HIS SAY: VICTOR DAVIS HANSON “SUPPORT FOR TRUMP IS STILL THERE” Q & A
https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/03/18/author-historian-hanson-
Author and historian Victor Davis Hanson recently joined Boston Herald Radio’s “Morning Meeting” program to talk about his latest book, “The Case for Trump.”
Q: This is one of those books where, considering how divisive and contentious this president is, you potentially would expect the reviews to involve people losing their minds. And just looking, people who probably don’t like President Trump all that much have read this book and feel as though it is really great look at what exactly is going on with the movement that got Trump elected. What are you finding in terms of response to this work?
A: You know, it’s a very interesting phenomenon because I traveled last week, and people who have read it, their only criticism is the title, and that was my publisher. They say, ‘Well, this is an analysis. It’s not that Trump is a saint or it’s not that he’s a sinner.’ You’re just dispassionately trying to analyze why people voted for him, why he won the nomination, what was the key to his red interior strategy, why he’s effective as a president so far and why people hate him, and what’s the prognosis.
I try to explain why in the book, this effort to provoke impeachment or the emoluments clause and the 25th Amendment or sue on the voting machines, to have this nonending Mueller investigation or McCabe and Rosenstein try to remove him somehow, or all of this assassination from celebrities — blow him up, decapitate him, shoot him, stab him — I don’t think we’ve ever seen that level of vitriol or anger. There has to be a reason for it. In the book I suggest why he shouldn’t have won, and that he interrupted an invasion 16 years ago — Obama and Hilary’s transformation, in fundamental ways, of the country. There was something about him, without this political or military experience. If he were to succeed, what does that really tell us about the elite, this idea of credentialing and normal traditional experience and qualification that kind of says, ‘How did this guy get annualized 3 percent GDP growth and these other geniuses didn’t?’ and that’s a very revolutionary thing to think. It’s kind of like looking at these admission scandals at all of these 20 universities and saying, ‘Wow, these people were always virtue signaling how wonderful they were in Hollywood and how great the universities are and they’re both corrupt.’ So I think Trump sort of reopened the floodgates and we’re examining from our attitude toward China to what a Ph.D. or a J.D. means or even a B.A. from Stanford. I think that’s good, I really do.
Q: The day after the election, lawn signs went up near my house saying, ‘Hate has no home here’ and all this other stuff, and like you said, this dark cloud has descended upon half of the country that’s in this emergency fervor. So what happens now in 2020 if Beto O’Rourke is seen as the new messiah a la Obama and he’s skateboarding around the stage and he’s something new and the media tells us he’s going to win and trounce Trump and “Saturday Night Live” is making fun of Trump and then there’s another one and Trump pulls this out again? What happens to these people who are already in hysterics?
A: Well, they have a meltdown. Remember, they’re very aggressive and mean-spirited but they have very thin skin. They say Trump does, but he gets up every morning and takes a level of abuse that would kill anyone else. When Barack Obama was president, he went out and surveilled the Associated Press reporter James Rosen. When a clown had an Obama mask just playing around at a rodeo in Missouri, they banned him for life. So they’re very thin-skinned and they will not be able to tolerate it. So they’ll say, just like they did in 2016, the Russians rigged it or it was unfair or we’ve got to abolish the Electoral College … And I was on a plane coming back from Phoenix and a guy looked at me and said, ‘Are you the guy who wrote this book?’ and I said, ‘Yeah,’ but I said, ‘But what book are you talking about?’ And he had this Trump book with Trump and my name on it and he said, ‘This is like a MAGA hat, I can’t read this on this plane. And when I bought it I had to look around at Barnes and Noble and make sure that nobody saw me buying it,’ and that tells me there’s still a social cost that people incur to admit they voted for him. ….I think that a lot of his support is quiet and in the shadows, but it’s still there.
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