Victor Davis Hanson: the End of America
Victor Davis Hanson, a scholar and fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution, presents a view of America that has more in common with left-wing socialist Chris Hedges than with his fellow conservatives. Hanson tells anyone who will listen that America is having its last hurrah and will collapse soon.
Unlike Hedges, Hanson delivers his opinions soberly and logically. His words resonate in the hearts and minds of good, sober, sensible Republicans as ordained truth. My Christian friends hear Hanson's sober summons suggesting that we should get ready for the End Times. The Bible says that, in the Last Days, things will get a lot worse before they get better. Hanson's predictions are just the opening act. I just think he is wrong, both for his prediction of imminent collapse, and because he does not give us a future or a means of escape.
Like Hanson, many Republicans have resigned themselves to their fate. All human empires come and go; so it must be with America. Maybe the Chinese will take control in the Last Days, or even Terminator-type robots. Enjoy life while it lasts, then "surrender to the void," as the Beatles song "Tomorrow Never Knows" commands. After so much negativity, part of me does want to resign. Go along with God's plan or whatever.
Really, I have friends who rationalize their abdicating responsibility for the future with this kind of thinking. After all, they don't want to oppose the will of God. Many of my Republican friends agree with this grim analysis in varying degrees. I can almost hear their despairing yelps at the finality of it.
Hanson wrote an editorial for the Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper titled "What is American Wokeness Really about?" In it, he laments again and again how tragically wrong things are. Hoodlumy black shakedown artists live in luxury homes while scamming public funds; black gurus offer expensive "re-education kits, in between . . . damning capitalism."
Hanson mostly complains about the "Woke" culture, which Wikipedia defines as "Stay Woke!" (Stay awake,.) Stay angry and alert to racial prejudice, sex discrimination, economic inequality, police brutality, and so on.
TV sports networks offer their own "re-education kits," which viewers have to listen to if they want to watch football and basketball games. The networks allow the "Woke Folk" free rein to berate us with their ideas on the air.
Interviewed by the Fox Business News host Stuart Varney on August 2nd of this year, Hanson held forth at length about the insuperable problems America faces:
Varney: "Would it be true today that the 'Woke Folk' now run America's major corporations, media, and colleges?"
Hanson: "Yes. I would add Wall Street, Academia, K-12, Hollywood, entertainment, professional sports."
Hanson has three kids. Varney has six. Don't their children let them know how much their negativity affects them? Never once does he suggest that we divide the country and get the Woke Folk out of our hair, once and for all.
Professional sports writers describe a process called "psyching out an opponent," when you put an opponent in the loser's corner with subtle intimidation. But what if you are psyching out your own guys? Only one word need describe that—stupid!
Scientists have done tests on dogs, who note a paticular set of behaviors exhibited by the dogs after "enduring repeated adverse stimuli." They give up and can no longer confront and solve problems. They curl up in a fetal ball and whimper. Scientists call it "Learned Helplessness." It results from an "acceptance of the subject's powerlessness."
My reader has to accept that public media can influence the behavior of an entire population, either by giving it a false sense of hope or by making it feel hopeless. The media acts with intentionality toward the public, and we need to be aware of the intent.
If Victor Hanson did just one thing to get on my bad side, he did not once say that America should divide. Even on the Republican side, dividing the country appears to be a taboo subject. I can see Hanson's children pleading with him, "Dad, give us a future!" Given his knowledge of the nation's dire circumstances, how can he turn a blind eye toward the only course that will allow us to unify again?