Hanson tells his readers Trump is many things but one thing he is not is business as usual. The essay lists areas that Trump has turned around completely so that now America faces a new reality that was unthinkable only a few years ago.
Hanson begins with the Iran deal reversing the inevitability of Iran achieving the nuclear bomb. Hanson writes Iran is furious but far weaker.
Yet it accepts that if it were to launch a missile at a U.S. ship, hijack an American boat, or shoot down an American plane, the ensuing tit-for-tat retaliation might target the point of Iranian origin (the port that launched the ship, the airbase from which the plane took off, the silo from which the missile was launched) rather than the mere point of contact—and signal a serial stand-off 10-1 disproportionate response to every Iranian attack without ever causing a Persian Gulf war.Then the Paris accords.
At worst, it was a shake-down both to transfer assets from the industrialized West to the “developing world” and to dull Western competitiveness with ascending rivals like India and China.But not now.
Then on to our so-called allies taking a free ride with their national defense. This paragraph contains my favorite Hanson line.
The private consensus is that the NATO allies knew all along that they were exactly what Barack Obama once called “free riders” and justified that subsidization by ankle-biting the foreign policies of the United States—as if an uncouth America was lucky to underwrite such principled members.Hanson makes particularly acute observations about China.
Progressives knew the Communists put tens of thousands of people in camps, rounded up Muslims, and destroyed civil liberties, and yet in “woke” fashion tip-toed around criticizing the Other. Trump then destroyed the mirage of China as a Westernizing aspirant to the family of nations.And Hanson makes comparisons with Palestinians with East Prussian Germans and Egyptian Jews and Greeks and Tibet and Cyprus that you do not see elsewhere.
Then manufacturing returning to Rust Belt and energy independence.
Economists claimed Saudi Arabia or Russia would one day control the world by opening and closing their oil spigots.Not now.
Finally, a reversal on open borders.
Most Americans demurred, but kept silent given the barrage of “racist,” “xenophobe,” and “nativist” cries that met any measured objection.Not any more.
Much more at the link, Hanson continues at some length about Trump causing the Democrat party to become so unhinged they were forced to drop all pretenses of moderation and show what they intended for America all along, and all the things that were stopped by Trump's election; weaponizing the IRS, unleashing the FBI to spy on political enemies and plot the removal of an elected president, politicizing the CIA to warp U.S. politics, allying the Justice Department with the DNC and reducing FISA courts to rubber stamps for pursuing administration enemies.
Recommended.
23 comments:
Hanson writes some real nice words, but he has worked for the State his entire adult life. He is a democrat. He tolerates and employs illegals on his raisin ranch. He has never lifted a finger to fight off the onslaught that has overwhelmed his home state.
Like I say, nice words, but he is a democrat, therefore he is not on the side of Americans. He is a member of the party of Ilhan Omar and AOC. That's all I need to know about that ivory tower putz.
But that doesn't particularly invalidate the thesis he projects. Things have changed, whether or not they stay that way is another story.
I agree, but as with almost all employees of the State, his first loyalty is to those who employ him. K. C. Johnson wrote Durham in Wonderland then proceeded to vote for Obama so that the precepts of Durham lawlessness could go nationwide under Holder then that criminal bint Lynch - Johnson was unable to connect the dots - criminals are going to remain criminals no matter what their station in life. Glenn Reynolds is another one - he advocates for unlimited abortion while decrying the loss of values in American life. No need to mention the other popular self-hating law profs who are dependable votes for the destruction of this nation - we know who they are.
There is something about working at a university that renders a person into a leftist anti-American monster. Without exception.
Sometimes you gotta just take the good with the bad.
Problem is I am not seeing any good whatsoever coming out of this group. They are all leftists/communist stooges. When they come for my family and property I tend to take that crap personally.
There is something about working at a university that renders a person into a leftist anti-American monster. Without exception.
It is the insidious comfort bubble. It seduces.
Sixty, he started out as a Democrat (I do not think he has voted Democrat in a long time). Saying he never lifted a finger to save his state, sort of misses his work from Mexifornia on.
I did see a weird meme recently that suggests Americans should be mad at Capitalists for hiring illegals, not the illegals. Of course, it is not anger at illegals for wanting to come here, there is anger for a system that encourages it (and both Democrats and GOPe are to blame for that).
Right on, Evi.
I just reread his bio on Wikipedia and I no longer see any mention of him being a life-long democrat. He is, however, a neocon, which makes him a bit worse. I don't trust him as far as I can throw a dried grape.
Tarnished with the indelible stain of D-E-M-O-C-R-A-T and G-U-M-M-I-M-T E-M-P-L-O-Y-E-E. Whatever, he owns a farm in the central valley of California so he understands first hand from decline and fall, he writes like a dream, and he totally gets Trump. He went the opposite way of 99.999999% of the professoriate, from Demo to Conservative. I like him. People, the ONE GOOD COLLEGE PROFESSOR in America and you stand around bitching and moaning about him? If we're going to kick people out of the club for once having had wrong thoughts then (1) how do we intend to win, ever, and (2) isn't this uncomfortably close to being procedurally progressive?
Your points are all valid, Amartel. I figured he was a democrat, which is as far as I am concerned, the same as evil. I never bothered to read what he writes, so my ignorance is all my own doing. There you have it.
No, no, there's always the one guy that you never got around to reading and that's not ignorance, it's having a life! (But do read VDH.)
That's the trouble (of many) with getting old, leastwise for me. Easier to put people in boxes, which isn't always necessarily a good thing, especially when the issues are complex. Evi and Amartel make good points, it's the system that's rotten, not always all the people in the system.
That's the trouble (of many) with getting old, leastwise for me. Easier to put people in boxes, which isn't always necessarily a good thing, especially when the issues are complex. Evi and Amartel make good points, it's the system that's rotten, not always all the people in the system.
Sixty woodn't be caught dead in a box; his repose will be turned and urned.
VDH has always reminded me of David Woodley Packard -- a whiff of scion & abandoned careers in academe classics. The last time I saw Packard, he was addressing the crowd at his beloved Stanford Theatre, breathlessly telling the audience that he had just flown in a Technicolor print of some Doris Day film for a one-time screening on the original projection equipment. One day we'll be great again.
I have been designing an urn - for instance, did you know that you should allow one cubic inch of space per pound of pre-deceased body weight when designing the inside of the final accommodations? That means, in my case, I need a sphere with an internal radius of roughly 3.75" or a cylinder that has a 2.8" radius and is at least 8" tall? Just sayin'.
Once one figures out the math then all that remains is the aesthetics of the object. Go plain and remain true to my Shaker roots? Or perhaps do a knock off of a Ruhlmann deco piece. Decisions decisions…
And I agree with you on the VDH thing - there is no snob worse than an academic snob longing for the past yet doing nothing more than longing.
On a related note, I first heard this one back in the '50s - what's a Grecian urn?
Oh, about a dollar a day.
Funny thing is, that's still true.
Like a canopic jar. But those were made in a variety of shapes.
A very astute man writing on the revolution of another very astute man.
Sixty Grit said...
Hanson writes some real nice words, but he has worked for the State his entire adult life. He is a democrat. He tolerates and employs illegals on his raisin ranch. He has never lifted a finger to fight off the onslaught that has overwhelmed his home state.
What's he supposed to do? CA has been sliding ever since the hippie dippy days. One college prof isn't going to stop it, but he's always written on the slide in CA so people will know what's coming which doubtless did not make the State regents happy. And I don't doubt for an instant, there are a lot of Lefties who'd like to see him demonetized and deplatformed.
Words are what fuels revolutions and Hanson is doing his thing.
It's neat, cheap, and easy to bitch, but at least he does something.
Yep - he writes. So did I.
I don't mean to poke ya, SG. But for fun what's the man supposed to do differently?
He could do as I did - move away from that shithole. That's all I can figure. Writing has not slowed the decline of that once golden state.
Thank you for the response. But I'm at a loss as to how that makes it better, moving. I lived in Cali for 14 years, as an idiot til 9/11. I still don't do a damn thing, but read blogs. Well, I did do a few other things, but that shouldn't make any difference. Those things that happened fifty years ago. It is only today that matters. Maybe. I guess. I don't have a fucking clue.
Me neither, hence my response. All I could do was save myself and my family.
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