Free Republic

here is “no coherent principle” to the left’s ongoing “utterly hypocritical” “insurrectionary movement” in Minnesota, argues Daily Signal senior contributor Victor Davis Hanson in his first post-surgery video appearance. Nearly five years ago, these same people lambasted Ashli Babbitt, an unarmed 14-year Air Force veteran who was shot and killed by the U.S. Capitol Police on Jan. 6, 2021. The left cheered as hundreds of demonstrators were arrested for allegedly assaulting officers and carrying firearms.

Democrats, lacking a positive agenda, bet on chaos, Trump hysteria, and media allies to spark a midterm backlash as Trump’s economic rebound gains steam. Recent regional special elections have seen Democratic candidates win a number of special election races. Now energized left-wing politicos remind the nation daily that every incumbent president, except three over the last century, has suffered substantial midterm losses in Congress. Polls show Trump suffering an average 11-point negative unfavorability rating. So Democrats promise to soon stop all new legislation and end Trump and his counterrevolution itself. But the left will never offer any alternative agenda on...

Notes In Absentia I want again to thank everyone for the wonderful expressions of concern and reassurance that I have received from listeners and readers. In response to inquiries, and some quite detailed questions and advice, here is a brief update concerning my current temporary absence. As I wrote, the removal of a cancerous lung mucinous adenoma carcinoma along with the lower right lung lobe roughly a month ago was successful. But a post-op aneurism/bleed soon developed. That required a quick second reentry operation into the lung to stop the hemorrhaging—adding considerable time under anesthesia and requiring about five blood...

Minnesota’s defiance of federal immigration law echoes pre–Fort Sumter nullification, forcing Trump to choose between enforcement and letting blue states slide toward open rebellion. In the months before the April 12, 1861, firing on Fort Sumter, there were lots of sharp divisions in the North about the proper reaction to the first seven Confederate states that had already left the Union. Not all Unionists believed that war was inevitable. Some, in fact, were happy to be done with the departing South and thus see their stain of slavery gone from the Union. Similarly, others agreed that the emerging Confederacy was...

In this wide-ranging conversation, host Jack Fowler sits down with Dr. Elizabeth Spalding to confront the forgotten truths of communism’s deadly legacy. From Hollywood’s willful blindness to the rise of socialism at home, Spalding explains why communism and socialism share the same DNA—and why freedom still needs defending.

https://x.com/kellytx2/status/1892554634549657932TRANSCRIPT BELOWFebruary 20, 2025~~~TRANSCRIPT BEGINS~~~Victor David Hanson:And they call it the MAGA revolution? It's not a revolution. It is a counterrevolution. There's a big difference. This is a restoration. Let's use the word 'Trump Restoration.'We don't know really, we don't really appreciate what we've been through with 8 years of the Obama Revolution, and the 4-year, more radical, 3rd term of using or employing the waxen effigy of Joe Biden.A revolution that we've experienced was a cultural, economic, political, social revolution.It was very similar to the French Revolution under the Robespierre brothers. Remember what they tried to do? They changed...

For years, the big spenders in Congress—and the Biden administration—worked together to drive the nation deeper into debt as they wasted taxpayer money on their crazy ESG, DEI far Left agenda.

Almost one year into his second term one thing is clear: President Donald Trump is neither an interventionist, nation-builder or an isolationist. Instead, Trump has seemingly adopted the foreign policy of President Andrew Jackson, guided by principles like “No better friend, no worse enemy.” However, Trump’s Jacksonian approach to the world stage comes with a slight twist, a “vise,” so to say, argues Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words”:

Victor Davis Hanson: What We Were Told About January 6 Doesn’t Add Up As the fifth anniversary of January 6 approaches, the Left’s carefully constructed narrative is starting to crack. On today’s episode of "Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words," Hanson explains how branding January 6 an “insurrection” drove impeachment efforts, investigations, and years of specifically framed media coverage. He also examines the arrest and confession of Brian Cole Jr., the alleged January 6 pipe bomber, and why the delayed investigation and lingering questions surrounding his background cast doubt on many of the conclusions Americans were first told to...

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice posted a statement from Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson on Sunday revealing Hanson had a cancerous tumor removed after an operation. Hanson told the audience of his podcast, “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” on Dec. 26 that he would be having an operation to address a “serious” medical condition that doctors could not at the time diagnose. Rice posted a statement from Hanson on X in which he said he was “hopeful” after the procedure. “Please find an update from my dear friend and colleague, Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Victor...

Artificial intelligence is being used to steal voices, faces, and reputations. Victor Davis Hanson knows this firsthand. Hanson explains the growing problem of AI-generated deepfake videos that falsely use his image, voice, and setting to promote ideas he has never expressed and often strongly disagrees with.

A warning from Victor Davis Hanson warning from Victor Davis Hanson: somebody has been producing and posting elaborate and well-made AI-generated videos purporting to originate from Prof. Hanson himself. They have been posted on both YouTube and X, and perhaps elsewhere. They’re very convincing at first glance, and appear to have been filmed in the same book-lined setting that VDH uses for his Daily Signal videos. (I actually watched one of these last week, and a minute or two passed before I was certain that this was not Victor David Hanson.) The producers of the videos are as yet unknown....

Hoover Institution senior fellow Victor Davis Hanson announced Friday that he was undergoing a major medical operation after discovering a “serious” health issue. Hanson made the announcement on his show, “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” and stated that he was presented with a “serious problem” that was difficult to diagnose. He will undergo surgery on Tuesday and take a break from hosting his show during his recovery. “I’m having a major operation, and I’ve got a major problem and I’m gonna have a major effort to solve it and that’s all I can do,” Hanson said. “And I...

Ping! Out to the Victor Davis Hanson list FR Index of his articles: Victor Davis Hanson on FRTown Hall: Victor Davis Hanson on Town HallAmerican Greatness: Victor Davis Hanson on American GreatnessHis website: Victor Davis Hanson The Sword of PerseusOne of his sponsors' website: The Daily SignalPlease let me know if you want on or off this new VDH ping list. As a reminder, Professor Hanson has asked that we do not post the full article of his writings. Thank you for following the link to finish his article.Content created by the Center for American Greatness, Inc. is available without...

Not all “civil” behavior is harmless. Some actions, cloaked in sophistication or authority, can be far more destructive than overtly crude ones. From Donald Trump’s press interactions to the actions of journalists, university leaders, and political officials, Victor Davis Hanson distinguishes between crass and refined crudity—showing how the latter misleads the public under the guise of authority or expertise—on today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.”

Clinton won in 1992 by selling a recession that was already over; the lesson for 2026 is simple—ignore real economic gains, and a fake downturn can still decide an election. As the 1992 campaign approached, incumbent president George H.W. Bush was seen as a shoo-in for reelection. The First Gulf War ended in 1991 with a spectacular U.S. victory at the head of a coalition that had expelled Saddam Hussein from Kuwait with few losses. For much of 1991, Bush’s approval ratings hovered between 90 and 70 percent. By February 1992, an obscure Arkansas governor, Bill Clinton, emerged as the...

As leaders equivocate and extremists unite left and right, open season on Jews spreads across the West—unchecked, unnamed, and certain to grow deadlier. Jews celebrating Hanukkah were just slaughtered by Muslim gunmen on an Australian beach, in an imitation of the October 7 massacres. At Brown University, two students were killed and nine wounded by an allegedly Muslim shooter. An inert Europe is canceling Christmas celebrations out of fear of threats of violence from Muslim minorities. In the West, when an Islamist shoots a Jew, politicians often offer two bizarre remedies: gun control or a task force to tackle Islamophobia....

People living in “an Islamic country” must “at least have to profess [they’re a] devout Muslim.” Those living in “the United States or a Western Europe,” however, can believe and do whatever they want. Hanson breaks down the difference between “a Judeo-Christian country” and “an Islamic country” where it’s “almost impossible” to be “an apostate, an atheist, [or an] agnostic” in those countries, on today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words.”

History suggests civilizations fall when complacency, debt, and tribalism replace unity, discipline, and reform—prompting fears the West may be nearing a familiar decline. Western civilization arose in the 8th century B.C. Greece. Some 1,500 city-states emerged from a murky, illiterate 400-year-old Dark Age. That chaos followed the utter collapse of the palatial culture of Mycenaean Greece. But what reemerged were constitutional government, rationalism, liberty, freedom of expression, self-critique, and free markets—what we know now as the foundation of a unique Western civilization. The Roman Republic inherited and enhanced the Greek model. For a millennium, the Republic and subsequent Empire spread...

The criticisms against Sec. of War Pete Hegseth are “entirely political,” and anyone could have said the same things about “the Obama and Biden administration—and much more egregiously.” Hegseth has turned the U.S. military around in ways no one thought was possible, like getting the military back to meeting all of its recruiting quotas, explains Hanson during today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.” Recruitment under the Biden administration fell “some 40 to 50,000 recruits,” and former Sec. of Defense Lloyd Austin’s Pentagon used excuses like “people are out of shape, in gangs, using drugs, etc.”