Victor Davis Hanson is one of my favorite commentators.
His commentary, Imagine the Unimaginable was posted on May 12, 2022.
In that Hanson's commentary is a powerful one that is now unfolding in real time for most Americans, I felt it necessary to share Hanson's brilliance and insight with Illinois Review readers.
Hanson's commentary is shocking to read, but the unvarnished truth of what this nation is now experiencing under the Biden/Harris administration is all so real.
What follows was excerpted and adapted from a full original report by Mr. Hanson:
Imagine the Unimaginable
Americans are now entering uncharted, revolutionary territory. They may witness things over the next five months that once would have seemed unimaginable. [..] The traditional bedrocks of the American system are dissolving:
- a stable economy
- energy independence
- vast surpluses of food
- hallowed universities
- a professional judiciary
- law enforcement
- a credible criminal justice system
Gas and diesel prices are hitting historic levels. Inflation is at a 40-year high. New cars and homes are unaffordable. The necessary remedy of high interest and tight money will be almost as bad as the disease of hyperinflation. And there is no southern border.
Police are underfunded and increasingly defunded. District attorneys deliberately release violent criminals without charges. (Literally 10,000 people witnessed a deranged man with a knife attack comedian Dave Chappelle on stage at the Hollywood Bowl last week, [1] and the Los Angeles County D.A. refused to press felony charges.) Murder and assault are spiraling. Carjacking and smash-and-grab thefts are now normal big-city events.
Crime is now mostly a political matter. Ideology, race, and politics determine whether the law is even applied. [..]
Police are underfunded and increasingly defunded. District attorneys deliberately release violent criminals without charges. (Literally 10,000 people witnessed a deranged man with a knife attack comedian Dave Chappelle on stage at the Hollywood Bowl last week, [1] and the Los Angeles County D.A. refused to press felony charges.) Murder and assault are spiraling. Carjacking and smash-and-grab thefts are now normal big-city events.
Crime is now mostly a political matter. Ideology, race, and politics determine whether the law is even applied. [..]
An illegal leak of a possible impending Supreme Court reversal of Roe v. Wade that would allow state voters to set their own abortion laws has created a national hysteria. Never has a White House tacitly approved mobs of protesters appearing at at Supreme Court justices’ homes to rant and bully them to alter their votes.
- There is no free speech anymore on campuses.
- Merit is disappearing.
- Admissions, hiring, promotion, retention, grading, and advancement are increasingly predicated on mouthing the right orthodoxies or belonging to the proper racial, gender or ethnic category.
When the new campus commissariat finally finishes absorbing the last redoubts in science, math, engineering, medical, and professional schools, America will slide into permanent mediocrity and irreversible declining standards of living.
The common denominator in all of this is ideology overruling empiricism, common sense, and pragmatism. Ruling elites would rather be politically correct failures and unpopular than politically incorrect, successful, and popular. [..]
Meanwhile, left-wing elites will do their best to ignore Supreme Court decisions, illegally cancel student debts and likely by the fall issue more COVID lockdowns. When revolutionaries undermine the system, earn the antipathy of the people, and face looming disaster at the polls, it is then they prove most dangerous — as we shall see over the next few months.
The common denominator in all of this is ideology overruling empiricism, common sense, and pragmatism. Ruling elites would rather be politically correct failures and unpopular than politically incorrect, successful, and popular. [..]
Meanwhile, left-wing elites will do their best to ignore Supreme Court decisions, illegally cancel student debts and likely by the fall issue more COVID lockdowns. When revolutionaries undermine the system, earn the antipathy of the people, and face looming disaster at the polls, it is then they prove most dangerous — as we shall see over the next few months.
More about Victor Davis Hanson:
"Victor Davis Hanson (born September 5, 1953) is an American commentator, classicist, and military historian. He has been a commentator on modern and ancient warfare and contemporary politics for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, National Review, The Washington Times, and other media outlets."
"Hanson is a professor emeritus of Classics at California State University, Fresno, the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in classics and military history at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and visiting professor at Hillsdale College."
