enclave of mostly white people, and the fact they kept Arpiao and are hawks on immigration suggests they don’t want to integrate with the growing Latino population.
surrounded by excellent appointees,
Like Mike Flynn? Sean Spicer? Sebastian Gorka? Rince Preibus? Or how about Rex Tillerson, who apparently called his boss a “f*cking moron”?
and about the only force that consistently and without apology fought the insidious dismantling of the American project.
I’m going to end on this and say: what the hell? I support free speech and everyone’s right to have an opinion (even if it’s tragically misinformed), but do you really think there was some sort of dedicated, malicious attempt by people on the left to destroy this country? I hate President F*ckup and everything he stands for, but I don’t doubt he’s doing what he (stupidly) thinks is what’s best. You are welcome to imply that your political opponents are wrong, that they are stupid, that they are dangerously misguided, but it’s incredibly dangerous to our national fabric to wrongly imply that they are an enemy actively trying to destroy everything you hold dear.
Bring it on, goons. I’m ready.
Brevity is the soul of wit , you are witless
“There is always an easy solution to every problem–neat, plausible, and wrong.” -HL Mencken
Nothing says “I have no intellectual argument” quite like a personal insult.
None of which excuses your projection or falsehoods.
BTW: “”Identity politics” is such a meaningless phrase. We have vast amounts of data saying that minorities are at an economic disadvantage:”
Blacks vote about 95% democrat.
They have done so for decades…
So why are the majority of Black citizens still poor?
Why is there such violence and death in inner cities (which have democrat mayors)?
Paternalistic Democratic Party Racism is still “racism” and a subsidized Federal Poverty Maintenance is still a “plantation”
None of which excuses your projection or falsehoods.
Point out my falsehoods, using verifiable, non-biased information. I’m waiting.
Blacks vote about 95% democrat.
They have done so for decades…
So why are the majority of Black citizens still poor?
Why is there such violence and death in inner cities (which have democrat mayors)?
Because it’s an extremely complicated situation with a variety of economic and social factors that can’t be boiled down to one political party or another? But how about the following:
-Black people are still catching up from centuries of slavery and segregation
-Lack of well-funded, quality public schools
-Lack of job opportunities
-Lax gun laws in other states make it easy to circumvent a city’s gun laws
-The fact that city laws and policies can only do so much and are also dependent on state and federal laws as well
Paternalistic Democratic Party Racism is still “racism” and a subsidized Federal Poverty Maintenance is still a “plantation”
So you people whine that all liberals do is call you racist, but then you imply here that it’s liberals who are the real racists. Not a very smart argument.
“Bring it on goons, I’m ready.”
“Nothing says ‘I have no intellectual argument’ quite like a personal insult.”
You conveniently left out the part where I wrote a 1,000 word intellectual argument before ending on an insult. You also conveniently left out an intellectual argument of your own.
His superior collections of half truths, equivocations and outright lies is stunning.
For all to see.
Always a pleasure Dr. Hanson.
Backroom, surreptitious, “Progressivism” makes it look like Congress is deeply involved in managing America’s business 24 hours a day.
Political scandals also fortify that spectacle.
Any wonder why there are 3 branches of Government, and 3 rings in a circus?
Hansen captures my own feelings about Trump, other than his impulse to take on adversaries in their own terms down in the gutter I don’t find him appealing in almost any way, while at the same time grudgingly accept that he is our most effective antidote to the cancer of progressivism.
Dr. Hanson missed a few points. He failed to mention how Fox News set about destroying Obamas presidency. He mentions how Trump has surrounded himself with good people, but fails to mention any. Wonder why? He also fails to mention his race baiting, compulsive lyings, etc. Dr. Hanson seems to been getting closer to Mr. Gingrich
“how Fox News set about destroying Obamas presidency”
Obama did that to himself… and to democrats nationwide:
“The Democratic Party Got Crushed During The Obama … – npr.org
Mar 04, 2016
The GOP may be in the midst of an identity crisis, but the Democratic Party, after the Obama presidency, is also facing a political crisis.”
I agree, see my film: https://thetrumpeffectmovie.blogspot.com.
Would’ve liked Dr. Hanson, since he brought up Henry Gates, Trayvon Martin, etc. to at leas tmention 2 of the worst gun massacres in our history and conservatives failure to address it.
When will democrats address the following?
Children’s Defense Fund:
“44,038 Black Children killed in America’s Inner Cities since 1979”
-=-=-
That is about 80% of US Vietnam War Casualties.
Recall a Democrat citing that statistic, ever?
Me either.
Or:
Obama administration statistics:
a) In 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counted 129 instances of black men killed by “legal intervention”—that is to say, by cops.
b) In 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counted 6,739 black men who were murdered, overwhelmingly by young men like themselves.
c) Since 2001, even as rates of violent crime have dropped dramatically, more than 90,000 black men in the U.S. have been killed by other black men.
By guns. They have tried to address it. Guess who stops it?
By illegally owned guns…
Democrats have a strong tradition of being a one trick pony:
FDR and the Democrats took a Recession and legislated it into a decade of economic stagnation and social experiments. America cut its military as it pandered to its weakest components.
Obama and the Democrats took a Recession and legislated it into 8 years of social experimentation and a stagnant economy. Democrats want to fund illegal immigrants as they cut the military.
The trajectory of the Democrat Party, since JFK, highlights why their 1930’s Depression era ideas and ideology are not sustainable, nor is “Progressive Liberalism” good for America in the 2nd decade of the 21st century
From JFK: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”
To Obama: “ObamaCare”
I love the Rubicon reference. Imagine Caesar’s soldiers who knew full well what it meant to cross that river. In Rome it meant civil war. I imagine the troops were fearful, and many lieutenants probably bolted. Of course Caesar was heading for a dictatorship, but Trump was/is heading for nothing less than a restoration of the Republic. The aristocracy whose sumptuous living depended on the status quo had to fight to bring the usurper down.
Like Trump, Caesar was no saint. But the lovers of the Republic see the crass man Trump as the only possibility.
And like the Roman civil wars, this isn’t over after Trump’s term(s.) I forsee many years of upheaval and possibly violence. O temporaes, o mores!
Prof. Hanson is making an important point. He’s arguing that American progressivism has become so toxic that supporting Trump is a morally acceptable choice. I understand the argument and agree that Establishment Republicans, given their values, are silly for not choosing Trump over progressivism. The choice is a lot harder for us Independents who see the evil in identity politics, cultural Marxism, open borders, and other progressive policies but are also anti-Republican on the inheritance tax, abortion, the war on drugs, wars in general, and a host of other issues.
The Progressives have made it a point to promote the warts in U.S. history and, yet, downplay the fact that the warts were removed with only the scars remaining. They want all to forget that the utopian, progressive applications of Social Justice in the Socialist/Communist forms resulted in the slaughter, enslavement, imprisonment, disenfranchisment, and forceful reeducation for over a hundred million innocent victims during the 20th Century.
The movement to remove Confederate statues, monuments, and flags seeks to disregard the legacy of the Democratic party in promoting or defending slavery, segregation, racism, and the KKK by making Trump and the Republicans the scapegoats. It is ironic that the stained glass windows of R.E. Lee, a Democrat of good standing, were removed from the Washington National Cathedral, yet the crypt of Woodrow Wilson who reinstated segregation remains.
The Maoist, Alinsky vanguard of the Progressive Democrats march and riot in a remake of the Maoist “Hundred Flowers”, “Four Olds”, and “Anti-Rightists” campaigns. They would blot out the historical record similar to the doctored photos in the Communist era and refuse an honest discussion of their destructive movement.
Trump recognizes that the promise of American exceptualism has faded and requires renovation in a world where repressive, totalitarian imperialism is expanding in countries such as Russia, China, and Iran. He sounded the trumpet and lit the signal fires for our allies to gird their loins in response to the looming troubles. He pulled back from self defeating international responses to paper threats and the kumbaya, “blame America” policies of the last administration. He recognized that the nation’s borders had been neglected and our industrial base had withered because of detrimental economic and tax policies.
With the abundance of energy newly discovered, reinvigorating tax and economic policies, and the can do, innovative exceptualism of the American spirit, Trump steers the country towards another American renaissance.
The Progressives promise a parasitic, self defeating, acerbic, neo-moral paradigm that exacerbates racial, cultural, and class distinctions. They have exhibited patriotism on their sleeves in the Russian election interference matter when everybody knows that their Russian reset foolishly let down our guard and, while receiving Russian bonuses, they collaborated to give away our strategic resources.
How is the movement to take down Confederate monuments, statues and flags making Trump and the Republicans scapegoats? The Republicans fought AGAINST the Confederacy, remember? Only Trump doesn’t know this.
And nobody collaborated to give away our strategic resources. That is just a lie.
Trump and Republicans are repeatedly called racists because they view the Confederate issue as silly and the violence in Charlottesville an unfortunate provocation by both sides.
The Rosatom/Uranium One deal put 20% of U.S. strategic uranium reserves under Russian control. Hillary did not receive Russian bonuses for nothing.
Since when did the Republicans view the Confederate issue as silly? You seem to be the one who is unaware that the Republican party ended slavery and passed civil rights legislation, otherwise you wouldn’t equate Confederate statues with Republicans. It was Trump who decided to defend (verbally) the Confederate statues, which is more evidence that he is not really a Republican.
As for the uranium issue, our uranium “reserves” are IN THE GROUND. They are not going to leave the US. I am no more concerned that Russia might operate a uranium mine in the US than I am that Shell Oil might operate an oil well in the US. Both produce energy for use by Americans.
I know well what the Republican party did and you just repeated what I said. Trump didn’t really care about the Confederate statues except that they are part of the historical record. Trump expressed disdain at the violence in Charlottesville. The Democratic Governor and Mayor did not isolate the opposing sides and actually herded them together at some point exacerbating the conflict.
The uranium in question has left the U.S. for processing at the CAMECO refining facility in Canada. The destination of some shipments are unaccounted for as I understand it.
Trump is not the run of the mill Country Club Republican, although wealthy in his own right and owner of several clubs. He has followed the Tea Party agenda in limiting the expansions of government that are based on cavalier definitions of the Commerce Clause, in lowering taxes to help regenerate investment in our industrial and manufacturing sectors, abandoned fad based environmental regulations hindering energy supplies and production, and in rescinding Executive orders that violated Constitutional limits on Executive Branch powers. He had combined a Sovereignty doctrine with defense preparations to meet the challenges related to Russian, Chinese, and Iranian bellicosity and imperialist ambitions – as well as face the ISIS and North Korean issues.
He has a sort of union guy, common man way of speaking, yet a gracious manner when it comes to official duties.
2016 really was the Flight 93 election — and the Leftist Beast isn’t defeated yet by any means.
The choice was pretty simple for most people MAGA or the EU.
No it wasn’t. That is just stupid.
Please enlighten why you, who wrote nothing of import, judged this to be stupid? Perhaps you cannot discern what the stakes were in 2016 that makes this statement ring not only true, but rather smart observation.
VDH is usually a reliable purveyor of right wing lunacy, but this article is a terrific wake up call to those of us in search of a principled conservative opposition to Trump and his merry bank of alt-right neo-fascists and racists. If Trumpism is what the Republicans stand for, and an authoritarian leftist commissariat is the Democrats’ response, then the only principled answer is a plague on both their houses and the development of a “Third Way” where true patriots can find a home without wanting to throw up when they look at loathsome deviates like Trump, or out-and out communists like Bernie Sanders.
You yearn to preen on the ‘moral high ground’ and signal your virtue while the Republic dies. The amoral Progressives well understand this is about power and nothing else. You should too.
When people set out to make things “fair” they generally make things worse. When setting out to make things better, there’s a good chance of success. Trump is trying to make things better and it seems to be working.
One exception – the President of the United States is the senior law enforcement official in the land and the chief prosecutor. As such, his comments are totally appropriate.
In the fourth paragraph from the end, it might not have been a good idea to bring up not being able to win the popular vote since President Trump did not manage to achieve that, either.
Of course it does not strictly matter — we do not elect a President by a national popular vote.
But that being the case, why introduce that as a metric of Republican failure pre-Trump, since by that same meaningless metric Trump failed as well?
And, among other milestones, the Bush family is now, incontrovertibly, spotlighted as “useful idiots.” The odor has long been present around them: now we all have been allowed a look directly down into the toilet.
I would never claim to have VDH’s rhetorical skills, but in my blog endorsing Trump before the election, I wrote the following:
There is an element of the Republican Party that finds Trump so repulsive they refuse to support him, even though they agree with him on 80% of the issues. These people believe they can live to fight another day. They are delusional.
Our ruling class lead by Hillary Clinton has seen the belly of the beast. Clinton said as much when she characterized half of Trump’s supporters as a “basket of deplorables.” A cautious politician like Clinton does not make a statement like this out of the blue. She has every intention of driving these people into political Neverland if she wins by taking away their guns, First Amendment rights and jobs. Pardons will be issued to all involved in any Clinton scandals. Judges will rule that illegals can vote and taxpayer money will fund liberal grass root operatives. Meanwhile, voting will switch to the internet, making fraud impossible to prove. The media will stand on the sidelines waving Pom- Poms. The opinions of the masses will become even more irrelevant.
Only one man can stop this: Donald Trump. That’s just the way the cards fell. Should he decide to rule in a dictatorial fashion or renege on his promises, he will be immediately thwarted, either by the judiciary or his supporters. Clinton will have no such constraints. As one Republican Party insider told me, “Trump is all that we have.” Deal with it or get used to democracy being destroyed for at least a generation.
Until the last two paragraphs, I thought the man is right, it is that bad,
God help us. It is worse.
Trump is an imperfect leader but he is absolutely necessary if we are not to lose our nation. Hillary would have been a disaster; Trump is the lesser of two evils. If NOKO achieves the ability to launch a high level H bomb over middle America, resulting in an EMP, we will not go the way of Europe. The USA will cease to exist as we know it.
Trump’s discussions with the confident leader of China, Xi Jinping, who has just accumulated the greatest unrestrained power since Mao Zedong and pronounced Chinese world dominance within two decades may shortly reveal our worst case scenario. Today, we are stronger but China has gained three centuries of technical advance in the last generation.
It is in both nations’ interest to make a deal over NoKo but arrogant men some times are stupid. Nuclear war is beyond stupid.
So Hillary’s election would have lead to an EMP attack? OK, if you say so.
Our only certainty is that Hillary’s home brew server contained info above Top Secret, on NoKo and Intelligence agents from every nation said hacking that would be both easy and the high point of their career. It is reasonable to conclude that our sources of the information died painfully in that nation and Trump no longer gets solid info on their military capabilities, e.g, how close are they to launch. And the basic physics of an EMP attack have been known for three generations. You can figure it out.
Trump is the lesser of two evils. I did not unilaterally said so, the American people did.
I think that you are concluding too much. Hillary had SOME top secret e-mails on her server. Even one top secret e-mail is one too many, but that doesn’t mean that ALL of our secrets were on that server.
I repeat what was reported by Comey circa the Democratic Convention. It is estimated that ten foreign intelligence agencies hacked, stole, these secrets. And the great loss is that they back engineer the information to our source. Typically the spy goes silent or feed false information to us until we discern the truth. We citizens will never know until the second sun rises one day.
It caused grievous harm to our understanding of NoKo intentions and capabilities.
Not all secrets are reports of espionage activities, so you can’t just assume that were, or that they were related specifically to NK.
What was reported was information on NoKo military assets which was above TS was found on her server. It was back traceable.
I assume she commited espionage. I have no idea why she was not charged.
This guy is amazing….curiously overlooks Trump’s obvious mental challenges resulting in incompetence in the most basic of job qualifications, dictatorial propensities…hell the author probably believes ‘trickle down economics’ along with his other fantasies. “A mind is a terrible thing to waste….”
Perhaps you can be less general. Care to itemize Trump’s incompetence and dictatorial propensities?
I would list his demonstrated but if I have to than you haven’t obviously been following domestic AND international developments and his conduct a POTUS over the last several months…they’re just too numerous to list. However, generally even he has acknowledged (once in office) that e.g. “he didn’t know…” things like medical care were complicated. Hell, he said on the campaign trail that he would get rid of Obamacare quickly,,,”its easy…”. But, even more basic than that is that this guy still, some 11 months after the election, that he is supposed to represent ALL Americans as POTUS whether they voted for him or not…he still doesn’t get it…he is still fighting HRC for election that he won even if he didn’t win the popular vote.
Still telling the truth, Dr. Hanson has nailed the story again; something he’s superior in doing from his perspective of classical history. VDH is a national treasure.
I agree President Trump is the only one standing in the way of radical progressivism.May God be with him.
Interesting.
trump is president, the GOP controls the House and the Senate, the Supreme Court has 5 Republican appointees of 9,
and
y’all still talk about “oppositional.”
How about governing?
Any of you feel like governing?
It’s oppositional because a plurality of this alleged GOP “control” is still part of #neverTrump acquiescence to the progressive agenda, and the progressive scum still controls the cultural “narrative” through it’s overwhelming control of media, academia, and legal profession.
50+ years of progressive nightmare cannot be reversed overnight.
And still GOP governing has managed to produce “…GDP growth had rebounded and was growing at a pace set to achieve 3 percent for the year. Real unemployment (U6) had fallen below 8 percent; business and consumer confidence were at record levels. Energy production was likewise. Manufacturers expressed confidence unlike that seen in the last two decades. Corporate profits were unparalleled”, and in 10 months managed to turn around the decline of America.
Now feel free to return to your sad, depressing, meandering progressive alt-reality.
Out of nowhere and seemingly like deus ex machina, the democrats are now in a civil war and may destroy themselves sparing us the trouble of doing it ourselves. The RINOs are fleeing of their own accord.
It’s not that there is no one else, implied as no one better, to Trump “standing in the way of radical progressivism”. Trump is exactly what is needed, Trump’s way is the only possible way to stop radical progressivism. Every one else provided merely varied degrees of slowing down the relentless march of the progressive nightmare.
A classicist who writes “the hot polloi?” This is the end, my friend.
The problem is the hoi polloi have been entrusted by Trump to legislate on taxes and repeal of Obama Care. They don’t seem as concerned about the progressive gathering storm as a danger to American society and would rather play speed bump to Trump for future statues and sympathetic appearances on the Morning Joe. Since he’s from New York and was raised on doing things “My Way,” he needs to draft his own tax and insurance legislation, summon the leaders of his party to the White House and slap them upside their heads until they draft plans that wouldn’t have made Democrats blush a few years ago. Patience is growing thin with Republican leadership and Trump needs to push their mentally arthritic ideas to the trash heap and do it himself.
This all boils down to: I love PutinStooge. He’s going to give my bosses huge tax cuts.
I am going to be howling into the void on this, and you know what? Fuck it, let’s do it:
“The media is not disinterested. Networks such as CNN see their role actively on the barricades, devoted to the higher cause of destroying the Trump presidency, not as reporting its successes or failures. The danger to free expression and a free media is not even Trumpian bombast. It is the far more deliberate and insidious transformation (begun in full under Obama) of journalism into a progressive ministry of truth. Even if he wished, Trump could not take away what the professional press already surrendered voluntarily.
First of all, the “media” is not some amorphous blob of newspapers and magazines. Let’s call this what it is: the “mainstream” media, which is what you people refer to as any organization that doesn’t paint President Fuckup in a good light. Guess what, when most weeks of your presidency include massive self-inflicted wounds (calling neo-Nazis “very fine people”, lying about the size of your inauguration crowds, accusing the wife and mother of a dead soldier of lying, etc.) you’re going to get negative coverage BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT GOING ON. And complaining about a “ministry of truth” when you have an entire ecosystem of right-wing news agencies that deliberately lie and misrepresent stories in order to infuriate the gullible is massively hypocritical.
“On one side are traditionalists who believe the United States is the most exceptional nation of a uniquely self-critical West. They believe that we need not be perfect, past or present, to be good and certainly are and were always far better than the alternative. And while reform and protest may be innate to the American character, traditions and values of the past simply cannot be airbrushed away because a particular generation suddenly believes that the dead of a far more hazardous and impoverished age must meet their own transitory mores of the present…The new progressive Left believes that America has always been defined by its collective sins, which outweigh those of other cultures. They identify the white heterosexual male as the font of most pathologies (cf. the Democratic National Committee’s unapologetic effort not to hire white males for some of its jobs).
Again, utter bullshit, this time in the form of a terrible straw man. Nobody on “the left” believes this country is evil, nor do they hate it, but it’s about recognizing that as a nation we have done great things while at the same time making some horrible mistakes, specifically in the treatment of minorities, and that everybody in America deserves the same opportunities to succeed or fail as individuals rather than because they are members of a certain group. And as a white heterosexual man myself, it doesn’t make me less of a person to admit that my ancestors did terrible things as long as I don’t repeat those mistakes. And your point about the DNC not hiring white men is completely false, by the way.
Like it or not, Trump is now a central figure in resisting a full-scale dismantling of the idea of the uniquely individual, free, and outspoken American.
No True Scotsman, etc.
The new progressivism would prefer an America in which everyone made about $50,000 a year, overseen by a far greater and more intrusive government (of properly insightful and caring souls, whose selflessness would earn exemption from the consequences of their ideologies) to the alternative of a country where a small minority made well over $1 million but the middle classes achieved average incomes of $75,000.
Literally none of this is true. Not a single damn word.
Like Trump or not, by the end of his first three quarters of his presidency, GDP growth had rebounded and was growing at a pace set to achieve 3 percent for the year. Real unemployment (U6) had fallen below 8 percent; business and consumer confidence were at record levels. Energy production was likewise.Manufacturers expressed confidence unlike that seen in the last two decades. Corporate profits were unparalleled. The radical turnabout was largely Reaganesque in spirit—predicated on a new can-do psychological climate, ending insidious deregulation, the specter of impending tax-cuts, and a determination that manufacturing could return to the United States if energy was cheaper than elsewhere and industry had proper incentives.”
This ignores the fact that A). Presidents have very little control over the health of the economy as a whole, and B). that what little influence they do have usually doesn’t manifest itself until late in their terms as it takes a while to shift such a massive entity. Which means that most of this economic splendor (assuming you ignore the massive income inequality) is in fact due to Obama-era policies. Don’t believe me? Here are some FAKE NEWS for you to recoil at like a vampire being sprayed with holy water:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/upshot/presidents-have-less-power-over-the-economy-than-you-might-think.html
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-presidents-economic-decisions-matter-eventually/
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-06/how-obama-s-economic-record-stacks-up
The United States, given its past flaws and the blood on its hands, would remain a nominal world leader, but only in the sense of being one among many in a much to be preferred multilateral world that checked historic American aggression. Regional autocratic hegemonies—Shiite Iran in the Middle East, China in the Pacific and most of Asia, a reset Russia in the Eastern Europe, and new “moderate” socialist countries in Latin America—would naturally oversee their own neighborhoods, albeit with occasional nods to U.N. mandates on energy, the environment, and “human rights.”
What on earth are you talking about? “Checked historic American aggression?” You’re welcome to disagree on his foreign policy effectiveness all you want, but do you really think Obama walked into the White House thinking “how can I weaken this country?” How about the fact that he was taking over for a universally-loathed American leader who had made it very difficult for the country to lead the free world as he’d burned all of our credibility on an oil war?
Oh yeah, that Obama foreign policy was so totally not hawkish, what with all the drone strikes, assassinating American citizens in Yemen, airstrikes in Syria, adding more troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, not closting Gitmo, etc.
Again, by mid-2017 Trump offered about the only alternative vision of an all-powerful United States, in Jacksonian fashion protecting its own classically liberal interests and those of its allies abroad, often by punitive deterrence rather than
hearts-and minds-nation building
You can’t even defend your own God Emperor properly. He laid out his vision in his psychotic UN address, where “America First” (nice Nazi collaborator reference, btw) means countries can do whatever they want because that’s their “culture” and America doesn’t care because it’s not our problem. And unless you clowns have a different definition of “leadership” than one in the dictionary, basically withdrawing from the world stage and letting other people try to solve global problems while not fighting for the US to get a good deal doesn’t really count. Also, a Jacksonian approach to foreign policy may have been a great idea in the 1820 when it took three weeks by boat to get anywhere, but in the 21st century of instant communication and mass transit it may not be so sound.
“The current progressive party does not really believe in sovereign and secure southern borders. Preferable are large annual influxes of Latin American and Mexican indigents who would turn the American Southwest blue, and thereby provide near permanent constituents for ethnic and progressive activists.”
You’re accumulating enough straw men at this point to start your own corn maze. Nobody really wants illegal immigrants here, the question is about how much resources you prioritize to dealing with a problem compared to other problems when there’s only a finite amount of time and money to be spent. If the vast majority of them don’t commit violent crimes (numerous studies show they commit less crime than native-born citizens), and they do the crappy jobs none of us want, why waste time and money going after all of them instead of targeting the ones that actually are terrible, like drug cartel operatives? The other piece here is that yes, they are technically committing a crime, but they are still human beings with human rights. Just because they don’t speak English doesn’t mean we should round them in Arpiao-style labor camps, or turn a blind eye to refugee children fleeing from Central America. There’s such a thing as sensible immigration policy; building a stupid wall and throwing out DACA kids is not it.
“The alternative—a secure border, and legal, diverse, measured and meritocratic immigration—is an anathema for
the new Democratic Party for two reasons:
I’ll tell you why your reasons are stupid in a minute, but this phrase itself needs to be singled out for its ridiculousness. This sounds like a logical, sensible approach, and of course it’s not at all what Trumplings have been advocating. President Fuckup himself called for a “complete and total shutdown” of Muslims and called Mexicans “rapists.”. Merit-based systems are a dogwhistle to say “people from white countries”, because that’s where the most-skilled are from. And now on to your dumb points:
first, the entire Latino-American diaspora would then soon resemble the Italian-American experience, given rapid assimilation, integration, and intermarriage, making it politically unpredictable and therefore of no more use to the Democrats than are Cuban-Americans;
What on earth? Have you not been to the Southwest recently? Like every other group in the country, first generation Latinos don’t speak English, their kids are bilingual, and their grandkids only know English. People play both soccer and football, they shop at Wal-Mart, they celebrate the 4th of July. They are integrating.
Secondly, Cuban-Americans vote Republican because the majority of them are refugees from Castro and Republicans have taken a harder line on him, so it has nothing to do with integration. Considering that Latinos are religious, love “family values” and have traditional attitudes they should be a lock for you lot, but you keep threatening them with terrible immigration laws and that’s literally the only reason why they vote democrat.
second, identity politics hinges on claims of large numbers of non-white constituents who are not achieving parity, requiring self-selected ethnic and Democratic elites to craft equality of result entitlements that enhance their own power and influence.
“Identity politics” is such a meaningless phrase. We have vast amounts of data saying that minorities are at an economic disadvantage:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/12/racial-wealth-gaps-great-recession/
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/unequal-opportunity-race-and-education/
http://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/minorities.aspx
So yes, it is clearly wrong to want to help these people get a level playing field.
The result is that at least with Trump the voter sees a chance for the melting pot to work. In contrast, Trump’s opposition prays the future will be a salad bowl—a celebratory multiculturalism in which our first allegiances are to our tribes, as
the United States eventually becomes a veritable Yugoslavia and our individual states become updated versions of ethnic enclaves and ideological enclaves like Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia.
It’s hard for it to be a melting pot when Trump throws out all the other ingredients. Also, you can’t even maintain consistency in your own metaphor: Arizona is already an ethnic enclave of mostly white people, and the fact they kept Arpiao and are hawks on immigration suggests they don’t want to integrate with the growing Latino population.
surrounded by excellent appointees,
Like Mike Flynn? Sean Spicer? Sebastian Gorka? Rince Preibus? Or how about Rex Tillerson, who apparently called his boss a “f*cking moron”?
and about the only force that consistently and without apology fought the insidious dismantling of the American project.
I’m going to end on this and say: what the hell? I support free speech and everyone’s right to have an opinion (even if it’s tragically misinformed), but do you really think there was some sort of dedicated, malicious attempt by people on the left to destroy this country? I hate President F*ckup and everything he stands for, but I don’t doubt he’s doing what he (stupidly) thinks is what’s best. You are welcome to imply that your political opponents are wrong, that they are stupid, that they are dangerously misguided, but it’s incredibly dangerous to our national fabric to wrongly imply that they are an enemy actively trying to destroy everything you hold dear.
Bring it on, goons. I’m ready.
Yikes Bart. No one will reply because they can bear the prospect of reading 2000 words again
Or because none of you have a rational argument to make.
Or because you have nothing but profanities to spew.
I used what, 5 profanities out of 1,000 words? Was that whole .005% of my post really that triggering to you free-speech loving patriots?
“Bring it on goons, I’m ready.”
“Nothing says ‘I have no intellectual argument’ quite like a personal insult.”
Why bother? Classic leftist repeating the same lies and half-truths with a massive case of diaper rash when someone like Hanson disagrees with them. They’re never anywhere near as smart as they think they are, and they can’t form a coherent argument without resorting to profanity and ad hominem attacks.
This is like deja vu all over again, and not in a good way.
It’s a comment so nice, I posted it twice. I also wanted to confirm my suspicion that very few of your right wing cranks actually are capable an intellectual discussion or really any attempt to justify your idiotic, propaganda-fueled beliefs. The fact that all you can do is make fun of me and not even attempt to refute any of the claims I’ve made speaks volumes. None of you give a shit about free speech or the open exchange of ideas, you’re closeted authoritarians loving the fact you elected a wannabe strongman who tells you what to do and think.
The ‘Never Trump’ cadre yearn to preen on ‘the moral high ground’ and signal their feckless politically correct virtue while the Republic dies. This has been going on for decades while the amoral Progressives have well understood this is about power and nothing more. The time for feckless preening is over. Once the Republic is swallowed by Progressive authoritarianism, it is gone. Wake up.
Eloquently stated as always, Prof. Hanson.
“Every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” — Orwell in “1984”
Nice.
If it is down to one person, and I fear you are correct, then it’s all over but the details.
Certainly there are damn few people out there to pick up the fight when/if Trump goes down–Tom Cotton, maybe? The vast majority of the conservatives and GOPs lack the stomach to make the fight, and they do not see that Trump’s warts and failings are also indicators of his strength. His crudeness that puts them off comes from his willingness to mix it up, and those may be inseparable.
People like Romney and McCain were too nice to fight, so they always lost. That’s what people like Bannon see in the “cuck-servatives.” And, Bannon et al are right, on that point anyway.
Precisely. No need for any more gentlemen losers. Ted Cruz is a good debater, but his Christian right backing and abortion fanaticism doesn’t seem to match up quite like Trump. To shatter PC totalitarianism requires brute force and relentlessness. One can certainly admire the fortitude of Trump against attacks from the right, left, and media which are overwhelming, coordinated, vicious, and continuous.
More to the point: the establishment GOP would rather have gone down to “respectable” defeat with a loser like JEB! (the leftist media and the Clinton/Obama machine would have disemboweled him and left him whining like a castrato). The elites loathe what they view as Trump’s crudeness. the support he receives from millions of genuinely “forgotten” people, and his willingness to brawl to victory. But most of all, they loathe that he might be more intelligent and strategic they are.
Yet another great article by VDH. There is still hope in America.
No… Either Trump succeeds or we bring this country down. Better destroyed than socialist.
Utter bunk.
A REAL Republican in 2020 can still save America… and stop the degradation, sleaze, and slime that trump has brought.
HB
If just one Republican President had gotten rid of the Department of Education, like they promised they would do?
We wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in, now.
I’m just sayin.
I think of the democrats as “Miltonesque”, ie., “In Paradise Lost”, Lucifer preferred to rule in hell rather than serving in Heaven. The progressives are willing to make a hell of America in order rule it.
Victor… trump does NOT represent America. Just research his history… and you will have to hold your nose, lift your feet, and renounce what you have written here.
HB
Living in the Blue States of NY and NJ I have only ever voted for Perot or Libertarian, except for Bush in 2004 for his proper move in destroying Saddam (which his father should have done) and for Trump in 2016. Neither of those candidates won my state, but they did win the election.
I campaigned for Reagan both times, but was too young to vote for him. Thank God we have no Dole, No Jeb, no McCain and no Romney in the White House. Trump won re-election in my book with his nomination of Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. I wish Rand Paul a swift recovery from those broken ribs, and McCain the comfort of a morphine-drip.
Given the results tonight in Virginia, not so much the top offices, but the turnover of the state legislature, means that “progressives” will likely prevail in 2018 putting a stop to, for example, conservative judicial appointments – the only real hope of preventing irreversible damage.
The media is not disinterested. Networks such as CNN see their role actively on the barricades, devoted to the higher cause of destroying the Trump presidency, not as reporting its successes or failures. The danger to free expression and a free media is not even Trumpian bombast. It is the far more deliberate and insidious transformation (begun in full under Obama) of journalism into a progressive ministry of truth. Even if he wished, Trump could not take away what the professional press already surrendered voluntarily.
Historically, America’s news media were political rabble-rowsers, often standing up to the government, for the people. That’s one reason the First Amendment was ratified, as the first amendment. But back then, there were many different voices with many different opinions. Today’s news media not only seem to be unified and allied with one political party but also allied against nearly half the people they (supposedly) serve. They act as voices against the people, standing up for the government and/or its bureaucracy, or at least the political party from which they curry favor. If the First Amendment’s protections for a free press are in danger, it’s because America’s free press acts in any and every way but independent of the government and to be working for themselves rather than we the people.
Mr. Hansen, your comment that “the gap between Trumpian conservative economics and progressives is as wide as at any time in American history” overlooks the similarity between the Abe Lincoln “big government” republicans and today’s Democrats. Both had & have the clamoring support of a radical media, industrial complex, banks and the rabid John Brown Antifas which are still marching to the pretentious drumbeat of racism. The result of Northern aggression in 1865 was to convert our founder’s bottom-up system of local self-government (a constitutional republic of independent nation states) into a top-down oligarchy which now treats the states and its citizens as servants of a feudal overlord. The issue then and now is “control” of the working class whom our big government overlords have always considered as the egg sucking pigs. The role of government is NOT social justice. The U.S. Constitution did not grant the federal government the role of morality police. When the former British colonies entered the Union they understood that some states allowed slavery, some did not. They had gotten along just fine for 180 years prior to joining the Union, until Abe Lincoln and his Antifa rabble rousers started doing the same things that the Democrats of today are doing by co-opting criminals to do their dirty work. All Lincoln did was to convert physical slavery into political repression which continues to this day. But now, the Democrat Party continues what Lincoln started, and Massa is still in charge, but now, like the Exodus generation who had no capacity for freedom, today’s Democrats long for the leeks and garlics of Egypt. Government is their god.
The Trump presidency struck fear into the very fiber of progressive liberal democrats and edge politicians. He has a chance to either change the tide or at least delay the social project of the democrat party. I wish him huge success.
?? Evidently VDH has never heard of the UniParty? Also, Trump is not a conservative, he is a MAGA businessman.
The real conflict instead is over the 20-30 percent of both independents and eligible voters who either do not register or who do not turn out to vote. Whomever manages to galvanize them, wins the future of the country.
If there are any articulate galvanizers on the non-progressive side, now’s the time to find them and provide them a platform. So far, none of the Republican bigfoots appear to have that talent, and it’s a certainty that if there are any, the MSM will pull out all stops to prevent public notice of them.
But Donald Trump gave a striking example of how far a transgressive campaign of candid expression can carry a candidate. It would be a joy for more non-progressives to abandon their camouflage, in which fear of PC ankle-biters is predominant. They’re just ankle-biters, from Editors to University administrators to student hotheads, and there are plenty of Americans left – even in Menlo Park and Seattle and Boston – who’ll respond if the articulations ring true.
Great article. Russia tried this: “The new progressivism would prefer an America in which everyone made about $50,000 a year, overseen by a far greater and more intrusive government (of properly insightful and caring souls, whose selflessness would earn exemption from the consequences of their ideologies) …” Some of us know the history of Russia and Eastern Europe under Russia. Today’s young and middle aged adults do not – destined to repeat past mistakes unless the Republican Congress wins in 2018.