Home » Victor Davis Hanson sums up the left’s m.o.

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Victor Davis Hanson sums up the left’s m.o. — 31 Comments

  1. There are six months between now and the fall elections. That leaves an awful lot of time for the left to work its peculiar magic, and turn what, up until now, had been a probable victory for the good guys into the opposite.

    We can expect anything from them, including the unexpected and including the smashing of civilized (and uncivilized) norms. We must not underestimate their single-mindedness and perhaps above all, their ruthless viciousness.

  2. The left is fully in control of the Democrat party. The left IS the Democrat party. It is fully representative of the vast majority of Democrat voters.

    They are ruthless. They are vicious. They are immoral, dishonest and corrupt. It’s simply no longer possible to vote D and be a decent, moral, patriotic American. Period.

  3. I have to agree that Democrats are drifting farther left. I have a trial lawyer son. We had dinner together last Friday night. He has always been a lefty and there are two of my five children that I never discuss politics with. I commented at one point about gas prices. That is CA and they are two dollars a gallon higher than Arizona. He said, “That is Capitalism for you.” I could not believe my ears. Does he really believe that Biden shutting down domestic production is “Capitalism?” I kept my mouth shut lest I stimulate more reaction. He spent much of the evening bragging about how much he is billing but did not offer to share or pick up the check.

    Lest one think he is young, he is in his 50s.

  4. I hate to tell you Mike…and you likely know this deep down…but when the shooting starts, your boy’s going to be on the other side shooting at YOU.

    He genuinely believes he’s going to live in Capitol City & you’ll be lucky to survive in the districts.

  5. “When some day it may happen that a victim must be found,

    I’ve got a little list – I’ve got a little list”

    From Gilbert&Sullivan, ‘The Mikado’.

    Y’all keeping a little list I hope.

  6. John,

    I’m not sure there’s going to be much shooting. Most of the people I know that are conservative have spent much of their life working towards a comfortable retirement. The same for me. And who can blame us? We’ve never been involved in politics and we end up voting for the least awful candidates. And nothing changes.

    Then we all took note of January 6th. Hunting down people who walked from the white house to the capital building? Charging them with bogus crimes? Wiping out their life savings? Ruining their lives?

    It has had a very chilling effect. Granted, I can’t know the future. Perhaps we’ll descend into general anarchy. The burning times. Yes, then there will be shooting. But for the foreseeable future I’m keeping my head down, taking care of my family, and staying out of the gun sights of the federal government.

  7. Yawrate (4:18 pm) is promising that “for the foreseeable future I’m keeping my head down, taking care of my family, and staying out of the gun sights of the federal government.”

    As a fellow retiree who has spent much of his life “working towards a comfortable retirement,” I not only relate to that, I am an embodiment of that. I am tired, tired, tired of the left-right bickering and the pit in my stomach whenever something or another politically sensitive flares up — which seems to be happening oh, around semiweekly these days.

    I want to live out my years in peace, not all churned up over whatever is the outrage du jour. I’m doing a decent job of that, but “they” just won’t let me if they can at all help it. I detest what “they” have done to my country and, for that matter, to my golden years — to the extent that I let “them” invade my equanimity.

    Anyway, back to Yawrate and the “foreseeable future”, so much of the future is turning out to be unforeseeable. Like Yawrate, I want to keep my head down, take care of my loved ones, and stay out of the sights of the feds. [The IRS is doing a pretty good job of keeping me in its sights, I’m afraid: my problemo, not related to the seemingly omnipresent leftist insanity gnawing at us normals.]

    I don’t want there to be shooting. But it’s already begun, from the antifa/bee-ell-emm thugs to the cop who shot Ashlii Babbitt. I’m not the shooting type. I’ve never owned a gun — that was never a part of my cultural milieu. Am I signing my own death warrant?

    Naaah, I’m being a drama queen now. I just wish for a return to a reasonable level of sanity in our country and in our world. But that evidently is asking too much.

  8. I think there is a very real chance for a recreation of the Battle of Athens if Dems start stealing another election.

    2000 mules is taking away the last argument of the RINOs and fearful types who have tried desperately to ignore all the evidence screaming that the election was stolen. Yes, there is evidence. A mountain of evidence.

    Coupled with what we now know for sure about Russia collusion, the shocking levels of partisan criminality and corruption in the FBI, DOJ and CIA, the Jan 6 abuses, the blatant disparities and dishonesty of the justice system based on partisan politics, and the increasingly violent, eliminationist rhetoric of prominent Democrats, I don’t see the right allowing another election theft.

    Not to mention that the extraordinary incompetence of the Dems makes doing nothing unthinkable. Doing nothing would be to do something truly awful and harmful for our loved ones.

  9. Dr Hanson opines,
    “So it will never find 51 percent public approval for any of its current extremist and crackpot initiatives.”

    Would that it will be so. But if the indoctrination in the schools continues, in another generation or two, much more than 51 percent public approval of the Left’s extremist and crackpot initiatives will pass into law.

    neo rightly predicts; “if the left manages to come to power legally at first, they change the rules afterwards so that they can never lose power again.”

    “Democracy is like a train: when you reach your destination, you get off” – Recep Tayyip Erdogan, current President of Turkey

  10. M J R:

    I understand the desire for peace in what used to be known as the golden years.

    On the other hand, as Patrick Henry said, “Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace — but there is no peace.”

    I also happen to find it all very interesting even if upsetting.

  11. neo, I certainly concur in “find[ing] it all very interesting even if upsetting.” That’s a leading reason why I’ve been a neophile for all these years.

    By the way, Patrick Henry had an excellent ghostwriter:

    KJV Jeremiah 6:14
    “They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.”

    See ya . . .

  12. Mike K,

    “He spent much of the evening bragging about how much he is billing but did not offer to share or pick up the check.”

    A perfect example of a hypocritical jerk. Clearly, a “waste of skin”.

    Yawrate and MJR,

    I too am retired and also wish a comfortable retirement. That said, doing nothing is not an option when tyranny arises because it’s just a matter of time till it gets around to you.

    stan,

    “I don’t see the right allowing another election theft.”

    I wish I shared your confidence. If the democrats manage to steal enough seats in Nov. and repeat the theft in 2024… the coming government controlled ‘secure’ digital currency will allow the powers that be to cut off access* to all of the money we need to survive.

    ‘We’ being not just the protesting individual but anyone financially dependent or associated with that individual, like family members. When your family’s survival is literally at stake, intimidation will be ensured for the great majority.

    *Trudeau’s cutoff of protester’s access to their bank accounts was a trial run.

  13. I am in Maricopa County in Arizona. I moved here after the election. As near as I can tell, at least half of the people think the election was stolen and the evidence is available for all to see. The other half think this is all some great fantasy. Included in this half is all the mass media in the state.

    The Maricopa County commissioners, all but one being Republican, are in the latter half. Of course, were fraud to have happened, it would have happened on their watch. Thus, they deny.

    Dinesh d’Souza’s new film will not change a lot of minds, I think. The best the Republicans can hope for is to harden the process against massive cheating.

  14. The NYT up to its dirty tricks again.
    (That stinking—if mostly digital—fish wrap never stops.)

    The lamentably if predictably PUERILE “angle of attack” is pretty easy to follow:

    The NYT (i.e., the Liberal Emerald City) does NOT LIKE Elon Musk.
    In fact, the NYT despises him. Abhors him. Loathes him.
    Ergo, the NYT must destroy him, find ways to smear him, improvise clear avenues of slandering him.
    …so HERE GOES…
    Buckle up!…
    Elon Musk is from South Africa.
    Elon Musk is white.
    South Africa brought apartheid to the world.
    Ergo: Elon Musk may have left South Africa BUT you can’t wash, scrub, launder, dry clean or otherwise GET the RACIST out of Elon Musk.
    QED.
    “NYT Slammed Over Stealth-Edited, Race-Baiting Musk Smear”—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/nyt-slammed-over-stealth-edited-race-baiting-musk-smear
    Typical, “clever” NYT sewage.
    Not even sure it rates as “adolescent”.
    Maybe “juvenile”, though.
    Maybe.
    What IS clear is that the Left, with the NYT in the insipid, cowardly vanguard, feels—once again—the need to THROW A TANTRUM.

    The nation’s moral arbiters.
    The nation’s betters….

    Now, just multiply this by millions…and you have the moral morass in which the country currently finds itself….

  15. Instead of shooting, what if we just stopped supporting the left. Most of them are students, paid for by government loans, or they “work” for the government, or they “work” for NGO’s paid for by the government, or they collect some form of welfare. If we cut off the support and they had to get productive jobs, where they paid taxes instead of living off them, maybe their outlook would change. At the least, they would meet normal people and learn that we are not all secretly klansmen.
    Of course, expecting republicans to actually cut spending may be a bridge too far. But I’m curious to know what you folks think.

  16. }}} The American far left (as opposed to more old-fashioned liberals of the past)

    Classical Liberals vs PostModern Liberals.
    😉

  17. }}} I want to live out my years in peace, not all churned up over whatever is the outrage du jour. I’m doing a decent job of that, but “they” just won’t let me if they can at all help it.

    So, you’re an isolationist when the Axis Powers are taking over Europe and Asia.

    Because, England, Germany, hey, they’re both the same.

    SMH. Sad, really.

    Be as you are. But, as The Great Man said,
    “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

    You may not care what kind of world you leave behind. Some of us are not thus disencumbered.

  18. In reciting the litany of leftist lulu’s, VDH missed the Department of Disinformation debut; however, it fits into the general scheme of his list.
    One thing a couple of people here asked about was Psaki’s early claim that DHS was “building on a Trump program” — which received the requisite guffaws — without explaining at the time what she referred to (but pcircling back later).

    Epoch Times came up with the answer, and as usual, fitting the Democrats’ Ministry of Truth into a Republican skinsuit didn’t really work.

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/white-house-says-dhs-disinformation-board-will-be-nonpartisan-and-apolitical_4441873.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=ZeroHedge

    Psaki said the Disinformation Governance Board is “continuing work done by the [Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)] back to 2020.”

    “So, what this would do is continue that work, and it would help coordinate internal activities from the department related to disinformation that poses a threat to the homeland,” she said.

    CISA was established in November 2018 after then-President Donald Trump signed into law the CISA Act of 2018. The declared objectives of CISA included to coordinate cybersecurity matters across all levels of government and improve cybersecurity protections for the government against hackers.

    Tracking hacking is not quite the same as monitoring hate speech aka political dissent from the Approved Party Line.

    Side note: I’m not sure they would be very efficient at either task.

    Trump in November 2020 fired then-CISA Director Chris Kreb after the agency said the 2020 presidential election was the “most secure in American history” and that “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.” At the time, CISA omitted to mention that Dominion Voting Systems, whose machines a number of states use, was part of one of the councils that put out the statement.

    Phrased as it was, his bolded statement might technically be true (probably not), but there is no way 2020 was “the most secure.”
    I hope someone gets Mr. Kreb a ticket to “2000 Mules.”

    PS I have no idea why EP bracketed the CISA name; it isn’t a substitution for something else, as shown by this much shorter Fox post.
    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/psaki-disinformation-board-nonpartisan-apolitical

  19. ObloodyHell.

    To remind you, the Allies at times were little better than the Axis. Not a few decades before Britain was killing innocent Boer kids in concentration camps in South Africa . They’d didn’t magically change in that short time. Churchill fought in that war and what was done had anyone had the power would have gotten a men and possibly him a noose at Nuremberg

    A pox on all their houses I say , we should endeavor to protect our own lands and nothing else. Had we done this back in 1917, maybe Europe would still be Europe. Had we done this in the 60’s we’d be in much better shape now and nt have ceded large chunks of the country back to Mexico

  20. @ Peter Nolan, above: “…what if we just stopped supporting the left. Most of them are students, paid for by government loans, or they “work” for the government, or they “work” for NGO’s paid for by the government, or they collect some form of welfare. If we cut off the support and they had to get productive jobs, where they paid taxes instead of living off them, maybe their outlook would change.”

    Excellent idea. In fact, an outstanding idea. Please explain how it can be accomplished without winning elections and garnering the support of enough of the people to allow it to be done.

    Like several of the commenters I, too, would like to enjoy some degree of relaxation in my Golden years; unfortunately, as commenters also pointed out, the Left will not permit that; they insist upon infusing themselves into absolutely everything that affects the possibility of enjoying that relaxation.

    There are two choices: accept a position of subservience to the Leftists whose goal is to contol every aspect of our lives or resist. “Resist” will entail everything from not just voting for but campaigning for candidates who will oppose the Leftists’ agenda, to not supporting the Leftists and their organizations, to changing how the government operates (you would be shocked to learn just how much of your tax money is being directed to supporting Leftist organizations through federal grants and programs), and, yes, all the way up to achieving change by force. And by “force” I mean the application of lethal violence if no other alternative is available.

    One can either acquiesce to the Leftists’ demands or not; it cannot be excluded that “not” may extend to the possible risk of dying on the barricades. I am deeply, deeply hopeful it can be acomplished peacefully with no greater rancor than long Schumer diatribes and brainless NY Times editorials but if it comes to risking all I will accept that risk. My country and my children deserve no lesser committment.

  21. A.B. Prosper:

    Well that was certainly profound and humorous at the same time.

  22. What makes you believe that the Marxist-Leninists running this nation will actually allow elections to take place?

    There will be a war or plague or false flag mass shootings or massive urban rioting or UFO’s over the National Mall, or some combination of the above, that will be so fear provoking that the postponement of elections “seems” to be acceptable.

  23. taco lizard:

    I thought that was what Trump was going to do in 2020. Didn’t the left use all of those things already? We have Brandon, Kamala, and the rest of those space aliens in charge now. I expect Raggedy Ann to say “We come in peace!” any day.

  24. “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

    The chain-of-custody compromises INHERENT in mass-mailed-out ballots alone gives the lie to that assertion.

    And government does not enjoy the presumption of innocence. It is not enough to assert that there is “no evidence” of fraud; it is incumbent upon election officials to prove that there were no compromises in the process that would open the door to fraud, to justify trust in the process. “Because we say so” is not such proof.

  25. Nobody on any ballot was identified as “Left”. Rep supporters need to call them Democrats, because (D) is on the ballot and their political power is based on the Democratic Party.

  26. Never forget Solzhenitsyn’s admonition:
    “And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
    We have the advantage of being armed–as long as we choose to be. I have lived a long life, quiet and comfortable, but am prepared to do what may be necessary in the preservation of liberty for my posterity.

  27. Aesop fan: I can assure you that Chris Kreb is considered a rock star and a hero within CISA and DHS today. He and the current CISA Director just gave a talk on his heroism (with all the appropriate gushing and squealing by CISA underlings) yesterday.

    The Washington DC swamp protects its own…and will continue to do so, no matter who is elected (elected politicians are noisy, but too busy raising money and preening for the camera to really change things–the bureaucracy is eternal).

  28. To Mike K : we also have some libs in our family. U can’t reason with them. They too think the gas so high is the oil companies greed not Biden shutting down production. As for your son, u should have insisted he pay his own way since he is a trial lawyer and doing well. I would have gotten the server to separate his bill out. But that’s your son I know. I just pray Trump can get back in and straighten this out.

    I also answer every survey call and them we love Trump!!

  29. ObloodyHell (1:00 am) quotes me and goes on to compare me to “an isolationist when the Axis Powers are taking over Europe and Asia.” S/he then treats us to an “SMH” to punctuate the analogy. “Sad, really,” s/he offers.

    ObloodyHell, you know neither me nor my circumstance(s).

    I learned decades ago that it is usually a waste of time and energy objecting to mischaracterizations of me, and refuting them point by point, when conversing with someone who already knows all that s/he figures s/he needs to know.

    I will, however, state forthright that I very much do “care what kind of world you leave behind,” and I will suggest that your characterization of someone whom you do not know is unnecessary and ugly.

    Whaddaya say we do better in the future, hey? Peace . . .

  30. “The great thing about communism is that you only have to vote for it once”

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